USA > Maine > The history of the state of Maine; from its first discovery, A. D. 1602, to the separation, A. D. 1820, inclusive, Vol. I > Part 11
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Winters.
Our winters are cold, usually serene, and sometimes intensely severe. We have witnessed many days of sunshine in succes- sion, in which the snow did not melt enough to form isicles. The mercury in the thermometer is often below zero, though rare- ly down to 12 degrees. In December, 1778, many people were frozen to death ; and on Friday and Saturday, January 19 and 20, 1810, it was 15° or 16° below ; and on the same days of the week, February 14 and 20, 1817, it ranged from 11° to 15° below. But the winter of 1784 was the longest and coldest ever known, since Maine was inhabited.
December.
December always brings snow, yet the weather is . changeable. Indeed, such are its vicissitudes, that its snows have been measur- ed four feet deep ; the ground has been seen sometimes entirely bare and even without frost; and the rivers covered with ice, and free from it, in different years.
January.
But January is a month more uniform and cold; the snow is commonly of good depth, and the ice over still fresh water is sometimes five or six feet thick. There is often however soft weather, this month ; also what is called "the January thaw," when the rain sometimes freezes as it falls ; covers the face of the earth with a glare ice, and adorns the trees with glistening pendants, too heavy for the branches to bear. When large quan- tities of water fall, cellars are filled, rivers broken up, and gener- ally great damage done .- In 1771, no snow fell till about the end of this month ; and during the whole of it, in many years, the sleighing is poor.
February.
In February, the cold is said to be the most intense ; the great- est quantity of snow usually falls ; and by reason of winds and drifts, the travelling is sometimes difficult. In the years 1757 and 1763, the snow in the woods was about five feet deep on a level ; and in the open land, it was blown into drifts of great
* M. Greenleaf, Esq. in his survey and statistics, chap. III. has made some critical and ingenious remarks upon our climate, with several Mete- orological tables as to the years 1820-1827.
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OF MAINE.
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height and hardness. If the earth be a long time bare in this month, it freezes from four to six feet, and so hard as to kill the grass-roots, and render the face of spring peculiarly deathlike. In February, 1772, it snowed 21 times : and yet in 1751 and 1761, the month was more like spring than winter ;- even the robins have been seen this month after several days of warm weather.
Dry winters are commonly cold; whereas the earth, if well covered with snow during the winter-weather, will uniformly ap- pear verdant early in the spring.
If our spring season is very early and forward, the vegetation is often chilled and checked by frosts.
March is a chilly blustering month; and the air being humid is March. often searching. In different years the varieties of this month are great. The snow on the 29th of March, 1733 and 1742, was three feet deep in the woods, and on the 13th, in 1787, five feet. These cases, however, are very rare : for in general, the snow disappears this month and exhibits many evidences of spring. Robins are often seen, and some garden-seed sown, before April. In 1760 the season was so uncommonly early, that the spring- birds appeared ten days before the month closed ; the seeds of cabbage, lettuce and radishes were planted in gardens on the 16th of the month, 1811; and in other years the trees have be- gun to bud in March. Nevertheless we may generally expect to have the remains of winter at its beginning, and the inspiring ap- pearances of spring at its close.
April is literally a vernal month, having nights frosty, and April. many of its days chilly and uncomfortable ; also the highways are bad, if not unsafe for the traveller. In April, 1733, 1746, 1781 and 1785, snows fell two or three feet deep, particularly the first and last of these four years: There were also snow- storms this month in 1786 and 1816 ; yet, the ways have been settled and ground fit for the plough in some years, by the 8th and 10th of the month ; and garden-seeds planted before May. The seasons of 1736, 1744 and 1747, were very forward ; the grass was luxuriant ; and on the 16th of the month, in the latter year, English peas and beans were up in gardens and promising.
It is in April that the ice in rivers and ponds breaks up and
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THE SEASONS
[INTRODUC.
leaves its winter-quarters," and the frost is expelled from the sur- face of the ground.
May.
The month of seedtime and blossoms is May : though frosts are frequent, especially prior to the middle of the month ; and also, a considerable fall of snow has been seen. In 1769, on the 11th, when the trees were in bloom, so great a flight covered the trees and the earth, as not to be dissolved and disappear till the next day. English cherry-trees usually begin to blossom by the middle of the month, apple-trees about the third week; and strawberries come to maturity about a month afterwards : But in 1744 some of them were ripe before June; and in 1755 gar- dening was finished during the second week of May. In many places, Indian corn was above ground that year before the 31st ; whereas, in 1785, the people only began to plant about the 20th.
