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 7
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peace, but made the best of his way back to the settlement and fort, seeing as he passed abundance of spruce trees, " such as are able to mast the greatest ship his majestie hath "-fish in abundance-" great store of grapes-and also found certain codds in which they supposed the cotton wool to grow, and also upon the banks many shells of pearl." Having reared a cross, they continued homeward bound, " in the way seeking the by river of some note, called Sasa- noa."
On the 27th of September, " the weather turned fowle and full of fog and rain." The party gave up their search, and in two days more reached the fort on their return.
OVERTURES FROM THE NATIVE SOVEREIGN.
On the 3d of October, Skitwarroes appeared and advised them that a brother of the Bashaba waited their pleasure on the opposite shore. The savages remained the guests of Popham through the sabbath, and the President took them to the place of public prayer, " which they attended both morning and evening with great reverence and silence."
About the 6th of October, the fort was entirely finished, intrenched, and mounted with twelve cannon, and the town was called "St. George." 1 A church was erected, and fifty houses besides the store-house were reared within the
FIRST SHIP BUILT IN NEW ENGLAND.
fortification. The material for a small ship of about 2 fifty tons was gathered and put up by the carpenters, under charge of a master-builder-the first on the Kennebec- Digby by name, of London. This vessel was launched into the waters of the Kennebec, and was called the " Virginia of Sagadahoc."
1 Bancroft, vol. i. p. 268.
2 F. Miss. p. 240.
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SETTLEMENT.
DEATH OF THE PRESIDENT.
Popham and some others died, and the remainder of the colonists awaited the return of Capt. Davis from Eng- land. The fortifications, the church, the public store- house with fifty dwelling houses, the ship yard and Virginia on the stocks, must have exhibited an imposing and busi- ness-like town at the mouth of the Sagadahock, in October, 1607, which in the dim distance of two centuries and a half, brings up visions of the past strangely in contrast with the present. Where is the grave of Popham ? Where is the monument of this early adventurer to the shores of the Kennebec ? Who celebrates the remembrance of these hardy scions of the Anglo-Saxon stock, which sought root amid the primeval forests of Sagadahock ? None but those who have imbibed the spirit of naval architecture, with which these adventurous artisans inspired the waters of the Kennebec and the forests of Sagadahock, where it has lingered from that day until now, and made the banks of this river the great naval mart of the United States of America.
TRADITIONARY REMINISCENCES.
Cotemporary history and tradition1 have handed down some additional details of interest connected with Popham's colony, throwing fuller light on the causes of its abandonment. On the decease of their President, it is natural to suppose that less circumspection marked the intercourse of the new set- tlers with the natives, and that a degree of lawlessness pre-
1 " It is reported by an ancient mariner, yet living in these parts as a person of good credit, that being in the eastern parts about Kennebec, he heard an old Indian say, that when he was a youth there was a Fort built about Sagadahock, the ruins of which were then seen, and supposed to be that called St. George. * * * Upon some quarrel that fell out between the Indians and English, some were killed by the Indians, and the rest driven out of the Fort."-Hubbard's Indian Wars, p. 75. Appendix.
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vailed, which may have begotten a spirit of recklessness, sure to bring forth the fruits of disaster. Popham, who with diligence and skill had overseen and directed all, was gone. An equally skillful pilot, probably, was not to be found at the helm. Freedom and friendliness of intercourse with the well-disposed and magnanimous Wewannocks of Pen- tacost Harbor, had lulled suspicion and engendered a reckless- ness, inconsistent with peace and safety in their intercourse with the fierce stranger savage inhabitants on the upper waters of the Kennebec. The lord of Sagadahock probably had not lost all recollection of the interview with Gilbert upon his inland voyage, in which his painted braves were outwit- ted and defeated in their hostile purposes. The friends of Skitwarroes and Nahanada, eastern natives and dwellers about Pemaquid and Boothbay, though they had been out- raged by the treachery of George Weymouth two years before, in the forcible abduction of five of their number, with much frankness and forbearance sought the friendship of the colonists.
" Sasanoa," representing the Royal authority, had warmly invited the European strangers to visit his sovereign ; and on their failure to execute a purpose to do so, from adverse circumstances, yet the attempt was received as evidence of good faith on the part of the white man ; and a member of the Royal family with a number of attendants came to the settlement to open and legalize trade. The terms were agreed to ; and under generous auspices a trade was begun, the savage chief, Amenquin, 1 with bold and generous spirit stripping off his beaver coat, and giving it in exchange for a straw hat and knife.
