4'k LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Chap.E?:.R^opyright No.. «liell'_..._S_a7 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 2ro tijc memory? of m^) father, U)!)ose ijfston'cal Ijcart antr mfutr Ujcrc mg inspiration antr i)0lp. STORIES OF MAINE BY SOPHIE SWETT NEW YORK •:• CINCINNATI ■:• CHICAGO AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY ^ (sJ^- 4?069 Copyright, 1899, by SOPHIE SWETT. STO. OF MAINE W. P. I TWO COPIES RECEIVED, ^COWD COPY, PREFACE. The stories of the smallest, the least important, the most favored by fate of the United States of the New World, are well worth the telling. It may therefore be wondered that those of Maine — historically the begin- ning of New England, the scene of the bloodiest Indian wars, the place where different European nations con- tended most fiercely for supremacy, and whose records are so dramatic that they read like folklore and legend rather than veritable history — should have been so little told. Many of those that have been told are to be found in histories that are out of print and forgotten, and in the musty folios of the historical societies, where the young people, at least, seldom look. Some not yet, and perhaps never to be read, have been written by glaciers and fossil remains on rocky headlands and in obscure caves. In remote graveyards strange foreign names and inscriptions hint of others. The writer has sought to select, from an overflowing store, those narratives which most vividly and dramatic- ally illustrate the evolution of the great state from a 5 6 savage-haunted wilderness to a community whose com- merce, in ships of her own building, has extended over the whole civilized world, whose institutions of learning rank with the first, and whose statesmen, soldiers, ora- tors, and authors form a list that few of the other states can rival. That these stories do not assume to be a history of Maine is evident at the outset; but it is the author's hope that the valuable historical facts with which they are filled may be absorbed by eager readers — as the pill is swallowed, all unwittingly, in the jelly. 4 CONTENTS. I. The First Voyagers to Maine .... II. The Maine Indians III. How Captain Weymouth Kidnaped the Natives IV. Father Biard's Story . . • • V. The Story of Epenow and Assacomet VI. The Plymouth Company VII. The Story of La Tour and D'Aulney VIII. King Philip's War . . • • IX. Agamenticus and Passaconaway. X. Simon, the Yankee-Killer . . . • • XI. The Story of Baron Castine . • • XII. A Maine Sindbad XIII. Major Waldron and the Indians . XIV. Lovewell's War XV. The First Naval Battle of the Revolution XVI. The Burning of Falmouth . . • • XVII. A Hairbreadth Escape XVIII. The British again in Maine XIX. 'Maine in the Civil War . • 7 PAGE 9 17 23 34 48 53 70 87 99 116 129 141 156 169 185 197 , 205 . 214 , 226 8 XX. Anecdotes of the Heroes of Maine XXI. The Emma and the "Leapixg Tarantula" XXII. Some of Maine's Resources XXIII. The "Aroostook War" .... XXIV. The Ships of Maine ^ XXV. Maine's Famous Humorist .... PAGE 238 252 262 271 STORIES OF MAINE. 3>8SjOO- L THE FIRST VOYAGERS TO MAINE. THE beginning of Maine dates back to the begin- ning of the great American nation. The earHest discoverers, the Northmen, who were born rovers, sailed their queer primitive ships to its shores more than a thousand years ago, and while all America was a wil- derness inhabited only by Indians and wild beasts. One of these Northmen, named Biorne, sailing from Iceland to Greenland, was driven by wild winds so far astray that, as it seems from his descriptions, he caught sight of Cape Cod, and then retraced his course north- easterly along the shores of Maine and Nova Scotia. The accounts which these wandering Northmen left of their discoveries are somewhat vague and confused. Adventurers are not apt to be exact chroniclers, and stories handed down through many generations lose nothing on the way. Old Icelandic stories tell us of a Scandinavian giant, Thorhall, who would have been the discoverer of Maine if winds and waves had permitted. Wonderful were Thorhall's feats of strength, as related in these tales. 9 lO When his ship got aground, he could always push it off, single-handed ; when the wind fell, he rowed the ship with one mighty oar. He had even been known to pick it up and carry it across a sandbar, without troubling the crew to disembark ! This wonderful Thorhall and his crew had sailed across Massachusetts Bay in a northeasterly direction, and almost reached the coast of Maine, when his vessel encountered a northwest wind so furious and persistent that it was blown completely across the Atlantic Ocean to the Irish shores! And in Ireland Thorhall and his men were made slaves. All that can be vouched for as true about this story is that one of the first white men to see the shores of Maine was an Icelander of unusual stature, named Thorhall. 1 1 There is no doubt that Sebastian Cabot discovered the Maine coast, in 1498. Verrazano, a Florentine, sent by the King of France in 1524, after touching at North CaroHna, sailed to the shores of Maine, and, returning, reported that he " had discovered a country never before seen by any voyager since the world began." Estevan Gomez came next, sent by Charles V. of Spain. He named the old Markland and Vinland of the Northmen, — territory of which Maine now forms a part, — the '' Country of Gomez ;" and he captured as many Indians as he could, to sell as slaves to the Spaniards. The Mary of Guilford, an English vessel, commanded by one John Rut, came to the coast of Maine in the year 1567. Rut and his men landed, and explored, to some extent, the interior of the country, — the first Eng- lishmen known to have set foot upon the American continent. Andre Thevet, a French monk, was one of the earli- est visitors to the coast of Maine. After he returned to France he wrote a book called '* The Singularities of Antarctic France, otherwise called America;" and in it we find this description of the Penobscot River: '' Here we entered a river which is one of the finest in the whole world. We call it Norumbeg^a. It is marked on some charts as the Grand River. The natives call it Agoncy. Several beautiful rivers flow into it. Upon its banks the French formerly erected a small fort, about ten leagues from its mouth. It was called the fort of Norumbega, and was surrounded by fresh water. " Before you enter this river there appears an island, 12 surrounded bv elorht small islets. These are near the country of the Green Mountains. About three leagues into the river there is an island four leagues in circum- ference, which the natives call Aiayascou [now Isles- borough]. It would be easy to plant on this island, and to build a fortress which would hold in check the whole surrounding country. ,.»«'"' " Upon landing, we saw a great multitude of people, coming down upon us in such numbers that you might have supposed them to be a flight of starlings. The men came first, then the women, then the boys, then the girls. They were all clothed in the skins of wild animals. " Considering their aspect and mode of advancing, we mistrusted them, and retired on board our vessel. 13 They, perceiving our fear, made signs of friendship. The better to assure us, they sent to our vessel several of their principal men, with presents of provisions. We returned a few trinkets of little value, with which they were highly pleased. " The next morning I, with some others, was com- missioned to meet them, to see if we could obtain more provisions, of which we stood in great need. As we entered the house of the chief, w^ho w^as called Pemarick, w^e saw several slaughtered animals hanging on the beams. " The chief gave us a hearty welcome. To show his affection, he ordered a fire to be built, on which meat and fish were placed to be roasted. Upon this some warriors came in, bringing to the chief the dissevered heads of six men whom they had taken in battle. The sight terrified us. Fearing that we might suffer in the same way, we, towards evening, secretly retired to our ship, without bidding our host good-by. *' This greatly displeased him. In the morning he came to the ship with three of liis children. His coun- tenance w^as very sad, for he thought he had offended us. He said to me in his own language: ' Go back on land with me, my friend and brother. Come and eat and drink such as we have. We assure you upon oath, by heaven, earth, moon, and stars, that you shall not fare worse than we do ourselves.' '* Seeing the good affection of this old man, twenty of us went again on land, all well armed. We went to his house, where we were feasted, and presented with whatever he possessed. H " Meanwhile large numbers of his people arrived. Ihey all greeted us in the most affectionate manner, declaring that they were our friends. Late in the even- ing, when we wished to retire, they all entreated us to remain through the night. But we could not be per- suaded to sleep with them, and so we retired to our vessel. Having remained in this place five days, we weighed anchor, and parting from them wdth a marvel- ous contentment on both sides, went out upon the open sea. Nearly fifty years now passed away, during which no explorers visited the shores of Maine, although both France and England were sending expeditions to the New World, and trying to gain possession of the same territories. In 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold sailed from Falmouth, England, and boldly took a new route, avoiding the old circuitous one by the Azores. He stood straight across the ocean from Falmouth, and made the land about Sagadahoc. The journalist of this voyage relates that, when they anchored, they were startled by the sight of eight Indians in a Biscay shallop, with mast and sail, some of them dressed in European clothing. This hap- pened in what is now Casco Bay, May 14, 1602. Mount Agamenticus was probably the first land seen by Gosnold, and York his first landing place. He very soon sailed away from Maine, and afterwards settled in Virp'inia. The next year, Martin Bring, another Englishman, entered Penobscot Bay, and probably the York and Kennebunk rivers. It is said that Bring and his men 15 gave to the Fox Islands tlieir name, liavhig seen there a great number of silver foxes; also that they carried' home, among other curiosities, a canoe, which was placed on exhibition, and was regarded as a marvel of ingenuity for savage tribes to have accomplished. Pring is said to have written the best description of the coun- try that had yet been given. At about this time a little settlement was made by French priests on Mount Desert Island, and this hap- pened as the result of a very curious quarrel. The French king, Henry of Navarre, had granted to Pierre de Monts, a Protestant gentleman and member of the king's household, a grant of all American territory lying between the fortieth and forty-sixth degrees of north latitude, that is, between the latitude of Phila- delphia and a parallel a little north of Mount Katahdin. M. Pourtrincourt, De Monts's friend, came with him to America, and they established the settlement of Port Royal, now Annapolis, Nova Scotia. On a second voyage to Port Royal, Pourtrincourt brought with him his son, Biencourt, and two Jesuit priests, Biard and Masse, whose purpose was to con- vert the natives to the Roman Catholic religion. Even before the vessel landed, Pourtrincourt had quarreled violently with the priests, declaring that it was " his part to rule them on earth, and theirs only to guide him to heaven." When he departed again to France, and left his son in command of the settlement, Biencourt was even more domineering than his father had been ; for when the priests threatened him with the anathemas of the i6 church on account of his dissipated and reckless con- duct, he retahated by vowing to set up the whipping post for them. Accounts vary as to the time that the fathers spent with Biencourt after this unpleasantness. They seem to have made an expedition to the Penobscot, and then returned to Port Royal ; and it was only after being reenforced by other priests and some French colonists, who had come over under the patronage of Mme. de Guercheville, that they attempted the Mount Desert settlement which we shall hear of later. These Jesuit missionaries, as well as those who came after them, seem to have been truly good and self- denying men, and to have acquired a remarkable influ- ence over the savages. In fact, it was probably through the influence of these priests that the Indians remained always on better terms with the French than with the English. 11. THE MAINE INDIANS. THE Maine Indians, divided into two great tribes, the Etechemins and the Abenaques, were all de- scendants of the Mohicans, and the Mohicans were de- scendants of the Lenape, or ** original people," as they called themselves. The Lenape migrated eastward from the Pacific Ocean many hundred years ago. In ancient Indian traditions it is related that the race originated in the West. All their tales of lost glory and greatness cluster about the land of the setting sun. The Lenape wandered to the Mississippi River, where they found other tribes, who were pilgrims from another country, — always the West. Fighting with some tribes, and allying themselves with others, they traveled on to the Hudson River, which they called the Mahicannituck ; and from this they received their name, naturally misspelled and mispronounced, after the white people appeared, until it became ** Mohicans " and " Mohegans." A body of these Indians crossed the Hudson and gradually overspread the country that is now New England. Their characteristics seem to have varied as do those of white people, some tribes being nomadic, and others having a strong attachment to the place of their nativity. The Maine Indians were divided into different small STO. OF MAINE — 2 17 i8 tribes, those living along the Penobscot being called Tarratines or Penobscots. They claimed all the terri- tory bordering on the river, from its source to the sea; and the Penobscot Mountains, now known as the Cam- den Hills, served as a natural fortress to separate them from their enemies on the west. They were a powerful tribe, valorous but discreet, inclined to avoid hostilities with the English, but always preferring the French as neighbors. Chief among the tribes of the Abenaques were the Wawenocks. The name signifies " very brave, fearing nothing." Captain John Smith relates that the Wawe- nocks, besides being active, strong, and healthy, were very witty, a most unusual characteristic for Indians. The Bashaba, ruler of all the Abenaques, had the Wawenocks for his immediate subjects. He lived in the region about Pemaquid, and it was here that No- rumbega, the wonderful Indian city or town which tra- dition tells of, was located. The name " Norumbega " was originally given to the territory claimed by Spain, including the whole eastern coast from Nova Scotia to Florida. Afterwards the name was applied to New England alone, then to Maine, and at last to the region of the Penobscot River only. It appears as Arambe in a Spanish document of 1523, likewise as Arambec, and is spoken of as having been discovered by Giovanni Verrazano. Students of Indian tongues declared that the word meant the ''place of a fine city." Sometimes, in the ancient chronicles, it appears as a great region, some- times as a magnificent city, with towers and palaces. 19 Mark L'Escorbat, a French attorney, writes, in 1609: " If this beautiful town ever existed in nature, I should hke to know who pulled it down; for there is nothing but huts here, made of pickets, and covered with the bark of trees or with skins/' Champlain, in his "Voyages," writes: "The savages here, having entered into an alliance with us, guided us to their river, Pentagoet, as they call it. I believe that this river is one which many navigators and historians call No- rumbegue, and that most of them have described it as grand and spacious ; it is also related that there is a large town there, thickly populated with adroit and skillful savages, who manufacture cotton thread." That the savages, as we know them, at that time should have been able to manufacture cotton thread would be almost as strange as that they should be able to build a magnificent city. The earliest explorers expected to find a passage to India, a " gateway to the opulent East," and their imaginations, excited by the hope of finding great treasures, invented the magnificent city; and it is likely that the Indian manufacturing town was drawn from that tale by a more prosaic fancy. It is possible, also, that the remarkable beauty of the Penobscot River and the region about it, as reported by all travelers, had something to do with the fable. The Wawenocks, moreover, who inhabited that re- gion, were more " adroit and skillful " than any other of the Maine tribes. Samuel de Champlain. 20 These more intelligent Indians were always on the side of peace, as were the sagacious chiefs of several tribes ; and if their counsels had prevailed, the fierce and bloody wars that form the chief stories of the beginnings of Maine might have been avoided, although the white men seem to have been, at first, the aggressors. All the Indian tribes had some religious ideas, varying very much, but all crude and childish. The only point of unity was that the ideas all clustered about a " Great Spirit," who had almost as many names as there were tribes. He was called " Glooskap " by the Penobscots, and his story was told in a few words by Marie Saksis, an old woman of that tribe. " Glus-gahbe gave names to everything. He made men and gave them life, and made the winds to make the waters move. The turtle was his uncle ; the mink, Uk-see-meezel, his adopted son ; and Monuikwessos, the woodchuck, his grandmother. The beaver built a great dam, and Glus-gahbe turned it away and killed the beaver. At Moosetchuk he killed a moose. The bones may be seen at Bar Harbor, turned to stone. He threw the entrails of the moose across the bay to his dogs, and they, too, may be seen there to this day, as I myself have seen them. And there, too, in the rock, are the prints of his bow and arrow." ^ Another story, also from the Penobscots, has wit and sentiment worthy of a far more enlightened people. " Now it came to pass, when Glooskap had conquered all his enemies, — even the Kewahqu', who were giants and sorcerers, and the M'le'oulin, who were magicians, 1 Leland's " Legends of the Algonquins." 21 and the Pamola, who is the evil spirit of the night air, and all manner of ghosts, witches, devils, cannibals, and goblins, — that he thought upon what he had done, and wondered if his work were at an end. " And he said this to a certain woman. But she said : * Not so fast. Master, for there yet remains one whom no one has ever conquered or got the better of in any way, and who will remain unconquered to the end of time.' " * And w^ho is he? ' inquired the Master. " ' It is the mighty Wasis,' she replied ; * and there he sits ; and I warn you if you meddle with him you will be in sore trouble.' Now Wasis was the baby ; and he sat on the floor, sucking a piece of maple sugar, greatly contented with everything, and J'^l&^i^C^ troubling no one. *' As the Lord of men and beasts had never married or had a child, he knew naught of the way of managing chil- dren. Therefore he was quite cer- tain, as is the wont of such people, that he knew^ all about it. So he turned to baby wnth a bewitching smile, and bade him come to him. The baby smiled again, but did not budge. 22 " And the Master spake sweetly, and made his voice Hke that of the summer bird ; but it was of no avail, for Wasis sat still and sucked his maple sugar. " Then the Master frowned and spoke terribly, and ordered Wasis to come crawling to him immediately. And baby burst out into crying and yelling, but did not move, for all that. " Then, since he could do but one thing more, the Master had recourse to magic. He used his most awful spells, and sang the songs which raise the dead and scare the devils. And Wasis sat and looked on admiringly, and seemed to find it very interesting; but, all the same, he never moved an inch. " So Glooskap gave it up in despair, and Wasis, sit- ting on the floor in the sunshine, went * Goo ! goo ! ' and crowed. And to this day, when you see a babe, well contented, going * Goo! goo!' and crowing, and no one can tell why, know that it is because he remembers the time when he overcame the Master, who had conquered all the world. For of all the beings that have ever been since the beginning, baby is alone the invincible one." It is astonishing, and shows the strange contradictions of the Indian character, that so pretty and gentle a legend should originate in a race so barbarous and bloodthirsty. Such were the strange people who inhabited Maine, having inherited the land from their fathers and grand- fathers, when the first white men set foot upon its shores. III. HOW CAPTAIN WEYMOUTH KIDNAPED THE NATIVES. CAPTAIN GEORGE WEYMOUTH, in command of the ArcJiangcl, a fine, large ship, sailed from the English Downs for America on the 31st of March, 1605. The reason given out for the expedition was the old desire to find a northwest passage to India; but it was an open secret that its real object was to keep an eye upon the French, and establish some English settle- ments in desirable localities. On the iith of May Captain Weymouth came in sight of the American coast near Cape Cod. Finding himself among shoals, he sailed northwardly for a few days, and anchored on the north side of a large island, "as fair land to fall in with as could be desired," he reported. Sea fowl were plenty, and the sailors caught thirty large cod and haddock. They remained several days on the island, and "took plenty of salmon and other fishes of great bigness, good lobsters, rockfish, plaice, and lumps," and an abundance of mussels, some of which contained pearls, fourteen being taken from a single shell. Weymouth and his men also " digged a garden, sowed pease and barley and garden seeds, which, in sixteen days, grew up eight inches, although this was 23 24 '-'•ttio.r but the crust of the ground, and much inferior to the mold we afterwards found on the main." The adventurers were greatly delighted with the country they had found. Weymouth writes that many who had been travelers in sundry countries and had seen most famous rivers affirmed them not comparable to this, " the most beautiful, rich, large, secure harboring river that the world affordeth." When this was written they were on the Penobscot, probably as far up as Belfast Bay. Their first relations with the Indians were very friendly, and certainly should have been satisfactory to the visit- ors, who relate that one Indian gave them forty skins of beaver, otter, and sable, for articles of five shillings' value. The Indians were finally induced to visit the ship, and showed great curiosity at everything they saw. Captain Weymouth, for their entertainment, and also, perhaps, in order to impress them with a sense of his ex- traordinary powers, magnetized the point of his sword, and with it took up nee- dles and knives. The Indians re- garded this as mag- ic, but the process of writing seemed to them even more marvelous. Thev 25 watched with amazement, and even with fear, the writ- ing down of the names of the articles bought and sold. Two of the Indians lunched on board the ship, and found the pewter dishes magnificent. They asked to be allowed to carry some green pease — to them a new and delicious dainty — home to their squaws. When the white men returned the visit, the Indians built a great camp fire, the highest mark of hospitality, and gathered around it in solemn silence. They care- fully covered the seats around the fire with deerskin cushions, and then offered pipes and tobacco — such good cheer as they had — to their guests. They displayed their bows and arrows, perhaps with some such private motives as may have moved Captain Weymouth to show them his necromancy. The bows were made of the toughest wood of the forest, the art of selecting and preparing it being handed down from one generation to another. It needed tough muscles, too, and trained ones, to use the bows, but from the right hands an arrow could be sped with fearful force. The javelins were made of wood, and their manufacture was a matter of great skill and of especial pride. They were barbed with bone, and the barbs were often poisoned. Although of small avail against the firearms of civili- zation, these Indian weapons were capable of terrible execution upon a surprised or unarmed foe. Lurking in ambush, the savages hurled them to a great distance, and with an accuracy of aim that seemed almost mirac- ulous. When they obtained muskets and guns of the white men, the skill in aiming which they had acquired with their arrows made them formidable foes. 26 On a certain nip-ht when the Indians entertained the ArcJiangcr s company around their camp fire, Owen Griffin, one of the men, was left on shore as a watch- man. This may have been done because Weymouth really suspected treachery on the part of the savages, but the fact that three of the Indians were taken on board the ship as hostages for Griffin makes it seem probable that Weymouth was merely maturing his plans for kidnaping some Indians. He openly ac- knowledges that this was his intention from the begin- ning, and even justifies the deed, as do, astonishingly, some historians of a later and more enlightened time, on the ground of its great benefit to humanity. That the end justifies the means is apt to be very dangerous doctrine, as it is certainly a very hard one to accept in the case of the poor Indians, torn from home and kin- dred by worse than savage treachery. While on the coast, Weymouth treated with great kindness all the natives he encountered. Those whom he captured, after recovering from their surprise and alarm, and perceiving by their kind usage that no harm was intended them, became contented and tractable, and very willing to impart the information desired of them. To return to the story of the kidnaping : Owen Griffin remained on shore, and the three Indian hostages slept on the orlop deck of the ArcJiaugel, with a pile of old sails for a bed. They showed great fear of the EngH.sh dogs, and the dogs, on their part, always mani- fested a want of sympathy with Indians. The next day was Sunday ; and when the Indian 27 canoes set out for the ship with articles for barter, Cap- tain Weymouth waved a signal for them to go back. There being no Sundays in the savage calendar, this was a mystery which they, doubtless, thought might savor of the treachery of which they were constantly suspicious. But they returned, and did not venture a second time toward the ship that day. The next morn- ing the canoes appeared again, and the occupants made signs to indicate that the chief of their tribe was wait- ing a little farther up the bay with fine furs to barter. Captain Weymouth set out in a boat with eight men to find the chief; but, as always, he suspected treacher}', which is, perhaps, not strange, when one considers what his own designs were. So he sent Owen Griffin on shore in the canoe in which the in\itation had been brought, retaining as hostage one of the three Indians who had paddled it. The Indians gave a very full and candid description of their chief's situation and surroundings. He had two hundred and eighty followers with him, armed, as usual, with bows and arrows. He had also a great pack of Indian dogs and tamed wolves. When Owen Griffin reached the place, there were no furs at all for traffic. The Indians urged him to go farther up the stream, to the place where they said their furs were stored. It seems unlikely that they had any treacherous designs, for if they had they could have accomplished them as well where they were as farther up the river; and Captain Weymouth held an Indian as hostage in his boat. But Owen Griffin had not been chosen for his bravery. He was afraid, and he re- 28 turned to Captain Weymouth with a report which made the captain think it unsafe to land. The natives, on their part, felt increased suspicions that the white visitors meant them harm. When two canoes, with three Indians in each, paddled near to the ship, Captain Weymouth tried in vain to lure them on board. When he extended a dish of green pease, they seized them, but paddled away to a distance and de- voured them. After that two in the other canoe ven- tured to go on board. When one of the pea- eaters, a fine, athletic young brave, politely returned with the dish. Captain Wey- mouth beguiled him on board, and induced him to go to the cabin below, where the two other Indians were being entertained. There the three poor savages soon found that their suspicions of treachery were realized, for the cabin door was locked against them. These three being secured, the enterprising Captain Weymouth straightway set to work to kidnap some more. There had been six Indians in the canoes, and three of them were now on shore. He sent out a boat, manned by eight of the strongest sailors, to pretend that they wished to buy furs. They carried another can of pease. The savages' vulnerable point seems to have been an appetite for pease. One of the Indians took to the woods and escaped, but the other two were persuaded to sit down before their fire with the white visitors ; and they all ate together like brothers until suddenly, watching their opportunity, the stout sailors sprang upon their victims and, after a ter- rible struggle, dragged them to their boat and finally on 29 board the ship. "Thus," triumphantly writes Rosier, who kept the journal of the voyage, " we shipped five savas^es and two .^ , ; canoes, with all their bows and arrows." One of these young Indians was a chief, and , two others were of rank in their tribe. They had "' come from their > home at Pema- quid to visit the '^~ white strangers, of whom they had heard. The names of four of these captives were Tisquantum, Nahanada, Skitwarroes, and Assacomet, one being a sagamore, or head chief. The first three Weymouth delivered to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who was at that time the gov- ernor of Plymouth, England ; the other two were probably assigned to Sir John Popham, an English judge who w^as much interested in American affairs. