USA > Maine > Ancient dominions of Maine : embracing the earliest facts, the recent discoveries, of the remains of aboriginal towns, the voyages, settlements, battle scenes, and incidents of Indian warfare, and other incidents of history, together with the religious developments of society within the ancient Sagadahoc, Sheepscot, and Pemaquid precincts and dependencies > Part 1
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M. L.
Gc 974.1 Se8a 1146753
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
1
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01083 7034
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014
https://archive.org/details/ancientdominions00sewa_0
VIEW OF WISCASSET, FROM EDGECOMB HEIGHTS.
ANCIENT
DOMINIONS OF MAINE.
EMBRACING
THE EARLIEST FACTS, THE RECENT DISCOVERIES OF THE REMAINS OF ABORIGINAL TOWNS, THE VOYAGES, SETTLEMENTS, BAT- TLE SCENES, AND INCIDENTS OF INDIAN WARFARE, AND OTHER INCIDENTS OF HISTORY, TOGETHER WITH THE RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS OF SOCIETY WITHIN THE ANCIENT SAGADAHOC, SHEEPSCOT AND PEMAQUID PRE- CINCTS AND DEPENDENCIES.
BY RUFUS KING SEWALL, AUTHOR OF SKETCHES OF THE CITY OF ST. AUGUSTINE.
BATH : Ac. ELISHA CLARK AND COMPANY. BOSTON, MASS .: CROSBY AND NICHOLS. PORTLAND: SANBORN AND CARTER. 1859.
.
974.1 SE8a
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1859, by R. K. SEWALL, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Maine.
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY B. THURSTON, PORTLAND, ME.
1146753
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
ANTE-COLONIAL PERIOD.
Historical remains - Location - Pedcokegowake - Antiquity of the relics - Remains of Nekrangan - Local features - Human remains - Observations - Exhumations - White Mountain views - Colonial ves- tiges - Suggestive features of the remains - Ruins accounted for - Norumbegua - Historical view of the name - Locality - Personal ap- pearance of the ante-colonial inhabitants - Weapons - Capital of the country - Court costume - Weymouth's treachery - Whale fishery at Pemaquid - Damariscotta, seat of ante-colonial empire - Aboriginal names - Arambec - Menikuk - Race inhabiting these cities - Succes- sion of races - Druidical suggestions - The Bashaba - His enemies - Wawennocks - Their end,
13
. CHAPTER II. Jysa
PERIOD OF DISCOVERY.
Gosnold at Kennebec - Bark Shallop - Wreck in Sheepscot Bay - Pring's voyage - Weymouth's voyage - Discovery of Monhegan - Anchorage and observations of the mainland - Pentacost Harbor - First view of the natives in Pentacost Harbor - Discovery of the Saga- dahoc - Native trade - Native deportment - Native canoe - Griffin's story - Natives kidnapped - Description and exploration of Pentacost Harbor - Bashaba's envoys - Primitive aspect of Long Reach - River explorations - Archangel towed to sea - Identification of the harbor anchorage - Summary - Discovery of fishing ground - Archangel's return to Europe - Effect of the discoveries on the public,
55
IV
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III.
PERIOD OF SETTLEMENT.
