USA > Maine > Hancock County > Mount Desert > Mount Desert : a history > Part 2
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1 " Henry IV avoit une grande confiance (en lui) pour sa fide- lité, comme il a toujours fait paroitre jusques à sa mort." Voyages du Champlain, ou Journal ès Decouvertes de la Nouvelle France.
"C'étoit d'ailleurs un fort honnête homme, et qui avoit de zèle pour l'état et toute la capacité nécessaire pour réussir dans l'enterprise dont il s'étoit chargé." Histoire de la Nouvelle France, par le P. de Charlevoix, i, 173.
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one of them had availed himself of it. It does not appear that the Huguenot leader found it necessary to form his entire company out of such materials. There went with him men of his own creed and severe morality, who were drawn by the highest motives into an enterprise so romantic and chivalrous.1 Conspicuous among these gentlemen were two of De Monts's former comrades in the service of Henry of Navarre, Jean de Biencourt, Baron de Poutrincourt, the future proprietor of Port Royal; and the pilot, Samuel de Champlain.
John Fiske in his "New France and New England " has said of this noble and charming man : "He was a true viking, who loved the tossing waves and the howling of the wind in the shrouds. His strength and agility seemed inexhaustible; in the moment of danger his calmness was unruffled as he stood with hand on tiller, calling out his orders in cheery tones that were heard above the tempest. He was a strict disciplinarian, but courteous and merciful as well as just and true; and there was a blithe- ness of mood and quaintness of speech about him that made him a most lovable companion. In
1 The names of a few of these may be gathered from Cham- plain's journal. Mention is made of les Sieurs de Geneston, Sou- rin, d'Oraille, Champdoré, de Beaumont, la Motte Bourioli, Fougeray, la Taille, Miquelet ; the surgeons des Champs of Honfleur and Bonerme ; Messire Aubry, priest, and le Sieur Raleau, secretary of M. de Monts.
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the whole course of French history there are few personages so attractive."
Samuel de Champlain was born in 1567, in the little town of Brouage, on the Bay of Biscay, some twenty miles south of La Rochelle. His father was a captain in the royal navy, and one of his uncles was a pilot in the king's service. Champlain was familiar with boats from boyhood, and the sea laid a strong hold upon his imagi- nation. In the dedication of one of his books he says : " Among the most useful and excellent arts navigation has always seemed to me to take the first place. In the measure that it is dangerous and accompanied by a thousand perils, by so much is it honorable and lifted above all other arts, being in no wise suitable for those who lack courage and confidence. By this art we acquire knowledge of various lands, countries, and king- doms. By it we bring home all sorts of riches, by it the idolatry of Paganism is overthrown and Christianity declared in all parts of the earth. It is this art that has from my childhood lured me to love it, and has caused me to expose myself almost all my life to the rude waves of the ocean."
Champlain's boyhood fell in the season of the civil and religious wars that were desolating France. Brouage was a military post of impor- tance, and it was captured, restored, recaptured, and frequently attacked from 1570 to 1589, so that all its inhabitants must have been familiar
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with war and trained to arms. There were peri- ods of peace, however, and Champlain evidently received some good schooling, for he wrote in a clear, convincing style, was an expert map maker, and showed throughout his life a spirit of jus- tice and tolerance far beyond the habit of his time.
Brouage was a Huguenot town, but Champlain was all his life a stanch Roman Catholic. Never- theless, he served in the army of Henry of Navarre against the Catholic League. He loved his coun- try even better than his religion. History first mentions him as a quartermaster in Henry's army serving in Brittany. In 1598, when peace was made, Champlain went with his uncle in the fleet that carried the Spanish garrison home from the town of Port Louis. With this adventure his own narrative begins. Sailing to Spain, he spent several months at Cadiz and Seville, drawing rude pic- tures of cities and harbors, as was his wont, and then found a coveted opportunity of going to the West Indies. Philip II had forbidden foreigners to trade with his American possessions or even to visit them under pain of heavy penalties. Never- theless Champlain visited the West Indies and Mexico, penetrating as far as the City of Mexico itself. He paid close attention to everything he saw, making careful notes and rude drawings for a full report to the king of France. On the way home the ship stopped first at Panama and then
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at Havana, returning to Spain in 1601, after an absence of more than two years.
