USA > Maine > Pioneers on Maine rivers, with lists to 1651 > Part 26
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And that last shot won the day, Fired at fifty yards point-blank At the hull of dingy gray Through the walls of live oak plank And all barriers between To the powder magazine.
All was ended when that night, Far upon the Irish tide, With no harbor lamps alight And no living hand to guide, The White Angel once again With full cargo drifted in.
And in Bristol port they can Tell the world that awful feat Of a light-armed merchantman Which destroyed a full-armed fleet, But they cannot name again Any of its gallant men.
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PEMAQUID RIVER
The earliest glimpse of Pemaquid was furnished by Rosier, June 3, 1605. Some of the Pemaquid Indians, who were first to greet the crew of Waymouth at Pentecost Harbor, induced the explorers to accompany them to their village where they claimed to have a supply of furs and tobacco for exchange.
The visitors set out in a rowboat, preceded by three canoes belonging to the natives. The canoes landed at New Harbor
NEW HARBOR
Point where their fires were visible but no commodities had been provided for trade. The English would proceed no farther and became more suspicious when the Indians attempted to guide them "up into a little narrow nooke of a river, for their Furres." This stream was New Harbor Creek from the head of which a carrying place led over the peninsula to their town on the east- ern side of the harbor where Pemaquid village is now located.
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The excursion ended at New Harbor, but a few days later five of the suspected Indians were seized on board the vessel at Pente- cost Harbor and deported. The names of these natives have been variously spelled, but may be listed as Tahanedo, sagamore of Pemaquid in subjection to the Bashaba, Amoret, Mannedo and Skidwaros, sachems of the same tribe, and Assacomoit, a servant.
August 8, 1607, Captain Raleigh Gilbert, with thirteen pro- spective colonists, followed in the wake of Waymouth. Under the direction of Skidwaros, whom they had restored to his native shore, the party "rowed to the Weste in amongst many gallant Illands and found the ryver of pemaquyd to be but 4 Leags weste from the Illand" they called Saint George's. They were piloted into a "Lyttell Cove" (New Harbor) "and marched over a necke of the Land near three mills." The narrator brought the journey to a close with these words: "So the Indyan skidwarres brought us to the Salvages housses whear they did inhabitt although much against his will."
At the time of this second visit to the Pemaquid country the village was found to contain about one hundred men, women and children. The commander of the place was Nahanada, styled Tahanedo by Rosier.
Two days later, both Gilbert and Popham, with fifty men in two shallops, left their ships and sailed for the river of Pemaquid. This time, by instructions from Skidwaros, they came to the beach right in front of the wigwams at Pemaquid village. The voyage was accomplished by sailing about Pemaquid Point and ascending the river, instead of landing at New Harbor.
Nothing was gained by this visit unless the survey of the place may have made it appear unsuitable for settlement at that time. Skidwaros was lost among his people and refused to return to Pentecost Harbor. A few weeks later, in the vicinity of Pe- jepscot River, he was engaged with his chief Nahanada in a con- flict with the Indians of Sagadahoc, where they had killed the son of Sabenaw. The whole tribe must have become extinct soon after, and the Indian village at Pemaquid, weakened by losses of war and the subsequent ravages of a universal and irresistible pestilence, must have shared a similar fate as other coastal towns of Central and Southern Maine.
Greater antiquity has been accorded Pemaquid than any other English plantation in Maine, chiefly on account of the statement
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of Captain Smith that, in 1614, he found a ship belonging to Sir Francis Popham in the mainland opposite Monhegan, that had "used" the same port for "many yeares."
Smith, however, stated in another connection that Popham "sent divers times one Captaine Williams to Monahigan onely to trade and make core fish," and that in 1616 Popham's ship was the only one of a dozen Maine fishing craft that returned from a prosperous voyage .*
Gorges, commenting upon the action of his former colleague after their signal failure, said that Sir Francis "continued to send thither several years * * but found it fruitless."
While the haven frequented by Popham's crews was the inner harbor of Pemaquid where, according to Bradford, "ships used to ride" in safety before his time, the only advantage that any early visitor could have gained must have been confined to trad- ing and fishing. There was no mention of a winter colony at that point, and the good will of the natives must have been derived from summer contacts.
