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 15
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SAVAGE CRUELTIES.
Their captives were sometimes cruelly treated and barba- rously murdered. The elder brother of this captive Gyles, after three years of captivity, attempted to escape and was re-taken. On the heights of Castine, overlooking the waters of Penobscot Bay, he was tortured by fire at the stake : his nose and ears were cut off and forced into his mouth, which he was compelled to eat ; and then he was burnt as a diver- sion to enliven the scene of a dance.
CHAPTER V.
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WAR OF THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION CONTINUED.
MAJOR CHURCH.
THE renewal of savage barbarities in the East roused Massachusetts to arms. Chastisement and 1690. the recovery of the captives were the great purposes of the contemplated military operations. Major Church, the hero of King Philip's war-the terror as he had been the scourge of savage men-was designated to command the expedition.
Next to Miles Standish of Plymouth, the name of Benja- min Church, as an early successful military leader, stands out in boldest relief on the annals of New England. The arena of his glory and success was the field of frontier serv- ice. A native of Plymouth, too, endowed with great benev- olence of heart, fortified with natural sagacity and fortitude, of reputed picty and a high sense of honor as a frontier man-a volunteer-or backwoodsman-he entered the ranks at the commencement of King Philip's war.
His fortitude, perseverance, and tact, together with great personal prowess, gave him eminence. Indeed, he put to shame the movements of the regular army, and, in fact, subdued the hordes of Philip, breaking down in regular succession all his great captains, and scattering all the com- binations of savage power.
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ANNAWON'S FALL.
To-to-son, Tis-pa-quin, and the great An-na-won, Philip's confederates and friends, all were out-generalled by Church. An-na-won, the last of the trio of savage heroes of King Philip's reign of terror, was at length made prisoner by Church. On the night of his capture, by the light of the moon beams, rising from his dewy couch under the open canopy of heaven, An-na-won approached his conqueror with a fearless and stately mien. Falling on his knees before him, -" Great Captain, " he cried, " you have killed Philip and conquered his country ! I and my company are the last ! Therefore, these," ( holding out to him Philip's in- signia of royalty ) " belong unto you." The shoulders of the hero of Philip's fall were at once invested by the hands of An-na-won with robes of wampum curiously wrought in figures and flowers of the forms of birds and beasts, with black and white, edged with human hair dyed in scarlet colors. The whole was girded with a belt ornamented with a pendant star, from the shoulders reaching to the ancles. But the magnanimous and fearless Annawon, in defiance of the entreaties and remonstrances of his brave captor, was slain by the Plymotheans after his surrender.
Having successfully encountered the enemy at Casco, who retired from the field, Church next appeared on the plains of Brunswick, and in the heart of the enemy's coun- try on the Androscoggin, forcing the very doors of his strong-holds.
Foremost in the fight, stripped to his shirt and jacket, Church plunged into the water, crossed the river, and rushed into the south gate, while the Indians fled out at the north. Some took to the water ; others ran under the falls ; and most perished, either under the deadly aim of the fero- cious frontiers' men, or while struggling for life against the current, were swept under the waters of the rushing An- droscoggin !
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To the fugitives, Church sent a message, telling the Indians who he was, and whence he came. The captives who had been taken were summarily " knocked on the head" as an example.
Fresh from the blood-stained swamps of Philip's conquest, Church came like the Angel of Death across the war-path of the red-man of the East, his portentous name filling all with dismay, from the papoose in the wigwam to the tawny brave on the scout.
The presence and movements of Church disconcerted the savages, dissipated their combinations, scattered their con- federacies, and broke up their projected enterprises.
Passing the Kennebec with Gov. Phips, Church landed at Pemaquid, and from thence ranged the Penobscot. Return- ing, he entered the Kennebec, and ascended that river. In ·the ascent of this expedition, his boats encountered the enemy in their canoes. After a sharp but successful engage- ment, he routed the savages, and pursued them so fiercely up the river that they abandoned their canoes, and took to the woods.
Church pursued them on shore, and gave them no rest in their forest shelter. The chase continued to "Ticonnet," the site of their homes. Their lodges, their fort, all were consigned to the flames by the panic-stricken braves, who, leaving their stores of corn for plunder, continued their flight into the dense and impenetrable swamps of the unex- plored interior. From Pemaquid as a center, he scoured the country in all directions, carrying devastation and dis- may, fire and sword, to the homes of the savages.
