Edwin A. Churchill Papers

The collection contains legal documents and research material compiled and collected by Edwin A. Churchill in his work as an expert witness in two land cases in Wells, Maine, in 1988 and 1999, and in the boundary issue case between New Hampshire and Maine in 2000.

Edwin Churchill is the Chief Curator at the Maine State Museum in Augusta. He received his PhD from the University of Maine in 1979, has taught American and European history at several institutions in Maine, and is the author of numerous books and articles on Maine history. His areas of expertise include Maine and northeastern American history, with emphasis on the colonial period, and Maine material culture. He is a two-time recipient of the Maine Historical Society's James P. Baxter Award for best journal articles published and received the Neil Allen Award from the Society for outstanding contributions in the fields of Maine history and genealogy.

In 1987 he spent most of a year consulting with the office of the Maine Attorney General in preparation for the so-called Moody Beach lawsuit (Edward B. Bell et al. (plaintiffs) v. Town of Wells et al. (defendants), Supreme Judicial Court of Maine). In this case fifty plaintiffs living in the area known as Moody Beach brought suit against the town, saying that increased use by the public of their oceanfront property had become unreasonable and overburdensome after the secession of Ogunquit from Wells in 1979. The plaintiffs asked the court to declare that the title to their property allowed only the public rights of fishing, fowling and navigation in the intertidal zone. The Supreme Court agreed with the plaintiffs that public easement for these uses did not include public recreational use and that no public easement by local custom had been proven to exist at Moody Beach

In 1999, Churchill was active in another land use case in the town of Wells, (Lisle Eaton et al. (plaintiffs) v. Inhabitants of the town of Wells (defendant), Supreme Judicial Court of Maine). At issue was the public's right to use Wells Beach for a broad range of recreational purposes on dry sand and in the intertidal zone. Churchill conducted research into the history and usage of Wells Beach, working with the firm of Bergen and Parkinson of Kennebunk, which represented the town of Wells. Churchill stated in a deposition (Sept. 1, 1999) that there was no doubt, in his opinion, that Wells Beach had been used openly and continuously since the 1600's by the general public for various activities including transportation and access, recreation and harvesting natural resources. The Court ruled in 2000 that the town and public had a right to use Wells beach by way of an easement by prescription.

In 2000, Churchill was involved in research for the case of State of New Hampshire v. State of Maine. In this case the State of New Hampshire asked the U.S. Supreme Court to settle a controversy over the location of the common boundary between the two states in the inner portion of Portsmouth harbor, asserting that its boundary encompassed the islands on which Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is situated. The dispute resulted in part from Maine's implementation of a state income tax in 1969; residents of New Hampshire working at the Shipyard protested having their income taxed by the state of Maine. Maine asserted that both New Hampshire and Maine had already confirmed a mid-channel boundary, which had been supported in an earlier Supreme Court case (New Hampshire v. Maine, 434 U.S. 1, 1977). In a ruling in 2001, the Court ruled unanimously in Maine's favor, and the border between the two states remained the same.