Illustrated history of Kennebec County, Maine; 1625-1892, Part 7

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

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HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

they rushed upon the English settlements for booty and scalps. This was the beginning of Queen Anne's or the third Indian war in Maine. It was instigated in Canada and carried on by the French with such aid as their Indian allies would give them.

It was a war of many revolting features. In the winter of 1705, an English party of 270 men under Colonel Hilton went on snow- shoes to Nanrantsouak, but the village was deserted. The "large chapel with a vestry at the end of it," which Father Rale had built for his people, was set on fire and destroyed. At Casco, in January, 1707, the same officer with two hundred men, killed four Indians and cap- tured a squaw and child, whereupon the woman, to save her own life, conducted the party to a camp of eighteen sleeping Indians, seventeen of whom they killed. The savages themselves could not have been guilty of a more wanton stroke of butchery. It was a war of exter- mination. The government offered a bounty for scalps. In 1710 Colonel Walton with 170 men, surprised a company of Indians on the clam beds at the mouth of the Kennebec; Arruawikwabemt, a Nor- ridgewock sachem, was captured; Penhallow says he was " an active, bold fellow, and one of unbounded spirit; for when they asked several questions he made no reply, and when they threatened him with death, he laughed at it with contempt; upon which they delivered him up unto our friend Indians [Mohawks], who soon became his executioners."* The French are known to have barbarously surren- dered English captives to a similar fate. But in the dreadful chapter of this ten years' war, one act of Indian compassion shines through the smoke and gloom of ruined settlements, and makes us grateful to the grim warrior whose heart is shown to have been human and could be touched with pity for his enemy's suffering child. It was in 1706 that Rebekah Taylor was made captive by a huge savage, who, while making the journey to Canada to sell her for a French ransom, be- came enraged at her exhaustion, and untying his girdle from his body wound it around her neck and hung her to a tree; the weight of the captive broke the cord; the fiend in his diabolism was again hoisting his victim to the limb, when Bomaseen, the sachem of the Kennebecs, came by chance upon the scene, and by overawing the executioner, prevented the consummation of the tragedy. Rebekah was afterward returned to her friends, and her own lips related the story of her deliverance. +

After ten years, England and France settled their dispute by the treaty of Utrecht (March 30, 1713), in which it was agreed that " Acadia with its ancient boundaries . . are resigned and made over to the crown of Great Britain forever." Thus the contest for * History of the Wars of New England. By Samuel Penhallow, pp. 65-66.

+ Idem, p. 47.

THE INDIANS OF THE KENNEBEC.

Acadia that was begun with bloodshed at St. Sauveur just one hun- dred years before (1613) was ended. Four months after the treaty of Utrecht, the Indians of Maine sent their sachems to Portsmouth, where a treaty was made with the provincial government July 13, 1713; it was signed in behalf of the Kennebecs with the respective totem characters of Warrakansit, Bomaseen and Wedaranaquin. Moxus was present, but for some reason did not place his hand to the document.

VII. THE FOURTH INDIAN WAR IN MAINE.

Settlements at Sagadahoc .- Pejepscot Land Company .- Conference at Arrow- sic .- Wiwurna's Anger .- Fort Richmond built .- Father Rale with an Indian Embassy at Arrowsic .- First Attempt to seize Father Rale .- Warriors make Captures at Merrymeeting .- Captain Sam slain .- Harmon's Massacre .- War declared .- Arrowsic burned .- Bounty of $1,000 for Father Rale .- Second Attempt to Capture him .- Mohawks invited .- Skirmish above Fort Rich- mond .- Third Attempt to Capture Father Rale.

THE conquest of Acadia and the treaty of Portsmouth gave confi- dence to New England that her Indian troubles were ended. As a result the abandoned frontier settlements were revived and new ones begun. Nowhere were the happy effects of peace manifested more strongly than in Maine, where the suffering and desolation had been the greatest. The lower Kennebec (or Sagadahoc) was perhaps the first devastated region that rang to the cheery echoes of returning civilization. The heirs and assigns of early proprietors came to claim their estates. John Watts, whose wife (as granddaughter of Captain Lake, slain in Philip's war) inherited a good part of the island of Arrowsic, came to the Kennebec in 1714, and settled at a place now called Butler's cove; he built a fine dwelling and a defensible house or fort, and by the next year had drawn hither fifteen families. Soon following the Watts enterprise were various others in the same region, and in 1716, Georgetown was incorporated. The heirs and assigns of other land claimants through ancient Indian deeds, organ- ized themselves into the Pejepscot Company, to grasp with the strength of a giant's hands their vague heritage on the Androscoggin. This territory, like that of the lower Kennebec, had suddenly become of great prospective value by the treaties of Utrecht and Portsmouth. It was, however, all-important to the land company that the Indians should be kept peaceable. To learn their temper and test their amiability the device of a conference between them and the governor was hit upon.

