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 28
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Kennebunk River two families were attacked. Some were killed, and others carried into captivity.1
On the 25th of December, a very determined band of about sixty warriors made a desperate attack upon the fort at St. George's River.2 For thirty days they continued the siege, with a degree of persistence which they had never before manifested. The defence was heroic. At length re-enforcements arrived, and the Indians retired, taking with them one captive.3
For the protection of the frontiers during the winter months, three ranging parties were organized of fifty men each, who were to be continually on the move in search of Indian bands. There were, at that time, fifteen forts or garrison-houses, all of which were strengthened, re-enforced, and fully supplied.4 But the Indians, as the snows fell heavily in the forests, and the icy winds swept the plains, undertook no campaign, but gathered around the fires in their far-distant wigwams.
The desire to capture Father Rasle continued unabated. A thousand livres were offered for his head.5 In mid-winter Capt. Moulton was sent with an armed force up the Kennebec River to Norridgewock, to kill or to capture him. But the vigilant eye of the Indians had detected the movement. They all fled, taking their missionary with them. Capt. Moulton was a humane man. The little Indian village at Norridgewock seemed to be emerging from barbarism to civilization. He therefore, hoping that his example of forbearance might exert a salutary influence upon the minds of the Indians, ordered his soldiers to inflict no wanton injury. The men returned from their fruitless expedition, leaving all things as they had found them.
1 Sullivan's History of Maine, p. 230.
2 St. George's River rises in Montville. After running south twenty-five miles, affording a variety of mill privileges, it meets the tide in Warren, twenty miles from its mouth. The old fort was on the east side of the river, about sixteen miles above its mouth. The residence of Gen. Knox was subsequently built near its ruins. - Williamson, vol. i. p. 50.
3 Hutchinson's History, vol. ii. p. 276.
4 These were at St. George, Arrowsic, Richmond, North Yarmouth, Saco, Arundel, Kennebunk, Wells, York, Kittery, and Berwick. - Records, Resolves, and Journals of Massachusetts Government, vol. ii. p. 198.
5 Collections of Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. viii. p. 266. A livre was a French coin valued at about eighteen and three-quarters cents. It is now super- seded by the franc.
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The Kennebec was famous for its rich fishery. Sturgeon and salmon were in abundance. Water-fowl crowded its shores. Its fertile meadows, free from forest, afforded the Indians invit- ing fields for their corn. To prevent them from fishing, fowl- ing, or planting, and thus to distress them with famine, thirty men were sent early in the spring to range the river in boats.
Early in March of 1724, the Indians recommenced their depredations. More than thirty people in Maine were either killed, wounded, or carried into captivity, in the course of three months. Like wolves they came rushing from the forest, and no one could anticipate their point of attack. One man was shot upon his door-sill. Mr. Mitchell, with his two little boys, was at work in his field, when unseen savages, skulking behind stumps and trees, shot him down, and carried away his boys as captives. At Kennebunk the savages captured a sloop, after killing all of the crew. Near by, three men, at work in a saw- mill, were killed. At Berwick Mr. Thompson was shot, one of his children tomahawked, and the other left for dead, bleeding, gasping, and scalped. Such was the character of this wretched warfare.
There was another tragic adventure which merits more special notice. A boat's company of sixteen well-armed men left the fort on St. George's River on a fishing excursion. It was the 30th of April, 1724. They embarked in two strong whale- boats, led by Capt. Josiah Winslow, who was commandant of the garrison. The boats passed down the river, and sailed along the coast to the east, until they reached the Green Islands in Penobscot Bay. It seems that the Indians caught sight of them, and nearly a hundred warriors gathered in ambush on the banks of the St. George, to cut them off on their return. They hid in the thick underbrush at a narrow point of the stream, on both banks. They had thirty canoes carefully con- cealed. The Indians waited until one boat had passed by, and then poured a deadly volley of bullets into the other. Nearly every man was killed or wounded. The savages then leaped into their canoes, and, outnumbering their foes more than ten to one, ventured upon an open attack, completely surrounding the boats.
