Illustrated history of Kennebec County, Maine; 1625-1892, Part 4

Author: Kingsbury, Henry D; Deyo, Simeon L., ed
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York, Blake
Number of Pages: 1790

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III. FATHER DRUILLETTES AND HIS KENNEBEC MISSION.

The first Mission in Canada .- Father Masse at the Residence of St. Joseph of Sillery .- Father Druillettes among the Algonquins .- Intercourse between the Kennebec and St. Lawrence .- St. Lawrence Indian killed on the Kenne- bec .-- Treaty between the Algonquins and Abenakis .- The Latter ask for a Missionary .- Father Druillettes sent to them .- His Visit to Pentagoet .- Chapel built near Cushnoc and named the Mission of the Assumption .- Father Druillettes' return to Quebec.

IT WAS left to the people of the French nation, who once dis- played the symbol of Christianity to the Indians on the lower Ken- nebec (1611), to undertake the conversion of the Abenakis. The first missions on the St. Lawrence were begun in 1614, under the patronage of Champlain; they were reinforced in 1625 by the arrival of three Jesuits, one of whom was Father Ennemond Masse, who was driven by Argal from St. Sauveur with Father Biard twelve years before.

HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

Quebec was captured by Englishmen in 1629, when Father Masse was again expelled from the country, with his associates. Three years later (1632) France by treaty resumed dominion over both Canada and Acadia; the suspended missions were immediately re- vived, and a system of evangelizing labor was soon established, under which in a few years heroic priests had carried the gospel to the na- tives of every part of New France. Quebec was the central radiating point. By the shore of the St. Lawrence, about four miles above Quebec and nearly opposite the mouth of the Chaudière, there was an Indian village (called Ka-miskoua-ouangachit), where the missionaries built a church; in 1637 Father Masse became a resident pastor there; two years later (1639) the mission was endowed by a gift of twenty thousand livres by a converted French courtier, and in honor of its benefactor was given the name of the Residence of St. Joseph of Sil- lery. The establishment became the seminary of the missionaries, for the acquiring of the various Indian languages, preparatory to their going forth to their fields of labor. To this place came in 1643, Father Gabriel Druillettes, the first regular missionary to the Kenne- bec. He first essayed to learn the tongue of the Algonquins or St. Lawrence tribe, and soon went among them. The smoke of the wig- wams inflamed his eyes and made him blind; he was led about in his helplessness by an Indian boy; he implored his neophytes to join him in offering prayer for his recovery; this they did and his sight was from that hour restored! He ever after believed that his cure was a miracle in answer to the prayers of his converts. Weakened by the sufferings attending his first year's labors, he was given the second year a less exacting service near the mission of Sillery. The gently- bred scholar and priest was seasoning and hardening for the wonder- ful apostolic career that was before him.

There can be no doubt that long before the written history of the Indians begins there were occasional exchanges of visits between the natives on the St. Lawrence and those who lived in the valley of the Kennebec. It is said in the Jesuit Relations that in the year 1637 a party of Abenakis (Kennebecs) Indians went to Quebec to buy beaver skins to sell to the English traders; a jealous Montanais (mountaineer) chief denounced them before the French governor, Montmagny, and offered to go and shut the rivers against their return to their country. The governor forbade bloodshed, but allowed the mountaineers to rob the strangers and send them home. In 1640 an English trader (prob- ably one of the Plymouth colony's men) accompanied by twenty Ken- nebecs, undertook the journey from Maine to Quebec. After he had reached the St. Lawrence, the French governor ordered him to return immediately; but this he could not do as the rivers were low and some of the streams were dry; so, without allowing him to visit Quebec, the

THE INDIANS OF THE KENNEBEC.

governor sent him down to Tadoussac (at the mouth of the Saguenay) from whence he was shipped to Europe. The same year an Algon- quin (St. Lawrence) Indian named Makheabichtichiou, came to the Kennebec with his family, to escape the reproaches of the missionaries for his persistency in continuing his heathen practice of polygamy. In the course of the winter following he was killed by a drunken Abenakis; while his two widowed wives were journeying back to their kindred in Canada, one died miserably of grief and famine. Under the Indian code the tragedy was liable to be avenged on the whole tribe-to avoid which two chiefs were sent to Canada to announce the affair with the regret of their people, and to offer satisfaction in the form of presents to the parents of the deceased. It seems probable that the ambassadors would have been summarily tomahawked in retaliation for the deed they had come to excuse, if John Baptist Etinechkawat and Christmas Negabamat, two baptized chiefs of Sil- lery, had not interceded eloquently for them. It was declared that the murder was not committed by the tribe, which on the contrary wholly disapproved of it, but that it was the act of an individual san- nup while frenzied by the English traders' fire-water. Finally the exasperated tribesmen and bereaved relatives were soothed by words and gifts, and a treaty of friendship was made between their tribe and the Abenakis, which was never broken. Thereafter the two tribes were inseparable allies in peace and war. Father Marault says in his Histoire des Abenakis, that thenceforth the latter, until their final emigration to Canada and extinction on the Kennebec, annually sent envoys to Quebec to renew and celebrate this alliance.

