USA > Maine > Kennebec County > Waterville > The centennial history of Waterville, Kennebec County, Maine, including the oration, the historical address and the poem presented at the celebration of the centennial anniversary of the incorporation of the town, June 23d, 1902 > Part 4
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HISTORY OF WATERVILLE.
site has found large quantities of pottery, wholly of Indian make. Flint chippings are very abundant, as well as fine specimens of arrow points, gouges, etc. It is noteworthy that no metal has been found here except beads of pure copper, thus showing that the settlement antedated European trade and also the village at Norridgewock where iron of European manufacture, pipe stems, etc., are found. The village on Fort Hill was probably the ancient Teconnet although the name belonging first to the Falls, was applied to territory on both sides of the river. The only grave yard in the western part of Winslow was small in extent and was located near the present wheel house of the paper mill. In Waterville there are no indications of Indian villages. No pottery is found, but along the river and streams, sinkers and arrow heads are common. There was, however, a large burial ground here extending from what is now Temple street to the site of the Lockwood Mills. When Dunn Block was erected, the body of an Indian buried in a sitting posture was found. Many implements were buried with him and about two quarts of copper beads. About the same time Mr. Graves and two assis- tants discovered six skeletons in a single forenoon's digging in the open space at the junction of Main and Water streets. Here evidently was the burial place of old Teconnet.1
The Cannibas Indians were well disposed to the white men though the kidnapping of their neighbors at the mouth of the river and the brutalities at Fort St. George soon made them sus- picious. It is not to the credit of the Plymouth Colonists that during all the earlier years of the trade with the Indians, nothing was done for their intellectual or moral improvement.
In 1643 an Indian who had become a Christian under the labors of the Catholic French missionaries at Sillery and Quebec, came down the Kennebec as far as Augusta and told the Indians of the beauty and majesty of the new faith. He took back with him an Indian chief whose life had been saved by the intercession of the missionaries. He was baptized in Sillery under the name of John Baptist. Later a considerable intercourse grew up between the Indians of the Kennebec and those about Sillery and in 1646 a delegation appeared before a council of the fathers at that place
1. Mr. Graves has in his collection a stone war club fifteen inches long by one and one-half inches in diameter, also pestles and corn grinders.
1151618
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and begged that a missionary might be sent to the Indians of the Kennebec. They said that thirty men and six women had embraced the new faith and they desired a missionary to baptise and teach them. Father Gabriel Druillette was appointed and August 29th, 1646 started for his mission field. He found a hearty welcome. After a stay at Nahrantsouak and Teconnet he arrived at Cushnoc late in September where he was hospitably entertained by John Winslow the Pilgrim trader. Father Druil- lette received the encouragement of the Plymouth Company and established a successful mission called "The Mission of the Assumption among the Abenakis," 1 at Gilley's Point about three miles north of Augusta. During the winter he shared the expe- riences of the Indians in the hunting season about Moosehead Lake and by the time of the spring gathering of the tribe had wholly won their confidence. He had emphasized three things as 'essen- tial, viz., to have nothing to do with the traders' firewater; to cease quarreling among themselves and to throw away their idols. After the return of Father Druilette to Sillery in 1647, it seems unfortunate that the Jesuit Fathers did not see their way clear to allow him to return until 1650, although three delegations were sent by the Indians asking his return. This year, in addition to his missionary labors, he was envoy to the New England Con- federacy (formed in 1643 for defense against the Iroquois) and visited Boston, being the first Jesuit priest to enter that city. He was honorably received at both Boston and Plymouth and returned with high hopes for the success of his mission. Again he spends the winter among the Indians. After heroic service and other journeys for the public defense his labors on the Ken- nebec closed in 1652, but he had exerted a marvellous influence over the Indians who had been won to him as a true friend and to the faith which he preached.2
Meanwhile the English had been getting more assured pos- session of the land. The titles to land coming into question, the English secured deeds of the Sagamores though it is a matter of question whether the Indians understood that they were con- veying exclusive rights. In 1648 a Sagamore conveyed to Gov.
1. Jesuit Relations for 1647, chap. X.
2. Father Druillette after his return from the Kennebec was constantly em- ployed. In 1666 he went west with Marquette and labored at Sault St Mary for thirteen years. He died in Quebec in 1681.
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HISTORY OF WATERVILLE.