July 24, 1622, Monhegan with the mainland in that vicinity was allotted to the Earl of Arundel by the Council of Plymouth. Pemaquid was not mentioned in that connection. In the fall of that year John Pory, a visitor at Damariscove, commented to the governor of Virginia upon the northern mineralogical and cli- matic conditions :
"They say that up the river Pemaquid there is a place of even champian countrie without anie rockes, abounding with varietie of excellent timber, and like Anquam, neerer unto Cape Anna, a levell of more beautie and largenes. Within an infinitie of rockes may be entombed abundance of rich minerals among which silver and copper are supposed to be the cheif.
"Out of these rockes do gush out delicate streames of water, which together with the temper of the aire maketh this place marveilous wholesome in summer, which is the cause I have not knowen one man sicke all the time I was there, save onlie that villaine which accused yow falselie concerning Swabber, and died aboard the Bona-nova, as he had lived, franticke. Yet is the aire too cold here for the somer, but with easterlie winde subject to fogs and mists."+
July 29, 1623, distinct interests in the mainland of New Eng-
* Smith's Trav. & Works. 2-740.
Pory's Letter, 30.
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land were assigned by agreement to proprietors of the Grand Patent. The names of the patentees were engrossed on the earli- est reproduction of Smith's map to indicate the respective di- visions. Council records do not mention Damariscove nor Pema- quid during this year, but two large islands near the mouth of Sagadahoc River, corresponding to Arrowsic and Georgetown, had been reserved for a public plantation.
In 1624, John Witheridge, master of the Eagle, a Barnstable ship owned by Melchard Bennett, had established himself at Pemaquid Harbor, where he was located by Levett. While for- bidden by the council to truck with the Indians, he had been licensed to fish on the coast. According to the pioneer at Quacke, Witheridge was then so popular with the Indians that they re- served their furs and traveled long distances to seek his trade. Their preference for him was manifest as far west as Casco Bay although other shipmasters in the vicinity were as well supplied with attractive commodities.
At that time the statement of Levett, that he had heard that Pemaquid, Cape Newagen and Monhegan had been granted pre- viously to others, must have referred to the proprietorship of the Earl of Arundel. No settlement by Europeans in any locality from Pascataqua to Cape Newagen was mentioned by him during his sojourn.#
About the first of March, 1624, Plymouth Colony dispatched the new English pinnace, called the Little James and commanded by John Bridges, to a station near Damariscove, in which it was "well harbored" at "a place wher ships used to ride." Posterity is indebted to Levett for a definite location of this ship at Pema- quid instead of Damariscove. The latter place was better known to Bradford as the site of the third plantation in New England, although later in his history he alluded to the former several times by name. §
When the Little James arrived at its destination there were other vessels in the vicinity which had just come from England, and previous customary usage of Pemaquid Harbor must have included its occupation by ships of Sir Francis Popham, John Witheridge and other Barnstable fishermen.
Not long after its arrival a violent storm arose and "broak over such places in ye harbor as was never seene before," and
į Me. Hist. Col., 2-88.
§ Me. Hist. Col .. 2-99.
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drove the Little James upon great rocks where it sank with its cargo of provisions and salt. The account, which follows, indi- cated that the pinnace had been anchored beside the shore ledges and not near any wharf or fishing stage. The narrative is that of Altham.
"Upon the 10th of Aprill, 1624, hapned a greate storme and some of our cables that we were mored withall gave way and slip of on the place they were made fast to ashore and soe the winde and sea being very high drave our ship a shore upon rockes where she beate. In the mean time being night the master and Company arose and every man shifted for them selves to save life, but the master going in to his cabin to fetch his whishell could not get in to any boate aboute the ship the sea brake soe over the ship and soe by that meanes before a boat could come the ship overset and drowned him and the other two and the rest that were got into our shallops that hung about the ship had much a doe to recover the shore your cosin for one for the ship oversettinge pich her maineyard in to one boate where were 6 or 7 of our men and soe sunke her for thoes that could then swim got to the shore with much hurt the rest that could not swim were drowned, and soe before the next morninge our ship was quite under water sunke and nothing to be sene save only the tops of her masts some times for the sea did rake her to and fro upon the rocks."
In this casualty the master and two of his crew, Peter Mor- rett and John Vow, went down with their ship. The ship's boat and four shallops or fishing dories, one of which had been bor- rowed, were destroyed, and the season's catch was reduced to 1000 fish.
