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 17
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LETTER FROM RALLE.
In the course of the discussion, undisguised opposition was made to the construction of fortified works. "We should be pleased with King George," said Wiwurna, " if there never was a fort in the eastern parts." The natives yielded a reluctant consent " that the English might occupy all they had before ;" and then in an abrupt and hasty manner, without the accustomed formalities of leave-taking, the Indians rose and withdrew, leaving the English flag behind them. In the evening a letter was brought from Sebastian Ralle, their priest, in which the power of France was menaced, and the position of Wiwurna sustained.
DISGUST OF THE GOVERNOR.
The movements of the natives were now explained, but the letter was rejected with disdain by the Governor, who retired to the man-of-war-ordered the foretopsail loosed, and was about to put to sea, when a canoe with two natives put off from the island, hastened to the ship, apologized for the rudeness of yesterday, and sought a renewal of the negotiations. It was granted ; Wiwurna discarded, and the sachem of the Penobscots now led the conference, and spoke for the savages. Wiwurna of the Kennebecks did not appear at all.
Satisfactory explanations having been made, a treaty of peace and amity was concluded, presents exchanged, the articles signed, and the conference dissolved, the ratification of the treaty having been sealed in a " dance of peace," in presence of the Governor and suite.
BEGINNING OF AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY ISSUES.
The eastern forests of spar timber and oak were objects of interest with Government, and not less so 1718. to commerce. Since the earliest discovery and set- tlements on the Sheepscot and Sagadalioc waters-even
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from the days of Witheredge, the spar-dealer of Pemaquid -the lumber-trade had been attractive. The protection of the interests of the Crown in these forests had now become a cause of irritation between the representatives of the Royal authorities and the people. The hardy pioneer, the rough backwoodsman, often proved more than a match for the King's surveyor.
Bridger, commissioned as the Royal surveyor of the King's forests, had been sent out with Lord Bellamont, twenty years before this date, accompanied with Royal naval com- missioners, to investigate the capacity of the country for the production of naval stores. The idea of extensive and prof- itable culture of hemp and flax. for cordage and duck, and the running of tar and turpentine, had widely obtained.
Bridger had these interests in charge ; and the property in the white pine trees of Maine became at once an occasion of deep and lasting differences between the struggles of power and privilege in Royal prerogative, and popular rights.
The reservation of all pines for the use of the Crown, of given dimensions, under severe penal prohibitions, was fre- quently set at naught. The pine trees were often felled and cut up into twenty-foot logs for boards, despite the offi- cers of the crown and the guardian presence of the capital R. These acts brought the Crown officers and the lumber- men into frequent collision ; and as will hereafter appear, initiated a controversy which finally overcame the prestige of Royal prerogative.
Desolation had possessed the whole region. At 1719. this time, between Georgetown and Annapolis in the remote East, it is affirmed there was not a house left, except a fish house on Damariscove Island : 1 a statement we can hardly credit as entirely correct. But the inflowing population soon spread itself over the waste places. At
1 Williamson's Hist. vol. ii. p. 97.
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Damariscotta Falls, Michael Thomas, tenant of Christopher Tappan, re-occupied the planting grounds of Walter Phil- ips, and there was no other resident there save the Indians, who, drawn to this spot by recollections of the past, or the traditions of their race, loved to linger where the ashes of their fathers reposed.
Richard Pierce, William Hilton, and John Brown, Jr., returned to the ancient plantations of Broad Cove in Bris- tol, Muscongus, and New Harbor. 1 Many natives at this period visited at Thomas's house, which stood on the point a little below the lower falls of the Damariscotta, among whom was Ne-wor-met and a very aged squaw, 2 who said she formerly lived at this place, and that her husband was the son of him who sold the land.
Hilton had greatly enlarged and improved his settlement ; and in the then remote eastern frontier settlement on George's River, near the residence of the Revolutionary hero, Gen. Knox, parties interested in the Muscongus patent erected block houses of great strength, and built a covered way to the river. The space between these structures of massive timber was enclosed in palisadoes. A double saw mill was put up, and about thirty dwelling houses. A sloop was there owned, with other coasting vessels, and many laboring men were employed. Such was the aspect and condition of the nucleus of the thriving and important town of Thomaston.