Bradford all land on both sides the river to Wessarunsett. In this deed Waterville is included.
The very next year Kennebis and Abbagadasset sold to Chris- topher Lawson1 the Kennebec land up as far as Teconnet Falls, which was afterward assigned to Clark and Lake traders in 1653.2
The Plymouth trade with the Kennebec had been declining for years and in June 1649 it was leased for three years at the rate of £50 per year to William Bradford, Edward Winslow, Thomas Prince, Thomas Willet and William Paddy. Renewals of the lease at lower rates followed until on the 27th of October 1661 the patent was conveyed by sale to Artemas Boies, Edward Tyng, Thomas Brattle and John Winslow for £400 sterling.
In 1653 the General Court of Massachusetts directed Thomas Prince to summon the citizens on the river Kennebeck that they might take an oath of allegiance and arrange a judicial code. This was done at the residence of Thomas Ashley near Merry- meeting bay, where on May 23, 1654, sixteen men assembled, took the oath and in their code of laws promulgated the first prohibitory law of Maine. It provided penalties for selling liquor to the Indians as they, when intoxicated, were often guilty of "much horrid wickedness."3
As the new proprietors of 1661 made no effort for the improve- ment of their property or to set up a government, very little was done in the settlement of the valley for nearly one hundred years. Its nominal government, however, was matter of more interest. After the restoration of Charles II, Ferdinando Gorges, grand- son of Sir Ferdinando, petitioned the throne that the Province of Maine might be restored to him. January 1I, 1664 the King issued an order that the Massachusetts Colony should give Gorges quiet possession of his Province.+ As this was not done the King sent over commissioners3 who assumed the government and set up courts on the Sheepscot September 5, 1665. This action of the King was stoutly resisted by Massachusetts and the tyrannical acts of the commissioners soon brought the settlers
1. Christopher Lawson was brought before the Duke of York's Court at Arrow- sic on an action for debt by warrant dated Nov. 1, 1665. Sullivan, 290.
2. Sullivan Hist. Dist. of Maine, p. 147.
3. Williamson's Me., Vol. I, pp. 366, 367.
4. Hutchinson's Hist. p. 234: Williamson I, p. 412.
5. Hutchinson's Hist. Appendix No. XV, p. 459-60.
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to the verge of rebellion. The commissioners were recalled in 1668 and Massachusetts resumed control. To avoid future trouble Massachusetts purchased, May 6, 1677, for £1250 ster- 1.ng, of Gorges, all his rights in the province, much to the dis- gust of the King whose designs were thereby thwarted. In 1780 Massachusetts organized a Provincial government of Maine and Thomas Danforth was appointed President. This administra- tion, with some interruption by Dudley and Andros, continued until 1691 when the charter of William and Mary included Maine in the Province over which Royal Governors were appointed by the crown until the Revolution in 1775.
King Philip's War, the first war with the Indians, extended to Mainc in the autumn of 1675. For years there had been increasing friction between the Indians and the English. The French had won the friendship of the Indians, sent them priests, sold them powder and guns and had been their allies in conflicts with other tribes. The English had treated them as inferiors, had sought profit in sharp business practices, had been suspicious and prompt to punish offenses and often refused to sell powder or guns. With the first outbreak of hostilities the Canibas tribe retired to this place, Teconnet, to await developments. The trade upon the river at this time was largely in the hands of Clark and Lake and Richard Hammond. Hammond had a trad- ing house at Woolwich, Clark and Lake had a large establishment at Arrowsic and both had trading houses at Teconnet Falls. The committee sent by Massachusetts to have general control over military and other measures of safety, Captains Lake, Patter- hall and Wiswell, ascending the Kennebec, met seven of the Canibas tribe and five of the Androscoggins, Mahotiwormet or Robinhood being leader. The Indians surrendered their guns and mutual professions of friendship were made. A little later Capt. Davis, from the Clark and Lake house at Arrowsic sent a messenger to Teconnet to remove the arms which were in the trading house there. He was also to promise that if the Indians would come to Arrowsic they would be supplied. The messen- ger disobeyed his instructions by assuring the Indians that "if they did not go down and give up their arms the English would come up and kill them." Meanwhile Magistrate Abraham Shurte at Pemaquid was doing his utmost to secure peace. He
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HISTORY OF WATERVILLE.
called a number of the chiefs to Pemaquid for conference. They complained that their people had been frightened away from their cornfields, were not allowed to purchase powder and so were unable to kill any game or venison. Some had died of hunger. Some had been kidnapped. Mr. Shurte spoke kindly to them, assured them that he would do his utmost to punish those who had wronged them and to restore their captives. The Indians were greatly pleased, gave up a captive boy and presented Shurte with a belt of wampum. But the strife went on. During the autumn about one hundred of the English were barbarously · murdered and the dwellers on Monhegan offered a bounty of £5 for every Indian head.