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who has been called the father of Enghsh colonization in New England, kept the three Indians in his family for several years. He treated them with great kindness, and had them taught the English language ; and he so well improved the oppor- tunity given him to acquire a knowledge of the region visited by Weymouth that he says: "The capture of these Indians must be acknowledged the means, under '■A 30 God, of putting on foot ^md giving life to all our plantations." It was intended that the Indians should be returned to their homes, and when the Plymouth Company was formed, two of them, Nahanada and Assacomet, were placed on board a ship which sailed from Bristol, Eng- land, for the coast of Maine. The ship encountered a Spanish fleet, and was captured — England being then at war with Spain — and carried off, a prize, to Spain, which country had already learned to make slaves of the Indians, as many as could be caught. So the second captivity of these two poor Indians was far worse than their first. But there were then many Spanish vessels sailing to the American shores for fishing or trading, and in some one of these Nahanada was so fortunate as to find his way back to his native land. It was Nahanada that was supposed to be a chief of high rank. . When, in 1607, the Plymouth Company attempted to plant a colony at the mouth of the Sagadahoc River, in Maine, Skitwarroes, another of the kidnaped Indians, was sent over on board a vessel called the JlLijy andJoJin. The ship came to anchor near Pemaquid, and the captain, manning a boat, took Skitwarroes as a guide, ajitd rowed across the bay to the mainland. Skitwarroes led the way to a little Indian town in what is now Bristol. But the Indians had learned from Weymouth's kidnap- ing to regard the English as fiends. The air was filled with the shrieks of squaws and children, and the men prepared for a vigorous defense. Skitwarroes tried to reassure them, but m his English dress they failed to 31 recognize him. But when Nahanada caught siglit of his fellow-prisoner, he rushed into his arms, and the terrified Indians were soon calmed by the influence of their two chiefs. We hear, later in the history of the colonies, of these three Indians, Nahanada, Skitwarroes, and Assacomet, who had made so strange and painful a journey into the great world of the white man ; and they seem to have acted the part of peacemakers between their people and the Europeans. Tisquantum, also, or Squantum, as he is called by later historians, was returned to his native country, and was the first Indian who visited the Pilgrims of the Plymouth colony. He had forgotten or forgiven the treachery of the English, and was the firm friend of the Pilgrims, acting as interpreter between them and the savages, and doing much to preserve peace and friendly relations. But let us return to the A7xhangcl, with her im- prisoned Indians. Weymouth was preparing to set sail, having no desire to linger until the fate of five of their number should become known to the Indians, when two large canoes were discovered, making for the ship. They were highly decorated canoes, and the Indians in them were elaborately painted and gor- geously dressed in their barbaric fashion. It was evi- dently an embassy of great importance, for it bore all the marks of that display and ceremony which the wild, forest-reared Indians loved so well. One of them even wore a coronet in which glass beads, the feathers of wild fowl, and real pearls were 32 somewhat queerly but not ineffectively mingled. And this was not merely an ornament with which any one who chose might adorn himself, but showed that the w^earer was of royal blood. They came with an invita- tion to Captain Weymouth to visit, in his ship, their great lord, the head chief of the Pemaquid tribes. They came on board the Archangel, and were entertained upon the deck, quite unconscious of their miserable captive brothers below. That Captain Weymouth did not seize them and carry them away captive was probably due only to his lack of accommodation for any more prisoners than he had. He declined the invitation, but dismissed them with much politeness and many assurances of friendly esteem. He set sail immediately after the departure of the em- bassy, and sailed westerly along the Maine coast, of which he has left an enthusiastic description. While the Archangel lay at anchor in the Sagada- hoc, an Indian canoe appeared, that had followed on her track as soon as the kidnaping of the Indians was discovered. It was rowed by many Indians, and in it was the Indian prince, who had come to try to rescue his countrymen. His supplications were, of course, all in vain. Wey- mouth invited him to the religious ceremony of planting a cross at the mouth of the Androscoggin River, where he said to him: "It is in the name of Jesus Christ that I have kidnaped your friends. It is Christianity which authorizes these deeds. Some of my countrymen will soon appear to teach you to em- brace this religion." 33 On the homeward voyage of the ArcJiangcl a dis- covery was made which has proved a great blessing to the world. When about a hun- dred miles from land, the ship ran into shoal water, the depth dwindlinj gradually to less than twenty-five fathoms. In this shoal water the ArcJiaugel was one day wholly becalmed, and a sailor, Thomas King, whose name should be held in remem- brance as that of a great discoverer, was moved by what old Izaak Walton calls *' the primal, honest instinct of humanity to fish." He cast out a line, and drew up a codfish of quite astonishing size. Other sailors followed his example, and fine fat codfish were caught almost as fast as the fishermen's arms could move. For then, as now, the Grand Banks of Newfoundland swarmed with fish. STO. OF MAINE — 3 IV. FATHER BIARD'S STORY. MOST historians assert that Father Biard and I'^ather Masse, the two Jesuit missionaries who had quarreled with Biencourt, the lordly ruler of Port Royal, departed thence by themselves directly to Mount Desert, which the Indians had represented to be "a goodly land abounding in game and fish." The facts as set forth in Father Biard's simple and dramatic nar- rative, in the "Jesuit Relations," are quite different. Although the priests had had difficulties, even on the ship that brought them from France, with Pourtrin- court, the first commander of Port Royal, who had told them it was " his part to rule them on earth, and theirs only to guide him to heaven," and afterwards with Bien- court, Pourtrincourt's son, who had threatened them with the whipping post, they seem to have still lingered at Port Royal until aid and countenance came to them in the shape of De Monts's surrender of his patent to Mme. de Guercheville. She was a woman famed among the attendants of Marie de Medicis for her beauty and her piety. The great desire of her heart was to plant the Roman Catholic faith in the wilds of America, and in the spring of 1613 she sent her agent, M. Saussaye, to take possession of the land in her name, and to set up her arms. 34 35 M. Saussaye evadently proceeded first to Port Royal (now Annapolis, Nova Scotia), and there the two priests embarked with him to seek a place where a French settlement could be established under more favorable auspices than had attended the one at Port Royal. Two other priests, Father Quentin and Father du Thet, were of the party. This is the tale as told by Father Biard himself: " We were detained five days at Port Royal by adverse winds, when, a favorable northeaster having arisen, we set out with the intention of sailing up Pentagoet [Penobscot] River to a place called Kadesquit [Bangor], which had been chosen for our new residence, and which possessed great advantages for this purpose. But the good God willed otherwise, for when we had reached the southeastern coast of the island of Menan the wea- ther changed, and the sea was covered with a fog so dense that we could not distinguish day from night. " We were greatly alarmed, for this place is full of breakers and rocks, upon which we feared, in the dark- ness, our vessel might drift. The wind not permitting us to put out to sea, we remained in this position two days and two nights, veering sometimes to one side, sometimes to another, as God inspired us. " Our tribulation led us to pray to God to deliver us from danger and send us to some place where we might contribute to His glory. He heard us in His mercy, for on the same evening we began to discover the stars, and in the morning the fog had cleared away. We then discovered that we were near the coast of Mount Desert, an island which the savages call Pemetic. 36 "The pilot steered toward the eastern shore, and landed us in a large and beautiful harbor. We returned thanks to God, elevating the cross, and singing praises, with the holy sacrifice of the mass. We named the place and harbor St. Saviour." This was probably Northeast Harbor. " Now, in this place (St. Saviour) a violent quarrel arose between our sailors and the other passengers. The cause of it was that the charter granted and the agreement made in France were to the effect that the said sailors should be bound to put into any port in Acadia that we should designate, and should remain there three months. " The sailors insisted that they had arrived at a port in Acadia, and that the term of three months ought to date from this arrival. To this the answer was that this port was not the one designated, which was Kades- quit, and that therefore the time that they were in St. Saviour should not be taken into account. " There was much argument over this question, and while it was still unsettled the savages made a fire, in order that we might see the smoke. This signal meant that they had observed us, and wished to see if we needed them, which we did. " The pilot found an opportunity to let them know that the fathers from Port Royal were in his ship. " The savages replied that they would be very glad to see one whom they had known at Pentagoet two years before. This was I, Father Biard, and I went immediately to see them, and inquired the route to Kadesquit, telling them that we intended to live there. 37 " ' But,' said they, ' why do you not remain, instead, with us, wlio have as good a place as Kadesquit?' " They then began to praise ^ their settlement, assuring us "'"ifj vJ^t'^^^T #?, that it was so healthful and "^'^''^S^fel?^! i^ so pleasant and so delightful in every wa}^ that when the natives were ill anywhere else they were brought there and were quickly cured. "These eulogies did not greatly im- press us, because we knew well that the savages, like other people, some- times overrated their own posses- sions. Neverthe- less, they knew how to induce us to remain, for they said : ' You must come, for our sagamore, Asti- cou, is dangerously ill, and if you do not come he will die without baptism, and will not go to heaven ; and you will be the cause of it, for he wishes to be baptized.' " This reason finally persuaded us, since there were but three leagues to travel, and it would be no greater loss of time than a single afternoon. . " We embarked in the savages' canoe, with Sieur de la Motte and Simon, the interpreter. When we arrived at Asticou's wigwam, we found him ill, but not /jiiiQoluvTna^tr 38 dang-erously so, for he was suffering only from rheuma- tism. And after discovering this, we decided to pay a visit to the place which the Indians had boasted was so much better than Kadesquit for Frenchmen. ** We found that the savages had indeed reasonable grounds for their eulogies. We felt very well satisfied with it ourselves, and having carried these tidings to the rest of the crew, it v/as unanimously agreed that we should remain there, and not seek farther, seeing that God himself seemed to intend it, by the train of happy accidents that had occurred, and by the miraculous cure of a child, which I shall relate elsewhere. This place is a beautiful hill, sloping gently to the seashore, and supplied with water by a spring on each side. " The ground comprises from twenty-five to thirty acres, covered with grass which in some places reaches the height of a man. It fronts the south and east toward Pentagoet Bay, into which are discharged the waters of several pretty streams abounding in fish. The land is rich and fertile. The port and harbor are the finest possible, in a position commanding the entire coast ; the harbor especially is as smooth as a pond, being shut in by the large island of Mount Desert, besides being sur- rounded by certain small islands which break the force of the winds and waves and fortify the entrance. " It is large enough to hold any fleet, and is navigable for the largest ships up to a cable's length from the shore. It is in latitude 44}4^ N., a position more northerly than that of Bordeaux.^ 1 This was evidently Fernalds Point, on the western side of Somes Sound. 39 " When we had landed in this place, and planted the cross, we set to work ; and with the work began our disputes, the omen and origin of our misfortunes. The cause of these disputes was that our captain, La Saus- saye, wished to attend to agriculture, and our other leaders besought him not to occupy the workmen in that manner and thereby delay the erection of dwellings and fortifications. He would not comply with their requests ; and from these disputes arose otliers, which lasted until the English obliged us to make peace in the manner I am about to relate. " The English colonists in Virginia are in the habit of coming every year to the islands of Pencoit, twenty- five leagues from St. Saviour, in order to provide food [fish] for the winter. While on their way, as usual, in the summer of 1613, they were overtaken out at sea by fogs and mists, which in this region often overspread both land and sea in summer. These lasted some days, in which the tide drifted them gradually farther than they intended. They were about eighty leagues farther in New France than they supposed, but they did not recognize the place." Father Biard means, of course, within the limits of the territory granted to De Monts and now transferred to Mme. de Guercheville. Samuel Argall, whose ship was now swooping down upon the little French settlement on the shore of Somes Sound, was nominally a trader, but practically a pirate. He went fishing in a vessel manned by eighty sailors and carrying fourteen guns. He plundered every French ship that he could lay hold of, and piously prayed 40 for the blessing of God upon his voyages. Ha\ ing now lost his reckoning, he improved the unexpected opportunity to rob and murder tlie French. Father Biard continues: "Some savages observed their vessel, and went to meet them, supposing them to be Frenchmen in search of us. The Englishmen understood nothing of what the savages said, but con- jectured from their signs that there was a vessel near, and that this vessel was French. They understood the word 'Normans' which the savages called us, and in the polite gestures of the natives they recognized the French ceremonies of courtesy. "Then the Englishmen, who were in need of provi- sions and of everything else, ragged, half naked, and in search of plunder, inquired carefully how large our vessel was, how many cannon we liad, at^.d how many men; and having received a satisfactory answer, uttered cries of joy, demonstrating that they had found what they wanted, and that they intended to attack us. " The savages did not so interpret their demonstra- tions, however, for they supposed the Englishmen to be our friends who earnestly desired to see us. Accord- ingly, one of them guided the Englishmen to our vessel. "As soon as the Englishmen saw us, they began to prepare for combat, and their guide then saw that he had made a mistake, and began to weep, and to curse tho.se who had deceived him. Many times afterwards he wept and implored pardon for his error, of us and of the others, because they wished to avenge our misfortune on him, believing that he had acted through malice. " On seeing this vessel approach us, we knew not 41 whether we were to meet friends or enemies, French- men or foreigners. The pilot, therefore, went forward in a sloop to reconnoiter, while the rest were arming themselves. La Saussaye remained on shore, and with liim the greater number of the men. Lieutenant La Motte, Ensign Ronfere, Sergeant Joubert, and the rest went on board the ship. " The English ship moved with the swiftness of an arrow, havinij; the wind astern. It was hun^ at the waist with red, the arms of England floated over it, and three trumpets and two drums were ready to sound. Our pilot, who had gone forward to reconnoiter, did not return to the ship, fearing, as he said, to fall into their hands, to avoid which he rowed himself around an island. " Thus the ship did not contain one half its crew, and was defended only by ten men, of whom but one. Cap- tain Flory, had had any experience of naval contests. Although not lacking in prudence or courage, the cap- tain had not time to prepare for conflict, nor had his crew. There was not even time to weigh anchor so as to disengage the ship, which is the first step to be taken in sea fights. It would, however, have been of little use to weigh the anchor, since the sails were fastened ; for, as it was summer, they had been arranged as an awning to shade the decks. "This mishap, however, had a good result; for, our men being sheltered during the combat, and out of reach of the Englishmen's guns, fewer of them were killed or wounded. *' As soon as the Englishmen appr(^ached, our sailors 42 hailed them ; but they repHed only by threatening cries, and by discharges of musketry and cannon. They had fourteen pieces of artillery and sixty artillerymen, who ranged themselves along the side of their vessel, firing rapidly without taking aim. ** The first discharge was terrible. The whole ship was shrouded in fire and smoke. On our side the guns remained silent. Captain Flor\' shouted out, ' Put the cannon position!' but the gunner was absent. Father Gi)- A. bert du Thet, who had never been guilty of cowardice in his life, hearing le captain's order, and seeing that no one obeyed, took the match and fired the cannon as loudly as the enemy's. The misfortune was that he did not aim carefully. " The Englishmen, after their first attack, made read}/ to board our vessel. Captain Flory cut the cable, and thus arrested, for a time, the progress of the enemy. They then fired another volley, and in this Du Thet was wounded by a musket, and fell across the helm. " Captain Flory and three others were also wounded, and they cried out that they surrendered. " 71ie Englishmen, on hearing this cry, went into their boat to board our vessel, when our men impru- dently rushed into theirs, in order to put off to shore before the arrival of the visitors. The conquerors cried 43 out to them to return, or they would fire on them, and two of our men, in their terror, threw themselves into the water and were drowned, either because they were wounded or, more probably, were shot while in the water. " They were both promising young men, one named Le Moine, from Dieppe, and the other named Nenen, from Beauvais. Their bodies were found nine days afterwards, and carefully interred. Such was the his- tory of the capture of our vessel. " The victorious English made a landing at the place where we had begun to erect our tents and dwellings, and searched Captain Flory to find his commission, say- ing that the land was theirs, but if we could show that we had acted in good faith, and under the authority of our prince, they would not drive us away, since they did not wish to imperil the amicable relations between our two sovereigns. " The trouble was that they did not find La Saus- saye, but they seized his desk, searched it carefully, and having found our commission and royal letters, seized them. Then, putting everything in its place, they closed and locked the desk. " On the next day, when he saw La Saussaye, the English captain greeted him politely, and then asked to see his commission. La Saussaye replied that his papers were in his desk, which was accordingly brought to him, and he found that it was locked and in perfect order, but the papers were missing. "The English captain immediately changed his tone and manner, saying: ' Then, sir, you are nnposing upon 44 us! You give us to understand that you hold a com- mission from your king, and yet you can produce no evidence of it. You are ah rogues and pirates, and deserve to be executed.' He then gave his soldiers permission to plunder us, in which work they spent the entire afternoon. " We witnessed the destruction of our property from the shore, the Englishmen having fastened our vessels to theirs ; for we had two, a ship, and a boat newly con- structed and equipped. We were thus reduced to a miserable condition, and this was not all. Next day they landed and robbed us of all we .still possessed, destroying also our clothing and other things. *' At one time they committed some personal violence on two of our people, which so enraged them that they fled into the woods like poor crazed creatures, half naked and without any food, not knowing what was to become of them. " I have told you that Father du Thet was wounded by a musket shot during the fight. The Englishmen, on entering our ship, placed him under the care of their surgeon, with the other wounded men. The sur- geon was a Catholic and a very charitable man, and he treated us with great kindness. The captain allowed Father du Thet to be carried ashore, so that he had an opportunity to receive the last sacraments, and to praise the just and merciful God, in company with his brethren. He died with much resignation, calmness, and devo- tion, twenty-four hours after he was wounded. He was buried, the next day, at the foot of a large cross which we had erected on our arrival. 45 " It was not until then that the EngHshmen recog- nized the Jesuits to be priests. I, Father Biard, and Father Ennemond Masse went to the ship to speak to the Engh'sh captain, and frankly explained to him that we were Jesuits who had come to this heathen land to convert the savages to the true faith, and implored him, by the Redeemer who died for us all, to leave us in peace. From that time the captain made Father Masse and me share his table, sho.wing us much kind- ness and respect. But one thing annoyed him greatly — the escape of the pilot and sailors, of whom he could hear nothing. " The pilot was a native of Rouen named La Pailleur. The English captain was an able and artful man, a gen- tleman and a man of courage. *' It is difficult to believe how much sorrow we ex- perienced at this time, for we did not know what was to be our fate. On the one hand, we expected either death or slavery from the English, and, on the other, to remain in this country, and live an entire year among the savages, seemed to us a lingering and painful death. But we did not see any hope before us, and we did not see how we could live in such a desert." La Saussaye, Father Masse, and thirteen others were mercilessly cast off in an open boat. Being joined among the islands by the pilot in his boat, they made their way eastward by the aid of oars, until, on the southern coast of Nova Scotia, they found two trading vessels, and secured passage to Saint- Male. Father Biard and thirteen others were carried prisoners to Virginia, where Sir Thomas Dale, governor of Virginia, 46 threatened to hang them, and would doubtless have made good his threat if Argall had not, at length, been moved to confess that he had stolen the commission. They were at last allowed to take passage on a vessel bound for the Azores, and from those islands the captain of the vessel decided to sail to a port in Wales. There Father Biard went also, and was favorably received by the Protestant clergymen. Later he returned to France, and became a professor in a theological seminary. But a more roving life w^as better suited to his taste, and he was soon made a chaplain in the French army, where he remained until his death. Mme. de Guercheville soon abandoned or was bereft of her claim. M. Cadillac next received from Louis XIV. a grant of a hundred thousand acres on both sides of the bay and comprising a large part of the island of Mount Desert. Cadillac was always proud of his domain, although he remained in the region but a little time. He ob- tained many offices and honors in the New World, and was at one time governor of Louisiana; and as long as he lived he took to himself the high-sounding title, Lord of Mount Desert. But he never attempted to make any settlement upon the island, and, indeed, there never was another French settlement there, although, many years after M. Cadillac's death, Mme. Gregoire proved herself to be his lineal descendant, and, estab- lishing a claim to a part of his possessions, came from France with her husband, and made her home at Mount Desert. 47 They settled at Hulls Cove, near Bar Harbor. The island had by that time been partially settled by fisher- men, but it was still a half-savage land, and the high- born French emigrants must have led a strange and lonely life. M, Gregoire was a recluse, or such is the impression of him that remains with the descendants of the fishermen who knew him; but Mme. Gregoire was a spirited and energetic woman, who affiliated with fisherfolk and Indians, and made the best of the wild life that she had, perhaps ignorantly, chosen. They never returned to France, although their children did. Their bodies are buried outside the little cemetery at Hulls Cove, — outside probably because they were Roman Catholics, — and the wild roses, that know no creeds, have wandered through the rude cemetery fence and impartially bedecked their graves. V. THE STORY OF EPENOW AND ASSACOMET. IX years after Weymouth's kidnaping exploit, Cap- tain Edward Harlow was sent from England to explore Cape Cod and the region round about it. He sailed first to Monhegan, and, anchoring in its harbor, he enticed three Indians on board his ship, and seized them as captives. His methods were less cere- monious than Captain Weymouth's, and his avowed purpose was to sell them as slaves, or to make money by them in some other way. The names of the pris- oners were Peckmo, Monopet, and Peckenine. Peckmo was an athletic young brave, and after a fierce struggle he broke away from his captors, leaped over- board, and swam ashore. He aroused all the Indians within hail, and they rushed fiercely to the rescue of the captured Monopet and Peckenine. Canoes sur- rounded the ship ; but arrows were no match for the firearms of the white men, who only mocked their efforts. But, sweeping the deck with their whizzing arrows, they succeeded in cutting away the longboat of the ship, that was floating at the stern. They carried tlie boat ashore, filled it witli sand, and placed it in a position where they could defend it with their arrows. When Harlow sent a band of armed men to recover 48 49 the boat, the savages fought ciesperately ; it is probable that some of them were killed, and three of Harlow's men were seriously wounded; but Harlow went away without his boat. Sailing off with his two captives, he made his way to Cape Cod, aiid there lured more of the unsuspecting- savages on board his ship by offering enticing wares for barter. He secured three more captives, locking, the oaken doors of the cabin upon them, as he had done upon the others. The names of these Cape Cod Indians were Sackaweston, Coneconum, and Epenow. It is strange to know that the Maine Indians and those from Cape Cod could not understand one another's language, and their habits and customs were almost as different as their speech. But the different tribes all over the country soon had one strong sentiment in common — hatred and distrust of the white man. Har- low carried all five of the kidnaped Indians to London, where he exhibited Epenow, who seems to have been the most clever and tractable of them, in a show. Sir P^rdinando Gorges, w^ho had interested himself in Weymouth's captives, finally took Epenow also under his protection. " There came one Harlow unto me," writes Sir Ferdinando, " bringing with him a native of the island of Capawick, a place seated to the southward of Cape Cod, whose name was Epenow. He was a person of goodly stature, strong and well proportioned. This man was taken upon the main by force, with some twenty-nine others, by a ship of London, which en- deavored to sell them as slaves in Spain. But it being understood that they were Americans, and unfit STO. OF MAIXF. — 4 50 for their uses, they would not meddle with them. This Epenow was one of them whom they refused, wherein they expressed more worth than those that brought them to the market. How Captain Harlow came to be in possession of this savage I know not; ,but I under- stood by others how he had been shown in London for a wonder. It is true, as I have said, that he was a goodly man, of a brave aspect, stout, and sober in his demeanor, and had learned so much English as to bid those that wondered at him, * Welcome ! Wei- con:ie ! Epenow by forming a shrewd plan to get back to his own country shov/ed that his ability was not overrated. He and Assacomet, who was then still in England, and whom he met probably through the kindness of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, put their heads together and agreed to make the English believe that Epenow knew of a gold mine in America, in the hope that they might be em- ployed to guide an expedition in quest of it. They were successful in this deception, and Gorges himself sent a ship to Cape Cod, under command of Captain Hobson, with Epenow and Assacomet as guides to the gold mine. Some suspicions seem to have been entertained of the sincerity of Epenow and Assacomet, for when the ship anchored in the harbor to which Epenow had guided it as being within convenient distance from the gold mine, the captain treated both Indians as prisoners and would not allow them to go ashore. The natives came on board the ship in great numbers, and some of the brothers of Epenow were among them. 51 The story of what happened is told by Gorges's son, who accompanied the expecHtion. " But Epenow," he writes, " privately had contracted with his friends how he miglit make his escape without performing what he had undertaken. For tliat cause I gave the captain strict charge to endeavor, by all means, to prevent his escape. And for the more surety I gave order to have three gentlemen of my own kindred to be ever at hand with him, clothing him with long garments, fitly to be laid hold of, if occasion should require. '* Notwithstanding all this, his friends being all come, at the time appointed, with twenty canoes, and lying at a certain distance with their bows ready, the captain calls to them to come on board. But thev not moving, he speaks to Epenow to come unto him where he was in the forecastle of the ship. Epenow was then in the waist of the ship, between two of the gentlemen that had him in guard. Suddenly he starts from them, and coming to the captain, calls to his friends in English to come on board. In the interim he slips himself over- 52 board ; and although he was taken hold of by one of the company, yet, being a strong and heavy man, he could not be staid. He was no sooner in the water but the natives, his friends in the boats, sent such a shower of arrows, and came, withal, desperately, so near the ship, that they carried him away in despite of all the musketeers, who were, for the number, as good as our nation did afford. And thus were my hopes of that particular voyage made void and frustrate." Five years after this an English captain, sent by Sir Ferdinando Gorges, visited the island (supposed to be Martha's Vineyard) where this rescue of Epenow took place. He met Epenow, who told him triumphantly of his escape. Epenow and his friends thought that the object of the expedition was to seize him and carry him back to England ; and when an armed boat's crew came on shore, a skirmish ensued, in which the English captain was wounded and, with his crew, driven back to the ship. Squantum, the friendly Indian who himself had had the experience of being kidnaped, is said to have tried to prevent the hostilities. " The Indians would have killed me had not Squantum entreated hard in my be- half," writes the English captain. A little later than this, one Thomas Hunt seized twenty-four savages at the mouth of the Kennebec, and sold them as slaves at Malaga. The price received is said to have been one hundred dollars each. Assacomet made his way home to Pemaquid, and we hear that he was afterwards the friend of the settlers. VI. THE PLYMOUTH COMPANY. THE eyes of many Englishmen were still turned toward America — " a fertile, salubrious land," as one ancient chronicle describes it. There were some who longed for adventure, and some who were greedy of wealth ; and the captive Indians carried across the ocean had aroused in others the desire to carry Chris- tianity to the dark corners oi the earth, and civilize the strange barbarians. Moreover, there were not a few Englishmen who wanted the country simply because France claimed it. In 1606, when James I. was King of England, a com- pany of gentlemen was formed whose avowed purpose was "to propagate God's holy church." After events proved that they were not wholly superior to considera- tions of personal gain in connection with this pious and laudable purpose. The company comprised two divisions, one of which essayed to settle Virginia and the region thereabout, and the other, known as the Plymouth Company, with Lord Popham and Sir Ferdinando Gorges as leaders, sent