History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 17

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

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As to the extent of Acadia (or Nova Scotia), it is usually held not to have reached further westward than the line of the Penobscot. It is observable, however, that during the English occupancy 1755-67, in the grant to Sir Thomas Temple and the younger La Tour, the Protector's charter describes their tract as "the territory sometimes called L'Accadia, and that part of the country called Nova Scotia, from Merliquash [later Lunenberg] to Penobscot, the river St. George, and the Muscongus, situated on the confines of New England"-which car- ried the boundary far to the southwestward of Penobscot. But Mr. Williamson avers that "it is certain, however, that the French had at no time any territorial possessions westward of Penobscot River and Bay waters, which were for many years the divisional boundary between them and the English."

The failure, in the treaty of St. Germains, to prescribe definite limits to Acadia, led to endless controversies, and the grant itself was furthermore always an unpopular measure with the colonists in New England. The reces- sion of the Acadian province to France by the treaty of Breda, or rather in a subsequent article, was also greatly lamented; and it was a grave question concerning the grant to Sir Thomas Temple, whether the Crown could cede any other right over the territory than that of sov- ereignty. Indeed, upon the pressure of his claims on the English Government, he was nominally allowed the total sum of £16,200 for his purchase money and ex- penses of fortifications and other improvements, though he never received it. The article of cession in this treaty made no prescription of boundaries, but men- tioned by name, as included in the transfer, St. Johns, Port Royal, La Heve, Cape Sable, and Pentagoet or

Penobscot, which thus again became Gallic territory. The French occupied all the coast from Cape Breton to Penobscot, where they had a stockaded fort, as also at Port Royal and St. Johns. According to Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, the French remained in pos- session of Penobscot until about 1664.

M. de Bourg is reputed to have been the first French Governor of the restored province. M. Densy succeeded to the rulership of Acadia, under the title of Lieutenant- Governor, and remained in the province for thirty years. In 1672, he published in Paris a short history of the country. M. Manival was subsequently Governor.

NORTH VIRGINIA.

We now return to the English domination of the Penobscot country. Following the discoveries of Captain Weymouth, an association of Englishmen was formed, to promote European colonization and the introduction of Christianity among the savages on the shores of North America. To these King James I. gave a patent, April 10, 1606, as two organizations under one general coun- cil,-the former called the London Company, from the residence of the corporators, or the First Colony of Virginia; the other the Plymouth Company, or Second Colony. The territory granted the two companies, and claimed by the English crown, by virtue of the dis- coveries of its subjects, stretched from the thirty-fourth to the forty-fifth parallel, or from the latitude of Colum- bia, South Carolina, to that of Passamaquoddy Bay and Oldtown, in Penobscot county. The whole was known by the general name of North and South Virginia ; but the lower part of this county, below Oldtown, was included in what was commonly known by the separate name of North Virginia. The Second or Plymouth colony had special jurisdiction here, being permitted to begin a plantation anywhere above the thirty-eighth degree, while the London Company might colonize anywhere below the forty-first parallel, it being provided, however, that the second settlement should not be made within one hundred miles of that first planted. Each company was ruled by a Subordinate Council of thirteen, nomi- nated by the crown and resident with the colony; and both were under the paramount jurisdiction of a General Council of Virginia, also of thirteen and named by the king, but resident in England. The colonies were fully empowered by the patent to seize and expel intruders, and had other important rights and privileges granted.

Under this charter the settlement at Jamestown, in South Virginia, was made in April, 1607; and in August of the same year, Popham and Gilbert, of the Plymouth Company, formed the Sagadahock colony, at "the mouth of a fair navigable river" on the coast of Maine, which gave the name to the settlement. George Popham, brother of the Lord Chief Justice of England and senior captain of the voyage, was appointed president of the colony; Raleigh Gilbert, nephew of Sir Walter Raleigh, admiral; Edward Harlow, master of the militia; Ellis Best, marshal; John Scammon, secretary of the colony ; James Dairs, commander of the fort; and Gome Carew, searcher, whatever that might be.

