History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 16

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

USA > Maine > Penobscot County > History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 16

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*The Rev. B. F. Da Costa, however, in his Critical Examination of Dr. Kohl's work, thinks the learned German mistaken in his location of " Drogeo," and that the appellation never belonged to any country so far to the southward as Maine.

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

line is about 500 miles long. But a small stretch of the coast of Maine is shown.

Gastaldi doubtless derived the information upon which this map was made from Pierre Crignon, a French navi- gator and writer, in 1537 or 1539, upon the French ex- plorers, who was the first, so far as is known, to disclose the aboriginal name "Norumbega," by which he names a vast extent of country, including the tract now occu- pied by Maine. (But Mr. DeCosta says Norumbega was named by Peter Martyr, in 1511. See his The Northmen in Maine: A Critical Examination, etc.) According, how- ever, to this writer's "Discourse of a great French sea- captain of Dieppe [Jean Parmetier], on the navigations made to the West Indies, called New France, from the 40° to the 47º N.," Norumbega reached even to Florida. It was subsequently narrowed to New England, then to the Maine country, and finally to the Penobscot region. The preface to the first volume of the New Series of the Maine Historical Collections remarks that "the ancient Norumbega, embracing sometimes the whole of New England, has a conspicuous place on nearly all the early maps, and retained its name far into the next century, but over a narrower region.

Old Heylin, in his Cosmographie, printed at London in 1652, attempts something like a boundary of this country in the following :

Norombega hath on the N. E. Nova Scotia, on the S. W. Virginia. Virginia, in the full latitude thereof, extendeth from the 34th degree, where it joins with Florida, unto the 44th degree, where it quartereth on Norombega.

Now we will let Monsieur Crignon speak for himself in regard to this wonderful land. He says :

Going beyond the cape of the Bretons, there is a country contiguous to this cape, the coast of which trends to the west a quarter southwest to the country of Florida, and runs along for a good five hundred leagues ; which coast was discovered fifteen years ago by Master Gio- vanni da Verrazano in the name of the King of France and of Madame la Regente; and this country is called by many "La Francese," and even by the Portuguese themselves ; and its end is toward Florida under 18° west and 38º north. The inhabitants of this country are a very pleasant, tractable, and peaceful people. The country is abounding with all sorts of fruits. There grow oranges, almonds, wild grapes, and many other fruits of odoriferous trees. The country is named by the inhabitants, "Nurumbega ;" and between it and Brazil is a great gulf, in which are the islands of the West Indies, discovered by the Spaniards.

But before this, in 1527, the English ship Mary of Guilford, commanded by. Master John Rut, had been in North American waters, and "returned by the coasts of Newfoundland, Cape Breton, and Norumbega," as Hak- luyt says in his book of Voyages, Navigations, etc. But Hakluyt's first edition was not published till 1589, and Gastaldi must have relied upon Crignon. This old edi- tion of Hakluyt's reads "coasts of Arambec," which prob- ably means the same as Norumbega.

Upon the map of Girolamo Ruscelli, of date 1561, this country appears as "Tierra de Nurumberg" (an evi- dent confusion of "Norumbega" with a noted German city), and is placed on the coast above "Larcadia," or Acadia, which is something like getting the cart before the horse.

Again, upon the map of Michael Lok, of 1582, made after Verrazano's "olde excellent mappe," the country

appears as "Norombega," a long island, including every- thing from Cape Breton to a large strait running from north to south, and supposed by some to designate the Hudson river. All the maps of Lok's time are said by Dr. Kohl to have the name conspicuous upon this part of them. Upon many subsequent maps it is displaced by "Tiera de Bacalos" and other titles, but reappears on Mercator's maps, in the latter part of the sixteenth cen- tury, in the "Novus Atlas" of William and John Blaen, 1642, where it is printed as "Norembega," but previously, in a map published by Hondius in 1607, as "Nurum- bega."

In a great map of 1543, prepared by order of Henry II., King of France, the name "Auorobagra" occurs near Penobscot Bay, just where other maps have Norum- bega, and runs up to a castle or cluster of houses in the place where subsequent charts locate the city of Norum- bega. "Auorobagra" is therefore reasonably conjectured to be a misprint for the latter word.