out a ship in August, 1606, to establish a colony on the Acadian peninsula, embracing what is now the state of Maine. The ship carried thirty-one white men and two Indians — Weymouth's captives. England was 53 54 then at war witli Spain, and the vessel was seized by a Spanish fleet and carried to Spain. A second vessel reached the Maine shores, but was, for some unknown reason, unsuccessful in establishing a colony. The first division of the council, called the London Company, had sent a hundred colonists to Virginia, and at the mouth of the James River a permanent settlement was established. On the 31st of May, 1607, two ships set out from Plymouth, England, with colonists for the Northern shores. George Popham, a brother of Lord Popham, was in command of one ship, and Raleigh Gil- bert, a nephew of Sir Walter Raleigh, of the other. They had intended to have three ships, but in conse- quence of some difficulty in procuring another, two only were dispatched. Popham's vessel was called the Gift of God, and Gil- bert's the Mary and JoJlii. There were over a hundred colonists in these vessels, and large quantities of the necessaries of life in a new land. These vessels found the Grand Banks of Newfound- land a wonderful fishing ground. They stopped three hours to fish, and took so many codfish that they could have filled their boats. They were " of a most goodly size," too, these fish with which the New V/orld's wa- ters teemed. " There seems, indeed, to be no limit to the good gifts of God in these waters," writes an enthu- siastic chronicler of the vovao-e. They had directed their course to the island of Mon- hegan, but came to anchor at a small island not far from Pemaquid, supposed to be Stage Island. They had religious services, and read their patent. It was a form 55 of government, carefully drafted and adapted to a great state. Every colonist and his children were to be "citizens of the realm;" the coinage of money was made lawful ; and for seven years the importation of all useful chattels, armor, and furniture from the British dominions was to be allowed free of duty. The colo- nists were also given the right to exact taxes and duties for their own benefit, and to seize or expel intruders. Besides giving thanks to God for their safe arrival, and reading their patent, the settlers listened to a ser- mon preached by the Rev. Richard Seymour, the chap- lain of the company. Eight Indian men and a boy visited them upon the island. At first these natives showed distrust, but at length three of the bolder spirits ventured on board the ship. Their reception seems to have been an agreeable one, for the next day they returned in a larger boat, with a load of fine beaver skins, for which an honorable and satisfactory trafiic was made. The colonists built some rude cottages on this island, and sunk two or three wells ; but thev soon decided that the island was too small for a permanent settlemxcnt. It is said that on Stage Island one may still see the remains of a fort, brick chimneys, and some wells of water, and several cellars. The bricks must have come from Europe. The settlers reembarked, and sailing on in search of a favorable location for their new settlement, they came to a cape which they describe as low land, showing white like sand. " But yet it is all white rocks, and a strong tide goeth in there." This is thought to have c 6 been Cape Smallpoint, at the western extremity of the town of Phippsburg, where the tides are remarkably strong. Skitwarroes, the Indian chief captured by Weymouth, was on board the Mary and John. He here found his friends, including Nahanada, who had previously found his way home, and was of great service to the white men in keeping peace with the Indians, whom at this point they found in a terrified and hostile condition from their recollection of Weymouth's treachery. Wind and weather seem to have had their part in determining the location of the first settlement in Maine. In attempting to enter the Sagadahoc River the two ships encountered a dead calm. They were three miles south of Seguin, and were forced to lie there. The calm preceded a storm, as dead calms are apt to do, especially off Seguin. In the middle of the night a wild tempest arose. There was no harbor and no anchorage, and the Gift of God and the Mary and Jo Jin were in imminent danger of being beaten upon the rocky shore. All night the lives of the passengers and the life of the new colony were in jeopardy. With the earliest ray of dawn, the storm having almost spent itself, they sought the nearest point where they could find safety. Under the shelter of a small island, supposed to be one of the St. Georges, they found a safe harbor. The next morning, with weather still unfavorable, the Gift of God made her way into the mouth of the Saga- dahoc. Before the Mary and John could follow she was becalmed ; but by her boats and those of the Gift she was towed in as soon as the tide served, and anchored 57 also in the "gallant river," as they called the beautiful Sagadahoc. They rowed far up the river in search of an abiding place, and found many "goodly" sites for the new settlement, but none that seemed to them more favor- able than the one at the mouth of the river. It was at the southerly corner of the present town of Phippsburg, near what is now called Atkins Bay. The Indians called the place Sabino, from the chief within whose dominion it lay. It was a beautiful head- land of more than a hundred acres. They gave the settlement the name of Sagadahoc colony, and laid its foundation with religious ceremonies, to the intense interest of the Indians, who were always greatl}' at- tracted by ceremonials. These Indians had Nahanada, the returned captive, for their chief, but he evidently did not dispel their suspicion of the white men. They could not be hired to work, although they worked gladly for the French in Canada. Weymouth's treachery had made too deep an impression upon them. The colonists built a fort, and named it Fort St. George from the Christian name of their leader. It was afterwards called Fort Popham. It was on the southeastern side of Cape Smallpoint. In December the Gift of God and the Mary and John returned to England, leaving only forty-five settlers, a small, stout-hearted band, to face the winter with but scanty supplies, and between a howling wilderness and a waste of waters. They had built several log huts, and named the town St. George. They built also a storehouse for their 58 supplies, and a small vessel to cruise along the coast and make explorations. This first vessel built in Maine was of thirty tons' burden, and the name Vii'giiiia was given to her by the settlers. From the first, great dissatisfaction prevailed in the col- ony, and its affairs seem to have been conducted without prudence or discre- tion. They discov- ered too late that the headland, which they had supposed to be so fertile, was a sand bank, barren and bleak. They sent home the discouraging report that the country was " intolerably cold and sterile, unhealthy, and not habitable by our English nation." After their buildings were erected, instead of occupy- ing themselves with preparations for the coming winter, they were continually making excursions in the Vii'-. ginia, seeking a better location for a settlement, al- though they could not then avail themselves of this if it should be found. They also had continual difticulties with the Indians, although, under the influence of Skit- 59 warroes, the returned captive, these were disposed to be peaceable and friendly. Some of the chiefs offered, with great friendliness, to go with the white men to the Bashaba, their saga- more, who lived somewhere in the region about Pema- quid. He was a mighty prince, head over all the sachems from Penobscot to Piscataqua, and all strangers were expected to pay him court. An expedition set out, guided by Skitwarroes, to visit this high potentate, whose friendly favor was, of course, greatly to be desired ; but, unfortunately, it was obliged to turn back by reason of adverse winds and stormy weather. Shortly afterwards the Bashaba sent his own son to Popham, proposing to open a traffic in furs and skins. In all this early traffic the Indians are said to have been not only businesslike and honorable, but to have shown a remarkably generous spirit. An Indian named Ameri- guin, — his name has survived the centuries on account of one little act that showed a generous spirit, — having been given a straw hat and a knife, immediately pre- sented the giver with a rich beaver mantle. The colonists suffered miserably from cold. They had neglected to provide ample stores of wood, as they might have done, and had failed to obtain from the Indians the necessary supply of furs for clothing and bed din"-. At length the difficulties with the Indians culminated in a fierce quarrel, in which one of the settlers was killed, and the rest were driven out of the fort, leaving provisions, arms, and several barrels of powder. The 6o Indians opened the barrels of powder, and, having had no experience with explosives, carelessly scattered the stuff about. Everything in the fort was blown to pieces, and several of the Indians were killed. Fortunately for the colonists, the savages regarded this terrifying disaster as a sign that the Great Spirit was angry with them for their treatment of the strangers, and they immediately made overtures for peace. Another story wdiich reflects very severely upon the settlers is told by Williamson, who " hopes it may be one of those tales invented or exaggerated by the lively imagination of posterity." Some Indians who had come to the fort to trade furs were shown the firearms, in which they had always a keen interest, regarding gunpowder as a device of magic, or else an especial gift of the Great Spirit to his white children. They were allowed to draw a small mounted cannon by its ropes, and when they were all in an ex- posed position it was discharged. Some were killed and others wounded, while all received a frightful shock. When the colonists' storehouse took fire in mid- winter, and, with most of their provisions in it, was burned to the ground, it was perhaps not unreasonable to suppose that the Indians were the incendiaries. As soon as the Gift of God and the Mary and Jo Jin reached England, another outfit was to have been sent to the colonists, and two ships w^eYe made ready. But while one ship waited for a favoring wind, the death of Lord Popham, the moving spirit of the enterprise, was announced, and before the other sailed the news reached it that Sir John, the brother of Raleigh Gilbert, was 6i dead. George Popham, the head of the colony, also died, — fortunately for him, while there was yet hope that the settlement would survive. His last words were : " I die content. My name will be always associated with the first planting of the English race in the New World. My remains will not be neglected, away from the home of my fathers and my kindred." His expectation was unfulfilled. His colony soon came to an end. His grave, on the alien shore, far from the home of his fathers, remains unmarked and unknown. But his name has not quite faded or been forgotten in the province of Maine, where his highest hopes were set. Raleigh Gilbert succeeded Popham as head of the colony ; but his brother's estate, which he had inherited, required his attention, and he soon returned to England. All these misfortunes, happening at nearly the same time, proved the deathblow to the colony. The resent- ment of the natives on account of the cannon discharge had not been overcome, and one account represents the colonists as fleeing for their lives from the savages. Another account relates that they " cheerfully de- parted," although they carried with them, as the only fruits of their exile, toil, and privation, some furs, the small vessel that they had built, and some products of the new countrv. The Plymouth Company was discouraged by the un- expected return of these settlers, and made no further attempts at colonization for several years ; nevertheless, Sir Francis Popham, son of the baronet, sent a ship over annually for the fishing and fur trade, and with, pos- 62 sibly, some hope of a future colony, until continued losses and discouragements induced him to abandon the effort. After the failure of Popham's colony, Sir Ferdinando Gorges had purchased a ship, and secured Richard* Vines as captain, with the intention of effecting another settle- ment on the Maine coast ; but the new country had fallen into such ill repute that he sought in vain for colonists, and was obliged to be satisfied with sending trading vessels to America, as Sir Fran- cis Popham had done. About five years after Sir Francis Popham had decided to let the New World alone. Captain John Smith, of whom every one has heard, was moved by his zeal to attempt another settle- ment at Sagadahoc. Smith seems a storybook hero, but he was a real personage. An unvar- nished tale of his prowess relates that when he was making the tour of Europe, at the age of seventeen, he killed three Turkish champion fighters in single combat, and was honored therefor by a triumphal procession. But he received something besides honor in Turkey, for we- read that he was for many months a prisoner there. All this was long before his life was saved in Virginia by the beautiful Indian girl Pocahontas. He was now but thirty-five years old, yet six years before this time he had been president of the colonial council of Virginia. He sailed from London, March 3, 16 14, with two Captain John Smith. 63 vessels, a ship and a bark. His destination was Saga- dahoc, in Maine. He was to found a settlement there, or at least to hold possession, and " hinder any foreigner from settling there, under any pretense whatever." He built boats as soon as he reached the mouth of the Sagadahoc, and explored the coast. His men spent the fishing season in catching whales, which seems to have been a Simple Simon sort of enterprise, for when they were caught they were " not of the kind which yields fins and oil." Then the men were led astray by a story about rich gold and copper mines which proved to have no more gold and copper in them than the whales had fins and oil. Nevertheless, their gains were very valuable. Captain Smith says: '* We got, for trifles, 11,000 beavers, 100 martens, and as many otters, and we took and cured 40,000 dry fish and 7,000 codfish, corned or in pickle." The net value of what they carried home with them amounted to ^1,500. Captain Smith seems to have had peaceful relations with the natives, except in one instance, when there was a skirmish, and several Indians were killed. When Smith sailed for England, he left at the mouth of the Kennebec Thomas Hunt, the master of the other ship. This man diso raced himself and the Plv mouth Company by stealing twenty-four Indians, whom he carried to Malaga and sold as slaves to the Spanish, at i^20 each. In 1 6 16 Captain Smith published in London a map and a short history of the country which he had ex- plored. Prince Charles gave the latter the title of " A History of New England." 64 In 1615 Captain Smith came ai^ain to America. The Plymouth Company liad once more lost interest in the New World, and it was Sir Ferdinando Gorges, with some friends, who privately equipped two ships and gave the command to Captain Smith. But England and France were at war, and Smith and his companions were captured by a French ship and carried prisoners to France. Not long after this the Plymouth Company aroused itself sutlficiently to send another ship to America, under command of its president, Sir Richard Hawkins. But he found the whole eastern coast the scene of a bloody war between the Indian tribes, and was forced to return with only a cargo of fish. This war was so widespread and destructive as nearly to depopulate New England. It was impossible to cultivate the ground. The settlers were driven from their burning cabins to the woods, where they wandered, without food or shelter. Nearly all the warriors on both sides were slain. A fearful pestilence followed the war. Whether it was smallpox or yellow fever is uncertain, but it is de- scribed as a most loathsome disease, and the Indians died of it " in heaps." It happened, strangely, that Captain Richard Vines, sent by Sir Ferdinando Gorges in a trading vessel, passed this winter near Saco ; and although the mortality among the savages was frightful, yet *' not one of his company," as Gorges quaintly records, " ever felt his head to ache so long as they staid there." Captain Smith, still full of enthusiasm, essayed an- other voyage, but was " wind-bound " for three months, 65 and finally abandoned the undertaking. He received from the Plymouth Company the honor of a commission as Admiral of New England. What practical benefits it entailed we are not definitely told. During another spasmodic revival of the Plymouth Company's courage, it received information that Thomas Dermer, an Englishman then in Newfoundland, had great zeal in making discoveries and forming settlements. So the company, through the influence of the indefati- gable Sir Ferdinando Gorges, sent out Edward Rocroft in a ship to Dermer's assistance. Rocroft failed to find Dermer, but he captured a French bark whose crew were fishing and trading upon the coast. She was a fine ship, and regarding her as a valuable prize, he sent the captain and crew to England in his own vessel, and kept the French vessel himself, with a part of his men to guard the coast through the winter. Some of Rocroft's men formed a plot to assassinate him and run away with the French prize. The plot came to Rocroft's ears just in time to save his life. He set the would-be assassins ashore at Saco, and sailed for Virginia, where he w^as soon afterwards killed, we are not told by whom. Dermer had missed Rocroft, but he had the help of Squanto, one of Hunt's captives, whose heart he had won by great kindness. Samoset, a captive from Saga- dahoc, sent home by Captain Mason, governor of New- foundland, was also with Dermer, and was his faithful friend and ally. These two Indians were of great assist- ance in helping the Englishmen to keep peace with the hostile tribes. STO. OF MAINE — 5 66 Dermer, like Rocroft, went to Virginia, and also met his death there, being killed by Epenow, the famous captive, who had been sent home from England. The death of Dermer, a thoroughly honorable as w^ell as a discreet and politic man, discouraged Gorges. He de- clared that " it made him almost resolve never to inter- meddle again in any of those undertakings." In the meantime, in the year 1620, — one of the few dates we never forget, — the Pilgrims from England had landed upon Plymouth Rock and established their per- manent and world-famous colony. In that same year the Plymouth Company secured a new patent, and the son of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, himself a brilliant officer in the English army, estab- lished a permanent settlement at Saco, and was com- missioned lieutenant general and governor in chief of New England. But before long the English govern- ment became convinced that the Plymouth Company, and especially the new governor in chief, were moved altogether by motives of self-interest and private gain, and threatened the withdrawal of the patent. Gorges thereupon planted a small colony at his own expense, securing a grant of twenty-four thousand acres on each side of York River. There were disturbing controversies with France ; but in spite of these, and of continual Indian outbreaks, the Plymouth Company continued to grant patents. At Sheepscot, at Pemaquid, and at Damariscotta small settlements were made, and in 1630 eighty -four families, besides the wandering fishermen, were living along the shores of this region. 67 New Plymouth, a flourishing colony at this time, opened a trade in an article called wampum. One authority says that it was originally made of white and blue beads, as long and large as a wheat corn, blunt at the ends, perforated, and strung. The beads possessed a clearness and beauty which rendered them desirable ornaments. Other authorities say that wampum was made of the inner wreath of the cockle or periwinkle, some shells being white, others blue veined with pur- ple. The white beads were used by the Indi- ans for stanching the blood from a wound. The commercial value of wampum varied like that of gold and silver, being determined by both quality and workmanship. Belts were made of it, and highly ornamented, and it be- came not only the money of the tribes that pos- sessed it, but also the expression of their artistic talent ; and the beautiful belts were used as pledges of good faith and tributes of friendship. The colonists, having little gold and silver, came to regard wampum as " legal tender." But it seems to have been known only to the Narragansetts, the Pequots, and the natives on Long Island. The Plymouth Company held its last meeting April 25, 1635, when only sixteen members were present. The cause of its dissolution was tluis recorded: "We have been bereaved of friends ; oppressed with losses, expenses, and troubles ; assailed before the pri\y council again and again with groundless charges ; and weakened by the French and other foes without and within the A Belt of Wampum. 68 realm. What remains is only a breathless carcass. We therefore now resign the patent to the king, first reserving all grants by us made and all vested rights, a patent we have holden about fifteen years." The king, expecting this dissolution of the company, had already appointed eleven of his privy councilors lords commis- sioners of all his American plantations, and committed to them the direction of colonial affairs. This commis- sion procured for Sir Ferdinando Gorges the position of governor general over the whole of New England. Sir Ferdinando was then sixty years old, but his zeal for the English settlement of the New World had not abated. A man-of-war was built to bring him to this country, and was to remain here for defense; but in launching she turned over upon her side, and her ribs were broken beyond repair. Strange to say, although it might be supposed that England could afford another war ship, the enterprise thereby failed, and Sir Ferdi- nando never saw America. Nevertheless, on the 3d of April, 1639, with interest in the New World still un- abated and hope undimmed, he received a charter of the province of Maine. He congratulates himself in this wise : " Being seized of what I have travailed for, above forty years, together with the expenses of many thousand pounds, and the best time of my age loaded with troubles and vexations from all parts, as you have heard, I will give you some account in what order I have settled mv affairs in the province of Maine, with the true form and manner of government according to the authority granted me by his Majesty's royal charter." r 69 There are two reasons given for the naming of the province. One is that on account of the great number of islands the shores were constantly called the " main." Captain John Smith says the Indians called the land there the " Mayne." The other and more probable reason for the name is that it was given in honor of Queen Henrietta Maria, married not long before to King Charles. She was a French princess, and had inherited the province of Maine in her own country. VII. THE STORY OF LA TOUR AND D'AULNEY. RAZILLA, the governor of Acadia, died in 1635, and two of his subordinate officers were deter- mined to succeed him in command. One of these am- bitious officers was Charles de la Tour, son of Claude de la Tour, the former commandant of Port Royal. He stationed himself at the mouth of the St. John River. D'Aulney de Charmay, the other, took up his residence at 'Biguyduce, the peninsula now called Cas- tine. This was on the eastern side of the Penobscot, and a hundred and fifty miles west from La Tour. The valleys of both the St. John and the Penobscot were inhabited by two powerful tribes of Indians. D'Aulney was a Roman Catholic, as were most of the first French settlers, and had behind him the influence of the Jesuits, already a power in the land. La Tour was a Protestant, and had allied himself with the New England Puritans, It is to be feared that there was, in both men, less of religious faith and zeal than of a desire to inflame the religious prejudices of others to serve their own ends. The King of France was fighting Spain, and troubled himself very little about his American colonies, sepa- rated from him by three thousand miles of water. If 70 71 the quarrel should come to his ears the Protestant La Tour had no chance of the royal favor in a conflict with his Roman Catholic rival. So, instead of appealing to the crown, La Tour sent, from his colony on the St. John, an agent, M. Rochet, to propose to Massachusetts a cooperation in the effort to drive D'Aulney from his 'Biguyduce settlement, and, if possible, altogether off the Penobscot. He proposed free trade between the colonies as a pleasing addition to his plan. The free-trade idea was at once carried into effect, but Massachusetts declined to form an immediate alli- ance with La Tour for the dispossession of his rival. Meanwhile the Jesuits set to work and obtained a -royal edict denouncing La Tour as a rebel and an out- law; and immediately D'Aulney fitted out an expedi- tion of four vessels, with five hundred men, and sailed for his rival's settlement on the St. John. He com- pletely blockaded the harbor, and cut off all supplies and communications from La Tour. The besieged gar- rison was reduced to distress and despair. La Tour and his wife escaped in the night. They ran the block- ade in a small vessel, and succeeded in getting safely to Boston, where La Tour tried all his powers of persua- sion to induce the governor of the colony to give him the aid of a military force. The Massachusetts colony was greatly disturbed by this demand, and divided in sentiment. La Tour had an unquestionably genuine commission from the French cabinet appointing him the king's lieutenant general in Acadia, and there were those who urged that he was 72 the lawful ruler, and that their interests and their prin- ciples, especially their religious principles, demanded that they should sustain him. On the other hand, it was argued that the French cabinet had appar- ently revoked its de- cision ; that the exact "^ state of the case was not clear to them; that La Tour's Protes- tantism was not of the Puritan sort, and was apparently no religion at all, except in the mat- ter of expediency ; and, finally, that it was not seemly that a French adventurer should lead staid and Puri- tan Massachusetts into a war. The province of Maine was even more deeply agitated by the quarrel between the rival officers. Thomas Gorges, son or nephew of Sir Ferdinando, and deputy governor of the province, wrote the following letter, from his residence at Kittery Point, to Governor Win- throp of Massachusetts : " Right Worthy Sir : I understand by Mr. Parker you have written me by Mr. Shurt, which as yet I have not received. It cannot be unknown to you what fears we are in, since La Tour's promise of aid from a'ou. For my part, I thought ht to certify so much unto you ; 73 for I suppose that not only these parts, which are naked, but all northeast, will find D'Aulney a scourge. He hath long- waited, with the expense of near ;{^8oo per month, for an opportunity of taking supplies from his foe ; and should all his hopes be frustrated through your aid, you may conceive where he will seek for satisfaction. " If a thorough work could be made, and he be utterly extirpated, I should like it well ; otherwise it cannot be thought but that a soldier and a gentleman will seek to revenge himself, having five hundred men, two ships, a galley, and pinnaces well provided. But you may please conceive in what manner he now besieges La Tour. His ships lie on the southwest part of the island, at the entrance of the St. John River, within w^hich is only an entrance for ships. On the northeast lie his pinnaces. It cannot be conceived but he will fortifv the island, which will debar the entrance of any of your ships and force them back, showing the will, not having the power, to hurt him. I suppose I shall sail for England in this ship; I am not yet certain, which makes me forbear to enlarge at this time or to de-sire yoiir commands thither. Thus, in haste, I rest, " Your honoring friend and servant, "Thomas Gorges." The Massachusetts authorities did not yet see their duty clear to help to extirpate D'Aulney, and they finally declared that, although they could not be counted upon as active allies, yet La Tour might buy or charter vessels, and enlist as many Massachusetts volunteers as 74 he could find, of course at his own expense. La Tour at once mortgaged his fort at St. John, with all its stores and ammunition, and also all his real and per- sonal estate in Acadia, to raise the necessary money for his warfare against D'Aulney. He chartered four vessels for two months, paying for them twenty-six hundred dollars. He secured one hundred and forty-two volunteers and thirty-eight pieces of ordnance. Plenty of ammunition and provi- sions were also stored upon the vessels, and they were in charge of well-trained seamen. Nothing seemed lacking for a vigorous onslaught upon the foe. The four vessels which he had chartered were named the PJiilip and Mary , the Grcyhojnid, the Seabridge^ and the Increase. His own vessel, the Clement, in which he had escaped from the enemy, increased his fleet to fi\ e vessels. La Tour knew his enemy, and had provided himself with an adequate force against him, and his furious onslaught was entirely successful. He chased D'Aulney's vessels into the Penobscot, and two of them were driven aground. A lively conflict ensued, and several Frenchmen on both sides were either killed or wounded ; but the Massachusetts volunteers all escaped unharmed. Within the time for which they were char- tered the vessels returned to Boston, La Tour trium- phant with a ship of D'Aulney's which he had captured with a freight of valuable furs. But the end of this trouble for the province of Maine, and in fact for Massachusetts, was not yet. D'Aulney, enraged against Massachusetts on account of the aid it had rendered to La Tour, applied to the court of France 75 for vengeance upon the colony, which he reported was fitting out an expedition to destroy all the French colo- nies in Acadia. His application w^as unsuccessful, but he openly declared his resolve to stop all intercourse or alliance between Massachusetts and La Tour. From the vantage ground of his 'Biguyduce peninsula, be- tween Massachusetts and La Tour's St. John settlement, he could easily discover and attack any passing vessels belonging to either. His animosity extended to all Englishmen ; for when three colonists, men of importance in their several colo- nies, set out to visit La Tour's settlement, he caused their arrest and imprisonment as soon as they reached the Penobscot. The three men were Shurt of Pema- quid, Vines of Saco, and Wannerton of New Hamp- shire, neither of them having any connection whatever with Massachusetts. They were imprisoned for several days, and had great difficulty in obtaining their release. They had business with La Tour, and being at length released, they continued on their way to the St. John. They learned from La Tour that the 'Biguyduce gar- rison was but feeble, and Wannerton, a passionate, im- pulsive man, who had been throw-n into a fierce rage by his seizure and imprisonment, secured a company ot twenty well-armed men to go with him to 'Biguyduce for vengeance upon D'Aulney. Five miles away from his fort, D'Aulney had a flour- ishing, well-stocked farm. The party landed near the farm, and marched to the buildings, which were near the shore. The farm laborers sought shelter in the house when they saw the armed men, and when Wannerton, 76 leading his men, knocked at the door, it was opened, and they were greeted with a storm of bullets from within. Wannerton received a wound which proved mortal; one man was shot dead, and still another was severely wounded. Having made this brave but desperate resistance, the laborers gave up their arms and surrendered to superior force. The avengers scorned to take any booty, but they ruthlessly burned and destroyed every- thing' that was of value. All the buildings, farming tools, and stores were reduced to ashes ; the animals were killed. A scene of utter desolation was left behind them. D'Aulney, utterly incensed, vowed vengeance upon all Englishmen. Although Wan- nerton had paid with his life for the revenge which he had undertaken, in his private ca- pacity, for the affront which had been offered to him- self, yet D'Aulney announced that every Englishman who ventured east oi the Penobscot should be held 11 accountable for the outrage committed upon his prop- erty ; every EngUsh colonial vessel he would seize. The governor of Massachusetts sent him a letter of mild but firm remonstrance. " A merchant's trade is permitted between us and St. John," wrote the gov- ernor, *' and rest assured it will be protected." D'Aulney also found himself in disgrace with his own government, which was not disposed to go to war with England on account of small issues in the distant wilder- ness. He was rebuked by the Erench cabinet, and warned to maintain thenceforth friendly relations with all the English. But when it came to a question of D'Aulney's relations with La Tour, the French govern- ment immediately sustained the Roman Catholic. The Protestant La Tour and his wife were denounced as traitors, and orders were given for their arrest. Mme. La Tour was then in Boston, the master of the ship which brought her from Erance having landed her there, instead of carrying her to St. John. D'Aulney sent an envoy, M. Marie, with a retinue of attendants, to make a treaty with the governor of Massachusetts, who was expected to deliver up Mme. La Tour. But Gov- ernor Winthrop tried to reconcile the two Erench parties, and to secure the safe return of Mme. La Tour to her husband. M. Marie's angry reply is recorded by the governor: " No! nothing but submission will save La Tour's head, if he be taken ; nor will his wife have any passport to St. John. She is known to be the cause of his contempt and rebellion. Any vessel which shall admit her as a passenger will be liable to arrest." 