Gilbert and Popham's voyage - Extracts from journal of the voyage - Spanish shallop and natives - Boothbay and Kennebec - Landing at Pemaquid - Sabbath services on shore - Hostility of the natives - Desertion of Skitwarroes - The gale - Entrance to Sagadahoc - Se- lection of the site of a town - Possessory rites and ceremonies - Break- ing of ground for intrenchments - Explorations and adventures in the river - Face of the country - Altercation with river Indians - Over- tures of the sovereign of the country - First ship, the Virginia of Saga- dahoc - Death of Popham - Traditionary reminiscences - Conflict with the natives - Abandonment of colony - Monhegan settlements - Reckless voyagers - Harlow - Smith - Rocroft - Hunt - Dermer - Samosset at Boothbay Harbor - Damariscove - Sagadahoc -- Sheep- scot - Pemaquid - Levett's voyage to Sheepscot - Acquisition of title to Bristol - State of society - Wreck at Boothbay Harbor - Plymouth establishment at Kennebec - Aldworth and Eldridge at Pemaquid - Description of Pemaquid - Lawlessness - Pirate Dixy Bull - Abraham Shurt's adventures at Piscataqua - Imprudence of the settlers - Plantations - Murder at Kennebec - Original price of the town of Woolwich - Robinhood, the sagamore of Sheepscot - Export of cattle - Condition of settlements - First death by drowning - Name of the State - John Parker's settlement - Original purchase of Westport - Birthplace of Phips, the Sheepscot ship-builder - His adventures and success - Population and staples of trade - Travel - Transfer of land- ed titles - John Mason, the Sheepscot proprietor - Civil condition of the settlements - First court organized at Merry Meeting - Price paid for the town of Bristol - Hamlets of Brown, Philips, Lake and Clark - Price paid for the town of Phipsburg - Hamlet of Rev. Robert Gutch at Long Reach - Death of Robert Gutch - Dukcdom established - Newcastle a shire town - Convention of the people in the dukedom - Dissenters to ducal government - Purchase of Boothbay - Claims of Massachusetts - New Dartmouth - Vestiges of ancient occupancy - Ancient chronicles of stone - Sheepscot settlements, 81
CHAPTER IV.
INDIAN WARS.
Natural causes - Moral causes - Robinhood disturbed - King Philip's war - Outrage on an Indian mother - Assault on the Purchase planta- tion - Slave traders in Massachusetts - Destruction of the Arrowsic
V
CONTENTS.
towns - Devastation of Hammond Town - Sacking of Lake and Clark's village - Plantations abandoned - Incidents of the retreat - Card's escape - Abbott's adventures and escape from Damariscove - Wal- dron's expedition - Fortifications erected - Waldron's fight at Pema- quid - Return of the inhabitants - Return of Sheepscot planters - New Dartmouth re-occupied - Civil regulations - Pemaquid fostered - Temperance enforced by law - Laws of trade - Dongan's administra- tion - Military despotism - Andros' measures to recover the country - Indications of fresh violence - Irregularities at the capital - Earliest appearance of existing family names - Dukedom merged in Massachu- setts - Andros restored to power - Recklessness of the Governor - Change of metropolitan interests from Pemaquid to Boston - Remon- strance of eastern citizens -Forts rebuilt - Effects of the English Rev- olution - New ports of entry demanded - Conference of Colonial Gov- ernors - Treachery of Andros - Complaints of the people - Points of defense - Renewal of hostilities - Destruction of New Dartmouth - Battle at Pemaquid - Death of Judge Gyles and capture of his family - Fall of Jamestown - Trials of captivity - The bear hunt - Gaunt- let dance - The fright -The chastisement - Savage cruelties, 151
CHAPTER V.
WAR OF THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION CONTINUED.
Major Church - Fall of Annawon - Condition of country - Erec- tion of garrisons - Building of Fort Wm. Henry at Pemaquid - Condi- tion of the natives - Converse - French influences - Mission of Sheep- scot John - Iberville's expedition - Investiture of Fort Wm. Henry - Naval demonstration at Pemaquid - Surrender of the fort - March in command - Battle of Damariscotta - Peace of Ryswick - Piracies - Queen Anne's war - Dudley's administration - Death of Ar-ru-hawik- wabemt - Fall of Nova Scotia - Re-settlement of the country - Build- ing of Augusta - Land Speculations - Rebuilding of Pemaquid - Im- migration - Ancient remains of Phipsburg - Cambel's cellar - Rest- lessness of the natives - Pirate ship Widah - Blasphemy of Bellamy - Bellamy at Mechisses - Shipwreck and death of Bellamy - George- town incorporated - Conference at Georgetown - Response of Wiwur- na - Letter from Ralle - Disgust of the Governor - Beginning of the American Revolutionary issues - Desolation of the country - Scotch- Irish immigration - Increase of population - Loron's remonstrance - Norridgewock expedition - Devastation of Merry Meeting - Damaris-
VI
CONTENTS.