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

The foundation for a great State, apparently, was thus laid in the wilderness of the Northwest. Little account was made of the French claims to the same territory, and the courageous, enterprising Englishmen went on to develop the land and hold it boldly for king and coun- try. In 1613, under the auspices of Madame de Guerche- ville, a devoted and enterprising Catholic Frenchwoman, who had secured a transfer of De Monts' rights to her, a colony and mission was established at St. Saviour, on Mount Mansel, now Mount Desert Island. Captain Argal, the voyager, on a fishing venture in these waters was wrecked in Penobscot Bay, and there heard of the French occupation so near that locality, and at once advised the Virginian authorities of it .* They promptly equipped a fleet of eleven fishing vessels with fourteen cannon and sixty men, with Argal in command, and sent it to dispossess the French. The latter were taken com- pletely by surprise, but made a faint resistance, during which one of the Jesuit priests, Du Thet, was killed by a musket-ball. The fort was captured, the Catholic cross destroyed and another cross put up bearing the title of the English king, in token of repossession of the place. The fleet then sailed up the coast, destroying the rem- nant of De Monts' settlement at St. Croix, and reduced the fort and hamlet of Port Royal to ashes, after which the expedition returned home. England and France were at peace; but the former justified resistance to the encroachments of the French upon the ground of the original discovery by Cabot, the formal possession taken by Gilbert, the North and South Virginia patent, and the repeated visits of the English and the settlement of the country. These claims appear to have been tacitly admitted by France, since no resentment was expressed at the expedition, nor reprisals attempted. A small colony of the Frenchmen was permitted to remain at Port Royal, with Biencourt, the former commander, still at their head.

NEW ENGLAND.

After the explorations of Captain Smith along the Maine coast, in 1614, and the preparation of his famous map and history, Prince Charles, to whom the docu- ments were submitted, prefixed to them the designation New England, applying, it is supposed, to the whole region between Manhattan, or New York, and Newfound- land. Six years afterwards, November 3, 1620, a charter was granted by King James to forty knights and gentle- men of England, under the title of "The Council estab- lished at Plymouth, in the County of Devon, for planting, ruling and governing New England in America." A more extensive tract was granted them-and that, too, absol- utely in fee simple-than either of the preceding com- panies, English or French, had received. Its territory was defined as between the 40th and 48th degrees of northern latitude in breadth-that is, from the parallel of Philadelphia to that of the Bay of Chaleurs and Trinity

Bay, Newfoundland, well to the north of the present boundary of Maine,-and in length by the same breadth "throughout the mainland from sea to sea"-from the Atlantic to the Pacific, which was a mighty stretch of empire, regarded in either length or breadth. The privi- leges previously granted in the Virginia charter were continued in this, except that coinage of money was not allowed. No Catholic, also, was to be allowed to settle in the colony. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, a great and venerable name in the history of Maine, who had become President of North Virginia under the former patent, was now most prominent in the new Council; and the next in influence and authority to him was John Mason, the virtual founder of New Hampshire. To Mason was made the first territorial grant by the Plymouth Council, being the lands between the Merrimac and Naumkeag rivers, from their sources to the sea, with all islands within three miles of the coast-a tract to which he gave the name Mariana. The next grant was obtained by Gorges from the Council, in order more effectually to exclude the French from the northeastern part of New England, to Sir William Alexander, Secretary of State for Scotland, under the name of

NOVA SCOTIA.

It was intended to designate the country simply as New Scotland, in honor of Sir William's native land ; but the charter was written in Latin, and the name was trans- lated accordingly into a form which it retains to this day. The limits of the grant (which was confirmed September 10, 1621, by patent from the king) were from Passama- quoddy Bay through the river St. Croix, to the farthest source or spring which comes from the west; thence north in a direct course overland to the first spring that runs into the great river of Canada; thence northward. unto the river and along the shores of it eastward to Gaspe; and thence by the coast, exclusive of Newfound- land and Cape Breton, around Cape Sable and across the Bay of Fundy to the place of beginning, with the islands and waters within six miles of the shore. This was an unconditional grant in fee simple to Sir William, without any provision for civil government in the patent. The country was erected, says Mr. Williamson, "into a royal palatinate, to be holden as a fief of the Scottish crown, the proprietary being invested with the royal rights and prerogatives of a count-palatine. The two rights of soil and government being in this way originally separated, were for a long period kept distinct, and some- times in different hands. These territories must have been considered the king's Scottish dominions; and even then it will perplex the wisest civilian to discover the justice or propriety of the tenure."

