CHAP. 197 Corporators. Corporate name. May establish a ferry. Time for running boats. Shall buy boats and slips of present ferry. Chapter 197. An Act to incorporate the Bangor and Brewer Steam Ferry Company. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in Legislature assembled, as follows: SECT. 1. Frank W. Lincoln of Bangor, Henry J. Leach and Charles J. Burr, both of Brewer, successors and assigns, are hereby constituted a body corporate, by the name of the Bangor and Brewer Steam Ferry Company, with power to take and hold by lease or purchase, such real and personal property as may be necessary to effect the objects of this charter. They shall also have and enjoy the powers and rights usual and incident to such corporations. SECT. 2. Said corporation is hereby empowered to establish and maintain for twenty years from the time it is opened for travel, a ferry across the Penobscot river, below the Bangor and Brewer toll bridge and at or near the present ferry, with one or more boats of such construction, power and capacity as the United States steamboat inspectors for the district of Maine shall approve, to be propelled by steam power, for the safe and convenient transportation of foot passengers, their baggage and freight. Said corporation may temporarily run a boat or boats propelled by hand, instead of steam power, when accident, storms or ice make it necessary. SECT. 3. The season for running said boat or boats shall be from the opening of the river to the closing of the same with ice; and the corporation shall provide such suitable slips and approaches to their ferry, and make such a number of trips a day, between the hours of six in the morning and nine in the evening, as the county commissioners shall direct or approve, and shall make and keep in repair, proper approaches to the ice in the winter. A boat or boats shall be run on Sundays as well as on week days. SECT. 4. The corporation shall purchase the ferry boats and slips of the present ferry, and any other property used therewith, on or before the first day of June, eighteen hundred and eighty-three, and if the parties cannot agree upon the price thereof, the county commissioners, after notifying the parties, shall appraise the same, and the corporation shall pay the sum so appraised within ten days after the same is made known, and may, if necessary, run said boats by hand power during the remainder of the ferry season of eighteen CHAP. 197 hundred and eighty-three, to give time to prepare their steamboats. SECT. 5. A toll is hereby granted and established for the Tolls. benefit of said corporation of one cent for each foot passenger, and for baggage or freight weighing not less than twenty-five nor more than one hundred pounds, two cents, and one cent additional for every additional hundred pounds or fraction thereof. of neglect. SECT. 6. If said corporation, after they have accepted this Forfeiture in case charter and established a ferry, shall neglect to furnish a suitable and safe boat or boats, and proper attendance, as required by this act, they shall forfeit and pay for each offense five dollars, to be recovered in an action of debt, to the use of any person suing therefor. Said corporation shall also be liable in an action on the case to the party injured for any loss or damage occasioned by their neglect or want of proper care. granted. SECT. 7. After a ferry is actually established under this Special privilege act, and so long as it shall be maintained under the provisions thereof, the county commissioners for Penobscot county shall not have power to license a ferry across the Penobscot river, within one mile of the ferry so established. SECT. 8. Nothing in this act shall be construed to give this corporation power to take private property without consent of the owner thereof, except as herein specified. SECT. 9. Unless the ferry hereby authorized is established and put in operation within two years from the approval of this act, then the same shall be void. SECT. 10. The powers granted by this act may be en- Private property taken. shall not be Act void unless lished within two ferry is estab years. CHAP. 198 Corporators. Powers and privileges. Chapter 198. An Act to incorporate the Merchants' Marine Railway Company. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in Legislature assembled, as follows: SECT. 1. Nathan R. Dyer, William Spear, Benjamin W. Pickett, John H. Russell and O. B. Whitten, their associates, successors and assigns are hereby created a body politic and Corporate name. corporate by the name of the Merchants' Marine Railway Company, with all the rights, powers and privileges of similar corporations for the purpose of erecting, supporting and maintaining wharves and a marine railway on lands and flats which said corporation may take, lease or purchase in the town of Cape Elizabeth in the county of Cumberland, and of engaging in such other branches of business or trade as may be necessarily or conveniently connected with the management of their wharves and marine railway, with the power to erect and maintain on their premises in said Cape Elizabeth all works, machinery, buildings and conveniences needed and useful therefor; and may take and hold real and personal estate to an amount not exceeding twenty thousand dollars. Liability for damages. Proviso. First meeting. SECT. 2. Said corporation shall be liable