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 19
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OPPOSITION OF THE PROPRIETORS.
In this clamor, Waldo was conspicuous and persistent. The interest and sympathies of the proprietors were with Massachusetts, where they chiefly had a residence ; and by their influence the local government was soon enlisted against Dunbar. The combination, at length, effected his removal to the Province of New Hampshire, leaving the people planted by him and his agents entirely exposed to the rapacity of the proprietary claimants, whose oppressive acts finally compelled Government to interfere to prevent civil war. Dunbar's policy resulted in the augmentation of a thrifty agricultural population by creating a personal interest in the land they might occupy. The proprietors were interested in this increase of population, but only so
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far as it made a market for the sale of their lands. But Dunbar could no longer protect ; and the Drown, the Brown, the Tappan, and the Plymouth companies over-rode all local rights and interests of the occupants of the soil, the barrier being now broken down between them and the proprietors.
On his departure, Gov. Dunbar delivered his homestead at Belvidera into the custody of his religious teacher, Rev. Mr. Rutherford ; and the city contemplated at Walpole became an abortion. At the falls of the Damariscotta and the site of the ancient New Dartmouth on the Sheepscot, as at that of the embryo city at Belvidera Point in Walpole, a considerable population had begun to concentrate.
The Jones, the Hustons, the Hiscocks, the Kennedys, had become fixed in their residence at these points.
The garrison system still prevailed ; and there can be no doubt that the advent of Col. Dunbar to the gubernato- rial seat in Sagadahoc constitutes an important era in the history of this region ; and the movements of this officer, though viewed with suspicion and denounced as oppressive by the Massachusetts proprietary claimants, were eminently successful in re-peopling our wastes, and are still felt in the character of the population by him introduced. A more intelligent, enterprising, fearless, thrifty, peaceful, and vig- orous race cannot be found on earth than the descendents of the Dunbar emigration, who still hold and occupy the Dunbar towns.
The entire section received a revivifying impulse from Gov. Dunbar's well-planned, liberal, and wise policy ; and the chief detractors of Dunbar's merited fame and his most successful opponents were the proprietors of antiquated claims to large bodies of landed estate, who in the end became the real oppressors of the people, and were the favor- ites of Massachusetts, because they were men of wealth and influence.
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INFLUENCE OF THE SCOTCH-IRISH ELEMENT.
The Scotch-Irish immigration, introduced under 1730. Dunbar's policy, now began to set freely in upon our shores, urged hither by the commotions consequent upon the Revolution in England, which the Popish procliv- ities of James, the last of the Stuart dynasty, seem to have excited. This influx of a new race from the Emerald Isle was borne on one of those vast surges following the throes of the religious element in human nature, which often in the history of our race has tossed and shaken empires and the world to its center !
On this surge came Protestantism, also driven by ghostly power, seeking an asylum on our shores, where the blood- red tracks were traced indeed in the frontier homes along our river margins and through our forest wilds, but where the hand of persecution could not reach.
This tide of life from the hills and valleys of Ulster, forced westward by the treacherous breath of the bigoted Tyrconnel, the representative of the interest of James Stu- art in Ireland, rolled over the desolate clearings and wasted hamlets of the " Ancient Dominions," re-peopling our bor- ders with a pious and zealous civilization.
Fresh and fervid from the siege of Londonderry and the battle-fields of Enniskillen, came the children of the Kirk, nursed on the bosom of Presbyterianism, full of faith, hope, and zeal, panting for freedom to worship God. Such were the people who planted the ancient clearings of Bristol, Cape Newagen, and the Arrowsie towns, with seed from the best stock of Europe. Such were the sources whence these wastes were filled in the final re-settlement of this region. Bristol, Boothbay, Georgetown, and Phipsburg were re- planted. The fireside tale, the thrilling story of a winter evening's gathering around the hearth-stone of venerable age, perpetuating the remembrance of the deeds and daring,
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the hopes and faith of a chivalrous ancestry, were graphic details of the events of the siege of Londonderry, on which the aged and pious Joseph Beath 1 of Townsend was wont to dwell, while the tears ran down his furrowed cheeks as he rehearsed the wrongs and deliverances of that memora- ble act in the glory and shame of England.
