Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast

Mackerel swim in deep water, and are brought to the surface by casting over quantities of ground bait. If they happen to be on the surface in a storm, at the first peal of thunder they will sink to the bottom. The movements of the fish in the water are like a gleam of light, and it dies hard when out of it. The mackerel was in great abundance when New England was first visited.

In the confusion naturally incident to accounts of early discoveries on our coast of New England, it is pleasant to find one vantage-ground from which you can not be dislodged. In this respect Pemaquid stands almost alone. It has never been called by any other name. Possibly it may have embraced either more or less of the surrounding territory or adjacent waters than at present; still there is eminent satisfaction in standing at Pemaquid on impregnable ground.

In the minds of some old writers Pemaquid was unquestionably confounded with the Penobscot. There is a description of Pemaquid River from the Hakluyt papers,[46 - "Purchas," vol. iv., 1874.] which makes it the easternmost river, one excepted, of Mavoshen, manifestly a name erroneously applied, as the description is as far from coinciding with the true Pemaquid as is its location by Hakluyt. In this account the Sagadahoc and town of Kennebec are also mentioned. Like many others, it is more curious than instructive.

It also appears, to the student's dismay, that in some instances the discoverers were apprehensive of drawing attention to any new-found port or harbor, as it would render their monopoly of less value. The account of Weymouth's voyage by James Rosier omitted the latitude, doubtless with this object. His narrative, if not written to mislead, was confessedly not intended to instruct. How is the historian to follow such a clue? Fortunately, after many puzzling and unsatisfactory conjectures, the account of William Strachey makes all clear, so far as Pemaquid is in question. Weymouth's first landfall was in 42°, and he coasted northward to 44°. Strachey speaks of "the isles and rivers, together with that little one of Pemaquid."

Sir F. Gorges, in his "Brief Narration," mentions that "it pleased God" to bring Captain Weymouth, on his return in 1605, into the harbor of Plymouth, where he, Sir Ferdinando, then commanded.[47 - In 1603 Gorges was deprived of the command, but had it restored to him the same year.] Captain Weymouth, he continues, had been dispatched by the Lord Arundel of Wardour in search of the North-west Passage, but falling short of his course, had happened into a river on the coast of America called Pemaquid. In the reprint of Sir F. Gorges's invaluable narrative[48 - "Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society," vol. vi., 3d series.] the word Penobscot is placed after Pemaquid in brackets. It does not appear in the original.

Pemaquid, then, becomes one of the pivotal points of New England discovery, as it subsequently was of her history. As the French had directed their early efforts toward the Penobscot, so the English had imbibed strong predilections for the Sagadahoc, or Kennebec. Weymouth and Pring had paved the way; the Indians transported to England had been able to give an intelligible account of the country, the configuration of the coasts, the magnitude of the rivers, and power of the nations peopling the banks.

The Kennebec was known to the French earlier than to the English, and by its proper name. Champlain's voyage in the autumn of 1604 extended, it is believed, as far as Monhegan, as he names an isle ten leagues from "Quinebequi" and says he went three or four leagues beyond it. Moreover, he had coasted both shores of the Penobscot bay, penetrating at least as far as the Narrows, below Bucksport. He calls the Camden hills Bedabedec, and says the Kennebec and Penobscot Indians were at enmity. De Monts followed Champlain in June, 1605, having sailed from St. Croix two days after Weymouth's departure from the coast for England. He was more than two months in exploring a hundred and twenty leagues of sea-coast, visiting and observing the Kennebec, of which a straightforward story is told. Even then the river was known as a thoroughfare to Canada.[49 - See Lescarbot, p. 497.]

The mouth of the Kennebec is interesting as the scene of the third attempt to obtain a foothold on New England's soil. This was the colony of Chief-justice Popham, which arrived off Monhegan in August, 1607.[50 - Strachey. Gorges says August 8th; Smith, August 11th.] This undertaking was intended to be permanent. There were two well-provided ships, and a hundred and twenty colonists.[51 - A fly-boat, the Gift of God, George Popham; Mary and John, of London, Raleigh Gilbert.] The leader of the enterprise, George Popham, was accompanied by Captain Raleigh Gilbert, nephew and namesake of Sir Walter Raleigh.