Champlain's account of this voyage, entitled, " A Brief Narrative of the most remarkable things which Samuel Champlain of Brouage met in the West Indies on the voyage which he made there in the years 1599 and 1601," remained in manu- script for more than two hundred and fifty years. In 1859 the Hakluyt Society published an English translation of it, and in 1870 the Abbé Laver- dière of the Laval University in Quebec published the original. The report is a very straightforward story, and reveals the manly simplicity of Cham- plain's character. Here was a man of thirty-three, confident in himself, but with no touch of self- conceit, eager to serve his king and his country, bearing himself so wisely that Spanish jealousy and suspicion were not aroused, an able sailor taking the dangers of the sea carelessly and ever curious for knowledge. Champlain had too a love of romantic adventure that carried him into many dangers, but never quite overcame his prudence. We discover in him courage, patience, resource- fulness, calm self-control, and kindness of heart.
For his services on this voyage Henry IV made Champlain royal geographer and granted him a pension. He was not content, however, to remain at court, and hailed with delight an opportunity to go to the northern shores of America with his friend Pontgravé, the merchant of Rouen. The
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two set sail in a little vessel on March 15, 1603. Their purpose was to reconnoitre the northern shores of the new continent to find a place for a trading station to be established by the Norman merchants with whom Pontgravé was associated. They sailed up the St. Lawrence River as far as where Montreal now stands, and Champlain made his first acquaintance with the Indians. They reached home in September and soon after Cham- plain's narrative of the voyage, preceded by a dignified dedication to the very noble, high, and mighty Seigneur, Charles de Montmorency, ad- miral of France and Brittany, was published in Paris by Claude de Monstr'oeil, printer to the University of Paris. Naturally and inevitably it was to this experienced and courageous navigator that Henry and his viceroy, De Monts, turned when they sought a pilot for the ships of the new colony, and it was with right good will that Cham- plain entered upon this new service.
De Monts sailed from Havre de Grace on March 17, 1604. He took a more southerly course than his predecessors and first sighted Cape La Hève, near what is now Liverpool, on the Nova Sco- tia coast. There he found a fur-trading vessel and promptly confiscated her, as she was acting in violation of the lord lieutenant's monopoly of trade, and then he waited until Pontgravé came up, also enriched with the spoil of four Basque traders that he had surprised. Leaving
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Pontgravé to continue his trading, and anchor- ing his own vessel in St. Mary's Bay, De Monts embarked in a smaller craft, " a barque of eight tons," and taking Champlain with him, coasted along the surf-beaten shores, looking in at the beautiful inlet where afterwards Port Royal was founded and which is now Annapolis Basin, en- tering the mouth of the St. John River, passing up into Passamaquoddy Bay and finally choosing as a site for his colony an island in a swift tidal river which offered good protection from savage foes. To his settlement De Monts gave the name of Saint Croix, the name now borne by the river.
The small boat returned to St. Mary's Bay to bring up the ship to the chosen site, and soon the colonists landed and with hardy industry cleared the woods, built a fort, mounted the cannon, set up rude shelters, and inclosed the whole with a palisade. There were workshops, a magazine, chapel, and cemetery, and a big covered gallery for labor and amusement in the approaching win- ter.1 When their labors were well advanced, the company parted. Poutrincourt sailed in the ship for France to bring back reinforcements the suc- ceeding spring. Seventy-nine men remained at St. Croix ; and of these early in September Cham- plain took twelve, and together with two Indians set out on a voyage of discovery in what he called
1 Champlain made an elaborate drawing of the settlement, which can be found reproduced in Ganong's Dochet Island, p. 157.
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a "patache ; " which was apparently the same " barque " which first brought him to St. Croix. This big open boat, fitted with a lateen sail and with oars, is depicted in Champlain's drawing of the St. Croix settlement. Let me tell the story of this voyage as it concerns Mount Desert in Champlain's own words, translated from the musty quarto published in 1613.
" Setting out from the mouth of the St. Croix and sailing westward along the coast, we made the same day some twenty-five leagues and passed by many islands, reefs, and rocks, which some- times extend more than four leagues out to sea. The islands are covered with pines, firs, and other trees of an inferior sort. Among the islands are many fine harbors, but undesirable for permanent settlement.
" The same day (September 5, 1604) we passed near to an island some four or five leagues long, in the neighborhood of which we just escaped being lost on a rock that was just awash and which made a hole in the bottom of our boat. From this island to the mainland on the north the distance is not more than a hundred paces. The island is high and notched in places so that from the sea it gives the appearance of a range of seven or eight mountains. The summits are all bare and rocky. The slopes are covered with pines, firs, and birches. I named it Isle des Monts Desert."