In the fall of 1643 a Christianized St. Lawrence Indian named Charles Mejachkawat, came from Sillery to the Kennebec, and passed the winter among the Abenakis. He seems to have been sent pur- posely to extol on the Kennebec his conception of the gospel which the missionaries were preaching on the St. Lawrence. His visit aroused the interest or curiosity of many in the mysterious ceremonies of baptism and the mass, which he described. During his stay he visited the English trading house at Cushnoc (Augusta), and there had occasion to defend his faith with spirited words against the humorous raillery of the Puritan heretics. He returned to Sillery in the spring (1644), accompanied by one of the chiefs who, three years before, had been sent to requite the killing of the refugee. The life of this chief had been saved with that of his associate, and war averted by the good offices of the proselytes of Sillery, whom he had prom- ised in the fullness of his gratitude to join in accepting the religion of the Black-gowns; he was now going to Sillery to crave baptism. The rite was duly administered by the priest in the Sillery chapel, Gov- ernor Montmagny acting as his godfather; the church christened him

HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

John Baptist, but his Indian name is not recorded. He was the first Kennebec chief on whom holy water was placed. He started alone on his journey back to his people, and sad to relate, fell into the hands of a party of the merciless Iroquois and was cruelly killed.

The history of the Jesuit missions shows the remarkable fact that while most tribes received the missionaries with indifference or apathy, and some murdered them, the Abenakis asked for them. The frequent visits between the Kennebec and the St. Lawrence that fol- lowed the treaty of 1641, brought favorably to the attention of the Abenakis the meek and peace-loving Black-robes, who, unlike other white men, did not greedily grasp their beaver, but appeared to be unselfishly anxious for their comfort and welfare. In the spring of 1646, several Abenakis returned to the Kennebec from Sillery, full of enthusiasm which the Fathers' zeal had inspired in them for the Christian faith. After having visited the families and chiefs of their tribe, they journeyed back to Sillery, bearing the request of their people for a missionary. They arrived at Sillery on the 14th of August; the next day, after participating in the celebration of the Assumption, they went before an assembly of the Fathers and in the customary Indian form of proceeding in council, delivered an oration. They said that their tribe on the Kennebec had been deeply moved by the kindness of Noël (Christmas) Negabamat; that the treaty of friendship which had been made would end with this earthly life; that the bond of faith would continue after death eternally; that they had been told of the beauties of heaven and the horrors of hell; that thirty men and six women of their tribe, having already endorsed the new belief, now begged for a Father to come from Quebec to in- struct and baptize them, and that the ears of the chiefs and people would be open to the preaching of the gospel. The record says: " The Fathers acceded to the pious desire of these good Christians, and selected Father Gabriel Druillettes to go and establish a mission on the river Kennebec." *

Father Druillettes accepted the choice of his brethren as the voice of God, and prepared for his journey; he had little to do to make ready. Besides the parcels containing the missal and crucifix, his outfit consisted of only a few articles of priestly apparel, a little box of medicines and some bread and wine for the mass-made into a pack that could be slung on the shoulders or laid in the canoe. On the 29th of August, he started with the Christianized chief Negaba- mat, and a few Abenakis who were to be his guides. He ascended the rapid Chaudière about ninety miles, to its source in Lake Megantic; from the waters of that lake he followed the trail that led across the divide through swamp and logan to the waters of the Kennebec; these

* Relations of the Jesuits in New France for the year 1646, Chap V, p. 19.