In some years there are droughts, and in others freshets, this month. Melancholy instances of the former mark the years 1748 and 1749 ; and in this month of the following year, the country was almost overrun, and its vegetation eaten up, by the grashoppers. The year 1763 was rendered memorable by a great freshet ; which was higher on the 24th of the month, than ever before, within the recollection of any one then living. The 20th of May is considered the end of feeding cattle with hay, and the 20th of November the time to take them from the pastures.t Our summers are usually hot and pleasant.
June.
In June there is seldom any frost ; still in 1764 one nipped the Indian corn then up, and as late as the 16th, in 1775, there was a small frost; also in this month, its unwelcomed appearance was witnessed during every one of the late cold seasons. Unhappily, in 1 749 and 1754, the grashoppers were very numerous and vora- cious ; no vegetables escaped these greedy troops ; they even de-
* Times when the Ice left and closed the
Penobscot.
Kennebec.
Left,
Closed,
Left,
Closed,
1819, April 15,
Dec. 5.
1819, April 13,
Dec. 5.
1820,
18,
Nov. 28.
1820,
15,
Nov. 29.
1821,
15,
" 3C.
1821,
11,
" 30.
1822,
10,
Nov.
1822, Mar. 27,
Dec. 7.
1823,
17,
Dec. 6.
1823, April 9,
Nov. 14.
1824,
"
1,
" 26.
1824, Mar. 27,
« 15.
1825,
11,
Dec. 13.
1825, April 4,
Dec. 11.
t On the 19th of May, 1780, was the memorable dark day.
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voured the potatoe-tops ; and in 1743 and 1756, worms in armies and in millions, covered the whole country and threatened to de- vour every thing green. Indeed, so great was the alarm they occasioned among the people, that they appointed days of fasting and prayer. The droughts in June, A. D. 1749, 1761 and 1762, were very severe and followed with devouring fires. Those in the last year of the three, being succeeded by heavy falls of rain, were thus effectually extinguished. One of the severest storms ever known was on the 14th of this month, in 1768, from the south-southeast ; and the damage it did was great and mem- orable.
The month of July is commonly hot,-not unfrequently dry ; July. and sometimes the drought has been so severe as to wither vegeta- tion, till its leaves have crackled under the feet. The weather is usually fair, clear, and favourable for getting hay this month ; but in 1763, it was not fair, at any one time, forty-eight hours in two whole summer months. A hot July produces good corn, and a cold one, good potatoes. There was a tempest this month, in 1784, with hideous darkness ; and, usually, there are thunder and lightning in July; though electric fluid seldom, with us, takes life or does damage.
August is the month of English harvest, and of cutting mea- August, dow grass. That of 1752 was memorable for tempests, and a tremendous hurricane ; and that of 1774, for the innumerable swarms of flies, which were most unwelcome and troublesome visitants.
It is a remark no less trite than true, that September is the most September. agreeable month in the year. It is not, in general, either cold or hot; the winds, if any, are light, and the weather is generally fair. In as many as half of the years there is some frost between the middle and the end of the month, though seldom so severe as to destroy all the vegetables upon which it has power. Some- times Indian corn is secure from its effects before the month closes ; and damsons begin to ripen. The corn was generally spoiled by frost, in 1758; and yet in 1760, cabbages began to head, and grass grew more this month than any other during the whole season. The summer of 1738 was remarkable for drought and grashoppers ; and the month of September was rendered memorable by the raccoons, red squirrels, and blue-jays, which were more abundant than were ever before known. They might
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[INTRODUC.
be well compared to the multitudes of pigeons, with which the country abounded in 1759.
October.
In October, the frosts are frequent and severe, and sometimes there is a fall of snow : In 1746, however, the grass grew almost as luxuriantly as in the spring, till November. Between the mid- dle and the end of the month, in 1740, 1749, 1767, 1777, and 1821, there was snow several inches deep ; and the ground gen- erally freezes more or less in this month, though snow-storms are not frequent and never long.
The year 1785 witnessed an uncommon flood :- About the 21 st or 22d of October it rained incessantly forty-eight hours, and raised the waters to an overwhelming height. The rivers Saco, Presumpscot, and others, carried away bridges and mills, and made a general wreck of whatever came within the sweep and fury of their waters.
November.
