USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Wiscasset > Wiscasset in Pownalborough; a history of the shire town and the salient historical features of the territory between the Sheepscot and Kennebec rivers > Part 37
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The last company of soldiers to leave Wiscasset was the regiment of Col. E. Foote on November 7, 1814. News of peace and the treaty signed at Ghent, December twenty-fourth, did not reach this country from Europe until Feb- ruray 11, 1815, and between the time of the treaty and the receipt of news here the battle of New Orleans had been fought.
The ease with which the British invasion of eastern Maine in the War of 1812 overcame all the feeble resistance the two frontier counties made, the fact that the British forces occupied Eastport, Machias and the strong fort at Castine, during the greater part of the war, might have cost Maine a large slice of her territory had not the fortunes of battle been more favorable to our country elsewhere and especially upon the ocean.25
Tradition says that when a post-rider brought word of the cessation of hos- tilities to Wiscasset, he was riding so fast that in his excitement he spurred his horse straight into the hall of the home of Maj. Moses Carlton to make the announcement.
The hour of his arrival was late and this house, at which a brilliant entertain- ment was in progress, was the only one lighted in the village. This sudden ap- pearance of a man on horseback entering the house so startled the slave, Pendy, that she dropped with a direful crash on the floor, a tray filled with flip glasses which she was carrying to the guests.
The loss of men in the War of 1812, killed and wounded, amounted to about five thousand. The cost of this war was about $200,000. In 1811 the
24. Salem Gazette, September 16, 1814, quotes this letter.
25. Maine Historical Society Collections, Series II, Vol. 1, p. 203.
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Wiscasset in Pownalborough
export trade had been $45,000,000. In 1814 it had dwindled to $7,000,000, or one-seventh.
Commerce being now free of restrictions and embarrassments, all vessels were in great demand, and the business of shipbuilding and lumbering re- vived in Maine.
Fort McDonough
We have seen that the first fort, with an elaborate system of earthworks, batteries and castle, or blockhouse, commanded the Narrows, at the north entrance to the harbor of Wiscasset, on what was formerly called Folly Is- land. The second fortification was an earthwork one capping the heights of Squam Island opposite and south of the Narrows, commanding the Sheep- scot River to the Cross. It was erected by order of Gen. William King, in October, 1814, and was called Fort McDonough.26
At the time this fort was built the war with England was at its height. English 74-gun ships were hovering on the coast, harrying and destroying American commerce, fishing stages and coast settlements.
Naval conflicts on the Great Lakes were in progress while the star fort on Squam Heights was being constructed, and the victory at Lake Champlain was perpetuated here by naming this fort for the American commodore.27 The history of that engagement is as follows: On September 11, 1814, an English fleet of four ships and 13 galleys, 96 guns and 1,000 men, commanded by Commodore Downie anchored under the Isle la Motte, Lake Champlain. Watching the English squadron, an American fleet of 14 ships and 850 men lay under Cumberland Head, at the mouth of the Saranac River, command- ed by a young naval officer, Commodore Thomas McDonough. The flag- ship of the British fleet was the Confidence, a gun-deck frigate of 32-pound- ers. The Americans were led by the Saratoga of twenty-six guns. The posses- sion of Lake Champlain and New York was important to the British. Pre- vost's army was to sweep across the Saranac and carry Macomb's position, while Downie's powerful flotilla was to bear down on McDonough. Sunday morning at sunrise the American guard boats reported the British squadron
26. This description was written by Rufus King Sewall and read before the Lincoln County Historical Society, November 27, 1896.
27. Another consideration which may have led to the naming of this fort was the fact that two Boothbay boys, George Kelloch and Thomas Boyd, 2nd. of Captain Reed's company, were killed at Plattsburg Bay in January, 1814, under Commodore McDonough. (Greene, History of Boothbay, p. 261.)
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hovering in sight. The drums of the American fleet beat to quarters and the decks cleared for action. Commodore McDonough called his officers to his side and there on the deck of the Saratoga read the prayers of the ritual on entering into battle. The voice of the young commander, which soon after rang like a clarion amid the carnage, in earnest tones, cried aloud: "Stir up thy strength, O Lord, and come and help us, for thou givest not always the battle to the strong, but can'st save by many or by few."