THE INDIANS OF THE KENNEBEC.

he descended to the main river, and by the middle of September reached the upper village of the Abenakis (probably Nanrantsouack -now called Old Point, in Norridgewock). Here he seems to have tarried for a week, and then resumed his journey down the river, call- ing at the different villages and conferring with the chiefs and people about their souls' salvation. By the end of September he had pro- gressed as far as the Plymouth trading post at Cushnoc, where he called and was kindly received by John Winslow, the agent, who in- vited him to become his guest. The missionary gladly accepted the Pilgrim's hospitality, and enjoyed for a few days the comforts of the trading house, which, though few and humble, were great in contrast with those found in the huts of the natives. The Father was the first white man who had ever entered the Kennebec from Canada and ap- proached the trading house from the north. He was a Frenchman, and neither he nor Winslow could converse in the language of the other, but by signs and pantomimes and the spirit of Christian kind- ness that knows all languages, the host and guest soon became mu- tually intelligible, and by the help of Indian interpreters were able to understand each other.

Father Druillettes remained a few days as the distinguished guest of the Pilgrim trader, and then went back to the cabins of the Indians, where he found pressing employment in the nursing of the sick, the baptizing of the dying, and the instructing of the living. In about two weeks, partly to finish his reconnaissance of the country, but chiefly to confer with some fellow-missionaries of the Capuchin order on the Penobscot, Father Druillettes started in a canoe with a native guide down the river, and went along the sea-coast to Pentagoet (now Castine), " visiting seven or eight English habitations on the way." Father Ignace de Paris, the superior at Pentagoet (which was then a French post), " saluted him lovingly," and approved of the planting of a Jesuit mission on the Kennebec-which river was then regarded by Frenchmen as the western boundary of Acadia. Father Druillettes soon started on his return, encouraged in his heart by the benediction of his brother missionary, and the courteous treatment given him at the English habitations, where he again called as a wayfarer for nightly shelter and rest. At one of these-" Mr. Chaste gave to him food abundantly for his voyage and some letters for the English at Kennebec [Cushnoc]. In these he protested that he had seen nothing in the Father which was not praiseworthy; that he carried nothing to trade. The savages gave him this testimony: that he labored only for their instruction; that he came to procure their salvation at the risk of his life; and that, in a word, he admired his courage." *

* Who this kind " Mr. Chaste " was we do not know; we like to believe the name is a misspelled rendering of Mr. Shurt-good Abraham Shurt of Pemaquid

HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

The priest, with his dusky guide, paddled back to the Plymouth trading house at Cushnoc; he presented his letters to Winslow, and then showed his commission as missionary from the Jesuit superior at Quebec: the commission was in French and the Englishman could not read it, but with his own hand carefully made a copy to carry to Plymouth. He then extended to the Father all the kindness in his power; he consented to the planting of a mission within the Plymouth jurisdiction, and gave his active assistance to the undertaking. Father Druillettes then chose for his mission a place near the river a league above the trading post, in the vicinity of what has since been named Gilley's point in Augusta; his record says " the savages had there as- sembled to the number of fifteen large cabins," and that there "they made for him a little chapel of planks built in their own fashion " (ils luy bastirent une petite chapelle de planches, faite à leur mode). He be- stowed upon this chapel the name selected for it by the Fathers at Sillery-The Mission of the Assumption on the Kennebec (La Mission de l' Assomption au pays des Abnaquiois) .* It was on the anniversary of the Assumption (August 15) that Father Druillettes arrived in Canada, and on the same calendar day he had been assigned to the Kennebec by his brethren, who, in compliment, gave him a name for his mission to commemorate those events. "It was there that the Father, acquiring sufficiently their [the Indians'] language, instructed them zealously; making them listen to the subject that kept him with them, and telling them of the importance of confessing Him who had created them and who punished or blessed them according to their deeds." His humble parishioners appear to have been willing listeners and docile pupils, for he says: "Seeing that a large part professed to love the good news of the gospel, he [the missionary] demanded of them three things, as tokens of their good will and desire to receive the faith of Jesus Christ. The first was to leave the beverages of Europe [the brandy of the traders], from which followed much drunkenness among the savages; secondly, he asked them to live peaceably together and to put an end to the jealousies and quarrels which were often occurring between them and members of other tribes; thirdly, he required that they throw away their Manitous or demons or mysterious charms; there were few young men who had not some stone or other thing

-whose long life was full of deeds of kindness toward the Indians, and who, if satisfied that the priest was their real friend, would have written such a letter. The Father must have met some French and English speaking person by whom, as interpreter, his character as a missionary could be expressed in English as certified by "Mr. Chaste." Of the " seven or eight English settlements " along the route, Pemnaquid was the oldest and largest; the others may have been Pejepscot, Sagadahoc, Sheepscot, Capenewaggen, Damariscotta, New Harbor and St. George.

* Jesuit Relations for the year 1647, Chap. X, p. 52.