A settlement was effected on Hunnewell's Point, at the mouth of the Kennebec. The winter was one of unexampled severity, and the new-comers had been late in preparing for it. Encountering privations similar to those afterward endured by the Plymouth settlers, they lost courage, and when news of the death of their patron, the chief-justice, reached them, were ready to abandon the project. Popham, having died in February, was succeeded by Gilbert, whose affairs recalling him to England, the whole colony deserted their settlement at Fort St. George in the spring of 1608. Popham was the first English magistrate in New England.

Mather attributes the failure of attempts to colonize the parts of New England north of Plymouth to their being founded upon the advancement of worldly interests. "A constant series of disasters has confounded them," avers the witch-hating old divine. One minister, he says, was exhorting the eastern settlers to be more religious, putting the case to them much in this way, when a voice from the congregation cried out, "Sir, you are mistaken; you think you are preaching to the people of the Bay. Our main end was to catch fish."

"Did you ever see Cotton Mather's 'History of New England?' – one of the oddest books I ever perused, but deeply interesting." The question is put by Southey, and I repeat it, as, if you have not read Mather's "Magnalia Christi Americana," you have not seen the corner-stone of New England historical and ecclesiastical literature.

Apropos of the immigration into New England, it was openly bruited in England that King Charles I. would have been glad if the thousands who went over were drowned in the sea. Between the years 1628 and 1635 the exodus was very great, and gave the king much displeasure. No one was permitted to remove without the royal permission. Even young Harry Vane had to solicit the good offices of his father, Sir Harry, to obtain a pass. He was then out of favor at court and at home, through his Geneva notions about kneeling to receive the Sacrament, and other Puritan ideas. "Let him go," growls an old writer; "has not Sir Harry other sons but him?"

The colony of Popham began better than it ended. A fort, doubtless no more than a palisade with platforms for guns, was marked out. A trench was dug about it, and twelve pieces of ordnance were mounted. Within its protection fifty houses, besides a church and store-house, were built. The carpenters framed a "prytty pynnace" of thirty tons, which they christened the Virginia. There is no earlier record of ship-building in Maine.

The tenacity of the English character has become proverbial. Nevertheless, the opinion is hazarded that no nation so ill accommodates itself to a new country. The English colonies of Virginia, New England, and Jamaica are striking examples of barrenness of resource when confronted with unforeseen privations. The Frenchman, on the contrary, possesses in an eminent degree the capacity to adapt himself to strange scenes and unaccustomed modes of life. Every thing is made to contribute to his wants. Let the reader consult, if he will, the campaign of the Crimea, where thousands of English soldiers gave way to hardships unknown in the French camps. The elastic gayety of the one is in contrast with the gloomy despondency of the other. The Popham colony abandoned a well-matured, ably-seconded design through dread of a New England winter and through homesickness. Clearly it was not of the stuff to found a State.

The previous winter was passed by the French at their new settlement of Port Royal, commenced within two years. The seasons of 1605 and of 1606 were extremely rigorous. The colony of De Monts went through the first in rude cabins, hastily constructed, on the island of St. Croix. The next autumn the settlement was transferred to Port Royal. Winter found them domiciled in their new quarters under no better roofs than they had quitted. Though their leader, Du Guast, had left them, they were animated by an irrepressible spirit of fun, altogether French. They made roads through the forest, or joined with the Indians in hunting-parties, managing these native Americans with an address that won their confidence and good help.

Finally, at the suggestion of Champlain, in order to keep up an unflagging good-fellowship, and to render themselves free of all anxiety on the subject of provisions, the ever-famous "L'Ordre de Bon Temps" was inaugurated. It is deserving of remembrance along with the coterie of the Knights of the Round Table.

Once in fifteen days each member of the order officiated as maitre d'hotel of De Poutrincourt's table. It was his care on that day that his comrades should be well and honorably entertained; and although, as the old chronicler quaintly says, "our gourmands often reminded us that we were not in the Rue aux Ours at Paris, yet so well was the rule observed that we ordinarily made as good cheer as we should have known how to do in the Rue aux Ours, and at less cost."

There was not a fellow of the order who, two days before his turn came, did not absent himself until he could return with some delicacy to add to their ordinary fare. They had always fish or flesh at breakfast, and were never without one or both at the repasts of noon and evening. It became their great festival.

The steward, or maitre d'hotel, having caused all things to be made ready, marched with his napkin on his shoulder, his staff of office in his hand, and the collar of the order, that we are told was worth more than four French crowns, about his neck. Behind him walked the brothers of the order, each one bearing his plate. In the evening, after giving thanks to God, the host of the day resigned the collar to his successor, each pledging the other in a glass of wine.