It was a solemn and thrilling scene, and this act was a notable expression of the heroism of the young commander. Soon the topsails of the English vessels were seen above the land, steadily bearing down on the American ships, anch- ored in battle line. Then the Confidence of Commodore Downie came in range of the Saratoga; McDonough sprang to the guns and sighted a long 24- pounder, which he himself fired. The heavy shot swept along the entire deck of the Confidence, killing many and shivering her wheel. The ship, dis- abled, held her course, until within a quarter of a mile, when she anchored, and, swinging her broadside to the Saratoga, pounded sixteen 24-pounders into her hull, with a terrific crash; the ship shook from keelson to cross- trees. Fifty of her men were killed or wounded. The effect of this broad- side was awful. The Saratoga for a moment seemed stunned, but the next moment she hurled back the broadside of death and destruction with such pre- cision and rapidity as told with terrible fatality on the English ship. She seemed enveloped in flames as she replied, but answered broadside with broad- side. This naval battle was obstinately fought for two hours and a half. At the end of that time Downie and many of his officers had been killed; the heavier British vessels were disabled and obliged to strike colors; and the ship's decks were the scene of dreadful carnage. The living could hardly gather the wounded as they fell into the hatchway. Then a full broadside struck the Saratoga and a despairing cry went up "the Commodore is killed." There he lay on the blood-stained deck among his men, senseless and lifeless. A spar, cut by a cannon shot, struck him in the back in falling and felled him to the deck. Recovering consciousnes in a few minutes, he sprang to his feet, cheered his men and took his place at his favorite gun. The crew of the Saratoga took new courage. The next English broadside hurled the gallant McDonough into the ship's scupper between two guns. His officers gathered about him, again think- ing him dead. He soon revived and limping to his gun, hulled the enemy's ship. At length every gun but one on the Saratoga's broadside facing her antag- onist was silenced, and that one soon broke from its carriage holdings, bound-
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ing in recoil, down the hatchway. The ship was afire with no gun on this side left to combat the foe. The young hero resolved to wind his vessel so as to bring her other broadside to bear on the enemy. This first movement failed, but another effort of her sailing master swung the crippled ship by the stern. The enemy attempted a like movement to checkmate McDonough's manœuvre but it failed and the fresh broadsides of the Saratoga soon finished the Con fi- dence; hulled a hundred and five times, her commander dead, victory was with the American flag, and the British fleet surrendered.
Thus ended the battle of Lake Champlain and to perpetuate his valor and preserve his name to posterity, the fort of Squam Heights, built just after the fight by order of General King of Bath, was named in recognition of the brav- ery of the hero of the naval engagement which ended the battle of Plattsburg.
The military record of the builders of this fort, with its agency we give here- with. On May 23, 1814, at Wiscasset, a brigade order was issued as follows:
The commanding officers of Regiment and Battalions within the second Brigade and eleventh Division will issue orders for filling all vacancies within the limits of their re- spective commands .. . The situation of Batteries erected for defense of Maritime fron- tier of the Brigade is such that very little reliance can be placed on them. It is further ordered that every soldier be made acquainted with his duty in case of actual or threat- ened invasion.
By order of Brigadier General DAVID PAYSON. SAMUEL PAGE, Brigade Major. 2nd Brigade Division.
At Wiscasset, on the twenty-fourth of May, the above preliminary and cautionary order was executed as follows, viz: Regimental order First Regi- ment, Second Brigade, Second Division.
The commanding officers of companies composing this Regiment will govern them- selves agreeably to the within Brigade order.
By order of EZEKIEL CUTTER, Lieut. Col. Commanding. JOSHUA HILTON, Adjutant. NATHAN CLARK, JR., Clerk.
On June 29, 1814, covering a skirmish with frigate Tenedos at Boothbay, General Payson ordered details from the several companies, detached with rations, armed and equipped, with blanket and knapsack, to be distributed as guards at various points in aid of coast defense, with one of eight men at the lower end of Squam Island, and Colonel Cutter executed the above order as follows:
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Cap'n Potter, with one sergeant, twelve privates, drummer and fifer; Cap'n Good- win, with one sergeant, ten privates; Cap'n McLane, with five privates; Cap'n Tarbox, with one sergeant, two privates; Cap'n Adams, with ten privates; Cap'n Erskine, with two privates; Cap'n Whitney, two privates; Cap'n Johnston, four privates; Cap'n Hunnewell, two privates; Cap'n Wilson, five privates; Cap'n Reed, one sergeant and six privates; Cap'n Cate, one Lieut., ensign and four privates, all to be commanded by Cap'n Aaron Potter and assembled at Wiscasset, 8 o'clock, July 2nd.
