USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Sebago Lake Land in history, legend & romance > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8
Another anecdote in connection with the old Fawn was long remembered at the expense of the engineer. "There was a maiden lady named Mary Emerson, a sister of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and a resident of Waterford, who was a frequent traveler over the route. She was very peculiar, and Mr. Caswell had a great horror of her. In the engine room was a chest that sat against the boiler. Miss Emerson seemed to be always cold, for she spent the greater part of her time while on the boat, in sitting on that chest. Mr. Caswell determined that he would try to frighten her away when next she took her favorite position. Soon she was again a passenger, and planted herself on the chest as usual. As soon
20
SEBAGO LAKE - QUEEN OF INLAND WATERS
as Mr. Caswell was at liberty he approached her and said, 'Miss Emerson, do you know that you are in a very danger- ous place? If the boiler should happen to burst, you would be instantly killed.' Miss Emerson evidently mistrusted what Mr. Caswell was trying to do, and quietly replied, 'Mr. Caswell, I am prepared to go at any time when the Lord calls, and it makes no difference where I am.' She remained on the chest until the boat reached its destination."
The ill-fated boat was burdened with an engine and boiler many sizes too large for her, and she was cranky and poorly balanced. In making a short turn she would tip sideways, causing one of the paddle-wheels to lift out of the water, which resulted in the passengers literally working their pas- sage when going through the Songo, walking to one side and then the other to keep her balanced. After being oper- ated for a short period, the Fawn was dismantled, and her engine and boilers taken out and sold.
In 1869, the Oriental, another side-wheeler, was built, and its operation was so profitable that a larger boat, the Sebago was added to the line. The Oriental was destroyed by fire in 1871, while tied up at the Harrison wharf, and a new and "elegant" side-wheel steamer, the Mt. Pleasant, a twin boat to the Sebago, was added to the line, the two boats running daily until the Sebago met her fate by fire in 1873, at the old Bridgton landing. The suc- cessors to the side-wheelers were the Hawthorne, Longfellow, Minnehaha, and the Hiawatha, - all screw propeller ves- sels. In 1894, the little steamer Sokokis was built in Westbrook, and hauled by ox-team for service on the lake.
For many years the Hon. C. E. Gibbs of Bridgton con- trolled and managed the steamboat line, and Captain "Jim" Kennard was known to all travelers through this section. For a short period the line was owned by the S. D. Warren Paper Company of Cumberland Mills. This was at a time when the company was building a new dam on the Presumpscot River, which raised the water as far as the
21
SEBAGO LAKE LAND
head of Long Lake, and there was some uncertainty as to its effect on navigation.
Summer steamship traffic on the lakes however, reached its heyday when Captain Charles Goodridge, a Portland promoter in the old days, established the Songo River Line in 1896. He literally brought the world to Naples' doorstep, via the waterway, by extensively advertising "daily excur- sions to the Switzerland of America via the Songo River". He brought the Louise to Sebago, a little boat that for- merly ran between Portland and Peak's Island, and rapidly increased steamship facilities until he had assembled a fleet of four turbine twin screw vessels, - the Goodridge, with a . capacity of five hundred, the Bay of Naples, the Worrumbus, and the Songo.
Of the little white fleet, only one remains in summer activity today,-the Songo, which for nearly half a century has threaded its tortuous passage through the winding Songo River, interrupted briefly by the last war, and occasional low water in the river caused by drought. This strange and devious stream, the scene of so many poetical and legendary associations, still fascinates the summer visitor, as he rounds the sharp bends to the old lock, which raises the steamer seven feet in order to lift it over the rapids. In a distance of less than two miles as the crow flies, the stream meanders six miles, making twenty-seven turns. In fact, you actually meet yourself coming and going, because to get ahead, you must go back, and to go back you must get ahead! Its waters are so quiet and clear that it reflects in minute detail every bush and tree that arch overhead. It has been immortalized by Longfellow's poem :
"Nowhere such a devious stream Save in fancy or in dream, Winding slow through brush and brake Links together lake and lake."
