USA > Maine > Knox County > Warren > Annals of the town of Warren; with the Early History of St. George's, Broad Bay and the Neighboring Settlements on the Waldo patent > Part 3
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the whites in this vicinity, and the second that we know of in the State .*
On the 10th or 11th of June, Weymouth left Pentecost Harbor and sailed up Penobscot Bay and River. On the 12th, anchoring abreast of the mountains in the present town of Camden, ten of his men " with a boy to carry powder and match"t went ashore and amused themselves in hunting. All the way up the river, the adventurers were delighted with the picturesque scenery, listened to the notes of wood-birds in the lofty branches, and admired the wide, deep, and glassy waters, with convenient coves and green, grassy, margin. Having erected a cross at the end of their route, "a thing," says the journal, " never omitted by any Christian travelers," they reluctantly returned to St. George's. They spent some time here trading with the natives, giving them knives, glasses, combs, and toys in exchange for furs. This traffic was very profitable to the adventurers, 40 skins of beaver, otter, and sable being obtained for 5s. worth of trinkets. But this friendly intercourse was not allowed to terminate peacefully. A misunderstanding ensued ; and five of the natives were seized and carried off to England, whither Weymouth sailed not long after the middle of June. This, with several subse- quent acts of a similar kind by others, laid the foundation of that hostile feeling towards the English, which the French learned to profit by, in the wars that ensued ; although, being restored to their country after they had learned to speak English, these captives were found very serviceable as interpreters.}
The name St. George, first applied to Monhegan and afterwards extended to the adjacent islands, the river opposite, and the neighboring coast, was probably chosen by Weymouth in compliment at once to himself and to his patron saint. It seems to have been customary, in giving to a place the name of one who bore that of a saint, to divide the honor and commemorate both by prefixing St., as St. Johns for John Cabot, and other instances. When, from intercourse with the natives, their names of Monhegan and Matinicus were applied to the two largest of these islands, the name of St. George was restricted to the remaining ones, which, together with the river and one town on its banks, still retain the ap- pellation. With regard to the river, however, the origin of
* 2 Belk. Biog. Weymouth's Jour. 1 Will. His. p. 192-3-4.
t From this it appears that flints were not yet generally used.
# Rosier's Acct. 2 Belk. Biog. 1 Will. Hist. &c.
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the name is a matter of some doubt. By early writers it was called "Segochet," and sometimes, perhaps by misprint, " Segocket."* This name is not recognized by the present Tarratine or Penobscot Indians, who have other appellations, also, for Monhegan and Matinicus. These terms then, if In- dian, must have belonged to the Wawenocks in whose domain they were situated. Lieut. Gov. Neptune, the oldest of the Penobscots now living, says the Indian name of the river was ' Joiges,' meaning delightsome. It was generally called
' Georges,' or 'George's River,' by the early settlers. If Neptune's explanation be correct, the early traders might have received it from the Penobscots who conquered the country in 1615, whilst Smith received that of Segochet from the Wawenocks, in whose possession it was when he visited the country. It is hardly to be supposed that the Indian name of so important a stream should be forgotten, while others of less consequence have been retained by the settlers ; and the term 'Georgeekeag,' applied by the Penobscots to Thomaston, or rather that part of it between St. George's and Mill rivers, would, on Neptune's explanation, be very appropriate, - pleasant point.i
1606-7. In 1606 the territory of Virginia was divided ; the southern part, called South Virginia, was granted to the " London Company," and the Northern part or North Virginia to the " Plymouth Company." Both these companies took immediate measures for commencing settlements. The lat- ter fitted out an expedition in May, 1607, and established a colony at the mouth of the Kennebec.t This colony, con- sisting of 45 persons, erected a fortress which they named Fort St. George, and remained for one year ; but, discouraged by the unusual severity of the winter, the death of their pat- rons Popham and Gilbert, and the loss of their storehouse by fire, they returned to England, taking with them a small ves- sel which they had built during the winter. This vessel was probably the first built in the State, and the commencement of a branch of business now one of its principal sources of wealth. In the French colony at Port Royal a harvest of
" Smith's Hist. Vir.
t D. Crockett, Esq. of Rockland; who in early youth acquired some knowledge of the Indian tongue. Sullivan's description of Thomaston in Mass. His. Coll. 4, p. 20-25. Keag signifies a point of land formed by the junction of two streams, as Kenduskeag, eel point, &c.