cotta laid waste - St. George attacked - Tilton's adventures at Dama- riscove - A scene of horror - Exasperation of the publie - Battle of Arrowsic - Storming of the garrison - Temple and Penhallow's night attack - Westbrook's expedition - Battle of St. George's River - Capt. Winslow's death - Savage fire-ships - Arrowsic invested - Battle of Norridgewock - Death of Bomaseen - Death of Father Ralle -- Effects of Lovewell's war - Samuel Trask's adventures - Damariscove attack- ed - Dummer's peace - Effects of the war - Truck-houses - Dagget's castle - Duck hunting - Hockomock - Great earthquake, · 205
CHAPTER VI.
ANTE-REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD,
Closing scenes of savage alarms - Dunbar emigration - Opposition of proprietors - Influence of the Scotch-Irish element - Dunbar towns - Walpole - Harrington - Townsend - Battle of Enniskillen and siege of Londonderry - Vaughn's enterprise - Wiseasset - Garrison house - Waldo immigration - Waldoboro' founded - Mrs. Porterfield's adven- tures - Shirley's administration - Spanish or triangular war - Fall of Louisburg - Frontier home - Georgetown - Closing events of the pe- riod - Encounter with a Sheepscot bear - Death of the Albees - MeNear's adventures - Cargill's escape - Long Edmund's perfidy - Resolute planter - Dresden plantation -- City of Stirling in Bristol - Thomaston hamlet - Condition of the settlers - Sufferings of Waldo's colonists - Widow Blackledge's prayer - Sagacious cat - Mrs. Rines's relief - Cargill's inhumanity - Murder of Margaret Moxa - Hugh Paul's adventures - Hostilities renewed - Casualties - Defenses of Wiseasset - Heroic soldier of St. George - McFarland's misfortunes - Murder at Wiscasset - Captive Fanny - Dresden assaulted - Expe- dition against Wiscasset - Battle of Wiscasset - Haunted gully - Mrs. Delano's escape - Death of Boynton - Planters massacred at Pema- quid - Topshanı -Death of Rutherford - Preble's massacre - Attack on Harnden's garrison - Capture at Long Reach - Twenty Cow par- ish - Kellock's achievement - Perils of frontier life - Final defeat of French and Indians - Wolfe's victory - Breaking up of garrison life - Lincoln County organized - State of society - Frontier missionary --- Pownalboro' - Naval eminence of Bath - Abandonment of military defenses - Nobleboro' - Incorporation of Topsham - Incorporation of Bristol,
259
VII
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VII.
AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
Question of property in white pines of Maine - Adventure of Com- modore Knowles - Riot in Boston - Lumbermen's controversy - Early religious developments - Freedom of opinion - Maine originally an Episcopal establishment - Congregationalism introduced - Rob't Gutch and his church - Death of Gutch - Religious institutions extinguished - Congregational proclivities of Sheepscot planters - Episcopal serv- ice at Pemaquid - Baxter and Gibson - Presbyterianism introduced - Rev. Robert Rutherford - Religious influence of the Dunbar emigration - Religious habits of the Presbyterians - Thomas Pierpont - McLana- than - Revival of Episcopacy in the valley of the Kennebec - Scotch Presbyterian piety - John Murray - Murray's favor with the people -Murray's departure-Action of the Boothbay people- Murray's return to Townsend -- Organization of the church - Ordination of deacons and elders -First Communion - The great revival - Its effects on so- ciety - Murray's ministrations - Close of religious period, 327
INTRODUCTION.
OUTLINES OF THE WORK.
NATURE and the Bible are the great text books, of which History is a running commentary of Providence.