As early as in the beginning of November the ingatherings of the field are completed. The sky of this month is frequently overcast, its nights cold, its days blustering, and it uniformly brings squalls, and sometimes snow-storms, before it closes. Rivulets are bordered or covered with ice ; and nature prepares for winter. Heavy falls of snow occurred in November, 1738, 1745, and 1763; and the storms at this season of the year, from the north- east, are long and tedious. On the fifth of November, 1780, and on the 13th of the month, in 1783, there were driving storms, in which the snow fell deep, and partly remained through the win- ter. November, 1786, was so exceedingly dry, that, though the sledding was good, the fountains almost ceased; the bottom of the wells were bare; and the smaller streams merely flowed. The icy covert which mantled the ponds and streams of fresh water, before the month was at an end, was strong, though too slender to bear the weight of a man .*
Such are the vicissitudes of our seasons, seedtime and har- vest, summer and winter, which we are assured from Divine au- thority shall never cease. There is however a fact, or peculiarity worthy of notice. The winters of 1730, 1780, 1793, 1802. 1810, and 1824, were marked for their pacific mildness and fol- lowed by summers of uncommon health and plenty. This has induced the saying, that " mild winters augur good summers."
* See Rev. Mr. Smith's Journal.
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SECT. IV.] VEGETABLE PRODUCTIONS OF MAINE.
Our country is highly favoured with gentle breezes. In the Breezes. mornings of summer, they are from the land, a soft and soothing zephyr; often controled by a seabreeze before noon, which lasts till sunset. Thus the heat of almost every brilliant day is allayed at flood tide, from the salt water, and very gratefully cools the air.
Upon our coast, foggs are sometimes very dense and dark ; Foggs. and when the wind is at the southward and eastward, they render the mariner's condition perilous and sometimes alarming. They also rise from fresh waters in the interiour, which the morning breezes and the sun's beams soon dissipate. An early whitish fogg, brooding on the water, is an indication of a fair day ; and when vapours cap the mountain and hill-tops, they are consider- ed signs of rain.
The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, were first particu- larly noticed in New-England, on the 11th of December, 1719 ; Borealis. Aurora yet it seems, they were seldom seen for half a century after- wards. At these earlier periods they excited emotions of won- der, and sometimes of fear. In January, 1752, their appear- ances were more vivid and more frequent ; and though all trepi- dation on their account has at this age subsided ; they sometimes exhibit to the beholder a spectacle which occasions particular notice and remark.
SECTION IV. Natural Productions.
AFTER SO many observations made upon the Geography and Atmosphere of this State ; it becomes expedient next, to give some account of its indigenous animals, vegetables and minerals. Each of them is a very great department in any country ; and therefore what is about to be said on these subjects, must be con- cise and will be confined to natives of this State.
THE NATIVE VEGETABLES.
In examining this subject, it is needless to go into any minuter BOTANY. detail, than what may be said under the kinds and species to be named and described. Nevertheless, it will be most convenient to divide so long a list, and arrange its parts under the heads of Trees, Shrubs, Plants, Roots, and Vines. Those of each head may be considered in alphabetical order.
VOL. I. 8
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THE TREES
[INTRODUC.
Native trees. Ash. White.
TREES ;- The Ash is a tree of which there are two species : 1. The white Ash* is strait, tall and tough; and in a good soil, grows to the size of three feet in diameter, at the ground. Of its wood are made barrels, firkins, oars, handspikes, the handles of manual tools, and the frames of sleighs and other carriages. It is said that a venomous serpent will not cross its leaves, and that these and the bark are an antidote to poison. 2. The black Asht is not so large a tree as the other. It is easily cloven, or rift into thin even splits, by means of a maul, and wrought into baskets and brooms. Of this species, the red and yellow are only varieties ; and out of the roots of the latter, the turner forms bowls of different sizes, convenient in housewifery.
Black. Red, and Yellow.
Beech. The Beecht is of three varieties ;- the red and the white, both larger than the ash, and excellent fuel; the black, which is tough and small, is fit only for withes and switches. Each is plenty in our hardwood forests. But the ashes of beech-wood cannot be Bass-wood. used to make soap. The Bass-wood treeg is considered the same as the Linden or Lime-tree ; its wood is white, and free from knots, and its diameter, when full grown, is often four feet.
Birches.
Birch|| is a native of which we have four species, and each a peculiarly excellent wood. 1. The white is very useful for its tough, lasting and beautiful snow-white bark, which has always been much used by the natives for the construction of their canoes, an ingenious skiff, ever viewed by Europeans as a curi- osity. 2. The black Birch is a very superiour wood for articles of household furniture : its heart is of a dark brown, of fine close grain, and is capable of receiving a polish like mahogany. Its trunk is sometimes found more than three feet in diameter. 3. The yellow Birch is valued principally for fuel-and each of the three species is very good for that use. 4. Alder, according to the Linnaean principle of classification, is a species of the birch kind, well known, having in its blowth the same number of stamens. Its bark dies a dark brown.