Those were anxious days at Teconnet. The Indians carefully abstained from acts of violence but the situation grew worse and worse. At last they sent a swift runner through the woods to Pemaquid to invite Magistrate Shurte to a council at Teconnet. Immediately he set out in his small boat, was joined at Arrowsic by Capt. Davis and arrived safely at Teconnet. The council was held in a great wigwam where five chiefs sat in state while a throng of warriors stood about the door. Assiminasqua the Prince and orator of Waterville opened the council. As Shurte and Davis proceeded to lay aside their arms he said : "Brothers keep your arms as honorable men. Be without apprehension. We do not, like the Mohawks seize messengers who come to us. Nay we never do as you people once did with fourteen of our Indians sent to treat with you, taking away their arms and put- ting them under guard. We have been in deep waters. You told us to come down and give up our arms and powder or you would kill us, so we were forced to part with our hunting guns or to leave both our fort and our corn. What we did was a great loss, we feel its weight." Shurte responded with professions of friendship. Tarumkin answered: "I love the clear streams of friendship that meet and unite. Certainly I myself choose the shades of peace. My heart is true and I give you my hand in pledge of the truth."1
But the differences between the parties in council were hard to meet. The Indians must have guns and ammunition or they would starve. If the whites sold them these they were providing
1. History Kennebec County, p. 41.
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HISTORY OF WATERVILLE.
means for their own destruction. At last Madockawando adopted son of Assiminasqua and son-in-law of Baron Castine cried out : "Do we not meet here on equal ground? We ask where shall we buy powder and shot for our winter's hunting? Shall we leave the English and apply to the French for it, or shall we let our Indians die. We have waited long to hear you tell us. Now we want yes or no." Shurte was not able to give a satisfactory answer. A little more confidence would have averted much bloodshed.
August 13, 1676 the first blow was struck in which the Tecon- net Indians had part. Richard Hammond the trader had a bad reputation at Teconnet. The Indians declared that he cheated them, filled them with strong drink and robbed them of their furs. In revenge they burned Hammond's place at Woolwich, killed him and two others and took sixteen persons captive who were conveyed to Teconnet and there kept under guard.
The next night, August 14, the mansion and large establish- ment of Capt. Lake at Arrowsic was destroyed. Capt. Lake was killed and Capt. Davis of the Teconnet Council severely wounded. Thirty-five prisoners were taken.
In a few weeks the whole county from Falmouth to Pemaquid was desolated, the inhabitants killed, captured or driven away. Then Madockawando and Mugg," his lieutenant, saw that it would be a good time to arrange for peace. Mugg was conveyed to Boston where he arranged provisional terms. Returning he was sent to Teconnet to arrange for the release of the prisoners. While here he laughingly told the Indians "I know how we can even burn Boston and drive all the country before us. We must go to the fishing islands and take all the white men's vessels."1 Mugg was killed in an attack upon Wells, May 16, 1667.
April 12, 1678 the Kennebec and other Sagamores signed a treaty of peace at Casco. This treaty provided for the release of prisoners and for the payment of a peck of corn annually by each white family to the Indians in acknowledgment of their right to the land. Among the prisoners returned from Teconnet was Mrs. Hammond who bore a letter dictated by her captors in which they boasted of their clemency and fair dealing. It is true
1. Hubbard's Indian Wars, p. 386-391.
2. Abbott. History of Me., p. 197. Notes.
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that we have no record that the Kennebecs ever tortured a prisoner.
Ten years of peace and rapid progress on the part of the Eng- lish were followed by King Williams' War which opened August 13, 1688. In this war the French were actively engaged and its most effective expeditions were planned and officered from Que- bec. The French had used to the full the religious influence which had been gained over the refugee Indians who had ascended the Kennebec to the neighborhood of Sillery. King Williams' War was one of the most costly episodes in the long struggle between England and France for the possession of Acadia and ultimately, the continent. Teconnet was used dur- ing the early years of the war as a station for captives until they could be ransomed or sold north into slavery. Hither from Merrymeeting, New Dartmouth, Sheepscot, Winter Harbor and Kennebunk prisoners were brought and Waterville became a central station on the prisoners' sad march to slavery, death or long delayed ransom.