22
SEBAGO LAKE - QUEEN OF INLAND WATERS
The Indians named it Songo, which signifies "The Outlet", and legend has it that they shunned it at the ghostly hours of twilight or dawn, for they believed that at the bot- tom of the water "there is a spirit who is free only at this hour, and he watches the shadows on the river, and reaches up and grabs any Indian that pleases him." It is said that this picturesque and ideal locality was the metropolitan haunt of the Presumpscots, a sub-tribe of the Sokokis. Here at the confluence of the Songo and Crooked River was their great fish-catch and curing establishment. Tradition claims at this junction of the two rivers is a piece of primitive Indian engineering, long lost to view, that excited the imagi- nation of engineers and antiquarians. It is no less than a stone dam across the river, said to be about a hundred feet in length, with sloping sides built of stones, none of which are larger than a man could lift. It was used as a fish weir by the Indians to catch salmon when they ascended the river.
And the spot which is now the lock, was to the Indians a sacred place, - an ancient cemetery, picturesquely situ- ated by the waterfalls of the Songo, whose subdued melody united with many a weird scene of primitive days, as the wails of the bedecked warriors broke the solemn silence of the forest. Here they laid their dead in the birchen shroud with the implements that ministered to their daily needs.
If one, they say, is subject to the subtle influence of myth and the uncanny, he can, at certain times, hear an anguished wail which echoes along the darkly wooded shores of the neighborhood. Legend tells us that it is the mournful death- cry of the stricken chieftain of the once proud Sokokis, the mighty Polin, who received a mortal wound in battle with the whites in May 1746, and was carried by his sorrowing warriors and his heartbroken daughter, Princess Minnehaha, by canoe across Sebago to his last resting place under a beech tree on the banks of the Songo. The poet Whittier vividly portrays the tragic scene in his "Funeral Tree of the Sokokis" ;-
23
SEBAGO LAKE LAND
"Yet Heaven hath angels watching round The Indian's lowliest forest-mound,
And they have made it holy ground."
Many years afterward a white captive of the Indians told of the method of Polin's burial, as related to him by one of the tribe. He was told that they bent a staddle until the roots of the tree on one side were turned up. Then severing one arm to be buried in some holy Catholic burying ground, they placed the body beneath the roots, and let the tree spring back into its former position. Back in 1823, when the builders were constructing the first lock, they dug up a skeleton of a human being directly beneath a large tree, which was thought to be the body of the dead chieftain.
In the Indian days Sebago Lake was on the direct route of the ancient Sebago Trail from Canada to the Atlantic Coast, and ever since the time when the Indians traveled to and fro between the mountains and the sea, the waterway extending from Harrison at the head of Long Lake to the Presumpscot River by way of Brandy Pond, the Songo, and Sebago was their favorite means of travel. The Sokokis tribe of Indians, which in English means "People of the Outlet", was known by different names. By some they were called Pequakets, while other writers designate them as the Ossippees, the Rockameecooks, and the Presumpscots. The names in reality, meant the different villages of the Sokokis family. Sebago, with its lovely environs, was the happy hunting and play ground of the Rockameecook branch of the tribe family, and under their mighty chief Polin, they roamed at will until the coming of the white man.
Evidences of numerous Indian camping grounds have been discovered, the largest one on the Windham side of what is known as the basin. Here more than one thousand Indian relics have been unearthed by the Kennard family of White's Bridge. They consist of stone axes, tomahawks, arrow and spear heads, chisels, and pieces of pottery. There
24
SEBAGO LAKE - QUEEN OF INLAND WATERS
seems to be some truth in the Indian lament; - "We lived before the English came among us as well or better, if we may believe what our forefathers have told us. We then had room enough and plenty of deer which was easily caught. And though we had not knives, hatchets, or guns, such as we have now, yet we had knives of stone, and bows and arrows, and they served our purpose."