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The English, seeing their destruction to be inevitable, re- solved to sell their lives as dearly as possible. They fought desperately until all were shot down. How many warriors the savages lost in the bloody fray, was never known. It appears that there were three friendly Indians in the boats, and these the savages allowed to escape. The death of Capt. Winslow was deeply felt. He was a young man of great worth, a recent graduate from Harvard College, and a member of one of the most illustrious families of Massachusetts.
The savages succeeded, during the summer, in capturing twenty-two fishing vessels. They made a fleet of fifty canoes. These light birch-bark structures they could carry through the forest paths almost as easily as they could carry a musket. Each canoe was generally sufficient for three warriors. Launch- ing them at any designated point, they would push out with great rapidity, and entirely surround a small vessel, whose crew ordinarily consisted of but from five to eight men. The capture was then easy. Any one who exposed himself upon the deck was sure to be shot down.
In these encounters twenty-two men were killed, and twenty- three carried into captivity.1 The triumphant Indians, having destroyed sixteen of the garrison of the fort in the whale-boats, now paddled up the river, hoping to capture the fort itself, and seize all its valuable contents.2
This fortification bade defiance to all their efforts. It was built of hewn timber, twenty inches square. It was quadran- gular in form, each side being a hundred feet in length and sixteen feet high. Within the enclosure there was a good sup- ply of comfortable barracks and a good well of water. From the southern wall there was a covered way, constructed of logs, leading to a large, strong block-house upon the bank of the
1 Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, vol. ii. p. 278; Penhallow's Indian Wars.
2 "The English asserted that the Indians had sold the land to Gov. Phips, the deed having been signed by one of their chiefs, Madockawando. In reply to this, the Indians maintained that the Madockawando and Sheepscot John, who signed the deed, were not Penobscot Indians, one belonging to Machias and the other in the vicinity of Boston; consequently these chiefs had disposed of what did not rightfully belong to them, and the deed was therefore null and void." - History of New England, by Coolidge and Mansfield, vol. i. p. 324.
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river, where several pieces of cannon commanded the stream. The Indians, finding that they could make but little impression upon these strong works, retired, and soon made their appear- ance again at Arrowsic. They succeeded in capturing three of the inhabitants, and in killing many cattle.
About the middle of July a band of twenty-seven made an attack upon a house near the garrison at Spurwink. They shot Mr. Solomon Jordan as he was incautiously leaving the gate of the garrison. They were driven off, and a heroic band from the fort pursued them. The Indians, taken by surprise in their encampment, fled, leaving behind them twenty-five packs, twelve blankets, a gun, and several other articles. The Indians generally carried away their dead. One only was found killed. Him the English scalped, and for the revolting trophy received a bounty of a hundred pounds in Boston.1
There was no village of the Indians which presented more attractions than Old Point, where the pleasant little hamlet of Norridgewock stood. The Kennebec here makes a large bend, forming a beautiful and rich intervale of about a hundred acres. The village was regularly built on the land as it gently rose above the intervale. The huts were erected on one street or path, about eight feet wide. The church, surmounted by the cross, was by far the most imposing building in the place. It stood a little back from the street, at the lower end of the village, and was neatly constructed of hewn timber. A spring of delicious water gushed from the bank, affording to all an ample supply.2
1 History of Portland, by William Willis, p. 349.
2 Francis, in his Life of Father Rasle, writes, " Whoever has visited the pleas- ant town of Norridgewock as it now is must have heard of Indian Old Point, as the people call the place where Rasle's village stood; and perhaps curiosity may have carried him thither. If so, he has found a lovely sequestered spot, in the depths of nature's stillness, on a point around which the waters of the Kennebec, not far from their confluence with those of the Sandy River, sweep on in their beautiful course, as if to the music of the rapids above; a spot over which the sad memory of the past, without its passions, will throw a charm, and on which he will believe the ceaseless worship of nature might blend itself with the aspirations of Christian devotion.
" And he will turn from the place with the feeling that the hatefulness of the mad spirit of war is aggravated by such a connection with nature's sweet retire- ment."