THE INDIANS OF THE KENNEBEC.

which they held as a propitiation to their demon for his kindness in the chase or the games, or in war: it is given to them by some sor- cerer [medicine man] or they dream that they found it, or that the Manitou gave it to them. . . Many who had charms or Manitous drew them from their pouches- some threw them away and others brought them to the Father. Some sorcerers or jugglers burned their drums and other implements of their trade; so that no longer were heard in their cabins, the yellings, and cries and hubbub which they made around their sick, because the greater part protested stoutly that they wanted refuge in God. I say the greater part, but not all; some never liked the change, so they carried a sick man to be whispered and chanted over by these cheats. But the poor man, being well pre- pared for heaven, said that if he recovered his health he would hold it as a gift from Him who alone can give and take away as it pleases Him. The Father stayed among these fifteen cabins, teaching in public and private, making the savages pray, visiting, consoling and relieving the sick; with much suffering it is true, but tempered by a blessing and inspiration from heaven which sweetens the most bitter trials. God does not yield; He scatters his blessings as well upon the cross of iron as upon the cross of silver and gold. It is not a small joy to baptize thirty persons prepared for death and paradise. The Father had not yet wished to entrust the holy waters to those who were full of life; he only scattered them upon the dying, some of whom recovered, to the surprise of their comrades." *

In the month of January (1647) the Father went with the Indians on their winter hunt to Moosehead lake, where, " being divided into many bands, they wage war against deer, elk and beaver, and other wild beasts;" the Father stayed with one party, " following it in all its journeys." In the spring, " the chase ended, all the savages reassem- bled upon the banks of this great lake [Moosehead] at the place where they had stopped [before the dispersion]. Here the sorcerers lost credit, for not only those who prayed to God had not encountered misfortune but the Father and his company had not fallen into the ambush of the Iroquiois, but instead had been favored with a fortu- nate chase, and some sick persons separated from the Father, having had recourse to God in their agonies, had received the blessing of a sudden return to health." The reassembling of the tribe at the close of the hunt was at the outlet of the lake and such occasions were cele- brated by feasting and dancing, until the canoes were ready for the descent of the river. When Father Druillettes arrived with his com- pany at the place of the mission house, he found that Winslow had already reached the trading house three miles below. Winslow had spent the winter in Plymouth and Boston; he told the missionary that

* Jesuit Relations, 1647, Chap. X, pp. 53-54.

HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

he " had shown the letter of Mr. Chate to twenty-four persons of im- portance in New England, among whom were four famous ministers; and that they all approved his plan, saying boldly that it was a good and praiseworthy and generous action to instruct the savages, and that God must be praised for it. 'The gentlemen of the Kennebec company [the Plymouth colony] charged me,' said Mr. Houinslaud [Winslow], ' to bring you [Father Druillettes] word that if you wish for some French to come and build a house [mission establishment] on the Kennebec river, they will gladly allow it; and that you will never be molested in your ministry; if you are there,' added he, ' many English will come to visit you;' giving us to understand that there are some Catholics in these countries. The Father, having no orders on this proposition, replied to Winslow that he would write to him soon if the plan was judged practicable." *

Father Druillettes left the Mission of the Assumption on the 20th of May, 1647, " going to visit all the places where the savages were, baptizing the sick and thus rescuing those beyond all hope. . . There were neither small nor great who did not express sorrow at the departure of their Patriarch " (the name of endearment which the missionary's neophytes had given him). Thirty Indians accompanied him to Quebec, where he arrived on the 15th of June " full of health." The disciples who escorted him besought him to return with them after eleven days' rest, " but the Jesuit Fathers for sufficient reasons, did not grant their request, and the savages returned to their country, afflicted by the refusal."

IV. FATHER DRUILLETTES AS A MISSIONARY AND ENVOY.

The Kennebec Mission Field reopened .- Iroquiois Enemies .- Scene at the Cushnoc Trading House .- Father Druillettes and Negabamat go to Boston and Plymouth .- The Father meets the Governors .- He visits John Eliot and John Endicott .- Resumes Labor in his Mission .- Returns to Quebec .- Sent back to New England .- Lost in the Forests on the St. John .- Reaches Nanrantsouak .- Welcomed with Joy .- Visits the four Colonies .- Last Labors on the Kennebec .- Painful Journey to Quebec.

THE next year (1648) the neophytes of the Kennebec went to Que- bec and repeated their request for the return of Father Druillettes, but the Jesuit Fathers, thinking that the distant Abenakis could be sufficiently ministered unto by the Capuchins of Penobscot, and hav- ing great need in Canada of all of the missionaries of their own society, did not yield to the petition. The next year (1649) the same request was made with the same result; but in 1650, the persistency

* Jesuit Relations, 1647, Chap. X, p. 56.