1In 1692 Col. Church, on his third Eastern expedition, burned the fort and settlement at Teconnet, and the history of earliest Waterville the metropolis of the Cannibas Indians was ended. The white men claimed that the Indians set it on fire at their approach ; the Indians that the white men burned the place. In 1693 Maj. Converse who was more feared by the Indians than any other English officer, was at Teconnet and at so many other places in rapid succession that the Indians were dismayed. They were gaining nothing from their alliance with the French and came to feel that they were fighting the battles of another power beyond the seas. Their own share was to fight against an ever increasing enemy and to die. Accordingly, August 12, 1692, eighteen of the Maine Sagamores met at Pemaquid and agreed to a treaty of peace. This treaty provided for a release of all captives and was signed by all the Sagamores, including Bom- aseen of the Kennebecs and Wenobson of Teconnet, in behalf of Moxus. The peace, however, was not observed. Later in the same year Bomaseen was supposed to be concerned in the
1. Hon. Thomas B. Reed in his centennial oration at Portland states, without citing authorities, that the French from Quebec and the Indians from Castine met at Ticonnet and thence proceeded on the expedition which destroyed Portland May 16-20, 1690.
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destruction of Dover, N. H. November 19, 1694, while visiting Pemaquid with a flag of truce Bomaseen was recognized, arrested as a spy and sent to Boston where he was imprisoned for five years. Enraged at this the Kennebec warriors became the more zealous in the conduct of the war and shared in the destruction of Fort William Henry at Pemaquid in 1696, and did not agree to peace until its terms included the release of Bomaseen. Peace was attained in 1699. Bomaseen was restored to his people and the captives confined at Norridgewock, which after the burn- ing of Teconnet became the prison station, were released. Meanwhile the man who for thirty years was to exercise the most potent influence on the Kennebec had arrived. It was Father Sebastian Rale. He was a native of France, of excellent edu- cation and of high rank. In 1693 he was sent by the French leaders at Quebec to Norridgewock where the brothers Bigot already had revived the mission founded half a century before by Druillette. With utter devotion, Rale gave himself to his work. He shared the Indian's lot, sought to guard his rights and naturally shared his country's hatred of the English. It was to be expected also that the Quebec authorities would keep in correspondence with him as the one best fitted to report the conditions on what they regarded as their Acadian frontier. Soon he became an object of suspicion and hatred to the English. They charged him with hindering the formation of treaties and with preventing the execution of them, and with encouraging the Indians in their deeds of bloodshed : certainly he gave them his blessing and the sacrament before they set out. In 1717, when Gov. Shurte of Massachusetts, visited the Kennebec in order to make a treaty with the Indians, Father Rale championed both the Indians and France in the effort to prevent alienation of lands and the erection of forts. The treaty was against his protest. As early as 1605, during Queen Anne's War, which was brought on by French intrigues, an expedition under Col. Hilton ascended the Kennebec on snow shoes in mid-winter to capture Rale. They found Norridgewock deserted. In 1721 Rale secured united protest on the part of several Indian villages against the advance of the English whom he virtually threatened with the vengeance of France. August Ist ninety Indians with Rale as adviser, appeared at Arrowsic and ordered the settlers
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to leave within three weeks or they would be killed. Regarding Father Rale as the real source of the disturbances and depreda- tions made by the Indians who certainly were so fully under his control that he could direct or restrain them, Massachusetts, in the winter of 1721-22, sent Col. Thomas Westbrook to Nor- ridgewock to apprehend the priest and convey him to Boston. The expedition found Norridgewock deserted, a notice posted upon the door of the church threatening the destruction of the English meeting-houses if the soldiers dared to harm it and stoutly maintaining the right of the French and the Indians to the territory.1 A box was found containing the correspondence of Rale and Vaudreuil, French Governor at Quebec, which proved the complicity of the priest in the plots of the French and the duplicity of the Governor in his dealings with Massachu- setts. Enraged at this expedition, the Indians began the sys- tematic plunder of all the little settlements on the river, burning Brunswick in July, 1722 and taking many captives. War was declared by Massachusetts upon the Eastern Indians, July 26, 1722 and a reward of fioo for the bringing of the person of Father Rale to Boston.
