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 18
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can only reveal in full and melancholy detail, the blood- stained colorings of the tragic end of the youthful Winslow and his brave comrades, under the hoary oaks and pines of the St. George River,-where naught now but,
" The winds that through the vernal showers, Or autumn's leafless branches moan, Pass sighing o'er their place of rest, To all surviving friends unknown."
SAVAGE FIRE-SHIPS.
Fully determined to destroy the fort, a party of savages passed up the river, and seizing and packing small vessels with combustible matter, they ignited the mass, converting them into fire-ships, and urged the burning pile forward so near as to endanger the block-houses. Untiring vigilance and exertion prevented the catastrophe, defeated the sav- age purposes, and thus discouraged from further attempts, all withdrew.
ARROWSIC AGAIN INVESTED.
The garrison at Butler's Cove on Arrowsic, still com- · manded by Penhallow, was again assailed, but with no better success. The discomfited savages retired, securing three of the settlers, who were taken while driving their cows to pasture. Deserting the Island, they left the tokens of their vengeance behind them, in the carcasses of the butchered herds, every where slain in their way. Thus foiled in their movements on the land, the Indians turned toward the sea. Gathering a fleet of fifty canoes, they steered for Monhegan. The fishermen who had put in for wood and water along the coast, were captured. Eight vessels and forty men, twenty of whom were slain, fell into their hands.
Fourteen vessels subsequently were taken, and the savages became at once a scourge and terror to all who went down to the sea to do business on the great waters.
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To repel this new mode of warfare, so unusual in Indian tactics, Jackson and Lakeman fitted out an expedition to meet the enemy at sea. No considerable result followed. Jackson was wounded ; and the Indians driven into Penob- scot Bay, sought shelter under the Fort of the Baron de Castine, on the heights of Bagaduce. But the sea was no field for the skill or policy of the Indians, in war, who soon tired of so toilsome and perilous a scene of warlike adven- ture.
BATTLE OF NORRIDGEWOCK.
It had been ascertained beyond reasonable doubt that Romisli and priestly influence was the chief exciting cause of savage hostilities, and that Father Ralle, the spiritual teacher of the Norridgewocks, had become a conspicuous and active agent in fomenting the strife.
Norridgewock was therefore marked for destruction ; and Rallé, the missionary, had become an object of public detest- ation to the English, though esteemed for his zeal and learn- ing by the distinguished men of his own nation, and vener- ated and loved by his charge, whose rights and interests he seemed to have at heart.
To effect the destruction of Norridgewock and the capture of Ralle, and to chastise the savages on the Kennebec, Captains Harmon, Moulton, Brown, and Bene were sent with two hundred men and seventeen whale-boats, up the Kennebec.
DEATH OF BOMASEEN.
Bomaseen, the Sachem of the Kannabas, whose hands still reeked with the warm blood of a victim to his scalping knife, near to Brunswick, was met by this force. Taking to the water to elude his pursuers, he was shot, and sank beneath the tide, where it was empurpled with his blood. His daugh- ter, too, shared her father's fate under the aim of the sharp-
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shooting white man, while the mother and wife was made a captive.
Encouraged by her story to prosecute their design, the detachment now debarked, and marched 1 for Norridgewock.
Approaching the place of their destination, the force divid- ed within two miles of the village, the one part to range the fields of growing corn, and the other to invest the town.
DEATH OF FATHER RALLE.
The several squadrons had reached within pistol shot before it was known at the village. A sanap, yielding to the necessities of nature, had come alone out of his wigwam, and made the first discovery of the presence of the invading force, whose whoop, as he sprang in for his gun, gave the alarm. But the soldiery had environed the village, and were yet concealed from view.
Surprise and consternation seized the residents of this for- est-embosomed town of half-christianized men. In the panic many seized their weapons of war, whose random firing did no execution. Others fled only to fall on the bayonets of ambushed white men, and many plunged into the waters of the Kennebec only to perish there ; and some took to their birchen boats to be precipitated over the falls below. The rout was terrible and complete. The body of Ralle, covered with the corpses of his fallen flock, was found near the cross in the center of the town, pierced with bullets, his scalp torn 2 off, his skull broken in, his mouth and eyes filled with mud, and his limbs fractured.
The village, the church, all were consigned to the flames. It was a stroke as terrible as it was unexpected ; and it broke the hearts of the Kannabas tribe of Indians. The pride of their power and their spirit as a people were subdued for- ever.
