History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 14

Author: Williams, Chase & Co., Cleveland (Ohio)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Williams, Chase & Co.
Number of Pages: 1100

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The three tribes above named live in great harmony and friendship with each other. When either tribe elects and installs a chief, the chiefs of the other two tribes are always present to assist in the ceremonies.

In religion these tribes are professedly Christians of the Catholic faith, have each a church, with a bell, aud priests to instruct them steadily or occasionally. The priests who minister to the two latter tribes [the Pas- samaquoddies and the Penobscots] receive a stated stipend from the treasury of the State. The State has lately engaged to provide and support a farmer among the Penobscots to instruct them in agriculture. We know not that any of these tribes have ever admitted schools to be established among them.

The Penobscots, in government and internal regulations, are inde- pendent. The legislative and executive authorities are vested in the sachems, though the heads of all the families are invited to be present at their public meetings, which are held in their house of worship and conducted with order and decorum.

None of these tribes have other than incipient improvements in any- thing which pertains to civilized life. It is not probable, such is the religious influence under which they act, combined with their natural attachment to their native places and to the sepulchers of their fathers, that a proposal to remove and join a large community of Indians, should it be made to them, would be accepted. It is probable they will remove [remain?] in a sort of half-independent, half-civilized, and evangelized state, gradually diminishing, as other tribes, once their pow- erful neighbors, have done before them, till there shall be none re- maining.

The census of the tribe, taken usually every year by the superintending school committee of Oldtown, showed a population of four hundred and forty-three in August, 1855; of five hundred, in round numbers, in 1865; four hundred and forty-eight in 1876; four hun- dred and forty-five in 1877; four hundred and fifty in January, 1878; four hundred and forty-six in 1879; four hundred and eighteen in 1880; and the same number in 1881. The sum-total is reduced slightly some years by emigration, as well as by death. The annual numbers of births and deaths in the tribe are generally about equal.

THE RESERVATION.

The islands belonging to the Penobscot reservation number in all, says the agent, one hundred and forty-six, with an aggregate of four thousand four hundred and

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

eighty-two acres, three-quarters of which have an arable soil, among the most fertile and eligible for cultivation in the State. In 1835 the value of the whole was calcula- ted to be sixty-four thousand two hundred and forty-seven dollars and sixty-four cents, mainly for the timber and firewood growing upon them, which have now disap- peared. The islands have still high value for farming purposes, however, and some for hitching logs along the shores, available in the form of rents, although this form of value is reported as rapidly decreasing. Efforts are being made to induce the Indians to scatter along the islands and improve their fertile soil, instead of concentrating at Oldtown, as has been the tendency of late years. The agent says: "About all those Indi- ans who live on their farms up river are self-reliant, and have comfortable homes." In 1836 a considerable tract on the west side of Orson Island was surveyed and re- served for a public farm, suitable buildings were erected, a foreman was employed, and other preparations made to interest the tribe more thoroughly in the cultivation of lots upon the farm. The arrangement was not very ben- eficial, however, and in 1862 the whole farm was leased, under an act of the legislature, for a trifling sum. More recently, however, some of the Indians have began to cultivate small tracts upon the place.

Many of the islands are leased for a small annual ren- tal; others, principally those lowest down the river, are occupied by the Indians themselves; and one, No. 133, of the group known as Brown Islands, near Winn, is reserved as their summer camping ground, and no trees or wood is allowed to be cut from it.

THE PRESENT MISSION.

In the summer of 1878, at the instance of Father O'- Brien, then priest to the tribe, and Bishop Healy, of Portland, four members of the community of Sisters of Mercy were sent from the mother-house at Manchester, New Hampshire, and established upon the island. They were at first in a hired house, but in 1880 a neat and commodious convent and dormitory was erected for them near the chapel, at a cost of one thousand two hun- dred dollars, nearly two-thirds of which were contribu- ted by Indians of the tribe. The Sisters are otherwise supported by funds of their church, except that they re- ceive the regular appropriation for schools on the island, in consideration of their services as teachers. Sister M. F. Borgia, of the Community, with one or more of her associates, has had of late sole charge of the school at Oldtown, and they also minister to the wants of the tribe in attendance upon the sick and other personal visita- tions, especially inculcating among the young women principles of morality, industry, and economy,-the need of which, indeed, prompted Father O'Brien, in the first instance, to secure the presence of the sisters here-and instructing them in sewing and other simple and domestic arts, of which they were before almost wholly ignorant. Soon after going to the island, they formed a class of women, both married and single, who engaged in exercises of reading, singing, sewing, and other useful employments. An evening school was also established, with good success, for the young men of the

tribe who either could not or would not attend the day schools. Their influence upon the island has been every way good. Agent Bailey, in his report for 1880, says of the Sisters:

These refined and accomplished women, having taken up their abode with the tribe on this island, are, with that utter self-abnegation which characterizes the order, assiduously devoting themselves to the moral and intellectual advancement of this remnant of a race which, while living in the midst of our civilization, is not of it.

With the evidence of their devotion to the welfare of this people daily accumulating, as would be expected, a great regard is recipro- cally manifested for them, and no prejudice has been able to survive their ministry of love. It may be premature to express any compara- tive view of their labors, yet the opinion is ventured that upon the home life of the tribe their influence will not be the least potent, as they daily go from house to house, instructing the females in domes- ticity, economy in expenditures, refinement of manners, and personal purity.

CHAPTER III.

THE DISCOVERERS.

Thorfinn Karlsefne-Sabastian Cabot-John Varrazano-His Account of the Maine Country-John Rut-Andre Thevet-First Description of Penobscot Bay and Islands-Sir Humphrey Gilbert-Gosnold- Natives in Foreign Garments, and with a Biscay Shallop-Martin Pring-The Sieur De Monts and Samuel De Champlain-George Weymouth-Was Weymouth in the Penobscot Waters ?- Samuel Argall-The Jesuit Fathers-Captain John Smith-New England First upon his Map-Subsequent Voyages.

THORFINN KARLSEFNE.

To this daring Icelandic voyager may be accorded the honor of conducting the first recorded voyage of civil- ized men along the coast of Maine. Possibly Biarne the first Norse explorer hitherward, in the winter of 990-91, had caught a far glimpse of the bold headlands and deep bays of this rock-bound shore, as he sailed the open sea from Greenland to Cape Cod, and back from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia and home. Leif, son of Erik the Red, in the ship of Biarne nine years later, may also have descried the coast from his lookouts, as he traversed the watery way from his Marhland (Nova Scotia) to his Vinland (probably Rhode Island). The battle of Thor- wald, another son of Erik, in 1004, with the Skraellings (Indians)-the first known conflict of Europeans and aborigines upon the continent-doubtless came much nearer the present confines of Maine, being fought, as Dr. Kohl conjectures, on the shore not far from Boston harbor. Two years later, came the next courageous traversers of the Northern seas, Thorfinn and his com- panions. Thorfinn had married the widow of Thor- stein, a third son of Erik, and also an explorer, and from her learned enough of Vinland to fire his imagina- tion and tempt bim to emulate the deeds of his fellow- countrymen. His wife and others fanned the flame, and in the summer of 1007 he fitted out three ships, man- ning them with one hundred and sixty sailors and in- tending colonists, and also placing on board a variety of live stock, for the colony to-be. The next spring they sailed to Helluland (Leif's "stony land," or Newfound- land), thence to Markland, and thence, instead of fol-

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

lowing their predecessors across the open sea through the breadth of the Gulf of Maine, they coasted a long way to the "southwest, having the land always on their starboard"-that is, the picturesque land of Maine. These happy, heroic eight-score were, then, the first of European stock to look wonder-eyed into the beautiful bays of Passamaquoddy, of Penobscot, and of Casco. They left no record of their shoreward visits, if any they made; but we know that they reached Cape Cod, probably Buzzard's Bay, and also Narragansett Bay, on the shores of which Thorfinn attempted settlement. Here a son was born to him and Gudrida-Snorre, first of European parentage born on the American continent. One of Thorfinn's trusty mates, Thorhall the Hunter, attempted another exploration along the coasts to the northeast, but was caught by strong west winds and driven across the ocean to the green shores of Ireland. Thorfinn himself afterwards sailed to the northward, and came to "the country of the Onefoots," by which name he may have designated the coasts of New Hampshire and Maine, and in which country he saw "endless forests." In the spring of 1011, after three years' residence in the south of Vinland, he sailed away to Greenland, whence he never returned. It is not known what became of his colony.