The Temples, Beaths, Murrays, all figured in the scenes of that siege, of which the living center was " Black Wil- liam," the familiar designation of the husband of Queen Mary, the daughter of the fugitive James, now called to the English Throne by the voice of Protestantism. And the events, scenes, and issues of that day may well be remembered, for they marked the ages to come, while yet in embryo, as well as the age in which they lay.
Over the scenes of the siege of Londonderry Joseph Beath wept as he rehearsed the thrilling story in the ears of the rising generations of Townsend, the perils, fortitude, faith, and zeal of their ancestry, who had sought a home on the margins of the magnificent harbor of Townsend, and in the wilds of Maine. The simple faith of this emigrant race is well illustrated in the following anecdote of Andrew Reed, the uncle of the Rev. John Murray, and a principal settler of Townsend. During the war of the last savage conflict, the residents at the harbor withdrew to the west -- ward for safety. But Mr. Reed would not leave, and in. defiance of all persuasion, persisted in remaining in his sim -- ple shelter of a " log cabin." Contrary to expectation, the returning fugitives found him alive and unharmed in the. Spring ; and to their excited inquiries he calmly replied that he had felt neither solitude nor alarm :- for- why should he ? " Had I not my Bible with me ?" cried the. old man. 2
1 Mrs. Weymouth of Boothbay Harbor.
2 Mrs. Weymouth.
-
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The neighboring groves of beech and oak and the ready hand-sled -and the coaster's sloop-were the great resour- ces of commerce at this date ; and this pious and aged fron- tier's man, during the long and solitary winter, piled the cord-wood on the landing, and in the book of God wore out its dreary solitudes in drawing out its Christian consolations.
VAUGHN'S ENTERPRISE.
William Vaughn, extensively engaged in the fish- 1730. eries at Monhegan Island, at the head waters of the Damariscotta, now erected large milling establislı- ments for grain and the manufacture of lumber. Here a large and thrifty village started into existence, and grew in wealth and importance so long as lumbering resources remained.
He had now removed his residence and built a mansion house near his mills, which not long after was consumed, and the Dunbar grants and land titles, it is supposed, were destroyed therewith ; and the village which grew up, to this day, as the capital of the town of Nobleboro', is known as "Damariscotta Mills," the vast, unappropriated water- powers of the site of which will ere long lay the founda- tions of a city which will become the Lowell of Maine,
WISCASSET.
Seventy years prior to these events, within the precincts of the aboriginal Ped-coke-gowake, 1 on an eminence half a mile north of the point in Wiscasset Bay, on the Sheepscot, fifty rods from the water-side, George Davis, his brother, and two others had made their plantation in the heart of a for- est, beneath the sheltering branches of mighty becch trees and tall pines. This was the original European plantation, ·on the west margins of Wiscasset Bay, and the first begin- nings of the shire town of Lincoln County.
1 Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. vii. p. 163.
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At the close of Philip's war, this plantation was broken up; and the families left their clearings crowning the heights which shade the beautiful landscape environing the bay, to desolation and solitude. The portrait of one of the matrons of this pioneer hamlet of the Sheepscot, the widow of one of the Davises, who died in Newton at the age of one hundred and sixteen years, adorns the rooms of the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston.
By transfer and inheritance, the lands of George Davis of Wiscasset passed into the title of several wealthy men of Boston, who were associated as the " Boston Company."
Robert Hooper was the earliest re-settling resident at this conspicuous point. He entered half a mile south of the early and original Davis plantation ; and reared his log house by the side of a large rock, some three rods from the water. The site of his home was romantic and conspicuous. The point is broken into a considerable eminence, rolling back from the shore margins, bold in outline on its eastern front ; and in its original vesture of oak and pines, present- ing the aspect of a noble headland, rising from the depths of the bay, at the confluence of three tides, which feature " Wichcasset," an aboriginal name, is said to describe. It must have been a conspicuous landmark in the early navi- gation of these waters, on the upper margins and land-falls of which the ancient " Sheepscot Farms " smiled in fertility and freshness.
On the dispersion of the earliest occupants, the Davis families, for half a century the clearings lay waste, without an inhabitant ; and the original hamlet sank where it rose, amidst its own ruin and decay.
Its revival at the point under Hooper gave to the locality a pre-eminence it has ever since maintained as a center of trade, in its earlier history, in the exportation of spar tim -. ber to Europe. Hooper subsequently removed from the
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point to the peninsula under " Cushman's Mountain," as a place of greater security from savage alarms.