Military discipline was ordered to be strictly enforced. On the ninth of August, 1814, the guard at Chase's Point was ordered to bring up the cannon, all appurtenances and quartermaster's stores, to Wiscasset. On September 28, 1814, a regimental order was issued to construct the fort on Squam Heights, as follows:
Agreeable to Brigade orders on the 27th inst., for consolidating the Ist Regiment in two companies complete, to be organized immediately on Jeremy Squam Island under the undernamed officers, viz: Captain, Benjamin Goodwin; Lieut., Rufus Sewall, and ensign, Simeon Wheeler. Goodwin of Dresden will have two sergeants and fifteen privates from his own company; one sergeant and sixteen privates from Wilson's com- pany (Edgecomb) ; one sergeant and thirteen privates from Potter's; nine privates from Tarbox's (Westport) ; nine privates from Erskine's; two from Hunnewell's.
Cap'n David R. Adams, Lieut. Barker Neal and Jotham Donnell, of the other detail. Cap'n Adams will have two sergeants and thirteen privates of own company; one ser- geant from Tarbox's company ; seven privates Whitney's company; one sergeant and fourteen privates from McLane's company; seventeen privates from Johnston's com- pany (Samuel Johnston) ; six privates from Joseph Johnston's company, and seven from Hunnewell's, making 64 privates in each company.
The several captains will bear in mind no private ought to be drafted a second time, till every private has been drafted.
By order of EZEKIEL CUTTER, Lieut., Col., Commanding. JOSHUA HILTON, Adjutant.
The fort was completed during the month of October following, under the foregoing order, by the drafted contingent of 128 men, exclusive of officers. It had gun-deck floors, a magazine and a military barricade, or pla- shoot across the island from shore to shore, a few rods south, called by the French, "chevaux de frise," and was, in all particulars, a complete and for- midable earthwork fortification of six 18-pounders.
Its outline and ramparts are now barely traceable as it surrenders year by year to a foe more implacable than the British, the ever advancing forest of Jeremy Squam Island.
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The garrison for Fort McDonough in the War of 1812 appears to have been drawn from the Fourth Division of militia under command of Gen. William King and the Eighth Division under command of Gen. Henry Sewall.
Munitions of War
Acct.28 of Munitions of War d.d to Major Richard M. Dorr Commanding Fort Mc- Donough on Jeremy Squam Island October 15th, 1814
2-9 lb cannon
9 Cartridges
2 Gimlets
2 worms
16 Pound shot
28 Cartridges of powder
2 sponges &
7 Shot of grapes
9 Round shot
2 priming wires
3 q'. Shot
12 Canister
I Lint stock
2 -- 6 lb Cannon
4 Ps Match Rope
3 pr match rope
3 Sponges & Ramers
3 Handspikes
4 Handspikes
2 Worms
4 Drag Ropes
I Iron bar
I Lint Stock
2 Boxes for ammunition
3 Boxes
3 Priming wires
Daniel Quinnam Rec.d of Capt. Thayer and gave Rect for the same Viz:
2 Six pound cannon
31 Cartridges
3 (N. B. 2 Burned for scaleing Guns & one stole.)
2 Sponges & Ramers
one ladle and worm
2 Boxes for ammunition
2 Handspikes
4 Drag ropes
Fort Edgecomb
The old fort on Davis Island is a relic of our last war with England. The blockhouse which is the most conspicuous landmark in Wiscasset harbor crowns a system of earthworks on the southern point of the island.
This fort which took its name from the town where it stands, was one of four forts established on the coast of Lincoln County in 1808 and 1809, the others being one at the mouth of the Kennebec River, one on an island known as Fort Island in the Damariscotta River and the other on the eastern bank of the St. George River in the town of St. George. They were all constructed by Maj. Moses Porter who had served in the Revolution and was the oldest living engineer in the army.
28. Account taken from the book of Daniel Quinnam.
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28
2 Priming wires
2 Gimlets
9 Round shot
12 Canisters of Grape
The War of 1812
In 1807 Gen. Henry Dearborn reported a list of ports and harbors which on account of their importance from a commercial point of view and likewise their exposed situations to the attacks of the enemy, required primary attention in the event of actual war, with a general description of existing and contem- plated works for each and recommended for Kennebec and Sheepscot, Dam- ariscotta, Broad Bay and St. George River, each a small battery and two can- non, mounted on traveling carriages and a gun-boat to be stationed on each river.