This remarkable grant has been noted by Governor Joshua L. Chamberlain, in his Centennial Address on The Place of Maine in History, as the only palatinate ever established on the American continent.

It will be observed that no part of the Penobscot county, and but little of any part of Eastern Maine, was included in the grant to Sir William Alexander. After- wards, however, the name Nova Scotia seems to have been applied to much of the country southwestward of

* Palairet, in his description of the English and French Possessions in North America, asserts that the French at this time had "a fort at the mouth of the river Pentagoet or Penobscot, and Argal drove them away." Ogilby, author of a Description of the New World, also says that the Jesuits had become masters at Port Royal, and begun a fort at Pentagoet. Neither statement is believed to be sufficiently supported.

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

the St. Croix, as we have already found that in 1656 the Lord Protector's charter to Sir Thomas Temple, then Governor of the Province, to La Tour, who had held office there under the French, and William Crown, granted "the territory sometimes called L' Accadia, and that part of the country called Nova Scotia, from Merli- quash to Penobscot, the river St. George and the Mus- congus, situated on the confines of New England." This unmistakably included the Penobscot country, and we are thus justified in the introduction of Nova Scotia as one of the geographical designations and civil juris- dictions under which this country once existed. Mr. Williamson says, however:

The phraseology and terms of Cromwell's patent to La Tour, Tem- ple, and Crown, have proved to be the grounds or causes of endless confusion and severe conflicts. Both Acadia and Nova Scotia are mentioned, yet the limits and extent of them, as expressed, have long perplexed the ablest statesmen; or, in other words, the language of Cromwell's charter has been urged by opponents to show that Nova Scotia must have embraced another and greater region than what is contained in the charter to Sir William Alexander.

Under this grant Sir Thomas Temple, the chief pro- prietor, in position and influence, at least, was made governor. Young La Tour exhibited no title to lands southwest of the Passamaquoddy; and Captain Leverett, then commander at Penobscot, received orders from the Protector to surrender his powers and deliver the country to Temple, who thus obtained personal jurisdiction over the whole of Eastern Maine and even to St. George's- perhaps, although concerning this there is a doubt, to the Muscongus. Before leaving England to assume com- mand of his province, Sir Thomas also bought all the La Tour rights and titles in Nova Scotia or Acadia, taking a regular assignment thereof. He arrived on the coast in 1657, and remained Proprietary Governor ten years, conducting at the same time a profitable trade with the natives and colonists. . He was, Mr. Williamson avers, "a gentleman of humane and generous disposition, re- markably free from the bigotry and religious prejudices of the times. To cite an instance of his disinterestedness -when the courts of Massachusetts were trying Quaker- ism as a capital crime in 1660, he went and told them that if they, according to their own declaration, "desired the Quakers' lives absent, rather than their deaths pre- sent," he would carry and provide for them at his own expense. "Yet, and should any of them return," said he, "I will again remove them."

After the Restoration, Sir Thomas was continued in office, but as Provincial Governor, and for a time ap- pears to have been regarded as the sole proprietor of the entire province. His new commission was dated July 17, 1662, and expressly gave him jurisdiction from the east- ern extremity of the great peninsula to "Muscongus, on the confines of New England," with the exclusive priv- ilege of trading with the natives in his province. But, notwithstanding the favor with which he was treated, he was soon to lose the entire portion of his domain lying within the present limits of Maine, as will be related by and by.

THE WALDO PATENT.

A part of the Penobscot country, in the south of it and west of the bay and river, was included in the

Muscongus or Waldo Patent, granted March 2, 1630, by the Plymouth council, to John Beauchamp, of London, and Thomas Leverett, of Boston, England. The ter- ritory conveyed lay between the Penobscot and Muscon- gus waters, from the seaboard to an east and west line so far north as would include a tract thirty miles square, without trespassing upon the Kennebec or other patent. This boundary, as since definitely settled, lies upon the south line of Dixmont, Hampden, and Newburg town- ships, in Penobscot county. As will be seen in our special histories of the townships, some large tracts in the southern part of this county were also included in the Muscongus Patent, in order to eke out certain de- ficiencies in the territory granted, in which Waldo county is situated.