On such occasions they had always twenty or thirty savages – men, women, and children – looking on. To these they gave bread from the table; but when, as was often the case, the sagamores – those fierce, intractable barbarians – presented themselves, they were, says Lescarbot, "at table eating and drinking like us, and we right glad to see them, as, on the contrary, their absence would have made us sorry."

At Pemaquid we enter the domain of Samoset, that chivalric New Englander whom historians delight to honor. He was a sagamore without guile. Chronologically speaking, he should first appear at Plymouth, in the act of offering to those doubting Pilgrims the right hand of fellowship. He told them he was sagamore of Morattigon, distant from Plymouth "a daye's sayle with a great wind, and five dayes by land." In 1623 he extended a kindly reception to Christopher Levett, to whom he proffered a friendship, to continue until the Great Spirit carried them to his wigwam. All the old writers speak well of Samoset, whom we call a savage.[52 - Samoset, in 1625, sold Pemaquid to John Brown. His sign-manual was a bended bow, with an arrow fitted to the string. The deed to Brown also fixes the residence, at Pemaquid, of Abraham Shurt, agent of Elbridge and Aldworth, in the year 1626.]

I next visited the little point of land on which are the ruins of old Fort Frederick. Little difficulty is experienced in retracing the exterior and interior lines of a fortress designed as the strongest bulwark of English power in New England. It was built upon a green slope, above a rocky shore, commanding the approach from the sea; but was itself dominated by the heights of the western shore of John's River, a circumstance that did not escape the notice of D'Iberville in 1696. At the south-east angle of the work is a high rock, overgrown with a tangle of climbing vines and shrubs. This rock formed a part of the old magazine, and is now the conspicuous feature of the ruined fortress. A projecting spur of the opposite shore was called "the Barbican."

The importance of Pemaquid as a check to French aggression was very great. It covered the approaches to the Kennebec, the Sheepscot, Damariscotta, and Pemaquid rivers. It was also, being at their doors, a standing menace against the Indian allies of the French, with a garrison ready to launch upon their villages, or intercept the advance of war-parties toward the New England settlements. Its presence exasperated the Abenaquis, on whose territory it was, beyond measure: the French found them ever ready to second projects for its destruction.

On the other hand, the remoteness of Pemaquid rendered it impracticable to relieve it when once invested by an enemy. Only a few feeble settlements skirted the sea-coast between it and Casco Bay, so the same causes combined to render it both weak and formidable. Old Pentagoët, which the reader knows for Castine, and Pemaquid, were the mailed hands of each nationality, always clenched ready to strike.

The fort erected at Pemaquid in 1677, by Governor Andros, was a wooden redoubt mounting two guns, with an outwork having two bastions, in each of which were two great guns, and another at the gate.[53 - New York Colonial Documents," vol. iii.. p, 256, Some primitive defensive works had existed as early as 1630, rifled in 1632 by the freebooter. Dixy Bull.] This work was named Fort Charles. It was captured and destroyed by the Indians in 1689.

Sir William Phips, under instructions from Whitehall, built a new fort at Pemaquid in 1692, which he called William Henry. Captains Wing and Bancroft were the engineers, the work being completed by Captain March.[54 - It was of stone; a quadrangle seven hundred and thirty-seven feet in compass without the outer walls, one hundred and eight feet square within the inner ones: pierced with embrasures for twenty-eight cannons, and mounting fourteen, six being eighteen-pounders. The south wall fronting the sea was twenty-two feet high, and six feet thick at the ports. The great flanker, or round tower, at the west end of the line was twenty-nine feet high. It stood about a score of rods from high-water mark. – Mather, vol. ii., p. 537.] The English believed it impregnable. Mather, who says it was the finest that had been seen in those parts of America, has a significant allusion to the architect of a fortress in Poland whose eyes were put out lest he should build another such. From this vantage-ground the English, for the fifth time, obtained possession of Acadia.

In the same year D'Iberville made a demonstration against it with two French frigates, but finding an English vessel anchored under the walls, abandoned his design, to the chagrin of a large band of auxiliary warriors who had assembled under Villebon, and who now vented their displeasure by stamping upon the ground.