SEBASTIAN CABOT.

After Thorfinn, many Northmen, it is believed, made trading and exploring voyages to Newfoundland and the coasts of Maine; but very few and meagre notices of them have been preserved, and none which relate strictly to the Maine country. It is quite possible, also, that one or both of the Venetian adventurers, Nicolo and Antonio Zeno, visited the old Icaria, Estotiland, and Drogeo (Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and New Eng- land?) laid down upon their map of 1400; but of this nothing is certainly known. The mists clear away with the advent of Columbus upon the shores of the New World; and from June 24, 1497, when John Cabot touched the coasts of Labrador in latitude 56 or 58, as Humboldt and others affirm, the time, and place of dis- coveries and explorations are rarely doubtful. The next year Sebastian Cabot, second of the three sons of John, sails along the coasts of Labrador and the Newfound- land, and from the latter southerly, keeping the shores as much as possible in view on his right. He was the first Englishman to see the headlands of Maine, and there is abundant reason to believe that he landed at some points on his voyage, which was prosecuted to the neigh- borhood of Cape Hatteras. Says Dr. Kohl:

The voyage of this gifted and enterprising youth along the entire coast of the present United States-nay, along the whole extent of that great continent in which now the English race and language prevail and flourish, has always been considered as the true beginning, the founda- tion and corner-stone of all the English claims and possessions in the northern half of America. English flags were the first which were planted along the shores, and English men were the first of modern Europeans who with their own eyes surveyed the border of that great assemblage of countries in which they were destined to become so prom- inent, and were also the first to put their feet upon it. The history of each one of that chain of States, stretching along the western shores of the Atlantic, begins with Sebastian Cabot and his expedition of 1498. And this is especially true of the State of Maine and the other States

of New England, whose remarkable coasts were particularly observed by him and clearly delineated on his chart.

It is thought possible that the Portuguese under Cor- tereal, the Bretons and other French fishermen in the early part of the sixteenth century, besides other adven- turers in these northern waters, may have visited points upon the shores of Maine; but if they did so, they have not even left even the tradition of their visits.

JOHN VERRAZANO.

This voyager, commonly called Verrazaini, was a Flor- entine adventurer, in the service of France. In the spring of 1524, during his celebrated traverse of the At- lantic shores from Cape Fear northward, he sailed, prob- ably, along the entire coast of Maine. His account of this part of the voyage, as translated from the Italian for Ramusio's narrative in Hakluyt's Voyages, and repub- lished in the first volume of the second series of the Maine Historical Collections, is well worth transcription here, as the first detailed description of this region given by any European traveller. We retain the old English of the translation :

Trending afterwards [after leaving Cape Cod] to the north, we found another land high, full of thicke woods, the trees there of firre, cipresse, and such like as are wont to grow in cold countreys. The people dif- fer much from the other, and looke how much the former seemed to be curteous and gentle, so much were these full of rudenesse and ill man- ners, and so barbarous that by no signes that ever we could make, could we have any kind of traffike with them. They cloth themselves with Beares skinnes and Luzernes and Seales and other beastes skinnes. Their food, as farre as we could perceive, repairing often to their dwell- ings, we supposed to be by hunting and fishing, and of certaine fruits, which are a kind of roots, which the earth yeeldeth of her own accord. They have no graine, neither saw we any kind of signe of tillage, nei- ther is the land, for the barrennesse thereof, apt to beare fruit or seed. If at any time we desired by exchange to have any of their commodi- ties, they used to come to the seashore upon certain craggy rocks, and we standing in our boats, they let down with a rope, crying continually that we should not approach to the land, demanding immediately the exchange, taking nothing but knives, fishhooks, and tooles to cut withall, neither did they make any account of our courtesie. And when we had nothing left to exchange with them, when we departed from them, the people showed all signes of discourtesie and disdaine as were possible for any creature to invent. We were in dispight of them two or three leagues within the land, being in number twenty-five armed men of us. And when we went on shore they shot at us with their bowes, making great outcries, and afterwards fled into the woods.