CONDITION OF COUNTRY.
Many panic-stricken surviving settlers, crouching amid the ruins of this war-wasted section, were met 1692. by Major Church in the course of these expeditions, who besought him to procure their removal from the scene
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of their sorrows and peril, whose prayers he could not heed. Left thus to their own resources, the remaining inhabitants adopted a system of defense, founded in the structure of " Garrison Houses."
The garrison house was a structure of timber, rectangular in shape-bullet-proof -pierced with port-holes from angu- lar projections, coverts and sentry posts surmounting the corner elevations, which commanded every approach. The garrison house, often stockaded, usually crowned some height, or crested some land-swell in the center of a consid- erable clearing, so that the environing thickets and copses of wood could not be made a covert to the prowling savage within musket range.
Here the families of a hamlet gathered on hearing the report of the alarm guns, under the guard of their fathers, brothers, and neighbors :- the women often acting the part of guardsmen, day and night-while the males in detach- ments went to their clearings to sow and reap, one of whom usually stood sentinel, while the others wrought by turns, every man armed.
Thus the surviving inhabitants endeavored to maintain their foothold in these wilds amid savage alarms, determined to fight rather than to fly.
The adoption of this mode of life at length made the frontier-man of the East more than a match for his wily foc. This adjustment of the homes of the frontier inhabitants to the emergencies of their condition finally worried out the savage ; and the mode of defense being aptly suited to meet the peculiarities of savage warfare, the pioneer became as wary and resolute, more fearless and successful than the Indian, which made it very difficult, if not impossible, for him to attack and destroy the settler in his usual covert way, by surprise.
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BUILDING OF FORT WILLIAM HENRY AT PEMAQUID.
Sir William Phips, a native of the Sheepscot, and early schooled in the discipline and perils of a frontier life, had become a British nobleman, and had been appointed to the head of gubernatorial authority in the Province of Massa- chusetts Bay. He took special interest in the welfare of his native section.
Major Church having in charge the military operations within the eastern frontier, in August, with an army of near five hundred men, made his rendezvous among the ruins of the dismantled fortress of Pemaquid, with orders to rebuild it with stone and lime, according to the most approved arts of war. But Church was no engineer, and looked on such defenses as worse than useless-as " only nests for destruc- tions."
But Governor Phips, detaching Church to beat up the haunts of the enemy in their forest strong-holds, with two companies, rebuilt the defenses of Pemaquid. Twenty rods from high-water mark, on the eastern shore a league above the point of Pemaquid, on the margin of the inner harbor, -a land-locked basin made by the river's mouth at its; deboucher into the bay-a site was chosen. A quadrangular wall was reared, whose perimeter measured seven hundred. and forty-seven feet, and one hundred and eight feet between. the exterior walls across. These walls founded in lime and. mortar, were built of stone, under the direction of Captains. Wing and Bancroft, engineers. The wall facing seaward. was twenty-two feet high on the south front ; on the harbor side to the west, eighteen feet high ; on the north, facing, the river and village, ten feet ; and on the east, fronting. the main land at the point of its junction with the penin- sula, where once was a causeway, twelve feet ; the whole; surmounted with a round tower, rising from the angle in the south-western bastion, near thirty feet.
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ANCIENT DOMINIONS OF MAINE.
Eight feet from the ground, the walls were six feet thick, pierced with ports for a tier of twenty-eight guns, and some eighteen were mounted. Thus defended, the work was named Fort William Henry. This work was a formidable barrier against the incursions of the eastern savages, and a center of safety to a considerable circle of surrounding territory. The indefatigable Church continued his terrify- ing pursuit of the savages, throughout the fastnesses of their forest wilds, who fled before him, leaving their corn, " bea- ver and moose skins," to become a prey.
CONDITION OF THE NATIVES.
Up to this period, great vicissitudes had checkered 1696. the historic scene at Pemaquid and Sagadahoc ; which also deeply marked the condition of the exas- perated and forlorn natives, who began to realize terrible visions of want and death in the bloody footprints of war all over their wilderness home, and to find there were blows to take as well as to give ..
CONVERSE.