COLLISION WITH NATIVES.
With the stranger natives above, it is probable matters
I Amenquin-Is this Mon-quine, the chieftain who sold to Bradford and others his Kennebeck purchase ?
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did not go so smoothly-Strachey's account clearly indicates their hostile proclivities.
Being gathered at the fort for traffic, the savages were trained to draw a small cannon by its drag ropes. When thus exposed, the gun was discharged, killing some and wounding others, and as we may presume, filling all with madness. An altercation took place. In the issue, a colonist was slain ; and the survivors fled from the fort, leav- ing arms and ammunition exposed. The powder scattered about the opened casks-now the dangerous sport and plun- der of the victorious and ignorant natives, dancing and rioting in their success-became ignited, and in the terrific explosion which followed, blew up the fort and destroyed many of the savages.
COLONY ABANDONED.
Overwhelmed with the crashing thunders of the report and disaster, half dead with fear, the natives in their sim- plicity interpreted it as an exhibition of the anger of the Great Spirit at the wrongs done the strangers. These appre- hensions wrought repentance which issued in pacific over- tures, and led to a restoration of friendly intercourse. Such is the story of tradition. If it be all as rumor has handed it down, we have a sufficient reason for the early departure of Popham's colonists, and abandonment of their homes amid the rocky ramparts of the ocean at the mouth of the Kennebec, which was thus made the scene of abortive colonial adventure in 1607.1
During the next four years no important incident occurred, within the ancient dominions of Maine, if 1611. we except the kindling of those embers of civil strife among the natives, whose flame consumed the great Bash-
1 Supplement to King Philip's war, p. 75. Williamson, vol. i. pp. 200, 201.
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aba and scattered the people of the Wawennocks. There was nearly an annual return of various ships from England, attracted still by the public interest centering in these west- ern wilds.
MONHEGAN SETTLEMENTS.
From the period of Popham's enterprise on the Saga- dahock, from the date of Weymouth's discovery-Monhe- gan (a corruption of the aboriginal Menahan, " an island ") in the panorama of sea life exhibiting " the remarkablest Iles and Mountains for land-marks,"-" a round high isle," with the little " Monas " by its side, " betwixt which is a small harbor, where their ship was anchored,"-says Smith,- became a place of general resort, as it was a way station for trade and supplies.
" Abraham Jennens," 1 a fish merchant of Plymouth concerned in trade with Abner Jennens of London, employ- ing a large tunnage in the cod-fisheries and trade on the coast, acquired the original ownership of this island.
Here and on the neighboring main land at Pemaquid, and without doubt, on the islands land-locking Boothbay Harbor, were stages or posts for trading and fishing. Indeed, " Mon-
RECKLESS VOYAGERS .- HARLOW.
hegan " had now become a noted depot for trade with the natives, as well as a land-mark for voyagers, when Harlow, by acts of rapacity and outrage, disturbed the peaceful cur- rent of events.
On a voyage from Europe, sent to make examination of Cape Cod, his ship had touched and taken shelter under the island of Monhegan.
The natives having learned the advantages, were stimu- lated by the excitement of trade, and visited the lagging
1 Thornton's Pemaquid, p. 38.
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ship to " truck." But Harlow, under the mask of friend- ship, seized three whom he had enticed into his ship. One of his victims leaped back into the sea, and made good his escape to the land, when gathering the bowmen of his tribe, he assailed Harlow with desperate fury-cut away his stern boat, and taking her to the beach, filled her with sand,-suc- cessfully beating off the force sent from the ship with showers of barbed arrows, "sorely wounding some of the ship's crew," 1 retaining the boat in defiance of all efforts to recover her !
SMITH'S ADVENTURES.
Capt. John Smith, whose life in southern Virginia had been spared at the solicitation and intercession of Pocahontas, the daughter of Powhatan, next visit- 1614. ed our waters with a flotilla of fishermen at Sag- adahock, to fish and trade, as well as explore the coun- try. With two vessels, a ship and bark, Smith sailed from England bound for Sagadahock, the "El Dorado" of the new world, and now the central point of western attraction to the crowded communities of the old. In the month of April he arrived at Monhegan, and sailed for Sagadahock. Building a number of boats, he circulated among the islands, bays and river mouths, east and west, adding to discoveries already made and beating up trade with the natives of the coast.