In History, the forces and principles of cause and effect, in their bear- ings on the state of man as developed in human actions, in the distribution of good and evil, are, or ought to be, illustrated. No study, therefore, is more full of interest or better fraught with more important instruction, giving so varied a scope to the exercise of the moral and intellectual pow- ers in a discipline so well adapted to store the head with useful and enter- taining knowledge, and train the life to natural and truthful impulses, as the studies of History ; and a taste for such studies is no mean indication of the intellectual and moral attainments of any people.
History has a natural division into three views. The first relates to discovery ; the second treats of settlement and occupancy of the country ; and the third embraces an account of the accidents, disturbances, and disasters incident to the establishment of the homes of a new race.
The Ancient Dominions of Maine in the Virginia of the North exhibit the vestiges of three grand convulsive epochs, growing out of the struggle of races in the collision of those seeking a new home with those in possess- ion of the soil ; the conflicts of rival states; and the revolutionary issues in England, on the displacement of the reigning dynasty of the House of Stuart, and the elevation of the Prince of Orange to the throne.
The Ancient Dominions of Maine, beginning in a series of European plantation hamlets on the Kennebec and Sheepscot waters, and around in the vicinage of the magnificent harbor of Boothbay -the Pentecost Har- bor of Geo. Weymouth's expedition, which in his account of discoveries became a center of attraction - at length were created a Dukedom; and
x
INTRODUCTION.
then transformed into a Province ; and finally consolidated into a County as the integrant part of a State.
The phases and facts of these several changes we shall endeavor to sketch ; and shall follow more particularly the development of these changes in the facts detailed than in the more latent and philosophical exhibit of causes; designing to give but a narrative of events according to the measure of our means and abilities - with a view to amuse and instruct, as well as to preserve what is fast going into oblivion.
The view we shall take, therefore, within the " Ancient Dominions " of Maine, will embrace the facts written on the Earth's surface, found among the newly explored remains of the ruins of the ancient Arambec and Menikuk, towns of aboriginal existence on the Damariscotta and Sheep- scot waters during the ante-colonial period ; the voyages of discovery and settlement ; Indian battle scenes ; massacres and other historical details and incidents in the Social, Religious, and Civil development of the population within the ancient Sagadahock, Sheepscot, and Pemaquid precincts.
Much more might be done, which must be left to other and abler pens, and shaped to meet a different aim than the purpose we have.
R. K. SEWALL.
WISCASSET, JULY 13TH, 1858.
ANCIENT
DOMINIONS OF MAINE.
CHAPTER I.
.
ANTE-COLONIAL PERIOD.
HISTORICAL REMAINS.
HISTORY has its philosophy, as well as philosophy its history. By the simple deductions of its philosophy, facts are gathered and grouped in their natural relations, and when this grouping suggests a rational solution, then the truth of history is manifested.
Maine has a history-a past, hoary with age-pregnant with interest. To this interest we propose to add some natural and remarkable features, developed in a class of historic remains, exhumed at the vestibule of extensive ruins discovered in a section, in aboriginal days, called " Mavooshen," 1 and in the colonial period, known as the Province of Sagadahock, where lie buried the ancient " Dominions of Maine."
In the general method of this investigation, we shall go back to facts, and follow them up, and out, and through the tortuous and misty windings of the past, into the natural sun-light of historic truth.
The remains have locality within the precincts of Pema- quid and Sheepscot, of the ancient Sagadahock Province, points of the " Virginia of the North," so called two-and- one-half centuries ago, which, in the ante-colonial periods of
1 Gorges' Narrative, vol. 2, p. 62, M. H. Coll.
14
ANCIENT DOMINIONS OF MAINE.
North American History, glowed along our wild shores, with surpassing attraction in England, as centers of interest to the colonial enterprises of the age.
The relics to be exhibited are not the fragmentary re- mains of crumbling walls of deserted palaces-are not found under piles of sculptured granite and marble-in broken columns, prostrate arches, gigantic architectural wastes, but in a series of facts disposed in natural order.