Converse, the friend and subordinate of Church, a brave and faithful officer, became an object of dread as a scourge of the marauding red-men. , His brave and successful defense of the garrison at Wells was a memorable act of intrepidity. To the overtures to him for capitulation, he replied, -" I want nothing of you but men to fight." As commander-in-chief of the eastern forces, he was at Sheep- scot and Pemaquid pursuing the wild savage with so much persistence and success that, feeling themselves " hunted to the mountains by the terrifying Converse," thirteen saga- mores repaired to Pemaquid, suing for peace ; in the nego- tiations therefor, John Wing, Nicholas Manning, and Benja-
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min Jackson were commissioners. 1 The conditions of a perpetual peace were arranged, and hostages given as pledges of good faith.
FRENCH INFLUENCES.
But the interests of the French Government, which had espoused the cause of James, in sympathy with Romish Church purposes of hostility to the reign of William and Mary in England, demanded the violation of this treaty. The Church of Rome, in the great civil contest between the partisans of James and the government of William and Mary, had an eye to her own supremacy in England. Jes- uit priests, therefore, exerted their influence over the savage mind to re-open the sluices of war. Of the ecclesiastical emissaries, Sebastian Ralle of the Norridgewock Mission on the Kennebec, Thuray and Bigot on the Penobscot, were the most influential and conspicuous. It was the theme of their Sabbath service, to persuade their native hearers " that it was no sin to break faith with heretics" ! " that Jesus Christ, the blessed, was murdered by English- men" ! Religion was thus made a torch of war. Modock- awando, the sachem of Penobscot, and Bomaseen, the sachem of the Kennebecks, "whose residence was at the ancient seat of their sagamores, Norridgewock," 2 summoned their braves to gather fresh trophies of blood in revenging on the perfidious white man the death of Jesus, as well as the wrongs of their country. To ascertain the effects of recent violence done to neighboring settlements, Bomaseen and two other natives, presuming that at Pemaquid no suspicion of their agency in the bloody transactions at Dover, York, and Piscataqua had reached, visited the fort, then under command of March, disguised as " travelers from Canada."
1 Williamson, vol. i. p. 640.
2 Drake's Book of Indians, p. 110.
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ANCIENT DOMINIONS OF MAINE.
But being known, the party was seized, and the chieftain, Bomaseen, was sent a captive to Boston, where, with Sheep- scot Jolin, one of the hostages of the late treaty, all were held in confinement.
MISSION OF SHEEPSCOT JOHN.
To negotiate an exchange of prisoners and effect a recon- ciliation, John was sent east. At Rutherford's Island, in the mouth of Damariscotta river, a league from Fort Wm. Henry, by his influence a body of natives was gathered. They came in a flotilla of fifty canoes ; and a cessation of hostilities for thirty days was arranged.
The armistice was understood to be a prelude to a treaty of peace ; but in arranging the preliminaries, differences arose, and the captious savages departed in disgust.
From the conference of peace, they rushed with unsheath- ed scalping knife and gleaming tomahawk into war.
A detachment of ten men from the fort at Pemaquid, who were rowing a flat boat around a high rocky point above the Barbican opposite, were shot, four being killed and six wounded. It was the act of the disaffected savages, who had left the conference at Rutherford's Island in disgust, and had thus defeated the pacific mission of Sheepscot John.
RETRIBUTION.
Some of the eastern sagamores visited the fort.
1696. Fort Wm. Henry was now in command of Capt. Feb. 16. Chubb. The avowed object of the visit was to negotiate an exchange of prisoners. But the anguish of his soldiers, whose wounds, yet unhealed, ren- dered them unfit for duty, together with the recollection of their fallen comrades, fired Chubb's resentment and the vengeance of his command to such a degree that an assault was made on the unsuspecting and unarmed Indians. Two chieftains were slain. The others were captured, excepting
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Toxus and some of his more athletic friends, who broke through their restraint, and escaped " to scatter fire-brands, arrows, and death," till the wilds of the whole coast were enkindled in the flames of war. Pasco Chubb, the author of the perfidy, was never forgotten, nor was he forgiven till blood washed out his guilt, and from savage hands was meted out the vengeance by them kept in store for him against a day of retribution that overtook him at Andover, as he and his wife returned homeward from public worship.
