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 26
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The nuptials were celebrated ; and in feasting and frolic the hour of midnight had passed, and it is probable that the morn- ing had dawned. Some of the friends were preparing to leave, when it was found that two of the horses were missing. Three young men- Joshua Downing, Isaac Cole, and Sergeant Tucker - went out to find them, apparently without any thought of Indians. They had not proceeded far, when, from the perfect silence and solitude of the forest, a volley of musketry assailed them. Two fell dead. Tucker, severely wounded, was cap- tured by the ambushed savages.
The report of the guns instantly conveyed the terrible tidings to the garrison. The most able and the bravest men of the region were there, and nearly all with military titles. Totally unaware of the number of their foes, with singular imprudence, but with chivalric bravery, they rushed out to grapple with them. They sprang upon their horses, and, in small bands, rode in different directions to cut off the retreat of the Indians.
But the wily savages had placed themselves in ambush on each of these paths, and were quietly awaiting the approach of their victims. The bridegroom, a very heroic young man, led one of these parties of seven or eight men on horseback. Soon they fell into an ambush. At one discharge, every horse was shot down; one man was killed; and young Plaisted, in his bridal attire, was seized by the savages leaping from their con- cealment : the others, in the darkness, escaped.
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The savages seemed to understand perfectly the enterprise in which they were engaged. Plaisted was, in their view, the son of a rich father. They wished, if possible, to capture him, that they might extort a heavy ransom. It was this desire which probably led them to shoot down the horses, instead of the men. In their great eagerness to secure him, the others were allowed to escape.
The Indians, having accomplished their purpose, rapidly fled. A party of seventy soldiers was immediately mustered to pursue them. They came up with the foe in a forest, where every Indian could take his station behind a tree. The English soon found that they were outnumbered by the Indians more than two to one. After a brief skirmish, in which one only was killed on each side, the English ceased firing, and sent forward Lieut. Banks, with a flag of truce, to ascertain on what terms young Plaisted could be ransomed. Six Indian chiefs met the flag. Among them was the noted Bomaseen, of whom we have before spoken.1
The chiefs were not prepared to make an immediate arrange- ment. They wished for more time to consider the matter. They promised to bring their captives, in five days, to Richman's Island, where they would be ready to settle the question. Not- withstanding the large force at the Indians' disposal, they at- tempted no further raids, but immediately retired. Plaisted was finally redeemed ; his father being compelled to pay a ran- som estimated in value at three hundred pounds, equivalent to about fifteen hundred dollars.2
On the 30th of March, 1713, the celebrated Treaty of Utrecht was signed. There was now peace between France and Eng- land. Nova Scotia, the ancient Acadia, was formally surren- dered to the English. Thus this dreadful and wicked war was ended. The Indians had long desired peace. Great was their
1 It will be remembered that Bomaseen was one of the Norridgewock sachems. Upon visiting Pemaquid with a flag of truce, he had been treacherously seized by the English, and carried a captive to Boston. The savage could now have easily retaliated; but he did not.
2 Collections of Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. iii. p. 140; see, also, the account of this affair as given by Williamson, vol. ii. p. 66, and also by Bourne, in his History of Kennebunk and Wells, p. 280.
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joy. Promptly they sent envoys to Casco to establish friendly relations. The English were haughty, and domineering in their exactions. They demanded of the Indians a humiliating con- fession of their offences, compelled them to take the oath of allegiance to the British crown, to promise to sign whatever articles the governor and council might dictate, to give hostages for the faithful performance of these stipulations, and to main- tain these hostages at their own expense.
For the ratification of these severe terms, a council was held at Portsmouth on the 11th of July. Eight sagamores from the Rivers St. John, Penobscot, and Kennebec, met the governor with twenty councillors and a large number of attendant gen- tlemen. The Indians were crushed in spirit, and pliant to the will of their conquerors.1
The war had lasted ten years. During that time, more than a fourth part of the inhabitants of Maine had been either killed or captured. Hutchinson, in his History of Massachusetts, estimates, that, in the thirty-eight years between 1675 and 1713, six thousand of the youth of New England had perished from the casualties of war.2. Many families had become extinct. Nearly all mourned some members lost. In Maine, the desola- tion was awful. The log-cabins were crumbling to decay. The fields, long uncultivated, presented a revolting aspect of briers and thorns, and all wild shrubs.