On the map of the celebrated geographer and carto- grapher, Gerard Mercator, 1568, representing the east coast of North America, we have the first location of a large city or aboriginal capital of the country of Norum- bega, on the east bank of the Penobscot, with the name "Norumbega" attached. The existence of such a city is also affirmed by some of the old writers, as Pilot Jean Alphonse, of Xaintonge, who says that Norombega was a city fifteen to twenty leagues from the sea, whose inhab- itants were small a'nd of a dark complexion. The fable was repeated as late as 1607, in the Historie Universelle des Indes Occidentales, and the name is honorably per- petuated in "Norombega Hall" and otherwise. Yet it must be said that the evidence supporting such belief is very slight and unsatisfactory. Even the maps exhibit- ing the locality place it upon the east side of the Penob- scot ("on the Brewer flats," some writers say), and not upon the site of Bangor.

The tradition of a large city called Norombega, situa- ted upon the site of the city, seems, however, to have passed into tacit acceptance in that place. But Judge Godfrey and other well-informed local writers speak of it as "the mythical great city," and the like. Champlain says in his Voyages:

From the entrance [of Penobscot Bay] to where I was, which is twenty-five leagues up the river, I saw no city nor village nor appear- ance of there having been one; but, indeed, one or two savage huts where there was nobody.

And again, in the account of his voyage of 1605, through Penobscot Bay and up the river, he says of the rumored Norumbega :

They say also there is a great city well peopled with savages, adroit and skillful, and used to the manufacture of cotton. I am sure that most of those who speak of these things have never seen them, and de- rive their authority from men who know no more than themselves.

All that Champlain reports of possible civilization in the Penobscot wilderness was what he took to be an an- cient and moss-covered cross somewhere in the woods. He was undoubtedly mistaken, however, in his identifi- cation of this object-unless, indeed, he in 1605 found Weymouth's cross planted up some river the same spring, which would hardly be as yet old and mossy.

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

Says Heylin, in his Cosmographie :

Most have formerly agreed upon Norumbegua or Arampec, as the natives call it ; said to be a large, populous, and well-built town, and to be situated on a fair and capacious river of the same name also. But later observations tell us there is no such matter; that the river which the first relations did intend is Pemptegouet, neither large nor pleasant [ ! ] ; and that the place by them meant is called Agguncia, so far from being a fair city, that there are only a few. sheds or cabins, covered with the barks of trees or the skins of beasts.

Upon the whole, it must be concluded that there was nowhere upon the Penobscot, and at no time during the aboriginal period, anything more than the ordinary, wretched Indian villages, at one of which the Bashaba, or chief, had his lodge and petty court.

* The Penobscot is designated upon Mercator's map as Rio Grande, or the "great river;" and it soon came to be designated as the "Great River of Norumbega." Thevet, in 1556, mentioning it also as the Grand River on the charts, and called "Agoncy" by the natives, says, "which we call Norumbegue," and eulogizes it as "one of the finest rivers in the whole world." He mentions also a little fort erected by the French ten or twelve leagues from its mouth, and named the "Fort of Nor- umbegue." The "Great River of Norumbega," with the mythical city on its eastern shore, makes a great figure in many maps and charts of the sixteenth century.

The great gulf between Cape Cod and Nova Scotia, not even yet receiving a specific geographical designa- tion of general acceptance, but sometimes called the Gulf of Maine, or of New England, was named by the French fishermen of the earliest day as the Sea or Gulf of Norumbega, from the country on the side of the mainland.

Norumbega has made some figure in other literature than that of travel or history. One considerable work of the old compiler and writer, Richard Hakluyt-the Discourse concerning Western Planting, written in 1584, but not printed until nearly three centuries afterwards, when, in 1877, it first saw the light by the enterprise of the Maine Historical Society-was apparently written for the express purpose of stimulating emigration to Norumbega. In almost his opening sentence he men- tions that "those [natives] whom Stephen Gomez brought from the coaste of Maine in the year 1524 worshipped the sonne, the moone, and the starres, and used other idolatrie."

Milton, also, in the tenth book of the Paradise Lost, uses Norumbega for the purposes of illustration. His words are :-

Now from the North

Of Norombega and the Samoed shore, Bursting their brazen dungeons, armed with ice, And snow and hail, and stormy gust and flaw, Boreas and Cæcias, and Argestes loud, And Thrascias rend the woods and rocks upturn.

The noblest poetical tribute, however, as yet paid to Norumbega, is by the Quaker poet, John G. Whittier, in a contribution to the Atlantic Monthly for June, 1869. We give it place here without abridgment, except to re- move the historical foot-note :-

NOREMBEGA.

BY J. G. WHITTIER.