IBERVILLE'S EXPEDITION.
The reduction of Fort Wm. Henry at Pemaquid had become a matter of settled policy with the French. At Quebec an expedition had been projected, and placed under the conduct of Iberville as chief in command. Two ships of war and two companies of soldiers, to be re-inforced by Castine from Penobscot and Indians of the St. John's river, were selected for the expedition. As Iberville approached the scene of his operations, the English ship Newport, Capt. Paxen, with the Province Cutter, on their passage to the Bay of Fundy to intercept French stores, together with the ship Sorlings, Capt. Eams, encountered him.
A battle ensued. The Newport struck her colors and became a prize, the other vessel escaping under a fog-bank. Thus encouraged and re-inforced, Iberville pressed all sail for Pemaquid. Off Penobscot, Castine joined the expedi- tion with a flotilla of canoes, bearing two hundred warriors, among whom presents were distributed to stimulate their valor.
The harbor of Pemaquid was soon swarming with men- of-war, while fleets of native craft, whose shuttle forms everywhere cut and curved the peaceful waters of the bay, discharged hordes of savage and war-clad men to invest the place.
On the first assault, four men of the invading force were
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slain. The place was summoned to surrender. Mounted with fifteen guns, the fortress was held by about one hund- red men, with ammunition and food in abundance. The summons was rejected. The first day was consumed by the investure of the town. On the night ensuing, fortified redoubts were constructed on the adjoining and command- ing heights, where a mortar battery was planted.
This battery opened its fire on the town and Aug. 15. fortress with shell and round shot. The effects of the shell were such as to fill the soldiery with dismay. At the same time the overtures for a surrender were renewed, and a missive under the hand of Castine intimated that if taken by storm, the captives and the place would be given up to plunder and the mercy of the savages.
This menace had the desired effect. The fears of the defenders triumphed over their valor. The " Chamade" was beaten, and the gates of the fortress were opened ; and to save the garrison and captives from savage violence, they were hurried to a neighboring island, and guarded by a strong detachment of French marines.
Thus a second time fell Pemaquid to the com- Aug. 18. bined forces of the French and Indians, by the cowardice of its defenders. Motives of humanity may have had their influence. The town was plundered, and the fort dismantled.
Col. Gedney of Salem immediately marched with five hundred men through the eastern country to the scene of . the desolation of Pemaquid, in quest of the enemy, who had long before departed. Chubb was arrested for coward- ice, and cashiered. 1 A shallop with prisoners from the eastward reached Boston, and brought the first intelligence of the fall of Pemaquid, together with the capture of the English man-of-war, off Mt. Desert. Major Church was in
1 Annals of Salem, vol. iv. p. 325.
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Boston at the time, and was commissioned to visit again the wilds of the frontiers of Maine. An expedition was pro- jected to pursue the French naval force, and engage the enemy on land, if possible. Church touched at York, east- ward bound, and sent his scouts through the neighboring forests to beat up the savage haunts. But no success attend- ing the movement, no enemy appearing, he sailed for Mon- hegan Island. Col. Gedney, from York as a center, with detachments of friendly Indians and volunteers penetrated the country by a system of operations called scouting ; and thus filled the enemy with alarm, and subjected him to perpetual surprise. The combined movements of the enemy were all thus defeated ; and breaking up into small bands, they only prowled in the neighborhood of the garrisons to surprise and cut off the unwary.
Mooring his transport ships in the island harbor of Mon- hegan, Church embarked his forces under cover of darkness in whaleboats for the main. Hard rowing brought him to the beach of Owls-head at daybreak. The boats were con- cealed, and the scouts sent out, who only traced a trail a week old. At night all re-embarked, prosecuting their voy- age up the bay and among the islands, till in Camden, at the base of the Mathebestuck mountains, day again dawned on them, when all landed, and concealed their boats. Thus night was turned into day for labor, till entering the river and ascending to a fall, some of the savages, as they paddled their boats down to the sea, were surprised, and were shot from the river banks, while those who escaped alarmed the whole region, and the enemy fled to the wild interior beyond reach.
FRUITLESS SEARCH FOR THE FRENCH FLEET.
The Arundel, the Orford, and Sorlings, with a fire-ship and tender, also scoured the ocean off Pemaquid, but the French fleet had escaped, and the expedition was abortive.