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The rich intervale, entirely free from forest or brush, afforded an admirable cornfield ; and, under the careful culture of the women, an ample harvest of the golden grain was generally gathered. About two miles above the village there were some falls where salmon, shad, and alewives were taken in great abundance. The poet Whittier, in his poem of " Mog Megone," gives a very graphic description of the charming scenery of this spot. Alluding to the log-built chapel, he writes, -
" Yet the traveller knows it a house of prayer, For the sign of the holy cross is there; And should he chance at that place to be, Of a sabbath morn, or some hallowed day, When prayers are made and masses are said, Some for the living and some for the dead, - Well might that traveller start to see The tall dark forms that take their way, From the birch canoe on the river shore, And the forest paths, to that chapel door; Marvel to mark the naked knees, And the dusky foreheads bending there, While in coarse white vesture, over these, In blessing or in prayer, Stretching abroad his thin pale hands, Like a shrouded ghost the Jesuit stands."
The church was well adapted to make a deep impression upon the minds of the Indians. It was quite richly decorated with paintings of the crucifixion, and of other momentous events in biblical history. Silver plate was provided for sacramental ser- vices. Father Rasle, with apostolic self-denial and zeal, had been laboring amidst the solitudes of that remote wilderness for thirty-five years. He had made many converts, and had won, to an extraordinary degree, the love of the whole tribe.
The converts were put on probation for a time; and after suitable instruction, when Father Rasle became convinced of their sincerity, they were baptized, and admitted to full com- munion. About forty young Indians were trained to form a choir, and in other ways to assist the pastor in his religious exercises. They were clad in surplices and other clerical robes, intended to impress the people with a sense of the solemnity of their service.
Morning and evening the Indians were assembled in the
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chapel for prayer and singing. Living generally a listless life, with but little to do and but little to occupy their minds, the households gathered eagerly in the chapel to enjoy these observ- ances. In one of his letters he testifies to the sweetness with which the young Indians sang, and to the unvarying propriety and devoutness with which they performed their religious duties.
We have before mentioned that Father Rasle was by birth a gentleman of illustrious family, and that he had received an accomplished education ; yet we can never detect in his letters a murmur in view of the hardships of his lot. To his nephew in France he writes, -
"Here I am, in a cabin in the woods, in which I find both crosses and religious observances among the Indians. At the dawn of the morning I say mass in the chapel, made of the branches of the fir-tree. The residue of the day I spend in visiting and consoling the savages. It is a severe affliction to see so many famished persons, without being able to relieve their hunger."
Many years ago thirty-four volumes of " Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses," written from distant missionary stations, were published in France. The following extract from one of Father Rasle's letters will be read with interest. It was dated at Narantsouk, which is the Indian name for Norridgewock, Oct. 15, 1722, only about two years before his death : -
" None of my converts fail to repair twice each day to the church, - in the morning to hear mass, and in the evening to assist at the prayers which I offer at sunset. As it is necessary to fix the imagination of these Indians, which is too easily distracted, I have composed some appropriate prayers for them to make, to enable them to enter into the spirit of the august sacrifice of our altars. Besides the sermons which I deliver before them on Sundays and festival days, I scarcely pass a week-day without making a short exhortation to inspire them with a horror of those vices to which they are most addicted, or to strengthen them in the practice of some virtue.
" After mass I teach the catechism to the children and young persons, while a large number of aged people who are present assist, and answer with perfect docility the questions which I put to them. The rest of the morning, even to mid-day, is set apart for seeing those who wish to speak with me. They come to me in crowds to make me a participator in their
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pains and inquietudes, or to communicate to me causes of complaint against their countrymen, or to consult me on their marriages and other affairs of importance.
" It is therefore necessary for me to instruct some, to console others, to re-establish peace in families at variance, to calm troubled consciences, to correct others by reprimands mingled with softness and charity; in fine, as far as possible to render them all contented.