The suggestion met with official favor, and in the summer of 1717, Governor Shute attended by his councilors and other important gen-

HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

tlemen, sailed from Boston to the Kennebec in the royal ship The Squirrel. The gallant ship, with her colors gaily flying, arrived on the morning of August 9th opposite the Watts settlement and there dropped anchor. The Indians were already at their rendezvous on Patteshall's island. They sent a message asking his excellency when it would be his pleasure for them to attend him; he replied at three o'clock that afternoon, " when he would order the Union flag to be displayed at the tent erected near Mr. Watts, his house," and ordered a British flag to be delivered to the Indians " for them to wear when they came, in token of their subjection to his majesty King George " I; "at the time appointed, the flag being set up, the Indians forthwith came over, with the British flag in their headmost canoe." Eight sagamores filed up the bank to the great tent where the governor and attendants had assembled to receive them. They " made their rever- ence to the governor, who was pleased to give them his hand." John Gyles and Samuel Jordan were sworn as interpreters; the governor addressed the interpreters and they repeated his remarks in the Indian tongue to the sachems. In his opening speech the governor said that he was glad to find so many of them in health; since the good treaty of Portsmouth King George had happily ascended the throne and by his gracious command they were favored with the present interview; France was at peace with him and desired his friendship; the Indians were his subjects like the English, and they must not hearken to any contrary insinuation; they would always find themselves safest under the government of Great Britain; he would gladly have them of the same religion as King George and the Eng- lish, and therefore would immediately give them a Protestant mission- ary and in a little while a schoolmaster to teach their children; he naively remarked that the English settlements lately made in the eastern parts had been promoted partly for the benefit of the Indians, and that he had given strict orders to the English to be very just and kind to them; if any wrong was done them it should be reported to his officers, and he would see that it was redressed; he wished them to look upon the English government in New England as their great and safe shelter; he took in his hands two copies of the holy Bible, one printed in English and the other in the Apostle Eliot's transla- tion, and gave them to the chiefs for use by their new minister, Mr. Baxter, whenever they desired to be taught.

Wiwurna was the Indian spokesman; he arose from his seat and responded to the courtly governor in uncultured but appropriate phrase. His people, he said, " were glad of the opportunity to wait upon the governor; they ratified all previous treaties; they hoped all hard thoughts would be laid aside between the English and them- selves, so that amity might be hearty; but other governors had told

THE INDIANS OF THE KENNEBEC.

them that they were under no government but their own; they would be obedient to King George if they liked the terms made to them- if they were not molested in their lands; if any wrong happened to them they would not avenge themselves, but apply to the governor for redress; this place [Arrowsic] was formerly settled and was then being settled by their permission, but they desired there be no more settlements made; it was said at Casco treaty [1713] that no more forts should be made; they would be pleased with King George if there was never a fort in the eastern parts; they were willing the English should possess all they have occupied except forts; they did not wish to change their ministers or their religion; God had already given them teaching; they did not understand how their lands had been purchased-what had been alienated was by gift only."

The governor thereupon triumphantly exhibited the so-called deed of sale of lands on the Kennebec and Androscoggin rivers, made by six sagamores July 7, 1684, on which the Pejepscot Company based their claim. The Indians could have as easily understood the docu- ment if it had been written in Greek; it was, however, to their appre- hension possessed of a mysterious power which they could not ques- tion: they knew not how to meet such a form of argument; they were dazed and dumfounded; the plot to usurp their lands by the use of dingy papers, and fence them with forts was revealed. The angered chiefs sprang to their feet, and without obeisance sullenly withdrew from the audience tent, leaving in disdain their English flag and the inexorable but discomfited governor. In a few hours they returned from their camp with a letter to his ex- cellency from Father Rale, that quoted Seb. Rale J.J the French king as saying he had not given to the English by the cession of Acadia any of the Indians' land, and that he was ready to succor the Indians if their lands were en- croached upon. It was now the governor's turn to be angry, as he saw that the sachems had a friend who was able to cope with him in Indian diplomacy; he scornfully threw the letter aside and made preparations to depart for home.

