USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Bristol > History of York, Maine, successively known as Bristol (1632), Agamenticus (1641), Gorgeana (1642), and York (1652) Vol. I > Part 4
USA > Maine > York County > York > History of York, Maine, successively known as Bristol (1632), Agamenticus (1641), Gorgeana (1642), and York (1652) Vol. I > Part 4
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Among the annual festivals of old times, now lost sight of, was the celebration of St. Aspinquid's Day, known as the Indian Saint. St. Aspinquid appeared in the Nova Scotia almanacks from 1774 to 1786. The festival was celebrated on or immediately after the last quarter of the moon in the month of May. The tide being low at that time many of the principal inhabitants of the town on these occasions assembled on the shore of the North West Arm and partook of a dish of clam soup, the clams being collected on the spot at low water. There is a tradition that during the American troubles when agents of the revolted colonies were active to gain over the good people of Halifax, in the year 1786, they were celebrating St. Aspinquid, the wine having been circulated freely, when the Union Jack was sud- denly hauled down and replaced by the Stars and Stripes. This was soon reversed, but all those people who held public office immediately left the grounds and St. Aspinquid was never after celebrated at Halifax.
A well-known authority on the lore of the Indians made an investigation of this palpable hoax and found that the assigned date of the "festival" corresponded to Whitsuntide in the calendar of the English Church, and that it was an attempt to revive the custom of having cakes and ale in the Whitsuntide revels of the past. "Saint" Aspinquid was probably a "Bluenose."
The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel estab- lished in England as a missionary agency to the Indians of New England sent over large sums of money for this purpose but none of it was used among the Maine tribes. Godfrey complained of this, after the Restoration, and recommended that Rev. John Brock, who preached at the Shoals, be hired for this work in Maine, and "able & fit
28
THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS
persons be sent to preach unto the Indians towards the East." If his views had been adopted it might have saved some of the trouble which the neglect of the Puritan almoners of the funds in Boston caused by their failure to show any interest in the eastern tribes. (Records of the New England Company, 53.)
In 1634 Winter, at Richmond's Island, wrote to Tre- lawney that a great many of the Indians "died this year both east and west from us," and in 1640 he stated that there were no Indians living within forty or fifty miles of the coast - a statement which probably applies to this town as well. In the census of 1765 there were no Indians enumerated in York and it is probable that none had lived here after the first Indian War.
Having in this survey followed the aboriginal Indian of this region from the cradle to the grave we can now leave him in his Happy Hunting Ground with the Great Spirit of his dreams, living in perpetual plenty amid an abundance of game. Later we shall have to consider the descendants of this interesting race in their last savage attempts to exterminate the white invaders and recover the undisputed freedom of occupancy of the land of their fathers.
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CHAPTER III THE PERIOD OF DISCOVERY 1602-1629
At the dawn of the seventeenth century the great con- tinent of North America was being slowly wakened from its prehistoric torpor of countless ages. It had opened its eyes on numberless occasions to see its coastline touched and trespassed by a strange white people in yet stranger craft, but it still remained dormant, awaiting the peaceful penetration of its borders that yet was to follow. The territorial waters of Maine, years before 1600, had been frequently traversed by the hardy mariners of the western ports of England, Bristol, Barnstaple and Plymouth, the Channel ports of France, as well as from the Basque Provinces of Spain, in their venturesome hunt for the Northwest Passage to Cathay, and the more sordid hunt for the abundant riches to be found in these unvexed seas by hook, line and net. The names of these forerunners of its colonization period rest in obscurity among the unre- corded heroes of ocean navigation, but they became the heralds of its potential wealth to whomsoever should fol- low in their wake.
The opening of the new century was the signal for a race of the great powers of Europe, English, French and Spanish, to possess this continental prize. The inbred seamanship of the men of Bristol who had swarmed its quays since the day when Cabot started thence in 1497 on his voyage of discovery, proved its leadership among the fleets of the three rivals to that part of our coast from Maine to the Carolinas, and England established her right of possession by discovery and subsequent settlement to that included region; while Jacques Cartier planted the lilies of France on the St. Lawrence, and Ribot raised the gonfalons of Spain in the peninsula of Florida.