" After mid-day I visit the sick, and go around among the cabins of those who require more particular instructions. If they hold a council, which is often the case with these Indians, they depute one of their principal men to ask me to assist in their deliberations. I accordingly repair to the place where their council is held. If I think they are pursuing a wise course, I approve of it. If, on the contrary, I have any thing to say in opposition to their decision, I declare my sentiments, supporting them by weighty reasons. My advice always fixes their resolutions.
" In the midst of such occupations, you cannot imagine with what rapidity the days pass by. When the Indians repair to the seashore, where they pass some months in hunting ducks and other birds which are found there in large numbers, they build on an island a church, which they cover with bark, and near it they erect a little cabin for my residence. I take care to transport thither a part of our ornaments, and the service is per- formed with the same decency and the same crowds of people as at the village.
"You see, then, my dear nephew, what are my occupations. For that which relates to me personally, I will say to you that I neither see, nor hear, nor speak to any but the Indians. My food is very simple and light. I have never been able to conform my taste to the meat or smoked fish of the savages. My nourishment is composed only of corn which they pound, and of which I make, each day, a kind of hominy, which I boil in water. The only luxury in which. I indulge is a little sugar, which I mix with it to correct its insipidity. This is now wanting in the forest. In the spring the maple-trees contain a liquor very similar to that which is found in the sugar-canes of the southern islands. The women employ themselves in col- lecting this in vessels of bark as it is distilled from the trees. They then boil it, and draw off from it a very good sugar."
On the 19th of August, 1724, a party of two hundred and eight men, accompanied by three Mohawk Indians, left Rich- mond Fort, opposite Swan Island, for an attack upon Norridge- wock. The troops ascended the river in seventeen whale-boats. The next day they reached Teconnet, now Winslow, where they landed. Forty men were left to guard the boats ; the remainder of the party commenced a rapid march, on the morn- ing of the 21st, through the woods, to strike the foe by surprise.
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The party was led by Capts. Harmon 1 and Moulton. Towards the evening of that day they overtook the noted chief Boma- seen, with his wife and daughter. The chief and his child were both shot ; the wife was taken captive.2
It was a little after noon of the 22d when the soldiers came in sight of the village. The party was divided into three bands of nearly equal numbers, so as to encircle the village, and cut off all escape. Two of these were placed in ambush, while the remainder were marshalled for an impetuous charge. There is considerable diversity in the details of the narratives which are given of the massacre which ensued. After examining several different accounts, the writer thinks the following as impartial as any which can now be given : -
The thickets which surrounded the village were so dense that the assailants were not discovered until they poured in a volley of bullets upon the wigwams and their inmates. Immediately, with loud shouts, the English rushed upon their victims. The consternation was terrible. The only thing thought of was escape by flight. There were but about fifty men in the village. It is evident that nothing like a defence was attempted, since the Indians were skilled marksmen, and yet not an Englishman was shot.
The savages endeavored only to save their aged men, their wives, and their children. In a tumultuous mass, the women and children shrieking, they rushed towards the river. The encircling foe cut off escape in every other direction. Though the water was low, in the channel it was six feet deep, which precluded the possibility of wading across. The husbands and fathers endeavored, by swimming, to aid the helpless. A dread- ful slaughter took place. Those placed in ambush rose, and all rushed forward, hurling a storm of bullets upon the crowded assemblage of men, women, and children struggling in the water.
