Radio Script #389

Little Talks on Common Things

October 12, 1958

Several times I have referred ~n this program to the Aroostook War and the dispute between Maine and New Brunswick over the northeast boundary. New light is thrown on that subject by letters written more than 125 years ago to Drummond Farnsworth of Norridgewock, ancestor of Waterville’s dealer in rare books, Miss Meroe Morse. It seems that in 1832 various Whig newspapers published a full page statement, headed by a map of the Madawaska Territory, the land along the St. John River, which had long been in dispute between the United States and Great Britain.

One of those statements was enclosed in a letter sent to Farnsworth in November, 1832. Under the map appeared this account: “The territory marked out above is that part of the town of Madawaska which our Jackson legislature last winter, in executive sessions, voted to sell, to relieve Gen. Jackson from embarrassment and enable him to accept the Dutchman’s award giving it to Great Britain. The territory which our legislature thus consented to transfer to the British Crown contains four million acres of land, about 3,000 inhabitants, and a representative legally elected to the last Maine legislature. The chain of mountains on the north, constituting the true line, forms an impassable barrier.

So, to gain a more direct communication between New Brunswick and Quebec, the British set up their unfounded claim, and what they could not get by their own efforts, Pres. Jackson and the Maine legislature proposed to give them.”

The statement then proceeds to give the names of the state senators and representatives who voted for this “secret bargain and sale”, or what we would today call this “give-away”. Then the Whig statement urged, “let no man give his vote for anyone who voted to sell his country. let us turn out the traitors.”

It is interesting to note that the legislators from Kennebec County stood strongly against the transfer of the territory to Canada. Not one of the Kennebec senators has his name on the indicated list, and only seven representatives from Kennebec towns favored the transfer. Among the prominent persons whose name-s do appear on the condemned list were Reuel Williams of Augusta, the man we once mentioned on this program as the donor of $10,000 to help build Maine’s first insane hospital, and John Chandler of Belgrade, the man who built the stone building in Belgrade Lakes village which old timers still call Chandler’ s store.

There was a lot of agitation in Maine for fortifications to protect the northeast boundary, and in 1835 one of Maine’s representatives in Congress, Gorham Parks, sent Drummond Farnsworth a copy of a letter which Parks had written to Lewis Cass, Secr.etary of War. We will now let that letter speak for itself:

“Honored Sir: The Eastern Frontier has two posts, one at Eastport on an island in Passamaquoddy Bay, and the other at Houlton, where four companies of infantry are now stationed. Although it is impossible to defend a frontier of 234 miles from sudden inrbad, merely by maintaining a safe garrison, Houlton is well placed because it is about midway on the eastern boundary line, ten miles from the great river St. John and 60 miles directly west of Fredericton, the capital of New Brunswick. With Houlton properly fortified, we should be sufficiently safe on our eastern frontier. But on the northwestern side the opposite is true. Our state is penetrated by two great rivers, the Kennebec and the Penobscot. The Kennebec and the Chaudiere, which empties into the St. Lawrence within sight of the city of Quebec, if they were navigable the whole way, would open a water communication from Bath to Quebec, except for about forty miles over the Highlands, which from experience have been found easy to pass. In all the Indian wars of our early history, as well as in the Revolution. this was the route by which some hostile party sought to attack. The early history of our state is full of disasters inflicted by the French and Indians coming upon our settlements from Canada, and always by this route. I wish the government to establish on the Highlands a fortification. The troops stationed there could, in case of war, cut off communication between Quebec and Montreal, and could threaten Quebec itself. No place on the whole northern frontier presents so admirable a station for an army of observation. If frontier wars ever occur between the United States and Great Britain, they will be fought in Lower Canada and New Brunswick and in Maine. Protected as she is by the walled city of Quebec, acknowledged to be the second strongest fortress in the world, second only to Gibraltar, Great Britain will now revive not only her old Acadian claim, but also the Acadians policy of the French, and will make Maine a seat of war. The whole valley of the Kennebec is considered the Garden of the East; her flourishing settlements extend high up toward the Highlands, leaving them utterly unprotected. What is more, we have built a road which connects with one from Quebec, a toad which our people call the Canada Road. It offers easy access to the rapid march of an invading army. We must have a fort on that northwest boundary.”

