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 21
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MURDER OF MARGARET MOXA.
The valorous white men concentrated their fire on the defenseless and unwarned family group, and the death tale of thirty-one bullets reported a sanop slain, the squaw mor- tally wounded, and the papoose unscathed ! This donc, the force rushed on to secure the plunder of their bleeding vic- tims, encountered the dying mother, still holding her babe, anxious only for its life, and in the silent but eloquent appeal of her condition to the white man's mercy, uttering the request that " her little nit might be taken to St. George's and delivered to Capt. Bradbury." One of the crew, more ruffianly than his fellows, civilized and Christian in name, but barbarous and brutal in fact, replied to the dying mother, " every nit will make a louse," and at a blow, dashed out the infant's brains before her eyes! Such was the cruel fate of Margaret Moxa-a savage-but a woman and a mother, as she returned from the fort, on one of her accustomed errands of good will, to save her neighbors- the more savage white man-from impending perils.
Seizing the canoe to make sure his retreat, Cargill pushed on from this scene of atrocities to "Owl's Head," where at sunset, discovering a body of natives, he shot nine of their number, tore off their scalps, and returning to the fort, exhibited them as trophies of liis valor and success ! Car- gill was apprehended and tried for murder, but was acquit- ted by the jury.
The cruel fate of Margaret Moxa was deeply deplored at the garrison. "Never shall I forget the deep and unappeas- able grief of the women of the fort," said one, " when they saw the scalp of her whom they had long regarded as a delivering angel ; " and the more humane and considerate
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loudly condemned the act of Cargill, and confidently pre- dicted that its perpetrators " would never die in their beds." The prediction was realized in the history of those in the company from about St. George's river. 1
HUGH PAUL'S ADVENTURE.
The Pauls 2 were cotemporary with the Drowns at Pem- aquid, and were in Drown's service while surveying out his . claim. Hugh Paul was a burly Irishman. On his return to Bristol from a visit to Robert Hodge, on the Sheepscot shore, accompanied by Hodge as guide to the trail of spotted trees, through the dense forests of Ped-coke-go-wake, on the top of a hill over which their route lay, they encoun- tered a black bear, whose huge proportions encouraged a saucy demeanor. Bruin, rising upon his haunches, faced the travelers as if to dispute their progress by that path. Hodge, taking counsel of his fears, thought discretion the better part of valor ; but Hugh Paul, nothing daunted, marched boldly up to Bruin, saying,-" sure he never turned out of the way for any man yet, nor faith would he for the baste." Hereupon drawing his jack-knife, which he carried between his teeth, and grasping a stone in each hand, he advanced, admonishing the unterrified brute of his duty to strangers, and the imprudence of his menacing attitude, saying, as he walked up,-" Get out of the way, you avil baste ; get out of the way ! An' faith sure, if ye don't, ye'll be sorry for it, Misther !" Bruin, heedless of the admonition, reckless of his personal safety, only bristled up the more, when Paul let fly a rock, which, hurled as from a cannon's mouth with force and precision, rebounded from Bruin's nose, and in the recoil brought the beast helpless to the ground. Paul, springing to the back of his prostrate
8
1 Eaton's Annals, p. 94, 95.
2 L. Commiss. Reports, p. 59.
1
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enemy, grasping the long hair of his shaggy neck for a bri- dle, mounted the bear, which, recovering his senses, thought it time to make good a retreat by taking to his heels. The wild Irishman 1 astride, Bruin bolted for the bottom of the hill, while the knife of the rider, driven to the hilt in his throat, soon laid him breathless and lifeless on the ground, no more to rise. Such were the perils of a journey to Bris- tol by way of Newcastle, and the horsemanship of a believer in St. Patrick's power to shield, " becase he had drove all the toads, snakes, and frogs out of 'swate Ireland.'"'
HOSTILITIES RENEWED.
All efforts to allay savage excitement proved unavailing. Out of the distant east, emerging from the smoke and driven by the thunder of war from under the walls of Louisburg, the savages broke in upon the St. George's river towns. The fort was attacked. Defeated in their efforts to capture it, they succeeded in firing the garrison house, the mills and dwelling-houses, destroying the cattle, and securing one cap- tive. The expedition against Louisburg had drained the country of its fighting men, who were wanted in defense of their homes.