The winding way the serpent takes The mystic water took,

From where, to count its beaded lakes, The forest sped its brook.

A narrow space 'twixt shore and shore, For sun or stars to fall, While evermore, behind, before, Closed in the forest wall.

The dim wood hiding underneath Wan flowers without a name ;

Life tangled with decay and death, League after league the same.

Unbroken over swamp and hill The rounding shadow lay, Save where the river cut at will A pathway to the day.

Beside that track of air and light, Weak as a child unweaned,

At shut of day a Christian knight Upon his henchman leaned,

The embers of the sunset's fires Along the clouds on high ;

" I see," he said, "the domes and spires Of Norembega town."

"Alack ! the domes, O master mine, Are golden clouds on high ; Yon spire is but the branchless pine That cuts the evening sky."

"O hush and hark! What sounds are these But chants and holy hymns?

"Thou hear'st the breeze that stirs the trees Through all their leafy limbs."

" Is it a chapel bell that fills The air with its low tone?"

"Thou hear'st the tinkle of the rills, The insect's vesper drone."

" The Christ be praised !- He sets for me A blessed cross in sight !"

"Now, nay, 'tis but yon blasted tree With two gaunt arms outright !"

"Be it wind so sad or tree so stark, It mattereth not, my knave ;

Methinks to funeral hymns I hark, The cross is for my grave !

"My life is sped ; I shall not see My home-set sails again ; The sweetest eyes of Normandie Shall watch for me in vain.

"Yet onward still to ear and eye The baffling marvel calls ;

1 fain would look before I die On Norembega's walls.

"So, haply, it shall be thy part At Christian feet to lay

The mystery of the desert's heart My dead hand plucked away.

"Leave me an hour of rest ; go thou And look from yonder heights ; Perchance the valley even now Is starred with city lights."

The henchman climbed the nearest hill, He saw nor tower nor town, But, through the drear woods, lone and still, The river rolling down.

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

He heard the stealthy feet of things Whose shapes he could not see, A flutter as of evil wings, The fall of a dead tree.

The pines stood black against the moon, A sword of fire beyond ;

He heard the wolf howl, and the loon Laugh from his reedy pond.

He turned him back : " O master dear, We are but men misled ; And thou hast sought a city here To find a grave instead."

"As God shall will ! what matter where A true man's cross may stand, So Heaven be o'er it here as there In pleasant Norman land?

"These woods, perchance, no secret hide Of lordly tower and hall ;

Yon river in its wanderings wide Has washed no city wall ;

"Yet mirrored in the sullen stream The holy stars are given ; Is Norembega then a dream Whose waking is in Heaven?

" No bnilded wonder of these lands My weary eyes shall see ; A city never made with hands Alone awaiteth me-

"'Urbs Syon mystica' ; I see Its mansions passing fair,

' Condita cælo' ; let me be, Dear Lord, a dweller there !"

Above the dying exile hung The vision of the bard,

As faltered on his failing tongue The songs of good Bernard.

The henchman dug at dawn a grave Beneath the hemlocks brown, And to the desert's keeping gave The lord of fief and town.

Years after, when the Sieur Champlain Sailed up the mystic stream, And Norembega proved again A shadow and a dream,

He found the Norman's nameless grave Within the hemlock's shade, And, stretching wide its arms to save, The sign that God had made, ----

The cross-boughed tree that marked the spot And made it holy ground : He needs the earthly city not Who hath the heavenly found !

ACADIA.

The next designation for the Maine and much other country east of the Penobscot, and at one time, as we shall see, for a tract west of that river also, was French, originally Acadie, a corruption, some say, of Arcadia, the classic name of the picturesque old tract in the middle of the Peloponnesus (the modern Morea), the Switzer- land of Greece, whose people believed themselves to be the oldest tribe on the peninsula. This old-time deriva- tion is not now generally accepted, but the word is held to be of unmixed Indian origin. According to Mr. Porter C. Bliss, said to be very competent authority on Indian words, Acadie is a pure Micmac word, with the significa- tion of "place." The Eastern Indians still use it in

composition; and Passamaquoddy, or "the place of the pollock," is derived from the Etchemin word pestum- acadie. Its own derivation is from ahkt, "land," or "place," and da, an interjection denoting admiration, the whole implying a fertile or abundant country excit- ing pleasant surprise. The name first appears in a map of "Tierra Nueva," or the New Land, by Ruscelli, in 1561, as "Larcadia," designating an unlimited tract be- tween "Tierra de Nurumberg" (Nurumbega) and "La Florida." It was afterwards written and printed "L'Ar- cadie," "L'Accadie," "la Cadie," "L'Acadie," "Lacadie," "Accady," and "Accadia," and even more eccentric shapes, but is commonly known, in speech and writing, as Acadia. In this country, on the Nova Scotian side- In the Acadian land, on the shores of the basin of Minas,

where ---

Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand Pre Lay in the fruitful valley.

the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,

Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,

Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven,"-

here Mr. Longfellow has placed the opening scenes of his poem "Evangeline."