Nearly ninety years after the grant, the celebrated Waldos became principally interested in it. From them it took the name of the Waldo Patent, and is thus laid down upon the map prefixed to Sullivan's History of the District of Maine, and other old charts. The grant was originally for the purpose of Indian traffic only, and a trading-post was maintained by the owners upon St. George's river until the outbreak of the first Indian war.

THE COUNTY OF CANADA.

In 1635, nearly three years after Charles the First, by the Treaty of St. Germains, had surrendered to France "all the places occupied by British subjects, in New France, Acadia, and Canada," the Plymouth Council nevertheless, being then about to dissolve, separated their entire patent into twelve royal provinces. The first of these, which included the Penobscot region, covered the county between the St. Croix and Pemaquid rivers, from the head of the latter by the shortest line to the Ken- nebec, and from the point of junction upwards to its source. This tract, extending north to the forty-eighth degree, received the name of the County of Canada. It was assigned to Sir William Alexander, Earl of Ster- ling and grantee of Nova Scotia, which he had now lost by the remarkable act of Charles in the convention of St. Germains. It was provided that lots should be drawn in the presence of the king for each of the royal provinces, according to which the assignments were to be made. On the Ist of April the Council notified his Majesty of their action, and prayed him to grant patents to the assignees thus ascertained, with the powers and privileges which had been granted in Maryland to Lord Baltimore. The petition was granted, and new patents were given to Lord Sterling, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, John Mason, and others. The Plymouth Coun- cil surrendered its constitution shortly after, and sub- mitted to dissolution. It was succeeded by eleven of the King's privy councillors, as Lords Commissioners of of all his American Plantations, with Gorges as Gover- nor-General of New England.

Notwithstanding the new patent and the English claims, the French, under D'Aulnay de Charnisy, who has already come into our account of Acadia, established themselves upon the peninsula on the eastern side of Penobscot Bay, at a place now Castine, then called Major-biguyduce, a corruption of the Indian name. He,

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

says Williamson, "constructed fortifications, not far from a good harbor, which was well sheltered by islands, and from which large ships might ascend the river forty miles. He considered himself the immediate successor of Razilla [late military commander of Acadia, or Nova Scotia], and entitled to the paramount government of the great peninsula, from Cape Sable to Canseau, espe- cially at La Heve, where Razilla died; and Port Royal, where D'Aulnay himself sometimes resided; also at Passamaquoddy, where was the location of Razilla's own patent; boldly claiming, moreover. by express commis- sion from the latter, the right of command westward to Penobscot, and as much farther as the French dominions extended." He was expressly directed by the king, how- ever, to confine his jurisdiction to the country of the Etchemins, which, though somewhat indefinite, it was hoped would keep him from infringing upon the territory of his rival, La Tour.

We have before recorded the story of the fruitless at- tack of the English vessel Hope, under Captain Girling, upon D'Aulnay at Penobscot. He was much disliked by the English settlers between that point and the Pis- cataqua; and their sympathies, as well as those of the authorities at Boston, now the seat of government for New England, were generally with La Tour, who was a Protestant, while D'Aulnay was a Catholic. Finally, with the indirect aid of the English, he fitted up a small fleet, with which he proceeded against D'Aulnay, who had shortly before blockaded his fortress at St. Johns, and forced him to flee to Boston. He found D'Aulnay still at the mouth of St. Johns river, attacked his vessels vigorously, and compelled him to quit the harbor, flee down the coast to Penobscot, and there run his ships aground, for the purpose of fortifying his trading-houses more promptly and thoroughly. A few miles to the northeast he had a mill, with some adjacent buildings; and there the Massachusetts men had a brisk action with the enemy, which resulted in some loss on each side. The expedition then returned to Boston, with a vessel captured from D'Aulnay, laden with valuable furs.

