USA > Maine > The history of Maine, from the earliest discovery of the region by the Northmen until the present time; including a narrative of the voyages and explorations of the early adventurers, the manners and customs of the Indian tribes, the hardships of the first settlers, etc > Part 22
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important position of commander-in-chief of all the forces in Maine. For seven years this dreadful war desolated the State. Hundreds of terrible tragedies, of burning, scalping, torturing, have never been recorded. It is heart-rending to contemplate the woes into which so many families were plunged. No theol- ogy or philosophy can fully explain why God should allow the depravity of man to inflict such misery upon his brother.
In the spring of 1692 a new administration commenced ; and Sir William Phips was appointed, by the sovereign of England, governor of Massachusetts. A legislature was convened at Boston on the 8th of June. Eight representatives were re- turned from Maine. War always spreads a demoralizing influ- ence throughout the whole community. Pirates and freeboot- ers ravaged the unprotected shores of the Province. It was the great object of the French, in the war in which France was involved with England, to annex the territory between the Sag- adahoc and Nova Scotia to their domains.
In August, Gov. Phips, with a force of four hundred and fifty men, repaired to a spot about three miles above Pemaquid Point, on the east side of the river, where he built quite a mas- sive fort of quadrangular form, seven hundred and forty-seven feet in measurement. While the fort was in process of con- struction, Major Church was despatched farther east, with a strong force, to search out the enemy. The fort, which was named William Henry, was built of stone, at an expense of about a hundred thousand dollars. It was garrisoned by sixty men, and mounted eighteen cannon, six of which were eighteen- pounders. This armament showed that they were preparing to repel not savages merely, but the well-equipped armies of France.
The expense of building and maintaining such a garrison was great for those times, and excited much discontent. But the Indians, who, unseen, watched all the movements of their enemy, could not be caught sight of. They found scattered through the wilderness the lonely cabins of two or three Frenchmen who had married Indian wives. It does not appear that these people were molested. Two or three vagrant Indians were, by chance, caught; and a small amount of plunder was taken, of corn and beaver-skins.
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Capt. Church, upon his return to Pemaquid, ascended the Kennebec as far as Teconnet (Winslow). But the fleet-footed savages very prudently avoided a battle. There were a few guns discharged in the vicinity of Swan Island ; but we can- not learn that anybody was hurt. At Teconnet the savages, as they saw the English troops approaching, set fire to their huts, and, like a covey of frightened partridges, vanished in the woods.1
The French organized a strong expedition to batter down the walls of Fort Henry. About two hundred Canadians were sent to the Penobscot to be united with an equal number of Indians under Madockawando. Two French frigates - one of thirty- eight, and the other of thirty-four guns - were to co-operate. But, when this powerful land and naval force reached Pemaquid, an English man-of-war was riding at anchor, under the guns of the fort; and the works were found too strong to be attacked. Thus the enterprise was abandoned.
The starving Indians, without homes or harvests, and living in constant terror, were in great distress, and longed for peace. On the 12th of August, 1692, eighteen sagamores, representing nearly all the tribes from Passamaquoddy Bay to Saco, came to the fort at Pemaquid, and proposed terms of peace. Three commissioners met them.
The sagamores renounced subjection to France, and pledged loyalty to the crown of England. They also agreed to release all their captives without ransom, to leave the English unmolested in all their claims to possessions and territory, and to traffic only at the trading-houses which should be regulated by law. All controversies were to be settled in English courts of justice. Five Indians, of high rank, were delivered to the English as hostages to secure the fulfilment of the treaty.2
Thus terminated the second Indian war. Still the Indians could not be cordial and happy with the hard conditions im- posed upon them. They were treated as a subjugated people. The Protestant English and the Catholic French were never
1 Benjamin Church's Third Expedition, p. 131.
2 Mather's Magnalia, vol. ii. p. 542, contains entire this treaty, so humiliating to the Indians.
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friendly. Occasionally they would cease to quarrel ; but that was all. Religious differences imbittered national animosities. It is said that the French were continually endeavoring to rouse the Indians against the English, just as the English, a few years afterwards, were unwearied in their endeavors to rouse the savages against the Americans.
