USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Portland > Portland by the sea; an historical treatise > Part 4
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They were in their way very religious. While they knew nothing of the God of Revelation, the God of the Universe they saw in everything around. They worshiped the spirits of the heavens and the storm and were also what we call animists, believing in the supernatural influences of the animal and the vegetable world. Especially for the forests, the rivers and the mountains they had superstitious reverence.
When the white strangers first came the stations occupied by them were upon the islands and the sca-shore. The natives at first regarded them with cautious friendship. They were pleased to barter their furs and other products for knives, hatchets and utensils and especially for the beau- tiful ornaments of shining glass and the wonderful gilded trinkets. They soon learned the superiority of firearms as compared with their less effective weapons. They were a people of good average intellect, but the civilized culture of the people from across the water had no meaning for them.
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Among them there was no regular system of government. They followed, so long and so far as they felt inclined, leaders who had demonstrated their capabilities. These they deposed and de- serted at will. In their wars they had no organ- ization but would gather in bands around self- constituted chiefs who had no particular authority or control over their followers. Herein the men bred in European customs made the great mistake of assuming that a sachem or chief might, like a prince, act for his tribe and alienate parcels of community real estate which were in fact only regional occupations .. The private ownership of land was as foreign to their thoughts as a separate right in the waters or the air. When a sagamore affixed his totem mark to a deed he had no thought that he was making a conveyance but supposed rather that he was giving permission to the settler to enter upon the common patrimony, and he considered it in the nature of an admission of his own authority.
The one almost paramount condition in Indian affairs, then but little understood, was the fact that there were two great racial divisions among the aboriginal peoples and that each was animated by a feeling of hostility to the other which was hereditary, deadly and uncompromising. These mortal enemies were the Algonquins of the East and those called by the French the Iroquois, being the Mohawks and the other confederated tribes constituting the five nations, beyond the Hudson River and northward. These were subdivided into family groups or tribes with distinctive names
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THE FIRST INDIAN WAR
like the Abenaki and others in Maine. The French made their alliance with the Algonquins or Eastern tribes, but by so doing brought upon themselves implacable hatred from the Iroquois of the West. This fact produced results that have not been sufficiently appreciated.
After a while the natives were alarmed to find that the strangers from abroad were coming more and more and were taking up lands permanently under claim of papers which they called deeds, and which they claimed gave them the right forcibly to exclude others from extensive areas of territory. They saw also that the white in- truders were felling and carrying away the majestic trees that composed the revered forests that were their sanctuaries, and were wasting and driving away the game upon which they depended for subsistence, and that they themselves were being forced away from the ancient preserves of their people. If they went westward from their home- land they well knew that it would be to meet certain death from their hereditary and mortal foes.
At the beginning of the year 1675 Falmouth and the region about Casco Bay had, in spite of local strife and conflicting claims, attained a good degree of prosperity. The settlers had come to feel something of security in the locations which they occupied. It was estimated that Casco then had more than four hundred settled inhabitants, of whom about one-half were within the limits of Old Falmouth. It had developed a thrifty trade in fish, masts, spars and lumber. Saw mills
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had been built at Capisic, Long Creek and at some other places. Farm clearings had been made and houses erected. Shallops, fishing boats and "by- landers" or coasting sloops carried cord wood and products to the Isles of Shoals and ports beyond. It was also a haven for ships from abroad. There was a landing place for the loading of masts and spars at Stroudwater and another at Long Creek where there was a saw mill. Settled occupants resided at Purpooduck (Fort Preble Point) and elsewhere. John Jocelyn, brother of Henry Joce- lyn at Black Point, published an account of his voyages at about this time in which he mentions the comfortable character of the place with its cattle, shecp and swine and its abundance of arable land. On Falmouth Neck, near the present location of the Portland Company, was a meeting house of which Rev. George Burroughs was the minister.
The story of the war itself is exceedingly brief, but is important as marking the beginning of a conflict that ended only with the practical extinction of the aboriginal inhabitants.
In the summer of 1675 ruthless attacks were made upon the exposed settlements in nearly all of southern New England. The Massachusetts General Court had sent notice to Maine that all who attended meetings upon the Lord's Day should go armed. Apparently in the unorganized places here few such meetings were held. The dwellers upon Casco Bay and elsewhere had observed the changed and hostile attitude of the natives, but they had little fear and adopted no
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SETTLER'S CABIN, 1676
0.000
FIRST TAVERN IN PORTLAND
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THE FIRST INDIAN WAR
precautions or measures of defence. The out- break came with the stealthy suddenness char- acteristic of Indian warfare and practically without notice. It was not an organized attack, for the red men knew nothing of organization. Bands of warriors, incited by self-constituted leaders, set out upon the war path. In the beginning of September the house of Thomas Purchase at Pejepscot, now Brunswick, was, in the owner's absence, robbed and all the buildings burned. A party of Englishmen went out to investigate and discovering some Indians at the northern end of Casco Bay fired upon them, killing one and seriously wounding another. About a week later an attack was made upon the family of Thomas Wakely who lived on the easterly side of Pre- sumpscot River near Fall Brook. The old man and his wife and the whole family were killed except a young daughter, Elizabeth, who was taken captive. This was a peaceful family and no reason for the massacre is given. Probably it was a case of mere blood vengeance. The death of the slain red men must, according to Indian custom, be atoned for with the lives of white people.