During the process of laying out the Thomaston hamlet, the Indians daily resorted to the scene of labor in large numbers, and by various stratagems, with menaces of vio- lence, sought to deter and discourage the workmen from clearing the lands and the rearing of dwelling houses. In consequence of these demonstrations, cannon were mounted,
1 Eaton's Annals, p. 32.
2 Lincoln Commis. Reports.
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and a detachment of twenty men under Col. Thomas West- brook was assigned to the defense of the place.
At the elbow formed by an abrupt curve of the St. George's River to the westward, at the head of ship naviga- tion, was the site of the newly out-laid town and its fortifi- cations, now in command of Westbrook, a Scarboro' mast- shipper. 1 Near Swan Island, on the west bank of the Ken- nebec River, was made another fortified clearing called Fort Richmond, which became the nucleus of the thriving village of the same name, which to this day is noted for the enter- prise of its inhabitants as a ship-building community.
SCOTCH-IRISH IMMIGRATION.
The Politico-Religious agitation consequent upon 1720. the accession of William and Mary to the throne of
Great Britain had excited popular and civil commo- tion in that country, which injected a new element into the re-peopling tide which now flowed in from England to fill up the Ancient Dominions of Maine.
An exodus of Scotch-Irish from the north of Ireland reached our shores. Robert Temple was the patron of the new movement. Himself from the north of Ireland, Col. Temple, 2 late an officer in the Irish army, three years before this date, chartered a ship lying at Plymouth, commanded by James Luzmore of Topsham, England ; and with his domestic retinue, had landed in Boston. He came seeking a new home. Immediately on his debarkation, he explored the Connecticut valley, and then, at the instance of Dr. Noyes, Col. Winthrop, and Minot, he sailed for the Kenne- bec. Pleased with the result of his observations here, he took an interest in the Lawson purchase ; and near " Whis-
1 Hist. Scarboro', p. 227.
2 Hutchinson. Williamson's Hist. vol. ii. p. 98. Controversy Plymouth and Pejepscot Proprietors, p. 21.
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geag," he laid out an estate. It was the site of the ancient " Whisby" plantation 1 of King Philip's times. Here he erected a new town, and called it Cork. He now chartered three ships, and laded them with the children of the Kirk of Scotland, and steering for New England, planted several hundred colonists of the Scotch-Irish on the Kennebec ; and the Cork of Maine flourished in rivalry with that of the Emerald Isle across the Atlantic. Robert Temple, in the colonization of Scotch-Irish emigrants at " Merry Meeting," introduced a most eventful and auspicious era in the final re-peopling of this section of Maine. Temple's movements on the Kennebec in the West laid the foundations or initia- ted the beginnings of the far more extensive and successful policy of Gov. Dunbar, ten years subsequently, in the East.
The plantation of Temple at Whisgeag, undoubtedly, in accordance with the custom and policy of the times, in those days of surprise and peril, had its garrison-the cas- tle of the town-erected and occupied by the Patron of the colony himself ; and the location of the colonial Cork plan- tation, by the old residents of " Long Reach" is recognized to this day by the familiar name of "Ireland ; " and the original settlers were never entirely dispersed, as prominent names in the city of Bath now well attest.
EFFECTS OF THE INCREASE OF POPULATION.
The restlessness of the savages at the influx of population and the advance of fortified places and new settlements within their domain on the Kennebec and beyond Pemaquid -- the ancient limits of eastern colonization-began to make demonstrations of violence.
LORON'S REMONSTRANCE.
The savages claimed the land as their own, and viewed the white settlers as intruders. "We desire," said Loron,
1 Narrative of James Gyles.
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" that no houses or settlements be made to the eastward of Pemaquid, or above Arrowsic ; that the houses at St. George should be removed to Pemaquid ; and that at Richmond, to Arrowsic ; and that both be converted into trading houses." " We don't remember of any settlements at St. George," continued he. " We remember a pretty while ; and as long as we remember, the place where the garrison stands was filled with great long grown trees." 1
But the reasoning of Loron was of no avail. The hand of enterprise clutched at more, as the foot of civilization and the tread of power advanced steadily on.
The Romish Church fostered the discontent by the influ- ence and suggestions of French priests. Their emissaries fanned the smothered fires of resentment in the savage heart.
At Norridgewock the hatchet was dug up, and the Indians sung the song of war. The tide of re-settlement was stayed. Alarm and despondency succeeded. Cattle were killed and. property devastated.
SATISFACTION DEMANDED.
