Counterfeiting ring stamped name on lake in Robbinston

Smuggling was rampant, counterfeiting profitable and the administration of justice questionable in the early 1800s in the community known as Plantation 4, now known as Robbinston. The town is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year with numerous activities, including heritage talks held at the Sewall Memorial Congregational Church. The first heritage talk was held on June 12 with Robbinston resident Al Churchill providing many facts about the community recorded in early newspapers and in the book An International Community on the St. Croix by Harold Davis.
In 1786 the Honorable Edward H. Robbins of Milton, Mass., purchased 17,860 acres of Plantation No. 4, District of Maine. When incorporated in 1811, the town was called Robbinston in his honor. Maine was not yet a state but rather a district of Massachusetts. It was the usual policy of Massachusetts to sell to wealthy promoters, who frequently bought land as a speculation.
Passing through the pleasant town today, one would not suspect that the town was such a busy place in the early 1800s. The town's center was located in Mill Cove and provided a good port to conduct trade with neighboring St. Andrews on the New Brunswick side of the bay. The American 1807 embargo on all foreign trade resulted in smuggling along the Bay of Fundy, and Eastport and Robbinston became active participants in the trade. Eastport became a vast depot for flour and other provisions carried to the various New Brunswick islands and to St. Andrews. Trade was brisk but money was scarce.
Davis writes, "There was a wide variety of specie in circulation. To add to the confusion a considerable amount of counterfeit money appeared between 1803 and 1811. Most of it passed as American 25 cents and 50 cent pieces, but some were imitations of English and Spanish coins."
The coins in time were traced to St. Andrews and from there to Robbinston, where it developed that three men were operating at a hidden location on the shore of a lake, which has since that time been called Moneymaker Lake. The discovery of the counterfeit operation, sometimes called coining, would lead to the killing of John Downes, who was deputized to serve a warrant on Ebenezer Ball, the accused leader of the counterfeiting operation.
John Balkan was the magistrate at Robbinston who ordered the arrest of Ball on the warrant of Stephen Brewer of Calais. On January 26, 1811, he and John Brewer questioned Ball, who had been brought before them by John Downes, but they found the warrant deficient for lack of evidence and released Ball. However, on January 27 new evidence apparently in the form of the testimony of Sam Jones, a surveyor, was given before Justice Balkam, and Ball was ordered to be brought before Balkam and Brewer a second time.
It was in the execution of the arrest that John Downes was shot. Ball was originally taken to the Eastport jail, but it was determined that the jail was not secure. Ball was then taken to Castine, where he was tried and convicted of murder. At that time the sentence for murder was hanging. Ball may have enjoyed the dubious distinction of being perhaps the first man in Maine to be hanged.