Although the gravity of his country's situation with reference to the im- pending war must have been apparent to President Jefferson, his natural in- clination was to avoid a conflict and he would propose as a means of coast de- fence only small batteries aided by a fleet of gun-boats. General Dearborn's report was followed by President Jefferson's statement concerning the effi- ciency of gun-boats in protecting harbors and his recommendation to Con- gress that money be appropriated for gun-boats for every harbor along the coast, fifty of which were to be for Boston and the harbors north of Cape Cod at a cost of $ 5,000 each.
May 30, 1808, Major Porter selected and ran out three and fifteen one- hundredths acres on Davis Island and marked the same for military works, the construction of which soon followed. By February 23, 1809, as appears in a private record, the batteries were so far completed that teams were em- ployed in hauling up cannon which were mounted on the twenty-seventh; and on the fourth of March seventeen guns were fired on the occasion of the inauguration of President Madison.
The blockhouse is one of several buildings that were here erected and repre- sents one of the most perfect and substantial specimens of that kind of military architecture. It is octagonal in shape, of two stories with a basement, the width of the first story being 27 feet and that of the second story 30 feet. Its upper story was projected over the lower one for the convenience of fir- ing down upon an attacking party, and its door was studded with large iron nails to turn the edge of a tomahawk, a survival of days when Indian as- saults were imminent. The great pine timbers which support the floor are 1 5 inches square.
The first story, commanding all approaches, is pierced for musketry, and the port-holes of the second story resemble those of a warship. Above all is a watch-tower or cupola having a view of the river, harbor and surrounding country.
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On the eastern front of the fortification was a long low range of strong bar- rack houses, near which was a brick bakehouse,29 and on the west was a long range of low rooms for storage, at the foot of which was an artificial quay or landing for barges. The fort had a heavy stockade painted dark red, guarded by great timber gates. The faces of the batteries were whitened with plaster as were the blockhouse and barracks.
Traces of the magazine which was 6 feet in width, 7 feet in height and 7 feet long, may still be seen beneath the lower batteries in the east bastion, which is 5 feet thick at the top. The water battery was inclosed with heavy oak palisades, 10 feet high, dove-tailed together, picketed and pierced with a heavy central door and along the parapet wing 18-pounder guns were raised and projected over. The interior excavation was floored entirely with plank and timber like the gun-deck of a ship for handling the cannon.
Originally a great flagstaff stood on the parade ground and in front and be- low the elevated plateau on which the blockhouse stands. In the center of the parade ground overlooking the lower batteries, is a massive circular earthwork where a 50-pound Columbiad30 was mounted. Four long 18-pound guns were mounted in barbette and two short carronades in the blockhouse. In a report made to the House of Representatives in 181 I, this fort was described as "a small inclosed battery with six heavy guns mounted, covered by a block- house, which answers for barracks for one officer and twenty men" and the number of artillerists then stationed there was given as seventy-eight.
The four forts above mentioned were all constructed under the supervision of Major Porter, who, during his stay here boarded at the house of Squire Davis on the island. The forts were originally under the command of John Binney, a native of Hingham, Massachusetts, who in early life entered a mercantile business in Boston, where, at the age of twenty-one years, he joined the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. In 1807 he, as cap- tain, offered the services of his company, the North End Artillery Com- pany, to the government and in the following year, he received his commis- sion as captain in the Fourth Regiment of the United States Infantry, raised in the New England States and then under command of Col. John P. Boyd, U. S. A.
29. The roof of the bakehouse has collapsed and the space inclosed by its brick walls has given rise to a rumor that there was a secret passage from the water battery to the blockhouse. There was never a secret passage anywhere about the old fort. Statement of Miss Amory.
30. The Columbiad was a heavy smooth-bore cast iron cannon invented at the suggestion of Col. George Bomford, U. S. A., for the War of 1812.
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Captain Binney was soon ordered to the command of Fort Edgecomb and during the time he was stationed in Maine he resided in a house which still stands in Wiscasset village. By Captain Binney's correspondence it appears that in December, 1812, he had a detachment of soldiers at Castine to which place Major Porter, while supervising the four forts in Lincoln County in 1808, went for the purpose of locating a battery, and where in 1812 there were good quarters for one company of infantry. His letters present an enter- taining description of the manners and social customs of Wiscasset, also the events of the day and some of the difficulties experienced in the management of his men.
Enrollments of volunteers pursuant to an Act authorizing the President to accept and organize a volunteer military corps were very soon made, and a garrison of volunteers was located at Decker's Point just across the Narrows from Fort Edgecomb.