Hostilities having reached the point of actual bloodshed the war was soon raging against all the feeble settlements in Maine. Scattered bands of warriors, each with its own leader, made their separate raids. Mogg Heigon, an intelligent En- glish-speaking Indian whose tribe had lived at the Arrow Point on the southeasterly side of the Saco River, had his grievance. He had unwittingly
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attached his totem mark to a deed given to William Phillips "for a som of money" and found that he had given away the whole township of Kennebunk and disinherited all of his people. He led an attack upon the Alger settlement at Dunstan, killing both of the Algers. The other people fled to Black Point. He then advanced upon the Trelawney tract at Spurwink where the residents, including Rev. Robert Jordan, barely escaped with their lives. Squando, a praying Indian whose baby boy had, as he believed, lost his life by rough treatment from drunken mill hands at Saco, also went upon the war path. Other sachems too had their angry grievances. Black Point seems to have been the principal rallying place for the fugitives from this vicinity.
The natives came to a halt in their warfare for a somewhat curious reason. The winter came on suddenly and with extraordinary severity. They were dependent for their ammunitions and supplies upon the French in Canada who urged them on. But there was no communication with these helpers except by the difficult trail up the Kennebec River and down the Chaudiere River to Quebec-now known as the Norridgewock or Arnold trail-and this was obstructed by the deep snow and the cold. They, therefore, made a truce and a temporary peace.
In the summer of 1676 the war was renewed and all the tribes between the Piscataqua and Penobscot rivers took part in it. An attack was made by Symon, a chief who had been angered by a hostile arrest and imprisonment, upon the
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house of Anthony Brackett who had remained al his home adjoining Deering's Oaks where the Portland and Rochester terminal crosses Deering Avenue. Brackett's son-in-law, Nathaniel Mit- ton, was slain and the rest made captives. They advanced upon the Neck to the easterly foot of High Street, killing and burning. All the re- maining settlers who could make their escape did so and Falmouth was wholly abandoned. Willis says, "The doom of Falmouth was pro- nounced at once, and it was crushed by a single blow." There is no trace of occupancy in this place thereafter until the coming of peace in 1678. It was a result such as might be expected. The habitations on Casco Bay were scattered and defenceless and there was no unity for organized action. Many fled to Salem where in 1676 they were by vote of the town admitted as inhabitants.
This war was in Southern New England known as King Phillip's War. There the colonial losses were enormous. In Massachusetts sixteen towns were wholly destroyed. The whole border was ravaged. They, however, had organization, and the conflict was carried on to a finish. For the Indians the result there was utter destruction and there the red man figured no more, except as an ally of the French in raids upon the frontier. Here the opposite was the case; Falmouth and all of Maine were completely depopulated. In the summer of 1677 the enemy were checked by a force sent to Pemaquid by Major Andros, Gov- ernor of the easterly province of the Duke of York. The Indians were met April 12, 1678 by
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commissioners here at Casco and articles of peace were agreed upon. So far as Falmouth was con- cerned it was an acknowledgment of the success of the natives, who were to receive an annual tribute of a. peck of corn from each family. But the captives were all returned and an end was put to a relentless war. The Indians were pleased with the peace, for they had become in large degree dependent upon the goods and wares of the white men, and their French friends were far away; but the old kindly feeling was never restored.
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VIII
GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE DEVELOPS.
A FTER the Indian warfare was concluded by the peace of Casco the exiled people of the town immediately began to return. The first to do so were generally those who had acquired definite establishments of their own. George Bramhall occupied again the large tract which included the hill that bears his name. Anthony Brackett and others resumed their farms and former locations. These were mainly those who had conveyances derived from George Cleeve. A considerable number did not come back, but their places were soon more than supplied by the accessions of new comers.
About the first consideration seems to have related to protection against the unsubdued In- dians, who were not accustomed to make any open declaration of war but who might set out upon the warpath upon any hostile impulse. The erection of a stockade fort was immediately under- taken. This was located upon the present site of the Grand Trunk Railway station and was named Fort Loyall. It was afterwards enlarged so that it became a strong fortification.
