History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 21

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

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THE CASTINE VILLAGE.

One of the most interesting historic spots upon the Penobscot waters is that near Castine, which is thus described by the Hon. John E. Godfrey, of Bangor, in his paper upon The Pilgrims at Penobscot, contributed to the seventh volume of the Maine Historical Collec- tions :

About a quarter of a mile southerly of the principal street of the present village of Castine is a plateau, not large, but of sufficient extent for a trading establishment. It has a fine beach, and is pro- tected from the intrusion of the waves by a sweep of the shore, and sheltered from the northern blasts by high lands in the rear. Upon this plateau are the last vestiges of the old fort which probably was originated by the pilgrims, enlarged by D'Aulnay, and occupied by French and English alternately for more than a century,-"Oid Fort Penobscot, " as it is called. It is a spot full of interest to the historical pilgrim, and has attractions that bring to it, year after year. crowds of curious vistiors.

In his essay upon the Baron Castine, in the same volume of the Collections, Judge Godfrey gives a some- what detailed account of the fort, as follows:

This fort, it is supposed, stood on the site of the Plymouth trading house of 1626-27, and was the fort of D'Aulnay. Vestiges of it are in existence. During sixty years it had been occupied by the English, French, and Dutch successively. In 1670 Sir Thomas. Temple, who had claimed this portion of Acadia under a patent from Cromwell in 1756, surrendered it under the treaty of Breda to the Chevalier de Grandfontaine. This was then the condition of the fort :

On entering it, upon the left hand was a guard house, about fifteen paces long by ten broad, and upon the right a house of similar dimen- sions, of hewn stone, covered with shingles. Above these was a chapel six paces long by four broad, covered with shingles and built with terras, upon which was a small turret with a bell weighing eighteen pounds. Upon the left hand, on entering the court, was a magazine of two stories, built of stone, about thirty-six paces by ten, covered with shingles, very old and out of repair. Upon the ramparts were twelve guns weighing in all 21,122 pounds. In the fort were six "murtherers" without chambers, weighing twelve hundred pounds. Two eight-pounders were on a plateau facing the sea. Thirty or forty paces distant from the fort there was a building twenty paces by eight, used as a cattle-house, and about fifty paces from this a square garden enclosed with rails in which were fifty or sixty trees bearing fruit.

It is thought that St. Castine erected a house within or near the walls of the fort. Tradition locates the orchard on the upper side of the street, westerly of the fort, and it is alleged that some of the trees were removed to Sedgwick and bore apples in 1873.

This peninsula, called by the Indians Matche-Biguatus, which was corrupted by the English into Major-Biguy- duce, and now sometimes called Bagaduce, was known in theearly day of settlement as Pentagoet or Penobscot, and finally by its present musical name of Castine. In 1670 the fort and settlement were occupied by the French under the Chevalier de Grandfontaine, by the operation of the Treaty of Breda. Four years afterwards it was taken by the Dutch, and again by them in 1676, when they were driven out by the English. Before this came

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

the Baron de St. Castine, who, with his descendants, occupied the site for many years. It was permanently settled by the English in 1760, was held by the British forces in the Revolution from 1779 to the peace, and was also occupied by the British for nearly a year, during the War of 1812. Penobscot had thirteen hundred in- habitants when Governor Sullivan wrote, in 1794, "and that number," he said, "is increasing by the constant accession of new settlers from every part of the country." Penobscot town was divided February 10, 1796, and Castine incorporated. It became the shire-town of Hancock county, and remained such until 1838, when the courts were removed to Ellsworth. It had 1215 inhabitants by the census of 1880.

THE BARON DE ST. CASTINE,

This famous character of early Penobscot history, from whom the flourishing town at his old seat of power de- rives its name, has come frequently into these narratives, and deserves some special notice before proceeding further. Jean Vincent, the Baron de St. Castine, was a native of the town of Oleron, in France, on the skirts of the Pyrenees, born about 1636. He was of noble birth, received a good education, including military science, and, when only fifteen years of age, joined the famous Carignan Salieres regiment of the standing army of France. He served with his command in Germany against the Turks, and came with it to Quebec in 1665, where, after the war then waging with England was closed by the Treaty of Breda, the regiment was dis- banded and he discharged from the French service. He seems about this time to have become disgusted with civilized life, and, as La Hontan says, "threw himself upon the savages." He settled, with several Jesuit mis- sionaries in his train, at Point Bagaduce, where D'Aul- nay had been before him, about 1667, there built a more than usually spacious trading-house and residence, and restored the old fort of the English and D'Aulnay. Mr. Williamson says of Castine:

He was a liberal Catholic, though devoted and punctilious in his re- ligious observances. He learned to speak with ease the Indian dialect; and, supplying himself with fire-arms, ammuniton, blankets, steel-traps, baubles, and a thousand other things desired by the natives, he made them presents and opened a valuable trade with them in these articles, for which he received furs and peltry in return, at his own prices. He taught the men the use of the gun, and, being a man of fascinating address and manners, he attained a complete ascen- dancy over the whole tribe, they looking upon him, in the language of one writer, "as their tutelar god."

To chain their attachments by ties not easily broken, in connection with personal gratification, he took four or five Tarratine wives, one of them the daughter of Madockawando, sagamore of the tribe. He lived with them all by changes at the same time, and had several daughters and one son, Castine the younger, who was a man of distinction and of excellent character.

Early habits and great success in trade rendered the Baron contented with his allotments; he lived in the country about thirty years; and, as Abbe Regnal says, "conformed himself in all respects to the manners and customs of the natives." To his daughters, whom he " married very handsomely to Frenchmen," he gave liberal portions, having amassed a property worth three hundred thousand crowns.

The Governors of New England and of Canada, apprised of his in- fluence, wealth, and military knowledge, were, for obvious reasons, the courtiers of his friendship and favor.

For seventeen years Castine was comparatively unmo- lested in the enjoyment of his independent life in the

wilderness on the beautiful shore, of his lucrative trade, his large influence with the savages, and his harem of In- dian wives. During this time he maintained a trading- house at Port Royal as well as Penobscot, and accumu- lated his large fortune. In 1684 he experienced some annoyance from a "notice to quit," served upon him by Colonel Dungan, Governor of New York, unless he would recognize the English authority in that quarter, but more from the efforts of a troublesome countryman named Perrot, an ex-Governor of Montreal, to oust him from his profitable trading-house. Perrot virtually compelled him to withdraw from Port Royal, but he held his own at Penobscot for three years longer, when at last the Eng- lish power began to re-assert itself vigorously in this quarter. The harsh and arbitrary Commissioners, Pal- mer and West, appointed to manage the Duke of York's Eastern domain, in 1686 seized a cargo of wines con- veyed in a Piscataqua vessel, which had been landed near the Baron's seat, without paying duties in the cus- tom-house at Pemaquid. The next year they dispatched a party of fifty men to possess Pentagoet and the coast to St. Croix, as English territory, and directed Castine and the Indians, as well as two French settlers near this post, to disregard any orders from French sources. The Baron accepted the situation, and was not molested. In the summer of 1688 the haughty Andros, the new Gov- ernor of New England, visited his Eastern domain, and, in the enlargement of his jurisdiction resolved to seize the Penobscot settlement. In advance of his coming he sent word to Captain George, of the frigate Rose, at Pemaquid, to get his vessel ready to sail against the ar- rival of the Governor and his suite there. George con- siderately sent word of the intended movement to his friend Castine. In a short time Andros, in personal command of the expedition, presented himself in front of the Frenchman's stronghold-"before Castine's door," the old account says. An officer was sent ashore to an- nounce the unwelcome visitors, but found that the Baron and his adherents had taken to the woods. The account proceeds :

The Governor landed, with other gentlemen with him, and went into the house, and found a small altar in the common room, which altar and some pictures and ordinary ornaments they did not meddle with anything belonging thereto, but took away all his arms, powder, and shot, iron kettles, and some trucking-cloth and his chairs, all of which were put aboard the Rose, and laid up in order to a condemnation of trading.

It was the Governor's intention also to restore the fort built by his orders some years before on the Penobscot, for which he had brought materials and workmen; but he found the work so ruinous that "he was resolved to spare that charge till a more proper time offered," and so returned to Pemaquid. He had made a visit to the chief Madockawando, Castine's father-in-law, also giving him a handsome present, and now sent a message by a Tarratine sachem to Castine, that he should have his property back as soon as he could report at that place and make his allegiance to the English crown. But the Baron was now thoroughly enraged, and made no con- cessions to the English, but instead, it is generally be- lieved, stirred up the Indians to hostilities. He incited

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

the savages to outbreak, it is said, by the promise to each hostile of a pound of powder, two pounds of lead, and a roll of tobacco. Others, as Judge Godfrey, think that Castine remained friendly to the English, and that the Jesuits provoked the strife. At all events, Indian outrages were recommenced. In August and in the fall another Eastern expedition, but of land forces, was set on foot, which had a campaign of great hardship and suffering, fruitful of nothing but the establishment of some garrisoned posts from Wells to Pemaquid.