As far as known by competent records none of the famous voyagers touched the area now comprised in the bounds of York, although there exist scattering evidences that its harbor was well known to European sailors before we get a definite record of actual visitation by English
30
Snadoun hill
Boston
Hull
MAP OF AGAMENTICUS 1616 (Enlarged from the map of Capt. John Smith)
3I
HISTORY OF YORK
vessels. In 1602 Capt. Bartholomew Gosnold skirted the coast of Maine and held a parley with the natives of what is now York. He had set sail on March 26, 1602 from the Cornish port of Falmouth for a new try at the goal - the supposed Northwest Passage. His party numbered thirty- two persons, and the enterprise was probably under the patronage of Robert Salterne, Mayor of Bristol. Its pur- pose was colonization, though undertaken without the authority of Sir Walter Raleigh, whose consent was neces- sary for such a design. Displaying unusual enterprise Gosnold made a direct course for the new continent with- out touching at the Azores or Newfoundland. He sighted the coast of Maine in seven weeks and made his landfall about the headland of Semeamis (Cape Elizabeth), and continuing westward he made Cape Neddick, which he called "Savage Rock." His journalist thus describes the significance of this name as follows:
The fourteenth (of May) about six in the morning we descried land that lay North &c the Northerly part we called the north land, which to another rock upon the same lying twelve leagues West, that we called Savage Rock, (because the savages first showed them- selves there) ... From the said rock came towards us a Biscay shallop with sail and oars, having eight persons in it, whom we sup- posed at first to be Christians distressed. But approaching us nearer, we perceived them to be savages. These coming within call, hailed us, and we answered. Then after signs of peace, and a long speech by one of them made, they came boldly aboard us, being all naked, saving about their shoulders certain loose deer skins, and near their wastes seal skins tied fast like Irish dimmie trowsers. One that seemed to be their commander wore a waistcoat of black work, a pair of breeches, cloth stockings, shoes, hat and band, one or two more had also a few things made by some Christians; these with a piece of chalk described the coast thereabouts, and could name Placentia of the Newfoundland; they spoke divers Christian words and seemed to understand much more than we, for want of language to comprehend. These people are in color swart, their hair long, uptied with a knot in the part of behind the head. They paint their bodies which are strong and well proportioned. These much desired our longer stay, but finding ourselves short of our purposed place, we set sail westward, leaving them and their coast. (1602) Archer, Relation.
These people whom Gosnold first saw at York were of an unknown race, but had been called "Indians" by the explorers, under the belief that they were inhabitants of the Indies which they were seeking by the mythical North-
32
THE PERIOD OF DISCOVERY
west Passage. His parley with them was to obtain infor- mation about that "Right High Mighty and Invincible Emperor of Cathaye," to whom Queen Elizabeth had addressed a letter of salutation, to be delivered by the hand of Captain Gosnold on his arrival. The letter re- mained undelivered, for a vast continent three thousand miles in breadth, by parallels of longitude, and another great ocean yet lay between them. Nor were these people Indians of the racial stock that dwelt in Cathaia. They were a different race of beings about whose origin or rela- tionship to other peoples of the known earth learned eth- nologists are still in unsettled controversy. The previous chapter has dealt with them historically and from the ethnological standpoint, and it is only necessary here to consider them in connection with the curious contact made with them by Gosnold. It discloses a chieftain of their party, dressed in European garments, able to speak some English words, and conduct a parley with better results than his educated visitors. His knowledge was undoubtedly gained from frequent intercourse with English voyagers, innumerable as well as unrecorded. His clothes were prob- ably a gift of some generous English, French, or possibly Spanish seaman who wished to repay some favors.
This incident, trivial in its isolated relation, has a deeper significance which has not been fully plumbed. The real story of European visits and occupancy of the Maine coast, perhaps antedating the Columbian era, has been drowned out by the trained chorus of worshippers at the shrines of the Pilgrim and Puritan, who would have us begin the history of this continent with the coming of the Mayflower and the Arbella. Long before those tardy emi- grants to Massachusetts Bay were born, the Maine coast was known intimately by the adventurous navigators of France and Spain. Here was the real and fabled country of Norumbega, so called by that name in the local records of their seaports.1 It was well known to the English ex- plorers early in the sixteenth century as a place whose beginnings ran back indefinitely. Within its bounds was the "city" of the same name which had become traditional with them, and which Champlain and Smith sought to relocate in their first visits to the coast of Maine. Remains
1 Norumbega is a good Abenaki word which was adopted by the French and Spanish explorers. Translated it is "Country of the North Men."