78 The treaty was made a merely commercial one, the governor feeling it wise to remain neutral, although the sympathy of the Massachusetts colony was with La Tour. By the treaty D'Aulney agreed to abstain from all hostile acts, and the province of Maine was relieved and rejoicing. It had felt itself almost defenseless before this ruthless and reckless pirate of the high seas and of the coasts. Mme. La Tour, in the meantime, showed herself a clever woman by prosecuting for damages the captain who had left her where she could not reach her home except with a sufficient force to enable her to bid defiance to the ever-watchful enemy. After a four days' trial the court granted a verdict in her favor, with damages fixed at ten thousand dollars. She chartered three London ships with this money, and proceeded safely and triumphantly to St. John. D'Aulney, furious, because he had fully expected to make her his captive, declared that the Massachusetts colony had violated the treaty in allowing Mme. La Tour to charter the ships. He learned that La Tour had gone on a cruise to the Bay of Fundy, that but fifty men were left in the garrison, and the supply of food and ammunition was but scanty. With a well-equipped war vessel, he set sail, in the spring, to capture the works at the St. John. He over- took a New England vessel on the way, which was carrying supplies to La Tour's garrison. Commercial treaties were evidently held in but slight regard by the desperate D'Aulney. He seized the vessel, landed the crew on an uninhabited island, and abandoned them. There was still snow on the ground, and they had no 79 means of making- a fire. They built a rude shanty, but ahnost perished from cold and hunger in the ten days that elapsed before they were taken off. Mme. La Tour was not only a clever and resourceful woman : she was a determined heroine as well. The garrison upon which D'Aulney opened a furious fire was a feeble one, but she strengthened it by her unflinch- ing bravery. She directed the firing, and with a skill that caused every shot from the fort to strike the ship. "The deck of D'Aulney's vessel ran red with blood," says the ancient record, " and was strewn with the mangled bodies of the dead and dying." The vessel's strong ribs were broken. The water was rushing in through the shotholes. The deadly rain of bullets still fell upon it, while the intrepid garrison stood behind its ramparts, almost unharmed. Under the shelter of a convenient bluff D'Aulney protected his vessel from the furious firing, while he buried the dead, dressed the wounds made by the cannon shot, and repaired the damages to his vessel as best he might ; and as soon as possible he made his way back to 'Biguyduce, utterly beaten and crest- fallen. Massachusetts demanded an explanation and satis- faction for the breaking of the treaty in the seizing of a New England vessel. The Frenchman, whose temper w^as, naturally, not improved by his recent experiences, became utterly reckless and defiant. " You have helped my mortal enemy in aiding La Tour's wife to return to St. John. You have burned my buildings, you have killed my So animals. I warn you to beware of the avenging hand of my sovereign," he said. The Puritan envoy who had been sent to him must have enraged him still more with his mild dignity. " Your sovereign is a mighty prince," he answered ; " he is also a prince of too much honor to commence an unjustifiable attack; but should he assail us, we trust in God, who is the infinite arbiter of justice." Nothing was accomplished by the conference, except a truce for a few months. There were occasional efforts, by correspondence, during the ensuing year, to make a diplomatic settlement of the affair; but the colony became convinced that it could not keep peace and carry on free trade with both these French generals, who were such implacable enemies to each other. D'Aulney sent three commissioners to the governor of Massachusetts, in September of the next year, to demand damages for losses which he had incurred through the English. The amount was set at four thousand dollars. The government brought counter- charges, and accounted its damages to be considerabl}' more than four thousand dollars. Meanwhile D'Aulney, with the Jesuit priests as spies, was keeping a watchful eye upon La Tour's fortress at St. John. The bitter resentment of his repulse when Mme. La Tour had held the fort had only increased with time, and he had never ceased to plan a revenge. Dis- covering that La Tour had again gone on a voyage to obtain provisions, he set out, this time with an ade- quate force of well-equipped vessels and a large com- pan}^ of armed men. 8i ^i.^rr^ He not only assailed tlie fort by a terrific cannonade from his ships, bnt made a fierce onslaught upon il on the land side. He lost twelve men, and had many wounded, for the fort made a gallant defense, as before ; but, in the end, its w^alls were scaled, and it was forced to surrender. The savage D'Aulney had no mercy upon the helpless in- mates. They were all slaugh- tered, except Mme. La Tour, who was taken prisoner. More than fifty thousand dollars' worth of bcjoty fell into the hands of D'Aulney. Besides implements of war, there were val- uable household goods, including plate and jewels and many objects highly prized by their fair owner. Mme. La Tour, although so brave and high-spirited, was unable to survive this last cruel stroke of fortune. She had lost all her worldly possessions, and her new home, to which she is said to have been driven from STO. OF MAINE — 6 ^2 France by religious persecution, was in ruins. Her hus- band was an outlaw, who might never hope to regain position or fortune, and she was helpless in the hands of her bitterest enemy. She died within three weeks from the day when the fort was taken, *' glad to be rid of so weary a world." The Massachusetts colony had always felt, as has been said before, a sympathy with La Tour. When he ap- peared in Boston with this latest trouble heavy upon him, utterly impoverished, and besieged by creditors, who through his misfortunes had lost heavily, the mer- chants, even some who had lost by him, took pity on him, and provided him with a vessel and goods to the value of several thousand dollars, that he might set up a coasting trade with the natives. The crew was a mix- ture of French and English seamen. It is sad to record the base ingratitude and treachery of La Tour, who seems to have been destitute of any redeeming virtue and to have quite justified the suspi- cion of the shrewd old Puritans of Massachusetts that his boasted Protestantism was only the absence of all religion. Off Cape Sable, in Nova Scotia, he formed a conspir- acy with the French sailors, his own countrymen, seized tlie vessel and cargo, and drove the English sailors ashore. One of the Englishmen, who resisted, he shot in the face with his own pistol. It was midwinter and intensely cold, and the Eng- lishmen, abandoned upon the uninhabited ice-bound coast, endured terrible sufferings for more than two weeks, and would have perished but for a providential meeting with some Micmac Indians, who took them to 83 their wigwams, warmed and fed them, and clothed them, too, as well as they could. An ancient historian says : '' If they had not by special providence found more favor at the hands of Cape Sable Indians than of those French Christians, they might all have perished ; for, having wandered fifteen days up and down, they at the last found some Indians, who gave them a shallop with victuals, and an Indian pilot ; by which means they came safe to Boston three months afterw^ards." La Tour had gone with his stolen vessel, no one knew where. D'Aulney was the ruler of Acadia. His supremacy was unquestioned, and his fortress at 'Biguyduce was the resort of all the Roman Catholic priests sent over by France to convert the natives and help in taking and retaining possession of the country. His religious zeal gave him great influence with the French cabinet, and strengthened his position as a colonist. But in 1650 he died, and a year after his death the wandering La Tour returned. How he was received by the Massachusetts merchants, whose generosity he had abused, there are no records to show. But what we are told did occur when the bold adventurer returned reads more like a wildly im- probable romance than the sober facts of history. He married the widow of D'Aulnev, his bitter foe ; he sue- ceeded to all D'Aulney's possessions; he renounced his Protestantism, and secured the favor and influence of court and church; he gave up his wanderings, and re- building the fortress at St. John, he hved there in lux- ury and conviviality. 84 Here several children were born to him, but only one, Stephen de la Tour, survived him, and inherited his large but debt-burdened estates. From his St. John fortress La Tour ruled the Penobscot region with mili- tary despotism, permitting no civil tribunals to be estab- lished. It was suspected, however, that his ambition was not satisfied. With the aid of the Roman Catholic mission- aries, who were always able to influence the Indians to a wonderful degree, he had acquired a great ascendency over the native tribes of the region. He was believed to have formed a plan to combine the Indians of Maine, Nova Scotia, and Canada, and make a seizure of all the English settlements, constituting the French possessors of the wdiole country, and himself the lord of all the land. Massachusetts, taking alarm, issued an order, through its General Court, prohibiting commercial intercourse with the French on the east, and also with the Dutch on the west. The penalty of disregarding this prohibi- tion was to be the loss of both vessel and cargo. La Tour's devotion to self-interest, and utter indifl'erence as to which European country was his master, so long as his possessions wxre left to him, are curiously shown in what followed. The order of the Massachusetts court thrcAv him and his colonies into great privation and want. They were not a thrifty people, nor given to husbandry. Instead of cultivating the land, as they might have done, the Indians lived on fish, especially shellfish, and such edible roots as thev could find. Some of the more industrious sowed a scanty crop of corn. With the furs of the Indians, for wliich the French paid with beads and baubles, plent\- of food had been obtained from the better-cukivated parts of New Eng- land. With commercial relations forbidden, they seemed doomed to starvation. This was thought to be a harsh measure, since there was no proof of La Tour's ambitious schemes, and it was feared that it would arouse the always dreaded ferocity of the Indians. Either with or without the consent of the authorities, a vessel loaded with provi- sions was sent to the St. John settlement. But an ex- pedition of a different character was b}^ this time getting under way for the St. John. Oliver Cromwell had sent a fleet to Boston, with orders to raise there a volunteer force and take posses- sion of the Dutch colony on the Hudson; for the Dutch were then taking America in a way that England did not like. The plan was to conquer Nova Scotia, after the Dutch had been subdued. But the news came that peace had been declared between England and Holland, and the fleet proceeded to the fortress at 'Biguyduce, and afterwards to the stronger one at the St. John. Perhaps resistance would not have availed, tlie force being very strong. At all events, none was offered at either place, and La Tour quite cheerfully accepted an Enplish sovereign instead of a French one. The English took possession of the whole province, and held it for thirteen years, or until the treaty of Breda restored it to the French. La Tour lived but a short time after the English came into power. He died at his settlement on the St. John, and Cromwell 86 confirmed the rights of his son Stephen in his father's possessions there. La Tour's was a singular character, with its lack of moral sense and of any convictions that interfered with his success in life. He was of fine personal appearance, and had a frank and attractive manner that won him many friends. Fortune had played him many tricks, making him rich one day and poor the next, now high in the king's favor and again a hunted outlaw; but he is said to have carried, through all his mischances, a ''goodly outside" and as careless an air as if he had been the king's jester. The old times of colonial struggle and savage warfare have vanished like a dream, and their records read like a romance ; but the summer visitor to Castine is shown relics and landmarks that easily transform to his imagi- nation the pleasant, drowsy town to the old, much- fought-for 'Biguyduce ; and at the mouth of the St. John the site is still pointed out of the fortress which brave Mme. La Tour, alone and heartsick with exile, so nobly held, and lost at last. VIIT. KING PHILIP'S WAR. THE Indians had obtained from the Frencli traders a supply of firearms and ammunition, and had learned with surprising readiness to use them. It is thought that the possession of these arms excited and emboldened them to the acts of hostility which cul- minated, June 24, 1675, in the breaking out of the great King Philip's War, a war in which Indian revenge and rapacity were both fearfully displayed. The war started in Plymouth, and within twenty days " the fire began to kindle in these easterly parts, though distant two hundred and fifty miles." There were then nearly seven thousand English settlers in Maine, and between two and three times as many Indians. It is easy to see how great were the peril and distress of the pioneers when the long-smolder- ing hatred and revenge of the savages at last broke out. Squando, sagamore of the Sokokis, was a seer and a magician in the eyes of the Indians. He had counseled a peaceful policy toward the white men, although he declared that God himself had told him that the English people must be destroyed by the Indians. He had a prudent mind, for an Indian, and if it had not been for a great wrong which he suffered just as the news came of the Plymouth hostilities, he might have cast 87 88 his influence for peace instead of war. Sqnando's squaw was paddling along the Saco in a canoe, with her baby, when some rough sailors in a boat, think- ing it would be fine fun to discover whether papooses could swim like ducks, as the tradition ran, upset the canoe. The papoose sunk. The squaw dived, and brought it up alive, but it died within a few days, doubt- less from the shock Then Squando, who had unlimited power over his own tribe, and great influence over many others, used it all to arouse the Indians to fiercest warfare. Wonolancet, Passaconaway's son, followed his father's counsel and took no part in the war. He was now chief of the Penacooks, a fierce and warlike tribe. He would not take sides with the enemy of his people, but " withdrew into the heart of the distant desert," — supposed to be the forest near Mount Agaixienticus, 89 And so great was his influence over the stormy spirits of his tribe that most of them followed him. The Indians were especially bitter against the English colonists, because they refused to sell them arms and ammunition, which they had now come to depend upon in the hunting that was their chief means of subsist- ence, while the French, they said, were " free and cheerful " to supply them with whatever they needed. They believed, too, that the Great Spirit had given them for their own the country of their birth, and that they had absolute right in it; and they cherished and rehearsed, with a true Indian spirit of revenge, the old stories of kidnaping and cheating and general treachery on the part of the English. A committee of war was appointed by the General Court, intrusted with military power over the eastern parts, and with directions to furnish themselves with all necessary munitions of war for the common defense, and to sell neither gun, knife, powder, nor lead to any other Indians than those whose friendship was fully known. It was proposed to take from the Indians, as far as possible, their arms and ammunition. Some of the Canibas and Anasagunticook tribes peaceably gave up their weapons; but one Canibas Indian, named Sowen, turned with sudden fury upon Hosea Mallet, one of the party that received the arms, and would have killed him if he had not been seized and bound. The Indians confessed that Sowen deserved death, yet pleaded for his release. They offered forty fine beaver skins as a ransom, and hostages for his future good behavior. 90 Sowen was released, the Indians were feasted and given a pler.tiful supply of tobacco, always their hearts' desire, and Robinhood, sagamore of the Can- ibas, gave a great dance, the next day, celebrating the peace with a wild carousal. Squando, who took the warpath on account of the death of his papoose, ap- pears now in a more hon- orable light, being the rescuer of Elizabeth Wakeley, a girl of eleven years, who had been carried into captivity by the Indians. The savages had previously killed with shocking cruelty all the rest of her family, except two little children, who were car- ried off in another direction. The Indians, having now tasted blood, seemed like wild beasts in their fury. They robbed and murdered in every defenseless settlement, and no one's life or possessions were safe. The dwelling houses of John Bonython and Major William Phillips were on opposite banks of the river, and both had been fairly well fortified. A friendly Sokokis native came to Bonython's house, and told him that a strange Indian, from the westward, with a party of Anasagunticooks, had been at his wigwam, persuad- ing all his tribe to raise the tomahawk against the white 91 people ; that they had gone to the east, and would soon come back with many more Indians. Bonython, much alarmed, spread the news, and then took shelter, with the other settlers and their families, in Major Phillips's house, which was better garrisoned than any other. Next day they saw Bonython's house in flames, and a sentinel caught sight of an Indian lurking under the fence. Phillips, at his window, was wounded by an Indian's gun, and those who lay in ambush near the house thought him killed, and with savage shouts exposed themselves to sight. The settlers fired upon them from the house and from outposts in all directions. Several Indians were wounded, including the leader, who died while they were on the retreat. The assailants were finally convinced that the place could be taken only by stratagem. To draw the men out of the fortification, they set fire to a small house, and afterwards to the mill, calling to the settlers : " Come, now, you English coward dogs! Come put out the fire, if you dare!" This move proving unsuccessful, they resumed their firing, and continued it until the moon set, about four in the morning. Then the savages, taking a cart, hastily constructed a battery upon the axletree and forks of the spear, forward of the wheels, to shelter them from the musketry of the fort, and filled the body of the cart with birch rinds, straw, and matches. This engine they ran backward, within pistol shot ot the garrison house, intending to communicate to it, by means of long poles, the flaming combustibles. But in passing a small gutter one wheel stuck fast in the mud, 92 which gave a sudden turn to tlie cart, exposing the whole party to a fatal fire from the right flanker, — an opportunity which the settlers quickly improved. Six Indians fell dead. Fifteen, in all, were wounded in the assault ; and the survivors, about sixty in number, tired of the attack, and mortified at the repulse, withdrew. During the siege there were fifty persons in the house, of whom only ten were effective men ; five others could only partially assist; and one or two, besides Major Phillips, were wounded. No aid could be spared to Major Phillips, and he was forced to leave his house, which the infuriated Indians burned to the ground. They burned all the houses above Winter Harbor, and shot down in cold blood all the white travelers whom they encountered. They carried into captivity from Winter Harbor a Mrs. Hitchcock, and the next spring, when a ransom was offered for her return, they reported that she had died, in the winter, from eating poisonous roots which she had mistaken for groundnuts. Instances of heroism that thrill the blood are not rare in the records of those dreadful days, when even old men and feeble women, holding their lives in their hands, sold them dearly in defense of their lo\'ed ones. The story is told of a young heroine at Newichawan- nock (South Berwick), whose name, unfortunately, has been forgotten. The house of Jolm Tozier was in an isolated region, and Tozier himself, and the few other men of the neighborhood, had gone to the relief of the people of Saco, who were surrounded by Indians. The fifteen persons left wholly unprotected inTozier's house 93 were all women and children. An attack was made upon the house, led by two of the fiercest warriors of their tribes, one of whom was Andrew, a Sokokis brave, and subject of the great Squando, in whose character cruelty and kindness seem to have been incomprehen- sibly combined. It was a young girl of eighteen who discovered the approach of the dreaded Indians, and she shut the door and held it fast, parleying witli them to gain time and allow the rest of the household to escape. When finally the Indi- ans cut the door down with their hatchets, they found that all but her had p-one. The exasperated savages fell upon her with their hatchets, and left her for dead. They then pursued the freeing family, and overtook two of the children. A little three- year-old, who was too young to travel, and likely to be an incumbrance, they killed, and the older child they carried into captivity. It is pleas- ant to be able to add to this tale of horror that the brave girl revived after her fiendish assailants had gone, crawled to the garrison for relief, was healed of her ■--■ ■C-gr "'vM''gl ' ' 94 wounds, and lived to tell, in peaceful days, the story to her children. The Indians went on burning and pillaging and slaughtering, until a temporary lull in hostilities was effected by the chief magistrate of the Pemaquid plan- tation, Abraham Shurt, whose fame has come down to us as a man of peace and of unusual good sense. He succeeded in inducing the warlike sagamores to meet him at Pemaquid for a parley. The result was a truce, by which they engaged to live in peace with the Eng- lish, and to prevent, if possible, the Anasagunticooks from committing any more depredations. Much faith was felt in these pacific measures, and the General Court ordered that quite a large sum should be taken from the public treasury for the relief of those friendly Indians whose wigwams had been burned and whose harvests had been trampled down. But this truce was narrow in its province, and had but shght effect. In other parts of the colony a different policy prevailed. The Indians, having set out upon the warpath, were not easily turned back, and many of the English believed in a policy of extermination rather than of peace. The town of Berwick seems to have been chosen by the Indians for their fiercest onslaughts, in spite of the fact that one of the strongest of the garrison houses was located there. In October, 1675, a party of a hundred Indians, partly of the Sokokis tribe (always known as the fiercest) and partly of the Canibas, attacked Richard Tozier's house, burned it to the ground, killed Tozier, and carried his son away captive. This was in sight of 95 the garrison house. Lieutenant Roger Plaisted, in com- mand of the garrison, sent a hltle company of nine picked men to watch the enemy's movements. - The men were unwary, and walked into an Indian ambuscade. The instinct of war born in the Indians seems to have been entirely lacking to the English settlers. For a hundred years the English officers went on leading their men into the snares that the wily sav- ages set for them, and it is said that even the squaws made merry over their stupidity. Plaisted knew that a hundred cunning savages were lurking about, and yet he led his men boldly into the midst of them. Three of the nine were killed at once ; the others succeeded in making their escape. The next day Plaisted sent a team with twenty armed men to bring in the bodies of the slain. They had a cart drawn by oxen, and Plaisted himself led the little company. They had placed one dead body in the cart, when, from the bushes behind a stone wall, a hundred and fifty Indians poured upon them a deadly fire. Only a few of the men escaped. Lieutenant Plaisted fought bravely until cut down by a tomahawk. Two of his sons were among the killed. In view of the Berwick highway may still be seen a monument with this inscription: ** Near this place lies buried the body of Roger Plaisted, who was killed by the Indians October i6, 1675, aged 48 years; also the body of his son, Roger Plaisted, who was killed at the same time." A quick-witted stratagem saved the house of Captain Frost at Sturgeon Creek, where this same band of In- dians proceeded from Berwick. Captain Frost was 96 outside his door, and had ten shots fired at him, harm- lessly, before he had time to close it upon the Indians. There were only three boys with him in the house, yet he had the presence of mind to shout out commands as if there were a body of soldiers within. "Load quick! Fire, there! That 's well! Brave men!" he shouted. And the Indians, doubtless unsus- picious, of cunning in the settlers, where they seldom found it, concluded that the soldiers here were too many for them, and rapidly retreated. In the settlements between Piscataqua and Kennebec, within the short space of three months, there were eighty lives lost, with a great number of dwelling houses and other property. All business was suspended, harvests were ungathered, and homes deserted. Men, women, and children were huddled in small garrisons, or in the larger houses, which had been as strongly fortified as possible. As winter came on there was a revival of the hope of peace. The Indians had no provisions on hand, nor any means to buy them. Their ammunition was con- sumed, the snow was too deep for hunting, and they saw that peace or starvation was the alternative before them. The sagamores, therefore, requested an armis- tice for the whole body of Indians eastward, promising to be the submissive subjects of the government, and to surrender all captives without ransom. Many of those carried into captivity were from time to time re- stored, and doubtless welcomed by their friends as if they had arisen from the dead. Through seven months there was peace, and that the 97 war broke out again was not wholly due to the savages. There were influences of private gain and personal revenge ; and the suspicions of the settlers against the Indians were, not unnaturally, but sometimes unfortu- nately, never sleeping. Several Indians were seized by kidnapers and carried off in vessels and sold as slaves in foreign countries. Some of the kidnaped Indians were Micmacs from Nova Scotia, and the Micmacs were thus led to join the Maine tribes in their warfare, A council was held at Teconnet, near what is now Waterville. It has been thought that if Squando had been present the treaty might have been effected ; for although Squando's moods were variable, he was known to have at that time a strong desire for peace. Madock- awando, the chief who was the ruling spirit of the five sagamores present, was angry at the distrust shown by the settlers in not consenting to sell ammunition to the Indians ; and the council broke up without result. King Philip was killed in August, 1676, but that did not terminate the war. The Indians, who called him Metacom, reverenced him as of almost superhuman power, and they believed that through his influence, even after he had gone to the " happy hunting grounds," leaders would be raised up to guide them to victory. Squando now came to the front with fresh revelations and prophecies. He pretended that God appeared to him in the form of a tall man in black clothes, com- manding him to leave his drinking of strong liquors, and to pray, and to keep Sabbaths, and to go to hear the Word preached ; all which things the Indian did STO. OF MAINE — 7 98 for some years, with great apparent devotion. Squando assumed supernatural gifts and powers, but neither he nor any of the other great chiefs ever. took upon them- selves such earthly state as did King Philip. When an ambassador was sent to him from the governor of Mas- sachusetts to inquire why he was making preparations for war, the Indian haughtily answered: "Your gov- ernor is but a subject of King Charles of England. I shall not treat with a subject; I shall treat only with the king, my brother. When he comes, I am ready." Proud King Philip was dead, and his forces were scattered ; but many of his warriors joined the Maine Indians, and the ravages there were continued with re- newed force. Squando was assured by supernatural visitants that the destruction of the English would now be soon completed. IX. AGAMENTICUS AND PASSACONAWAY. GORGEANA, the first city of Maine, was planted in the wilderness. The ambition of its founder, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, to establish a colony in Maine had, as we have seen in connection with the Plymouth Com- pany, been thwarted and disappointed at every point. When he secured a private grant of twenty-four thousand acres on each side of York River, he deter- mined to plant a small colony there at his own expense. He called his colony Agamenticus