# Called by the Indians ' Sagadahoc' or " the going out of the waters."
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grain was gathered in 1607, a grist-mill erected, and farther assistance sent from France, together with two Jesuit mission- aries for converting the natives. But a controversy arising with the proprietors, the Jesuits removed to Mt. Desert, where they planted gardens, began a settlement, and continued the business of the mission, till in 1613 both they, and the settlers at Port Royal, were dispossessed as intruders by an expedi- tion from South Virginia.
1614. Among other voyages under the Plymouth Com- pany, Capt. John Smith, sent out from London in 1614 on a whaling and fishing voyage, with orders to search the country for mines and to trade with the natives, arrived at Monhegan where he built seven boats, and, whilst his men were engaged in the fisheries, ranged the coast from Penobscot to Cape Cod, bartering with the natives and making observations on the shores .* On his return, prince Charles, afterwards king Charles I. being presented with a map of the country, gave it the name of New England. This name was officially recog- nized in the charter by which that monarch granted the terri- tory between 400 and 48º N. latitude to " the Council of Ply- mouth" which in 1620 took the place of the " Plymouth Com- pany." From this time the name of North Virginia was lit- tle used and soon became obsolete. Under this grant, in the course of the subsequent ten years, several smaller ones were made and settlements prosecuted with more or less vigor. The first of these grants was that made to the puritan pilgrims from Holland, who in 1620 established the colony which, from the town of that name in England, they called Plymouth, and sometimes for distinction New Plymouth. This was the earliest, permanent, English settlement made in New England, and was followed by other puritan colonies, which, founded on republican principles, and nourished by persecutions in England, soon grew up into respectable communities. To the eastward, grants were made upon more feudal principles. Sir Ferdinando Gorges obtained a patent, with the right of government therein, of the territory extending from the Pis- cataqua to the Kennebec, afterwards, in 1639, named the Pro- vince of Maine ; and several smaller grants were made be- tween the latter river and the Penobscot.
1615. But prior to this time the coast was frequented by many private adventurers for fishing, hunting and trading ; some of whom erected huts and fixed their residence for a longer or shorter period on shore. The coast between the
* 1 Will. Hist. p. 212. Smith's Hist. Sullivan's Maine, p. 15.
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Penobscot and Narraganset Bays was, to a great extent, stripped of its native inhabitants by the war, which in 1615 was waged by the two great confederacies of the Etechemins or eastern Indians headed by the Tarratines on the Penob- scot, and the Abenaques or western Indians under the chief of the Wawenocks called the great Bashaba, at Pemaquid. This war, which raged with fury for two years, during which the defeated Wawenocks and their allies were kept from their planting and hunting grounds, was followed by a famine and some unknown disease, which, spreading from tribe to tribe, in 1617 and '18 desolated the country from Pemaquid to Cape Cod. It is remarkable that the English, some of whom wintered at Saco during the height of this disease and slept in the same cabins with the diseased natives, were wholly unaf- fected by it .*
1621. Monhegan was at this time a general resort for European fishermen and traders. A part of a crew of a vessel, sent out by Sir F. Gorges, spent the winter of 1618 and '19 on this island. In 1621 it is mentioned as " a settle- ment of some beginnings ;" and the following year provis- ions were obtained from the ships at this place, by the infant settlement at Plymouth. The island seems not to have been destitute of inhabitants, after this, down to the first Indian war; and some cabins for fishermen and temporary resi- dences were constructed at various points on the main land between the rivers St. George and Saco.t One of these earliest settlers was John Brown, who fixed himself at New Harbor, near Pomaquid, as early as 1621, and four years later obtained from the Indian Sagamores, in consideration of 50 skins, a deed of the land between Broad Bay and Damariscotta River to the extent of 25 miles into the country. He and his descendants inhabited there till driven away by the Indians, and claimed the land till the adjustment of 1812.}
1623. Fishermen and settlers also established them- selves about this time at Sagadahoc, Merry-meeting, Cape Newagin, Pemaquid and St. George's, as well as at Damaris- cove and other islands ; though at St. George's it is believed there were not as yet any permanent residents. Adventur- ers from other nations also frequented the coast ; and it is said that the Dutch as early as 1607 and again in 1625 at- tempted to settle at Damariscotta.§ Cellars and chimneys,
* Gorges's Narr. as quoted by Will. Hubbard's N. E. p. 195.
t Prince's Ann. 1 Will. His. p. 226. # Com. Report, 1811.