33
HISTORY OF YORK
of European occupancy here are being unearthed contin- uously to establish this historic fact, and with the written accounts of their voyages, and clearly identified landfall, these evidences unerringly point to a definite area and location which must yield satisfactory proofs through archaeological study of them. This is not the place to
NOVA ANGL JA
ofte
Ammonch
caugen
NIEUW ENGE
Kennebeka
Theba Ancocis- co Mons Anco : Al Schutters hill
Cambi
S. Johntown
cifco A good harbor Sandwich
Sagadahoc Heth
ouumb
LANDI
Buhanna Dautmout
Jamfcol flu
Sowocotuel
Geor
Sassanows Mont
Snouden hill
Point Davits
Satquin 1.
C. Elifabet
Schilpadt
C Sineamis
Paffataquack
çominticus
Graef Willems Bay
wyngaerts Eylant
hull
EARLY DUTCH MAP Showing Acomenticus and the Coast to Kennebec
elaborate, but these views are offered in explanation of Gosnold's interview with our Indians at Savage Rock. They could speak "divers Christian words and seemed to understand more than we." They could name "Placentia of the Newfoundland," he adds, and with a piece of chalk gave him an outline of this coast. This is the plain record of a journalist of the expedition, not the inferences of a romancer. The Popham colonists of 1607 reported that
34
Damerills Iles
Haringtons Bay
THE PERIOD OF DISCOVERY
the Indians "use many french words" as well as speaking to them "in broken inglyshe," an acquirement of two languages which can not be measured by a few years of intercourse. As Gosnold found them clothed in European dress and having metal implements, it is reasonable evi- dence of their long familiarity with voyagers from over- seas. Maine Indians taken by Weymouth to England in 1605 were "the means under God," as Gorges said, of giv- ing him detailed information about this new country, cer- tainly not described in their own language.
It was Samoset of Pemaquid who astonished the Plym- outh "Pilgrims" in 1621 by coming "bouldly amongst them and spoke to them in broken English which they could well understand, but marvelled at it." They under- stood from him whence he came, a place where English ships fished, and that he "could name sundrie of them by their names." Not only that but he told them about the country where he lived, of the people around Plymouth, "their names, number and strength, of their situation and distance from this place, and who was cheefe amongst them." As a climax to this remarkable story by a vera- cious chronicler, he said there was another Indian, who had been in England "who could speak better Englishe then him selfe," (Bradford, Ford ed., i, 199). This sug- gestive outline of available material that awaits studious investigation, derives important support from the pictur- esque part played by the Indians of York who met Gosnold in their "Biscay shallop."
1202903.
The remainder of his voyage has little further historic interest to the narrative of the beginnings of York. He made a stay of a few months on the island of Cuttyhunk at the mouth of Buzzards Bay and by July 23 was back in England again with a cargo of sassafras, cedars and furs obtained by traffic with the natives. His failure to estab- lish a colony was counterbalanced by the roseate reports he brought concerning the unlimited natural resources of the country on land and in the sea. Two journals of the expedition were immediately published and stimulated the growing interest in the new land beyond seas. Richard Hakluyt, Prebendary of Bristol Cathedral, had long been an enthusiastic supporter, by voice and pen, of these voy- ages so pregnant with national and political possibilities for the imperial designs of Elizabeth. His "inducements
35
HISTORY OF YORK
and persuasions" brought Master John Whitson, then mayor of Bristol, to the patronage of another voyage, and by his agency the aldermen and merchants of the city raised one thousand pounds for the expenses of the pro- spective expedition to our coast. The greatest sovereign in English history was slowly dying as the equipment of the new venture was completed and her successor, the ridiculous James, had been on the throne less than three weeks when Capt. Martin Pring sailed from Milford Haven, April 10, 1603 in the Speedwell with the Discoverer as consort. Following the same direct route as Gosnold the year before, he made his landfall on the Maine coast at Fox Island, Penobscot Bay, and in due course sighted Savage Rock, our "Nubble," "where going upon the Mayne we found people · with whom we had no long con- versation, because here also we could find no Sassafras," (Purchas Pilgrimes, iv, 1654).
Then for the first time a mayor of Bristol learned of the locality which in a short time, as years go, was to draw its name from the great English seaport, which was so intimately connected with the discovery and was to be so deeply concerned in the settlement of this town. They failed to find sassafras, one of the prime objects of every voyage, and so continued to the southwest.