The Gorges palatinate patent had been ad- judged by the English chancery court to be based upon a royal grant, and therefore, to be the only valid and underlying title to the province of
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Maine. The formal conveyance to the Bay colony bore date March 15, 1678, just prior to the time of the peace of Casco. By the same Court decision it had been decreed that the northern line asserted in the Massachusetts survey was erro- neous. Her occupation having been declared ille- gal, her system of land apportionment and town meetings here had gone into the discard. The purchased ownership of the soil of the Maine province had been held to be unquestionably valid, but whether the governmental rights conferred upon Gorges by the King could also be transferred to another .. grantee was questionable. The pur- chaser, however, assumed and acted upon the assumption that she had bought from the adjud- icated legal owner all the powers as well as properties given to him, and had thereby become proprietor of the Maine province, to hold it according to the full terms specified in the original grant. This bestowal provided only for a lease- hold system of land tenure and a prescribed form of governmental control. A solution was worked out by which Thomas Danforth, Deputy Governor of the proprietary colony, was in 1680 appointed President of Maine and invested with govern- mental authority, in subordination to the new owners, to manage the province as Sir Ferdinando had done. He was authorized to confirm titles to the residents and to make additional allotments under leases with quit rent payments.
Upon assuming his office the President found that many of the returning settlers, acting upon their own initiative, had already reoccupied their
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former holdings and had gone so far as to hold town meetings and had elected a board of select- men by popular vote under the town system. Anthony Brackett, John Walley, George Ingersol and Thaddeus Clark had been chosen selectmen and were making grants of house lots and farms. Only a few loose scraps of their records remain. As the earlier control by Massachusetts was, according to the finding of the Court, unauthorized, the action of the Falmouth settlers had no basis of legality and it seemed that the old troublesome questions of the occupation and the ownership of real estate would be revived. The situation was met, however, in a spirit of conciliation. Former possessory rights were recognized by giving new title deeds and the rental question does not appear to have stood in the way to any great extent, as apparently few, if any, rentals were ever col- lected.
A general and separate assembly of the whole province was held at York which was attended by delegates from practically all of the old towns, including Falmouth. President Danforth came to Falmouth Neck in September, 1680, and held a formal meeting or court within the enclosure of Fort Loyal. This seems to have been a structure having adjacent land fenced in with palisades, so as to provide, in case of need, a place of refuge . for a large number of people. A record of the proceedings appears in the York Registry. Grants of a large number of lots were made, upon which buildings were to be erected, mostly arranged about the fort and in the neighborhood of India
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Street in the nature of a defensive village. Awards of farms and large tracts beyond within the wide limits of Old Falmouth also appear.
After six years of growth and progress, the President having made so far as he could a fair and equitable distribution of lands and town officers having been chosen, there was executed by authority of the General Court, of date July 26, 1684, the well known Danforth deed of Falmouth. This was a conveyance of the township of 1658 to Capt. Edward Tyng and others as trustees for the sole use and benefit of the inhabitants.
These trustees proceeded to lay out sundry additional lots of land, all, however, to be held under leaschold tenure with payment of small rental. The arrangement, while not satisfactory, was at least orderly and as it is said "produced a state of repose among the people in regard to their titles after the long and numerous conflicts which had taken place for the proprietorship." The population was gradually increasing and was now double what it was at the time of the exodus in 1678, yet it was but a sparse and irregular settlement. Other colonies had at that time en- joyed a half century of steady growth, while Maine and Falmouth had experienced during the same period little but turmoil among rival claim- ants for possession. Yet the town in this breathing space had apparently attained a position where it might fairly expect to acquire a development proportionate to its exceptional natural advan- tages. The hardness of its fate, however, still
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pursued the vigorous little community and the darkest days of all were just before it.
The cause of the new trouble was foreign rather than domestic. Political conditions in England touching the question of popular rights had grown tense. It was chiefly the old question of royal prerogative and aristocratic exclusiveness against the demand of the English people for a voice in the affairs of government. King Charles, with his French training and autocratic ministers, was asserting the doctrines of the divine right of Kings and the exclusive superiority of the better classes. It appeared to them that the New England col- onies with their town meetings and their ideas of self-government were setting a most dangerous example, the effect of which was tending to the overthrow of traditional policies in the old country. So it was determined by the devotees of privilege and autocracy that chartered government must cease and the exclusive power of the throne be asserted directly and sternly. Accordingly, the old pending charges against Massachusetts for exceeding the powers conferred by its charter were taken up and a peremptory decree of the sub- servient Court of Chancery was issued in 1684 abolishing the same. The work was thoroughly done. It was more than a repeal. The letters patent were in terms "cancelled, vacated and annihilated." The results were revolutionary. The Colony of Massachusetts Bay as an organization ceased to exist and all that it had done from the beginning was wiped off the slate. Under the feudal law all conveyances lapsed with the abroga-
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tion of the charter and all lands reverted to the personal possession of the King. The decree applied to Massachusetts alone and Maine was affected only indirectly, but it left the status here wholly indefinite. It was a proprietary province without a proprictor.