THE INDIANS OF THE KENNEBEC.

and earnestness of the appeals, supported by a letter from Father Come de Mante of the Pentagoet mission, were successful. Father Druiliettes was appointed to reopen his Kennebec mission. He left Quebec (or Sillery) September 1st, accompanied by his faithful disci- ple and constant companion, Noel Negabamat. On reaching the Ken- nebec, he visited hastily the several villages, and received the joyful welcome of his former pupils. On St. Michael's eve (September 29) he arrived at the Plymouth trading house, at Cushnoc. To his great pleasure he there met again his former friend, "the agent, by name Jehan Winslau [John Winslow], a citizen merchant of Plymouth."

At the time of Father Druillettes' first labors on the river four years before, there was a feeling of unrest among the Abenakis arising from the dread of their enemies, the Mohawks (one of the celebrated Iroquiois tribes), whose raids from their country beyond the western highlands had reached even to the Kennebec. Since 1646, six French missionaries " had been massacred by the Mohawks and their kindred tribes, and marauding parties were yearly roaming the banks of the St. Lawrence, with hatchets and knives bought of the Dutch and English traders on the Hudson. The governor of Canada (D'Alli- boust), to protect his own people and the far more numerous friendly natives of his domain, sought to repel the invaders; and he gave to Father Druillettes on his departure for the Kennebec, " a letter of credit to speak on behalf of Sieur d'Alliboust to the governor and magistrates of said country " (New England). It was therefore in the dual capacity of missionary and envoy that Father Druillettes made his second visit to the Abenakis. The then existing colonies (Ply- mouth, Massachusetts, New Haven, Connecticut,) had formed (in 1643) a confederation to promote their common interests, and espe- cially to enable them to deal as a unit with the neighboring Dutch and French colonies. This confederacy-the embryo of our great republic -- prohibited the individual colony from going to war alone and from concluding a peace without the consent of the others.

Before 1650, this confederacy had proposed a system of commer- cial reciprocity between New England and New France. Father Druillettes was now instructed to agree on behalf of his government to the proposed treaty, provided New England would unite with Canada in keeping the Iroquiois from the war path against the tribes

* They were all of the Society of Jesus. Father Isaac Jognes (killed October 18, 1646) was sent to the Mohawk country at the same time that Father Druil- lettes was ordered to the Kennebec. The two Fathers received their assign- ments on the same day. The other victims to Iroquiois cruelty were: Fathers Antoine Daniel, killed July 4, 1648; Jean de Brebeuf, March 16, 1649; Gabriel Lallemant, March 17, 1649; Charles Garnier, December 7, 1649; Noel Chobanel, December 8, 1649 .- Abridged Relations of the Missions of the Jesuits in Newe France. By Father P. F. J. Bressani, 1653. Montreal, 1852.

HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

that were friendly to the French. In the light of these facts we can understand the proceedings at the Kennebec trading house on the 30th of September, 1650. Father Druillettes, with Negabamat and a throng of Indians who had followed them from the different villages, met with ceremony the representative of the colony of Plymouth at the trading house. Negabamat, addressing John Winslow and hand- ing to him a bundle of beaver skins, said in his mother tongue (the Algonquin, and interpreted into French for us by the missionary): " The governor of the river St. Lawrence, by the Father who stands here, to those of your nation, and I as ally join my word to his; Not to speak to thee alone, but rather to tell thee to embark my word, that is to say my present [the beaver skins], to carry it to the governor of Plymouth." Winslow answered that he would do with the governor and magistrates all that could be expected from a good friend; where- upon Negabamat and the other Indians asked that the Father should go with him (Winslow) to present in person d'Alliboust's letter and " explain his intentions according to the letter of credit which he had, and to bear the words of the Christians of Sillery and the catechumens of the river Kennebec." Winslow replied: " I will lodge him in my house, and I will treat him as my own brother; for I well know the good that he [the missionary] does among you, and the life that he leads there." The record adds: " This he said because he had a par- ticular zeal for the conversion of the Indians."

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Illustrated history of Kennebec County, Maine; 1625-1892, Part 4

Author: Kingsbury, Henry D; Deyo, Simeon L., ed Publication date: 1892 Publisher: New York, Blake Number of Pages: 1790

Author: Kingsbury, Henry D; Deyo, Simeon L., ed
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York, Blake
Number of Pages: 1790