Written by Kenneth Z. Chutchian | 03 March 2010

Amy Haible cast a vote in 1998 that helped changed history, and she regrets it.
Haible was one of many Harpswell residents who, at a town meeting in 1998, voted to cede more than 300 acres of marine land to Brunswick in a border dispute that some folks say wiped out local heritage older than the United State of America.
The vote, according to Haible and a recently formed group called the Carrying Place Assembly, was based on incomplete information, a closed-door process with little public input, and emotion stemming from several confrontations between clam diggers in Harpswell and Brunswick.
The Carrying Place Assembly is trying to set the record straight, even after lawmakers rejected an effort last May to re-examine the boundary through the state Legislature.
"We're trying to correct a mistake," said Haible, a former Harpswell selectwoman who has lived in town for 15 years. "The 1998 vote was abysmal. The maps we used to make our decision were missing key places."
Haible is a member of Carrying Place Assembly, an ad hoc group that has put together a formal request for town selectmen to pursue another review of the 1998 northern common boundary of Harpswell Neck and Brunswick, and to reestablish that boundary.
That boundary, according to research initiated by Malcolm B. Whidden and Gareth Anderson, was established by the Massachusetts General Court in the mid-1700s and was reestablished in 1933.
A draft report by the Carrying Place Assembly notes that on June 14, 1749 the General Court of Massachusetts granted a petition along with "the Gore of land so called lying between North Yarmouth (now Harpswell) and Brunswick." That precinct became known as the "second Parish of North Yarmouth" and it included the "so called Gore of land" that had not previously been within the bounds of any town.
The ruling, in effect, established a common boundary between Brunswick and North Yarmouth across the Neck and around the head of Middle Bay "by the shore," the Assembly draft report states.
Nearly two centuries later, in November 1933, the State Commissioner of Sea and Fisheries issued a ten-year license to Andrew Pennell and John Barnes, adjacent to Pennell's shore property in Pennellville in Brunswick. These leases, to farm quahogs in a regulated area off the shores of Brunswick, are described as being in Harpswell waters.
"In 1933 both the State of Maine and the Town of Brunswick recognized these leases as being in Harpswell waters," the Carrying Place Assembly draft report states. "They raised no objections to a Brunswick citizen getting his license from a Harpswell town clerk!"
None of the relevant documents from the 1749 or 1933 rulings had an impact on a legislative committee in May 2009 when it voted, 10 to 3, against sending a boundary assessment bill to the full Legislature.
Part of the problem, says Haible, was that the Harpswell advocates played nice.
"We didn't want to get the clam diggers involved," Haible said of the hearing before the Joint Standing Committee on state and local government last May. "We did not want a big political battle."
The Brunswick advocates, however, did include clam diggers who gave moving testimony before the committee. Haible wonders whether the lawmakers had their minds made up before the hearing, and whether they ever read the documentation that Harpswell residents presented as evidence.
But Haible's sentiments, according to another former Harpswell selectman, are irrelevant in the face of one cold, hard fact: the people who want the town boundaries restored to pre-1998 maps had their day in court, and they lost. Gordon Weil, who was on the Harpswell Board of Selectmen in 1998, says the political process should be respected.
"I don't think it has a chance of acceptance," Weil said of another attempt to persuade the Legislature to authorize a boundary change. "At some point you've got to accept the way things turn out when they don't turn out in your favor."
"The issues raised by the Carrying Place (over the past year) were not the issues at the time" of the 1998 votes at town meeting and in the state Legislature, Weil said.
"They're saying a historical error has been made," Weil noted. "They want us to get right with history. I'm not saying that's right or wrong. I'm saying it's dishonorable for the town to ‘reneg.' "
"Whether it was poor judgment or whether people were misled doesn't matter," Weil said. "Honor the agreement. It's dishonorable not to. It will create a bad reputation for the town.
"With due respect to the people whose roots are deep in this town ... this particular issue is an embarrassment to the town," Weil said.
Haible, meanwhile, understands that politics is messy. But she won't accept that as an excuse to ignore erroneous history.
"Malcolm Whidden couldn‘t sleep at night" over this issue, Haible said. "Sam Alexander (another member of Carrying Place Assembly) has had family in this town for more than 300 years. Harpswell is losing its history."