These two voyages in 1602 and 1603 were destined to close the known written record of landings within our town limits for a score of years, though it is not to be concluded that in that interesting period the constant voyages made yearly to the Maine coast did not find some adventurer sailing into York harbor on exploration bent. Hundreds of vessels came to these waters for fishing and trading between 1610 and 1620, while headquarters for this annual visitation was established at Monhegan. That such an establishment was permanent throughout the year is clearly proven by the constantly accumulating circum- stantial evidence of these mercantile enterprises laying the foundations of settlements.
In dealing historically with the intervening years be- tween the unknown and the known it is necessary to treat some things as "possibly," others as "probably," and some as "undoubtedly," according to circumstances. The years 1600-1620 on the Maine coast must be viewed and weighed as having an historical status resting on circum-
36
JOHN WHITSON Alderman and Mayor of Bristol Courtesy of Bristol Municipal Charity Trustees
THE PERIOD OF DISCOVERY
stantial evidence to be reasonably interpreted. In this relation York is to be considered, respecting these years, as part of the interesting story of continual visitations from European voyagers seeking places of habitation, advan- tages of location and possibilities for successful settlement.
After the voyages of Gosnold, Pring and Weymouth, the well-known settlement at the Kennebec, under the auspices of Sir John Popham, in 1607 drew the reality of permanent occupation a step nearer to fruition. Their
LANDI
bij
Inwoonders genaemt
Sassanows Mont Snouden hill
Sawocatuck
LMOU Pafataquack hull®
Acomenticus
Smits Eylan
EARLY DUTCH MAP Showing Acomenticus
object being exploration, we can suppose that in the course of their stay some of their party examined the coast line as far westward as York, for men of adventurous spirit after crossing the ocean did not sit down in one spot and remain idle when virgin scenes lured them afield. Then came in sequence the yearly visits of ships up to 1614 sent out by Popham and Gorges to the coast for fishing and trade. Richard Vines by his experimental settlement at the mouth of the Saco in the winter of 1616-17 had con- firmed the feasibility of settlements in that latitude, and both Damerill's Cove and Monhegan Islands became busy
37
HISTORY OF YORK
centers of trade ever after. As the personal representative of Gorges it is reasonable to suppose that while there he undertook a survey of the rivers and harbors in this west- ern part of Maine, in order to report in detail the potential value of the future province. In this the Agamenticus River and harbor must have been viewed by Vines and its qualifications and possibilities known by report to Gorges. Subsequent events to be related explain the bear- ing of this surmise. Inlets and harbors swarmed with ships from English ports and in 1618 Capt. John Smith reported that an hundred sail destined for the Maine
Yorkes
Bonauen- ture.
CAPTAIN LEVETT'S SHIP Entered the River of Agamenticus 1623
coast were windbound waiting to proceed to Monhegan. The visits of this famous traveler and author to our local waters in 1614-1618 resulted in the charting of the entire coast of northern New England, and from his detail of mountain and river and use of the name "Acomenticus," it is certain that he explored our harbor in these years. A reproduction of so much of his famous map as com- prises the area about York is here given as the first defi- nite representation of the locality in contemporary print.
The exhibition of this map to Prince Charles in 1616 resulted in the bestowal by him, at Smith's request, of English names to replace the heathenish designations employed by the natives. In this way our town site was dubbed "Boston" and Mt. Agamenticus christened "Sna- down Hill" after the great mountain in Wales. Fortu-
38
THE PERIOD OF DISCOVERY
nately the baptisms of Charles didn't "take." It was upon these well-understood proofs of occupation known at the time that King James in the great charter of Novem- ber 3, 1620, dated before the Pilgrims had reached Cape Cod, granted to the Council for New England the patent to govern this territory. It was granted in consideration of the fulfillment of conditions precedent, because the grantees "had in divers years past ... taken active pos- session ... and settled English emigrants already in places agreeable to their desires in those parts." (Hazard i, 103; comp. Prince ii, 70, 94.) From the standpoint of recorded history this story of occupation of the Maine coast is unfortunate in not having a Bradford or a Winthrop among its pioneers equipped with pens, ink and paper, in ample quantity, and a political or religious purpose to serve to write these annals for posterity. The pioneers of Maine were too busy in writing debits and credits in ledgers and invoices of furs and fish to the merchants of Bristol, Barnstaple and Plymouth, to set forth the unromantic annals of trading settlements. It is a part of the historical cant of New England writers to regard any settlement as negligible unless it had been "opened with prayer."