Foye and Lambert followed Hooper, and Robert 1731. Hodge re-occupied the Patishall grant on the cast- ern and opposite shore. Two miles below the point, 1734. the Boyntons, Taylors, Youngs, and Chapmans took up their homes.
THE GARRISON HOUSE.
On the crown of the headland at the point, was erected the garrison of the hamlet, the defense from savage attack, and the asylum of the planters. Emigrants from England swelled the re-peopling current at the point in Wiscasset Bay. Capt. Jonathan Williamson was the leading spirit of the English emigration, and eminent among the first settlers at the point, who established his home on the peninsula south of Hooper's, known as " Birch Point."
Probably some of the Dunbar emigration from Scotland and Ireland found their way to this settlement, which con- sisted of members of the English Episcopal Church, some Presbyterians, and largely of Massachusetts Puritans. The Congregational clement prevailed ; and the community finally settled down in their religious organization, under the polity of that denomination, and Thomas Moore was called to be their religious teacher.
Dunbar's influence was not controling at the point Those in sympathy with his movements were unquestionably absorbed in the paramount interest of the Massachusetts proprietors ; and Wiscasset Point, from that day to this, has been the only locality where the Congregationalism peculiar to Massachusetts has retained its features.
A considerable population had returned to Arrowsic, and occupied the southern end of the island, so that for two miles in extent, every ten acres of land had a dwelling
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house, 1 whose inhabitants were made up chiefly of Irish emigrants.
Col. Dunbar having been removed to New Hampshire, the re-occupancy and population of the country went slowly on. Nevertheless, new openings were made at various points, pushing into the wilderness as the old clearings were filled up ; and the natural resources of the country began to be opened. 2 Robert McIntyre discovered the properties of the lime-rock formation of St. George's River, and erect- ed a kiln for the manufacture of quick-lime.
WALDO IMMIGRATION.
Waldo now adopted Dunbar's policy, and a con- siderable population was introduced by Alexander 1740. McLean, McIntyre, Howard, and Spear, in the east, from Europe. These agents visited the Kennebec and Pem- aquid, as well as the St. George's River, and were so " struck with the advantages of that river as at once to give its sec- tion the preference."
WALDOBORO' FOUNDED.
Companies were enrolled, and all the outlines of a more perfect military organization were traced. Wal- 1740. do had become a resident of Maine. From Bruns- wick and Saxony forty families were drawn into Maine by his efforts. They left Massachusetts Bay and sailed east ; and reaching " Broad Bay," planted about its head-waters the thrifty town of " Waldoboro'."
At " Long Reach," in the west, Jonathan Philbrook, from Greenland, New Hampshire, cleared and occupied the island on which are now located the Custom House, 1741. Banks, and principal business center of the city of Bath.
1 MSS. Papers of Hon. Mark L. Hill.
2 Eaton's Annals, p. 48-55.
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MRS. PORTERFIELD'S NARRATIVE.
The stimulus imparted to emigration by Dunbar 1741. and his coadjutors in filling up the depopulated plan- tations of the ancient Ducal Province, continued to draw from their homes in Ireland ship-loads of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. In the course of these voyages, accidents of peculiar and distressing interest have tinged the history of this region with long-remembered sorrows.
The story of a Mrs. Porterfield of Georgetown has left a record of one of the most distressing casualties of the kind, which we will give in detail, 1 as it illustrates the character of some of the early settlers of the region, and shows how far selfishness can go to extinguish humanity.
A large ship's company set sail from London- Aug. 28. derry with propitious gales and hopeful prospects, under Commander Rowen. A majority of the emigrants were men of piety, and zeal of that bold, marked, and decided stamp which has ever invested Presbyterianism with a character of vigor and force.
" The ship's company daily assembled on the quarter deck. for prayers, conducted by some of the passengers." A vio- lent storm, ten weeks out, drove the ship from her course, and carried her masts by the board. Provisions were ex- hausted. Land was made on the castern coasts : Oct. 28. - an island or neck inhabited only by savages.
