Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast Part 10

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 fellows.h.i.+p. 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 friends.h.i.+p, 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]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHARLEVOIX.]

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 sh.o.r.e, commanding the approach from the sea; but was itself dominated by the heights of the western sh.o.r.e of John's River, a circ.u.mstance 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 sh.o.r.e 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 Cas...o...b..y, so the same causes combined to render it both weak and formidable. Old Pentagoet, 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] 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] 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 anch.o.r.ed under the walls, abandoned his design, to the chagrin of a large band of auxiliary warriors who had a.s.sembled 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 n.i.g.g.ardliness 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRENCH FRIGATE, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.]

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 acharne," 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] and Bonaventure sailed with the royal order to attack and reduce it. They called at Pentagoet, 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-sh.o.r.e. A second demand made by St.

Castin, accompanied by the threat that if the place were a.s.saulted 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HUTCHINSON.]

On finding an Indian in irons in the fortress, Castin's warriors began a ma.s.sacre 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 ma.s.sacre 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 debris. 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 sh.e.l.l 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 Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, but it as certainly lacks confirmation that it had a.s.sumed 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 Ma.s.sachusetts of the government she had a.s.sumed 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 t.i.tles 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 Ma.s.sachusetts troops, and the so-called Sagadahoc territory annexed to the County of York.[56]

When in the neighborhood, the visitor will feel a desire to inspect the extensive sh.e.l.l heaps of the Damariscotta, about a mile above the town of Newcastle. They occur on a jutting point of land, in such ma.s.ses as to resemble low chalk cliffs of guano deposits. The sh.e.l.ls 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 sh.e.l.ls 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] and Professor Chadbourne, of Bowdoin College. Some animal remains found among the sh.e.l.ls were submitted to Aga.s.siz, who concurred in the received opinion that the sh.e.l.ls 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 sh.e.l.l deposits is a kiln for converting the sh.e.l.ls 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 superinc.u.mbent sh.e.l.ls to the earth beneath. From an observation of several cavities near the surface and in the sides of the oyster banks, the sh.e.l.ls, 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 sh.e.l.l 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 sh.e.l.l-fish, while the men were engaged in fis.h.i.+ng or in hunting.

Josselyn mentions the long-sh.e.l.led 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 sh.e.l.ls here of six inches in length. Winthrop alludes to the oyster banks of Mystic River, Ma.s.sachusetts, that impeded its navigation.

During recent dredgings here oyster-sh.e.l.ls 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]

FOOTNOTES:

[45] This work is on an old map of the Kennebec patent. It was about twenty rods square, a bastion. A house now stands in the s.p.a.ce it formerly occupied.

[46] "Purchas," vol. iv., 1874.

[47] In 1603 Gorges was deprived of the command, but had it restored to him the same year.

[48] "Collections of the Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Society," vol. vi., 3d series.

[49] See Lescarbot, p. 497.

[50] Strachey. Gorges says August 8th; Smith, August 11th.

[51] A fly-boat, the _Gift of G.o.d_, George Popham; _Mary and John_, of London, Raleigh Gilbert.

[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.

[53] "New York Colonial Doc.u.ments," vol. iii., p. 256. Some primitive defensive works had existed as early as 1630, rifled in 1632 by the freebooter, Dixy Bull.

[54] It was of stone; a quadrangle seven hundred and thirty-seven feet in compa.s.s 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.

[55] "D'Iberville, monseigneur, est un tres sage garcon, entreprenant et qui scait ce qu'il fait."--M. DENONVILLE.

[56] As it is inconsistent with the purpose and limits of these chapters to give the detail of charters, patents, and t.i.tles 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.

[57] While making his geological survey of Maine.

[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 sh.e.l.l heaps of Georgia and Florida are more extensive than any in New England.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONHEGAN ISLAND.]