The fur-trade had become entirely extinct. Lumbering and fishing were at an end. Maine was in a state of impoverish- ment scarcely conceivable. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, who had been captured, were far away in the wilds of Canada ; and no one knew whether they were living or dead. There were no facilities for travelling, in those days, or for com- municating intelligence. Nearly a year passed before a ship was sent to Quebec to bring home the captives; and then they were found so widely dispersed, that it required four months to collect them. Many were lost, and never were heard from.
During this ten-years' war, it is estimated that one-third of
1 The articles of this treaty are given entire in the Collections of the New Hampshire Historical Society, vol. i. pp. 82-86.
2 Hutchinson's History, vol ii. p. 183.
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the Indian warriors of Maine perished, and probably as many more of their women and children, from the bullet, exposure, and starvation. Several tribes had become so enfeebled as to have lost their individual character. The terms of the treaty which the English exacted were so abasing, that the Indians never would have accepted them, had they not been compelled to do so by poverty, suffering, and helplessness.
Castine the Younger, the son of Baron Castine, and whose mother was the honored daughter of one of the most illustrious and powerful of the sagamores, was, by universal admission, a very extraordinary man. The blood of two lines of nobles flowed through his veins. From his father, he inherited the courteous manners of the French noblesse ; and he became a man of intelligence and culture. From his excellent mother, he inherited sympathy for her race, and was ever heroically dis- posed to cast in his lot with that much injured people. His intelligence taught him that the Indians were gaining nothing, and losing every thing, by the wars ; and he was the most zeal- ous of all the chieftains in urging peace. Mr. Williamson pays the following well-merited and beautiful tribute to the memory of this excellent man :-
" He appeared to be entirely free from the bigoted malevolence of the French, and the barbarous, revengeful spirit of the savages. He was a chief sagamore of the Tarratine tribe; and he also held a commission from the French king. By his sweetness of temper, magnanimity, and other valua- ble properties, he was held in high estimation by both people. Nor were the English insensible of his uncommon merit. He had an elegant French uniform which he sometimes wore; yet, on all occasions, he preferred to appear in the habit of his tribe. It was in him both policy and pleasure to promote peace with the English. And, in several instances where they had treated him with abuse, he gave proofs of forbearance worthy of a philoso- pher's or Christian's imitation." 1
The perfect confidence which the English reposed in his honor was manifested in their trusting him, as a friend and companion, to conduct Major Levingston through the wilder- ness from Port Royal to Quebec.
1 Williamson, vol. ii. p. 70. For further particulars of this remarkable man, see Universal History, vol. xl. p. 180.
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A new era of peace and prosperity, it was hoped, was now about to dawn upon Maine. A stable government began slowly to be organized. Institutions for education and religion began to arise. Earnest endeavors were made to promote purity of morals.
For thirty-eight years, the inhabitants of Maine had been engaged in an almost incessant conflict with the Indians. But for the wickedness of man, these might have been happy years, in which beautiful villages would have been reared, and gardens would have bloomed, and parents and children would have lived happily together, with ever-increasing prosperity. But they were years of general impoverishment and woe. The war had suspended all the meetings of the Superior Court of Maine. In answer to petitions from Maine, the General Court of Massa- chusetts, on the 5th of June, 1711, ordered the Superior Court to hold an annual session at Kittery.
On the 9th of June, 1713, the town of Berwick was incor- porated. This was the ninth town in the State. The other towns were Kittery, York, Wells, Cape Porpoise, Saco, Scar- borough, Falmouth, and North Yarmouth. The village rapidly increased ; for the soil was good, and the original settlers highly respectable. It speaks well for this people, that, as early as 1702, a church was organized there. John Wade was its first pastor. 3 He was succeeded by Rev. Jeremiah Wise, a man eminent for his scholarship and his piety. For forty-eight years the community was blessed with his ministrations.