The next day " we sailed two leagues and saw
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smoke in a cave at the foot of the mountains. Two canoes with savages in them came within musket range to observe us. I sent out our two savages in a boat to assure them of our good-will, but their fear of us made them turn back. On the morning of the next day they came alongside and talked with our savages. I ordered biscuit, tobacco, and other trifles to be given to them. These savages had come [to the island] to hunt beavers and catch fish. We made an alliance with them and they agreed to guide us to their river of Pentagoet " (Penobscot). Champlain then de- scribes in detail the physical features of Penob- scot Bay, which he makes extend from Mount Desert on the east to Bedabec, the present Owl's Head, on the west. With the scrupulous care that everywhere characterized his exploring work, he gives the necessary sailing direction for enter- ing Penobscot River, and he sailed up the river to the point where the Kenduskeag enters it, where Bangor now stands, noting with enthusiasm the oak-covered river banks and the lovely stretches of meadow. Champlain had a genius for topo- graphical description, and his maps, deficient as they are of perspective, and liberally sprinkled with marine monsters, are wonderfully accurate when we consider that he made no surveys, but judged only by his eye. On the seventeenth of September he descended the river, passed out by Owl's Head, and continued westward until close
Copyright by Charles A. Townsend
CADILLAC CLIFFS
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to the mouth of the Kennebec, where he was obliged to stop on account of adverse winds. The provisions too were running low, so he ran back before the wind and arrived at St. Croix on the 3d of October, or just a month after he set out. When we consider what watchfulness is required in these days of lighthouses, charts, coast pilots, buoys, and beacons, to navigate among the num- berless islands and sunken ledges of that ragged and fog-haunted coast, what shall we say of the masterly seamanship and adventurous courage of the first pioneer.1
The winter at St. Croix was hard enough for the weak little band of starving Frenchmen who, alone of civilized men, clung to the fringe of the vast and savage continent. The bleak winds howled down the St. Croix, the ice piled high against the island and cut off the settlers from the mainland where they must needs get their wood and water. The wine froze in the casks and was served out by the pound. The scurvy broke out, and before the lingering spring ar- rived thirty-five of the seventy-nine had been carried to the little cemetery, and wellnigh all were brought to the verge of death. But with the spring the spirits of the colonists revived, and in June Pontgravé returned in one of the ships
1 The complete log of this voyage, taken from the Prince Society's edition of Champlain's voyages, is printed in the Ban- gor Historical Magazine.
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with supplies and forty men. De Monts resolved to seek a better site for his colony, and on the 18th of June, 1605, he and Champlain, with twenty others, set out in the patache on a sec- ond voyage of discovery to the westward. Again they passed the strangely indented shores, by surf-washed islands, rocky headlands, and deep, embosomed bays, until they came to the entrance of the Kennebec, where they came to anchor. "At the entrance," says Champlain, "there is an island quite high which we have named La Tortue, and between this and the mainland are scattered islands and rocks covered at high water and the sea breaks over them." The voyagers spent the first week in July in making thorough exploration of the Kennebec and Sheepscot riv- ers, and Champlain's maps and descriptions are good for to-day. The 9th of July brought them across Casco Bay to the Saco River; then, like some adventurous pleasure party, they coasted on, keeping close in shore and not stopping until they rounded Cape Ann, which they called Cape aux Isles. They anchored in Gloucester Harbor and made a splendid map of it, calling it Beau- port. Thence they entered Massachusetts Bay, and Champlain did not fail to note the quieter aspects of the scenery. He speaks of the salt marshes, of the many waterways, of the rounded islands-then covered with woods, now bare. What is now the Charles River they named for
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De Monts, - Rivière Du Guast. Their next stop- ping-place was at Plymouth, which again they charted, and being delayed by an east wind they visited the Indians, who returned the visit in great numbers. Thence they circled the bay, doubled Cape Cod, and steered along the great stretch of white sand beach till they came to the elbow of the cape which they called Malabarre. Here they fell into trouble with the Indians. A scamp- ish redskin stole a kettle from the camp-fire, and its owner, pursuing, was killed by the robber's comrades. This adventure, the dreariness of the scene, the shoals ahead, and the scarcity of pro- visions, warned them to return, and on the 29th of July they were back again at the Kennebec. Here they had an interview with an Indian chief- tain named Awasson, who gave them news of another ship on the coast. "He told us," says Champlain, " that there was a vessel six leagues from there that had been fishing, and the people on board had killed five savages of this river under pretense of friendship. According to de- scription, we judged these people to be English, and we named the island where they were 'Le Nef,' because at a distance it had that appear- ance." This was Monhegan, and these lines are the only allusion in Champlain's narrative to other voyagers on the coast. The ship the In- dians had seen was the Archangel, commanded by George Waymouth, first of the English navi-
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gators on the shores of eastern Maine. De Monts had found no spot for his colony more to his liking than the lovely bay into which he had looked upon his first arrival, and so in August he removed from St. Croix to Annapolis Basin to found the famous settlement of Port Royal. Then, warned by Poutrincourt that his enemies were busy in Paris, and leaving Pontgravé in command at Port Royal, De Monts sailed for France.
