USA > Maine > The history of Maine > Part 22
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51
There is probably more poetry than prose in that statement. We apprehend that there was little time for laughter on that dreadful day, when the feeble little garrison was struggling against a foe outnumbering it nearly twenty to one. They believed that it was the determination of the Indians, incited by the French, to destroy every vestige of the English settle- ments, and to put to death, or drive from the land, all the Eng- lish inhabitants.
Capt. Converse had but fifteen men in what was called the Storer's garrison.1 The battle of the first day was mainly directed against the garrison. But brave hearts behind strong defences beat off the foe. The sloops were anchored in a nar- row creek, which was bordered with high banks. The vessels were so near the shore, that the Indians, from their hiding-
1 "We know not whether the little band on board the vessels, or the noble men and women within the garrison, are entitled to the higher meed. History speaks of fifteen soldiers within the latter; but we think there may have been thirty. Whether the latter or the former is the true number, the victory over the assail- ants was one that entitles not only these soldiers, but all who were within the walls of the fort, to the grateful remembrance of those who have entered into their labors." - Bourne's History of Wells and Kennebunk, p. 216.
238
THE HISTORY OF MAINE.
places, could easily throw stones on board. They built a breast- work of planks, over which they cautiously took aim. With fire-arrows they succeeded several times in setting the vessels on fire. But the sailors extinguished the flames with mops on the end of long poles.
At length the Indians built a breastwork on a cart. This they pushed within fifty feet of one of the vessels. Not a shot could strike them. As they were carefully pressing it forward, one of the wheels entered a rut. It could not be extricated without exposure. A gallant Frenchman sprung to the wheel, and was instantly shot down. Another Frenchman took his place : he, also, fell, pierced by a bullet. The Indians did not regard this as sensible warfare, but fled as fast as possi- ble.
The next morning was Sunday. The enemy combined all their energies in a renewed attack upon the garrisons; but their bullets produced no effect upon the strong block-houses. Not a man was wounded. Many of the Indian chiefs could speak English. They often called upon Capt. Converse to sur- render. To these summons he returned defiant answers. One of the chiefs shouted, " Since you feel so stout, Converse, why do you not come out into the field and fight like a man, and not stay in a garrison, like a squaw ?"
" What a pack of fools you are !" Converse replied. "Do you think that I am willing, with but thirty men, to fight your five hundred ? But select thirty of your warriors, and, with them only, come upon the plain, and I am ready for you."
" No, no!" the chief replied in broken English. " We think English fashion all one fool, -you kill me, me kill you. Not SO. We lie somewhere, and shoot 'em Englishmen when he no see. That's the best soldier."
Another Indian exclaimed, " We will cut you into pieces as small as tobacco, before to-morrow morning."
" Come on, then," the brave captain retorted: " we are all ready for work."
Finding their efforts unavailing, the combined foe of French and savages again turned their attention to the two small sloops which were anchored close together. There were but seven or
-
239
THE HISTORY OF MAINE.
eight sailors on board.1 An army of five hundred men attacked them. Small, comparatively, as were the contending forces, it is indeed true that a more heroic defence history has seldom recorded. The savages constructed a raft about twenty feet square, upon which they piled all kinds of combustibles, - dried branches, birch-bark, and evergreen boughs. Applying the torch, they converted it into an island of fire, the forked tongues of flame rising twenty or thirty feet high.
The destruction of the sloops now seemed sure. Five hun- dred yells of triumph pierced the air, as the fire-raft swung from its moorings, and floated down on the current towards the apparently doomed vessels. No skill, no courage, could avail against such a foe. But they were saved by a more than human power. The wind changed ; and the floating volcano was driven to the opposite shore, where it was soon converted to ashes.
One of the French commanders, Labocree, was shot through the head. Many others of the French and Indians were either killed or wounded. Thus baffled, the foe retreated, after inflict- ing all the damage in their power, in burning the dwellings, and shooting the cattle. In the dusk of the evening they with- drew ; and silence and solitude reigned where the hideous clangor of battle had so long resounded.2 But one man of the English was killed. He was shot on board one of the vessels.
One unhappy Englishman, John Diamond, was taken captive. The savages, in revenge for their losses, put him to death with the most horrible tortures which their ingenuity could contrive. Capt. Converse,3 for his heroic defence, was promoted to the
1 "Our sloops were sorely incommoded by a turn of the creek, where the ene- my could be so near as to throw mud aboard with their hands. Other accounts make their distance from them sixty yards." - Mather's Magnalia, vol. ii. p. 532.
2 Drake's Book of the Indians, book iii. p. 103. See also Mather's Magnalia, vol. ii. p. 532; and Bourne's History of Wells and Kennebunk, p. 215.
3 "The courage of the brave and intrepid Converse kept that of all his com- rades from waning. He knew how much depended on his own resolution and firmness: his noble manliness amidst the storm was the inspiration of all about hin1.
"History does not record a struggle more worthy of perpetual remembrance. The names of those noble men, Gooch and Storer, should never be forgotten by the townsmen of Wells. We know not who else was on board these vessels. But, known or unknown, the whole crew were more worthy of monumental re- membrance than the thousands of more modern times whose memory is sanctified in the hearts of their countrymen." - Bourne's History of Wells and Kennebunk, p. 218.
240
THE HISTORY OF MAINE.
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.
241
THE HISTORY OF MAINE.
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. 342, contains entire this treaty, so humiliating to the Indians.
16
1
242
THE HISTORY OF MAINE.
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
: "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 a pris, et promirent mille livre sterling a celui qui la leur porterait." - Histoire de la Nouvelle France, par Père la Charlevoix, ii. p. 385.
---
------
-
243
THE HISTORY OF MAINE.
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 becatne 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 trice, 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.
244
THE HISTORY OF MAINE.
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 Englishfnen - Third Indian War - Siege of Winter Harbor - Arrival of Capt, Southack.
T
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.
245
246
THE HISTORY OF MAINE.
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.'" - Muther's Magnalia, book vii.
247
THE HISTORY OF MAINE.
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 munch disgrace for his treachery with the Indians. He lived at Andover, in Massachusetts, where the Indians made au 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 sunmit.
"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.
,
248
THE HISTORY OF MAINE.
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.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.