Garrisoned houses were still the prevailing architectural style of human abodes ; and for more than a generation, having proved a refuge, these structures of massive timber trees presented insurmountable barriers to the success of savage arts in war. All went armed. All were skilled in the knowledge and interpretation of savage tokens. All had acquired habits of great vigilance ; and it was with the utmost difficulty to effect a surprise.
Scouts of armed white men coursing the deep forest recesses gave no chance to the wary, skulking savage in a war-path beset with such perils.
1 R. Sewall, Esq.
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No inhabitant dared to venture unarmed far from his for- tified home, nor into remote parts of the town, unless in companies. While some wrought, otliers stood guardsmen ; those who went to the house of God bore their loaded mus- kets ; " those who remained at home kept guard." 1 The rapid, successive report of three muskets was the usual sig- nal of alarm.
CASUALTIES.
At Damariscotta, the Hustons, aunt and grandmother of John Huston, earliest among the re-settling planters there, were slain, and Mr. Huston was led into captivity.
Fort Frederick at Pemaquid was then assailed by July 19. the war party, which, approaching by stealth, de- scried a lone woman some three hundred yards distant. The opportunity of securing her scalp overcome all pruden- tial considerations. She was shot ; but the report of their fire-arms and the shrieks of their victim gave timely notice, and the returning crash of the shotted cannon and clouds of burning gunpowder from the embrasures and ports of the fort, soon enveloped all in darkness and consternation ; and amidst the confusion, the wounded woman cleared her keepers, rushed to the gates, and was saved.
But Lieut. Proctor met the war party with his force, and in the attack lie slew two chieftains and Sept. 5. captured another.
Scalping parties prowled in the neighborhood of the white man's home, and hung about the by-ways and pasture- grounds of the white man's herds. At Sheepscot three men in their cornfields fell victims to the aim of more than a dozen Indians. Death leaped from every thicket, and lurked in every field.
Extermination was the watchword ; and especially was
1 Sullivan, p. 189.
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savage fury vented on the newly-opened clearings and advanced settlements, which were regarded as wanton inva- sions of their rights, holding that, by treaty stipulations, the English could dwell only " so far as the salt water flowed."
A large party fell upon the newly-colonized hamlet of Waldoboro' ; and this protege of the Brigadier General was consigned to ruin. Unprepared for the onset, the poor Germans were slain and captured, and all were dispersed, some escaping to St. George's Fort, and others to Fort Fred- erick at Pemaquid.
The abandoned homes were reduced to ashes ; and the settlement lay a waste till the close of the war.
The herds about Pemaquid were wantonly slaughtered. A party of five persons, on their return from public worship at Sheepscot, fell into an ambush. Leisurely wending their way homeward, unsuspicious of evil, a murderous fire was opened from the thickets upon them. One fell dead. Another was mortally wounded, and facing the grim savage, who rushed out to secure his bleeding scalp, the wounded planter rose before him, and by a well-directed shot, laid his tawny foc dead in his track. Three escaped.
DEFENSES OF WISCASSET POINT.
On the rocky eminence projecting its spur into the waters of the Sheepscot, known as Wiscasset Point, stood the fort, a quadrangular structure of timber, surmounted with quad- rangular corner sentry posts, 1 projecting from the upper stories, where the settlers of the Hooper plantation took refuge in times of peril. Covering a yet higher elevation back, overlooking the waters of the bay from the west, a garrison of massive timber commanded the approaches southward, and afforded the Williamson plantation an asy-
J Hon. S. Parsons.
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lum. Captain Williamson was a man of eminence at Wis- casset Point. As a military and as a civil officer, his posi- tion made him conspicuous and well known to the Indians. Going with others to hunt and drive home their cattle from their range, his two companions were suffered to pass an ambuscade unmolested, while he was taken captive. His captors treated him with much courtesy, alleging that they had been sent by the Governor of Canada to take some one to Quebec who could give him information as to the movements of the English. He was carried to Canada, but soon re- stored by an exchange. Many cattle of the herds about the point were slaughtered at. the time ; and the settlement here, in the journal of a Mr. How, who at the same time was held in prison at Quebec, is spoken of as the "New Town on Sheepscot River," from which Capt. Jonathan Williamson had been taken and brought to prison. 1 About the same period James Kinlade, James and Samuel Ander- son, and a Mr. Adams were led from Sheepscot as captives to Canada.