It is said that the Catholic missionaries were ever striving to incite the savages to renew the war, incessantly preaching that "it is no sin to break faith with heretics." That these self- denying ecclesiastics, toiling in the wigwams to elevate and instruct the Indians, were patriotic to their own country, when war was raging between France and England, cannot be doubted. But no man can read the record of their toils and- sufferings without the conviction that they were truly good men, endeavoring, according to the best of their knowledge, to seek and to save the lost.
Father Rasle, at Norridgewock, was denounced with peculiar severity. "His entire devotion," writes Williamson, "to the religious interests of the Indians, gave him an unlimited ascen- dency over them."1 Frontenac, governor of Canada, appointed Mons. Villieu resident commander at Penobscot. He succeeded in enlisting two hundred and fifty Indians, under Madockawan- do, to accompany a French force in an attack upon Dover. Having destroyed the place, on the 18th of July, 1693, they re- turned across the Piscataqua to Maine. They killed four men near York, and took one lad captive. On the 25th of August, they killed eight men at Kittery, and, with the hard-heartedness of fiends, scalped a little girl. The child was found the next morning, bleeding, and apparently dying. The scalp was torn from her head, and her skull broken in by a blow from a toma- hawk; still, strange to say, the child recovered.
This was considered such a violation of the treaty as to jus- tify any retaliatory acts. There was a Frenchman by the name
1 " After many attempts on the part of the English to induce the savages, by bribes, and by promises the most flattering, to deliver the missionaries to them, they offered a reward of a thousand pounds sterling to any one who would bring them the head of Rasle. Les Anglais mirent sa tête à pris, et promirent mille livre sterling a celui qui la leur porterait." .- Histoire de la Nouvelle France, par Père la Charlevoix, ii. p. 385.
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of Robert or Robin Doney, who had adopted the Indian style of living, had become a chief among them, and had signed the treaty at Pemaquid. He expressed great regret for the rupture, and, with three companions, hastened to the new fort at Saco, to seek some adjustment of the difficulty. He and his compan- ions were seized and imprisoned.1
Soon after this, an Indian chief, by the name of Bomaseen, accompanied by two Indians of high rank, visited the garrison at Pemaquid. Bomaseen, or Bomazeen as Drake spells it, was a sachem of the Canibas tribe at Norridgewock. He was a friend of the English, and had communicated to them informa- tion respecting the designs of the French. It was known that he had saved the life of a woman, Rebecca Taylor, whom a savage was endeavoring to hang.2 The three were immediately seized and incarcerated upon the suspicion that they were en- gaged in the rupture.3
It is humiliating to record that the government did not re- pudiate this bad faith. But there were many individuals who denounced it with great severity, declaring it to be as impolitic as it was unjust. It is reported by Williamson that the follow- ing conversation took place in Boston, between Bomaseen and an English clergyman. The chief, speaking of the religious instruction he had received from the priests, said, -
" The Indians understand that the Virgin Mary was a French lady. Her son, Jesus Christ, the blessed, was murdered by the English. But he has risen from the dead, and gone to heaven. All who would gain his favor must avenge his blood."
The English clergyman replied, taking a glass of wine, " Jesus Christ gives us good religion, like the wine in this glass. God's
1 "Two years after this, in 1693, Robin Doney became reconciled to the Eng- lish, and signed a treaty with them at Pemaquid. But, within a year after, he became suspected, whether with or without reason, we know not, and coming to the fort at Saco, probably to settle the difficulty, was seized by the English. What his fate was is rather uncertain; but the days of forgiveness and mercy were not yet." - Drake's Book of the Indians, book iii. p. 116.
2 Drake, book iii. p. 111.
8 "In 1694 he (Bomazeen) came to the fort at Pemaquid with a flag of truce, and was treacherously seized by those who commanded, and sent prisoner to Bos- ton, where he remained some months in a loathsome prison." - Drake, book iii. p. 111.
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book is the Bible, which holds this good wine. The French put poison in it, and then give it to the Indians. The English give it to them pure; that is, they present them the Bible in their own language. French priests hear you confess your sins, and take beaver for it. The English never sell pardons. Par- dons are free, and come from God only."
To this Bomaseen replied, "The Indians will spit up all French poison. The Englishman's God is the best God." 1
The English retained the five hostages whom the chiefs had placed in their hands, and also closely imprisoned Bomaseen and his companions for the winter. Pestilence and famine were raging among these unhappy perishing natives. Starvation drove many to acts of plunder.
