The Executioner's son Joseph appears numerous times in the very earliest Falmouth Town Records. His first appearance in town records is an Animal Brand registration on 1/20/1726, two years before his new Land Registrations "Granted and Laid out" on 12/27/1727, 4/1/1728, and 5/1/1728 on Falmouth Neck, todays Portland. The three Lots "Granted and Laid out" do not include Pride Farm, this was the heyday of the Great Puritan Landgrab, as many Falmouth residents of this period show up in the records 'grabbing' multiple land grants as the town suddenly shifted from the banks of the Presumpscot to the new harbor. They literally divided up the harborside area with stakes in the ground, and proceded to grant the parcels amoung themselves. Pride Farm may not have been inside the 8 mile Falmouth Town Limits at this time, or its status after 65 years may have left it unsought. In any case the brand registration would be less geographically defined and of more immediate interest. He was obviously living somewhere nearby with animals throughout 1726 and 1727. Misc p37, p42, p76
Falmouth Historical Society research found that the fugitive family left no land registrations before an 1867 purchase from the Purintons, Thats truely a surprise, given the 17 pages of deeds for them in the deed index [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10], investigation ongoing. But go a short distance in any direction from Pride Farm Road and you will find Pride burials, and 39 nearby burials are pre-1870 !! The Names of Lord (Thomas), the Executioner (Joseph), and the Executioner's wife (Jane) are all there as well as all the other family names of Lord Pride.
Records are reported to say Pride farm was purchased from the Purinton family,
its original builders in 1867,
209 years after the executioner arrived,... by the executioners
great great grandson, Alexander (Executioner 1637, Joseph 1686, Capt Joseph 1726, Henry 1757, Alexander 1802).
Henry's tombstone (
Alexander's father who died 1836) is in the Gowen Cemetary next-door, as are the tombstones of his
brother Henry (1852) and sister Nancy
(1848).
The confusing Purinton purchase looks like a mechanism to establish the legality of Pride lands in the years after the revolution.
Both census and burial records indicate a substantial number of Prides occupying
the Pride Farm in the early 1800s.
The 1790 census lists the one Lord, two Purintons,
one Huston and Seven Prides all within a few lines of each other.
In the 1810 census there are 9 Prides listed in Falmouth,
but by 1820 all but two moved to nearby towns primarily Cumberland and Westbrook,
leaving William and Francis who continue on.
The 1850 census lists Six Prides in dwelling "338" and Nine Purintons in dwelling "339".
The Pride home (dwelling 338) may have burned sometime in the 1850's.
The 1860 Census only lists
Joseph Pride living in the Lord House on Mast Road with the elderly Abigail and her daughter Eunice, and he is
buried with them in the Lord-Lowell Cemetary (boat launch).
The 1880 Census lists the Prides rehoused in dwelling 330, between the Purintons in dwelling 329,
and Hustons in dwelling 331, with the Purintons still in residence more than two decades after the "sale".
All 1900 census records were destroyed.