On these desolate shores one hundred human beings were landed, without provisions or shelter. Some twenty or thirty persons of this unfortunate company went out in search of inhabitants, but never more returned. The captain, officers, and crew, in the ship's boats, in a few days made land about New Harbor, near the Kennebec. In the meantime, the ship, driven upon a small island, was broken up, and with two small vessels obtained at the har-
1 White's New England, p. 203.
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bor, the ship's company returned to secure the plunder. Collecting what plunder they could, the captain and his company returned to New Harbor, taking with them such of the passengers as they could sell for servants, the others being left to their fate under circumstances the most dis- tressing and hopeless. Muscles from the beach, dulce from the rocks, and sea-kelp were seetlied in a pot for food, and served out to the remnant of these shipwrecked voyagers. For two months, life was thus sustained. Daily, Death multiplied his victims around, and thinned out their num- bers- the males sinking sooner than the females, as though less capable of endurance. The savages at length discov- ered this shipwrecked company, and plundered them of all they had left. Snow came ; and their blankets, suspended from neighboring tree-tops to shelter their bodies from the storm, were taken away by the ruthless free-booters.
Their boiling vessel having been carried off, Mrs. Porter- field, searching among the dead, found a sauce-pan, in which they continued to cook their meager and unsavory morsel. In her mess were nine persons, and the scene about her was shocking in the extreme. There lay an infant child and its boy brother, whose parents had died on ship-board, locked in each other's embrace in death ; and heaps of dead had fallen one on the other, from cold and starvation ; and as the crowning horror, near by sat a youth, as he had died, infatuated with the promise of his faithless commander to return and take him off, still gazing sea-ward with a book in hand, and fixed in his strange attitude by the icy stroke of death !
At length the whole company lay about fallen in groups of ghastly corpses over the desolate and unknown place, excepting Mrs. Porterfield, her mother, and sister. In a fierce snow storm their fire was lost ; and with nothing to cover themselves but the heavens, no food but frozen mus- cles, their extremity had become one of desperation. The
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next day the mother died ; and there was none to bury her. Shoeless, houseless, and famishing, exposed to the full, bleak, fierce, cutting winds of December, the sisters gave themselves up to die, when they were discovered by three men who had come to search for plunder among the dead, and who were much surprised there to meet the living, where it was expected to find only the dead ! Listening to the story of these forlorn and wo-begone females, they proposed to take them as servants if they preferred it to starvation. The overture was joyfully accepted, and these wreckers from New Harbor, taking away a bundle of cloth- ing containing her Bible, received Mrs. Porterfield and her sister on board their vessels, and plundering the ship and stripping the dead, sailed away. To repay themselves for receiving these distressed and shipwrecked survivors, the sisters were sold into service, and the proceeds pocketed by the heartless ruffians. What a commentary on human nature !
At length discovered by a fellow-countryman,-" a kind and pitiful Irishman "-the hapless women were befriended by liim. His assurance of protection against the extortion- ate and oppressive demands of their heartless salvors, was made good. He proved to be a man who feared God. By Christian counsel and kindness he soothed their sorrows and calmed their fears, taking them to his own house, and hos- pitably entertaining them there ; and when recovered from their depression and disease, he procured for each of them good places, the one in Boothbay and the other in 1741. Georgetown ; and at this time there was a general manifest attention to religion, " the professors of religion being greatly animated by the good work which was going on." Destitute of the preached word, without a min- ister, " the people met together every Sabbath, and fre- quently on other days," to worship God in public, "by prayer, singing psalms, and reading instructive books."
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Georgetown became the home of the subject of the above narrative, where she finally settled, reared a large family, died, and was buried.
DISTURBING EFFECTS ON THE SAVAGES.
The encroachments of European immigration upon the forests of the East, where the touch of civilized 1742. life caused hamlets in clustering villages to gather about the head-waters and along the river-banks and har- bors, under the shadow of forts where the rush of pent-up waters and the clatter of mills sent their echoes through the dense old forest trees, which fell and faded from exist- ence, perpetually annoyed the fretted red-man. He com- plained of Waldo and his people, " that Indian lands and rights had been encroached upon ; and that they could no longer endure the sight of such flagrant wrongs."