In May, 1695, the English sent one of their hostage chiefs, Sheepscot John, to confer with the eastern Indians upon peace. He induced the sagamores to come in a fleet of fifty canoes, and meet him at Rutherford's Island, which was about three miles from fort William Henry. There was a friendly confer- ence. A truce was agreed upon ; eight English captives were released ; and the sagamores promised, at the end of thirty days, to meet commissioners at the garrison of William Henry, and conclude an abiding peace.
The. commissioners met at the appointed time and place. The sagamores were also prompt to their engagements. The English, Messrs. Phillips, Hawthorne, and Converse, refused to surrender their hostages, and yet demanded that the Indians should surrender their prisoners before. they would even treat upon the subject of peace. We must respect these chiefs for resenting such an indignity. They replied, -
" You have not brought us our friends, and yet you demand that we shall bring to you yours. This is not fair. We will talk no more."
Abruptly they rose and departed. Thus the truce ended. Again the storms of war spread their desolations far and wide. It was a miserable warfare on each side, shooting individuals whenever they could be found, burning cabins and wigwams, and capturing and scalping without mercy.
1 Williamson, vol. i. p. 641.
CHAPTER XIV.
KING WILLIAM'S WAR. - QUEEN ANNE'S WAR.
Efforts of the French to reduce Fort William Henry - Cruelty of Capt. Chubb - His Fate - Camden Heights-Plunder on the Bay of Fundy - Major Frost - Fearful Tragedies - Consultations for Peace - Assacombuit - Impoverishment of the Province- Cruel Rumors and New Solicitudes - An Intolerant Act - Gov. Dudley - Speech of Simmo - King William's War - Policy of M. Rivières - Shameful Conduct of Englishmen - Third Indian War - Siege of Winter Harbor - Arrival of Capt, Southack.
THE renewal of the dreadful war must be attributed to the folly of the English. During the month of June, 1696, more than twenty persons were shot in the vicinity of the Piscataqua, and many houses were burned. The French resolved to reduce Fort William Henry. In their view, it con- trolled all of Western Acadia.
Capt. Iberville was sent from Quebec, with two men-of-war, and two companies of soldiers. At Port Royal he was to take on board fifty Indians ; and at Castine he was to be joined by Baron Castine and a large additional number. Charlevoix says that there were two hundred savages in the expedition.1 Cas- tine, with his retinue, accompanied the ships along the shore in canoes.
The troops were landed without opposition, and the batteries raised. By the 14th of July, 1696, the fort was invested. Capt. Chubb, who was in command of the garrison, had fifteen guns and ninety-five men, with an ample supply of food and ammunition. Iberville, having placed his cannon and mortars in position simply to show what he could do, sent a summons for surrender. Chubb was particularly obnoxious to the Indians,
1 Hist. Gen. de la Nouv. Fr., t. iii. p. 260.
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who never forgot a wrong. Only five months before, on the 16th of February, 1696, he lured two sachems, Edgeremet and Abenquid, into his fort, and put them both to death. "It was a horrid and cold-blooded act," writes Drake. "Few are the instances that we meet with in history, where Indian treachery, as it is termed, can go before this." 1 To the demand for a sur- render, Chubb returned the spirited reply, " I shall not give up the fort, though the sea be covered with French vessels, and the land with wild Indians."
The bombardment was commenced with great energy. Bombshells, those most terrible thunderbolts of war, fell thick, with death-dealing explosions, within the enclosure. Baron Castine, who seems to have been a humane man, some say a religious man, convinced that the fort could not withstand the cannonade, and knowing, from the antagonism of the Indians to Chubb, that, should the fort be carried by storm, no earthly power could restrain the ferocity of the savages, succeeded in sending to him the following message : " If you delay to surren- der till the works are carried by assault, an indiscriminate massacre of the garrison is inevitable."
Conscious guilt probably made Chubb cowardly. The white flag was raised ; and the terms of capitulation were soon agreed upon. All the garrison were to be conveyed to Boston, and, in exchange for them, just as many French and Indian prisoners- of-war were to be returned. The gates. of the fort were thrown open ; and the conquerors entered, unfurling the French flag upon the captured battlements.