Alder.
Button- wood.
Button-wood, T or eastern " plane-tree," is an unyielding tight-
* Fraxinus Excelsior. + Fraxinus Americana, or Sambucifolius.
Į Fagus .- 1. Ferrugina .- 2. Sylvatica,
& Tilla Americana .- Tilla Alba [white-wood] about the Aroostic.
|| Betula .- 1. Betula Alba .- 2. Betula Nigra .- 3. Betula Lenta .- 4. Be- tula Alnus (Alder.) T Platanus Occidentalis.
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OF MAINE.
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grained wood, as large as a beech ; and is used for wheel-hubs, windlasses and vessel-blocks. This is said to abound on the river St. John though not unfrequent elsewhere.
Butternut,* or Oilnut-tree is a species of the Walnut, and it Butternut: is believed to be the only native one of that genus to be found in this State ; though there may be walnuts in York County.+ It is a tree of a middle size, the kernels of its nuts are very oily and nutritious, and a decoction of its bark is a gentle and excel- lent cathartic. It is said to have been advantageously used by the surgeons in the army of the Revolution.
The Cedar is found to be of two kinds, and not two species Cedar. of the same kind ; both are evergreens, and generally, the tree is from 6 to 12 inches in diameter. The white Cedart is be- lieved to be the western life-tree. Its wood is very easy to rive, is sweet and lasting, and is used by the coopers in making pails and other wooden vessels. The red Cedary is the largest of the juniper kind ; it makes the most durable posts and rails for fenc- ing used in the State.||
Cherry-treeT is a native of our forests, and is considered to be Cherry- next to mahogany for cabinet work. Its grain is smooth and tree. firm, and receives a beautiful polish : It has been found with us 18 inches in diameter. The Elder is of two species, the black ** Elder. and red.tt The former, called " Sweet Elder," has handsome blossoms, nodding like feather-plumes and a berry not unlike a whortleberry. The latter is a mere shrub, which it is believed the French call Osier, and is poisonous. The Elmit is a lofty Elm. wholesome tree ; its leaves, when fallen, are favourable to the undergrowth of grass ; its inner bark is strong and fibrous, and is wrought into bed-cords and chair-bottoms; and its wood is tough and elastic. Of the elm there is only one species and
* Juglans Cathartica ; or Juglans Alba, cortice cathartico.
t John de Laet [chap. 19.] says, walnut trees grew in this quarter.
# Thya, or Thuia Occidentalis. § Juniperus Virginiana.
|| The red Cedar and the Savin, in their sensible and medicinal properties, are specially allied, and used to keep up the discharge of blisters .- Bige- low's Bot. 49.
T Prunus Virginiana, or Cerasus. ** Sambuccus Nigra.
tt Viburnum Opulus, or cultivated " Snow Ball."-Sambuccus Pubescens [Rcd Elder.] #Į Ulmus Americana.
108
THE TREES
[INTRODUC.
two varieties, the white and red ; the former has medicinal prop- erties to relieve the strangury.
Hornbeam.
The Hornbeam* or Ironwood, is a small tree of 3 or 4 inch- es in diameter ; its wood is tight-grained and looks like beech. It is used for handspikes and stakes, and for binding rafts. Its leaves are wrinkled, oval, pointed, and sharply indented at the edges.
Juniper.
The Junipert is about a foot and a half in diameter when full grown, of a fine texture, and is particularly used for vessel- knees. It is sometimes called Hackmatack, which is one species : A 2d is the red cedar ; and a 3d is an unseemly shrub,} which grows in open, poor pastures, only about 2 feet in height from the ground, and has horizontal branches of more than five feet in length.§
Maple.
The Maple is a stately forest tree, of which there are three species :- 1. The white Maple, || which has two varieties, one is smooth and straight-grained ; the other has apparent curls and bird's eyes, and is almost as handsome in cabinet work as satin wood. 2. The red Maple grows in swamps, and though sappy, is good firewood when seasoned. It is a tree four feet in diam- eter. 3. The black, or rock Maple is the most valuable of either. Not only is its wood very solid and excellent for fuel, but the sac- charine quality of its sap has given it great additional worth and surnamed it the sugar Maple.
From this species great quantities of sugar have been made every year in this State ; which, when refined, makes a hard, a pure, and very delicious loaf. The trees are tapped in March, with an auger, and run a fortnight or more ; from which the sap is gathered in troughs, boiled in kettles to a consistency when it will granulate, and then it is drained. I am assured that 21,500 pounds have been made in one year, within the limits of a single town. "This sugar, at first moist and heavy, yields a most salu- " brious and agreeable sweetening. If dry sugars are preferred, " it is only necessary to make a hole in the tub, at any time be-
* Carpinus Betulus. | See the " Larch."-( Pinus.) }Juniperus Sabina. § Juniperus Americana ; also, in 3 Bigelow's Botany, Juniperus Com- munis, p. 43-48, is there called a shrub of 3 feet high ; its fruit dark ob- long berries, which are diuretic .- Dr. Grover.