The reduction of Fort William Henry was part of a general scheme to overrun and destroy the English settlements as far as the Piscataqua. The English were fore-warned. John Nelson, of Boston, whose biography is worth the writing, was then a prisoner at Quebec. Madocawando was also there, in consultation with Count Frontenac. The Abenaqui chief, dissatisfied with his presents, gave open expression of his disgust at the niggardliness of his white ally. Nelson was well acquainted with the Indian tongue. He cajoled the chief into talking of his projects, and as soon as they were in his possession acted like a man of decision. He bribed two Frenchmen – Arnaud du Vignon and Francis Albert – to carry the intelligence to Boston. On their return to Canada both were shot, and Nelson was sent to France, where he became for five years an inmate of the Bastile.

The life of John Nelson contains all the requisites of romance. Although an Episcopalian, he put himself at the head of the revolution against the tyranny of Andros. As a prisoner, he risked his own life to acquaint his countrymen with the dangers that menaced them; and it is said he was even carried to the place of execution along with his detected messengers. The French called him "le plus audacieux et le plus acharné," in the design of conquering Canada. Released from the Bastile on his parole, after visiting England he returned to France to fulfill its conditions, although forbidden to do so by King William. A man of address, courage, and high sense of honor was this John Nelson.

In 1696, a second and more successful expedition was conducted against Pemaquid. In August, D'Iberville[55 - "D'Iberville, monseigneur, est un tres sage garçon, entreprenant et qui scait ce qu'il fait." – M. Denonville.] and Bonaventure sailed with the royal order to attack and reduce it. They called at Pentagoët, receiving there a re-enforcement of two hundred Indians, who embarked in their canoes, led by St. Castin. On the 13th the expedition appeared before the place, and the next day it was invested.

Fort William Henry was then commanded by Captain Pascho Chubb, with a garrison of about a hundred men. Fifteen pieces of artillery were in position. The French expected an obstinate resistance, as the place was well able to withstand a siege.

Chubb, on being summoned, returned a defiant answer. D'Iberville then began to erect his batteries. The account of Charlevoix states that the French got possession of ten or twelve stone houses, forming a street leading from the village square to the fort. They then intrenched themselves, partly at the cellar-door of the house next the fort, and partly behind a rock on the sea-shore. A second demand made by St. Castin, accompanied by the threat that if the place were assaulted the garrison might expect no quarter, decided the valiant Chubb, after a feeble and inglorious defense, to surrender. The gates were opened to the besiegers.

On finding an Indian in irons in the fortress, Castin's warriors began a massacre of the prisoners, which was arrested by their removal, at command of D'Iberville, to an island, where they were protected by a strong guard from further violence. The name of William Henry has been synonymous with disaster to colonial strongholds. The massacre of 1757 at Lake George, forever infamous, obscures with blood the fair fame of Montcalm. The novelist Cooper, in making it the groundwork of his "Mohicans," has not overstated the horrors of the tragedy enacted by the placid St. Sacrament.

Two days were occupied by the French in the destruction of Pemaquid fort. They then set sail for St. John's River, narrowly escaping capture by a fleet sent from Boston in pursuit. The French, who had before claimed to the Kennebec, subsequently established their boundary of Acadia at St. George's River.

On the beach, below where the martello tower had stood, I discovered many fragments of bricks among the rock débris. Some of these were as large as were commonly used in the hearths of our most ancient houses. The arch by which the tower was perhaps supported remained nearly intact, though completely concealed by a thicket formed of interweaving shrubs. Some have conjectured it to have been a hiding-place of smugglers. Fragments of shot and shell have likewise been picked up among the rubbish of the old fortress. Not far from the spot is a grave-yard, in which time and neglect have done their work.

It has been attempted to show that a large and populous settlement existed from a very early time at Pemaquid, with paved streets and some of the belongings of a permanent population. Within a few years excavations have been made, exhibiting the remains of pavement of beach-pebble at some distance below the surface of the ground.

It is not doubted that a small plantation was maintained here antecedent to the settlement in Massachusetts Bay, but it as certainly lacks confirmation that it had assumed either the proportions or outward appearance of a well and regularly built town at any time during the seventeenth century. If it were true, as Sullivan states, that in 1630 there were, exclusive of fishermen, eighty-four families about Sheepscot, Pemaquid, and St. George's, it also becomes important to know by what means these settlements were depopulated previous to the Indian wars.