Kittery was divided into two parishes. The new one was called Eliot. Rev. John Rogers was settled here in 1715. The stable character of the people may be inferred from the fact that he continued to fill the pulpit for fifty-eight years. In the old parish at Kittery, the people, as early as 1669, built a par- sonage, and supported a faithful pastor for fifteen years. In the year 1714, there was a church there of forty-three members. Rev. John Newmarch, a scholarly man, and a graduate from Harvard University, was the faithful preacher to an affectionate people for thirty-five years. In York, Rev. Samuel Moody ministered, with untiring fidelity, for forty-seven years. He was a man of many eccentricities, but highly esteemed for his accomplished scholarship and his many virtues.
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The eastern provinces of the State presented, at the close of the war, truly a melancholy aspect. More than a hundred miles of coast, along which had been scattered the comfortable dwell- ings of the settlers with their cultivated fields, were laid utterly desolate. Not a dwelling remained. Title-deeds and records were all lost. In re-settling the region, it was deemed expedi- ent that the people should gather in small villages of twenty or thirty families, with home lots of but four or five acres. For the sake of the fisheries, these little settlements were generally on the seacoast.
Emigrants began slowly to return to the demolished towns of Saco, Scarborough, Falmouth, and North Yarmouth. In the year 1714 there were about twenty families in Falmouth ; and these families, notwithstanding their great impoverishment, at once commenced building a meeting-house. North Yarmouth was one of the last of the dilapidated towns which was re-settled.
Upon the death of Richard Wharton, the proprietor of the Pejepscot purchase, the whole immense territory included in that purchase was sold to a company for one hundred pounds. The boundary line, it will be remembered, as then understood, ran from five miles above the Upper Falls,1 in a north-east direc- tion, to the Kennebec River. Four miles west of the falls, it took a strip of land, four miles wide, to Maquoit Bay ; and thence down the Kennebec, and through Merrymeeting Bay, to the mouth of the Sagadahoc. Such, in general, were the boun- daries of this purchase.
The proprietors laid out three townships ; those of Bruns- wick, Topsham, and Harpswell. The two first were six miles square ; one on the north or east side of the river, the other on the southern side. The third town, Harpswell, included a peninsula running down into the bay, and two islands. Fort George was built near the falls at Brunswick. Settlers came very slowly to these towns. In the year 1718 there was not a single dwelling in Brunswick excepting the fort at the falls, and a
1 "At Lewiston, twenty miles above Brunswick, the cataract is called the Upper Falls of Pejepscot, where the water tumbles over massy rocks, and rushes through narrow passes about one hundred feet perpendicular from the surface above to the bed below." - Williamson's History of Maine, vol. i.p. 45.
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block-house at Maquoit Bay. Three families had settled in Topsham. It was not until about 1720 that any families en- tered Harpswell.1
Gradually families began to return to the utter desolation which reigned at the mouth of the Sagadahoc. A Boston gen- tleman erected at Arrowsic Island 2 a large brick dwelling, which remained there for more than half a century. In the year 1715 there were twenty-six residents on the island. In answer to a petition from the inhabitants, it was incorporated, together with Parker's Island,3 in the year 1716, by the name of Georgetown. Fifteen new settlers immediately repaired to . the place; and the governor of Massachusetts sent a sergeant's guard of twenty men to protect the inhabitants for six months.
This was then the most remote settlement on our eastern frontier. The Sagadahoc plantations have been appropriately called the " Ancient Dominions " of Maine. In the early his- tory of the State, this region had more celebrity than any other, with perhaps the exception of York and Falmouth. Here a colony was established as early as 1607, thirteen years before the commencement of the Plymouth Colony. In 1623, but three years after the landing of the Pilgrims, there were eighty- four families residing in this region; and quite a fleet of fisher- men annually visited those waters.