These facts appear, first, in vestiges of human life and human homes, now traceable on the earth's surface ; and second, in rumors floating in tradition, wafted by voices of the remotest antiquity, whose echoings from the depths of a wild and unexplored interior, have fallen on the ear of the earliest voyagers shaped into names out of aboriginal sounds ; and third, in the disclosures of an imagery peculiar to the conception of the aboriginal mind, painting everywhere, in the names of persons and places, a legible significancy.
When laid bare in naked detail, these facts all seem to sympathize in their more important features, indicative of a common origin and a cotemporaneous existence ; and when grouped in their natural relations to cotemporaneous events, expose in clear and full relief on the shadowy past, traces of humanity, in towns, cities, centers of human aggregation and resort, which resolve the shadows that have long glided before the vision of the antiquary on the outmost verge of our historic perspective, into a people-a race and their homes, in the heart of Lincoln County, at our very doors, long since gone and forgotten from the scenes of human life and action. "Shadows indeed we are, and shadows we pursue ;" yet "life is real, life is earnest, and the grave is not its goal." Hence, those departing leave behind them footsteps on the sands of time. It is in these footprints of life on the past of our own river banks, hill-tops, head-lands and islands, filling in our own landscape, we would trace the history of the past.
15
ANTE-COLONIAL PERIOD.
LOCALITIES OF ANCIENT REMAINS.
In the exploration of the localities of the facts, the head- waters of the Damariscotta River demand our first atten- tion. The topography of the place is peculiar. The head- waters of this river are received and emptied from two res- ervoirs, at different elevations. In the times of the earliest European dwellers there, Walter Philips and the Taylors, the upper reservoir was called the "fresh," 1 and the lower " the salt pond," in the aboriginal conveyances at that time.
Over the rocky rim of the upper reservoir, the redundant waters are precipitated by a fall of fifty feet, into the salt pond below. Amid the primeval wildness and solitude of this region, the o'er leaping volume of water formed a cascade, whose roar merged and softened with the distant rumble of the tides through a gorge over the falls of the salt pond below, where the commingled waters are lost in the flux and reflux of the sea, in the savage mind laid foundation for the use of an expressive aboriginal term descriptive of the place, called " Ped-coke-gowake," 2 meaning "the place of thunder," as well as from the fact the forest trees thereabout were often scarred with lightning strokes, in early days. 3 The margins of the lower reservoir, overhung with a forest fringe of stately, sheltering oaks and pine-a land-locked expanse, whose bosom swelled with rounded islands of invit- ing loveliness, heaving also, with aquatic life-a basin, whose walls and floors were inlaid with beds of the luscious oyster,4 -must have combined attractions as a center of human resort unsurpassed, unless we except the " Coonté islands," environed with oyster beds and mullet shoals, near the Everglades of Florida. This is a natural and obvious deduction.
1 Walter Philips' deed, Commissioners' Report on L. Co. 2 French or- thography " Ped-aug-hi-ouk."-Ralle. 3 J. G. Huston, Esq.
4 The neighboring Sheepscot and the water beds thereabout, still afford this delicious shell-fish, though nearly destroyed by the mill dust.
16
ANCIENT DOMINIONS OF MAINE.
REMAINS OF PEDCOKEGOWAKE.
In conformity with this view, on the margins of this very basin, where the grandeur of primeval forest shadows, and the sublime cchioings of the voices of nature combine to invite - where, with lavish hand, she has stored inex- haustible resources for human subsistence, we find those facts and features, which usually mark the sites of human homes and populousness, in the accumulation of depositos of the offal of a vast horde of human eaters.
Opportunities of personal observation, in a passage inland, through the lagoons of the coasts of eastern and southern Florida, from the mouth of the St. Lucia to the bar of St. Augustine, have given practical views of shell-deposits on the margins of water-courses, as the offal of human subsist- ence. The general features are alike, north and south; and the deposites of shell offal about the head-waters of the Damariscotta resemble those marking the points of favorite resort and habitation to the savage Seminole, or earlier Calos tribes, of Florida, in the oyster-bearing sections of that land of flowers and flies.