Curiously enough it was the sea salmon which came up the Presumpscot River to Sebago Lake that led to a bloody war of six years duration between white and red men and which ultimately led to the extinction of the Sokokis tribe. The fish were speared by the Indians not only for fresh food, but also to be cured by a smoking process for future use. The trouble began in 1739, when Colonel Thomas Westbrook of Saccarappa (for whom the city of Westbrook is named) built the first dam on the Presumpscot River. This obstruction interfered with the progress of the salmon and Chief Polin soon discovered the cause.
The same year the Chief and some of his followers walked to Boston and protested to Governor Shirley the head of the Massachusetts government, demanding that the dam be removed. The proud Polin pleaded his cause with impres- sive pathos :
"Our goodly river you have dammed which yielded us fine salmon and other fish. Here from ancient time our people have hunted the deer, the moose, and the beaver. It is our country where our fathers died, where ourselves and our children were born. We are told that our country spreading far away from the sea is passing away to you for- ever. I say you have no right to it."
After being assured that a fishway would be installed (which was promptly done) the chief was appeased for a time. But as the whites increased in numbers the supply of salmon for the Indians was greatly reduced. Again Polin went to Boston and interviewed Shirley. This time he demanded all land on both sides of the Presumpscot from
25
SEBAGO LAKE LAND
Sebago Lake to tide waters at Portland. Receiving no satis- faction he swore vengeance on the white settlers.
Many interesting tales are told of the lingering remnants of the tribe of the Sokokis. Some of the Indians were loathe to leave the ancient home that had been so dear to them, and remained after their territory became settled. Buried in the Andover cemetery in the Rangeley country is an Indian woman who was so constantly in demand by the settlers as a midwife, that she neither had the time nor the need to establish a home of her own. She was Mol Lockett, a famous squaw and doctress, and her grave denotes that she was the last of the Pequawkets or Sokokis. She was a picturesque character, and many anecdotes are related con- cerning her. Molly was very fond of "occuby", the Indian word for rum, and sometimes resorted to questionable methods to obtain it. One day calling at one of her favorite haunts, she bolted unceremoniously through the doorway, holding her jaw in both hands and giving utterance to the most agonizing groans, accompanied by violent contortions. "What's the matter, Molly," inquired the landlady in sympa- thetic tones. "Me got Toofache", replied Molly, "Give me occupy to hol in mouf. Quick, quick, me die." The required cordial was quickly furnished, and Molly as quickly filled her mouth. But strange to say her mouth refused to retain it, and it slipped down her throat. Again extending her hands for the bottle she muttered, "Golly dem rum good, but slips down easy. Gim me more. Me make rum stay if me try hundred times."
The curious inscription on her tombstone reads:
Mollocket baptized Mary Agatha.
Catholic died in the Christian faith Aug. 2 A.D. 1816.
Today the dim shadowy trails of Sebago Lake Land, so often trod by moccasin feet, have given way to broad con- necting highways, crowded with rushing traffic. Swift
26
SEBAGO LAKE - QUEEN OF INLAND WATERS
Chris Craft and the whirl of the outboard motor reign on the waterways that once knew the light graceful canoe of the red men. And where the dome-roofed, bark-covered homes of the Indian spread along the shore of its lakes, there now cluster the domains of the white man.
Yet over all this lovely scene there is an intangible atmos- phere of charm and serenity, which even the speeding motors and the rush of modern civilization cannot dispel. And when the last echo of the summer bustle has died among the peaks of Saddleback and Rattlesnake, and old Sebago comes into her tranquil self again:
"Methinks the dusky shadows of the days that are no more, Still stalk around and haunt its lonely shore."
LOOKING ACROSS SEBAGO LAKE TO RATTLESNAKE MOUNTAIN IN RAYMOND, FROM SOKOKIS ROCK ON SANBORN'S POINT IN NORTH SEBAGO (Courtesy Maine Publicity Bureau)
MIRROR-LIKE BEAUTY OF SONGO RIVER AS IT APPEARS TODAY. (Courtesy Maine Publicity Bureau)
PANORAMIC VIEW OF WHITE MOUNTAINS AND LONG LAKE TAKEN FROM GROUNDS OF BAY OF NAPLES INN. (Courtesy Maine Publicity Bureau)
-... ..