The deed was soon accomplished. Many were drowned, and
1 Sullivan, p. 175, probably by mistake, calls the senior officer Hammond.
2 They fell in with Bomaseen about Taconnet, where they shot him as he was escaping through the river. His wife and daughter were in a barbarous manner fired upon; the daughter killed and the mother taken. - Drake's Book of the In- dians, book iii. p. 111
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many pierced by bullets were swept down by the stream to their watery graves. It was estimated that about eighty were slain. This seems a small number when we reflect that nearly two hundred practised soldiers were discharging their guns as rapidly as possible upon them, taking deliberate aim. The awful deed of slaughter was soon accomplished. The pursuers returned to the village, where they found Father Rasle in the parsonage. As he came forward to meet them, a shower of bullets pierced his body, and he fell dead.1
The slain, such as could be found, including Father Rasle, were scalped, and the soldiers retired. Gradually the Indians who had escaped returned to their utterly desolated homes. Even the stoicism of the savage was overcome, as he gazed upon the smouldering ruins, and the gory bodies of his relatives and friends, men, women, and children, which were strewed around. Their first care was to search for the remains of their beloved missionary. These they washed, and with prayers and loud lamentations buried below the altar, where he had so often ministered to them in sacred things. Over the remains they reared a rude cross. Their chief Bomaseen, and the others of the dead, they also buried with such solemnities as they had been taught to exercise.2
The tribe was destroyed. The few woe-stricken survivors, having completed their mournful task, turned sadly from the homes endeared to them by all the associations of childhood, and which their ancestors had occupied through countless gen- erations, and sought refuge with the Penobscots. The name of the Norridgewocks was blotted forever from the register of Indian tribes.
The reader will be interested in reading the account which the French historian, Père de Charlevoix, gives of this tragic
1 " Great brutality and ferocity are chargeable to the English in this affair, according to their own account; such as killing women and children, and scalping and mangling the body of Father Rasle." - Drake's Book of the Indians, book iii. p. 119.
2 For further particulars see Belknap's History of New Hampshire, vol. ii. p. 50; Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, vol. ii. p. 279; Penhallow's Indian Wars. It will be perceived that there are considerable discrepancies in the details.
S
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event in his " Histoire et Discoverie Générale de la Nouvelle France." We give a literal translation from the French : -
" There were then but fifty warriors in the village. They seized their arms, and ran tumultuously, not to defend the place against an enemy who had already entered it, but to aid the aged men, the women, and the children in their flight, and to give them time to gain the other side of the river. Father Rasle, apprised, by the clamor and the tumult, of the danger in which his converts were involved, presented himself unintimidated to his assailants, with the hope of drawing upon himself alone their attention, and thus to secure the safety of his flock at the peril of his own life.
" His hope was not in vain. Scarcely had he appeared when the English gave a great shout, which was followed by a shower of bullets, of which he fell dead near a cross which he had planted in the middle of the village. Seven Indians who had accompanied him, and who had wished to make for him a rampart of their own bodies, were killed at his side.
" Thus died this loving pastor, giving his life for his flock, after a labori- ous mission of thirty-seven years. Thrown into consternation by his death, the Indians fled. The English, finding that they had none left to resist them, fell first to pillaging and then to burning the wigwams. They spared the church so long as they thought proper to profane the image of the adora- ble Saviour and the sacred vessels, and then they set it on fire. At length they withdrew in so great precipitation that it was rather a flight. They seemed to be struck with a perfect panic.
" The Indians immediately returned to their village. It was their first care to weep over the body of their holy missionary, while the women were looking for plants and herbs to heal their wounded. They found him shot in a thousand places, scalped, his skull broke to pieces with the blows of the hatchets, his mouth and eyes full of mud, and the bones of his legs frac- tured, and all his members mangled in a hundred different ways. After his converts had raised up and oftentimes kissed the precious remains, so tenderly and so justly beloved by them, they buried him in the same place where he had, the evening before, celebrated the sacred mysteries; namely, where the altar stood before the church was burned.1
In the year 1833, Benedict Fenwick, bishop of Boston, re- paired to the site of the little chapel of Rasle, in Norridgewock, and on the anniversary of its destruction, Aug. 23, erected a monument to the memory of the self-denying missionary.
It was of granite, surmounted by an iron cross. From the foundation to the highest point of the cross is eighteen feet. A Latin inscription, of which the following is a literal transla- tion, was cut into the stone: -
1 Histoire Generale, t. ii. p. 332.
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" Rev. Sebastian Rasle, a native of France, a missionary of the society of Jesuits, at first preaching for a few years to the Illinois and Hurons, afterwards for thirty-four years to the Abenaquis, in faith and charity a true apostle of Christ; undaunted by the danger of arms, often testifying that he was prepared to die for his flock; at length this best of pastors fell amidst arms at the destruction of the village of Norridgewock and the ruins of his own church, in this very place, on the twenty-third day of August, A.D. 1724.
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