But these complaints were stifled by the hand of power, and savage jealousies glowed in unextinguished fervor. Ten years' repose from war had not cooled savage resent- ment, nor allayed his fears. Unfortunate occurrences; heightened these resentments. An Indian woman had been. arraigned at the capital of Yorkshire for murder ; and the- frequent report of fire-arms through the forests, and the. " bones and hoofs of an ox purloined from the white man's. herd, found in an adjacent swamp among the ashes of a sav -- age camp-fire," all foreboded approaching hostilities.
SHIRLEY'S ADMINISTRATION.
The fort at St. George was rebuilt, reinforced, and placed in command of Capt. Jabez Bradbury. Shir- 1743 .. ley had replaced Gov. Belcher in authority. The blood-red clouds of war still lowered.
THE SPANISH WAR-A TRIANGULAR STRUGGLE.
The able-bodied men were enrolled as minute men. An. army of four hundred was organized, and each man required.
18
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to have in readiness a good gun, sufficient ammunition, a good hatchet, an extra pair of shoes or moccasins, and a pair of snow-shoes. 1 Old wounds of honor, old sores of prejudice, were opened afresh. France, England, and Spain were all involved together. The savages were stir- 1744. red up to waste the exposed frontiers, and war was proclaimed against them in Boston.
From Brunswick to St. George, a tier of block-houses had been reared along the outskirts of the forests, to each of which was appended a body of troops for scouting par- ties, which ranged from post to post, forming a cordon of sentinels around the frontiers.
BLOCK-HOUSES.
Block-houses were reared at Brunswick, Topsham, Rich- mond, Wiscasset, with Vaughn's block-house on Damaris- cotta, at Broad Bay, and St. George's, all of massive timber. Vaughn of Damariscotta became a most important actor in the scenes now opening.
FALL OF LOUISBURG.
Col. Vaughn was a man of intrepid character, keen per- ception, and great enterprise. He had become familiar with the situation of Louisburg, the French capital of the East, believed to be the nest where savage war parties were hatched to swarm over the adjacent English frontiers.
Information gathered from his fishermen had suggested to Vaughn the idea of the capture of this strong-hold. He conceived that a surprisal was feasible. The Governor list- ened to his suggestions. Vaughn's project was adopted, and Louisburg fell under a combined movement of the col- onial naval and land forces, led by Tyng, Pepperell, Wal- do, and Moulton. Vaughn accompanied the expedition, commissioned as Colonel, Pepperell being chief in com-
) Williamson's Hist. vol. ii. p. 214.
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mand, whose success in the capitulation of the cap- 1745. ital of French Acadia gave great renown to the arms Jan. of New England, as well as relief to the perils of the eastern frontier.
A FRONTIER HOME.
Each period of settlement has been marked by the style of buildings used for human habitations, and has had its natural development in characteristic features. In the vestiges of these primitive homes along our river-margins, we may trace the age of the settlement. The rivers were the high- ways ; and at the outset, not even a line of spotted trees indicated a land-track. Roads and streets are the product of time, wealth, civilization, and populousness. On the banks and margins of water-courses, in the first openings of a new country, will be found the vestiges of the pioneer- homes. A simple structure of logs was reared from the butts of the ancient trees, fallen by the pioneer axe on the spot where they were cut down for a clearing. The walls of a rectangular structure thus built were covered with bark or thatch. The enclosed earth was excavated for a cellar, which was unwalled. The excavation is then planked over with riven logs of pine ; and a trap-door in the center of the flooring let you into the bowels of the primitive struc- ture, consisting of a single room below and a garret above, to which a ladder led the ascent.
In one corner of the log-walled room, a large fire-place opened its cavernous depths. The back and one side was built of stone, while a wooden post set the opposite jamb, supporting a horizontal beam for a mantelpiece. Through the bark thatch or slab roof, or outside and up the back wall the building, was reared a cob-work of cleft wood, whose interstices were filled with mortar-clay, which in place of brick and mortar, was called "cat and clay." On the hearth, usually a flat stone, an ample store of wood was
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heaped, which was felled at the door, while the capacious fire-place, glowing with light and heat from the blazing hearth-pile, not only illumined the whole interior, but afforded a snug corner for the indiscriminate stowage of a bevy of little ones. On the margins of the Sheepscot, now can be distinctly traced in the old farm sites, each develop- ment of the architectural stage of its population, from the rude primitive shelter of the pioneer planter, to the walled, framed, and 'neat cottage structure of the present gener- ation.
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