HEROIC ACTION OF A SOLDIER AT ST. GEORGE.
A detachment of thirteen men left the fort at St. George, and entered the forests half a gun-shot distant to peel bark to cover the whale-boats of the garrison, and secure them from the weather. The party scattered, and some of them incautiously laid aside their arms, and strayed apart from their companions.
While thus dispersed, the Indians came upon them, and sprang in between them and their fire-arms, which were thus secured. They killed one man, wounded four, and captured the sixth. The remnant of the party rallied and stood their ground, and were soon supported by the entire garrison, and a retreat to the fort, was successfully executed.
1 Drake's Tragedies, p. 138.
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During the skirmish an incident of great coolness and brav- ery occurred.
One of the soldiers, whose age retarded the progress of his flight, was hotly pursued. In the extremity of his case, the old man suddenly wheeled in the race, and bringing his musket to lis eye, sent a leaden message of death just in time to arrest the upraised arm of his pursuer, while in the act of burying the keen-edged tomahawk in the brain of his victim ! The fire of the garrison hield the savages at bay, and the old man seized and tore off the scalp of his tawny foe as lie lay bleeding at his feet, and took with him the bloody trophy of his valor into the fort.
MCFARLAND'S MISFORTUNES.
John McFarland had made liis plantation remote from the protecting guns of Fort Frederick. His fruitful and attract- ive plantation enamored his heart, and he determined to enjoy its rural delights in defiance of the perils of his iso- lated position.
But the destroyer came. His herds were butchered in their feeding grounds. His fields were wasted. His habi- tation was burned down, and himself and his son, pierced with wounds, were left half-dead.
The savages continued their depredations, and hunted the life of the white man with the persistence and ferocity of despair ; for " the Indians killed every person that came in their way." 1
The fortified settlement at St. George's and Fort Freder- ick at Pemaquid, often the objects of attack, the Indians had determined to destroy. At break of day, one September morning-the usual time of attack-sixty painted braves, with a French commander, silently, slowly, and by stealthy approaches reached the vicinage of the fort at Pemaquid.
1 Wm. Burns's Deposition, L. Co. Commiss. Report.
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Unfortunately five men were descried at a distance from the protection of the guns. The prey was too tempting for the prudence of savage calculations, and these unwary men became the target for sixty bullets, which brought every one to the ground dead and wounded. Assault was made on the fort, the surprisal having been defeated. For more than two hours the place was stormed. But the massive walls of stone were impregnable, and could neither be scaled nor breached. Despairing of success, the assailants, repulsed and disheartened, retired to seek a more hopeful issue against the timber ramparts of St. George, but with no better suc- cess.
We have now reached a period in our history closing the dark, bloody, and continuous scene of savage strife, covering nearly three generations of human beings, in which the entire native race, under the shock of each conflict, had been forced to recede more and more, till their ancient places had been made void. The entire race had become permanently displaced ; and nothing remained to disturb and oppose the intrusive white man but the convulsive reac- tion of its members, like the recoil of a quivering muscle, tenacious still of life though torn from its native trunk.
A solitary savage, burning with the resentments of his wasted people, occasionally lurked at the white man's door, or cowered in the thicket by his home, or prowled in the adjoining forests to take his life. The savage did not at once forget his wrongs, nor the white man his fears. The people generally dwelt in their garrisons, and occasional murderous outbreaks kept alive the public alarm.
MURDER AT WISCASSET POINT.
A party of Kennebec Indians at Wiscasset 1 came in collision with some of the residents at the Point. Dec. 2. From some unexplained cause a quarrel arose, and
1 About 1750. Smith's Journal.
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in its issue one Indian was slain and two were wounded. The parties, Obadiah Albee and Richard and Benjamin Hol- brook, were arrested on charge of murder. The circum- stances excited general apprehension and public concern. While confined at Falmouth, the criminals escaped, either by riotous measures or collusion of their custodians. A reward was offered for the arrest of the fugitives; and Harnden, who made the arrest, and Wilson, the jail-keeper, were subjected to a legal investigation. The fugitives finally surrendered for trial on the charge of murder at York. Obadiah Albee was transferred to Salem for safe keeping, and an order was issued to the Essex justices " to have the jail guarded by six men, three of whom to be on constant watch, lest Albee should escape and thus involve the Prov- ince in a war with the Indians." 1
From Salem Albee was sent back to York, where he was tried and acquitted of murder, but condemned for a feloni- ous assault. Government was disappointed and displeased, and the others were taken to Massachusetts for trial. The chiefs of the Kennebec Indians, the relatives of the deceased, were solicited to be present at the trial. Thirteen Indians appeared, but the trial was deferred, the prisoners remanded to Yorkshire, and they probably escaped unwhipt of justice.