at first, from the name of the mountain, famous in the aboriginal legends, which looked down upon it. *' Agamenticus " signifies, in the Indian tongue, '* the other side of the river." The name is applied to a beautiful elevation, or rather three elevations joined together, well wooded, and rising by gentle slopes, not rocky or steep like the Mount Desert mountains, but with a large crowning rock upon its summit. This mountain .is a famous landmark for mariners, and is thought to have been the first land of the New World that revealed itself to Gosnold, in 1 603. He is supposed to have landed at York Nubble and to have named it Savage Rock. The mountain is five or six miles from the shore, while Boon Island, the first land to be ap- proached in that neighborhood, is seven miles farther, 99 lOO It was to Agamenticus that Wonolancet, the peace- loving son of the great Passaconaway, is thought to have retired when he refused to take part in the long and bloody King Philip's War. St. Aspinquid, of Indian tradition, who died on the mountain, and whose grave- stone is still to be seen there, is said to have been Pas- saconaway himself. St. Aspinquid died May I, 1682, and is said to have been born in 1588, being therefore about ninety-four when he died. He was over forty when he was con- verted to Christianity, and from that time devoted him- self to preaching the gospel to the Indians. His funeral obsequies were attended by many sachems of various tribes, and celebrated by a grand hunt of the warriors, at which were slain ninety-nine bears, thirty- six moose, eighty-two wild cats, and thirty-eight por- cupines. That Passaconaway was living at as late a date as 1660 is shown by an anecdote of that year told of him in an ancient Indian biography. Manataqua, sachem of Saugus, had made known to Passaconaway that he wished to marry his daughter. This being agreeable to all parties, the wedding soon took place, at the residence of Passaconaway, and the hilarity wound up with a great feast. According to Indian customs when the contracting parties are of high station, Passaconaway ordered a select number of his men to accompany the newly mar- ried pair to the husband's home. When they had arrived there, several days of feasting followed, for the entertainment of such of the husband's friends as were lOI U }yjl ^o Quebec. In all the battles in which he engaged Castine seems to have fully shared the fierceness and brutality of the savages. But his son, Castine the Younger, was a man of noble character as well as of unusual ability. In Queen Anne's War he served among the French, and was sent with dispatches to Gov- ernor Vaudreuil in Canada. This was after Port Royal had fallen into the hands of the English ; and Castine's companion was Major 137 Levengston, an officer of the English army. Their mission was to inform Governor Vaudreuil that Acadia " had been taken by the Enghsh ; that all its inhabit- ants, except those within the pale of Port Royal, were prisoners at discretion ; and that if the barbari- ties practiced by the savages under his control were not discontinued, reprisals would be made or retaliation inflicted upon the French of Nova Scotia." The messengers, young Castine and Major Leveng- ston, set out with three Indian guides. They went first to 'Biguyduce, where Castine spent a few days with his family, and where Levengston was most hospitably re- ceived. They then paddled up the Penobscot River in their canoes to the island of Lett (now Oldtown), where they found fifty canoes and twice as many Indians, be- sides women and children. They remained there several days, and during their stay a prisoner, taken shortly before by the Indians at Winter Harbor, had, in hunting with the Indian who had him in charge, made his escape, carrying off both the Indian's canoe and gun. The exasperated Indian had vowed to kill the first white man whom he saw, and as soon as he met Levengston he seized him by the throat, and would have dispatched him with a single stroke of his hatchet, had not Castine nobly thrust him- self between them. Castine's admixture of Indian blood not only increased his influence over the savages, but gave him the physi- cal hardihood and endurance necessary for the prolonged exposures and perils of warfare in the wilderness. The messengers were for forty-two days in the woods be- 138 fore they reached Quebec. The day after they set out Levengston's canoe was upset, his gun and his supphes were sunk, and one of the guides was drowned. It was now December, and when the ice began to form, the other canoe became leaky and unsafe. So they were forced to leave it and make the remainder of the journey by land. They traveled by the compass, and the weather was much of the time stormy or foggy. For nineteen con- secutive days they did not see the sun. Their track lay over mountains, through dreary swamps thick with spruce and cedars, and for many days they waded knee- deep in snow. Six days before they could by any possibility reach a human habitation, they had consumed all their provi- sions, and were forced to subsist upon the leaves of wild vegetables, the inner bark of trees, and the few dried berries which they occasionally found. When at last they reached Quebec, Castine was the only one not wholly overcome by the hardships of the journey. The mission was, after all, unsuccessful. They brought back only a letter from Governor Vaudreuil, in which he said : " Never have the French, and seldom have the In- dians, treated their English captives with inhumanity. Nor are the French, in any event, accountable for the behavior of the Indians. But a truce, and even a neu- trality, if the English had desired it, might, long since, have terminated the miseries of war. And should any retaliatory measures be adopted by the English, they will be amply revenged by the French." 139 Castine had performed his mission faithfully, al- though his sympathies were, of course, entirely with the French. But not for many years after that was there to be any peace between the French and the English claimants of American territory. The younger Castine, who was a chief sagamore of the Tarratine (Penobscot) Indians, held also a commis- sion from the French king. He was the grandson of Madockawando, the mighty Tarratine chief, and he himself married an Indian wife, and had a son to whom he gave the French name of Robardee or Robardeau. He had also a daughter, whose son. Cap- tain Sokes, was a noted chief of the Penobscots. The younger Castine himself preferred to wear always the Indian dress, although he sometimes appeared in the elegant uniform of an officer of the French army. He was a man of great magnanimity and of a high sense of honor ; and the confidence reposed in him by the English in making him the companion of Leveng- ston through the wilderness was well placed. A man of foresight and good sense, he perceived how these wars wasted away the Indians, and he bade earliest welcome to the songs of peace. " He thought his tribe happy only when they enjoyed the dews and shades of tranquillity." In I 72 I he was "improperly seized" at 'Biguyduce and carried to Boston, where he was detained for several months. No reason wliatever is given or suggested for this strange proceeding, but it seems probable that Castine, who, like his father, strongly objected to inter- ference, may have been moved by it to desert the colo- 140 nies ; for he went the next year to Beam, his father's old home in the Pyrenees, claimed as his inheritance his father's honors, fortune, and seignioral rights, and re- turned no more. Whether the role of a French nobleman suited him better than that of an Indian chieftain, whether, in the splendor and gayety of the French court, he ever longed for the untrammeled life of the wilderness, for the wig- wam fires and the dusky faces of his kindred, there are no records left to tell us. M' XII. A MAINE SINDBAD. ANY a Maine boy has had a story worth the telhng-, even in those old days when privation and struggle for existence were the common, almost the universal, lot. Energy and unyielding grit were devel- oped in the hard conditions of life, as well as in unself- ish heroism and patriotism. There were many greater heroes and patriots than William Phips ; but his were such strange fortunes for a Yankee boy that we read them as we read an ''Arabian Nights " tale ; and whether we think him a reckless adventurer, or a planner and performer of shrewd business enterprises, we may, at least, always admire his tireless energy. There were twenty-six children in the Phips family, who lived in the little settlement of Woolwich, on the Kennebec, and twenty-one of these were sons. Twenty- one reclaimers of the wilderness, twenty-one defenders against the Indians, — that was the way in which they reckoned sons in those days. The elder Phips was a gunsmith by trade. He had emigrated from Bristol, England, while the colonies were yet very new, and taken up his residence on their outskirts. William, who was born on the 2d of February, 165 1, must have thought, in his earliest years, that the universe was com- posed of wilderness and wild Indians. 141 142 He was one of the youngest of the twenty-six, and his father died when he was but a lad. The boy had no opportunity even to learn to read, but, as soon as he was old enough, was set to ,., — ^ tending sheep, and he i'^'^'^-'- followed this unambi- tious and unexciting calling until he was eighteen. But Woolwich was on the river, and the forests contained much fine timber, and so the settlers ;4vi^^'w^'^^\ ^ y itHitf' had early taken to shipbuilding "^^ Mu i?vt'i|. ?*Miift The sheep-tender had a restlesj .>'>mM and roving spirit, and when he saw the ships sail off to distant and unknown shores his heart burned within him. No one, however, would take him as a sailor; and so, as the next best chance in life, he apprenticed himself to a ship carpenter. Apprenticeships were long and dreary in those days. For four years young William Phips served his master, and the only relief he found from the uncongenial and monotonous labor was in an occasional coasting trip. His serving time being over, his friends tried to induce him to settle down in the ship-carpentering line at home ; but the ancient divine Cotton Mather, who was his friend, says that " visions of future greatness had already visited him and tempted him to seek, in the great, untried world, the fulfillment of his dreams." Even in his sheep-tending days he was accustomed to boast to his companions that he was ** born for better 143 things;" and his after career shows quite plainly that he had the visionary mind, which is not apt to be a fortunate characteristic, and which is seldom allied to such force and energy as he possessed. This force and energy would almost assuredly have brought him suc- cess of some kind ; it was his adventurous spirit and his visionary mind that determined the very unusual char- acter of the success. Finding that no good luck came in his way, he tried to find it by going to Boston. This was in 1673, when he was twenty-two years old. There he worked at his trade of ship-carpentering for about a year, and in his leisure time learned to read and write. And there he married the widow of a merchant named Hull. She was many years older than he, and she possessed a small fortune. He used this pecuniary advantage to extend his business, and made a contract to build a vessel for some Boston merchants on Sheepscot River, near the mouth of the Kennebec. He had launched the ship, and was preparing to load it with lumber for the Boston market, when an Indian attack on the Sheepscot settle- ment forced him to change his plans. The settlers, fleeing from their burning homes and the merciless savages, took refuge on board Phips's new ship, which lay in the river. So, instead of carrying a cargo of lumber, lie imme- diately sailed away with the unfortunate settlers, and landed them, free of charge, in Boston. This failure of his plan caused him financial difficulty; but his sanguine temperament preserved him from despondency, and he always prophesied loftiest greatness when his fortunes 144 were at their lowest ebb. When his wife's views of the future were gloomy, he would confidently assure her that he should " yet have the command of a king's ship, and would buy her a fair brick house in the Green Lane of North Boston." He had credulity enough to mistake his own sanguine expectations for mysterious presentiments. But he was not wholly a dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions. He never ceased to try with might and main to get the king's ship and the fair brick house ; but for the next ten years he seemed to come no nearer to success. He built ships and made short trading trips, with only sufficient success to keep him from want ; and if he was engaged in any more ambitious schemes, they came to nothing. About 1684 there was a sudden, exciting opportunity to acquire great wealth, which was stirring the imagina- tions and arousing the greed of all the European nations. Spain had received a great influx of wealth from her colonies in the West Indies and South America, and it had come in the tangible, intoxicating shape of coin and bullion. Secret expeditions and open piracies were un- dertaken to secure a share of Spain's wealth. The British sailors were the most daring, and there were many semipiratical expeditions from England, like Drake's and Raleigh's. This was the time of Robert Kidd's career, and it has even been asserted that Eng- lish lords and earls were associated with that famous pirate. This Spanish wealth gave rise to a mania for hunting for mines of gold and silver; it was the cause of the 145 settlement in Virginia, made by a division of the Plym- outh Company, and we have read how a returned In- dian captive cunningly misled the English by a fiction of gold and copper mines. Exaggerated reports were spread abroad of the treas- ure which was transported in galleons from the West Indies and South America to Spain, and every account of a wreck aroused wild hopes of recovering the treas- ure. This was the sort of thing to attract the man into whom our visionary Maine boy had developed. Somewhere about the Bahama Islands, a Spanish vessel, laden with treasure, had been wrecked, and Phips made a voyage in search of the wreck in his own small vessel. He found the wre(5k, but the value of the treasure recovered from it was not sufficient to pay the expense of the voyage. Before he returned he had heard of a vessel, far more heavily laden with gold, that had been wrecked, more than half a century before, near Porta de la Plata. During all the fifty years the sunken treasure had been a fireside and a fo'c's'le tale, but no resolute effort had been made to find it. Phips had the spirit, but not the funds, for the undertaking. So he set out for Lon- don, to try to interest the English government in the recovery of the treasure. That he should have suc- ceeded has always been considered a marvel. A Yan- kee sea captain, without influence, education, or prop- erty, he was appointed, before the year was ended, to the command of the Rose Algier, a ship equipped with eighteen guns and ninety-five men, to search for the sunken treasure. One version of the story is that Phips STO. OF MAINE — lO 146 found access to the king himself, who loved a ship and a sailor, and was himself of a romantic and adventurous turn. However this may have been, the Rose Algier and her bold commander sailed away, unprovided with proper implements to prosecute the search for the treasure, and with no pilot who knew where the ship went down. The crew that he had shipped was a lawless one, eager for Spanish treasure, but unused to the discipline of a warship. The irksome restraints and the fruitless searching for treasure in the depths of the ocean soon wearied and discouraged the sailors. Phips was obliged to contend with open* mutiny, and the demand that the ship should be used for a piratical expedition against small Spanish settlements and Spanish ships. For a time his courage and determination held the mutineers in check ; but at length the reckless sailors came armed to the quarter-deck, and attempted to com- pel him to adopt their plans of piracy. Phips, unarmed, and taken by surprise, was yet able to make prisoners of several of the leaders of the mutiny, and to frighten the others into submission. Soon after- wards the ship was found to need repairs, and Phips was obliged to anchor at a small and uninhabited island. It was necessary to make an encampment on shore for the ship's stores, which had to be removed on account of the repairs. The ship was careened by the side of a great pro- jecting rock, and a little bridge built to the shore. This enabled the mutinous crew to retire to the woods and 147 form, in privacy, a new plan. They agreed to return to the ship in the evening, overpower Phips and the seven or eight men who were with him, and put them ashore upon the barren island ; then the mutineers, who were nearly a hundred in number, would take possession of the ship, and use it for any piratical ex- pedition they might choose. Only a slight chance, or Providence, prevented the success of the wicked scheme. The conspirators de- cided that the carpenter, who was on board the vessel, would be a necessary, and probably a willing, member of their party. They invented a pretext to send for him ; and when he came, and they found him somewhat reluctant to join them, they threatened him with instant death. He pretended to accede to their demands, but when he returned to the ship for his tools, they sent two or three men with him as a watch and guard. Once on board, he feigned a sudden illness, and ran down to the cabin for medicine. There he found the captain, and hastily whispered to him the danger. Phips's orders to him were to return to the shore with his guard, and to pretend that he was in full agreement with the mutineers. The rest was to be left to Phips. He called to him the faithful few who remained with him upon the vessel, and gave them their orders. It was now within two hours of the time when the muti- neers would return from the woods to carry their das- tardly plan into execution. They had carried several guns on shore ; and from these Phips ordered the charges to be taken. All the other ammunition, was 148 removed to the ship. Then the bridge was hurriedly taken up, and the ship's loaded guns were trained to command the approach to the encampment. When the mutineers appeared from the woods, Phips hailed them, and warned them that they would be fired upon if they came near the stores. The bridge was then laid again, and the faithful sailors began to remove the stores to the vessel. The mutineers were told that if they did not keep at a distance they would be abandoned to perish upon the island — the fate they had planned for the captain. The mutineers had no ammunition, and therefore could make no resistance ; and so all they could do was to throw down their arms and profess their penitence and their willingness to abandon their piratical scheme. They were finally allowed to return to the vessel, but they were deprived of their arms, and a strict watch was kept over them. 149 Phips, feeling that it was not safe, with this crew, to spend any more time groping in the ocean for the old Porta de la Plata wreck, now sailed to Jamaica and dis- charged most of his crew, shipping a small number of such other seamen as were to be found. He felt that the ill success of his venture was due to the fact that he had no exact knowledge of the place where the Spanish ves- sel was lost. He therefore sailed to Hispaniola, where he found an old Spaniard who knew the precise locality of the sunken treasure. It was a reef of rocks a few ieagues to the north of Porta de la Plata. Phips imme- diately returned to Porta de la Plata and searched about the reef vainly for some time. Before he was ready to abandon hope, the condition of his ship, leaky and not half manned, obliged him to return to England. The English admiralty appreciated his persevering efforts and the skill with which he had managed the mutinous crew, but it would not again fit out a national vessel for his undertaking. It was generally considered a visionary scheme. The story of sunken treasure near the Porta de la Plata reef sounded like an old wives' tale. But Phips persisted. When the government failed him, he resorted to private individuals, and finally induced a few English gentlemen, one of whom was the Duke of Albemarle, to fit out a vessel and to give him the com- mand. This company obtained of the king a patent, giving it the exclusive right to all wrecks that might be discovered, for a certain number of years. This time there were proper implements for making submarine researches, at least so far as they had been invented in those days. Phips is said to have contrived ISO and made with his own hands some of the drags and hooks. When he reached Porta de la Plata, he built a stout rowboat, using the adz himself, with his crew. Seizing an opportunity when the sea was unusually calm, he sent eight or ten men, with some Indian divers, to examine the reef, while he remained on the ship. The water was deep about the reef's precipitous walls, and very clear, and the men hung over the boat's side, straining their eyes to catch a glimpse of some fragment of the old ship said to have lain there for more than half a century. But there was no wreck to be seen. They sent the Indian divers down at different places, all in vain. They were about to leave the reef, when one of the sailors saw a curious sea plant growing in a crevice of the rocks, and sent one of the divers to get it. The diver found in the same spot several old ship's guns. The other divers went down at once, and one brought up a great ingot of silver which proved to be worth £200 or iJ"300. Excited and overjoyed, they placed a buoy over the spot and returned to the ship. Phips, prepared by sad experience for disappoint- ment, was incredulous of their report until they showed him the ingot. "Thanks be to God! " he cried. "We are all made." Every man on board at once set to work groping and grappling for the sunken riches, and in a few days they had drawn up treasure of the value of ;^300,ooo. They had found, first, that part of the wrecked ship where the bullion was stored ; afterwards they found bags of coin which had been placed among the ship's ballast. The bags had become crusted so thickly with a cal- careous deposit that they had to be broken open with irons. When they were burst open, out poured the coins in a golden shower. There were precious stones, also, of much value. This great good fortune proved to be very ill fortune to a friend of Phips, who had come in a small vessel to his assistance. He was a sea captain of Providence, Rhode Island, named Adderley, and he had by chance been of some help to Phips in the former voyage. With his small crew he managed to load his vessel, in a few davs, with treasure to the value of several thousand pounds. This sudden, unexpected wealth overthrew the poor captain's reason, and he died insane a year or so afterwards. Before Phips had wholly explored the wreck, his pro- visions became exhausted. But the men were so en- chanted with their good fortune that they refused to leave the spot until their hunger made the gold seem valueless. On the last day of their search they brought up about twenty heavy lumps of silver. The Providence captain and his crew were obliged to take an oath of secrecy, and to promise that they would content themselves with what treasure they had already found. But what with the poor captain's insanity and the crew's imprudent boasting, the secret leaked out ; a Bermudan ship visited the wreck, and when Phips went back, every ounce of treasure had been carried away. Phips suffered great anxiety in getting his vast treasure to port ; but he finally landed it safe in England. When the profits were divided and the seamen had 152 their promised gratuity, there remained as Phips's share only about ;^i 6,000. King James expressed great sat- isfaction with the results of the enterprise, and in recog- nition of Phips's services he bestowed upon him the honor of knighthood. The Woolwich sheep-tender was now Sir William Phips. He was requested to remain in England, with the promise of an honorable and lucrative position in the public service ; but his heart was drawn to his na- tive New England. The Massachusetts colony, to which Maine now belonged, was distressed. Her charter had been taken away, and her governor. Sir Edmund An- dros, was imperious and grasping. Increase Mather, then president of Harvard College, undertook a voyage to England to plead the cause of the colony, and immediately found a champion for his cause in the person of the new knight. Sir William Phips. Sir William had reputation at court and was thought to l^v,.,./|ll enjoy the king's personal favor; and such advantage as was gained by Ma- ther's mission is un- doubtedly to be as- cribed to Phips's influence. But when Phips applied direct- ly for the restoration of its former privi- leges to tlie colony, King James replied : ''Anything but that, Sir William!" I Unable to succeed in this great object, Sir William was determined to be of service to his country in some way. He seems to have been really patriotic, and, no doubt, also cherished a desire to enjoy his wealth and honors at home, where he had been advised to stick to sheep-tending and ship-carpentering. When a lucrative position under the commissioners of the navy was offered him, he applied for the office of sheriff of New England instead. He received this, and sailed in the summer of 1688 for New England. He found, when he arrived in Boston, that his patent as sheriff would not secure him the possession of the office, Governor Andros and his party being determinedly op- posed to him. But he built for his wife the fair brick house in Green Lane, which he had promised her five years before. The name of Green Lane was changed to ''Charter Street," in compliment to Sir William. His house stood at the corner of Charter and Salem streets. It was later used as an asylum for boys, but was demol- ished many years ago. His wife had her fair brick house, and the Duke of Albemarle sent her a present of a gold cup, whose value is variously stated at from one to four thousand dollars. We hear of her again in the dreadful witch- craft times, when Sir William, after fighting bravely through the Indian wars, had come to be captain general and governor in chief of the province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England. Then it was in- timated that the governor's good lady was a witch ; for when she was solicited for a favor in behalf of a woman committed on accusation of witchcraft, and in prison for 154 trial at the next assizes, she granted and signed a warrant for the woman's discharge. When Sir Wilham became governor of Massachusetts, his good fortune began to wane. He was continually annoyed by the defects of his early education, although his knowledge of human nature and his confidence in his own powers concealed many imperfections. It is said that his signature looked always like the awkward, unformed hand of a child. He was unpopular, and knowing the disesteem in which he was held, he became peevish and irascible. On more than one occasion he used his cane upon officers who failed to agree with him. He often expressed a wish to "go back to his broadax again." Complaints against him were preferred to the king, who refused to condemn him without a hearing, but ordered him to come to England to defend himself. His friend Cotton Mather declares that Sir William was assured that he should be restored to his governor- ship. B.ut the disaffection against him was so great that this is improbable. It is certain that he remained in England, and his scheming mind was soon filled with new enterprises. One was a plan to supply the English navy with tim- ber from the great primeval forests of Maine. The undertaking is said to have been feasible, and Phips was thoroughly well fitted to carry it out. The other plan was to go on another search for shipwrecked treasure, and, indeed, the desire for this exciting sort of adven- ture had never wholly left his eager mind. A ship with the Spanish governor Bobadilla on board 155 had been wrecked somewhere near the West Indies. Phips proposed to have the Duke of Albemarle's patent renewed to himself, and to try his fortune again. But in the midwinter of 1695 ^^^ took a cold which resulted in a fever, and caused his death in the forty-fifth year of his age. He was buried in the Church of St. Mary Woolnoth. XIII. MAJOR WALDRON AND THE INDIANS. THE province of Maine had now (1678) been pur- chased by Massachusetts, and, as the struggHng settlers were still distressed by hostile Indians, the Gen- eral Court of Massachusetts sent an army of a hundred and thirty English and forty friendly Indians to their relief. They came from Natick, and when they reached Dover they were incorporated with Major Waldron's troops. Major Waldron was a famous Indian-fighter, and had the reputation of being " one of the most per- fidious and unscrupulous cheats in his treatment of the Indians." When they paid him what was due, he would fail to cross out their accounts, and exact payment again and again. In buying beaver skins by weight, he insulted and exasperated the Indians by insisting that his fist weighed just one pound. When their opportunity for revenge came, it was not likely that the savages would forget. But, in justice to the major, it must be said that in the first infamous treachery shown to the Indians in this campaign he was not the leader. He had sent a messenger to four hundred Indian warriors, inviting them to come to Dover to confer, in a friendly manner, upon a possible treaty of peace, pledging his honor for their safety. 156 157 They came readily. Their own tribes were beginning to dwindle ; the Massachusetts colony, growing strong, would send more and more soldiers to the aid of the Maine settlers. And they had always a lurking fear that the white man, with his many inventions, was the favorite child of the Great Spirit, and that, in spite of Squando and Simon and the other Indian seers, it was they, instead of the English, who were doomed to de- struction. Peace was what the wiser among them really desired. But the burning and slaughtering of the Indians, and their merciless torturing of their captives, had been very recent, and were very fresh in the minds of the English, and they would have fallen upon them with furious slaughter if Major Waldron had not restrained them. He had pledged his sacred word that they should come and go in safety. The men made a dastardly plan, and although Major Waldron held out against it for a while, it is to be feared that his natural inclinations were with them from the first. Certain it is that he finally yielded, and one of the most infamous acts of treachery against the Indians of which the white settlers were ever guilty was perpetrated at this Dover conference. The Indians were invited by the English to engage with them in a sham battle. At a given signal there was to be a grand discharge of all the guns. The Indians guilelessly dis- charged their guns, while the English soldiers followed their secret instructions to load their muskets with balls and not to fire. Then they fell upon the helpless In- dians, disarmed them all, and took them prisoners. Some of the Indians who were known to have been •58 always friendly to the whites were set at liberty ; but two hundred of the too confiding' warriors were sent as prisoners to Boston. There all those convicted of taking life were executed, and the others were sent to the West Indies or other foreign countries and sold as slaves. Many colonists approved of this deed, and the government also sus- '( tained and abetted It. .