OLD STEAMBOAT LANDING AT SEBAGO LAKE STATION, FAMILIAR TO THE THOU- SANDS WHO JOURNEYED TO THE "SWITZERLAND OF MAINE".
(Courtesy Gannett Photo)
77
SEBAGO
STEAMER BAY OF NAPLES ENTERING THE SONGO LOCK. UP IN MAINE. ARE YOU ON THIS BOAT?
Upper left, old side-wheeler Sebago, hauled up for winter. (Courtesy Maine Historical Society). Upper right, pen sketch Hawthorne, first of the screw propeller steamboats to run on the lakes. Lower left, steamer Songo, the last of the Goodridge "white fleet". Lower right, the popular Bay of Naples with a capacity crowd enjoying the trip "Up the Songo" in the old days. (Courtesy Robert Norton)
-
STEAMER GOODRIDGE, EN ROUTE FROM SEBAGO LAKE STATION TO HARRISON, PASSING THROUGH SONGO LOCK.
-
STEAMBOAT LANDING AT BRIDGTON A view of the old stage-coach that jolted the summer visitor to his destination.
-
*
SOUTH BRIDGTON STEAMER LANDING AND STAGECOACH (Courtesy Robert Norton)
Crystal Lake
N. Bridgton On
Harrison
Lake
H10 Ridge
Bug 7
Bridgton
Lake
Southe Bridgton
River
Hancock Lake
Jonas hppow
Crooked
casco Villageo
Peabody Pd.
Naples ON
SPH.
ApvDag
1
Perler
Peaked Mrs.
Ps. Naples
Sebergo
North Sebago
River
5.
Douglas Hill
Spider Id.
Pasco
Pd.
Dingley
Thomas Pd.
Panther
E. Selago
Sebago
ORaymond
Jord un
Lake
VON SaBou
Bay
Leap
m
whites Bridge
Basın
N. windhan
Richville- Indian
Sebago Lake.C
O Fosters Corner
windham sent.
Standish 0
Presumpscot River
bs. windham
MAP OF SEBAGO LAKE LAND
CRESCENT
CAKE
Songo
Rattlesnake
= =!- Mt.
Pleasant Lake
Trickey
Sonoalod
Raymond Cape
Little Sebacio Lake
King Salmon - Salmo Sebago
E VER since that exciting and nerve-tingling moment when man first discovered that the wily Sebago salmon could be caught on hook and line, the most momentous question of springtime, at least here in Cumberland County, is not, as the poets would have us believe of love, but "just when is the ice going out?" For, in all truth, no army in all history has ever poised with greater intensity and eagerness to clash with its potential enemy than does the ever- increasing horde of spring fishermen in their impatience to commence their savage onslaught upon these sleek glistening bodies, that so gracefully glide beneath the surface of that magic stretch of water - Sebago Lake. And, too, it is the season of prognosticators, those sure-fire gentlemen, who lay claim to be able to forecast the exact day, hour, and minute when the ice will permit us to drag a line.
Newspaper records tell us that the earliest date on which the ice disappeared was on March 26th, 1946, and oddly enough the latest date occured two years before that in 1944, when it remained until May 24th. The latest date prior to that was on May 8th, 1888, when Portland Harbor was frozen solid, so that sleighing and trucking was possible from the mainland to Peak's Island.