#| 1 Acer Negundo .- 2. Acer Rubrum .- 3. Acer Saccharinum .- 4. Acer Striatum, striped maple or moose-wood, of little valuc.
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OF MAINE.
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" fore the first of June, and drain off the molasses, when the " sweets of the maple are in two parts ; the one of sugar, clear " and dry ; and the other of molasses, the most pure and agreea- " ble" any where seen or tasted.
No forest tree is, on the whole, more universally esteemed, and none could with more ease be cultivated than the sugar Maple. It grows pretty rapidly, stands firm in the ground, and strives hard for continued existence.
It is curious to know, that the method of making maple sugar, an article of so much importance, is learned from the Aborigines. Father Ralle, while he lived with the Canibas tribe, at Norridge- wog, says, that the insipidity of his dish of corn, pounded in a mortar and boiled, he " corrected by adding sugar, made by the " women in the spring, who boiled down the sap of the maple, " which they collected in bark troughs as it flowed from incisions " made in the trunk of the tree." The rock Maple is in diam- eter between two and three feet.
- The Oak* is a genus of five species :- 1. Black ; 2. Red ; Oak. 3. White ; 4. Chesnut ; and 5. the Shrub Oak .- The first is used for vessel keels, and its bark for tanning; the second, for dry cask-staves, and grows on side-hills : of this, there are two varieties, the swamp and yellow Oak. The white Oak is the toughest wood in our forests, and most suitable for axe-handles, ox-bows and ploughs. It is not found in so great abundance with us as could be desired. The Shrub Oak grows 8 or 10 feet in height and produces a nutgall, the nest of some insect, and is sometimes used in making ink for the pen. The Chesnut Oak is found in the western parts of the State ; it is a tree of pretty large size and makes the best of fuel .¡ It cannot be ascertained, that the Chesnut-tree [Fagus Castanea] is a native inhabitant of Maine, although it is very common in every other State in New- England.
The wild Plum-treet is of one species only, though of two or Plum. three varieties ; it is of small size and scarce. §
* Quercus 1st species, Quercus Nigra -21. Quercus Rubra .- 31. Quer- cus Alba -4th. Quercus Prinus .- 5th. Quercus Pumila.
There is also another variety, called the " Gray Oak."
¿ Prunus Sylvestris.
§ Called also pomegranate, wild pear, and June-plum .- S. Lowder.
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THE TREES
[INTRODUC.
Pine.
The Pine,* in its several species, is the most common of any growth in our woods. It flowers about the middle of June, when its pollen, which is of a bright yellow, is so exceedingly fine as to ascend with the vapour from the earth to the clouds. It falls with the rain, and is thus promotive of fructification. When it rests on the face of the water, it forms a yellow scum. The pines retain their foliage during the winter, because of " the abundant quantity of oil in their bark, which preserves them from the effects of the cold."
7 Species of pme.
The species of the Pine are seven .- 1. The white Pine, which is the prince of the forest, and which has been seen six feet in diameter, at the butt, and 240 feet in height ; and those of four feet through are frequently found. Until the Revolution, every tree, two feet in diameter, growing in any part of this State, ex- cept within the limits of Gorges' Provincial Charter, was the property of the English crown, reserved for masts and spars in the royal navy ;f and the trespasser, when detected, was mulcted in heavy penalties. So literally is this erect and lofty masting- pine the greatest ornament of our forests, that it was adopted as one of the emblems in the shield of our State coat of arms.
The 2d species, the yellow Pine, being harder and thicker grained, as well as smaller than the other, is used for flooring and for planking vessels. The Norway Pine is another variety, of still closer texture, and is much used in ship-building. 3. Pitch Pine is the hardest of all, and being full of turpentine, will, when dry, make extremely hot fires in furnaces.
(Larch.)
The 4th species of the pine genus, is the Larch ; and it is the only one of the terebinthine family which does not retain its leaves through the winter. It grows better on strong stony land than in a rich soil. It is said that its timber neither shrinks nor warps, nor does it easily rot; and lience it is much used in ship- building. It grows on the Alps and Appenines in Europe and is highly esteemed. It is said the Juniper tree is the American Larch, and that Hackmatack is its vulgar, or provincial name ; but this is doubted.
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