§ Sullivan's His. p. 15, 166, &c. 1 Will. His. p. 228. 2*
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apparently of great antiquity, have been found in the town of Newcastle ; and copper knives and spoons of antique and singular fashion are occasionally dug up with the supposed Indian skeletons at the present day, indicating an early in- tercourse between the natives of the two continents. Similar utensils and the foundations of chimneys, now many feet under ground, have also been discovered on Monhegan, as well as on Carver's island at the entrance of St. George's river, where are said to be also, the remains of a stone house.
1626. In 1626 the merchants of Plymouth, who had establishments at, and claimed the island of Monhegan, sold their right to Giles Elbridge and Robert Aldsworth, iner- chants of Bristol, for £50 sterling. These gentlemen carried on traffic there and also at Pemaquid, where their agent, Abraham Shurte, resided, and for a long time held the office
of magistrate. The river and harbor at the latter place offered attractions to visitors, and the settlements increased. A fort was built there in 1630, and called Fort George. Having in 1631 obtained a patent of the lands between the Muscongus and Damariscotta, with exclusive privileges of hunting, fishing, fowling, and trading with the natives, to- gether with the power to establish a civil government, Elbridge and Aldsworth extended their business, and by additional offers, induced many to settle in the country. Under their charter, the plantation had a gradual and uninter- rupted growth for many years. The settlements extended to Damariscotta, and especially at the lower falls, were seen rising on both sides of the river .* The name Pemaquid in the Indian language signified long point, and Damariscotta, the river of little fishes.
1630. About this time serious apprehensions were en- tertained that the Council of Plymouth would be dissolved. Under this apprehension, the Council seems to have made various and hasty grants to different adventurers, of nearly the whole territory between the Piscataqua and Penobscot ; in the expectation that these would be confirmed, though their own should be abrogated. One of these was the grant made of the lands on the river St. George's March 23,+ 1630, to Beauchamp and Leverett, called the " Lincolnshire, or Mus- congus Patent," or grant. Its extent was from the seaboard between the rivers Penobscot and Muscongus, to an unsur-
* 1 Will. His. p. 242. Corr. of Bos. Trav.
t Williamson, p. 240, says March 2d ; but as it was dated March 13, O. S., its corresponding date N. S. is March 23. He seems to have subtracted 11 instead of adding 10 days for the difference of style.
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veyed line running east and west and so far north as would, without interfering with any other patent, embrace a territory equal to 30 miles square. It was procured ex- pressly for the purposes of an exclusive trade with the natives, and contained no powers of civil government. The paten- tees, and their associates, appointed Edward Ashley their agent, and Wm. Pierce an assistant, and despatched them, the same summer, in a small new made vessel, with five laborers, one of them a carpenter, and furnished them with provisions and articles of trade equal to the exigencies of the enterprise. They established a truckhouse on the eastern bank of St. George's river, five miles below the head of tide waters; where possession and traffic were continued till the first In- dian war. This establishment was probably near the upper wharf, or perhaps the seat of the late Gen. Knox, in Thom- aston.
This is the grant which afterwards, when it passed into the hands of Brigadier Gen. Samuel Waldo, was called the WALDO PATENT, and is the origin of most of the land titles on the river. The grant was made to " John Beauchamp of London, gentleman, and Thomas Leverett of Bostont in the County of Lincoln, gentleman." Of these gentlemen we would gladly give some account, but find very little on record. Whether the former ever visited this country we are not able to say ; but it is most probable he did. For in 1633 the Court at Plymouth ordered " that the whole tract of land, between the Brook of Scituate on the northwest side and Conahasset, be left undisposed of till we know the resolution of Mr. James Shirley, Mr. John Beauchamp," &c. And in Oct. 1637, the same tract of land was granted to Messrs. Hatherly, Andrews, Shirley, and Beauchamp. As these names were associated with that of Leverett in the trade at St. George's, it is highly probable that they belonged to the same persons, and that Beauchamp visited the country with a view of settling here, if he did not actually carry his design into execution. Leverett seems to have been a member of Mr. Cotton's church in Boston in old England, and to have come over with that clergyman and others to Boston in New England in 1633. For we find that he was that year, Oet. 10th, chosen a ruling elder of the church there. He was the father of John Leverett afterwards Governor of Massa- chusetts. He is honorably mentioned by Winthrop and
* Boston in England ; its namesake in this country not being set- tled till the year this grant was made.