We found not in this land anything notable or of importance, saving very great woods and certaine hills ; they may have some mineral mat- ter in them, because we saw many of them have beadstones of copper hanging at their eares. We departed from thence, keeping our course northeast along the coast, which we found more pleasant champion [champaign] and without woods, with high mountains within the land. Continuing directly along the coast for the space of fifty leagues, we discovered thirty-two Islands, lying all neere the land, being small and pleasant to the view, high, and having many turnings and windings be- twene them, making many fair harboroughs and chanels as they do in the Gulfe of Venice, in Sclavonia and Dalmatia. We had no knowl- edge or acquaintance with the people : we suppose they are of the same manners or nature as the others are. Sayling Northeast for the space of one hundred and fiftie leagues, we discovered the land that in times past was discovered by the Britons, which is in fiftie degrees.

JOHN RUT.

In 1527 Master John Rut, of the Mary of Guilford, a vessel dispatched by King Henry VIII. of England, visited the coasts of "Arambec" or "Norumbega," as Hakluyt mentions it, often, as the same relator tells, "entering the ports of those regions, landing men, and examining into the condition of the country," and again,

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

she "oftentimes put her men on land to search the state of these unknown regions." This is the first authentic report giving clear information of the landing of English- men upon these shores. It is quite probable that Master Rut penetrated and explored the Penobscot, and visited the people thereaway. Many maps of this period set down Penobscot Bay as the great river of Norumbega, and it was undoubtedly then the best-known water of Maine. One writer thinks that Verrazano, who had re- commended this expedition, was with it, and that he perished at the hands of the savages on one of his ex- cursions into the interior.

ANDRE THEVET.

This extensive traveller, a Frenchman and Franciscan friar, took the coast of Maine in his voyage along the Atlantic shore of both South and North America, in 1554-56. He has left in his Cosmography the first de- tailed description of the Penobscot Bay and natives, which is highly interesting, and deserves quoting in full, as below :

Having left La Florida on the left hand, with all its islands, gulfs, and capes, a river presents itself, which is one of the finest rivers in the whole world, which we call Norumbegue, and the aborigines Agoncy, and which is marked on some marine charts as the Grand River [mean- ing Penobscot Bay]. Several other beautiful rivers enter into it; and upon its banks the French formerly erected a little fort about ten or twelve leagues from its mouth, which was surrounded by fresh water, and this place was named the Fort of Norumbegue.

Some pilots would make me believe that this country (Norumbegue) is the proper country of Canada. But I told them that this was far from the truth, since this country lies in 43º N., that of Canada in 50 or 52°. Before you enter the said river appears an island [ Fox Island], surrounded by eight very small islets, which are near the country of the green mountains [Camden Hills], and to the cape of the islets. From there you sail all along unto the mouth of the river, which is dan- gerous from the great number of thick and high rocks ; and its entrance is wonderfully large. About three leagues into the river an island pre- sents itself to you that may have four leagues in circumference [Long Island, now Islesboro'], inhabited only by some fishermen and birds of different sorts, which island they called Aiayascou, because it has the form of a man's arm, which they call so. Its greatest length is from north to south. It would be very easy to plant on this island, and build a fortress on it to keep in check the whole surrounding country. Hav- ing landed and put our feet on the adjacent country, we perceived a great mass of people coming down upon us from all sides in such num- bers that you might have supposed them to have been a flight of star- lings. Those who marched first were the men, which they call aquchuns. After them came the women, which they call pergruastas; then the adigestas, being the children, and the last were the girls, called auius- gestas. And all this people was clothed in skins of wild animals, which they call rabatatz. Now, considering their aspect and manner of pro- ceeding, we mistrusted them and went on board our vessel. But they, perceiving our fear, lifted their hands into the air, making signs that we should not mistrust them; and for making us still more sure, they sent to our vessel some of their principal men, which brought us pro- visions. In recompense of this, we gave them a few trinkets of a low price, by which they were highly pleased. The next morning I, with some others, was commissioned to meet them, to know whether they would be inclined to assist us with more victuals, of which we were very much in need. But having entered into the house, which they call canoque, of a certain little king of theirs which called himself Per- amich, we saw several killed animals hanging on the beams of the said house, which he had prepared (as he assured us) to send to us. This chief gave us a very hearty welcome, and, to show us his affection, he ordered to kindle a fire, which they call azista, on which the meat was to be put and fish to be roasted. Upon this some rogues came in to bring to the king the heads of six men, which they had taken in war and massacred, which terrified us, fearing that they might treat us in the same way. But toward evening we secretly retired to our ship without bidding good-bye to our host. At this he was very much irri-