It is not certainly known when or by whom the name was first applied to this region. It appears to have been already in use at the time (November 8, 1603) the first royal grant of the country was made, by Henry IV. of France and Navarre, to Pierre du Guast, otherwise the Sieur de Monts. The words of the charter are, as ren- dered into English : "We do appoint, ordain, make, constitute, and establish you our Lieutenant General, to represent our person in the country, territory, coasts, and confines of Acadia, from the' fortieth to the forty-sixth degree ; and within this extent, or any part thereof, as far inland as may be practicable, to establish, extend, and make known our name, power, and authority, and therewith subject, cause to submit and obey, all the people of the said land and circumjacent country," etc., etc. This was the first civil jurisdiction proclaimed by an enlightened government over Eastern Maine. It was a vast tract thus assigned to the supremacy of De Monts, extending from the latitude of Philadelphia to the northern slopes of Mount Katahdin, including the southern part of the present New Brunswick and nearly the whole of Nova Scotia, and extending indefinitely from the Atlantic toward the Pacific.

De Monts sailed for his new possessions in two well-equipped vessels, March 7, 1604, with a companion of some note, M. de Pontrincourt, and a pilot of much greater fame, the renowned. Samuel Champlain, the cour- ageous explorer from whom the beautiful water between New York and Vermont takes its name. Reaching the coast off Nova Scotia, they presently explored the Bay of Fundy, selected the site of Port Royal, later Annapolis, visited and named St. John's River, and reared a fortifica- tion on the island they called St. Croix-from the brooks about it, which came "crosswise to fall within this large branch of the sea" (the Schoodic, which also came to be known as the St. Croix). Here De Monts wintered; here was the first settlement, though not a permanent one, in Acadia-the settlement at Port Royal not beginning

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

until the next year; and here was in some sense the first seat of government for the vast province of Acadia, in- cluding all of the present Penobscot county, except a parallelogram of about thirty miles, in length and breadth, at the northern end.

De Mont's rule was soon broken, as to nearly the whole of his mighty domain, by the establishment of North and South Virginia, under English auspices; but the French dominion in this quarter was restored by the treaty of St. Germains, March 9, 1632, under the third article of which "His Majesty of Great Britain promises by his ambassador to give up and restore to his most Christian Majesty all the places occupied in New France, Acadia, and Canada by the subjects of his Majesty of Great Britain, causing the latter to retire from the said places, and deliver to the commissaries of the most Christian King in good faith the power which he (the ambassador) has from his Majesty of Great Britain, for the restitution of said places." The English settlers were, however, not wholly excluded from the country, and many of them remained. New France, mentioned in the article, was the general designation for all the vast tracts in North America, not only at the East, but upon the great waters of the West, supposed to be vested in the crown of France, by the discoveries of her brave and pious explorers. The name is said to have been given first by John Verazzani, the Florentine voyager in the French service, who sailed the entire coast from Florida to Newfoundland in 1524, and took possession of the Acadian country for France. He was killed (and eaten, some say) by the Indians, somewhere upon its rock-bound shores. In 1627 the title was legally recognized in the grant of the domain to this body corporate of one hundred and seven formed by Cardinal Richelieu, and called the Company of New France. Of this immense region Acadia, Canada, and Louisiana-each of which, espec- ially the last, was in territorial extent and empire-were component parts.