Again, in 1690, Castine appears on the war-path against the English, in joint command with his father-in- law Madockawando of a body of Tarratines going to join a mixed force of French and Indians, collected un- der the orders of Count Frontenac, Governor of Canada, for the expedition against Falmouth, and was present at the stipulations for the capitulation of Fort Loyal, at that place, to the faith and observance of which, Mr. Wil- liamson says, he "lifted his hand and swore by the ever- lasting God "-to little intent or purpose, as the massa- cre and plunder which speedily followed showed. Judge Godfrey thinks this story of Castine incorrect, and that he took no part in the attack. Six years later, he rein- forced Iberville and Villebon with 240 of his Indians in canoes, to whom Iberville distributed presents, on their way to the successful reduction of Fort William Henry. Meanwhile, in the fall of 1792, an unsuccessful attempt was made to kidnap or assassinate Castine at his place.

After the affair at Fort William Henry, little is known of Castine. He disappeared from the Penobscot coun- try soon after the death of Madockawando in 1697 or 'g8. Mr. H. W. Longfellow, in his musical poem on the Baron, sends him to his old Pyrenees home, to find his father dead, to occupy the ancestral property, and to be married according to the rites of the church, since-

In course of time the curate learns A secret so dreadful that, by turns, He is ice and fire, he freezes and burns. The Baron at confession hath said That though this woman be his wife, He hath wed her as the Indians wed, He hath bought her for a gun and a knife.

Judge Godfrey says, however: "That he was early lawfully married to a daughter of Madockawando is probable from the fact that his son had the priests' cer- tificate of his legitimacy." It is known that he came into his inheritance of £5,000 a year in 1686, and he probably retired to the old baronial home to spend his last years in the enjoyment of it and hi's large fortune gained among the Indians. He died some time before

1708.

The other inhabitans of Pentagoet, during at least a part of Castine's residence there, were his servant Jean Renauld, with a wife and four children, and another Frenchman named Des Lines, with wife and three chil- dren. These, with Castine, his wife and one child, made up the white population of Penobscot in 1693. Four years previously only one white man, and one woman, both married, with a boy of fifteen (doubtless Castine, wife, and son), and one priest were reported there. The priests gave his place, ecclesiastically, the

title of the Parish of the Sainte Famille (or Holy Family). CASTINE THE YOUNGER.

Anselm de St. Castine was the son of Baron Castine and Matilda, daughter of Madockawando. He remained as a trader at Penobscot after the departure of his father, and was also prominent in the political and martial movements of the time. He took a leading part in the defense of Port Royal against the Massachusetts expe- dition in 1700, and, when it returned for a second attempt in August, he prepared an ambuscade which drove the enemy in disorder toward their boats. In the pursuit which followed Castine was severely wounded. He was married two months afterwards to Charlotte d' Amours, at Port Royal. In 1690, still residing at Penobscot, he there entertained Major Livingston, of another Massachusetts expedition which had effected the reduction of Port Royal, and accompanied him up the river to Quebec, to obtain the approval of the Governor-General of New France to the articles of capitulation. It was on this journey that they came to the island "Lett," as remarked by Livingston, the iden- tity of which has been so much in controversy. They had a terrible journey through the wilderness, and were nearly two months on the way, arriving at Quebec the 16th of December in sad case. Here Castine was com- missioned lieutenant, and charged especially with the care of French interests among the Indians of his re- gion. He returned to Pentagoet, and presently under- took the re-capture of Port Royal, but without success. After the death of his father he was deprived of his inheritance under pretense of illegitimacy, and decided to remain in the wilderness. In August, 1721, he took part in a conference of the commanders of two hundred Abenakis, at Arrowsic Island, with Captain Penhallow, commanding the English there, for which he was regard- ed as an enemy, and was seized at Penobscot, carried to Boston, and imprisoned for five months. He declared "the highest friendship for the English," and that "my disposition is to prevent my people from doing them mischief," and was accordingly released. Some unim- portant incidents are related of him during the next ten years, when he altogether disappears from history. Many descendants of the Castines are known to have been among the Indians of the Penobscot, and some of their chiefs, as Orono, are believed to have been of their blood.