The next morning he had entered into his ship and ordered the sails to be loosed, when two Indians hastily came alongside in a canoe and climbed on board; they apologized for the unpleasant behavior of the sachems, and begged that the parley might be reopened. The governor said he would grant the request if the sachems would aban- don "their unreasonable pretensions to the English lands, and com- plied with what he had said, but not otherwise;" to this condition the messengers agreed, and asked that the deserted flag be given again to decorate the Indian embassy. At six o'clock in the evening the sachems and principal men once more crossed the river from their

HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

island camp to Arrowsic and sat down in council. Querebennit was their speaker in place of the too spirited Wiwurna, who had been dis- gracefully left at camp, in courtesy to the English. The Indians' de- sire for peace was overmastering; it made them capable of submitting to any terms which the English might dictate; they did not again venture to oppose the land scheme or the forts, but yielded in their hopelessness to such an agreement as the governor was pleased to have prepared, when " they all readily and without any objection consented to the whole."* Then all the chief Indians shook hands with the governor, who made them presents of food and ammunition; and the young men came over from the island and danced before the assembly in honor of the occasion.

This so-called treaty of Arrowsic exacted the acknowledgment that the English might enjoy both the lands which they formerly pos- sessed, " and all others which they had obtained a right unto"-leav- ing the English to decide that they were entitled to all territory that was ever included in pretended sales by debauched and tribeless saga- mores. The Pejepscot people went resolutely forward to develop their property; timber cutters, mill builders and settlers flocked rapidly to Georgetown and the Androscoggin; Robert Temple brought five ship-loads of people from the north of Ireland to the Kennebec; settlements multiplied, and each one in fear of the Indians had its fort or place of possible refuge. In the guise of a trading house for the accommodation of the Indians, the government built Fort Rich- mond in 1718-19 (opposite the head of Swan island-the present town of Perkins); it was really built for the protection of the Pejepscot frontier. Fort George was built about the same time at Brunswick, for the same purpose. Before 1720 fifteen public forts and many more private ones had risen between Kittery and Pemaquid. The Indians could see in the enterprise of the white men only trouble and distress for themselves; their game was stampeded, their fishing places usurped, and their camping grounds plowed over. But the forts were peculiarly hateful to them; the frowning walls were proof against their tiny artillery, and the tactics of stealth and ambuscade that ex- celled in forest warfare, failed utterly before fortifications. Every new fort, therefore, was to them another menace and exasperation; it meant additional conquest of their territory.

The treaty of Arrowsic had not been the cordial act of the Indians: * This submission was signed (August 12) by the following named Kennebec Indians: Moxus, Bomaseen, Captain Sam, Nagucawen, Summehawis, Wegwaru- menet, Terramuggus, Nudggumboit, Abissanehraw, Umguinnawas, Awohaway, Paquaharet and Cæsar. It was also signed by Sabatus and Sam Humphries of the Androscoggins; Lerebenuit, Ohanumbames and Segunki of the Penobscots; and Adewando and Scawesco of the Peqwakets. Wiwurna's name does not ap- pear. For treaty entire, see Article XII, Me. Hist. Soc. Coll., pp. 361-375.

THE INDIANS OF THE KENNEBEC.

the land company through the governor had overawed the sachems and extorted assent to conditions which they abhorred. The unhesi- tating appropriation of the disputed lands, and the blockading of the rivers above them with forts, were proceedings which the weaker side could not endure with composure. There soon began to be signs of irritation. The government, while claiming the Indians to be sub- jects of the king equally with the English, felt called to favor and protect only the latter; and in 1720 it sent two hundred soldiers to guard the frontier of Maine. In May, 1721, as reparation for cattle killing and other misdeeds by some vagabond Indians, the Kennebecs promised the English two hundred beaver skins, and gave in hand four comrades as hostages; the hostages were sent to Boston and kept as prisoners. It is apparent that Father Rale labored indefatigably to save to his people the lands which in his view the English had un- justly seized. One result of his efforts was the awakening in Canada of a lively interest in his cause. In the summer of 1721, with a Cana- dian official named Crozen and Father de la Chasse of the Penobscot mission, he organized a grand embassy composed of delegations from the villages of St. Francis, Becancourt, Penobscot and Norridgewock, to remonstrate with the English, and as Governor Vaudreuil of Canada said, " dare let them know that they will have to deal with other tribes than the one at Norridgewock if they continue their en- croachments."