Col. Walton, with Captains Moody, Harmon, Penhallow, and Wainwright, were dispatched to the chiefs to demand reparation for the mischief done. It was promised ; and in the latter part of July ninety canoes gathered in the lower waters of the Sagadahoc, at Puddlestone's ( Padishall's ? ) island opposite Arrowsic, and demanded an interview with Penhallow, commandant at Arrowsic.
One hundred and fifty Indians, headed by Delachasse, Ralle, Castine, and others, landed on Arrowsic, bearing a missive to the Governor of Massachusetts, notifying him " that three weeks were allowed the settlers to remove and
1 M. Hist. Coll. vol. iii.
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quit their lands, or suffer the loss of their cattle, the destruc- tion of their dwellings, and the sacrifice of their lives."
Castine was seized, sent to Boston, and at the bar of the Supreme Court interrogated and acquitted. It was resolved to seize also Sebastian Rallé, and have him too, in Boston " a prisoner or a corpse."
NORRIDGEWOCK EXPEDITION.
Col. Westbrook was detached with his command to attack Norridgewock and secure the person of Father Ralle. He reached the settlement undiscovered, but ere his command could surround his house, Rallé made good his escape, leav- ing behind his books and papers, which fell into the hands of the invaders. These gave ample proof, it is said, of the treacherous and dangerous influence of the man, whose power over the savage mind was little short of superhuman.
DEVASTATION OF MERRY MEETING.
In June twenty canoes bearing sixty braves shot across the waters of Merry Meeting Bay, and lit up 1722. its margins with the burning homes of nine families. A portion of the captured were released, but Hamilton, Love, Handson, Trescot, and Edgar were taken prisoners to Canada.
DAMARISCOTTA LAID WASTE.
Another war-party appeared on Walpole heights. The home of the Hustons was destroyed. The mother 1 and daughter were slain, and the father dragged into captivity. On the Newcastle side, near the seat of the Hon. E. Farley, Mrs. Gray and six children were cut off. At Muscongus and Broad Cove in Bristol, Wm. Hilton was killed, while
1 Penhallow's Indian Wars, p. 84. Lincoln Co. Commis. Reports, Hus- ton's Depo. p. 151.
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John Pearce took a vessel and thirty men with his aged father and family, and thus escaped by water.
Dr. Kenelem Winslow was seized at his garrison, on the Newcastle margin of Damariscotta, taken to Loud's Island near Round Pond, and there cruelly put to death.
The ancient Walter Philips plantation was now a second time reduced to a state of solitude and desolation.
ST. GEORGE'S ASSAILED.
The Indians now appeared before the hamlet June 15. on St. George's River, two hundred strong. The saw mills were fired. The newly-framed houses and the proprietors' sloop were all burned together. One man was killed and six made prisoners. The assault on the garrison, however, was repelled. Three months after, a yet larger force, with an attendant priest and Frenchmen, re- newed the attack. Five men were surprised and slain. Twelve days and nights the place was stormed, during which a surrender was urged and rejected. "Good quarter and transportation to Boston" were offered the besieged. The overtures could not induce a surrender. Maddened with taunts of defiance, an attempt to undermine the fort was made. Heavy rains had softened the earthy walls of the excavation, which caved in, and the savages, disheartened, retired, leaving twenty of their number behind, the victims of their discomfiture.
TILTON'S ADVENTURES AT DAMARISCOVE.
Lieut. Tilton had anchored his fishing boat under Damar- iscove, where he and his brother were taking fish. Led by a Kennebec sagamore, Capt. Samuel, the friend of Boma- seen, a savage of great bravery and duplicity, five Indians boarded Tilton, seized, pinioned, and beat both him and his brother most barbarously. Under this savage castigation, one of the brothers freeing himself, released the other, and
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together they fell on the savage band with the fury of des- peration, mortally wounded two, and tossed overboard another. The rest were glad to escape. Capt. Harmon with his company, from the lower waters of the Kennebec, made an expedition up the river. It was a night excursion. Descrying the light of camp fires on shore, Harmon turned his prow toward it. When landed he found eleven canoes moored to the bank.
Wearied with their carousal, and satiated with the bloody orgies of recent successes, before him lay the dark forms of the savages about their camp fires, fast locked in deep sleep. Over the bodies of the sleepers he stumbled as he dispatched them together to that land whose dread silence knows no waking. A considerable party lay near, which, roused by the startling death-cry of their comrades, rushed to arms, but firing random shots, fled.