An early tabulation of the dates of the ice going out, kept by an old gentleman who had resided on the shores of Sebago Lake, and handed down from generation to genera- tion, shows that April has always been the popular month
37
SEBAGO LAKE LAND
of the "big break". To lovers of statistics the following dates might be of interest :-
May 7, 1807; May 1, 1812; April 30, 1816; April 29, 1819; April 25, 1820; April 29, 1821; April 12, 1822; April 23, 1823; April 17, 1824; April 16, 1825; April 18, 1826; April 14, 1834; May 1, 1837; April 29, 1841; May 2, 1843; April 17, 1844; April 24, 1845; April 14, 1846; April 29, 1849; May 4, 1852; April 27, 1855; April 14, 1857; April 13, 1858; April 29, 1862; April 28, 1863; April 18, 1866; April 26, 1867; April 5, 1871; May 4, 1872; May 1, 1873; May 7, 1874; May 6, 1875; May 1, 1876; April 23, 1877; April 12, 1878; May 5, 1879; April 13, 1880; April 24, 1881; April 10, 1882; April 29, 1883; April 23, 1884; April 26, 1885; April 25, 1886; May 1, 1887; May 8, 1888; April 12, 1889; April 24, 1890; April 23, 1891; April 11, 1892; May 4, 1893; April 19, 1894; April 21, 1895; April 21, 1896; April 22, 1897; April 13, 1898; April 22, 1899; April 26, 1900; April 15, 1901; March 30, 1902; March 28, 1903; April 23, 1904; April 25, 1905; April 22, 1906; April 30, 1907; April 25, 1908; April 15, 1909; April 3, 1910; April 29, 1911; April 23, 1912; April 9, 1913; April 20, 1914; April 12, 1915; April 18, 1916; April 24, 1917; April 26, 1918; April 1, 1919; April 23, 1920; March 28, 1921; April 14, 1922; April 22, 1923; April 16, 1924; April 4, 1925; April 30, 1926; April 15, 1927; April 8, 1928; April 10, 1929; April 7, 1930; April 12, 1931; Open all Winter, 1932; April 10, 1933; April 20, 1934; April 17, 1935; March 27, 1936; Open all Winter, 1937; April 2, 1938; April 23, 1939; May 3, 1940; April 12, 1941; April 8, 1942; April 17, 1943; May 24, 1944; April 1, 1945; March 26, 1946; Open all Winter, 1947; April 2, 1948; Open all Winter, 1949.
Nevertheless it always seems like a long, long, winter to the amateur Isaac Walton who has been enthusiastically perfecting plans for stalking his quarry, preparing tackle and awaiting only the zero hour. Not for him is the seasoned advice of the expert, for he prefers his own favorite lures and hardware. He has his own particular choice too, as to trolling spots and certain hours of fishing when he is most sure of success. The old time-tested proverb that "apple blossom time is surely the best fishing time", or that "the wind from the south blows the bait into the fishes' mouth" leaves him quite cold.
He has his own particular ideas too, as to the origin of landlocked salmon notwithstanding the fact that it has been the subject of widely divergent opinion down through the years since the discovery of Maine's inland waters. Some members of the fishing fraternity offer the strange theory that the salmon must have been imprisoned through the creation of impassible dams caused by geological upheavals. The popular belief at least is that these fish became 'land-
38
KING SALMON - SALMO SEBAGO
locked' because of man-created dams which prevented them from returning to the sea.
Such however does not appear to be the case. There is evidence that salmon existed in some of Maine's inland waters before the era of dam building, long before the advent of the Europeans on our coast. The Indians speak of it in their primitive traditions, and the early writings of the Jesuit Fathers make mention of the 'vast shoals of fish' found in lakes and streams during their travels in this state.
It is a matter of historical record that in pioneer days salmon were so much of a glut on the market, that it was often stipulated in the indentures of apprentices that they should not be forced to eat salmon more than six times a week!
It is claimed that the term "landlocked" is a misnomer. Although the name has been quite generally adopted for a salmon which passes its whole life in inland fresh water, the voluntary process of "landlocking" was probably inspired by suitable conditions of food and water with the develop- ment from many generations of interbreeding. As plausible an explanation as any, perhaps, is that suggested by a wise old Indian guide, "that the landlocked salmon is a salmon who forgot to go to sea."