1 Penhallow, p. 105.
2 French account, Charlevoix, p. 120.
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The body of 1 Ralle was buried in the ashes of his church by his converts on their return to their war-blasted homes.
EFFECTS OF LOVEWELL'S WAR.
The heroic and desperate encounter between Love-
1725. well, l'augus, and Wahwa, at the mouth of Battle May 8. Brook, near Pegwacket Village, on the margin of Lovewell's Pond, in Fryeburg, completed the deso- lation of the tribe of the Sekokis, who were left in much the same condition as the Kannabas, after the death of Rallé and the sacking of Norridgewock.
The natives became anxious for peace. . To palliate recent violent acts on their part, " the encroachments of the whites upon their lands at Cape-newagen, where two of their friends had been beaten to death," were the causes alleged. Doubt- less, allusion was had to the affair of Capt. Tilton, off Dam- ariscove.
But these successes only increased the exasperation of the whites ; and it became so deep, that not unfrequently acts of gross outrage and wrong were perpetrated.
A small band of Indians repaired to St. George's under a flag of truce. A scouting party fell on them, and a sharp engagement followed, in which one white man was killed and another was wounded.
1 " Father Ralle was regarded by the English as a most infamous villain, and his scalp would have been esteemed worth a hundred scalps of the Indians.
The French esteem him as a hero and a saint. Forty years he spent in missionary toil and deprivation among the savages who loved and idolized him.
He was a man of superior natural powers, master of the learned lan- guages - pure classical and elegant in his Latin. He taught many of both sexes to write in their own tongue among his flock ; and in zeal, learning, and ability, might have ranked with Cotton, Mitchel, and others." - Hutch. Hist. Mass. vol. ii. p. 239.
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SAMUEL TRASK'S ADVENTURES.
Samuel Trask, when a boy, had been stolen from Salem by the Indians, and an appropriation for the purchase of his redemption was made by vote of the town. As no traces of him could be discovered, the money was applied to the pur- chase of a bell.
But Trask was a captive among the eastern Indians, and resided near the abode of the Baron de Castine on the Pe- nobscot. While a captive, a season of great scarcity occur- red, which drove the Indians to the cranberry beds for sub- sistence. While engaged in gathering cranberries, a flock of wild geese alighted, to feed near by. The birds were eagerly sought for food, and Trask 1 proving more success- ful in the capture of the birds than the natives, it com- mended him to his master's favor as a skillful huntsman. This skill and his seamanship brought him into the notice of Castine, who purchased him of his captors, and employed him on board his sloop. Lying at anchor off the southeast point of Sedgewick, an English sloop ran in and fired on Castine, who, deserting his vessel, fled with Trask and a native lad to the shore.
But the English commander ran up a white flag inviting and assuring Castine a safe return. Duped by the false pre- tences, Castine and the lad returned to their vessel. But Trask was seized by the Englishman, who declared the ves- sel a prize and Castine a prisoner, but permitted as a special favor his return to his people. Castine landed, leaving his property to the English freebooter. On being pursued by an English sailor, who seized the native boy, Castine shot him dead, rescued the lad and escaped.
The buccanier sloop set sail, with Trask, and departed. From this craft he was transferred to the companionship of Captain Kid, with whom he had been accustomed to visit the
1 R. Sewall's Narrative.
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Sheepscot and cut1 spars from the head-land on the north shore of Oven's Mouth, and who often carcened his ships within the deep creeks and coves of this river. On the cap- ture of Kid, and the dispersion of his crew, Trask retired to his haunts on the Sheepscot, and made his clearing within eye-shot of an alleged deposit of Kid's treasure on the cast margin of Folley Island, within the precincts of the carly " Free-town," now incorporated as Edgecomb.
His experience among the Indians gave him celebrity as one skilled in the curative art ; and hence he was recognized among the early settlers of Free-town, as Dr. Trask. But he had acquired a relish for strong drink ; and an early set- tler of Free-town, Cunningham by name, whose tippling-slied Trask frequented, wormed out of the old man, while in liis cups, the secret of the "pot of money ; " and it is asserted on good authority, as coming from an eye-witness, that under cover of night, lighted by the moon-beams, the " seller of grog" visited Folley Island in a canoe, and forestalled Trask, by digging up and securing the buried gold.