tated, and came to us the next morning, accompanied by three of his children, showing a mournful countenance, because he thought that we had been dissatisfied with him; and he said in his language, "Let us go, let us go on land, my friend and brother; come to drink and eat what we have; we assure you upon oath by Heaven, earth, moon, and stars, that you shall fare not worse than our own persons."

Seeing the good affection and will of this old man, some twenty of us went again on land, every one of us with his arms; and then we went to his lodgings, where we were treated and presented with what he possessed. And meanwhile great numbers of people arrived, caress- ing and offering themselves to give us pleasure, saying that they were our friends. Late in the evening, when we were willing to retire and to take leave of the company with actions of gratitude, they would not give us leave. Men, women, children, all entreated us zealously to stay with them, crying out these words, "My friends, do not start from here ; you shall sleep this night with us." But they could not harangue so well as to persuade us to sleep with them. And so we retired to our vessel; and, having remained in this place five full days, we weighed anchor, parting from them with a marvelous contentment of both sides, and went out to the open sea.

GILBERT.

In 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert, arriving with his ships at St. Johns, Newfoundland, read his commission from Queen Elizabeth of England, and formally took posses- sion of the place and the region within a radius of two hundred leagues therefrom for the crown. He received a sod and a twig in token of subjection, and set up a pillar bearing a shield of lead, with the English arms engraved upon it.

GOSNOLD.

Bartholomew Gosnold was the first English navigator who sailed straight from Great Britain for the American shores. This was in 1602. On the 4th of May he sighted land at or about the forty-third degree of north. latitude. Mr. Williamson thinks this first land he saw might have been Mount Desert or Agamenticus ; but others, not relying upon Gosnold's reckoning, place it further to the southward, in the neighborhood of Cape Ann, if not the cape itself .* Wherever it was, his ves- sel was here boarded by a party of Indians, who came in "a shallop of European fabric," such as fishermen use in the Bay of Biscay, carrying sails as well as oars. They had also an iron grapple and a kettle in their little ship. The leader and one or two others were partly dressed in foreign garments, and as the old account in Purchas says, "they spoke divers Christian words, and seemed to un- derstand more than we, for want of language, could comprehend." This incident is highly interesting, as showing that Biscayan fishermen had been driven across the ocean, or that Frenchmen or Spaniards had visited the coast of Maine (or Massachusetts, as the case may be,) before the visit of Gosnold, and had there disap- peared, leaving only these traces of their visit.

MARTIN PRING

was one of Gosnold's companions. In the spring of the next year he was provided by some merchants of Bristol with two small vessels, with which he made, beyond all doubt, a voyage along the coast of Maine, entering, among other waters, and probably the first he entered on this shore, the Bay of Penobscot. He found a "high country full of great woods," with which the voyagers were greatly pleased, as also with the fishing and harbor-

* See Bryant & Gay's Popular History of the United States, vol. i, p. 263.

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

age; and, finding silver-grey foxes upon an island, they named the whole cluster the Fox Islands, which has been retained, although the corporate name of the prin- cipal ones, since 1789, has been Vinalhaven. Gorges relates that Pring made a perfect discovery of "all these Eastern rivers and harbors, and brought the most exact account of the coast that had ever come to hand."

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History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 14

Author: Williams, Chase & Co., Cleveland (Ohio) Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Cleveland, Williams, Chase & Co. Number of Pages: 1100

Author: Williams, Chase & Co., Cleveland (Ohio)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Williams, Chase & Co.
Number of Pages: 1100