At the fort in the Damariscotta River, where there was a blockhouse of similar design and size to that of Fort Edgecomb, Capt. Daniel Rose of Booth- bay, later of Wiscasset, was soon put in command of a company of such volun- teers.
On the twenty-sixth of September, Capt. James Perry, Fortieth United States Infantry, who had succeeded Captain Binney in command at Fort Edgecomb, Binney having been transferred to Greenbush, thence to Bur- lington, Vermont, in 1813, laid out an additional battery near the house of Moses Davis, Jr., and construction thereof was immediately begun.
Meanwhile Wiscasset was undergoing a period of great anxiety. Ship- owners being in constant dread of depredations by the enemy hauled their vessels up at the wharves or hid them in out-of-the-way coves along the river or else scuttled and sank them in deep water for their preservation. The in- habitants of Davis Island sent away valuables and household goods for safety. Although fraught with danger from the enemy, it was by no means a period of inactivity, for the sea could be sailed and the venturesome spirit of the men of Maine would not permit them to remain idle while the tides ebbed and flowed and the winds served. Privateering with its possibilities of profit attracted them and many ventures of that sort will be found in another chapter.
On the fourteenth day of February, 1815, the treaty of peace with Britain was borne down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington by Henry Carroll for ratification by the Senate. Four days later the ratified treaty was made public
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Wiscasset in Pownalborough
and the country passed from "gloom to glory." 31 In Wiscasset there was uni- versal rejoicing expressed by the firing of cannon from both town and fort and the pealing of the village bell. Washington's birthday which soon fol- lowed was celebrated in this town by the firing of guns and an oration in the meeting-house by Rev. Hezekiah Packard, and just before sunset the treaty of peace ratified by the President and the Senate came and its receipt was like- wise observed by the firing of guns both at Wiscasset and the Fort.
The garrison remained in barracks at Fort Edgecomb until sometime in August, 1816, when orders were received for their transfer; and the guns were removed to Fort Independence in Boston harbor.
Fort Edgecomb experienced no more of war's alarms until the summer of 1864, when the presence of the Confederate cruiser Tallahassee, in northern waters, was the cause of fear. The Tallahassee had committed depredations at or near Matinicus and other Maine coast points. There is a graphic relation of happenings leading to the garrisoning and equipping of Fort Edgecomb at that time left to us by the late Rufus King Sewall, Esq., who had a personal knowledge as a participant in the preparations for defence as well as that which he gained as counsel before the Alabama Claims Commission from which the following is quoted:
"That fiery serpent of the Rebellion, the Tallahassee, a steamship of war, coiled at the mouth of the Sheepscot, to strike our fishing industries. The neutral English port of St. John was the place of her rendezvous where it was reported to Hon. Erastus Foote, then Collector of the Port of Wiscasset, that an attack was projected on the place for plunder of the public offices."
The state of Maine is now the owner of the Fort Edgecomb reservation. When this interesting and unique specimen of military architecture of the first decade of the nineteenth century was offered for sale by the Secretary of War pursuant to authority conferred by an Act of the Sixty-seventh Congress passed in the year 1923, Governor Baxter and his council very likely decided to purchase the same and the deed thereof from the United States of America to the state of Maine, dated December fourth of that year, is recorded at the registry of deeds at Wiscasset.
The legislature appropriated money for the care and repair of old forts, and a considerable part of the amount so made available was laid out in the re- pair of this blockhouse in the year 1925.
31. Channing, History of United States, IV, 564.
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1
The War of 1812
War Department, Washington, D. C.
September 13, 1923
My dear Governor:
The Congress of the United States by legislation approved March 4, 1923 (Public No. 501, 67th Congress), has authorized the Secretary of War to dispose of various military reservations including that known as Fort Edgecomb, Maine. This reservation contains 3. 15 acres of land, with improvements thereon consisting of an old block house.
You are hereby notified that the Fort Edgecomb reservation has been duly appraised as a whole in the amount of $501.00, in accordance with the provisions of the above legislation, and that I have approved such appraisal on August 22, 1923. While the legislation in question provides that the state or the county or municipality in which the property is located shall be entitled to a period of six months from the date of approval of said appraisal in which to exercise the option contained in the above quoted Section 3 of the Act of March 4, 1923, I shall deem it a favor to be advised of the decision of the state, county or municipality in this matter if such can be reached before the expiration of the time provided by law. It is presumed in this connection that if the state does not desire the property you will take the matter up with the county or municipality.
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