DAMARISCOVE ATTACKED.
While peace was sought by most, occasional mischief was perpetrated by roving bands of savages.
As Stephen Hunwell 2 and Alex. Soaper lay in the haven of Damariscove, a war-party paddled to sea, and there seized their vessels and burned them, and made prisoners of the ship's company. These unfortunate fishermen were taken into the Kennebec ; and at Winnegance were put to death in cold-blooded barbarities, offered probably in sacrifice to the manes of slaughtered clansmen, as faggots to the fires which lighted the dance of victory, or set as marks to the flying tomahawk and life-drinking scalping knife.
1 Hon. S. Parsons.
2 Penhallow's Indian Wars.
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DUMMER'S PEACE.
These atrocities were preludes to the celebrated pacific overtures of Lieut. Gov. Dummer, which had so long been maturing, and were completed in " Dummer's Treaty," rat- ified at Falmouth. This celebrated treaty gave hope of enduring repose to this distracted and desolate sec- tion, in whose bonds the leading chiefs from Penob- 1727. scot to Canada joined, and which was confirmed Aug. 3. by a solemn dance of peace, in which all the most sacred tokens of savage faith were plighted.
EFFECTS OF THE WAR.
If the savages had been great sufferers, the damage they had done to the reviving settlements of the "Ancient Dominions " was enormous. Georgetown had been made deeply to drink of affliction. Openings in the forest wilds that had begun to bud with promise of civilization, and become attractive as centers of business, were blasted for- ever.
The town of Augusta at Small Point Harbor with its fortified works of stone, projected, fostered, and built up by Dr. Noyes, had been utterly depopulated ; the houses with the fort were all destroyed and burnt ; 1 and although an attempt was subsequently made to revive and rebuild the place by the Rideouts, Hales, Springers, Owens, and others from Falmouth, it failed.
At the military posts, according to treaty, stores with goods supplied by Government in charge of its own agent, termed a " Truck-master," were opened for trade, where, in exchange for peltries and furs, the Indians could obtain the commodities of civilized life.
TRUCK-HOUSES.
These public establishments greatly facilitated the inter- course of Government with the savages, and fostered the
1 John McKeen, Esq.
1
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measures of peaceful repose to the country. The action of Government in these premises greatly interfered with the operations of speculators, who had battened on ill-gotten gains as " Indian traders ;" and who resorted to every device to elude responsibility and prosecute illicit traffic.
DAGGET'S CASTLE.
A precipitous steep on the western banks of the Sheepscot still bears the name of "Dagget's Castle," marking the point where an "Indian trader " or sca-rover was accus- tomed to moor his sloop, and beat up " truck " with the savages. "Dagget's Castle " is nearly a perpendicular wall of granitic gneiss, whose face rises more than a hundred feet above the surface of the waters, about whose base the channel of the river winds and curls in eddying tides. Moored in one of these deep tide pools, to this lofty steep, the savage could only approach on one side in his fragile birchen canoe ; and out of it with unsteady foot-hold on the capricious bottom, swayed to and fro by the sweeping eur- rents, carry on trade. Thus protected in his sloop by the towering eliff-side, "Dagget " called it his castle ; and at the top of his sloop's mast is said to 1 have painted his hand as a sign on the face of the rock. From the summit of this lofty steep, it is also said that spars and mast timber have been cut ; and in the fall of the mighty trees, as they broke from the stump on the brow of these giddy heights, they were accustomed to make a clean leap into the watery depths below, where, till a late day, submerged and fastened in the oozy bottom by their tops, the butts have appeared swaying in the tide.
DUCK-HUNTING.
Other traditional incidents, explanatory of familiar local names and points of interest, are given on the same author-
1 Hon. S. Parsons.
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ity. An ancient planter on "Jewonke Neck," who had been often a captive, and well understood the native dialect, both of the Penobscot and Kennebec tribes, said the aborig- inal name of the Sheepscot signified " many duck waters," which taken with the fact given by Penhallow 1 of the immense multitude of this fowl there hunted and slain with billets of wood and canoe paddles according to an annual custom, renders the appellation exceedingly appropriate to the ancient waters of the Sheepscot as a haunt for the wild duck, where were favorite feeding grounds for their young.
HOCK-OMOCK.