Mr. Williamson, closing an account of the third Indi- an (Queen Anne's, a ten-years') war, after a sketch of the character of Assacombuit, one of the most promi- nent on the side of the savages, says:

There was never a greater contrast than between him and Castine the younger. This man possesscd a very mild and generous disposi- tion. His birthplace and home were at Penobscot, upon the penin_ sula of Biguyduce, the former residence of his father. Though a half- breed, the son of Baron de Castine, by a Tarratine wife, he appeared to be entirely free from the bigoted malevolence of the French and the bar barous, revengeful spirit of the savages. He was a chief Sagamore of the Tarratine tribe, and also held a commission from the French king- By his sweetness of temper, magnanimity, and other valuable proper ties, he was holden in high estimation by both people. Nor were the English insensible of his uncommon merit. He had an elegant French uniform, which he sometimes wore, yet on all occasions he preferred to

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

appear dressed in the habit of his tribe. It was in him both policy and pleasure to promote peace with the English, and in several instances where they had treated him with abuse, he gave proof of forbearance worthy of a philosopher's or Christian's imitation. The great confi- dence they reposed in his honor and fidelity, as the companion of Ma- or Livingston through the wilderness from Port Royal to Quebec, was in every place well-placed and fully confirmed. He was a man of foresight and good sense. Perceiving how these wars wasted away the Indians, he was humane as well as wise, when he bade earnest wel- come to the "songs of peace." These immediately drew home fathers and brothers, and wiped away the tears of their families. He thought his tribe happy only when they enjoyed the dews and shades of tran- quility. In 1721 he was improperly siezed at Biguyduce, his dwelling- place, by the English and carried to Boston, where he was detained several months, The next year, according to Charlevoix, he visited Bearne, in France, to inherit his father's property, honors, fortune, and seigniorial rights, from which country we have no account of his return'

UP THE PENOBSCOT.

Fort Pownall, at what is now called Fort Point, where the waters of the river join those of the bay, was built by the energetic Governor from whom it takes its name, in 1759. Under its protection the valley of the Lower Penobscot soon began to fill with the pioneers of civiliza- tion. Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Western Maine principally furnished the immigration. A white settler was on the lower part of Orphan Island in 1763, and Colonel Jonathan Buck at Bucksport the next year. Bnt Lieutenant Joshua Treat, celebrated in the older writings as the " great hunter," who settled for conveni- ence of traffic near Fort Pownall in 1760, is supposed to have been the first permanent settler on the river, Set- tlement crept slowly up the stream, however, and did not reach the site of Bangor until 1769, when Mr. Jacob Bus- well, or Bussell, set down his stakes at the head of tide- water. The rest of the story will be told elsewhere.

CHAPTER VI.

THE MISSIONARIES.

Captain Weymouth with his Cross-Fathers Baird and Masse-The St. Sauveur Mission at Mt. Desert-Its Precise Locality-The Cross --- On the Castine Peninsula-The Capuchins-D'Aulnay and the Castines-The Parish de Saint Famille-Father Gabriel Druillettes -- The Fathers Vincent and Jaques Bigot-Father Thury-Father Se- bastian Ralle-The Missionaries on the Penobscot-Father Romagne -Usefulness of the Missionaries among the Indians-A Touch o Poetry.

THE CROSS

was early brought up the Penobscot waters, but rather for political than religious purposes. If the theory be true that Captain Weymouth, in June of 1605, ascended the Penobscot, he was the first to explore its resources; and it is thus made the more noteworthy that the voya- gers bore with them, as the journal relates, a cross-"a thing never omitted by any Christian travellers, which we erected at the ultimate end of our route," fifty or sixty miles from the entrance to the Bay. Indeed, one later writer asserts that Weymouth "set up crosses in several places." Here, then, two and three-quarters centuries ago, was planted the emblem, if not the emis- saries, of the Christian religion.

The next year the grant of the North and South Vir- ginia patent was expressly, in part, for the bringing of the infidel savages to a knowledge of the Christian re- ligion and the true worship of God, to a civilized life and a settled government. Hubbard, in his History of New England, says that the declared intent of the adventurers was to propagate God's holy church. A similar purpose is expressed in many other instruments relating to the colonization of America.

BIARD AND MASSE.