Later in the summer, at the expense of the colony, Emanuel Altham, Captain Cook of Barnstable and the masters of Eng- lish fishing vessels in the vicinity salvaged the hull and rebuilt the pinnace, but it was then too late to accomplish anything at the Eastward. The Little James returned to England where it was libelled for debts .*
If, as claimed by Levett, Witheridge enjoyed a monopoly of the Indian trade at Pemaquid as early as 1624, he appears to have supplanted Captain Williams, the agent of Popham, in the esteem of the natives, for he had no local competition as far as Sagadahoc.
* Bradford, 2-108, 129; Mass. Hist. Proc., 44-182.
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As for Richard Williams, alias Cornish, then captain of the Ambrose, his fate was sealed in Virginia, late that year, when he was tried and executed by local authorities. The following spring the captain's brother "Jeffery" Cornish boarded the Swan at Damariscove to ascertain the particulars from members of that vessel's crew who had been present at the trial and execu- tion. For disclosures made to him on that occasion Edward Nevell and another seaman later lost their ears before the southern tribunal.
Cornish declared that he would be the death of the governor of Virginia "yf ever he came for England." The presence of this sailor at the Eastward at that early date, and within sight of Pemaquid Harbor, warrants the belief that he had visited the locality in company with his brother on previous voyages. Ten years later this same individual was put ashore at Milford Haven, where he had been engaged in a quarrel with other seamen .;
For a long period after its discovery all of Northern New England was known by such names as Norumbega, Virginia, Canada, Muscongus and Pemaquid. Captain Smith claimed the credit for restoring a large part of Canada to his sovereign and suggesting its present name. He asserted that visitors had "obscured it, and shadowed it, with the title of Canada ; till at my humble suit, it pleased our most Royall King Charles * then Prince of Wales, to confirme it with my map and booke, by the title of New England."}
March 27, 1625, when Charles First was crowned, the new name had been approved for nine years, but Virginians still con- tinued to regard the coast of Maine and its outlying islands as a part of Canada. Since all early mariners were traders, their fishing stages on the islands were summer marts for the storage of English and Indian commodities, which in turn were ex- changed for southern tobacco.
Some credit was allowed, but in 1625 Edward Nevell, as agent for Weston, refused to deliver a consignment of tobacco to Thomas Crisp, a merchant from Virginia, unless Captain With- eridge, the Dorchester factor at Pemaquid, would assume the responsibility for deferred payments. The merchandise had reached Damariscove in the Swan, of which Nevell was master,
+ Young's Mass. Chron., 457.
# Smith's Trav. & Works. 2-891.
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and the fact, that Witheridge returned to England at the end of the season without undertaking the obligation, proves conclu- sively the seasonable nature of his business.
Thomas Morton claimed that, during the years 1626 and 1627, he had "spoiled" the Kennebec trade for New Plymouth, which pretended to have a monopoly of that district by discovery. Bradford admitted the claim and complained that employes of the colony "had like to have been cut off by the Indians, after the fishermen were gone." Neither Pemaquid nor any other eastern plantation presented any grievance.
In the spring of the latter year the plantations at Damaris- cove and Monhegan were discontinued and the goods sold on the premises. David Thompson, formerly of Pascataqua, and Ply- mouth Colony were the only bidders at the auction and they com- bined and purchased the whole rather than compete with each other. Such a combination would have been futile if there had been other buyers.
These two islands may be regarded as the outposts of Pema- quid during that decade, but such a conclusion does not warrant the belief that the mainland was occupied throughout each year. Shurt, the pioneer of Pemaquid, took prior possession at Mon- hegan, for Thomas Jenner, a contemporary of veracity, declared that the first places occupied by the English, in that vicinity, were the islands.
In June, 1628, all plantations "wher any English were seated" combined to deport Morton. Since none of these was located east of Pascataqua River, such a statement implied that there were no English settlers in Maine on that exact date. The explanation is that Saco and Casco had been deserted, and Richmond Island and Castine had not been occupied by Bagnall and Ashley until later in the season.
During that year Plymouth Colony forwarded furs to Bristol in the Marmaduke, Pleasure and White Angel, of which the masters were John Gibbs, William Peters and Christopher Bur- kett, respectively. The last ship belonged to Aldworth and El- bridge, the merchants of Bristol who had acquired Monhegan the previous year ; the latter collected freight and port fees from the colony.§
The Aldworth family, to which Elbridge was related, had
$ 3 Mass. Hist. Col .. 1-199.