The commissioners of Charles II., sent over in 1665, reported that upon the rivers Kennebec, Sheepscot, and Pemaquid were three plantations, the largest containing not more than thirty houses, inhabited, say they, "by the worst of men." The commissioners gave impartial testimony here, for they were trying to dispossess Massachusetts of the government she had assumed over Maine since 1652. They wrote further, that neither Kittery, York, Wells, Scarborough, nor Falmouth had more than thirty houses, and those mean ones. This was the entirety of the grand old Pine-tree State two centuries ago.

Colonel Romer had recommended, about 1699, the fortifying anew of Pemaquid, and the building of supporting works at the next point of land, and on John's Island. Nothing, however, appears to have been done until the arrival of Colonel David Dunbar, in 1730, to resume possession of the Sagadahoc territory in the name of the crown.

Dunbar repaired the old works, giving them the name of Fort Frederick. At Pemaquid Point he laid out the plan of a city which he divided into lots, inviting settlers to repopulate the country. Old grants and titles were considered extinct. His possession at Pemaquid conflicting with the Muscongus patent was revoked through the efforts of Samuel Waldo. The garrison was replaced by Massachusetts troops, and the so-called Sagadahoc territory annexed to the County of York.[56 - As it is inconsistent with the purpose and limits of these chapters to give the detail of charters, patents, and titles by which Pemaquid has acquired much historical prominence, the reader may, in addition to authorities named in the text, consult Thornton's "Ancient Pemaquid," vol. v. "Maine Historical Collections;" Johnston's "Bristol, Bremen, and Pemaquid;" Hough's "Pemaquid Papers," etc.]

When in the neighborhood, the visitor will feel a desire to inspect the extensive shell heaps of the Damariscotta, about a mile above the town of Newcastle. They occur on a jutting point of land, in such masses as to resemble low chalk cliffs of guano deposits. The shells are of the oyster, now no longer native in New England waters, but once abundant, as these and other remains testify. The highest point of the bank is twenty-five feet above the river. The deposits are rather more than a hundred rods in length, with a variable width of from eighty to a hundred rods. The shells lie in regular layers, bleached by sun and weather. Among the many naturalists who have visited them may be named Dr. Charles T. Jackson,[57 - While making his geological survey of Maine.] and Professor Chadbourne, of Bowdoin College. Some animal remains found among the shells were submitted to Agassiz, who concurred in the received opinion that the shells were heaped up by men.

From point to point excavations have been made with the expectation of finding the Indian implements which have occasionally rewarded such investigations. Williamson mentions a tradition that human skeletons had been discovered in these beds. The bones of animals and of birds have been found in them. Situated in the immediate vicinity of the shell deposits is a kiln for converting the shells into lime, which is produced of as good quality as that obtained from limestone rock.

In walking along the beach at low tide, I had an excellent opportunity of surveying these remains. A considerable growth of trees had sprung from the soil collected above them, the roots of some having penetrated completely through the superincumbent shells to the earth beneath. From an observation of several cavities near the surface and in the sides of the oyster banks, the shells, in some instances, appear to have been subjected to fire. The entire stratum was in a state of decomposition that sufficiently attests the work of years. Even those shells lying nearest the surface in most cases crumbled in the hands, while at a greater depth the closely-packed valves were little else than a heap of lime.

The shell heaps are of common occurrence all along the coast. The reader knows them for the feeding-places of the hordes preceding European civilization. Here they regaled themselves on a delicacy that disappeared when they vanished from the land. The Indians not only satisfied present hunger, but dried the oyster for winter consumption. Their summer camps were pitched in the neighborhood of well-known oyster deposits, the squaws being occupied in gathering shell-fish, while the men were engaged in fishing or in hunting.

Josselyn mentions the long-shelled oysters peculiar to these deposits. He notes them of nine inches in length from the "joint to the toe, that were to be cut in three pieces before they could be eaten." Wood professes to have seen them of a foot in length. I found many of the shells here of six inches in length. Winthrop alludes to the oyster banks of Mystic River, Massachusetts, that impeded its navigation. During recent dredgings here oyster-shells of six to eight inches in length were frequently brought to the surface. The problem of the oyster's disappearance is yet to be solved.[58 - Williamson mentions the heaps on the eastern bank, not so high as on the western, extending back twenty rods from the river, and rendering the land useless. The shell heaps of Georgia and Florida are more extensive than any in New England.]

CHAPTER VII.

MONHEGAN ISLAND

"From gray sea-fog, from icy drift,
From peril and from pain,
The home-bound fisher greets thy lights,
Oh hundred-harbored Maine!"