Whales, at that period, were found in our waters ; and more recently these monsters of the deep have showed them- selves off Cape Newagen and sported in the waters of the Sheepscot. His men pursued the fishing of the whale here, where the Royal head of the Wawennocks had fished before him ; but found it profitless, as the fish taken yielded neither the " fins nor oil" of commerce. Gold and copper could
1 Williamson, vol. i. p. 207.
7
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not be found to mine upon the land. Off Monhegan and about the waters of Penobscot Bay, he came in collision with the natives ; and in the conflict some of his men had fallen ; where also he found a ship of Sir Francis Popham, which for " many years" 1 had visited the waters of St. George's river only. On the conclusion of his explorations July 18. he sailed for England ; and although the voyage yielded no fruits of special interest in the success of any colonial movement, yet it was of great service to sci- ence in the diffusion of a knowledge of the geography of this section, and to the patrons of the expedition in the profits of the voyage.
WAWENNOCKS DISPERSED. .
But a constant and natural increment of population ap- peared about the islands, bays, harbors and rivers, in trading posts, fishing stations, and " truck houses," from every expedi- tion, by desertion from ships and otherwise. A bloody and exterminating warfare between the Bashaba of the Wawen- nocks of the ancient regal race dwelling about the Sheep- scot and Damariscotta and Pemaquid waters, in which this people with their kingly pride and power, became ex- 1615. tinct, now raged in the height of its ravages, render- ing all intercourse with the main land for trade and settlement hazardous in the extreme. For two years, the tide of blood and carnage rolled on, bearing with it and leav- ing everywhere the dark image of death and pestilence in the houses of the aboriginal race.
ROCROFT'S VOYAGE.
The voyager Rocroft next appeared off Monhegan to take fish, and lade his ship with the sun-dried cod ; and 1618. on his arrival, detecting a French bark, sheltered in a creek, where she traded and made her fish, for some
1 Prince's New England Chronology, p. 15.
1
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SETTLEMENT.
affront given by her commander, Rocroft seized and made her his prize. His crew however mutinied ; and on discovery of their purposes he landed the disaffected ones on the main- (probably the crew of the captured bark)-who, to escape the desolation and exposure of a winter, houseless on the banks of the Saco, reached Monhegan and wintered there in the deserted cabins of a former population which had now retired to Pemaquid.1
The treachery and cupidity of the whites had exasperat- ed the surviving native race, still under the excitement of a civil war, to such a degree, that the interests of commerce began to suffer by the interruption of trade and settlement.
HUNT'S PERFIDY.
Hunt, a subordinate in command, under Smith, who had been left to complete his voyage and sail for Spain, following the example of his predecessors, had kidnapped a number of the natives, particularly on the back side of Cape Cod.
A French ship, two years previously, had been wrecked there ; and the survivors of this shipwreck were watched and dogged by the savages till nearly all were slain. Three or four were saved, " treated worse than slaves, and sent from sachem to sachem to make sport." It was one of this ship- wrecked company who forewarned their savage tormentors that the wrath of God would ere long overtake them for their barbarity, rebuking them for their " bloudy deede," to which they ever replied they were " too many for God." Disease soon over-swept the whole region, and left it without an in- habitant, the unburied corpses, and bleaching bones, and ghastly skulls of the unnumbered dead filling the forest wilds with hideous visions of death and depopulation.
1 J. W. Thornton, Esq.
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DERMER'S ADVENTURES.
Captain Thomas Dermer was despatched on a mis- sion of peace to the savage wilds of our coast with a 1619. view to restore the settlements scattered, and broken up by the ruthless civil wars among the natives, and to al- lay the irritation occasioned by the treachery of Harlow and Hunt. He commanded a ship of two hundred tons, with orders from Gorges to join Rocroft, who, having gone to southern Virginia with the French prize, as he was about to return northward, met the newly appointed Governor, Sir Geo. Yeardly, inward bound. The Governor ordered Ro- croft to board his ship. This Rocroft did, leaving his own vessel with less than half her crew, at anchor. But a storm arising, Rocroft was forced to remain for the night, during which his own bark was driven on shore and sunk. By the aid of the Governor, Rocroft recovered his bark, but while refitting her for the voyage to Virginia of the north, in a quarrel with one of the Virginia planters, he was slain and his vessel lost.