^•fe^, The day after their 'A sham-battle exploit, V 3- ^ the troops under Ma- '^'' ^'> jor Waldron em- barked in a vessel for Falmouth, and at Casco, whence the inhabitants had all been driven by the Indians, they established a garrison. Some of the settlers were emboldened by this protec- tion to return to their homes, but the Indian attacks and depredations still continued. Seven men who ventured upon Munjoys Island, to kill some sheep that had been left there, were slain by the Indians, although they were armed and defended themselves desperately. In October the English returned to the Piscataqua, 159 leaving about sixty men in the garrison. They had been gone but two days when a company of a hundred and twenty Indians, under the leadership of Mugg, a famous chief, made a furious attack upon the garrison. Mugg had been very friendly with the EngHsh and had lived some time among them. " He was the prime minister of the Penobscot sachem, an active and a shrewd leader, but who, by his intimacy with the Eng- lish families, had worn oflf some of the ferocities of the savage character." Mugg called upon the inmates of the garrison to sur- render, promising that they should be allowed to leave the place unharmed, with all their goods. Captain Henry Jocelyn, who commanded the fortress, unhesi- tatingly left it to confer with Mugg, placing himself completely in the power of the Indians. His confidence in Mugg was not misplaced, for no treachery whatever was practiced by the Indians. But a very curious thing happened. He returned unharmed to the fort, but only to find, to his great astonishment, that all the inmates, except those of his own household, had availed themselves of the Indians' permission to depart with their goods. They had hastily gathered together their household effects and taken to the boats, and were already at a good distance from shore. Jocelyn, who had not accepted the offered terms, finding himself thus abandoned and helpless, had no alternative but surrender. Mugg seems always to have dealt fairly in trade and in war, but not always to have been able to control his i6o wily and treacherous allies. A naval expedition sent to Richmans Island for the rescue of some settlers who had taken refuge there, and for the removal of their property, was attacked by an Indian force that greatly outnumbered it. A part of the sailors were on board ship, and others on shore. The Indians immediately shot those on shore, or took them prisoners, and those on the vessel's deck were assailed by so furious a fire that they were forced to go below. Then the Indians cut the cables, and a strong wind blew the vessel ashore. The Indians shouted a threat to set the vessel on fire and burn the sailors to death unless they surrendered. Captain Fryer, the commander of the expedition, had been seriously wounded, and lay bleeding and helpless in the cabin. There were eleven in the vessel's hold, who agreed to surrender, upon condition that they should be allowed to ransom themselves within a given time by the payment of a certain amount of goods. The Indians accepted the terms, and released two of the prisoners, that they might obtain the ransom. They returned with the goods before the appointed time, but the Indians with whom they had made the terms had gone away. Other Indians had the remaining prisoners in charge, and they killed one of those who had returned with the ransom, took the goods, and re- fused to release the prisoners. The chieftain Mugg was very angry with the treach- erous Indians. He was anxious for war to cease, and ventured to Piscataqua as an emissary of peace from Madockawando, his superior sagamore. Mugg carried with him to Piscataqua Captain Fryer, lOI who was dying of his wounds, and restored him to his friends. He promised that the other prisoners should at once be set at hberty. Mugg was immediately given a passage to Boston, where, in behalf of Madockawando and another great chief, Cheberrind, he concluded a treaty. The treaty did not please all the Indians, which was not strange, for in it the English seem to have claimed everything and granted nothing. It was agreed that all hostilities should cease ; that the English should receive full satisfaction for all dam- ages they had suffered; that all prisoners and all ves- sels and goods which had been seized by the Indians should be restored ; that the Indians should purchase ammunition only of agents appointed by the govern- ment ; and that certain Indians accused of crime should be surrendered for trial and punishment. In concluding the treaty, Mugg said: " In attestation of my sincerity and honor, I place myself a hostage in your hands till the captives, vessels, and goods are restored ; and I lift my hand to heaven in witness of my honest heart in this treaty." Madockawando ratified this treaty, and fifty or sixty captives were restored to their homes. But the Canibas tribe, on the east bank of the Ken- nebec, remained hostile, scorned the treaty, and refused to release their captives. They were a powerful tribe, and were regarded by the English as very shrewd and sagacious. The site of their ancient village, opposite the mouth of Sandv River, is still shown. It is a fertile intervale, beautiful for situation. The ruins of their Roman Catholic chapel long remained, and its bell, weighing sixty-four pounds, was found in the ruins, and SrO. OF MAl.XK II l62 presented to Bowdoin College. To the Canibas tribe went Mugg, to try to persuade them to accept the treaty and release their captives. But he was not altogether successful. A pleasant story is told of one of Mugg's good deeds just before he sailed on his mission to the Canibas. A young man named Cobbet, the son of a clergyman of Ipswich, was among the captives found at Penobscot. He had been disabled by a musket wound, and, in that condition, delivered over to one of the most brutal and ferocious of the savages. Mugg, who had friendly re- lations with many of the English, had met the young man before, and, instantly recognizing him in the keep- ing of his cruel master, called him by name. ** I have just seen your father in Boston," he said, " and I promised him that his son should be restored to him. You must be released, according to the treaty." Madockawando and an English captain were stand- ing by. The old chief knew that Cobbet's fiendish master would not allow him to go alive without a ransom, and he quickly turned to the English captain, and begged him to give, as a ransom, a gayly ornamented y^-i military coat which he had at hand. The captain delivered up the coat forthwith to the grimly satisfied savage, and young Cobbet was sent in safety to his home. i63 An expedition consisting of two vessels, with ninety Englishmen and sixty friendly Natick Indians on board, was sent by the General Court to Casco and the Ken- nebec, to subdue the Indians in those parts, and to de- liver the English captives detained in their hands. One vessel was commanded by Major Waldron, and the other by Major Frost. They made their first landing at Mare Point, in Brunswick. The Indians who met them as they stepped on shore were led by Squando and Simon the Yankee-killer. Simon denied all accusations of intended hostilities, and declared that the Indians desired only peace, and had sent Mugg to the English for that purpose. The next day an unfortunate occurrence occasioned fresh diffi- culties. A large fleet of canoes was discovered rapidly drawing near to the vessels, and at the same time the log house of a settler was seen to be in flames. The English naturally supposed that the Indians had begun, in their usual way, to burn, pillage, and butcher. A company of armed men was immediately landed, and commenced a fire upon the Indians. The Indians re- taliated. When at length a flag of truce was raised, the sagamores explained that the house took fire acci- dentally. They also declared that they had meant to return the captives, according to the treaty, but the weather had been so cold and the snow so deep that they had been unable to do so. The English, who could not be said to have covered themselves with glory in this enterprise, again set sail and crossed the wintry seas to the western shore of the Kennebec, opposite Arrowsic Island, where they landed. 164 There half the men were set to work building a gar rison. With the remainder of his men, in the two ves- sels, Major Waldron sailed to Pemaquid, where it had been arranged that a council should take place. He met there several sachems with Indians from various tribes. Major Waldron called upon these Indians to help the Ensflish to subdue the Indians who still remained hos- tile and refused to release their prisoners. One of the old sagamores replied : *' Only a few of our young men, whom we cannot restrain, wish to enter upon the war- path. All the captives with us were intrusted to our keeping by the Canibas tribe. For the support of each one there are due to us twelve bearskins and some good liquor. The liquor was promptly forthcoming, and ransom was offered, but as yet only three captives were released. As the council met again in the afternoon, Major Wal- dron, who had previously suspected treachery, discovered some weapons where the Indians had concealed them. He seized a weapon and brandished it furiously, crying out that they were perfidious wretches, who had meant to rob and then kill them. This may or may not have been true ; the savages were certainly often guilty of treachery. At all events, a wild panic followed. The Indians, unarmed, fled in dismay, and were pursued by armed men from the vessels, who mercilesslv shot them down. Some of the Indians threw themselves into a canoe and pushed off in it. The canoe was upset, and five i65 were drowned, while the rest were captured in trying to escape. Two chiefs and five other Indians were shot dead. Megunnaway, an old chief, was shot, after being dragged on board one of the vessels by Major Frost and one of his men. Majors Waldron and Frost returned to Arrowsic, carrying with them much plunder in the shape of goods and provisions taken from the Indians. One author- ity says, somewhat ambiguously, that the provisions ** amounted to a thousand pounds of beef." At Arrowsic they shot Indians and took an Indian woman prisoner, sending her up to the Canibas, the stubborn keepers of captives, to demand an exchange. Leaving forty men in charge of their garrison on the mainland, they returned to Boston, boasting that they had not lost a single one of their number. But the dis- astrous result of their expedition had been to exasperate the Indians and inflame them to greater violence. This exasperation of the Maine Indians was increased when their ancient traditional enemies, the Mohawks, were hired by the'English to help make war upon them. They immediately planned to destroy all the important points in Maine that they had not already laid waste. They adopted their old method of shooting down from ambush every white person within range. They shot down and instantly killed, in this way, nine visitors to the Arrowsic garrison. The holders of the fort were terror-stricken, and abandoned the place, distributing themselves about at stronger garrisons. At York and Wells the savages shot down men at work in the fields and standing in their cabin doors. 1 66 Women and children dared not venture out of their houses, lest they should be carried away captive. The men whom they took prisoners they put to death with horrible tortures. The garrison at Black Point was a strong one. For three days and nights the force under Lieutenant Tappan fought bravely in its defense. The great chieftain Mugg was here instantly killed. This was a severe blow to the Indians, who were always seri- ously affected by the death of their chiefs ; and Mugg was one of those for whom they cherished a supersti- tious reverence. It was perhaps in reprisal for the loss that they renewed their fiendish tortures upon their cap- tives. After the death of Mugg the Indians abandoned their attack on the Black Point garrison. But the end was not yet ; and there was soon to take place there one of the fiercest and bloodiest battles of the long warfare. Two months afterwards the Black Point gar- rison was reenforced. A company consisting of ninety white men and two hundred friendly Natick Indians was sent there by the General Court. The Indians had prepared an ambuscade, and the white men allowed themselves to be entrapped. Cap- tain Benjamin Swett and Lieutenant Richardson, the officers in command, were brave but reckless men. The Indians sent out a decoy which drew the ninety white men from the fort; then they feigned a retreat, and the English guilelessly pursued them until they were hedged in by a swamp and a thicket, both filled with Indian warriors. The hidden foe made a frightful onslaught. Lieutenant Richardson was instantly killed ; and Cap- tain Swett, wounded and fighting still, until exhausted i67 by loss of blood, was cut to pieces by an Indian's toma- hawk. Sixty of the men were killed. On the [2th of August, 1678, the English commis- sioners met Squando and the sagamores of the Kenne- bec and the Androscoggin tribes, and sorne simple arti- cles of peace were drawn up and agreed upon. The hostilities were to cease. All captives on each side were to be surrendered without ransom. Every English family was to pay one peck of corn annually as a quitrent for the land it had gained from the In- dians ; and Major Phillips of Saco, who had very exten- sive possessions, was to pay one bushel each year. Peace was heartily welcome, for Maine's losses and suffering in the war had been very great. Two hundred and sixty had been killed or carried into captivity, and the wounded were unnumbered. A hundred and fifty captives were, after months of suffering, restored to their friends. So King Philip's War was over, in Maine as well as in Massachusetts, and for ten years the Maine settlers enjoyed comparative peace and security. But in 1688 difficulties between the French and the English aroused the Indians, who allied themselves with the French, to fresh hostilities. And they had not forgotten their old grudge against Major Waldron. The French and Indians had captured the strong fortress at Pemaquid, and then seized Falmouth and Newcastle. At Saco they were repulsed, but they surprised the settlement at Dover, and killed the inhabitants ruthlessly. A great company of them attacked Waldron's house, frantic in their desire for revenge upon their old enemy. i68 Waldron was now eighty years old, but still strong and of undaunted courage. With his sword he defended himself, and drove the Indians from room to room until, at last, one struck him down, from behind, with his hatchet. Then they seized him, and dragged him into the living room, setting him upon a table in his own armchair. While he sat there, they ordered a supper prepared for them, and ate it, while they jeered at him. When they had finished, they took off his clothes, and sub- mitted him to dreadful torture. They gashed his breast with knives, and said mockingly, "So I cross out my account! " They cut off joints of his fingers, saying, " Now will your fist weigh a pound? " When they had amused themselves sufficiently in this way, they allowed him to fall upon his own sword, and thus end his torments. It was said that Major Waldron had, in his time, seized, and sent as slaves to Bermuda, a hundred Indians. XIV. LOVEWELL'S WAR. THE story of Maine from 1675 to 1725 was only the old one of constant war with the Indians. King William's War, Queen Anne's, the French and Indian, were only continuations of the dreadful bloody struggle. And yet the undaunted settlers hailed every interval of peace, like that which followed the treaty of Utrecht, in I 7 13, and set to work with renewed courage to build up the province. It was hoped that the Indians had been subdued when, in one terrible battle, in which the de- voted Jesuit missionary was killed, the whole powerful tribe of Norridgewocks was blotted out. The Indians had, indeed, been driven from their fastnesses, but many desperate bands lurked about the frontiers, ready for any opportunity of murder or pillage. A regiment of several hundred men was raised to range the country in the region which was the favorite hunting and fishing ground of the savages. But the wily Indians, ever on the watch, were seldom caught. They skulked in the forests as warily as the wild beasts, and were almost as swift of foot as the deer. Massa- chusetts, in which Maine was then included, had gone to such desperate and, it must seem to us, brutal lengths in her war upon the savages as to offer ** to 169 I/O all volunteers who, without pay or rations, would em- bark, at their own expense, in the search for scalps, a bounty of £ioo for each one taken." A bounty of ;^I5 was offered for the scalp of every Indian boy of the age of twelve years. This was in 1725, almost a hundred years after the settlement of Boston. In December of that year, Cap- tain John Lovewell, who had, before that time, been a doughty Indian-fighter, went on an expedition, with thirty men, to Lake Winnepesaukee, in New Hampshire. They killed and scalped one Indian, and captured an Indian boy ; and for these deeds they received, in Boston, the bounty promised by law. Later in the winter, Captain Lovewell, this time with forty men, came upon some Indian wigwams on the shore of a small lake, since called Lovewells Pond, near Salmon Falls. There were ten Indians there, just re- turned from the hunt, and soundly sleeping around their camp fires. The English stole upon their sleeping victims silently, and fired simultaneously upon them, instantly killing nine and wounding the tenth. When the wounded Indian attempted to escape, a powerful dog, which the Englishmen had brought with them, pursued and held him until he was dispatched with the settlers' hatchets. Encouraged, apparently, by his scalps and his ^1,000, Lovewell set out again, in the middle of April, in quest of more. He took with him forty-six volun- teers, thoroughly armed ; but it is related that, from the severity of the march and the hardships of the way, three of the company gave out and returned home. A 171 chaplain accompanied the party. He was a young theo- logical student, named Jonathan Frye, a recent gradu- ate of Harvard College. On the side of Great Ossipee Pond, in New Hamp- shire, about ten miles beyond the western boundary of Maine, they built a small fort, which was already needed as a hospital, — eight of the men being too ill to go any farther, — and also as a place of retreat if they should be obliged to flee from the enemy. The sick men were left here, with a surgeon and a guard of three men, and the company again took up the march. At Fryeburg, a distance of twenty-two miles from their fort, they encamped for the night. They were on the shore of Lovewells Pond, and only about two miles from them was the Indian village of Peg- wacket. In the morning, while engaged in their devotions, — for it was their invariable custom to have morning prayers, — they were interrupted by the report of a gun. Moving cautiously to the water's edge, they saw, across the pond, a mile away, an Indian hunter, who had fired at some game. He was valuable game indeed to them ; fair game, too : by the law of the land his scalp was worth five hundred dollars. It is not pleasant to relate, but, just from their pray- ers, the party set out to catch him. In a little pine grove, free from underbrush, they threw off their packs, and left tliem in a heap ; the tall pines were a landmark, and they could easily find them again. Keeping near to the shore of the pond, yet skulking, in savage fashion, behind the trees, they came within IJ2 shooting distance of the Indian. He was quite unaware of their approach, and was sauntering along, looking for birds, of which he had a few, already shot, in his hand. The eager Englishmen fired upon him too hurriedly, and every gun missed its aim. He sprang behind a tree and took a survey of the enemy. Then he took de- liberate aim and fired at the leader, Captain Lovewell, inflicting a dangerous, but not a mortal, wound. Ensign Wyman fired almost simultaneously, and the Indian fell dead. They scalped him, and supporting their wounded leader as well as they could, they returned to the little clearing where they had left their packs. Meanwhile a band of Indian warriors, led by the great chiefs Paugus and Wahwa, returning from an ex- pedition down the Saco River, came, by chance, upon the little pine grove and the packs. It w^as easy to see that the owners meant to return for them. It was also easy to tell the number of their owners by counting the packs. It was not difficult for the keen eyes of the sav- ages to discover the path upon which the Englishmen had gone, and by which they would probably return. Around the little clearing they ranged themselves in ambush, and awaited their victims. The Englishmen were marching easily along, probably well satisfied with their morning expedition, when the Indians rushed upon them from their ambush, with their terrible war whoops. These Indians, having often visited the western settle- ments of Maine, and been on friendly terms with Cap- tain Eovewell and his men, were loath to kill their former friends, and preferred to take them captive. They might have shot every man from ambush, but, in- stead, they came out and presented their guns. Then the English, aroused to renewed courage, poured forth a deadly fire from their guns, and killed two or three Indians. Instantlv the Indians, who outnumbered their ene- mies two to one, sprang back into the natural ambus- cade, and, completely surrounding the English, poured upon them a slaughtering volley. Nine men, including Captain Lovewell, fell dead, and two more were severely wounded. The survivors, including the two badly wounded men, made their way to the pond, only a few rods awa}-. Here there was a bank five feet high, and a sandy beach, and no Indian ambush was possible. The bank was a rampart to protect them from the Indians' bullets, and from behind it, for eight hours, they fought with the courage of despair. They knew that they could not long hold out, but, with their small number, flight was hopeless. They had no provisions, and their packs, with their extra supply of ammunition, had been seized by the Indians. Their fate seemed certain, yet they fought on ; and in a brief cessation of hostilities, while the Indians seemed to be holding a council. Ensign Wyman stole stealthily into the forest and shot and killed one of the chiefs. Even after that, one of the chiefs came within hailing distance of the rampart, and shouted: ** Will }ou have quarter? " The English probably understood their foes well enouo-h to know that, after thev had killed so many of theni, especially after Ensign Wyman's shoot- 174 ing of the chief, there would be no quarter, but only torture to the death for them. So they answered des- perately : " We will have no quarter but at the muzzles of our guns." It was a strange contest, for, as it continued, both sides concealed as far as possible from each other, the deadly enemies often talked together, calling each other by name, as if their relations were the most friendly. John Chamberlain stepped down to the water to wash his gun, which had become too foul to use, at the same moment tliat Paugus, the Pegwacket chief, jumped over the bank for the same purpose. Both men were of f^reat stature and of heroic cour- age, and both leaders in the wars. Paugus could speak English, and the two men were well acquainted, and had been on friendly terms. Paugus, in- stantly loading his '^^^^'k"^ gun, said quietly to his former friend : " I shall now very quick kill you! " "Perhaps not," re- turned Chamberlain, whose gun, in charging, primed itself. With his words came a flash, a report, and the Indian chief fell dead. The English were helpless and at the mercy of the savages, for their ammunition was neariy exhausted. 175 And yet, at nightfall, the Indians withdrew. It is not improbable that the Indians had expended all their ammunition, of which they could obtain supplies only by tedious journeys through the forests to Canada. Forty of the Indians were killed outright, and eighteen mortally wounded. Of the English there were twenty-two survivors, and of these two were mortally wounded and were left to die alone. They could not be moved ; and to stay with them meant almost inevitably death, by horrible torture, at the hands of the Indians. Eight others were badly wounded, and all were enfeebled and half famished. They w^ere forced to leave the dead unburied and take up their painful march, in the midnight darkness, desti- tute of tents, of food, of any covering for the injured, or any means of dressing their wounds. Chaplain Frye, although mortally wounded, toiled along for a mile or more, and then gave up the struggle for life. " I cannot take another step," he said. " Here I must die. Should you ever, through God's help, reach your homes, tell my father that I expect in a few hours to be in eternity, but that I do not fear to die." Struggling on through the forest, the remnant of Lovevvell's men divided themselves into three companies in an effort to conceal their trail from the Indians, whose war whoops they constantly expected to hear. It was supposed that the savages had gone to Pegwacket for a fresh supply of ammunition. If this was so, they prob- ably failed to find it, for they gave up the pursuit, and sixteen of Lovewell's men reached the fort, after a journey of three or four days through the woods. 176 All through the sufferings of the journey the pros- pect of the security and comforts of the fort had sus- tained them ; but when they reached it, to their keenest disappointment they found it abandoned. It was learned afterwards that the feeble holders of the garrison had fled for their lives, when one of Lovevvell's men, escap- ing when the savages first rushed upon tliem in the grove, had appeared at the fort with the frightful news. To the great relief of the fugitives, some provisions were found in the garrison, which the men in their hasty flight had left behind them. When they had eaten and rested as well as they could, expecting every moment to hear the yells of the coming savages, they resumed their painful march, and fourteen of them finally reached their homes. This Peewacket battle is said to have had such an effect upon the Sokokis tribe that they were never again the valiant warriors they had been before. They wandered away from their " pleasant and ancient dwell- ing places," and " the star of the tribe, pale and declin- ing, gradually settled in darkness." A poet of those days celebrated " Lovewell's Vic- tory," as it was called, in a ballad whose quamt sim- plicity shows curiously the primitive old times, when it did not provoke a smile. We give a few of the many verses : THE BALLAD OF LOVEWELL'S VICTORY. Anon there eighty Indians rose, Who'd hid themselves in ambush dread; Their knives they shook, their guns they aimed, The famous Paugus at their head. 177 Good heavens! they dance the powwow dance. What horrid yells the forest fill! The grim be;ir crouches in his den, The eagle seeks the distant hill. "^ What means this dance, this powwow dance?" Stern Wyman said. With wondrous art He crept full near, his rifle aimed, And shot the leader through the heart. John Lovewell, captain of the band, His sword he waved that glittered bright; For the last time he cheered his men And led them onward to the fight. "Fight on, fight on ! " brave Lovewell snid ; '' Fight on while Heaven shall give you breath ! " An Indian ball then pierced him through. And Lovewell closed his eyes in death. 'Twas Paugus led the Pequ'att tribe ; As runs the fox would Paugus run, As howls the wild wolf would he howl, A large bearskin had Paugus on. Ah ! many a wife shall rend her hair. And many a child cry, " Woe is me," When messengers the news shall bear Of Lovewell's dear-bought victory. Lovewell was dead, and his little company killed or scattered ; but the war that they had inaugurated con- tinued for three years, until two hundred of the Maine settlers had been killed or carried into captivity, and the native tribes had dwindled away and lost all their brav- est warriors. Oldtown, the old island of Lett, far up the STO. OF MAINE 12 178 Penobscot, where the Indians had their strongest fort and a pleasant Httle vihage dear to their hearts, had been, in 1723, captured by the Enghsh and wholly de- stroyed. Colonel Thomas Westbrook, who commanded the expedition against the Indian stronghold, made the following official report of his proceedings. He first describes the prosperous settlement and the fine build- ings which the French and Indians had erected, and continues: "We set fire to them all, and by sunrise the next morning they were all in ashes. We then re- turned to our nearest guard, thence to our tents. On our arrival at our transports, we concluded we must have ascended the river about thirty-two miles." The Indians wandered back to their once beautiful island and their desolated homes, but they had no heart to try to rebuild. The grasp of the powerful English was upon them, and the}^ understood, at last, that no Indians could withstand it. They were half famished, for they could scarcely obtain ammunition for hunting ; and if they planted corn, even in remotest re- gions, the determined English would find their trails through the forest, and trample their harvests in the dust. A bitter belief in the surx'ival of the fittest was enter- ing the Indian's always fatalistic mind. Squando had foretold the destruction of the white man, but it had become easy to see, now, that he was the favored child of the Great Spirit. It was the Indian who was doomed. Down iiie western banks of the river the despoiled savages wandered from their beautiful Lett. They must 179 settle upon the shore, for they were forced to subsist upon fish; yet there the Enghsh could easily swoop down upon them with their ships and the great whale- boats which they were constantly fitting out. At Bangor, then the primitive forest, they rebuilt their village. It was a delightful place. A high bank sloped gently to the Penobscot, and the Kenduskeag slipped peacefully down through the woods to the greater river. There were probably French families with them, as there had been at Lett, for some of the houses had cellars and chimneys, which at that time no Indian dwelling had ever had. The Indians had always affiliated much more readily with the French than with the English, and in this case there was the bond of a common religious faith ; for the Lett Indians were all Roman Catholic. In fact, it was probably their natural adaptation to the Roman Catho- lic faith that had first drawn them to the French. ''The French are our friends," they said. "They advocate our rights, and become, as it were, one with us. They sell us whatever we want, and never take away our lands. They send the kind missionaries to teach us how to worship the Great Spirit ; and, like brothers, they give us good advice when we are in trouble. When we trade with them w^e have good articles, full weight, and free measure. They leave us our goodly rivers where we catch fine salmon, and leave us unmolested to hunt the bear, the moose, and the beaver where our fathers have hunted them. We love our own country, where our fathers were buried, and where we and our children were born. We have our rights, as well as the English ; i8o we also know, as well as they, what is just and what is unjust." Besides the French houses in the new village on the Penobscot, there were about fifty of the Indian huts which had replaced their ancient wigwams, to the entire loss of the picturesque, and a doubtful gain of the com- fortable. They built a church also, the French and Indians together, of which we hear only that it was *' commodious," and that the cross on its roof made it a sightly object from the river. Better, perhaps, for the Indians if it had been less ** sightly," for their village was soon discovered by their enemies. At the Rich- mond garrison, a hundred miles to the south, the settlers heard of this new village of the Indians, and Captain Heath, the commander of the garrison, with a company of men, marched across the country from the Kennebec to destroy it. It made no dilTerence to the valiant Captain Heath that the thoroughly subdued and weakened Indians had made proposals for a peace conference. The Indians received warning, in some way, of the approach of the enemy, and the whole population deserted the village and fled to the forest. The attacking party found not an Indian, but they burned every dwelling and the church, and laid waste the newly planted cornfields. The Indians made their way back to Lett, and rebuilt their homes on the island that had belonged to their fathers, — one of the few ancient Indian settlements in America that remain in possession of the Indians to this day. In spite of all Indian overtures for peace, the war continued. The English seem to have adopted, almost i8i by common consent, a policy of extermination, and an Indian was as much lawful game as a wild beast. Even when a few chiefs with a flag of truce approached Fort St. George, at Thomaston, to sue for peace, they were fired upon by a detachment from the fort, and one of them was killed. Young Castine, of whom we have heard before, always a friend of peace, and of great influence in maintaining friendly relations between the Indians and the English, was fired upon from an English sloop, while fishing in a small sailboat of: Naskeag Point (now Sedgwick). He had with him in his boat his young son, the grandson of an Indian chief, and Samuel Trask, a Salem boy, taken captive by the Indians, whom he had kindly ransomed. They made for the land and took shelter there, when the captain of the sloop raised the white flag, and called to Castine that the shooting had been a mistake. Incapable of suspecting such base treachery as this proved to be, Castine, with the two boys, immediately rowed out to the ship. As soon as they stepped on board, young Trask was seized, and the captain said to Castine: "Your bark and all it contains are a lawful prize. You yourself are justly my prisoner. You may think yourself well off to escape without further moles- tation." One of the crew accompanied Castine and his son to the shore, and there attempted to kidnap the boy. Finding it impossible to rescue the boy otherwise, Castine shot the rascal dead, and with his son fled to the woods. In spite of outrages like this, the Indians continued to sue for peace. l82 Two commissioners from Boston were met at Fort St. George by thirteen Indian chiefs, who declared that they came for peace, and wished to recall all their young men from the war. Councils were appointed, and one of them, at Boston, in which four great saga- mores from the Eastern tribes participated, lasted for more than a month. The great grievance of the Indians was that their hunting grounds, the lands which had belonged to their fathers before them, had been seized. They had also been defrauded of them by those who had given fire water to the Indians, and when their wits were gone had made them sign any contracts they chose. The deadly fire water frenzied the Indians and made them utterly reckless. Loron, one of the chiefs, wrote to Governor Dummer : " Do not let the trading houses deal in rum. It wastes the health of our young men. It makes them behave badly, both to your people and to their own brethren. This is the opinion of all our chief men. I salute you, great governor, and am your good friend." The Indians had no way to enforce their claims to their lands, and were obliged to submit to any terms of peace that the English chose to make. The Dummer treaty was an unconditional surrender on the part of the Indians. It was signed on the 1 5th of December, 1725, and continued in force for many years. By its terms the government of Massachusetts was authorized to arrange all intercourse between the English and the Indians. If any Indians refused to ratify the treaty, the chiefs in council pledged their tribes to join the English and force the off"enders to submit. 