There were two patents, which embraced all the land in this vicinity. The one was the Pejepscot, to which we have just referred. The other was called the Plymouth or Kennebec patent. The proprietors of each of these territories offered such families as would remove there, one hundred acres of good land, and promised to pay the expenses of their removal. As an additional inducement they offered to contribute liberally
1 Williamson, vol. ii. p. 89. See also Collections of Massachusetts Historical Society, p. 141.
2 Arrowsic Island is about five miles long with a mean breadth of about one mile. It contains, according to Williamson, four thousand acres of land. Coolidge and Mansfield say twenty thousand acres. There is much marsh land and many ledges, which in the estimate of acres, perhaps the one writer discards and the others reckon. - Williamson, vol. i. p. 53 ; Coolidge and Mansfield, p. 34.
8 "Parker's Island lies north-easterly of Arrowsic, and is separated from it by Back River. It is nine miles long, and on an average a mile and a half in width, containing about ten thousand acres." - Williamson, vol. i. p. 53.
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towards the support of a minister of the gospel. Soon a strong stone fort was built at Augusta, then called Cushnoc or Cush- enoc. It was the strongest fortress in the eastern country, and was for some time maintained at the public expense. In refer- ence to the encouragement given to emigrants, Penhallow writes, "Several towns, as of Brunswick, Topsham, Georgetown, and Cushenoc began to be settled. A great many fine build- ings, with saw-mills, were erected. Husbandry began to thrive, and great stocks of cattle were raised." 1
The sturgeon-fishery was then deemed a very important branch of industry. In some seasons more than twenty vessels were engaged in this employment. All sorts of timber were also sent to Boston, and even to foreign ports. During the winter of 1716, the fort of Pemaquid was repaired, and a garri- son was established there. The Indians were alarmed in view of the strong forts which the English were raising at important points. Again there were rumors of another war between France and England. It is said that the French endeavored to fan the flames of Indian jealousy, by pointing to the encroach- ments of the English, as evidence that the English claimed all their lands, and intended to take possession of the whole coun- try. The Catholic missionaries, by identifying themselves with the Indians, and becoming incorporated into their tribes, had obtained a wonderful ascendancy over them. The Indians had ceased to regard them as foreigners, and looked upon them as the wisest and best of their own people.
The English authorities had tried in vain to drive the French missionaries from Norridgewock. They now decided to make the endeavor to supplant their influence by establishing English missions among the tribes.2 By previous appointment the governor and his council met a large number of the Indian chiefs at Arrowsic. It was in August, 1717. The governor was a haughty man, and was not inclined to be conciliatory in speech or manner. He presented the sachems with the Bible,3
1 Penhallow's Indian Wars was printed in the year 1726.
2 The General Court offered to pay any minister one hundred and fifty pounds annually who would reside at Fort George (Pemaquid), learn the dialect of the tribe, and become their instructor, - Williamson, vol. ii. p. 92.
8 In the year 1683, the second edition of the Indian Bible, by Mr. Eliot, was completed. - Drake's Book of the Indians, book ii. p. 57.
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in the Indian language, and said to them, " This book contains the true religion. Mr. Baxter, who has accompanied us, will remain with you, and teach you its principles."
One of the sagamores promptly replied, " All people have their own religious teachers. Your Bible we do not care to keep. God has given us teachers. Should we abandon them, we should offend God."1
The chiefs then turned to the political questions which were creating trouble ; and, in the conference which ensued, they showed themselves to be men of remarkable strength of mind, and good common-sense. Their principal speaker said, " We admit that the land west of the Kennebec River, the English have a claim to regard as theirs ; but certainly no sale has ever been made to them, of the country east of that river."
The governor, with dogmatism and discourtesy which those dignified chieftains keenly felt, instead of arguing the point at all, exclaimed, " You may be assured that we will never part with one inch of our lands in that quarter."
There was for a moment silence; and then these chieftains simultaneously rose, and, without uttering a word, left the council, repaired to their canoes, and paddled to another island.
1 According to the account given in the "Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses écrites des Missions Etrangères," one of the chiefs gave the following answer to the proposition that they should dismiss their missionary, and take an English- man in his stead: -
"You astonish me by the proposition you make. When you first came here you saw me a long time before I saw the French; but neither you nor your min- isters spoke to me of prayer, or of the Great Spirit. They saw my furs, my skins of beaver and elk. Of these only they thought. These they sought with the greatest eagerness. Iwas not able to furnish them enough. When I carried them a large quantity, I was their great friend, but no farther.