But the Indians found one of their people in irons. He had a deplorable story to tell of the cruel treatment he had received from Chubb. This so exasperated them, that, before Capt. Iber- ville could effectually interpose, several of the English were
1 Drake, book iii. p. 112 .. "Cotton Mather records the crime in language quite unworthy of him. He writes, 'Know, then, reader, that, Capt. March petitioning to be dismissed from his command of the fort at Pemaquid, one Chubb succeeded him. This Chubb found an opportunity, in a pretty Chubbed manner, to kill the famous Edgeremet and Abenquid, a couple of principal sagamores, with one or two other Indians, on a Lord's Day. Some, that well enough liked the thing which was now done, did not altogether like the manner of doing it; because there was a pretence of treaty between Chubb and the sagamores, whereof he took his advantage to lay violent hands upon them.'" - Mather's Magnalia, book vii.
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massacred ; but, by the aid of the French soldiers, he rescued the rest, and removed them, with Chubb, to a small neighbor- ing island, where they were placed under a strong guard.1 Both French and Indians regarded this conquest as a great achievement. The fleet returned to the Penobscot; and, flushed with victory, new efforts were made by the French to enlist all the tribes as allies in the renewal of the war.
The capture of Fort William Henry created much anxiety in Boston. It was feared that the fleet would sweep the whole coast, from the Penobscot to the Piscataqua, burning and destroying. Five hundred men were promptly raised, and sent to the Piscataqua, under the command of Capt. Church. But no enemy appeared there.
Three British men-of-war, with a smaller vessel of twenty guns, and a fire-ship, sailed from Boston for the Penobscot, to attack and destroy the French squadron ; but the fleet was just visible, far away in the distant horizon, on its return to Quebec. Though it was pursued for a few hours, it was soon entirely lost sight of in a dense fog. The English vessels, on their way back to Boston, captured a small French shallop, commanded by Capt. Villeau, with twenty-three French sailors on board.
Major Church embarked a portion of his division in a small well-armed vessel, and sailed along the coast until he cast anchor at the Island of Monhegan. He then boldly pushed on to Penobscot Bay, and ascended, until abreast Camden Heights.2
1 " We will now inform the reader of the wretched fate of Capt. Pasco Chubb. It was not long after he had committed the bloody deed of killing the Indian sagamores, before he and the fort were taken by the French and the Indians. He was exchanged, and returned to Boston, where he suffered much disgrace for his treachery with the Indians. He lived at Andover, in Massachusetts, where the Indians made an attack, in February, 1698, in which he was killed. 'When they found that they had killed him, it gave them as much joy,' says Hutchinson, 'as the destruction of a whole town, because they had taken their beloved vengeance of him for his perfidy and barbarity to their countrymen.' They shot him through several times, after he was dead." - Drake, book iii. p. 113.
2 "Camden Heights are about ten miles overland from Owl's Head. There are five or six of them, in a range from north-west to south-east; and they are clothed with forest-trees to their tops. Mount Batty, which is about three-quarters of a mile from Camden Harbor, is about nine hundred feet high. In our second war with England, an eighteen-pounder was placed upon its summit.
"These are probably the mountains seen by Capt. Weymouth in 1605, and by Capt. Smith in 1614, when they explored Penobscot Bay." - See Williamson's History of Maine, vol. i. p. 95.
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The pilot, who was familiar with that region, and who had once been a captive there in the hands of the Indians, informed Capt. Church, that, about sixty miles up the river, there was a small island, which was a place of general resort by the Indians.
It is supposed that this was the ancient Lett, or Oldtown Island. There was a village here, which, for a long time, con- tinued to be one of the most memorable of the Indian towns. It was situated on the southerly end of an island, containing about three hundred and fifty acres of very rich soil. Church as- cended the river in his vessel as far as what is called the Bend, where Eddington now stands.1 Small vessels could usually ascend nearly to this point. Here Church cast anchor. Land- ing a portion of his force, he commenced a march up the west bank of the river.
It was the month of August. The region was beautiful, and the climate in that latitude, at that season, charming. Ascend- ing a few miles, they passed many spots which the Indians had formerly inhabited, but which were then abandoned. It was the custom to hunt Indians as one would hunt wolves. Often no respect was paid to sex or age. The men succeeded in kill- ing four or five of the natives, and in wounding several. A shattered bone must be a terrible calamity to a poor Indian, who can have no surgical aid.