1 83 A fuller council was held at Falmouth, July 30, 1726. Forty chiefs were there, representing nearly all the Maine, Canada, and Nova Scotia tribes. They were accompanied by a large number of Indians of their 'm. % i various tribes. The lieutenant governors of Massachu- setts and New Hampshire, representing the English, were attended by a brilliant retinue of soldiers. The Indians carried themselves with great dignity, and the scene is said to have been very impressive. Wenemonet, a great sagamore, and twenty-six of his tribe signed the treaty. At the close of the conference, a banquet was given in the great tent erected for the council on Munjoys Hill. The Indians are said to have immediately flocked to the settlements when peace was established, as happy as children, and apparently quite forgetful of the terri- ble tragedies that had been enacted, and of their own great losses. i84 Lovewell's War was practically the end of Maine's troubles with the Indians. The colony suffered some- what during the French and Indian War, but the old power of the savages was never regained ; and when, in 1763, a treaty of peace was signed between France and England, Maine entered upon a season of security and prosperity. i XV. THE FIRST NAVAL BATTLE OF THE REVOLUTION. IN the days just before the Revokition, Machias was a scattered settlement, extending for several miles along the Machias River, and thence out upon its branches, East, West, and Middle rivers. There were already many mills, and the sixteen seven-acre lots of the first mill-owaiers formed the nucleus of the village. It was not a large settlement, but it was a very patri- otic one. The battle of Lexington had been fought, and its echoes had reached Machias and set the liberty- loving blood of its townspeople all aflame. The wnse and prudent town fathers felt not a little anxiety about their exposed situation, with British New Brunswick adjoining them on the one hand, an unbroken wilder- ness on the other, and their seacoast w^holly exposed to the bombardment of any enemy that might assail them. But there was one resolve alike in the breasts of the prudent fathers and the reckless, hurrahing youngsters: the "Britishers" should never find Machias an easy prey. A liberty pole had been erected on the village green, and thither the townspeople resorted to talk over the affairs of their Httle borough, the fishing trade and the lumber trade, the state of health and the state of religion, and 185 i86 now the much more exciting themes of taxes and tyranny, and the possibiHty of throwing off the British yoke. The boys resorted to the common, also, and punctuated the patriotic speeches of their elders by ear- splitting hurrahs whenever Deacon Libbee, said to have been the austere guardian of the proprieties both in "meeting" and out, raised his stout hickory cane as a signal that such indulgence was in order. On a sunshiny June morning, the June of that mem- orable year, 1775, the Polly and the Unity, two sloops well known in Machias, hove in sight upon the glitter- ing blue of the bay. They were Ichabod Jones's vessels. Ichabod was a trader, and had brought a stock of much- needed goods and provisions of various kinds to Ma- chias ; and he had also brought his family, who had been sojourning in Boston. An accustomed and a welcome sight were the Unity and the Polly, but on that day they were convoyed by a rakish little armed schooner, the Alargaretta. She carried four light guns and fourteen swivels, and she was commanded by a midshipman in the British navy named Moore, who was a nephew of Admiral Graves, com- mander in chief of British naval forces in Massachusetts waters. The town fathers looked one another in the face, and their hearts thrilled with a vague apprehension. When Ichabod Jones landed, he sought his nephew Stephen, and, with a disturbed face, went off with him to his house, a house which is standing to this day. much altered and enlarged, at the lower end of Center Street. Stephen Jones was a military man, but fie I 187 became, after the colonies had attained to independence, chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas. It was soon made known that Ichabod Jones did not mean to unload his cargo unless he could be assured that he would be allowed peaceably to carry a cargo of lumber to Boston. He asserted that he had been able to brine them the stores only by making an agreement with the British at Boston to return with the lumber; and here was the armed British vessel on hand to see that the agreement was carried out. The Machias people needed the stores very much, and Ichabod Jones was, after all, their townsman, and it is uncertain what they might have decided to do if the commander of the Margarctta, who is variously de- icribed as " a youngster," " a stripling," and " a snip of a boy," had not ordered the liberty pole to be taken down, and tlireatened to fire upon the town if his order was not obeyed. A town meeting was held. The town fathers en- deavored to face calmly the grave problem before them. Benjamin Foster made the first speech, and although it did not absolutely counsel defiance, it had a warlike ring. Benjamin Foster was a man of substance, and a leader in the affairs of church and state. He had, also, the largest military experience that was represented in the town, having fought in the ranks at the capture of Louisburg, in 1745, and later, under General Aber- crombie, in the French and Indian War. He had come to Machias in 1765, established himself on East River, and built a sawmill there. His brother, Worden Foster, was already there, having come as the blacksmith of the i88 settlers in 1763. Both brothers were men whose opin- ion had weight, and when it was a question in which military matters were involved, the whole town hung upon Benjamin Foster's words. But when he had fin- ished speaking, there was a dissenting voice. It was David Gardner, an elderly and dignified Quaker, who arose and spoke impressively. " Has thee reflected, Benjamin Foster," he said, *' that the British commander will assuredly fire upon the town if the pole remains, and mayhap will kill the women and children ? " There was a hush upon the little assembly as the men weighed David Gardner's solemn words and faced the dread alternative. They thought, doubtless, of their small garrison house, and of the httle militia company, organized in 1769, with Judge Jones as captain and Benjamin Foster as lieutenant; the feeble defense, the raw mihtia, would be unavailing against the enemy's powerful guns. **Then, David Gardner," said Benjamin Foster, slowly, " will you help to cut the liberty pole down? " The peaceable old Quaker blazed suddenly into wrath. He used wicked and un-Quaker-like language, which it would never do to set down here. He hoped some- thing might happen to him if he would. He said that Benjamin Foster " might do his own dirty work." Then there was wild cheering, and as soon as it had sufficiently subsided for any one to be heard, Sam Hill, a tall lumberman, shook his sledge-hammer fist and de- clared that he would inflict summary punishment upon any one who attempted to cut down the liberty pole. Captain Moore, the young of^cer in command of the 1 89 Margarctta, would have been glad to retract his threat, but he feared that by doing so he should lose the respect of his men. Ichabod Jones, who still had hopes of selling his goods and securing his lumber, persuaded the captain to withhold hostilities until the larger and fuller town meeting appointed for the 14th of June should have taken place. Meanwhile the little town looked about it for means of defense and resistance. The leading townsmen met together privately, by agreement, in the woods on the west bank of the Machias River, about a mile below the village. Bold were the counsels of veteran Benjamin Foster. He proposed making prisoners of the officers and men of the British ship and taking possession of the Margaretta and of the still partly laden sloops of Icha- bod Jones. The more cautious argued that it was only by allowing Ichabod Jones to load and depart, as they had voted, that they could be assured of stores to keep them from starvation hereafter. They were too small a force to give themselves to reckless deeds. But the O'Briens took sid^s with Benjamin Foster, and they were a power in the towi\. Six stout and brawny fellows they were, sons of Morris O'Brien, an Irishman born on the famous old river Lee, near Cork. Colonel Jeremiah O'Brien was the eldest of the brothers and the leader with Benjamin Foster in this movement. All the counsels of timidity or prudence were defeated by the impetuous daring of Foster and O'Brien. A dramatic little scene was enacted there, in the woodS; 190 when Benjamin Foster impulsively stepped across a brook — as an ancient leader crossed the Rubicon — and called upon every man who was in favor of the seizure of the British cutter and the two sloops to follow him. There was a determined rush of the bolder spirits to his side at first ; then the others came, lingeringly, doubt- fully, but at last every man had crossed the brook. David Gardner kept away from this meeting, lest he should be tempted wholly to forget his Quaker princi- ples, but later he gave a private word of advice to Colo- nel O'Brien. " Let me whisper a word in thine ear, Friend Jeremiah," he said. " If thee intends to board the Margarctta, thee must remember not to strike her amidships, unless thee art minded to do her an injury; for verily that schooner is weak in the waist, and the Unity, with her solid bow, would be apt to crush her." 191 After the brook was crossed, the next thing was to agree upon a plan of attack. The following day was Sunday, the i ith of June. The English officers would be at church, and it was proposed to seize them there. Benjamin Foster was a devout man, but he had no ob- jection to mingling this sort of fighting — for the defense of sacred rights and liberties — with his praying. The church was a rude building, twenty-five by forty feet. The townsmen surrounded the church, hiding their guns, and a part of them went in to the service as usual. John O'Brien hid his gun under a board in the church, and sat on the bench behind Captain Moore, ready at a given signal to seize him. Parson Lyman was probably acquainted with the plot. He was a native of Nova Scotia, but an ardent Whig. It is related that he read with great unction the hymn: ''O Lord, to my relief draw near, For never was more pressing need; For my deliv'rance, Lord, appear, And add to that deliv'rance speed." But Parson Lyman's colored servant, London Atus, had not been taken into the confidence of the planners of this attack, and this proved to be a disastrous over- sight. For London, sitting humbly by the rear window, caught sight of Foster's armed company crossing a foot- bridge that connected two islands on the falls, and with a great outcry jumped out of the window. The British officers, of course, took alarm, and followed Atus. Ichabod Jones, who was also to have been taken prisoner, fled, and hid himself in the woods. The 192 British reached their vessel before the armed force had reached the church, and Captain Moore at once weighed anchor and sailed down the river. Foster and O'Brien immediately planned to seize Ichabod Jones's sloops and chase the Margaretta. The Polly was unavailable, probably because still too heavily laden, but the O'Briens took possession of the Unity ^ and before Sunday night had mustered a volun- teer crew of about forty men. Foster went to East River and secured there a schooner and a volunteer crew. The schooners from both villages proceeded down river early the next morning, but, unfortunately, the East River schooner got aground and lost her share in the battle. It seemed a forlorn hope that pursued the British cutter in the Unity. Only half of the forty men had muskets, and for these only three rounds of ammuni- tion. The other men had armed themselves with axes and pitchforks. And they were in pursuit of a vessel armed with sixteen swivel guns and four four-pounders, and with a full complement of disciplined men ! As they sailed down the river, the Unity s little force organized itself. Jeremiah O'Brien was captain, and Edmund Stevens lieutenant. Their little store of ammunition would be utterly wasted in long shots ; their desperate plan was to bear down upon the Margaretta and board her. Then the contest would be decided upon her deck. There was anxious looking for the East River schooner and her brave commander, whose counsels had led to this bold enterprise ; but they could not wait. It has 193 been said that for desperate courage no feat in all the Revolutionary War, and scarcely in any war, can match this of the handful of Machias settlers. When the Unity reached the broad river below Ma- chiasport village, the Margaretta came in sight. As soon as they were within hailing distance Moore shouted, " Keep off, or we fire ! " Stevens shouted defiance, and O'Brien demanded surrender. Instead of firing, Moore set all his sails, and with a favoring breeze tried to escape. He has been accused of being both hasty and cowardly in this action, and certainly seems to have deserved one, at least, of the charges. He stood out to sea, and the Unity followed him closely. A shot was fired from the Margaretta^ and one man on the Unity fell dead. The Unity answered with all her strength in a volley of shot. The two vessels came together, and John O 'Brien leaped on board the Margaretta; then they swung apart, and O'Brien was left on the enemy's deck alone. The English fired seven muskets at him without in- juring him ; but wdien they charged upon him with their bayonets, he jumped overboard and swam to his own ship. The next move was to try Yankee pitchforks against British bayonets. Captain O'Brien ran the bowsprit of the Unity through the mainsail of the Margaretta, and twenty of his men, armed only with pitchforks, rushed upon her deck. It was their one desperate chance, for all their ammu- nition was used up. One of the twenty men was killed, STO. OF MAINE — 13 194 one mortally and another seriously wounded. Of the Margaretta' s men five were killed or mortally wounded. One of the first to fall was Captain Moore, shot through by two musket balls. The Margaretta' s helms- man was killed, and the cutter *' broached to" and was run into. The others killed were Captain Robert Avery, an impressed American skipper, and two ma- rines. It is uncertain how many were wounded. John O'Brien reckoned the British list as ten killed and ten wounded, but it is doubtful whether there were so many. When Captain Moore was killed, the officer next in command, a midshipman named Stillingfleet, fled below for his life, and gave up the ship. If the English had known that the Americans had exhausted their ammunition, the issue might even then have been different. Great was the rejoicing at Machias when the Unity came into port with her prize, although it was mingled with sorrow for the slain. Among the heroes of the day had been Richard Earle, the colored servant of Colonel Jeremiah O'Brien, whose courage had been so great in the most trying moments as to make atonement for the costly stupidity of another of his race in the morning. A pleasant little story of girlish pluck is told in con- nection with this story of the early Revolutionary heroes. In making preparations for the proposed Sunday cap- ture of the British officers, the Machias men had sent a messenger to Chandlers Mills for powder and ball. The men of that settlement had all gone to Machias, but two 195 girls, Hannah and Rebecca Weston, seventeen and nine- teen years old, procured thirty or forty pounds of am- munition, and brought it to Machias through the deep woods, finding their way by means of a line of blazed trees. The sloop Unity was sup- ; plied with bulwarks, and ; I the armament of the Margarctta was trans- ferred to her. She was renamed, very appropriately, the Mac Idas Liberty, and commanded by Colonel Jeremiah O'Brien. For three or four weeks the Liberty cruised off the coast, trying to capture the Diligence, an Eng- lish coast-survey vessel. At length the Diligence came into the lower harbor, and her officers and a part of her crew landed at Bucks Harbor, to try to discover the fate of the j\Largarctta. They were surprised and taken prisoners, and the next day the Liberty, commanded by Colonel O'Brien, and the Falmouth packet, commanded by Benjamin Foster, captured, without resistance, the Diligence and her armed tender. ■•^ .^^ 196 Thus Machlas early did its share in the great strug- gle for American independence, and on the 26th of June the Provincial Congress passed a vote of thanks to Colonel Jeremiah O'Brien and Benjamin Foster, and the brave men under their command, for their heroic ser- vices to the country, and placed at their disposal the two sloops and the British schooner which they had captured. XVI. THE BURNING OF FALMOUTH. NOT to Machlas only, but to all the settlements of Maine, had the news of the battle of Lexington come like a bugle call. The people of York heard of it on the evening of the day when it was fought, and the very next morning a company set out from that town to march to Boston. It consisted of sixty men, with arms, ammunition, and knapsacks full of provi- sions. It was the first company organized in Maine for the Revolutionary War. Falmouth (now Portland) was the town next in order, sending a strong company on the 2ist, two days after the battle of Lexington. Biddeford came next, with a full regiment under Colonel James Scammon, who had seen military service and was a very able and popular man. Within a few days thousands of men had left their farms, forgetful of seedtime, and ready to sacrifice their lives, if need be, to protect their country's liberty. Falmouth was the most important town in Maine. It was the shire town of Cumberland county, and a customhouse was located there. There was a large party of royalists in Falmouth — crown officers and their polit- ical allies and friends ; but among the great majority of the people there was an intensely patriotic feeling. The Stamp Act of 1765 had been resented m Fal- 197 mouth by the burning of the odious stamps, which had been brought by an EngHsh vessel and stored in the customhouse. In 1774, when the port of Boston was closed by the British, the bell of Falmouth meetinghouse was muffled and solemmly tolled from sunrise to sunset. When the tax was imposed upon tea, a gathering of the townspeople passed a resolution to buy no more tea until the act that laid a duty upon it was repealed. The meetings were usually held in Mrs. Greele's little one-story tavern, which long remained an historic land- mark. A society called the American Association had been formed in the different settlements of Maine, whose purpose was to interfere with the tyrannical monopoly of trade and manufactures by the English. A Fal- mouth royalist. Captain Samuel Coulson, a violent op- poser of the patriots, had built a large vessel and sent to England for materials, sails, rigging, and stores. The patriotic Americans had resolved that no English goods, with the oppressive duties demanded, should be received on their shores. So when, in May of the eventful year 1775, a vessel arrived in Falmouth with Captain Coulson's goods, the committee of the association met and decided that the goods should forthwith be sent back to England. Cap- tain Coulson determined to land his supplies. He ap- plied for British aid, and a sloop of war, the Canseati, commanded by Captain Mowatt, was sent to Falmouth to his assistance. This Captain Mowatt, being a prudent man, hesitated to arouse the wrath of the people by resorting to violent measures. While he hesitated, the 199 people were not Idle. A company of fifty men, all skilled in the use of arms, had been raised in Brunswick for the purpose of seizing the Canseaii. The company came in boats, under command of Colonel Samuel Thompson, a man of reckless daring, and encamped, under cover of night, in the woods on Munjoys Hill. On the morning after the company's arrival, Captain Mowatt, the surgeon of the Caiiseaii, and the Rev. Mr. Wiswall, the Episcopal clergy- man of Falmouth, were ^r^-^' taking a walk to- gether upon the hill. 'M-^^.isH^:^ The reckless Cap- tain Thompson seized Captain Mowatt and the -If % surgeon. and held them pris- oners. Then there was wild excitement and dismay, for the town was at the mercy of the Caiisecui' s guns, and the second officer of the ship threatened that if the prisoners were not released before six o'clock he would open fire. The excited townspeople were all in the streets; women ran about weeping and praying; every country- man's cart was piled high with household goods and with women fleeing with their children. A committee of prominent citizens demanded of Colo- 200 nel Thompson that he should save the town by freeing the prisoners. But he declared that there was war between America and Great Britain, and they were his rightful prisoners. However, he at last made the con- cession of releasing the captives, on parole, for the night, they promising to return to the encampment at nine o'clock the next morning. Two Falmouth townsmen pledged themselves as sureties of the two prisoners. They did not appear in the morning, and the two sure- ties were arrested and held prisoners all day, without food. When Thompson sent to the Canscan to inquire why the parole had been broken, Mowatt returned an- swer that his washerwoman had heard that he was to be shot as soon as he appeared on shore. Meanwhile, from all the little settlements around, companies of militia were marching to the relief of Fal- mouth. When they reached there, a court martial was established to discover who were in sympathy w^ith the enemy. The Rev. Mr. Wiswall was one of the sus- pected, but declared, under oath, that he believed in re- sistance to British aggressions, and was released. No avowed royalists seem to have been discovered, for none of those who were questioned were condemned. The soldiers were riotous, broke into Captain Coul- son's house, and made free with his wines. Then an in- toxicated soldier fired at the war ship, and Uvo bullets penetrated her hull. Only a musket w^as discharged from the Caiiseau in return, and by that no one was hit. Colonel Thompson still held the sureties. Colonel Freeman and General Preble, and kept them on bread and water. In the midst of the terror and confusion, 20I Thursday, the iith of May, was observed as a day of fasting and prayer. But besides fasting and praying they succeeded, on that day, in capturing one of Mow- att's boats. He threatened to burn the town unless the boat were restored, but Thompson's men returned to Brunswick the next day, and carried the boat with them. On the following Monday Captain Movvatt sailed, in the Canseaiiy for Portsmouth, with Captain Coulson and his new vessel. But he left threats of direful venge- ance behind him. On the 8th of June a British war ship of sixteen guns, the Senegal, anchored in Falmouth harbor. Four days afterwards the Senegal's errand became evident, for Captain Coulson came in his new ship and anchored beside her, hoping that by the aid of her threatening guns he would be able to secure the masts for his ship. But the Provincial Congress had, by this time, passed a law to prevent Tories from taking their property out of the country, and Coulson was not allowed to take his masts. He departed again, under convoy of the SeJte- gal, and quiet reigned until the i6th of October. That was a day memorable in the annals of the little provincial town. Early in the morning five vessels ap- peared in the harbor. The Canseau was the leader; behind her came the Cat, a large war ship, with a bomb sloop and two armed schooners. A strong head wind served to keep them off all that day, but on the next they were all anchored in the harbor, their formidable broadsides bearing upon the defenseless little town. An officer from the fleet, bearing a letter, under a fla of truce, landed at the foot of what was then King Street cr 202 The whole town turned out and followed him quietly, but in great excitement and suspense, to the town house, where he deliv^ered the letter. The British cap- tain's epistle was ridiculously ungrammatical and ill spelled, but its dreadful meaning was clear: " You have long experienced Britain's forbearance in withholding the rod of correction. You have been guilty of the most unpardonable rebellion. I am ordered to execute just punishment on the town of Falmouth. I give you two hours in which you can remove the sick and the infirm. I shall then open fire and lay the town in ashes." A stupefying dismay overcame the people for a few moments. They felt that the calamity was too terrible to be real. Then they began to realize that there was not a moment to lose. A committee of three was appointed to visit Mowatt and discover whether, by any possible means, the ca- lamity could be averted. The three men chosen were Episcopalians and supposed friends of the English. But Mowatt was not to be moved. He had already risked the loss of his commission, he declared, by his humanity in giving them warning. His simple and ex- plicit orders were to anchor opposite the town with all possible expedition, and then burn, sink, and destroy. The order, doubtless, proceeded from Admiral Graves, who then commanded the port of Boston. The committee endeavored to make Mowatt realize the extreme cruelty of his order. The sick and dying, the feeble women and children, would be shelterless, in the fields and woods, in the chilling autumn night. The Tory families, who had adhered persistently to the 203 British government, would suffer with the rest. Per- sonal feeling should enter into the captain's considera- tion for them, for they were his friends and had shown him much hospitality. Mowatt showed some shame in view of the brutal deed which he was called upon to commit, and he at length consented to delay the bombardment until nine o'clock the next morning, provided that the people would reduce themselves to an absolutely defenseless condition by surrendering to him all the cannon and small arms and ammunition in the place. If eight small arms were sent to him before eight o'clock that evening, he would understand that his terms were accepted, and he would postpone the burning of the town until he had time to receive further instructions from Admiral Graves. The committee told him that the people would prob- ably refuse to accept the humiliating terms; but there was nothing to be done but to return to the town and communicate them to the anxious assemblage in the town house. A chorus of determined noes was the answer of the patriots. But, for the sake of gaining time, they sent the eight small arms to Captain Mowatt, with a message that they would summon a town meet- ing early in the morning and give him their final answer before eight o'clock. But at the town meeting the first decision was hero- ically confirmed. At eight o'clock the next morning the same committee of three carried the message to Mowatt that the arms would not be surrendered. At nine o'clock the signal of England's ruthless venge- 204 ance was run up to the masthead of all the vessels of the fleet, and the terrific bombardment began. All day long, until six in the evening, the dreadful storm of bombs, cannon balls, shells, bullets, and grapeshot fell upon the town, and one hundred men were landed in boats to fire any buildings that might escape the shot and shell. Falmouth was then already a fine town. It had four hundred dwelling houses, some of them expensive and handsome, churches, a library, and several fine public buildings. Most of the buildings were of wood, and the town was soon a roaring sea of flame. Two hundred and seventy-eight homes were in ashes, and the whole number of buildings destroyed was four hundred and fourteen. Many hundred persons were reduced to the most extreme distress. The losses amounted to an enormous sum of money for the time and place. In the desolated town the General Court soon after began to erect a small garrison with a battery of six cannon, and sent four hundred soldiers to help to protect the Maine coast. Falmouth recovered itself very slowly, at first, from the terrible blow, but after prosperity came with peace, the gain of the town, in its beautiful and healthful loca- tion, was very rapid. In i 786 it was divided, and the peninsula and several of the islands in the harbor were incorporated into a town, to which was given the name of Portland. XVII. A HAIRBREADTH ESCAPE. GENERAL PELEGWADSWORTH,whowas born in Duxbury, Massachusetts, and was graduated from Harvard College in the class of i 769, raised a com- pany of minutemen immediately after the battle of Lex- ington, and was the second officer of the expedition sent against 'Biguyduce, the old fortress that had so much to do with the fortunes of Maine from the beginning. A strong fort had been built there by the British, that they might command the entire valley. Mowatt, the ruthless destroyer of Falmouth, had been assigned to the 'Biguyduce station, with a fleet of three war ships. The General Court of Massachusetts sent an expedition, consisting of nineteen armed vessels and twenty-four transports, to capture the fort. The fleet carried three hundred and forty-four guns and an abun- dance of all needful munitions of war. But the enter- prise proved a total failure, owing, it was thought, to the lack of skill of its commander. The land force, under the command of Generals Lovell and Wadsworth, was managed very ably, but there was no adequate support from the fleet. The garrison had an opportunity to send to Halifax for aid, and a formi- dable fleet of British vessels entered the harbor on the 14th of August, and practically annihilated the Ameri- 205 206 can fleet. It was a most humiliating defeat, and the commander was pronounced incapacitated from ever after holding a commission in the service of the state ; but Generals Lovell and Wadsworth were relieved from any share of blame. The vessels of the American fleet having been all cap- tured or burned, the marines were forced to retreat through the wilderness to the Kennebec, suffering great hardships on the way. The General Court sent three hundred soldiers to the protection of Falmouth, two hundred to Camden, and a hundred to Machias. The command of this eastern division was assigned to Gen- eral Wadsworth, whose headquarters were at Thom- aston. The general lived in a secluded place, on the banks of a little stream, in Thomaston. Six soldiers guarded the family, which consisted of General Wadsworth, his wife, a son of five, a baby daughter, and a Miss Fenno, a friend of Mrs. Wadsworth. It became known to the English at 'Biguyduce that the general was but feebly defended, and Lieutenant Stockton was sent, with a party of twenty-five men, to capture him. It was in the dead of winter and bitterly cold. The English soldiers reached General Wadsworth's house at midnight. When the sentinel rushed into the house to give the alarm, the soldiers discharged a volley of bullets through the open door. They sur- rounded the house, smashed the windows, and battered down the doors, and fired into the sleeping rooms of the family. 