The rim of the lower basin of the head-waters of the Damariscotta, whose regurgitating tides receive and empty the over-leaping waters of the fresh pond above, suggesting to the mind of the simple native, the place of thunder, in detached places, is wharfed off (in the expressive language of the Hon. Ebenezer Farley ) by the successive aggregation of the shells of the oyster, exhibiting different stages of de- composition.
1654. ANTIQUITY OF THE RELICS.
Two centuries ago, the deposites here were noted in the records of the earliest European residents, as "the great 1 bank of oyster shells-and oyster shell neck;" and were
1 Pierce's deposition, Commissioners' Reports, L. C. records.
17
ANTE-COLONIAL PERIOD.
then remarkable features on the face of the earth. The basin margins on the west side are heaped, covering an area of several rods, "twelve 1 to fifteen feet deep;" while the east bank margins bear a less depth, but fall back in more extended superficies, so much less decomposed as to render the soil sterile and useless for cultivation.
Below the basin and its marginal deposites described above, nearer the sea, a bold and picturesque head-land, terminating a tongue of land, stretching northward, exhibits a soil largely intermixed with the remains of the common species of the "mya," or clam, whose banks fronting the river's channel, in many places, seem to have been shingled with the offal re- mains of this shell-fish, the surface soil being thoroughly sifted in with the same in a pulverulent state. This new deposite of a different species of edible shell-fish is not above three miles below the oyster deposites.
OCCASION OF THESE RELICS.
Such is the common aspect of these obviously ancient superficial remains of two species of edible shell-fish, as resources of human food. Dr. Jackson, our State Geologist, has given a description of the same remarkable vestiges, as viewed by science.
He found " the shells ( of the oyster ) disposed in regular layers, perfectly preserved, whitened with the action of the weather, but where most exposed to the action of the frost, crumbled into a fine shell marl." "The general belief," he adds, is " that the shells were heaped up there by the ancient Indians, who formerly frequented the spot." This gentleman gives no opinion beyond the popular idea, as to the causes or manner of these deposites; but simply remarks "that the stratiform position and perfection of the shells are an objection, and their comparatively recent deposition, and the fact that a diluvial soil is their bed, are a support to the common opinion."
1 Letter of Hon. E. Farley.
2
18
ANCIENT DOMINIONS OF MAINE.
Mr. Jackson concludes his observations by a further account, descriptive of other relics, more remarkable and suggestive of facts, found in these deposites, connecting them with human agency, saying, " that arrow-heads, 1 bone stilettoes, and human bones, have been found in the beds of shells near the surface." We may therefore consider the fact as well authenticated by the severe tests of scientific observation, that human remains, fragments of human art, and of weapons of war of bone manufacture, have been ex- humed from these deposites. "On Tapin's Island, 2 ( Tap- lino ) in the Bay or Basin,-the lower reservoir of the Damariscotta described, a mile or less above the village "bridge, a half acre of gneiss-rock, covered with yellow loam, mixed with a shell detritus, human 1 skeletons have frequent- ly been exhumed at a depth of eighteen inches to two feet below the surface."
In the presence of our Geologist, (who is the authority for the facts, ) a skeleton was dug up from its burial place here. The uniform position is a sitting posture, the knees drawn up, facing the east toward the rising sun. "Pieces 3 of copper sometimes covered the head of the exhumed body ; and one skeleton had a copper knife-blade, set in a handle of bone ;" and it was the judgment of our Geologist and his medical assistant, that for two centuries, no burial had been made in this Island cemetery of an extinct, but peculiar people. The facts can leave no doubt, that the deposition of shell offal, above described, was the work of human hands ; and that the locality of these deposits must have been a center of vast populousness, more than two centuries ago, when the same features marked this site of ancient ruin. Such are the facts, distinguishing the myste- rious vestiges of the aboriginal "Ped-coke-gowake."
1 Jackson's Report, Geology of Maine, vol. 3, p. 57-58.
2 Jackson's Report, vol. 3, p. 57-58.
3 Head pieces of copper were angular and breast plates were square.
TOWNSEND HARBOR AND NEKRANGAN PASSAGE.
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