The aspect of affairs continued to lower and settle into deeper and darker gloom, which the Wiscasset homicide rendered more portentous and foreboding. Measures of retaliation and revenge were meditated. One Sept. 11. hundred warriors, heralded by ten thousand ter- rible rumors, emerged from the depths of the northern wilderness, and fell with fury upon the fort at Richmond. Bleeding cattle came running for protection under the guns of the block-house, while many lay butch- ered around, a prey to the hungry savages.
1 Annals of Salem, vol. v. p. 439.
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The day was consumed in devastating the adjoining plantations. But the Indians let the favorable moment for decisive and successful action slip, and under cover of night, Capt. Goodwin and his command gained the fort. This circumstance disheartened the assailants, and they aban- doned the assault, and breaking up into small parties, scat- tered along each bank of the Kennebec, murdering and destroying all in their way.
SWAN ISLAND DESTROYED.
A portion of this war party fell on Swan Island, slaugh- tered the cattle, ravaged the fields, burned the habitations of the residents, and led some thirteen into bondage. James Whidden owned and occupied a portion of this fertile and romantic island. Its insular location at the confluence of the two rivers rendered "Swan Island " an important and conspicuous location as a desirable depot for trade with the aborigines.
At this time the daughter of Whidden, who was married to Lazarus Noble of Portsmouth, resided with her father. A garrisoned hamlet adorned this islet, which had from time immemorial been a favorite resort. 1 About the break of day, two lads went out of the block-house, and left open the gates ; and a number of Indians, watching the opportunity, rushed into the fort, and secured its unarmed occupants. Whidden and his wife took to the cellar and escaped. Noble and his workmen, at the head of the stairway, de- fended the passage by firing upon the Indians as they forced their way up in defiance of the murderous discharge. They pushed ou without waiting to return the fire, and seized Noble and his wife and seven children, with Timothy Whid- den and Mary Holmes. The prisoners were conducted to the water-side, where they were fast bound together. This
1 Tragedies of the Wilderness, p. 165-7.
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done, the Indians returned and fired the premises, burning the storehouses and plundering the dwelling-places. Pom- roy, an aged shingle weaver, was captured in the neighbor- ing wood. Having secured their plunder and captives, all marched for Canada ; but the aged and burdensome Pom- roy was shot, and the other captives safely delivered and sold at Quebec.
Fanny, a child of Noble, a year and one month old, was taken to the city of Montreal, where she became the prop- erty of the lady of St. Auge Charle, a merchant of that city. To the kitchen of this merchant the little Fanny had been taken by her Indian master.
The servant called Mdme. St. Auge Charle's attention to the infant captive, which in rags and dirt crept over the tiles of the kitchen floor, in pursuit of the fallen crumbs and cooking offal lodged in the cracks.
The emotions of the maternal heart were at once stirred, when on noticing the famished child, it seized the lady's dress to hide its nakedness, and burst into tears. The appeal was irresistible. Mdme. St. Augé embraced the child. It clung to that embrace, and repaid the kindness with fond and childlike caresses. This lady had recently been made childless by the visitation of death.
The little Fanny was purchased, cleansed, and arrayed in the vestments of the deceased little one, and laid in her couch, while with infantile prattle and affection she endeav- ored to repay the debt she owed her benefactress. She was reared as a daughter, and the affection of the foster parents was heartily returned.
In the sequel, Fanny reached womanhood under genial influences, became attractive in person and acquirements, but public authority at length severed the ties between the foster parents and the child, and forced her return to her home, where she became a teacher of youth, and subse- quently married a gentleman of wealth. Her brother
6
a
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Joseph, however, adopted the life and habits of the Indians, among whom he lived and died as a member of the St. Francois tribe.
DRESDEN ASSAULTED.