to pay all damages sustained by any person in their property by the taking of any land, and if any person sustaining damage as aforesaid and said corporation shall not mutually agree upon the sum to be paid therefor, such person may cause his damages to be ascertained in the same manner and under the same conditions, restrictions and limitations as are now by law prescribed in the case of damages by laying out of railroads, provided, however, that this corporation shall not locate any of its works or wharves on any portion of the land of any other marine railway company and the location of their said wharves shall be subject to the approval of the harbor commissioners of the city of Portland. SECT. 3. The said Nathan R. Dyer is hereby authorized to call the first meeting of said corporators, by giving written notice to his associates, seven days prior to said meeting. SECT. 4. This act shall take effect when approved. Approved February 8, 1883. Chapter 199. An Act to vest the property and franchise of the proprietors of the Upper Bridge, so called, on Eastern River, in the town of Dresden. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in Legislature assembled, as follows: СНАР. 199 Owners of Upper bridge authorized to sell bridge to town of Dresden. SECT. 1. The proprietors of the Upper Bridge, so called, on Eastern river in the town of Dresden, which bridge was built under an act for incorporating certain persons for the purpose of building a bridge over Eastern river, near Lithgow's Mills in the town of Dresden, in Massachusetts special laws, volume two, page one hundred and twenty-eight, passed March eight, seventeen hundred and ninety-seven, and by additional act of March four, eighteen hundred, are hereby authorized to transfer and convey by sale the said bridge, with all the franchises, land and appurtenances thereto belonging, upon appraisal as hereinafter provided to the said town of Dresden; and when the said bridge shall have been conveyed to said town, all the franchises of said proprietors, All franchises, together with all the powers, rights and privileges now exer- town. cised by them, shall vest in the said town of Dresden. etc., to vest in Town authorized to take bridge by purchase or otherwise. Proceedings in case owners SECT. 2. The town of Dresden is hereby authorized and To be made free. empowered to take and hold said bridge as a free bridge, with all the franchises, land and appurtenances thereto belonging, and maintain the same in suitable repair; and the act, private laws of eighteen hundred and sixty-one, chapter thirty-five, section two, concerning the proprietors of the Upper Bridge on Eastern river shall be held to authorize said town to raise money and to take by purchase or otherwise, said bridge and franchise; and to that end, in case the proprietors refuse to sell, or the parties cannot agree as to damages, the supreme judicial court for the county of Lincoln, upon petition from the municipal officers of Dresden, after notice and hearing, may appoint a committee of three disinterested persons to determine the value of said bridge, land and franchise; and their report shall be returned to the said court, and the same proceedings may be had thereon as upon the report of a committee provided by revised statutes of eighteen hundred and seventy-one, chapter eighteen, section thirteen. When the report of said committee is accepted, the town may pay or tender the amount of such report to the bridge corporation and thereupon said bridge shall be free. CHAP. 199 SECT. 3. The municipal officers of the town of Dresden duties of proprie shall, upon the transfer of said bridge to the town, by con Town to assume tors. Act void, unless inhabitants vote to accept. Town authorized to raise money. Inconsistent acts repealed. veyance from the proprietors, or by the legal proceedings provided in section two of this act, assume control of said bridge, lay the same out as a free town way, provide a suitable draw-tender, and, in all other respects be governed in the manner provided in said act of incorporation, and in said act, private laws of eighteen hundred and sixty-one, chapter thirty-five. SECT. 4. This act shall be inoperative unless the inhabitants of said town, at a legal meeting shall, by a majority vote accept the same. The municipal officers of said town shall insert in their warrant for said meeting an article for this object. The vote at said meeting shall be by ballot, thus: Upper Bridge free: yes.' 'Upper Bridge free, no.' The ballots shall be received, sorted, counted and declared as votes for town officers are, and shall be recorded by the clerk in the town record. And if there be a majority of ballots with 'yes,' it shall be deemed an acceptance of this act, and said act shall then be in force; and if there be a majority of ballots with 'no,' then the provisions of this act shall be deemed to be suspended as to such bridge, until the town at a subsequent meeting, legally called, shall in the manner indicated in this section, accept the provisions of this act as to said bridge. SECT. 5. The town of Dresden is hereby authorized to raise money for the purposes of this act, by loan, taxation or otherwise. SECT. 6. All acts or parts of acts inconsistent with the provisions of this act are hereby repealed. SECT. 7. This act shall take effect when approved. Approved February 9, 1883. |