Soon afterwards, a party of prominent settlers from the plantations below the Penobscot, on their way to the St. Johns, to collect moneys due from La Tour, were forcibly detained for some days by D'Aulnay ; in re- venge for which one of them-Wannerton, of New Hampshire-presently led a party against the French- man's farm-house at Penobscot, captured and fired it, and killed D'Aulnay's cattle, but lost his own life in the transaction. D'Aulnay was now thoroughly enraged, and issued commissions for the seizure of every colony vessel found east of the Penobscot. He was soon obliged, however, to acknowledge that he had been hasty, and sent a commissioner to Boston to negotiate a treaty. Several articles were adopted, October 8, 1644, and temporary peace established. The next year he violated both the treaty and his sovereign's instructions to main- tain peace with the English, sailed for La Tour's strong- nold at the St. Johns early in the spring, making prize

New England vessel on the way, and began a bombardment of the fort. This was now defended by

the wife of La Tour, a lady of great energy and cour- age, under whose command so stout a resistance was made that D'Aulnay was soon compelled to draw off, with twenty of his force killed, thirteen wounded and his ship so much disabled as to be in imminent danger of going to the bottom. In 1646 another treaty was made by D'Aulnay with the authorities at Boston; but again, in April of the next year, attacked La Tour's fort at St. John's, and was this time successful. His en- emy's wife was made a prisoner; the rest of the garrison massacred, it is said; and a large amount of plunder, probably worth over £10,000, carried to Penobscot. Madame La Tour, borne also to D'Aulnay's capital, died there within three weeks, of grief and the shame of ·de- feat and imprisonment. The latter himself ended a troubled career in 1651, and, strange to say, the following year the fortunes of the rival houses were united by the marriage of La Tour and D'Aulnay's widow.

Mr. Williamson thus sums up the results of the an- tagonism of La Tour and these belligerent Gauls, and of the residence of D' Aulnay at Penobscot:

Twelve years' predatory warfare between two ambitious rivals, the subjects of the same crown, produced effects highly injurious to the settlements in the Province of Maine, and the plantations farther east- ward. Sometimes they committed great wrongs, and even depreda- tions ; their menaces frequently excited alarming apprehensions ; free trade was interrupted ; . and it was always difficult for the people so to adjust their conduct by the maxims and rules of prudence as to keep themselves out of the quarrel.

The principles of D' Aulnay's great and boasted honor were uniform- ly the servants of passion or interest. He furnished the natives with fire-arms and amunition, and taught them the great power and use of the gun. His priesthood, consisting wholly of firiars, made the savages believe that Catholic rites and ceremonies were the essentials of religion, and that the dictates of the missionaries were equivalent to the precepts of divine authority ; whereas the orthodox Puritans careful- ly withheld from the Indians the hunting-gun, so necessary among them to obtain the supports of savage life, while their pious missiona- ries very honestly instructed them that real religion consisted in regen- erating the affections of the heart, in the immaculate purities of life, and in the practices and dispositions towards others which we would wish them to exhibit towards us. But these were refinements which the untutored, unenlightened savages could not understand. The usages of retaliation had acquired a kind of sanc- tity among them which they believed Nature herself tolerated. Indul- gences and superstitious forms, as allowed by the priests, were alto- gether more accordant with their notions and habits then the self-deny- ing doctrines of restraint and the rigid precepts of reform, as taught by the Protestant missionaries.

Since this region had been in the occupancy of the French, neither the settlements at Penobscot, at Mount Desert, at Machias, at St. Croix, nor the place eastward, had flourished. Most of the French emigrants were ignorant, poor, and unenterprising ; the government was of a despotic military character; and the commanders, as we have seen, were perpetually contending. The social regulations were under the direction of the ecelesiastics ; rights and wrongs were not treated nor regarded in a proper manner ; and no man of good sense and in- telligence dwells contentedly where life and property are insecure."

La Tour had now undivided sway over the County of Canada. It was, however, simply a military com- mand, without any civil powers or jurisdiction. It was, says Williamson, "destitute of every property directly promotive of settlement, for arms and civil liberties are regulated by different laws." His dominion was regarded with much distrust and jealousy by the English, and in 1653 the General Court of Massachusetts prohibited the transportation of supplies either to the French or the Dutch, with the latter of whom England was then at

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History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 17

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