About the year 1610, when Biencourt, son of Poutrin- court, then the chief man of the French at Port Royal, returned to France for aid to the suffering and struggling colony, all that he received from the queen regent was two Jesuit fathers, M. Biard and Masse. They had a gift of 2,000 crowns for expenses, and set sail for the New World. Father Biard reached the Kennebec, where he was cordially received by the Canibas, and labored with some success, especially in collecting supplies of pro- vision for the people at Port Royal, where he had his own headquarters. Masse also set out for the wilder- ness, but was taken severely sick on the way, and presently recovered. The Marchioness de Guercheville, a pious Catholic lady who is elsewhere mentioned in this work, had the missionaries now under her patronage, and pre- vailed on the queen mother to assist in dispatching a vessel to plant a religious establishment independent of Port Royal. In 1613, under command of the Sieur de la Saussaye, and with two other Jesuit Fathers, Quentin and Gilbert du Thet, the vessel proceeded to Maine, picking up Biard and Masse on the way, at Port Royal. Governor Lincoln, in the first volume of the original series of the Maine Historical Collections, thus continues the story :

They disembarked, with twenty-five others, on the northerly bank of the Penobscot. Father Biard made an excursion from this place to visit the neighboring peaple, and arriving near a village of the Etche- mins, he heard frightful cries, like those of lamentation for the dead. He hastened forward with the prompt anxiety which generally impels the ecclesiastics of certain orders to be present at that scene, where pleasure, interest, or duty are generally satisfied by the offering of pen- itence, bequests, and homage. He ascertained that the occasion of the clamor was the illness of a child, and found the inhabitants of a village ranged in two rows on each side of it; the father holding it in his arms and uttering loud cries, to which the whole assembly responded with one accord. The missionary took the child, and having administered the sacred mystery of baptism, prayed with a loud voice that God would vouchsafe some token of his power. He forgot not, however, to use the means which might contribute, humanly speaking, to the miracle he petitioned for, and presented the child to the warmth and cherishing virtue of the maternal bosom. It soon became well. Whatever else may be said, it must be admitted that the administration of baptism was judiciously seasonable; for the Indians were persuaded that its di- vine efficacy drove away the disease which had so much distressed them, and they looked upon the missionary as one who could call down from the master of life the health of his children.

This mission, known as St. Sauveur, is commonly lo- cated by writers on Mt. Desert. It did not long endure. The Virginians, under Argal, swooped down upon it, as is heretofore related, killed Du Thet while in the act of firing a gun, also some others, compelled the surrender of the place, and then destroyed everything they could not plunder. Notwithstanding these outrages, Father Biard, it is said, guided the invaders to Port Royal,

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

which they also reduced. We hear no more of the sur- viving three of the Jesuit quartette in the affairs of Maine.

It is an interesting fact that these missionaries, when they sailed down the coast of Maine in May, 1613, were on their way to Kadesquit, now the site of Bangor, to establish their mission. Father Biard had selected the very spot during a former journey of his from Port Royal to the Penobscot. The reason for their change of pur- pose and detention at Mt. Desert is this prettily told in Bryant & Gay's History of the United States:

Such a fog enveloped them off Menans (Grand Manan) that they had to lie to for two days. When the weather cleared up they saw the island which Champlain named Monts Deserts, and which the Indians called Pemetig, which means "at the head," from its commanding position. The lifting fog disclosed Great Head, rising sheer from the ocean to buttress the forests of Green and Newport mountains. On their right was the broad sheet of water since called Frenchman's Bay, extending far into the land. Into this they gladly sailed and dropped anchor inside of Porcupine Island, effected a landing not far from the bar which gives its name to a little harbor. There the broad flank of Green Mount, with Newport just alongside to make a deep and still ravine, greeted the eyes which sea-spray and the fog had filled. Eagle Lake lay buried in the forest in front of them, and the wooded slopes stretched along to the right as far as they could see. The islands with bronzed cliffs to seaward and bases honeycombed by the tide, wore sharp crests of fir and pine. The American coast does not supply an- other combination so striking as this, of mountains with their feet in deep ocean on every side, lifting 2,000 feet of greenery to vie with the green of waves; of inland recesses where brooks run past brown rocks, and birds sing woodland songs as if their nests swung in a country re- mote from sea-breezes. Delicate ferns fill the moist places of the wood, and the sea-anemone opens in the little caverns where the tide leaves a pool for them. Nature has scattered the needled cones, of shape so perfect, from those of an inch high to the finished tree artfully dis- tributed in the open spaces. The Frenchmen hailed this picturesque conclusion to their voyage, and named the place and harbor St. Sau- veur.

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History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 21

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