Dermer, learning the fate of his associate at Monhegan, sailed in an open pinnace of five tons for the south. In passing around Cape Cod, by the inland passage, lie heard of the fate of the wrecked crew of the French ship, and seeking out the survivors, redeemed them 1620. from their savage captors. On his return voyage, June 30. the savage Squanto, of Plymouth notoriety, (and it is also said, Samoset)1 accompanied Dermer ; who had each been taken to Europe by the perfidious Hunt, the one from about Pemaquid, near to Monhegan ; and the other from Cape Cod. Reaching Long Island Sound, southward bound, by way of the inland passage, having accomplished his peaceful mission in restoring confidence to the natives,
1 Williamson's Hist. vol. i. pp. 213, 218. Prince, p. 99.
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and reviving the settlements about Sagadahock, Dermer landed to refresh himself and company. But the savage in- habitants deeply provoked by the barbarous conduct of Hunt, visited on the noble Dermer the retribution due to the kid- napper. The crew on shore and the boat on the beach were assailed by the infuriated savages.
Dermer fought his way to the boat, and was badly wound- ed, a native seized him and threw him on the cuddy 1 deck, and attempted to sever his head from the body, when the only survivor of the boat's crew, a redeemed Frenchman, came to his rescue with a drawn sword. His savage attend- ants earnestly interceding in his behalf, further violence was stayed, the boat surrendered, and Dermer with one man es- caped to Virginia where he soon died.
These facts afford a probable solution of the presence of Samoset and Squanto among the Plymouth Pilgrims.
SAMOSET.
Samoset was a native of Pemaquid-the Lord of Monhe- gan-an eastern prince-the great chief and original pro- prietor of the town of Bristol, whose conveyance of the same to John Brown is the first landed 2 title by deed ac- knowledged, ever given to a white man.
An effectual lodgment had now been made at several points within the territory of New England. Prior
1620. to the date of the visit of Rocroft and Dermer, the Dec. 21. settlers on Monhegan had removed to the neigh- boring main, and erected new houses at Pemaquid. A hamlet had also sprung up on the sands of Plymouth har- bor, where the Puritan refugees had established their homes and founded a colony. Sagadahock, and probably the islands
1 Prince, p. 68. Williamson's Hist. vol. i. p. 219. Young's Chron. p. 182. 2 July 15th, 1625. Report Com. Lincoln Co., Me., pp. 106-7.
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land-locking Boothbay Harbor, if not the harbor itself, under its aboriginal name of " Cape Ne-wagen,"-a corrup- tion of the Indian Ne-krangan-were now occupied by " truck-masters " and fish makers.
Samoset, or Summarset, ( as spelled in a con- veyance to Parnell, Way, and England, under his Mar. 16. autograph, of Soggohannago, near to Pemaquid,) was the first native of the New World, an inhabitant of the remote East, who, to the astonishment of the Pilgrim settlers at Plymouth, walking boldly and alone into their streets, greeted the forlorn colonists with " Much welcome, English- men," in a broken dialect of their own tongue. He was a man free of speech and of seemly carriage, - " stark naked, only a leathern girdle about his waist," "with a fringe a span long or little more-armed with a bow and two arrows, the one headed and the other unheaded." "He was a tall, straight man,-the hair on his head black, long behind, only straight before, and none on his face at all." How hap- pened it that this Pemaquid chieftain should have been at Cape Cod at this juncture ? The presumption that he was the companion of Squanto, and with him, had accompanied Dermer on his fatal inland passage, and was left with Squanto at the time of the assault and rescue of Dermer on Cape Cod, explains all. Embarking at Monhegan, he was present at Cape Cod when Dermer was attacked ; and on the flight of Dermer, Samosset was left there. For he tells the Plymotheans that he was a sagamore from Morattigon, now conceded to be Monhegan ; that he had been in their coun- try " about eight months," -- that the natives in their imme- diate neighborhood were very hostile,-and eight months be- fore had slain " three Englishmen, two others with difficulty escaping,-the men being Sir F. Gorges'." 1 Such being the state of facts, " Sommarset " or Samosset, and Squanto,
1 Prince's N. E. Chronology, p. 68.
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having aided in the rescue of Dermer and seen him safely off, remained, and in the autumn and spring, after the arrival of the Mayflower, were found among their savage brethren near Cape Cod Harbor, having possibly descried the approach of the vessel from the sand cliffs about the cape, and followed it to the place of final debarkation. The natives fearing and hating the new comers, of course slun- ned them ; but Sommarset, ascertaining that they were Euro- peans - countrymen of his friend Dermer, - with fearless intrepidity sought an acquaintance by walking into their midst and extending an "English Welcome," which as a matter of course greatly surprised the colonists. Thus was prepared the way for a peaceful and friendly introduction of the Puritan Fathers of New England to the aborigines of the wilds of their adopted home, in the misfortunes of the truly noble and beneficent Dermer-a victim to the reckless and wanton conduct of wicked white men.