We cannot here follow the adventures of the colonists or trace in detail the after careers of the leaders. For fortitude, devout serenity, and pru- dent zeal it would be hard to match these pioneers of New France. The name of Champlain 1 is writ large on this continent. With sword in one hand and cross in the other, he became the father of Canada and the dauntless explorer of the western wilds. His blithe courage planted and upheld the fleur-de-lis on the rock of Quebec, and there on Christmas day of 1635 he died, striving to the last for the welfare of his colony, " for the glory of France and the Church," and glad to draw his last breath in the wilderness, where, as he wrote, " he had always desired to see the Lily flourish
1 The best lives of Champlain are Abbé Casgrain's Cham- plain, sa Vie et son Caractère, Quebec, 1898 ; Gabriel Gravier's Vie de Champlain, Paris, 1900 ; Henry D. Sedgwick's Samuel de Champlain, Boston, 1902 ; and the memoirs by Dr. Slafter in the Prince Society's edition of Champlain's works, and in Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America.
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and also the true religion, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman." 1
1 A thoroughly adequate account of the St. Croix colony is contained in the monograph by Professor W. F. Ganong entitled " Dochet (St. Croix) Island," and published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, 2d series, vol. viii, section iv, 1902. This is a paper of more than one hundred pages, and includes copious quotations, with translations, from the contem- porary narratives of Champlain, Lescarbot, and Biard, reproduc- tions of Champlain's maps and drawings, copies of all the modern maps, a complete bibliography, discussion of the geology and natural history, and very full notes and comments. See also the accounts of the celebration of the three hundredth anniversary of the expedition contained in Acadiensis, 1904-1905, and the Canadian Magazine, August, 1904. All the local histories give more or less detailed accounts of the colony, but none are so com- plete and accurate as that of Professor Ganong, which leaves nothing to be desired.
II SAINT SAUVEUR
Beneath the westward turning eye A thousand wooded islands lie, - Gems of the waters ! with each hue Of brightness set in ocean's blue.
And there, beneath the sea-worn cliff, On which the Father's hut is seen, The Indian stays his rocking skiff, And peers the hemlock-boughs between, Half trembling as he seeks to look Upon the Jesuit's Cross and Book. There, gloomily against the sky The Dark Isles rear their summits high ; And Desert Rock, abrupt and bare, Lifts its gray turrets in the air. WHITTIER.
SAINT SAUVEUR. 1613
THE winter of 1605-6 was one of much suffering at Port Royal, though by no means so fatal as the experience at Saint Croix. It was manifestly impossible to maintain the colony without succor from home, and as midsummer approached and no ship appeared, Pontgravé grew anxious and finally embarked all his company in two big boats he had built and, leaving two bold volun- teers to hold the fort, set out to coast along the shore, hoping to find some fishing craft that would carry them home. Hardly had they gone when the ship Jonas, with Poutrincourt in command, and bearing that remarkable chronicler and poet and all-round good fellow, Marc Lescarbot, with a considerable reinforcement and supplies, sailed into the basin. The ship had been two long months on the ocean voyage. Fortunately Pou- trincourt had on his way detached a boat to explore the coast about Cape Sable, and this party met Pontgravé and his retreating colonists and turned them back ; so all were soon reunited at Port Royal. Then Pontgravé took the Jonas and sailed for home, and Champlain, this time with the in- defatigable Poutrincourt for a comrade, made a third voyage along the shores of the Gulf of
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Maine until again obstructed by the head winds and the shoals at Monomoy. On their return " near Mount Desert" on a stormy night, the rudder broke and they barely escaped wreck. “I will not," writes Lescarbot, " compare their perils with those of Ulysses, nor yet of Æneas, lest thereby I should sully our holy enterprise with things impure."