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Hubbard for his gift in the practice of discipline. Among the contributors to free schools in 1636 we find " Thomas Leverett, £10," and the year before that, grants of land were made to him at Muddy River now Brookline. It was also agreed at a meeting held " upon publique notice" among other things, " that none of the members of this congregation, or inhabitants amongst us, sue one another at the law, before that Mr. Henry Vane, and the two ruling elders, Mr. Thomas Olyver and Thomas Leverett, have had the hearing and de- syding of the cause, if they cann."*
1635. East of the Muscongus Patent, no grants were made, and no English established, except at the two trading houses of the New Plymouth Colony at Biguyducet and Machias. Even these did not long remain undisturbed ; for, the province of Acadia having in 1632 been restored to France without any definite boundary, the French claimed the coun- try and in 1635 seized these establishments and forbade the English to trade to the eastward of Pemaquid. The English, however, claimed to the St. Croix, and when in 1635 the " Council of Plymouth" was dissolved and the whole of New England divided into 12 provinces, one of these, extending from the St. Croix to Pemaquid, was granted to Sir Wm. Alexander ; but it does not appear that he ever took posses- sion or exercised any jurisdiction here. St. George's, there- fore, was, for a long time, the frontier possession of the English ; and, consequently, little progress was made in its settlement. The proprietors, however, maintained their pos- session, and continued their traffic with the Indians. Many English vessels also, sent out to the new and thriving colony of Massachusetts, often stopped here and at Pemaquid on their return. Winthrop says, in "July, 1634, the Hercules of Dover returned by St. George's to cut masts to carry to England ;" and " May 6, 1635, the Gabriel was in a tempest lost at Pemaquid; and Mr. Witheredge and the Dartmouth ships cut all their masts at St. George."# There were about this time or a little later, " 84 families besides fishermen," residing between the Kennebec and St. George's ; viz : 20 near Sagadahoc, 31 cast of that river to Merry-mecting, 6 from Cape Newagen to Pemaquid, 10 at New Harbor, and 2 at St. George's, besides those farther " within land," at
* Winthrop's Journal, vol. 1, p. 14, 2 ed. and note.
t Generally pronounced Bagaduce, an Indian name signifying bad harbor, now Castine.
# 1 Win. Journal, p. 134 and 165.
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Sheepscot and Damariscotta. The two at St. George's, denominated " farmers," were said to be "Mr. Foxwell, on the west side, at Saquid Point, and Philip Swaden on the east side of Quisquamego." John Brown, also, of New Harbor, not long after this period, claimed land at the mouth of St. George's River, at a place called Sawk- head .* To what places these names refer cannot now, per- haps, be ascertained. Possibly Quisquamego may have been the high ridge between the bay at Thomaston and the West- keag river, called by the present Penobscots "Quesquitcume- gek," or "high carrying-place." Saquid, pronounced with the a broad as in Saco, was probably the same as Sawkhead ; and both appear to have been the ancient names of Pleasant Point in Cushing, still called, we believe, by the Penobscot Indians, 'Sunkheath.' This point, situated at the mouth of the river, answers to Brown's description of Sawkhead, and is probably the oldest farm in this region, having been culti- vated for more than 200 years.
1635-1688. From this time the nominal jurisdiction of this river, for it was merely nominal, several times changed hands. The French claimed as far as Pemaquid and occu- pied as far as Penobscot, till the whole province of Acadia was again taken possession of by the English in 1654, and in 1655 confirmed to them by treaty. Sir Thomas Temple was appointed Governor, and afterwards obtained a patent of all the country from Merlinquash in Nova Scotia " to Penobscot, and the river St. George, near Muscongus" -situated on the " confines of New England." On the restoration of Charles II. the despotic plan of dividing New England into 12 provin- ces was revived, the Duke of York appointed viceroy over the whole, and commissioners sent over to regulate the affairs of the country. These commissioners erected a county east of the Kennebec which they named " Cornwall," and appointed magistrates at Sheepscot, Pemaquid, &c., but none east of the Muscongus. But the territory from the St. Croix to Pem- aquid and the Kennebec having in 1664 been granted to the Duke of York along with the Dutch settlements on the Hud- son and Delaware, his government was extended and for 25 years exercised over this part of the country, as the County of Newcastle appendant to his province of New York. The Duke caused a city named Jamestown,t and fort, called fort
* Sylvanus Davis's Acct. as quoted in Sull. His. p. 391. Com. Report, J. Brown's Dep. p. 115.
t Gyles's Captivity.