A SCENE OF HORROR.
Fifteen guns were taken by the victors ; and on the stump of a tree, near the place of the savage bivouac, lay a white man's hand, severed from his trunk, his body, barbarously mutilated-the tongue torn out-the privates cut off-and without the nose ! These were the remains of Moses Eaton of Salisbury.
PUBLIC EXASPERATION.
All were panic-stricken at these outrages, and the clamor for war rang fiercely from hamlet to hamlet. War was declared. A thousand men were enrolled, and three hund- red were detached to break up the enemy's strong-holds on the Penobscot ; and a body of four hundred were sent to range perpetually by land and water between Penobscot and Kennebec. Bounties were offered by Government for In- dian scalps and captives. Cols. Westbrook and Walton. were chief in command.
16
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BATTLE OF ARROWSIC.
Penhallow's command occupied the lower end Sept. 10. of Arrowsic, probably the Watts settlement at Butler's Cove. At the dawn of morning light, a small escort was sent out to aid and protect the farmers in securing their crops. This escort came by surprise on a body of four or five hundred Indians, which had stealthily approached and lay in the woods, prowling about the village to surprise and destroy it.
Finding the discovery to be inevitable, the savages fired on the scout as it retreated to the fort. One fell dead, and three were wounded ; but the report of their fire-arms alarmed the entire settlement. The inhabitants, not yet scattered in their fields, hastily gathered their subsistence, and fled into garrison. The Indians raised the usual-whoop of war, and pursued. As they approached within range of vision, their appearance, gliding among the tall surrounding forest pines, painted, and terrible in the trappings of savage array, was truly terrific.
GARRISON STORMED.
The whole savage host at once assailed the garrison at every point. Through one of the port-holes, Samuel Brook- ing was shot dead. The assault was unsuccessful. No impression could be made on the garrison, which effectually shielded the defenders from the storm of shot and balls poured upon it. Discouraged, the Indians wreaked their vengeance on the cattle of the island, and set fire to the village of twenty-six houses.
During the night ensuing, Col. Walton and Capt. Harmon in whale-boats re-enforced the garrison with thirty men. Col. Robert Temple also joined his force to that of Penhal- low. Temple, from his service as captain in the Irish army, had acquired an experience which showed him to be on this
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occasion brave, prompt, and efficient. The report of the morning fight, or the alarm of Penhallow's guns below, had reached his ears, in the garrison plantation of Cork above, and drew him to the aid of Penhallow. Temple and Pen- hallow, making up a force of seventy men, led out a night attack. They assailed the savage hordes at their camp fires. But greatly out-numbered and out-flanked, and likely to be cut off from retreat by environing hosts of sav- ages, Temple and Penhallow retired from the conflict ; and the Indians took to their canoes in the darkness of the night, apparently satisfied with what they had already received.
As they paddled away, Captain Stratton of the Govern- ment sloop fell into their hands, and was mortally wounded. Insulting the garrison at Richmond in their passage up the Kennebec, the Indians returned to their head-quarters at Norridgewock ; and Georgetown, after six years resuscitated thrift, was once more desolated, and the region filled with dismay and despondency.
WESTBROOK'S EXPEDITION.
Col. Westbrook, appointed commander-in-chief, now detached a body of two hundred and thirty men, 1723. who, embarking at Kennebec, ranged the coast east- ward, and penetrated the upper Penobscot by water and land till he reached the principal Indian settlement, a village of twenty-three houses, enclosed with a stockade, and orna- mented with a chapel, all of which being abandoned, he committed to the flames. Col. Westbrook returned to the fort at St. George's with the loss of his chaplain, Rev. Benj. Gibson, and three of his command.
Capt. Harmon led another detachment up the Kennebec against Norridgewock, numbering one hundred and twenty men. Encountering the fierce snows and frosts of Febru- ary in their march through the wilderness of the Great-bend of the Androscoggin, an abandonment of the expedition was forced.
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Many discouragements overwhelmed this devoted section, consequent on the ill-success of the military operations. " No settlement, no vessel at anchor, no dwelling-house" escaped assault or destruction.
ST. GEORGE ATTACKED.
Fort George again was invested. Two prisoners were secured, and the place subjected to a siege of thirty days, without any successful result. Kennedy commanded, and repelled the invading force till relieved by Col. Westbrook's return.