" Hockomock Head," which thrusts its bold steeps and rears its rocky cliffs amid the waters of the bay, whose east- ern and western outlets are through lower and upper " hurl- gate," by the inland passage between the Sheepscot and Kennebec, took its name from the following circumstance, as given on the authority of the ancient men who lived and died near the spot about a century and a half ago.
At the head of the bay formed by " Phips' Point" on the east and Hockomock Neck on the west, in the southeastern corner of the present town of Woolwich, was early built a settlement or hamlet of the first planters and probably the artisans in Phips' ship-yard. Among the first indica- tions of hostility, the visit of a war party to this hamlet, which they subsequently plundered and burned, alarmed the residents, who, seeking the strong-holds of this precip- itous promontory among its cliffs and steeps, in flying over the neck, were pursued by the savages. A Scotchman, less fleet of foot than his fellows from age or corpulence, his head protected with a wig of antique size and fashion, brought up the lagging rear, and soon fell within grasp of the pursuing red-man, whose outstretched hand laid hold
1 Penhallow, p. 84.
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on the flowing wig for a head of hair which promised a magnificent trophy to the scalping knife.
But, to the surprise and consternation of the savage, the " periwig" clave to his hold, while the apparently headless body still ran on, leaping from steep to steep, utterly indif- ferent to what had been left behind. The astonished sav- age, believing he had been running a race with the devil, suddenly stopped, and dropping the wig in superstitious horror, turned to fly in the opposite direction, crying to his comrades, 1 " Hockomock ! Hockomock !" the Devil ! the Devil !
LIBERALITY OF GOVERNMENT.
The exchanges at the truck-liouses were conducted on the most liberal principles ; and although they yielded no reve- nue to the public treasury, they tended greatly to assure the public tranquility.
THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE.
On a clear, serene, and cool Sabbath evening, near 1727. midnight, the last of October, a deep, hollow sound,
like the roaring of a chimney on fire, the rattling of ten thousand coaches over rocky pavements swelling into distant thunder echoes, roused the dwellers in New England from their sleep with startling intimations of dan- ger.
The terrific reverberations rising in the northwest and rolling toward the southeast, accompanied with a tremor of the earth's surface, was preceded by a running flash of blu- ish flame at each shock. The sea roared as the earth trem- bled ; and opening in some parts of New Hampshire, " cast up a very fine, bluish sand, 2 followed by out-gushing wa- ters."
1 Hon. Stephen Parsons, tradition of Greenleaf of Oak Island.
2 White's Hist. New England, p. 49.
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Beasts ran howling to the fields as if in great distress. The earth heaved. The houses rocked and creaked. Chim- neys were riven. Doors, windows, and walls were broken ; the glass ware clattered, and, in some instances, with a crash, fell to the floors. All nature was in commotion. Men, with surprise and terror, trembling with the earth on land, and on the sea tossed with their ships, which plunged along as if grating over shoals of ballast-stone, began to wonder at the power of Him " who will yet once more shake both the land and the sea," till their place shall no more be found.
Such were the effects of the second memorable earth- quake in New England, within the recollections of Euro- pean history.
Peace still reigned within the borders of the ancient dominions of Maine, now merged into a county of which York was the capital, and Yorkshire the civil name.
But population flowed slowly in to re-occupy the wasted plantations. The lands between the Kennebec and St. George's Rivers were most attractive ; and more than a cen- tury had passed since the first occupancy and improvement thereof, during which they had been planted and re-planted for three generations, and as often devastated ; and now only about one hundred and fifty families occupied the entire section.
17
CHAPTER VI.
ANTE-REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
WE have reached an epoch marked with the closing scenes of the sanguinary conflicts with the aboriginal 1729. inhabitants, and the opening incidents of the final re-settlement of the country on a peaceful and permanent basis, in which the existing social development received its cast ; and in which, also, those causes first began to move which have shaped our existing social, civil, and religious organizations.
George II. sat on the throne of England, under whose administration was sent out a most efficient agent in the re-settlement of the Ancient Dominions of Maine, and who laid and shaped the foundations of our existing social and religious structure, and who introduced a new and vigorous element in the final re-population of this part of Maine.
We have alluded to the colonial influx of the Scotch-Irish to this region under Robert Temple. David Dunbar, a military officer -( it is said a Colonel in the Irish army, ) - armed with a commission from the Crown of England, as "Surveyor General of the King's Woods and Governor of Sagadahoc," now appeared.