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been interested in Newfoundland commerce prior to the discovery of Plymouth Rock. Like other citizens of Bristol, Aldworth and his partners had been concerned with fishing and trading in New England for five years .*
Other Bristol merchants, who were associated with Aldworth and Elbridge in western trade, were Walter Barrett, Walter Merchant, Thomas Pitt, Richard Russell, Walter Sandy, Thomas Wright and Hugh Yeo. Several of these adventurers were re- lated by kinship or marriage. Wright was mentioned in Ald- worth's will. Shurt was named as agent for Yeo in a subsequent suit.+
There is some evidence that no part of the Maine coast was occupied permanently before 1630. Patentees of all territory west of the Sagadahoc, who took possession that year, or later, united in the claim that their holdings consisted of "parcels of Land, where never any Christian Inhabited." Conversely, French diplomats, after an exhaustive study of the historical resources of two nations, admitted that Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded as early as 1629, but insisted that "le surplus des colonies de Nouvelle Angleterre fut établi de 1630 à 1639." It is generally conceded that the French are dependable in determining ques- tions of fact.}
Isaac Allerton, business manager for Plymouth Colony, was an active agent in promoting all of the first Maine settlements. In the spring of 1630, he arrived at Castine from England, in company with Captain William Peirce in the Lyon. At that point they landed Edward Ashley, who was to establish a trading post on that river for New Plymouth and its London associates. Both Allerton and Peirce were interested in that venture.
June 12, Peirce's vessel was at Salem and Allerton, who had just secured a patent of Cushnoc for New Plymouth, was reem- barking for the East, where he expected to find the Swift, an- other Bristol ship. That vessel, which belonged to Thomas Wright, had been utilized by Allerton, Vines and the owner to transport passengers and provisions to their new plantations at Saco and Casco; its return cargo was to consist of fish and train oil. Allerton and John Wright, brother of Thomas, were both at Winter Harbor when the Swift arrived. June 25, their names,
* Young's Mass. Chron., 309.
¡ N. E. Hist. Gen. Reg .. 8-140 ; Waters' Gen. Glean .. 2-1009.
¿ New Eng. Vind., 42 ; Rep. French Commission, 1751-102.
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with that of the master, were inscribed on the certificate of seizin of Biddeford patent.
From Saco River Allerton and Wright, who was master of a shallop, proceeded to Pemaquid, where the former had intended to procure a return cargo for the Swift. However, before that vessel could be laden it was seized and sent back to England.
Abraham Shurt, agent for Aldworth and Elbridge at Pema- quid, was first mentioned September 17, 1631, when he restored the wife of James Sagamore to her home at Agawam, where she had been captured by the Tarratines during the previous month.
The patent of Pemaquid, dated February 29, 1631-2, contains conclusive proof that at that time the Council of Plymouth did not know that the mainland had been occupied by tenants of the patentees. The concession was to be located, according to its own terms, "neere ye River, Comonly called or knowne by the name of Pemaquid," and "next adjoyning to the place where the people or servants of the said Robert Aldworth and Gyles Elbridge are now settled, or have Inhabited, for the space of three yeares last past."
The tract was to be laid out compactly "both along the sea Cost as the Cost lyeth, and so up the River," so far as was neces- sary to provide 12,000 acres. A significant conclusion to the description was this clause : "With all the Ileland, Ileletts, within the lymitts next adjoyneing the said land, butting within the lymitts aforesaid three leagues into the maine Ocean."§
The marine limitation of that date, based upon the estimate of Waymouth or Dermer, was intended to include Monhegan as the most remote part of the district. That island was not named but was described as "the Ileland * next adjoyneing the said land." The coastal tract, as defined later by Neal, comprised all of the mainland between Damariscotta and Muscongus rivers.
Shurt himself, who acted for the purchasers, interposed an interim of three years between the time of his acquisition of Monhegan and the seizin of Pemaquid, where he was living in 1631. The period corresponds with that given in the patent and seems to cover the interval, during which he had resided on the island, as the original plantation of Aldworth and Elbridge.