The situation did not long remain in doubt. The rigid rules of law were applied and all landed properties were regarded as crown land belonging to the sovereign as the feudal overlord. It is evident that this result was not altogether dis- pleasing to the royalist and Episcopalian element in Maine. A petition was sent to King Charles entreating him to set up here a government as his own, and upon it appeared the names of sixteen influential inen of Falmouth. They found, how- ever, no cause for self-congratulation. Sir Ed- mund Andros, an unyielding military official, became Royal Governor and the King's represen- tative, both in New York and New England. The local assembly of Maine ceased. All indi- vidual titles were assumed to be invalid. Sir Edmund administered the government with a council and court of his own without any popular representation. Lands were divided up arbitrarily. The occupants were in general allowed to take out patents for the possessions they were occupying, but at rates of rental considered extortionate. Some were deprived of the soil which they had labored to subdue and possession given to stran- gers. The days of the tyranny of Andros are pictured by Hawthorne as the blackest period in the history of New England.
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GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE DEVELOPS
This description of hardship pertained to Maine not so much as elsewhere for they had less to lose. Stable though arbitrary government was obtained. The King himself was the immediate proprietor of Old Falmouth. Gorges, Rigby, Massachusetts and their governors, deputies, presidents and agents were all out of the reckoning. Nevertheless, the place, which only two years before 1678 was vacant of all white men, became a fairly thriving town. Their products were in demand. Ships were built and vessels of their own carried freights in all directions. The growth of the sugar industry in the West Indies created a great market for shook and wooden containers. The pine forests furnished lumber of quality unequalled and this was sought for everywhere. Saw mills were active upon nearly every little stream where the spring freshets could turn the heavy water wheels. Fal- mouth was in a material way evidently upon a basis for development equal to that which other places had possessed during her weary years of conflict and waiting. In spite of untoward con- ditions it was evidently becoming no incon- siderable place for business.
Again the progress of the ill-fated town was halted and complete collapse ensued. While pop- ular discontent in England and America was hot, Charles the Second, whose reign of merriment and tyranny had caused the chartered rights here and abroad to fall down, himself died and his brother James the Second, sullen in temper and a stern believer in passive obedience to kings by subject men and intolerance in religion, came to the English
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throne. His reign was brief. In less than three years his imperialism was stopped by popular up- rising as if the spirit of the old Protectorate was knocking at the door. He fled to France and the Parliament, disregarding hereditary succession, elected William and Mary King and Queen of England in his place. The colonies joined in the repudiation of King James. They proclaimed allegiance to the chosen sovereigns, and impris- oned Andros. The result for Maine and Falmouth was that they found themselves again orphaned of regular government.
In this state of affairs, there being no author- ization for any political control, the people were for something more than two years left to con- duct affairs upon their own account. They easily rose to the occasion. A new generation had come upon the stage with the feeling that they were native Americans. We hear no more of the sentiment of reverence for the majesty of kings. The accounts that we have indicate that the growth and development of the place in that brief space of time was remarkable. They had come to realize that great opportunities existed in the interior country and that there were profits in the products of the soil. This was qualified to a considerable extent by the sullen hostility of the Indians. Town meetings were held, though evi- dently somewhat informal in character. The connection with Massachusetts was kept up almost as before and friendly and intimate relations were maintained.
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The second English revolution, so-called, that of 1688, was an epoch and a turning point in the history of English-speaking people. The doctrine of the divine and absolute right of kings dis- appeared with them forever. The way was opened for government of the people and by the people at home and in the colonies. In this wider field for development it is regrettable to say that Maine and our ill-fated town for a long time had no share. War between France and England ensued and in the contest of arms this province became a battle gound and a place of complete desolation that, so far as Falmouth was concerned, continued for full twenty-five years, during which time other colonies were laying their foundation more widely and deeply than before.
IX
FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR AND ABANDONMENT.
A T the end of the second English revolution the charter of Massachusetts had been de- clared void, leaving her with no legal form of government; New Hampshire was a royal prov- ince; the charter of Connecticut was concealed in the charter oak at Hartford; that of Rhode Island had been condemned but proceedings were not completed; Plymouth never had had any to lose. In New England the population was reckoned at about seventy thousand, of which rising forty thou- sand were within the limits of Massachusetts. Maine had become merely a tract of unorganized crown land, and our Falmouth, with a population of some seven hundred, was having its public business carried on by a voluntary combination of its own citizens.
James II upon his forced abdication fled to France and his cause was championed by Louis XIV, "the Grand Monarque," then at the height of his ambitious career and desirous for world control. He declared immediate war upon Eng- land. A formidable alliance against France was formed and this was headed by William III with his English forces. Count Frontenac, the greatest of Canadian governors, was placed in charge of French American affairs. He had served in the position before and had become acquainted with
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