207 General Wadsworth, armed with a brace of pistols and a flintlock musket, fought bravely and fiercely. But defense was hopeless against so many. Driven to close quarters, the general defended himself with a bayonet until he was shot through the arm rendered helpless, and obliged to sur- render. A brutal sol- dier would have shot him down if an officer had not pushed aside the gun. So fierce had been the contest that nearly all the guard were wounded, as well as the general, one being in such torture from a wound that he begged to be shot. Fortunately, not one of the women or chil- dren was struck by the hailstorm of bullets. The genera] had sprung from his bed, and had no time to dress himself. After his surrender one of the English officers went into his room with a lighted candle and helped him to dress. His wound was so painful that he was unable to wear his coat, and a blanket was thrown over him to protect him from the extreme cold. His wife 208 was not allowed to examine o^ dress tne wound, but a handkerchief was bound about it tostay the flow of blood. The house was on fire, and the general, as he was hurried away, had to endure not only the pain of his wound, but the greatest anxiety for the fate of his family. His little son was missing, but was afterwards discovered to have buried himself in the bedclothes, where he was quite safe from the flying bullets. Two of the wounded British soldiers were placed upon General Wadsworth's horse, while he, although weak from loss of blood, was forced to walk. After strug- gling along for a mile, his strength failed him utterly, and they left one of the wounded soldiers, who was ap- parently dying, at a house by the way, and placed the general upon the horse, behind the other soldier. When they reached the shore ofT which the vessel, an English privateer, lay at anchor, the captain cried out to the general furiously : " You accursed rebel, go and help them launch the boat, or I will run you through with my sword ! " General Wadsworth answered with dignity : " I am a prisoner, wounded and helpless. You may treat me as you please." But Lieutenant Stockton was less of a brute than this. He promptly silenced the fellow, assuring him that his conduct should be reported to his superiors. " The prisoner is a gentleman," he said. *' He has made a brave defense. He is entitled to be treated honorably." Upon the vessel General Wadsworth was given a berth and made as comfortable as was possible under the circumstances. 209 The vessel reached 'Biguyduce the next day, and the prisoners were greeted upon the shore by a throng of British officers, sailors, and soldiers, with shouts of rage and scorn. They had to be protected by a guard from the violence of the British mob, as thev were marched half a mile to the fort. But once there, General Wads- worth was very kindly treated, having his wounds dressed by a surgeon. General Campbell, commander of the fort, expressed great admiration of the defense that General Wadsworth had made against such heavy odds, and assured him that the captain of the privateer who had insulted him should m.ake him a suitable apology. He dined at the commandant's table, was given a comfortable room, and was supplied with books and writing materials. There w^as an encampment of American soldiers at Camden, and Lieutenant Stockton sent for him to that station, only four miles from the place where he had been taken prisoner, a letter to his wife, and another, under a flag of truce, to the governor of Massachusetts. Within two wrecks he learned that his family was safe. It was five weeks before he was able to move. He asked permission to leave the fort on his parole, but this, although a customary privilege, was denied him. After he had been a prisoner for two months his wife and Miss Fenno were allowed to visit him. He discovered, about that time, that he was to be sent to England to be tried as a rebel. Such was the bru- tality \\\\\\ which the British were now treating their American prisoners that being sent to England meant, almost certainl}^ being sent to the gallows. STO. OF MAIX.E — I 4 2IO His companion on this unhappy journey was to be Major Benjamin Burton, who had been recently cap- tured, and was imprisoned in the same room with General Wadsworth. Major Burton was a brave man, and by his courage had especially aroused the animosity of the British officers. To him, as well as to General Wads- worth, transportation to England would mean consign- ment to the gallows. In this desperate situation they formed a desperate plan of escape. They were in a grated room within the fort, and guards were stationed at their door. The walls of the fort, twenty feet high, were surrounded by a ditch. Sentinels were posted upon the walls and out- side the gates of the fort. Beyond the ditch were more guards, who patrolled through the night. The fort was built upon a peninsula, and a picket guard was placed at the isthmus, the only point where escape to the main- land was possible. General Wadsworth was familiar with everything in and around 'Biguyduce, and he knew the odds they would have to encounter; but feeling their situation to be hopeless unless they could escape, the prisoners took their one desperate chance to do so. Their room had a pine-board ceiling, and in some way they had become possessed of a penknife and a gimlet. Working with these early and late, whenever it was possible to do so and avoid detection, in three weeks they had cut out a panel in the ceiling large enough for a man to crawl through. To conceal each cut as it was made, they covered it with a paste made of bread moistened in their mouths. When the aper- 211 ture was large enough they were forced to wait, in sore suspense, for a night of favoring darkness and rain. On the 1 8th of June the night came. The storm began with thunder and Hghtning. At midnio^ht there was a furious \ o^ale, with floods of rain, and even \ Vvti the sentinels sought shelter. The prisoners removed the panel which they had cut out, and then lifted themselves up through the aperture into an entry- way above. They groped theirwayalongin utter dark- ness, and before long, unfor- tunately, became separated. Wadsworth at length reached the top of the wall, having made ^i his way, providentially, into a path ^Si^mf' used by the soldiers. Fastening the blanket which he had brought with him to a picket, he lowered himself until he could safely drop into the ditch. In the howling wind and beating rain he crept cautiously along between the sentry boxes, and reached in safety the open field. On the shore of the back cove was an abandoned guardhouse, where th two friends had agreed to meet if they should become separated. General Wads worth made his way in the darkness, over rocks 212 and through a little wilderness of brush heaps and stumps, until he reached the guardhouse. Here he waited for half an hour, hoping in vain that Major Burton would join him. He was finally forced to the conclusion that his friend was lost, and sadly went on to try to save himself. It was low tide, and he was able to wade across the cove, a mile in width, though the water was above his waist. He found a road which he had himself caused to be cut for the carrying of cannon when stationed at 'Biguyduce, and struggled on until, at sunrise, he was about eight miles beyond the fort. The sun rose clear above the wrecks of the storm, and the most gladsome sight that it showed to the general was the friend whom he had given up for lost follow- ing close upon his footsteps. It is easy to imagine how joyful must have been the meeting. But there was no time to be lost, for the enemy was doubtless by this time in hot pursuit. They fortunately found a boat upon the shore, and in it they crossed the river, landing on the western bank just below Orphan Island. They had but just landed when they caught sight of a boat of the enemy, evidently in pursuit. With a small pocket compass as a guide, they made their way southwesterly through the woods, and, after three days of severe struggle, reached an American settlement, where they obtained horses and easily fin- ished their journey to Thomaston. ' General Wadsworth removed to Portland at the close of the war, and built the first brick house in the town. 213 He was the maternal grandfather of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and in this brick house the poet passed his youthful days. General Wadsworth was the first rep- resentative to Congress from the Cumberland district. He died, in 1829, at the age of eighty-one. XVIII. THE BRITISH AGAIN IN MAINE. THIRTY years had passed since the close of the Revolutionary War, and Maine had enjoyed her long-foLight-for and hard-won peace and been greatly increased and prospered. But she had to have her share in the crisis of a difficulty with England which had lasted long and become unendurable. Forced to acknowledge the independence of the colo- nies, Britannia still claimed to rule the wave, and con- stantly inflicted outrages upon our commerce and im- pressed our seamen for her navy. Aroused by more and more flagrant offenses of this kind, the American Congress, on the i8th of June, 1812, passed an act declaring that war existed between the United States and England. To meet the expenses of the war, a tax of $74,220 was levied upon Maine, and it is said that more soldiers were enlisted in the district of Maine, according to its population, than in any state of the Union. There were over twenty thousand men, all in marching order, ready to do Maine's share in another struggle for liberty. A British brig carrying eighteen guns and a crew of a hundred and four men had been, for a long time, the scourge of our coasts. No gallant merchant ship, no modest coaster, was safe from the depredations of the 214 215 Boxer. Captain Blythe, who commanded her, was a daring young EngHshman, only twenty-nine years old. There lay at anchor in Portland harbor the American brig Enterprise, commanded by Captain Burrows, who was only twenty-eight. The Boxer cruised off Portland harbor for the pur- pose of drawing the Enterprise into an encounter. It was a fierce and bloody fight which took place between the two vessels on the 5 th of September, 18 14, at three o'clock in the afternoon. They were very near together and poured a deadly fire into each other. Within half an hour both young cap- tains lay dead upon the bloody decks and the Boxer had struck her colors. Her defeat was utter, for she had lost, besides her captain, nearly half her crew. On the Enterprise but two were killed and twelve wounded. The Enterprise returned victorious to Portland the next day, bringing the Boxer as her prize. The public rejoicing was great, although it was mingled with sorrow over the death of the brave young Burrows. The officers were buried side by side with military honors. The whole Atlantic coast was declared by the British in a state of blockade, and was infested by the enemy's cruisers. Any American vessel upon the seas was liable to be stopped by threatening guns from a British war ship, and an officer would board her and select from her crew any American seamen, and drag them on board the British man-of-war. If resistance were attempted, the British officers did not scruple to use club and sword * to compel submission. Even our armed vessels were 2l6 searched, and were fired upon if they resisted. More than six thousand men were taken from American vessels and forced to man British guns. The British claimed that Moose Island, upon which the fortified town of Eastport was situated, belonged to them by virtue of the treaty of 1783. On the iith of July, 1 8 14, a British fleet of five war vessels and three or four transports arrived at Eastport, anchored beside the fortifications, and demanded their surrender. It was a powerful fleet. The Rainilies, having on board the commodore, Sir Thomas Hardy, was a seventy-four- gun ship. The Martin, Rover, Brcame, and Terror were large ships carrying heavy guns ; there was a bomb ship also, and the transports carried a great force of men. It is no wonder that the little town was appalled and hopeless when the surrender of the fort was demanded in five minutes. Major Putnam, the commander, was a man of reckless courage. His reply to the British was : '* The fort will be defended against whatever force may be brought against it." But the whole town re- monstrated again.st the hopeless resistance to a force which could destroy it in an hour, and Major Putnam was compelled to strike the fort's flag. The British flag was hoisted oyer the fort. The com- modore took possession of the town, with all its public property, and seized all the American soldiers and forced them on board the British ships. The inhabitants of Moose Island, and of all the other islands in Passamaquoddy Ba\% were ordered to assemble at the Eastport schoolhouse on the sixteenth day of the month, and then and there take the oath of allegiance 217 to the King of England, or else within seven days to take their departure from the islands. Nearly two thirds of the inhabitants submitted to this demand, feeliny^ them- selv^es utterly helpless to resist. On August 26, a still more powerful British fleet set sail from Halifax to the Maine coast to reduce its hardy and defiant sons to submission to the British rule. This fleet consisted of three seventy-four-gun ships, two frigates, two war sloops, an armed schooner, a large tender, and ten transports. The troops embarked numbered nearly three thousand men. Some authorities give the number as six thousand ; it is certain that there were two regiments, two companies of a third regiment, and a detachment of royal artillery. The fleet was commanded by Lieutenant General Sir John Sherbrooke, governor of Nova Scotia. When, on the i8th of September, this powerful fleet cast anchor in Castine harbor, it was evident that resist- ance was useless. The garrison blew up its small bat- tery and fled, and the British took undisputed possession. One of the officers, with a force of six hundred men, crossed the bay and seized and plundered Belfast, re- turning after this exploit to Castine. Everywhere the quiet little towns were wholly un- prepared for war. In all Massachusetts only about six hundred regular troops were to be found, and beyond the Penobscot, in September, 18 14, hardly a full com-' pany could have been collected. The able-bodied vot- ing male population of the counties of Kennebec and Hancock, on either side the Penobscot, was about twelve thousand. And the powerful British troops met 2l8 with little or no resistance. A few days before Sher- brooke's descent upon Castine, the United States ship Adams, a heavy corvet, carrying twenty-eight guns, which had escaped from the British at Chesapeake Bay and had been cruis- ing some months at sea, struck on a reef at lie au Haut, and was brought into the Penobscot Riv- er in a sinking con- dition. Captain Morris, who commanded the Adams, took her up _- the river about twenty- five miles to Hampden, near Bangor, to repair her. General Sherbrooke, on occupying Castine, sent a force of six hundred men up to Hampden, in boats, to capture and de- stroy the Adams, while he occupied Belfast with an- other regiment. Captain Morris's crew numbered prob- ably only about two hundred men, but he placed great dependence upon aid from the militia. When he heard of the approach of the British he hastily put his guns in battery and prepared to defend tlie ship. On the morning of September 3, in a thick fog, the British boats sailed up the river and announced them- 219 selves by firing at peaceful citizens on the east side of the river, in Orrington. They fired a cannon ball through the house of Mr. Lord, near the ferry, killing a man named Reed. A little farther up the river they fired a cannon ball which came so near the head of Mr. James Brooks as to blow his hat oflf. He had with him the children and the cattle, escaping to the woods. An- other cannon ball went through the meetinghouse, and there is set down in the annals of the Orrington (Meth- odist) Quarterly Conference this record: " September 3, 1 8 14. The British troops coming up the river prevented O. M. [Quarterly Meeting]. They shot a cannon ball through the meetinghouse this day." The little hamlet of Hampden was panic-stricken. " The sons of Revolutionary sires at Hampden had never seen battle," says an old record. " Their white- haired fathers were too old for the fray. Besides, the councils of New England had decided the war unneces- sary and wrong. The United States made no demands and rendered no aid." Eastport fell in June, Washing- ton and Alexandria a month later, Castine and Ban- gor in September. In an hour Hampden was entirely in the power of the enemy. They plundered property, killed cattle, abused the inhabitants, and burned their vessels. They spared only those vessels for which money could be extorted from their owners. Robert Barrie, the commander of the British fleet, was insolent and brutal. When a committee of citizens waited upon him_ and begged him to treat the commu- nity with more humanity, he replied angrily : " I have no 220 humanity for you. My business is to burn, sink, and destroy. Your town is taken by storm. By tlie rules of war we ought to lay your village in ashes and put its' inhabitants to the sword. But I will spare your lives, though I mean to burn your houses." But an order came from General Sherbrooke not to burn the houses. So the fleet proceeded up the river to Bangor, and took possession of the place without en- countering any resistance. All public or private prop- erty upon which hands could be laid was regarded as lawful spoil. The British crossed the river to Brewer and burned all the shipping there. It was a reign of terror in all the region about Bangor, but a gala occasion for the British officers, who disported themselves about the neighbor- hood of the city, wearing uniforms glittering with gold lace, and making themselves especially free with side- boards and cellars, which, in those days, it was the fashion to keep well stocked. Across the river, in Brewer, a party of officers at- tempted to force the hospitality of General Blake, an old soldier of Revolutionary fame. But the general fore- stalled them and dispensed liquors from his sideboard with the stately courtesy of a gentleman of the old school. To one of them he was so extremely polite that the officer remarked in surprise: ** Perhaps you do not know who I am, sir. I am a British officer. I am General Gosselin ! " " I know you are," returned the old general, his in- dignation getting the better of his politeness, '* and curse the goose that hatched you! " '21 There were many humors of the tryini,^ and discour- aging situation, as there is, almost ahvays, a hghter side to the dark things of hfe. General Sherbrooke had no orders to occupy the country west of the Pe- nobscot ; so, after a hundred and ninety- one of the principal citizens of Bangor had been compelled to sign a document declaring themselves prisoners of war and promising not to serve against the Brit- ish government unless exchanged, the fleet de- scended the river to Frankfort. Here the British officers contented themselves with seizing forty oxen, a hundred sheep, and all the poul- try and produce that they could lay hands on. On the 9th of September they returned to Castine, which was made a port of entry. Several ships of war guarded the harbor, and twenty-two hundred troops were placed there in garrison. All the province of Maine east of the Penobscot was then in Sherbrooke's hands, and the inhabitants of the Kennebec valley feared that he would overrun and lay waste their coun- try in the same manner that he had ravaged the Penob- scot shores. 222 The British commander organized a provincial gov- ernment for the territory, and all male inhabitants over sixteen were forced to take the oath of allegiance to the King of England. " A hundred miles of our seacoast passed quietly into the hands of King George." At Hampden a customhouse was opened for the introduction of British goods. Castine, the headquar- ters of the British, became very gay socially. Many of the English officers were gentlemen, and endeavored to relieve the monotony of life in the little Maine town by gentlemanly amusements. A theater was opened, and there were balls, at which many a Castine maiden first learned to trip the light fantastic toe ; for dancing was an amusement that had been frowned upon by the sober-minded settlers. The gay times that were enjoyed " when the British were at Castine " have been the theme of many a grand- mother's reminiscences in that region. Castine re- mained to all intents and purposes a foreign port. It was the only place in the United States which was al- lowed to hold any commercial relations whatever with England or her colonies, and many cargoes of European merchandise were brought there. Upon the principle of international law that neutral vessels must be allowed to enter our harbors, large quantities of merchandise which had been imported into Castine were continually carried away from there, in a Swedish schooner, to Hampden, where Mr. Hook, the United States collector of customs, had established his office, and there duly entered under our laws. This traffic was so extensive that duties amounting to 223 one hundred and fifty thousand dollars were received at Hampden during a period of five weeks, and from twenty to forty teams were constantly engaged in trans- porting goods across the country. A little company of militia from Northport captured, near Castine, a sloop with her cargo of cloth and silks, which brought seventy thousand dollars at auction. American paper money not being current, traders from Boston and other points would pick up Eastern bills and require their exchange for gold and silver. The result was that every bank in Maine was soon obliged to sus- pend specie payment. An inveterate smuggling, for which the long stretch of unguarded territory afforded great opportunity, was carried on, and all sorts of schemes were invented to elude and deceive the revenue officers. Wagons with double bottoms, affording a hiding place for silks and laces, were a favorite device. A sheriff of Hancock county, living in Ellsworth, on his way to Boston stopped for the night at Wiscasset. The peculiar appearance of his wagon excited suspicion, and upon examination two bottoms w^ere found, between which was concealed a quantity o'f valuable English merchandise, which was seized and condemned. As the smuggler occupied a high office and was a prominent member of the Federal or anti-war party, the affair attracted widespread attention, and the following jocular allusion to it appeared in the Boston " Patriot " of November 9, 1814: " The Double-bottomed Wagon : The next trip Mr. Sheriff Adams takes to Castine we would advise him to 224 make use of an air balloon, as there appears to be no safety in traveling by land. The double-bottomed wagons are not safe from the grip of James Madison's sentinels ; but in an air balloon there will be perfect safety, as the officers of government are not permitted to travel in the air nor to make seizures there." After sleighing commenced, sleighs with false backs and fronts, and pungs with false bottoms, became favor- ite vehicles with the smuggling community. It was not unusual to see a large, portly gentleman drive up to the tavern door just at dusk, order his horse to be put up, and after taking supper retire for the night, leaving or- ders to be called early in the morning. He invariably came from the East. A rigid examination of him and his surroundings would have led to the discovery, prob- ably, that the plump saddle on his horse's back was stuffed with sewing silk; that silks and satins were hidden between the two backs and fronts of his sleigh ; that the false crown in his hat concealed a pound or more of needles, and that his trunk contained nothing but a lot of old newspapers. The lean, lank, shadlike guest who appeared in the early morning would hardly be recognized as the portly gentleman of the preceding night, and the increase in the weight of his trunk dur- ing the night was truly miraculous. Travelers of this character invariably took the back route from the Penob- scot for the West ; all the revenue officers were stationed on the shore route. As the duties established on imports at Castine ranged from five per cent, ad valorem to forty-three cents per gallon on spirits, the amount of revenue collected there 225 must have been large. This seems to have accrued to the province of Nova Scotia, for, in 1816, Lord Bathurst, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, authorized the expenditure of duties levied at Castine on such local improvements as the governor should suggest. From the customs receipts collected at Castine, in 18 14- 15, i^i,ooo was granted to aid the military li- brary at Halifax, and ^^9,750 toward the establishment of a college at Halifax. This was the foundation of Dalhousie College (now University), with buildings lo- cated on a public square of the city, departments of art and science, and a faculty of ten professors, — all from duties levied on the Yankees by the British at Castine. On the 24th of December, 1814, was signed the treaty of Ghent, by which peace was established be- tween Great Britain and the United States. The news reached this country on the iith of February, 18 15, and was received with great demonstrations of joy all over the country. On the 25th of April the British troops evacuated Castine, after having occupied it for eight months. Old 'Biguyduce, after its varied fortunes, was once more Yankee soil, and has remained so ever since. STO. OF MAINE— 15 M XIX. MAINE IN THE CIVIL WAR. AINE'S part in the Civil War was similar to that of many another state — she simply did her best. But that best was such an astonishing thing for a state of her resources, that the bare and cold statistics thrill her children's hearts with pride, and may well furnish excuse for a little boasting. She sent 72,945 men to the battlefields. The num- ber killed in the army list (we have none of the navy or marine corps) amounted to 7,322. Maine furnished thirty-two infantry regiments, three regiments of cavalry, one regiment of heavy artillery, seven batteries of mounted artillery, seven companies of sharpshooters, thirty companies of unassigned infan- try, seven companies of coast guards, and six companies for coast fortifications ; 6,750 men were also contributed to the navy and marine corps. The amount of bounty paid in the state was $9,695,620.93. The value of hospital stores contributed was $731,134. Bangor boasted that she raised the first company of volun- teers that enlisted in the United States. But the first company which filled its ranks and was accepted by the governor was the Lewiston Light Infantry. In the small town of Cherryfield the names of fifty volunteers were upon the enlistment roll in four hours after it was opened. 226 227 Maine had an enrolled militia of about sixty thousand men, but in the " piping times of peace " there had been no drilling, and the militia was unarmed and unorgan- ized. And yet the first and second regiments sent from Maine were so thoroughly armed and equipped as to receive especial praise from the Secretary of War. The Second Maine had the fortune to grace battle's brunt on eleven hard-fought fields in the course of two years. In the battle of Manassas, where the Union army was completely routed and forced to flee, the Second carried itself with an undaunted courage that reflected great credit upon the state. At Bull Run the Second was also to the fore. A pri- vate letter written to friends at home says : " The brav- ery of our boys is the theme of every one. All fought well, so well that it would seem difficult to particularize, but the boys speak so warmly of the conduct of Lieu- tenant Gurnsey, Captain Sargent, Lieutenant Casey, and Peter Welch, that I know it will give no offense to others to name them. Of young Gurnsey the boys say he is 'a little brick.' The regiment charged up a hill on a twenty-gun battery. At the top of the hill was a Vir- ginia fence, only a few paces from the battery. Gurnsey commanded the left wing of his company, and, with a revolver in one hand and his sword in the other, he charged up the hill to the fence, on the top of which he leaped and, waving his sword, cried to his boys to fol- low him. Twice he led his men to the fence, but the murderous fire caused them to fall back and throw themselves on the ground behind an eminence, to shield themselves from the storm of iron hail. It was by this 228