On reaching the shores of Sagadahoc, Governor Dunbar repaired to the fortress at Pemaquid. He rebuilt its walls, restored the breaches and decay of Fort Wm. Henry.
1
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Thus renovated, he named this ancient strong-hold, Fort Frederick. Here, on the site of the ancient Jamestown, he took up his abode, planting the Presbyterian church, whose services were administered according to the religious faith and forms of the " Kirk of Scotland," by Rev. Robert Ruth- erford.
DUNBAR EMIGRATION.
The Provincial Governor, Dunbar, by Royal order was required " to settle 1 as well as to superintend and govern Sagadaloc." This order was made known by proclamation from the Throne. His first movements were directed to the locating and laying out of cities and towns ; and on the Sheepscot and Damariscotta waters, at the most eligible sites, he projected three ; viz., Townsend, Harrington, and Walpole. Townsend embraced the aboriginal Cape Ne-wa- gen, about the head water margins of the harbor, where had been the scene of the explorations of George Weymouth's expedition. Harrington and Walpole were within the Pem- aquid and Damariscotta sections of Bristol, whose . earliest planters, from the city of Bristol, England-many of them the shipwrecked voyagers of the Angel Gabriel - had given the name of the city of their father-land to the spot misfortune had compelled them to clear, plant, and colonize.
Col. Dunbar with zeal and energy applied his extraordi- nary powers to fill up the country with emigrants from Europe. To afford adequate defense, he procured a detach- ment of Royal troops, and re-occupied Fort Frederick.
In pursuance of the great end of his mission, he employed agents, and stimulated their activity by land grants ; and to each settler a homestead lot of ten 1 to twelve acres was given, with proportionate and adequate lots of an hundred acres back.
1 Depositions, Commiss. Reports, L. Co.
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McCobb and Rogers, as agents of Dunbar, were by him granted a section of the newly laid-out Towns- 1730. end, on condition that they should fill up the town- ship by introducing emigrants from Europe. Dunbar also assigned portions of Walpole and Harrington to Montgom- ery and Campbell on the same conditions.
The settlers were procured ; and the descendants of these emigrants to this day form most of the inhabitants of Booth- bay. 1 Ten and twelve acre lots were assigned for home- steads in the Dunbar towns, and the inhabitants held and supposed they were to hold their lands under the Dunbar title, 1 under which impression the men of Bristol fought the battles of the Revolution in defense of their lands, till by land or sea " one-quarter part of the able-bodied men of the town fell " !
The countrymen of these parties, agents and principal, were of the Scotch-Irish stock, as their names sufficiently indicate. The sympathies of this race were therefore enlisted, and their interest stimulated by attractive visions of a home of their own ; and multitudes of that vigorous people were allured to the rock-bound shores of Sagadahoc, which were thus planted with a people radically Presbyte- rian in all their proclivities, and uncompromising enemies of the Church of Rome in every age, since the days of Wickliff and John Knox.
The sympathies of Dunbar were strongly and naturally allied to the Crown, and adverse to the jurisdiction of Mas- sachusetts. Representing Royal authority, his own interests and ambition coincided with the Royal prerogatives. Act- ing with the vigor of precise military habits, accustomed as he had been to command, Dunbar made good success indeed in executing his plans, but acquired a reputation for arbi-
1 McCobb's Deposition, Lincoln Co. Rep. p. 157. Boyd's Deposition, Lincoln Co. Rep. p. 158.
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trary conduct which aroused deep and wide-spread preju- dices.
Dunbar soon removed his residence from Pemaquid to the site of his newly-projected city of Walpole, and on Bel- videra Point, at the head of the lower bay, he had marked out the plan of the city, and began it by building himself a house. Armed with a royal commission, in the midst of a sympathizing exotic population, whose duty it was for him to govern, as well as people the land as the King's Surveyor, forest and lands were subject to his control ; and the lands were parceled out to the emigrants introduced by himself and his agents, as part of the policy of his administration. In the execution of this policy, his position necessarily brought him in collision with the interests of the original proprietors and non-resident claimants, as well as with tres- passers on the public domain, -a class of rough, hardy men, who would not shrink from a trial of rights, in " the appli- cation of swamp law." Bridger's experience was Dunbar's. As a matter of course, great clamor was raised against the Royal Governor, to his prejudice.
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