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Charles, to be built at Pemaquid and many Dutch families to be transported thither from New York. Considerable uneasi- ness was occasioned to these eastern settlements by the war declared by France in 1666, and by the recession of Acadia to France by the treaty of peace in 1667. However disa- greeable, the French were allowed to take possession as far as the Penobscot ; but on their demanding the rest of the Province as far as Sagadahoc, the people of Pemaquid and vicinity, averse to the jurisdiction of France, preferred com- ing under that of Massachusetts. This province at first seems to have been contented, as its northern boundary, with a line drawn 3 miles N. of the Merrimac to its source and thence due W. to the Pacific ; but in 1652, encouraged by the dispo- sition of the settlers under Mason and Gorges, she extended the last mentioned line E. as well as W. terminating at Clap- board Island in Casco Bay. On the present occasion having discovered a new source of the Merrimac six miles farther N. she in 1672 ordered a new survey and in 1673 extended her jurisdiction to a line passing through the present town of Bath and terminating at White Head Island in Penobscot Bay. By her commissioners a new County, called Devonshire, extend- ing from the Sagadahoc to St. George's river, was organized, civil and military officers appointed, a court held, and a tax of £20 levied, as follows, viz. :- Sagadahoc £4, 10s., Mon- hegan £5, 10s., Cape Newagen £3, 10s., Damariscove and Hippocrass £5, and Pemaquid ££2. But in consequence of the Indian hostilities which arose in this eastern country after the death of King Philip in 1676, most of the inhabitants of this county removed, the jurisdiction of Massachusetts was discontinued, that of the Duke of York was resumed, and continued till his abdication of the crown as James II. king of England in 1688 .*
During all these changes, as little mention is made of St. Georges, and as no memorials of the government either of Temple or the Duke at that place are to be found, it is pre- sumed that the establishment there was little more than a trad- ing house and fishing station. After the death of Beauchamp, Leverett, in right of survivorship, succeeded to the whole pat- ent. His son, Capt. John Leverett, afterwards Governor, being frequently employed by Massachusetts in her eastern affairs, especially at and after the conquest of Acadia by the English in 1654, probably kept an eye to the effect these changes might have on his interest here, and maintained pos-
* Will. & Sull. His. of Maine, passim.
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session by his traffic with the natives. The fishery on the coast was extensively carried on, and, in 1674, it was said " Pemaquid, Matinicus, Monhegan, Cape Newagen, where Capt. Smith fished for whales, and Muscongus, were all filled with dwellinghouses and stages for fishermen, and had plenty of cattle, arable land and marshes."* There were no corn- mills nearer than Falmouth and Black Point. Walter Phillips had a dwellinghouse, orchard, and extensive improvements on the west side of Damariscotta river at the lower falls, where he claimed a large tract ; and John Taylor had fixed himself next above him on the same side, whose possessions included the Oyster shell Neck. On the other side Robert Scott had his dwellinghouse about east from the great bank of oyster shells ; and John Brown, 2d, was now, or had lately been, es- tablished near the salt-water falls. Sander, or Alexander, Gould lived at Broad Cove, on Broad Bay, and claimed eight miles square between that bay and the Damariscotta under deed from his father-in-law John Brown of New Harbor, dated 1660. Richard Pierce, another son-in-law of Brown, lived farther down about eight miles from New Harbor, and claimed an equal tract, carved, like the preceding, out of the original claim of said Brown and conveyed to him in 1663, under the name of Greenland, by Wm. England of Muscon- gus, or, " as called by the Indians, Seremobscus."; But most of these establishments, and that at St. George's, were broken up in the Indian war that ensued.
In 1675 a general war against the New England colonies was commenced by the Indian tribes headed by Metacomet, chief of the Wampanoags, otherwise called King Philip. Thus far the eastern Indians, though they had many wrongs to complain of, had lived on friendly terms with the settlers both English and French. But their resentment was smother- ed rather than extinguished, and inclined them from the first to take part in the general confederacy against the English. The Wawenocks had been greatly broken up by the war of 1615 and the sickness which ensued, and, being constantly exposed to the incursions of the Tarratines, had now dwindled down to a small tribe, whose principal residence was at the lower falls of the Sheepscot. The Tarratines, although some- what weakened in 1669 by the part they took in the war
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