The next recorded visit to the river of Agamenticus was made by Capt. Christopher Levett in 1623 in his ship, the Yorke Bonaventure. Captain Levett made this voyage of exploration and experimental settlement on the western coast of Maine, extending over the period of a year. He engaged in a somewhat extended examination of the coast between Piscataqua and the Kennebec, describing each natural feature in detail. After relating his visit to Pis- cataqua he makes the following statements regarding this place:
About two leagues further to the East is another great river called Aguamenticus. There I think a good plantation may be settled for there is a good harbour for ships, good ground and much already cleared, fit for planting of corne and other fruits, having heretofore been planted by the Salvages who are all dead. There is good timber, and likely to be good fishing, but as yet there hath been no tryall made that I can heare of. (Levett, Voyage into New England, 1623-4; London 1628.)
From this it is learned that Captain Levett had accu- rately described the agricultural value of the lands about
39
HISTORY OF YORK
the river and gives us the definite information that no attempt had been made to settle it. This book, printed in London in 1628, doubtless had an important bearing upon the future history of this town as will be explained in a later chapter.
OC Porpas
EARLIEST REPRESENTATION OF YORK ON A MAP OF 1610 (Archives of Simancas, Spain)
40
CHAPTER IV
EDWARD GODFREY, THE FOUNDER OF YORK
Fortunately there is ample documentary evidence to es- tablish when and where and by whom the first house was built in the town and who has the honor of being the actual founder of York. We shall see 0 that Gorges was the patron saint of the colonization of the Province of Maine, but he came not in person to supervise this o particular locality, which later 0 was to bear his name for a 0 decade. In a statement pre- pared on October 30, 1654, re- hearsing his connection with English colonizing on this coast, ARMS OF GODFREY! Edward Godfrey made the fol- Of Wilmington, Kent. Granted 1579 lowing recital of his long service in the work of developing this region and particularly this town of York:
Sheweth that he hath been a well wisher incourager and furderer of this Col. of N. E. for 45 years, (1609) and above 32 years an adven- turer on that design, (1621-2), 24 years an inhabitant of this place, (1630), the first that ever bylt or settled ther. . . . (Mass. Arch.)
The years in brackets are inserted by the author.
1 The heraldic seal used by Godfrey in his letters, preserved in the Winthrop Papers, does not conform to the coat-of-arms shown above, as confirmed to Oliver Godfrey of Wilmington, by Robert Cooke, Clarenceaux and Sir Gilbert Dethick, Garter King, of the College of Arms, June 17, 1579 (21 Elizabeth). The drawing above is that tricked by Dethick (Stow Mss. 700, fol. 15). References to this grant are also found in Harl. Mss. 1422, fol. 14b; 1441, fol. 103b; Add. Mss. 5847, 12454, 14297 and Stow Mss. 702. On letters to Winthrop Godfrey used a seal showing a cross potent between four crosslets, which is the coat armor of the Crusader, Godfrey of Boulogne, King of Jerusalem (Morgan, "Sphere of Gentry," Book III, pp. 102-3). Doubtless it was from this real or fancied association that Godfrey named the tongue of land in York, on which he built his house, "Point Bolleyne." This coat was impaled with a Barry of six, which is the arms of Harleston of Fordwich, Kent (Hasted, "History of Kent," iii, 450, 498, 508), but what significance this has is unknown - perhaps an early ancestral alliance. His crest used here was a stag's head, but the records of the College of Arms gave the family both a wolf's head and a dragon's head issuing from a ducal coronet! Altogether the heraldry of Governor Godfrey, even in the official repository of such records, is a puzzle.
4I
HISTORY OF YORK
There is no reason known to the author why this statement should not be accepted at its full face value, as there was nothing at issue in respect to priority of settlement, and Godfrey was merely reciting to the General Court of Massachusetts the story of his lifework in Maine in sup- port of his claims for redress. When made, there were men living who would know facts to the contrary, if they existed, but in the heat of controversy over the events of that time his claim was never challenged. It would have been quickly denied, if possible to discredit his veracity, as his opponents never lost an opportunity to deny his assertions during this great political campaign of extinc- tion.
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