Altho the landlocked species has been favored with a variety of names the one most generally accepted today is Salmo Sebago. It is thus designated by Dr. Charles Girard of the Smithsonian Institute in 1852. He held to the theory that the inland species was identical with the sea run salmon scientifically known as Salmo Salar.
The late Dr. William C. Kendall of Freeport, a widely known ichthyologist who made a special study of native inland water salmon also favored that theory and pointed out that 'landlocked' salmon were found only in deep cold waters containing smelts. However many inland waters containing smelts did not contain salmon even though they were accessible from the sea previous to the erection of
39
SEBAGO LAKE LAND
impassable dams. Landlocked salmon he says, are distinctly a Maine species and with the exception of Lakes Ontario and Champlain they were never found to occur naturally in any United States waters outside of this state. They existed in certain Canadian lakes where they were known as 'ouaniche'. The famous 'ouaniche' of the upper Saguenay River is a 'landlocked' salmon. From there it is said to occur north- ward and westward into Labrador.
However Maine is the only state in the union to boast of being the native habitat of this fish and Sebago Lake in which the 'landlocked' salmon were first discovered is one of its four original homes, the others being Sebec, Green, and Grand Lakes, all of which are in Maine. In these waters it reaches its largest size of any in North America.
Sebago Lake has a world-wide reputation for big fish, and the earliest mention of the size of Sebago salmon occurs, curiously enough, in the youthful diary of the great novelist, Nathaniel Hawthorne. He spent most of his boyhood days at the lake prior to 1825, residing with relatives at South Casco. "On the way home", he writes "from the Island (Frye's) to the 'Images' Mr. Ring caught a black-spotted trout that was almost a whale. It weighed, before it was cut open, eighteen and one-half pounds."
It was common practice at that time to call a landlocked salmon a "trout", - the term "landlocked" being then unknown, and, to distinguish it from a brook trout which was called a "redspot", it was labelled a "blackspotted trout". It is very evident that big fish were pretty plentiful in those halycon days, as the Boston Transcript of 1830 notices "the appearance of eighteen pound 'trout' from Sebago Pond for sale at the Boston Fish Market.
In these days one can but dimly imagine the scene vividly pictured by a Sebago angling expert, writing in a magazine a hundred years ago, "acres of water boiling with smelts and salmon but a boat's length ahead, and very ordinary
40
KING SALMON - SALMO SEBAGO
and everyday fishermen reeling in from twelve to eighteen pound fish."
"What has bcome of these big ones?", is the fisherman's lament of today. Mostly they have fled before the march of civilization, for Maine has become one of the water powers of New England. Her falls have been dammed to turn countless wheels of industry. Authoritative writers on the subject also attribute the great scarcity of salmon to the spear in the hands of the poacher, particularly in the 1870's and eighties, before the law clamped down on the practice. It is reported that in the year 1867, more than a thousand were speared on the spawning beds of Crooked and the Songo Rivers alone.
But it might be encouraging to add, for the benefit of the young enthusiast of today, that the fabulous big ones of his- ory did not all succumb to the evil wiles of the poacher, nor did they all succeed in getting away.
Imagine if you can a 35 pound landlocked salmon hooked securely on the end of your line. Well newspaper records show that a Daniel Crockett actually netted one of this size in Sebago Lake in 1893, presumably at the spawning grounds, and Charles K. Bispham of Philadelphia, for many years a summer resident of the lake testified that he had seen them on the spawning beds weighing 30 pounds or more.
But then Sebago Lake has long had a reputation for big fish, and in those good old fishing days twenty and twenty- five pounders were fairly common. Legend has it that a salmon came ashore on the spawning grounds near Frye's Island, so large that it had to be killed with a shotgun. A local angler who has fished these waters for more than half a century, informs me that he has in the past not only landed several big ones between twenty and thirty pounds, but was once a witness of a very unusual happening, - the successful netting of a salmon that had been hooked by the tail. Certainly these fish must have been pretty plentiful
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.