On the first day of August, the startled inhabitants of Arrowsic and vicinity beheld approaching with the tide a fleet of ninety canoes filled with stalwart Indians and two or three pale faces; two of the latter wore the conspicuous habit of the Jesuits. The French flag was flying in the foremost canoe. The mysterious flotilla landed on Patteshall's island, and soon sent a message to the captain of the Watts garrison, inviting him to an interview; that officer, through fear, refused to cross the river, whereupon the Indians launched their canoes and paddled to Arrowsic, led by Fathers Rale and de la Chasse and Monsieur Crozen. They respectfully sought the English repre- sentative, who, with trepidation, came forth from the fort to receive them. The details of this conference were not preserved. It was an occasion of great moment, and had been planned with infinite labor as a last appeal before a resort to arms, yet only a passing record was made of it. The Indians presented in the names of all the tribes a manifesto addressed to Governor Shute, warning the settlers to re- move in three weeks, else the warriors would come and kill them, burn their houses and eat their cattle, adding-" Englishmen have taken away the lands which the great God gave to our fathers and to us." The deputation, having thus given according to ancient Indian custom due notice of war, retired peacefully.

HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

The writing to the governor, with an account of its delivery at Georgetown, was immediately forwarded to Boston, where it excited great alarm. The response was prompt and vigorous. The general court on August 23d ordered the equipment of three hundred men to prosecute the eastern Indians for the crime of rebellion; it demanded that they forthwith deliver to the English Father Rale and any other Jesuit who might be among them; if the tribes neglected to so purge themselves, Indians were to be seized indiscriminately and imprisoned at Boston. Under this order, Castine, the unresisting chief of the Penobscots, was taken captive soon after his visit to Arrowsic with the great embassy. It was a time of great public unrest, and many cruel imprudencies were committed. In November (1721) the general court resolved upon the removal of Father Rale, who it assumed was the mainspring of all the portending trouble. In December, after the streams had frozen over, Colonel Westbrook led a battalion of 230 men on snow-shoes up the Kennebec to Nanrantsouak, with orders to make the priest a prisoner. When the party after a laborious journey had reached the village, the leader was chagrined to find the missionary's dwelling deserted and the intended captive hiding in the mazes of the forest. In his hasty flight Father Rale had left his books and papers and humble treasures unconcealed. These were all summarily seized and carried away as booty. Among them was the Abenakis diction- ary in manuscript, which had been compiled with great care and labor by the industrious Father as an aid in his pastoral work; also the curious " strong box," divided and subdivided into compartments, in which the owner kept the sacred emblems of the church while roving with his people; a letter in French from the Canadian governor, en- couraging the Norridgewocks in their contest with " those who would drive them from their native country," was found, and interpreted as rank treason in him who received it.

This attempt to kidnap Father Rale with the accompanying rob- bery, was felt by the Indians as a blow on themselves, and a cause for war. Up to that hour they had committed no like act against the English. The mischiefs by hungry poachers had been compounded with beaver skins and hostages still languishing in prison. The tribe was now bitterly incensed. The government itself, fearing that it had been hasty, suddenly softened, and tried the policy of pacification. Luckily no blood had been shed to make such a plan seem hopeless. So a few weeks after the rifling of Rale's hut, the governor sent a present to Bomaseen and a proposal to the tribe for a conference; both were rejected with derision. On the 13th of June following, sixty warriors in twenty canoes, descended to Merrymeeting bay, and rang- ing the northern shore took captive nine English families; after selecting five of the principal men as indemnities for the four Indians

THE INDIANS OF THE KENNEBEC.

held as hostages in Boston, they released the others uninjured. A few days later, the Norridgewock chief, Captain Sam, with five followers, boarded a fishing smack off Damariscove, and in revenge for some English act, lashed the captain and crew to the rigging, and proceeded to flog them; breaking from their bonds, the fishermen turned furiously on their tormentors, killing two and pitching one overboard. We hear no more of Captain Sam's exploits, and he was probably one of the slain.