From Swan Island a band of Indians passed up the east- ern river, and lurked about the outskirts of the Frankfort plantation. At sunrise, Pomroy was waylaid on his return from milking, and shot dead at his door ; but a Mr. Davis, who occupied a room in the same house, roused from his slumber by the report of the gun, sprang to the door, when the Indian thrust in his musket barrel. Davis seized the weapon, and with the aid of his women, wrested it from the Indian's grasp, who thereupon snatched up an infant child in the outer kitchen, and made off with it, while his fellow, from a covert in the neighboring field, shot Mr. McFarland, when the war party departed, carrying two men prisoners to Canada.
EXPEDITION AGAINST WISCASSET.
The main force of this body of northern Indians, leaving Fort Richmond, re-embarked and paddled down the Ken- nebec. At Long Reach it divided, one party diverging to the eastward by Hockomock, to destroy Wiscasset and the Sheepscot towns, and the other menacing Georgetown below. The dwelling-houses along the route were burned, and two prisoners were taken ; and the whole region would have been wasted, had the Sheepscot expedition succeeded in sur- prising the block-house at Wiscasset. A Mr. Hilton, an emigrant from Dover, New Hampshire, was slain, and his son made captive.
BATTLE AT WISCASSET.
The whole country had become alarmed, and the settlers ran to their fortified places. Susan Colby was in her girl-
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hood, and had gone with her mother into the garrison, whose sheltering stockade crowned a considerable eminence overlooking the bay and narrows, and commanding the Wil- liamson settlement below. The slope of the eastern front cleared for planting grounds, ran down to the shore margins of the bay in a well cultivated lawn, which encircled the hill-top south and west, and then fell off into a rocky and uncleared ravine on the north and east.
A flotilla of canoes shot with the rays of early dawn around the head of Jeremy Squam Island, by Delano's gar- rison, and sped across the bay toward Hooper's plantation on the point above. The painted savages debarked near this point, and glided through the alder-swamps, around the Hooper's garrison toward that of Williamson on the more distant hill-top south.
Two small iron cannon were a part of the munitions of this defense. The party destined to surprise and sack the block-house crept from the swamp into the ravine and up the intervening steep to storm the place. As they lurked for an opportunity to begin the assault, Obadiah Albee 1 and Andrew Florence went out to stretch their pigeon nets on the western slope in rear of the garrison. They had hardly accomplished their design ere the report of their fire-arms and the shout of battle revealed the proximity of the sava- ges. Florence fell dead, and Albee, wounded, retreated toward the garrison gates, facing the pursuing Indians with his fire-lock presented, which held them at bay till he had entered and was safe.
Meanwhile the alarm had been given, and the garrison roused to arms for defense. The cannon were charged heavily with musket balls, scraps of iron, and other deadly missiles, and trained to bear on the thickets, where were seen gliding the bodies of the savage foe. The match was
1 Mrs. Holbrook. Mrs. Coleby's Narrative.
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applied, and amid the roar of their discharge and the crash of falling limbs and tree-tops, the death yells and whoops echoing long and loud through the deep forests, told that it was not without effect. A reception as unlooked for as it was fatal filled the savages with dismay.
HAUNTED GULLY.
The noise of battle borne on the wings of the still morn- ing drew a scouting party from its patrol between Dresden and Sheepscot toward the scene of conflict, which, coming suddenly up in the rear, cut off the retreat of the Indians to their canoes. They then fled toward Woolwich, so hotly pursued that a warrior was left to the white man's burial in the ravine where he fell, on the brink of the gully to the north of the garrison, whose headless trunk, in ghastly and gory aspect, was wont to hold nightly vigils near the spot, and watch over the bloody grave in mute and terrible silence, beckoning to the terror-stricken traveler ; and in the traditions of a superstitious age, on account of these night visions of this horrible phantom savage, the passage was called the " Haunted Gully." Delano's garrison 1.com- manded the point of the upper extremity of Westport, in early times a central and conspicuous position, and which afforded a safe retreat to the settlers on "Je-won-ke Neck," below the Hooper and Williamson plantations. On the Woolwich bank of Monseag river, midway in the angle formed by the old and new intersecting Bath roads, stood the Hilton garrison.
MRS. DELANO'S ESCAPE.
Mrs. Delano and her daughter were wont to pass over by water to their plantation on the neck below, near where the burial place of the primitive settlers on Je-won-ke, ( now a
1 Mrs. Cushman.
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