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Church continued to ravage the coasts, destroying and desolating the native settlements, without reaching the enemy or bringing him to action, till superseded in the command ; and had he been well sustained by his govern- ment in the execution of his purposes and plans, he no doubt would have made the fate of King Philip the experience of the eastern braves. From a negro captive, it was ascertained that the savages, learning of Church's con- templated movement, by a prisoner who had escaped from his confinement in Boston, had all retired from the sea- board an hundred miles into the interior, and therefore no chastisement could be meted out to them for the destruction of Pemaquid and its precincts.
MARCH IN COMMAND.
Major March, being entrusted with the eastern 1697. defenses after the unsuccessful operations of Col.
Hawthorn, who had superseded Church, with five hundred men entered on his arduous duties with commend- able energy.
A " prudent and popular officer," he adopted the plan of scouring the country from post to post, (a cordon of which enclosed the frontiers,) by ranging parties, which had been the favorite movements of Major Church.
BATTLE OF THE DAMARISCOTTA.
In the prosecution of this system, early in the Sept. 9. autumnal month of the first year of his command, heading a small detachment of his troops, March entered the waters of the Damariscotta, which happened to fall in the line of his coast range.
Ever on the alert, the Indians descried the fleet of whale- boats from the heights of Walpole ; and the fleet-footed runners had correctly detailed the progress of March up the river, and learned the point of his debarkation, near which
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an ambuscade was arranged. On touching the shore, spring- ing suddenly from their covert, the tall-grown forests far and near echoing the fatal death-cry, the Indians poured on March and his men a shower of leaden hail, whose fire flashed the white man's death-welcome on every side.
But the undaunted March immediately rallied his waver- ing troops, and led them to the charge in the face of the murderous fire.
With fixed bayonets his men plunged into the thickets, routing the savages at every point, who retreated to the woods and to their canoes, leaving their dead behind them !
It was a bloody and desperate encounter. Twenty-five men lay dead or wounded in their track at the place of debarkation, showing the unerring certainty with which each warrior marked his man, while the gory body of the fallen brave, torn by the white man's steel, was left to the gaze of his foe, in attestation of the terrific death-struggle by which the intrepid March and his devoted band had won the day.
The battle of the Damariscotta closed the scenes of King William's war, during which want and famine had multi- plied the horrors of the desolation. "Many, 1 both Indians and English prisoners, were starved to death :"-" and some eating their dogs and cats, died horribly 2 famished."
The peace of Ryswick hushed the voice of war, and gave promise of tranquility to the contending Sept. 11. nations. As the songs of peace began to be heard amid the wilds of the " Ancient Dominions of Maine," projected treaty engagements were renewed to quiet the remnants of the savage race. Public measures for assuring safety to the frontiers were not abated. Garrisons, stockade
1 Williamson's Hist. vol. i. p. 646, note.
2 Mather's Magnalia, p. 556.
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forts, fortified houses constructed of massive timber, bullet- proof with flankers jutting from opposite angles, now rose in all the settled sections of the East, affording a tolerable asylum to the distressed inhabitants of the eastern frontier.
These fortified strong-holds, usually points of concentra- tion, had served to draw the attention of war parties away from the more common abodes, so that more of the farm houses than usual remained unconsumed. Many planters abandoned their possessions to the destroyer, and departed, no more to return. Desolation, decay, and solitude reigned over the half-opened clearings, which everywhere met the eye and saddened the prospect. Such were the vestiges of a conflict originating mainly in the revolutionary issues of a struggle between power and prelacy on the one hand, the sovereignty of the people and the rights of conscience on the other.
The partisans of the fugitive monarch were papists ; while those who supported the authority of William and Mary were protestants. Hence the zeal and cruelty of big- oted priests, and the frenzy and fanaticism that marked the progress of the war.
PIRACIES.
The Treaty of Brunswick 1 gave new promise
1699. of repose to Maine. Apprehensions of savage June 7. alarms gradually subsided, and gave fresh impulse to those engaged in promoting the re-settlement of Maine. 2 m
Kid and Bradish, whose buccaneering had greatly -1 1700. disturbed the coast settlements, were now captured. Summoned before the Legislature in Boston to give an account of his conduct, Kid was remanded to England
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