Lescarbot's breezy narrative tells the whole story of the next winter with its busy industries and its merry revels. Port Royal was beginning to wear the aspect of a thrifty settlement, but with the spring came bad news. De Monts's enemies had at last triumphed, and the exclusive right of trade granted to his company had been withdrawn. Religious bigotry, which could not endure that New France should be ruled by a her- etic, had combined with the indignant jealousy of the merchants who had been shut out from the fur-trade to bring about this result. Without the revenue derived from the trade monopoly the colony could not be carried on, and with heavy hearts the Frenchmen said farewell to their pali- saded fort, their blooming gardens, their mill and storehouses, and the friendly Indians, spread sail for France, and reached St. Malo in October, 1607.
De Monts, who still held his grant and his rights as viceroy, turned his attention to the St. Law- rence, whither Champlain led an expedition in the next summer to found Quebec. Poutrincourt
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obtained a confirmation of his grant of Port Royal and planned and worked for three vexatious years for a chance to return. Meanwhile the party of the Jesuits was growing strong at the French court, and that society was not slow to perceive the possibilities of New France as a mis- sionary field. When at last Poutrincourt had set- tled his lawsuits and was ready to start with a new company, he found himself commanded to take a Jesuit, Father Pierre Biard, professor of theology at Lyons, with him. Now Poutrincourt was a good Catholic, but he had no love for the Jesuits, and when he sailed from Dieppe on Feb- ruary 10, 1610, he took with him one Father La Flesche, but left Father Biard behind.
But now the hardest blow of all befell the infant colony. On the 14th of May, 1610, Henry the Fourth fell under the assassin's knife; and soon after, De Monts, deprived not only of his monopoly but also of his master's sympathy and support, surrendered the commission he held as viceroy of New France. The infant colony needed a more powerful friend ; and the Prince of Condé, the chief of the Huguenot party, was induced to lend his name to the enterprise. His leadership, however, was only nominal. The pro- prietary rights were soon, to all intents and pur- poses, lodged in the hands of the Jesuits. An- toinette de Pons, Marquise de Guercheville, a lady of honor to the queen, was a devout adherent of
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the Church of Rome, and an enthusiastic admirer of the Society of Jesus. The missions which that society had been carrying on with wonderful energy in Asia and in South America awakened her warmest interest, and she was glad to give her influence and wealth to further plans for similar work in New France. Biard's plight especially stirred her sympathy. She sought De Monts in his native town of Pons, to the government of which he had been reappointed, and offered to buy his patent. The moment was favorable to the success of her plan. De Monts stood in pressing need of money. Pons was one of the strong places secured to the Protestants by the Edict of Nantes, and great pains had been taken since the close of the civil war to repair its walls and forti- fications. But Pons was poorly garrisoned ; and its citizens, sharing in the uneasiness that per- vaded the Reformed body after the tragic death of Henry the Fourth, were anxious to augment their military force.1 The bargain was made. The garrison of the little town, destined to be dis- mantled a few years later by the troops of Louis the Thirteenth, was strengthened ; and the title to the proprietorship of half the continent, save only the little seigneury of Port Royal, which was confirmed to Poutrincourt, passed from De Monts to Mme. de Guercheville.
1 Histoire des églises reformées de Pons, Gemozac et Mortagne, en Saintonge, par A. Crottet, Bordeaux, 1841, pp. 101-107.
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The next summer, when Biencourt, the gallant son of Poutrincourt, returned to France he found himself obliged to take back with him to Port Royal not only Biard, but another Jesuit, Ene- mond Masse. On their arrival Poutrincourt re- turned to France to arrange for supplies, Masse went to live among the Indians to learn their lan- guage, and Biard in the autumn of 1611 ranged with Biencourt along the coast seeking a suitable site for his mission. They went as far as the Ken- nebec, where they found the Indians sullen and unresponsive because of the treatment they had received at the hands of the English who in 1607 and 1608 had made the disastrous attempt to plant a colony at the mouth of the river. In November the voyagers were back at Port Royal,1 and Biard had decided that Kadesquit on the Penobscot was the place for the Jesuits to begin their work. Then the winter settled down again, but this time there was none of the genial good- fellowship that made pleasant the winter of 1607. The colonists were quarrelsome, and there was constant friction between the unwelcome Jesuits and the young commander, Biencourt, and his friends. The black robe of the priest and the brown capote of the trader were not well matched. Larger elements of discord, too, brooded over
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