" One day, my canoe having missed its route, I lost my way. After wan- dering a long time I landed near Quebec. Scarcely had I arrived when one of the Black Robes came to see ine. I was loaded with furs; but the French Black Robe scarcely deigned to look at them. He spoke to me at once of the Great Spirit, of heaven, of hell, and of prayer which is the only way to reach heaven.
"I heard him with pleasure, and remained a long time in the village to listen to him, I demanded baptism, and received it. At last I returned to my country, and related what had happened to me. My friends envied my happiness, and wished to participate. They departed to find the Black Robe, and demand of him baptism. It is thus that the French have acted towards me. Thus I tell you that I hold to the prayer of the French. I shall be faithful to it until the world is burned up."
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They had brought with them to the council an English flag, as indicative that they were the friends and allies of the English. This flag they left behind them, the silent token of their dis- pleasure.
The English claimed the land belonging to the Indians, east- ward of the Kennebec River, on the ground that the king of France had ceded those lands to them by the Treaty of Utrecht. The sagamores, as usual, appealed to their revered friend and advocate, Father Rasle, for advice.1 He immediately wrote to the governor of Massachusetts, that the king of France had never conceded to the English, lands which belonged to the Indians. He had merely withdrawn the French flag from those lands where he had been the protector of the Indians, and had surrendered to the English the right of purchasing and coloniz- ing their lands. And the king of France, he said, would feel bound to protect those Indians, should the king of England assume that France had given England authority to seize upon their territory.
Armed with this letter, the sagamores, probably on the even- ing of the next day, returned to Arrowsic.2 The conference was renewed. The governor did not conceal his indignation at what he pronounced to be "the insolent interference of the Jesuit." Knowing full well that the Indians had suffered so severely, that they would submit to almost any indignity, rather than consent to the renewal of the war, he assumed a menacing attitude, and threatened again to draw the sword. This brought the sagamores almost to their knees. They said, through their principal speaker, -
" It is our desire to live in peace. We wish to open friendly trade at fair prices. And we are willing to relinquish, for the present, all talk about boundary lines; and we give our consent that the English should settle un- molested wherever their fathers had settlements. But we are very much disturbed in seeing so many forts going up."
1 The name of this man, according to our English authors, was Ralle; but ac- cording to his own historian, Charlevoix, it was Rasle.
2 Mr. Williamson says, on the evening of the same day. But it was impossi- ble for the chiefs, in that time, to have sent to Norridgewock, and have obtained a return. It is, however, not impossible that Father Rasle may have accompanied the sagamores to their encampment on a neighboring island; but we have nu intimation to that effect.
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The governor had conquered. New articles of agreement were entered into, such as he dictated. The humiliated saga- mores returned to their homes, feeling that the English were their enemies, and that the French were their friends.1
Energetic efforts were made to extend the settlements east- ward of the Kennebec River. Several families reared their log cabins on the Damariscotta.2 It is said that at that time there was not a house between Georgetown and Annapolis, with the exception of a single fisherman's hut on Damariscotta Island. A strong and capacious fort, much to the annoyance of the Indians, was built on the easterly bank of St. George's River, near where Thomaston now stands. At a short distance from that, a block-house was erected. The large area between was enclosed by palisades. This fortress, which could bid defiance to all Indian assailments, afforded ample accommodation for a garrison of two hundred and fifty men. Another strong fortress was built on the east side of the Kennebec River, opposite Swan Island. It was called Fort Richmond.3
The spring of 1721 opened gloomily. The Indians were much dissatisfied in view of the encroachments of the English. The strong forts they were building indicated that the English were determined to hold possession of the country. In these views the Indians unquestionably had the sympathy of Father Rasle.4
1 Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, vol. ii. p. 199 ; Collections of New Hampshire Historical Society, vol. ii. p. 89.
2 " The Damariscotta River issues from the Damariscotta fresh ponds, which are in Jefferson and Nobleborough, and which are three or four leagues in length from north to south. The river is navigable for ships of any burthen, about four leagues from the sea to the lower falls, and is, on an average, half a mile in width." - Williamson, vol. i. p. 56.
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