There is competent evidence that the patentees regarded Mon- hegan as a part of Pemaquid. From Gyles Elbridge, the surviv-
§ Suffolk Deeds, 3-52.
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ing joint tenant, the patent descended to his son Thomas, who came to Maine later and resided upon the premises. Subsequently, in a conveyance of Damariscove and Monhegan, this son de- scribed them as "scittuate & lying at or neere Pemmaquid."*
With the same idea in mind, Samuel Maverick, who came from England to Massachusetts in 1623, asserted many years later that colonization of Pemaquid was begun in 1625 by Alder- man Aldworth, of Bristol. He also conceded in the same docu- ment, which was an obvious arraignment of the Massachusetts policy of expansion, that, if it had not been for the early estab- lishment of plantations at Monhegan and Pascataqua by Ply- mouth merchants, the undertaking at New Plymouth would have failed. He did not allude to Pemaquid as an eastern plantation of dependable resources, and his errors in other instances made his statement of its antiquity, written more than thirty years after settlement, unreliable .;
A single palisaded trading house was established at Pemaquid Harbor by Shurt and his associates. In a later conveyance of a half interest in the plantation Thomas Elbridge, as sole heir to Pemaquid patent, referred to his previous sale of the other part of the premises "wth the moyty & halfe endeale of all ye house Household stuffe Cattle, or any other thinge then belonging to the said Plantacon."#
A late inventory of the contents of this dwelling was recorded at Charlestown. It contained treatises on religion and implements of war. Besides a great Bible the books listed in the library were "The Faith and Head of the Church," "A Plea for Grace and Mili- tary Discipline" and a Book of Caveats. The ordnance consisted of four short cannon styled "chambers."§
The building itself, like other trading establishments of the period, was occupied by a few employes. The household at Pema- quid, like those at Casco and Little Harbor, could not have con- sisted of more than ten persons. These men hailed from Bristol or vicinity and their plantation was situated more than sixty miles, in either direction, from the frontier posts of Plymouth Colony at Cushnoc and Machabitticus.
Penobscot and Pemaquid were in exposed positions. In the early summer of 1632, while Willett and Shurt were bound west-
* Suffolk Deeds. 3-49.
+ Mass. Hist. Proc., 21-231.
¿ Suffolk Deeds, 3-57.
Middlesex Deeds, 2-27 ; Suffolk Deeds, 2-68.
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ward with a cargo of commodities which had been landed at the former station for reshipment to Massachusetts, the French sacked Castine.
In the fall of the same year the house at Pemaquid was "rifled" by Dixie Bull with the help of only sixteen ordinary traders, some of whom were Frenchmen from the East. Furs to the value of 500 pounds sterling were abstracted .*
These posts upon the water front had no strength to oppose invasion. This fact is apparent because threats of similar raids along the whole coast created much apprehension of impending danger as far west as Richmond Island.
There is evidence that the Bull family of London was related to that of Samuel Maverick, and the latter was one of the most enterprising merchants of Massachusetts. Both Bull and Maver- ick had been named as grantees in the Agamenticus patent, re- vised in 1632, and the vessel chartered by the pirates for the eastern voyage hailed from Winnisimet and belonged to Maverick.
Winter, of Richmond Island, reported that Bull was a trader for beaver who had "turned pirate"; that his residence was Lon- don and that he had "done much spoyle" in the country .;
Roger Clap, writing in Massachusetts, said that Bull "went to the eastward" to trade, turned pirate, took a vessel or two, plundered some planters thereabouts, and "intended to return into the Bay, and do mischief to our magistrates here in Dorches- ter and other places. But, as they were weighing anchor, one of Mr. Short his men shot from the shore, and struck the principal actor dead, and the rest were filled with fear and horror * These men fled eastward, but Bull himself got into England."}
Announcement was made soon after by "some who came from Penobscott," that the loss of their leader "by a musket shot from Pemaquid" had effected a sudden reformation among the pirates and that they had "given another pinnace in exchange for that of Mr. Maverick, and as much beaver and otter as it was worth more."
Late in the year Bull arrived in England, where with Gar- diner, Morton and Ratcliff he appeared before the royal commis- sioners in an attempt to repeal the Massachusetts charter, but some of his confederates went back to their Massachusetts homes
* Winthrop. 1-96.
¡ Me. Doc. Hist., 3-23.
# Young's Mass. Chron .. 362.
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