BATTLE OF GEORGE'S RIVER.
Josiah Winslow, a native of Plymouth, a graduate 1724. of Harvard College, yet a youth, and connected with May. the most respectable families of Massachusetts, had
been assigned to the command of the fort on George's River, at the site of Thomaston.
One pleasant morning, early in May, invited by the fresh- ness and beauty of Spring-time, with a select company in two whale-boats, Capt. Winslow embarked for an excursion to the islands, a favorite haunt with the savages for taking fowls, probably at the mouth of the river, called " the green islands." The party concealed themselves and their boats during the night and the succeeding day of their arrival, in expectation of an approach of the enemy. Shortly before the setting of the sun, disappointed in meeting the savages, as anticipated, the party re-embarked for a return to the fort.
It would seem that the enemy had discovered the boat party, and had placed considerable numbers in ambush, on each shore of the narrow river. As the boats rowed leis- urely up the river, homeward bound, unsuspicious of evil, a flock of water-fowl drew the fire of one of the company. Contrary to the counsel of Winslow, who was in advance,
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Sergeant Harvey, in command of the rear boat, giving no heed to the warnings of his superior, " to keep close to him," turned in pursuit of the wounded bird, saying, -" Go easy on your oars, and I will presently be up with you." In pursuit of the poor bird, struggling for life in the despera- tion of its flight, the party were drawn toward the western bank of the river, when from copse-wood and thicket fire was opened on the boat by a body of savages there in con- cealment. Three of the crew fell dead, and the savages, hasting to their canoes, attempted to surround the party and cut off all retreat.
Harvey returned the fire ; but to escape overpowering numbers, the boat made with all expedition for the shore on the opposite side. Harvey had fallen. Winslow, alarmed and warned by the frequent discharge of musketry that his forebodings had been realized, although considerably in advance and out of peril, turned back to succor his men. Before he had reached a position to relieve the devoted band in his rear boat, now contending for their lives, he was him- self suddenly surrounded by a flotilla of thirty canoes with ninety braves, who rushed in upon him from each bank of the river, heralded by terrific yells of defiance, and attempt- ed to seize the boat and capture the men. The savages had approached very near when a sudden and murderous fire from the boats sent its death-flashes on all sides to greet them. Nothing daunted, the savage host pressed onward till from the gunwales of the whale-boat they were so fiercely repulsed and beaten off with clubbed muskets that they retired and dropped astern, maintaining the fight at a distance. The first boat in the fight, but the rear boat of the detachment, had reached the shore, when, encountering another party of savages as the shattered fragment of the boat's company landed, and selling their lives as dearly as possible, every soul was slain except three Christian Indians, who alone escaped to tell the tale !
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CAPT. WINSLOW'S DEATH.
Thus the recklessness of the gallant Harvey cost the lives of himself and comrades. Winslow, perceiving the case to be desperate, fought with a resolution death itself could not damp. In admiration of his courage and bravery, the sav- age foe offered him quarter, but rejecting all overtures, he fought on till night drew her somber shadows over the scene of carnage. In the dusk of evening, most of his company being slain, Winslow sought the shore, where the survivors landed, only to be shot down in detail. Capt. Winslow fell with his thigh broken to the ground ; on seeing the hero thus disabled, the Indians rushed on him, when rising from the ground and recovering himself on the other knee, the dying Winslow brought the foremost of his savage pursuers to the dust before they could slay him. Thus every white man fell in this bloody encounter, a gallant band whose heroism deserved a better fate. The brave Winslow was thus cut off, heroically faithful to his trust at the head of liis intrepid men, against fearful odds disputing every inch of ground, and holding at bay till dark the ferocious savage horde. He fell greatly beloved, universally lamented, accomplished and brave, in the first buddings of his opening manhood ; and it has never been known whether the bodies of that gallant band were given sepulture, or left to be devoured of beasts of prey. It is, however, more than probable that their bones bleached in the sun where their blood was shed to mingle in the dust of mother earth, or tinge the briny tide of the St. George, till they were covered with autumnal leaves or buried beneath the oozy bed of the river, there to wait the gathering of the resurrection morn- ing. What alternations of hope and fear, what deeds of personal valor, what incidents of startling interest, did the eleventh of May weave into the closing scene of the history of fifty human beings who began that morning with bright hopes and joyous anticipations ! The records of Eternity
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