Some years before the treaty of St. Germains, the French king had made a grant of land on the river St. Johns to M. Claude St. Estienne de la Tour, a professed Protestant, to whom was afterwards (February 11, 1631) given a commission from Louis as Governor of Acadia. The next year after the treaty, in 1633, Cardinal Riche- lieu appointed M. de Razilla, an officer in the army, to take command in Acadia. La Tour, whose authority was now subordinate to that of Razilla, continued to re- side upon the St. Johns, while the latter received an ex- tensive grant west of La Tour's, including the bay and river of St. Croix, and the islands "twelve leagues on the sea." Razilla lived chiefly, however, in the fortress of La Heve, east of Liverpool, on the south shore of Nova Scotia, and there had the seat of his government. The English from New Plymouth, on the Massachusetts coast, had already established a trading-house on the eastern shore of Penobscot Bay, and remained undis- turbed until early June, 1632, when a French vessel, piloted, strange to say, by a recreant Scotchman, came down upon it from the further parts of Acadia. Mr. Williamson thus continues the story :

Her crew, conducting in the true character of freebooters, pretended they had put into harbour in distress, and would esteem a permission to repair leaks and refresh themselves as a great favor. Emboldened by generous courtesies received, as well as by information of the master's absence with most of his men on a tour westward for goods, they first examined the fort-arms to ascertain if they were charged, then, seizing swords and loaded muskets, ordered the three or four remaining keepers of the truck-house to surrender, upon pain of instant death, and to de- liver their goods and immediately put them on board. Having in this shameful manner rifled the fort of its contents, to the amount of £500, they bade the men this taunting and insulting farewell, "Tell your mas- ter to remember the Isle of Re."

The last was an allusion to the crushing defeat sus- tained by the English at an island, on the French coast six years before. The traders at Penobscot, notwith- standing this raid, restored and continued their post and traffic there for three years longer, when they were com- pelled to leave. They had meanwhile, in 1633, founded another trading-house at Machias, with a valuable stock and a small, but well-armed and trusty guard. This, too, was plundered by La Tour the next year, who killed two of the defenders in overcoming resistance and carried off a large amount of property, with the survivors as prison- er's. He afterwards, when taken to task by a New Ply- mouth colonist for this transaction, boldly declared that his authority was from the King of France, " who claims the coast from Cape Sable to Cape Cod," and that, if the English attempted to trade to the east of Pemaquid, he would sieze them. He then dismissed the Englishman with his countrymen, the prisoners taken at Machias.

Many years afterwards, in 1654, La Tour was unpleas- antly surprised by an English expedition with secret or- ders from Cromwell to reduce the French possessions in this quarter. The station at Penobscot was surrendered without resistance; La Tour, at St. John's, was wholly unprepared for battle, and his settlement was captured without difficulty, as also Port Royal, La Heve, Cape Sable, and every colony in the province. This was in time of peace between France and England, and the former power naturally complained of the invasion; but Cromwell, claiming under the older title, refused restitu- tion. The next year the conquest was formally confirmed to the English; but again, in 1667, it was returned to France under the Treaty of Breda.

In the summer of 1635, M. D'Aulnay, who had command, under Razilla, of the Acadian country west of the St. Croix, made another descent upon the trading house at Biguyduce, or Penobscot, and again plundered it of goods. He did not leave the traders and their em- ployees, as La Tour did, to revive the business upon their departure; but sent them away altogether, with the swelling injunction and threat, "Go now, and tell all the plantations southward to the twentieth degree that a fleet of eight ships will be sent against them within a year, to displace the whole of them; and know that my commis- sion is from the King of France." D'Aulney remained upon the spot with eighteen followers, and fortified against expected attack from the English. This soon came at the hands of Captain Girling, in command of a large vessel called the Hope, which had been engaged for the purpose at Ipswich by the New Plymouth colon- ists, with the pledge of two hundred pounds, if the

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

enterprise against D'Aulnay succeeded. The enemy were too well entrenched, however, and, when Girling had fired away all his ammunition, nothing remained but to maintain a silent blockade in front of the fortress. Meanwhile Massachusetts was making common cause with New Plymouth for the expulsion of the French from Biguyduce; and, under the advice of a captain of much military experience, named Sellanova, was prepar- ing a more extensive expedition against D'Aulnay, when a tremendous storm did so much damage in the fields and otherwise that provisions could not be had for it, and it was abandoned. The French were presently relieved of Girling's presence by the arrival of part of a shipwrecked crew of Connecticut mariners, who had been kindly treated by Razilla, and furnished with a shallop for their voyage home. In some way difficult to understand, these unfortunates fell into the hands of D'Aulnay, rather than Girling: and the Frenchman refused to let them go unless the obnoxious ship from Ipswich should depart. The Hope was now probably hopeless of success, and only too glad to get away. She accordingly sailed for home, and D'Aulnay then allowed his later visitors to leave, bearing a courteous letter to the Governor of New Plymouth. He and La Tour both made a solemn declaration afterwards that they would never, unless expressly ordered to do so, claim any terri- tory west of Pemaquid.

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History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 16

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