The adventurers, having inflicted this amount of damage, returned to their vessel, and sailed for the Bay of Fundy. A few French emigrants had their scattered cabins on the northern shores of this bay, where their wives and children lived, in the extreme of poverty. They raised a few bushels of corn, caught a few fishes, and occasionally trapped a beaver, or shot a bird. Their comfortless homes were scarcely a remove above the wig- wam of the savage.
In terror, the inmates of these hovels fled into the wilderness. Capt. Church burned their houses, daaquid, Chyed their little har- vests, and plundered them of their furs and skins, and of what-
1 "From the re-union of the Penobscot with the Stillwater, at the foot of Marsh Island, the river flows south-westerly three miles to the head of the tide at the Bend, where its usual ebb and flow are two feet." - Williamson, vol. i. p. 68.
Đ
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ever else was worth carrying away.1 As he was sailing home- wards with his slender booty, he met, in the waters of Passamaquoddy Bay, an English squadron of three vessels, from Boston. Col. Hawthorne was in command. Capt. Church, thus superseded, was directed to join the fleet, and accompany them to an attack upon St. John. The enterprise was unsuc- cessful, and the vessels returned to Boston.
The inhabitants of Maine, the English, and the savages, were now alike wretched. No man could leave his door without danger of being shot. No family could lay down to sleep at night without being liable to hear the horrible war-whoop before the morning, and of being subjected to the awful tragedy of conflagration, scalping, and massacre. Stern Nature seemed in harmony with the cruelty of man. The winter was one of unprecedented cold; and storms of sleet and snow howled through the tree-tops, and swept all the dreary fields. Many, both Indians and English, were starved to death. Nine Indians, who were out hunting, after eating their dogs, were found dead, the victims of famine.2
Major Charles Frost was in command at Kittery. He was peculiarly obnoxious to the Indians, as they accused him of several acts of treachery.3 A plan was formed to kill him. Several Indians hid behind a large log, about five miles from his house, to shoot him on his way to church. It was Sunday morning, June 4, 1697. Apparently, his wife was riding behind him, on a pillion ; and some one was walking by the side of the horse. There was a simultaneous discharge of the guns of the savages ; and all three fell to the ground in the convul- sions of death.
1 " Among the settlements on the north shore of that bay, he made great destruction, and took considerable plunder." - Williamson, vol. i. p. 646. 2 Mather's Magnalia, vol. ii. p. 556.
3 " We have, in narrating the events in the life of Modokawando, noticed the voyage of Major Waldron to the eastern coast of Maine. How much treachery was manifested at that time by the Indians, which caused the English to massa- cre many of them, we shall not take upon us to declare. Yet this we cannot but bear in mind, that we have only the account of those who performed the tragedy, and not that of those on whom it fell. Capt. Charles Frost of Kittery was with Waldron upon that expedition, and, next to him, a principal actor in it." - Drake, book iii. p. 109.
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Two young men who were hurrying with the tidings to the garrison at Wells were shot by the lurking Indians. Five sol- diers, who had ventured a little distance from the garrison at York, were found scalped, and with their bodies pierced with bullets. One unhappy man, who had incurred the rage of the savages, was roasted to death at a slow fire. A few men from Wells went upon Cow Island for fuel. A man and his two sons were stationed to keep watch. The lurking savages seized them, and carried them off in a canoe. There were several canoes. Lieut. Larabee was out on a scout. He caught sight of the little fleet, and shot three of the Indians, rescuing one captive. The other two were carried away. Doubtless the Indians, in revenge, tortured them to death.
The French raised an army of fifteen hundred French and Indians to recapture Nova Scotia, and ravage all the coasts of New England. This was a prodigious force for this country, in those days. It created great alarm. At a vast expense of money and labor, all the fortifications were strengthened and supplied. Five hundred soldiers, under Major March, were pushed forward to the forts in Maine. Ranging parties were sent in all directions to intercept the Indians.
Major March cast anchor, with his troops, at Damariscotta.1 A band of Indians had discerned his approach. They knew where he would attempt a landing, and concealed themselves in ambush. Scarcely had the troops placed their feet upon the shore of the silent and apparently solitary wilderness, when there came a loud report of musketry, a volley of bullets swept through their ranks, and their ears were almost deafened by the shrill war-whoop. Nearly thirty were killed or wounded. The English, now well accustomed to Indian warfare, rallied for a vigorous defence. The savages fled, probably with but very slight loss. It was their great aim to strike a blow, and then run before the blow could be returned.2
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