SAMOSSET AT BOOTHBAY HARBOR.
Having fearlessly served his friend Dermer and welcomed the forlorn voyagers who were seeking a home on the bleak shores and barren sands of Cape Cod from the decks of the Mayflower, "Sommarset," "the Lord of Pemaquid," re- turned to his eastern dominions; and in the waters of the Sheepscot, at Cape Ne-wagen, met Capt. Levett 1 two years after, of whom as a " chief sagamore " Levet speaks, (doubt- less referring to his agency in Dermer's behalf,) as " one that hath been found very faithful to the English, and hath saved the lives of many of our nation ; some from killing and others from starving."
The domain of the town of Bristol, this chieftain with another sold to John Brown; and in its vicinity a second
1 Levett's Voyage, Me. Hist. Col. Mass. Hist. Col. vol. viii. p. 170, 3d series.
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parcel of land soon after to Parnell, Way, and England. Samosset, the magnanimous chieftain of the East, who, fore- most of his race, frank, generous, and fearless - welcomed the forlorn and sea-worn Pilgrims - appears in a novel and attractive light.
In the person of this savage, the Lord of Pemaquid, the great Bristol Sachem, we see Maine on the sands of Cape Cod, at the very dawn of the existence of New England history, standing with outstretched arms and generous greetings to receive and introduce, under auspicious circumstances, the embryo state of Massachusetts, from the decks of the May- flower, to her wild home on the shores of the New World !
From Monhegan and Pemaquid, the attractive harbors of the Main had even now drawn pioneer 1621. settlers ; for on the margins of Broad Bay,2 in Bris-
NOTE. "ยง Thes Presents Obbelly-gacion handed mee Captaine Sommarset of M" " ( Miscongus ? ) have sold unto Thomas Way, William Parnell and" " William England one thousand hakkers of land in Saggohannago, being" " quiet Possed by William Parnell and Thomas Way and William Eng-" " land th st day of July, 1653."
" HIS
" CAPT. JOHN SOMERSET,"
1
MARK."
The above is from the original draft furnished the author by the kindness of J. Wingate Thornton, Esq., Boston, and in his possession - the mark itself bearing the evidence of a trembling hand, indicative of the great age of this chief at the date it was made.
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SETTLEMENT.
tol, we find John Pierce had made a clearing and founded a new home.
DAMARISCOVE.
Thirty sail this year entered at Damariscove - 1622. which was now the granary of the embryo settle-
ments of New England - whose name (an English corruption of words signifying a " fish place ") indicates its early importance as a fishing depot. The ship Swallow from here sent her shallop to Plymouth ; and to Damariscove came Winslow of the Plymouth plantation, (the Governor of the colony,) to draw supplies for his settlement, famishing on the shores of Cape Cod,-who says, " I found kind enter- tainment and good respect, with a willingness to supply our wants - which was done so far as able - and would not take any bills for the same, but did what they could 1 freely,"- which certainly indicates that the inhabitants of Damaris- cove were a thrifty and generous people. The Jennens firm of Plymouth and London had at Monhegan, the Abraham of Plymouth, of the burden of two hundred and twenty tons, together with the Nightingale of Portsmouth, of one hundred tons. ?
The friends of Hakluyt, Robert Aldworth, and Gyles Elbridge, merchants of Bristol, " hearing that Jennens was about to break up his plantation at Monhegan, authorized Abraliam Shurt to purchase for them the island." The dis- solution of this plantation " excited no little interest among the hamlets -' Embryo Sovereignties,' now dotting the New England coasts ; and Gov. Winslow tooke a boat and some hands and went thither, learning that the plantation was to then break up and diverse goods to be sould."2 The plunder of a French ship lost at Sagadalock had passed into the lands
Young's Chronicle, p. 293.
2 Thornton's Pemaquid, pp. 38, 52-3.
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of the fishermen wrecking her, at Monhegan and Damaris- cove -"Biscaie ruggs "-" a parcell of goats &c. "-all which made up Bradford's purchase.
Damariscove, in the early history of the " ancient domin- ions of Maine," is a remarkable point.
DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLAND.
In the south-western extremity of this island, a very deep, narrow cove enters between bold rocks and precipitous shores, opening into the island like a wedge between mount- ain cliffs, where a small but secure harbor is afforded for fishing vessels. This island, the principal of the group land- locking Boothbay Harbor, derives its name undoubtedly from its early importance as a fishing place-the " namas- cotta" or covet, of the aboriginal inhabitants signifying a " fish place."
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