Fort St. George (Thomaston) was the next place of hostile demon- stration. About the first of July Fort George (Brunswick) was at- tacked, and the village that had risen from the conflict of the Pejep- scot company, was burned to ashes. Thereupon the elated enemy went down to Merrymeeting, to enjoy their plunder and celebrate their success with demoniacal orgies. An English captive-Moses Eaton of Salisbury-appears to have been on this occasion the wretched victim of death torture. The raid on Brunswick aroused the people on the neighboring Kennebec; Captain John Harmon and thirty-four other soldiers hastily started in boats from one of the gar- risons to patrol the waters of the Kennebec. While scouting in the night they saw the gleam of a waning fire near the shore of Merry- meeting bay; while landing in the darkness to learn its origin they discovered eleven canoes; then they stumbled upon the recumbent bodies of about a score of savages who, in their exhaustion from their revelry, were dead in sleep." It was easy to slay them all in their helplessness, and the deed was quickly done. Harmon and his men carried away the guns of fifteen warriors as trophies of their ten min- utes' work. They found the ntutilated body of Moses Eaton, and gave it respectful burial. The operations of the Pejepscot proprietors had incited a similar land enterprise on the ancient Muscongus patent, eastward, and in 1719-20, a fort was built by the Twenty Associates at Thomaston on the St. George river. The Penobscots looked upon St. George fort with the same feeling of indignation that the Kenne- becs did the forts on their own lands. Two or three days after the burning of Brunswick, a party of two hundred Indians surrounded Fort St. George; they burned a sloop, killed one man and took six prisoners.

The conciliatory policy-adopted too late-could not undo the lamentable effects of earlier intolerance and the attempted capture of Father Rale. After releasing the four hostages and sending them to their tribe as possible emissaries of peace, the truth began to dawn upon the authorities that they had indeed, as prophesied by Vaudreuil in his letter to Rale, "other tribes than the Norridgewocks to deal

* Tradition says this tragedy was at Somerset point on Merrymeeting bay, and the late Mr. John McKeen so locates. Me. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. III, pp. 313-14.

HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

with." All the tribes eastward of the Merrimac had listened to the story of the Norridgewocks and were developing warriors for their cause. Many in the St. Francis and Becancourt villages were of the same blood and naturally looked upon the grievances of the Kenne- becs as their own. There were many reflective people who believed that the Indians-especially the Kennebecs-had been maltreated, and that the prevailing troubles were only the fruitage of injustice and broken promises. This sentiment had influenced the government in its later policy, but after the destruction of Pejepscot (Brunswick) and the outrages at St. George, there seemed to be no reason to hope longer for reconciliation.

On the 26th of July, 1722, Governor Shute made proclamation, declaring the eastern Indians (those of Maine, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia), " with their confederates to be robbers, traitors and enemies to the King;" the legislature promptly provided money to pay an army of a thousand men, and elaborated a scale of bounties for Indian scalps, with a view to equity whether torn off by a duly enlisted and paid soldier, or by a volunteer civilian. The theater of war extended from New Hampshire to Nova Scotia; in distributing its forces the government stationed 25 men at Arrowsic, and 25 at Richmond fort; 400 were appointed to range by land or water between the Kennebec and Penobscot; 10 were placed at Maquoit, 20 at North Yarmouth, 30 at Falmouth (Portland), and 100 at York.

On the morning of the 10th of September, thirteen months after the great deputation had delivered its message at the Arrowsic garri- so11, a swarm of stranger Indians, estimated to number between four and five hundred, poured from the eastward upon the shores of George- town, in hostile array. Fortunately the inhabitants got timely warn- ing and all safely reached the shelter of the fort; but presently thirty- seven of their dwellings were in flames, and most of their cattle slaughtered for food. The accounts say that one Englishman-Samuel Brookings-was killed in the fort by a bullet shot by an Indian marksman through a port-hole. A similar body of Indians-and probably the same one -- had appeared before St. George fort August 29th, and beseiged it without success for twelve days. In their dread of fortifications, they did not assail Arrowsic garrison, but after feast- ing sufficiently on their plunder, suddenly disappeared in the night; some paddled up the Kennebec; where, after mortally wounding Cap- tain Stratton of the province sloop, they menaced Fort Richmond as they scowlingly passed by it on their way to Norridgewock and Canada.

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Illustrated history of Kennebec County, Maine; 1625-1892, Part 7

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