On the 19th of August, 1724, an expedition numbering 208 men led by Captains Harmon and Moulton, left Richmond Fort. They arrived at Teconnet August 20, where they left forty men to guard their boats while the rest marched silently and swiftly through the woods toward Norridgewock. On the way they came upon an Indian with his wife and daughter. Remember- ing the failure of the Westbrook expedition, they immediately fired upon them lest Norridgewock should receive warning. The man was killed while trying to escape across the river; it was the noted chief Bomaseen. Norridgewock was taken wholly by surprise and the inhabitants fled panic stricken. Many were drowned while trying to escape, many were shot among whom was Father Rale. Charlevoix's romantic story that Rale came forth boldly to his death while seven heroic Indians covered him with their own bodies until all were shot down is disposed of by the testimony of Lieut. Jaques, that he himself shot the priest in a cabin while he was in the act of loading a gun.2
1. For letter, see "Pioneers of New France," Baxter, pp. 122-3.
2. Jaques was afterward arraigned by Capt. Moulton for killing Rale instead of taking him captive. He defended himself on the ground that the priest refused quarter.
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August 22, 1724 Capt. Johnson Harmon appeared before the Governor and council at Boston with twenty-seven Indian scalps and with the scalp of Father Rale. "In consideration of the extraordinary service of said Capt. Harmon, the Lieutenant-Gov- ernor presented him with a commission for Lieutenant-Colonel," and a warrant was drawn in his favor for the promised reward of £100.1
The destruction of Norridgewock, terrible though it was, was in reprisal for the destruction of hundreds of homes and many villages of the English settlers, and it was practically the end of trouble with the Indians on the Kennebec. Father Rale was a remarkable man. His love for his Indian converts and his self sacrificing devotion to what he believed to be their interest were beyond question, but as a loyal citizen of France he felt called upon to do everything in his power to prevent the English from getting control of the country. He was the victim on the banks of the Kennebec, of strifes, which had their origin on the banks of the Thames and of the Seine, strifes which destroyed both him and his followers, but among all the pictures of early Maine is none more beautiful than that of the priest and the reverent Indian worshippers as they gathered morning and evening in the chapel at Norridgewock. After the death of Rale the Indians fled in despair to Canada. For twenty-five years there is little to record. The half century of war had nearly destroyed both the Indians and the English settlers and as late as 1749 there were only two white families left above Merrymeeting bay.
September 1, 1749 nine of the heirs of the men who had bought the rights of the Colony of New Plymouth to Kennebec territory in 1661, met in Boston and became incorporated for the purpose of defending their rights and opening their lands to settlement. The great obstacle was the constant danger from the French and Indians. In 1753 the Plymouth Company petitioned Gov. Shirley for the erection of a fort at Teconnet Falls. This was regarded as a strategic point : the highway between Maine and Quebec was up the Kennebec and down the Chaudiere. Even the Penobscots came down the Sebasticook to Teconnet and thence ascended the Kennebec. Rumors were always afloat that the
1. Mass. Council Records, Vol. VIII, pp. 71-72.
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French and the Indians who had been driven from their lands were about to come down the river with hostile intent.
In answer to the petition, Gov. Shirley proposed that if the Plymouth Company would build a defensible house for stores and fort, at the head of the tide water, Cushnoc, Augusta, he would build a fort at Teconnet Falls.
Under the direction of the General Court which was alarmed at the rumor of French invasion, Gov. Shirley with Col. Paul Mascarene, Commissioner of Nova Scotia, General John Wins- low in command of the troops and several high officials with 800 soldiers, set sail, June 21, 1754, in the frigate Massachu- setts for Falmouth. There 42 Indians from the Kennebec met the Governor in conference. He expressed his purpose to build a fort at Teconnet to which the Indians made desperate pro- test.1 They besought him to build no forts higher up the Kenne- bec than Fort Richmond ; declared themselves willing that set- tlers should occupy the lands but were afraid of more forts. Their eloquent plea was wholly unavailing. Governor Shirley produced deeds signed by Sagamores long since dead, conveying the lands in question. Against this fact no words could avail and the Indians acquiesced though asserting that their ancestors had been cheated.
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