So ends Congressman Parks’ letter to the Secretary of State. Seven years later, Congressman John Otis wrote to Farnsworth on the same subject. Meanwhile the fiasco called the Aroostook War had taken place and Daniel Webster was already negotiating with Lord Ashburton concerning final settlement of the dispute. This is what Otis wrote: “I was glad to get your opinion that in the end, if we can do no better, we should accept the right of free navigation on the St. John in exchange for such territory as is absolutely necessary for Great Britain to provide communication between her provinces, provided the State of Maine is paid by the Federal Government for the expenditures, both military and civil, in its defense. We cannot expect that an opinion so moderate and candid will generally prevail. Many voices will be heard in protest against such a settlement. But we must do everything reasonable to end this bad business. We should be willing to make some sacrifice on the part of Maine if we are allowed fair terms. I know it will be difficult to secure payment of purely civil claims. I fear those will be like the old French claims for despoliation, a matter for trouble and not for payment. Yet we have every reason to press hard for such claims. The present spirit and disposition in Congress is not good. The Legislative branch does not agree with the Executive, and this quarrel between the President and the Congress is likely to get worse rather than better. Both sides are in bad humor and continue to blast away at each other. When shall we ever learn to look with single eye to the interests of our nation? The North and the South grow more and more jealous of each other, and these sectional enmities make even harder our sincere desire to settle once for all this matter of the northeast boundary.”

In 1843 Drummond Farnsworth was in correspondence with Edward Kavanaugh, who served as Acting Governor after Governor John Fairfield resigned to accept a place in the U.S. Senate. Kavanaugh wrote to Norridgewock’s prominent Whig: “Maine owed to the Federal Government the simple courtesy and constitutional duty to consider the proposals that were made in the Congress. If she had failed to do this, she would have assumed a fearful responsibility and have forfeited much sympathy from the rest of the country. At last I can say that the commission is truly making progress. I think we shall soon have a settlement that all fair-minded men can accept.”

About the same time, Drummond Farnsworth got a letter addressed from Patten, on No.4, 6th Range, Fisher Mills and signed S. Barnard. Evidently Farnsworth had suggested that Barnard accompany him on a timber-spotting trip into the Maine forest, for Barnard wrote: “I have just arrived here from Fish River’, where I have been detained some ten days longer than I expected. So I shall be prevented from accompanying you and Mr. Levanseller to No.3, 13th Range, on the Chesuncook. It would give me much pleasure to be with you, but I fear you must select someone in my stead.”

Then Barnard added a postscript about the boundary dispute. “I hear almost a thousand and one rumors about the settlement of the boundary, but today’s mail says that no notification has yet been made by the Senate. I hope a just and reasonable exchange will soon be made. Please write me at Fairbanks Mills, Aroostook, via Houlton.”

It was John Otis who finally informed Farnsworth of the outcome. In .July, 1843, he wrote: “The Commissioners of Maine have given their assent to a line of boundary upon certain conditions and for certain equivalents, which I cannot yet give you in detail, for the treaty has not yet been concluded. It is even probable that the Senate will reject the terms, and we shall be right back where we started. We earnestly hope to secure the interests of Maine, which were in danger of being lost, because too many in the Congress considered us obstinate and factious. Now some of them will complain. because Maine gets terms they consider too good. We can only await the result, assured that we have exercised our best judgment.”

Thus matters stood in the summer of 1843. We now know that, with minor amendments, Congress did uphold the commissioners and the Webster-Ashburton treaty was finally ratified, placing Mainers boundary with Canada just as it remains today.

Now let us turn from the Aroostook controversy of a hundred years ago to doings in the hunting and fishing camps of Maine 55 years ago in 1903. That summer the newspaper Maine Woods was running stories about fish that got caught twice. One of these stories told about two boys who were fishing through the ice on Richardson Lake. One of the boys hooked a small trout that with a quick leap broke the line and made off with hook and sinker. The lad put on a new hook and ran to another hole about two rods distant. In about ten minutes, through that second hole, he landed the same trout with the original hook and Sinker still attached.

Now let me tell you what I consider the amazing part of this story. Maine Woods calls that twice-hooked fish a little trout, and adds that it weighed 4 3/4 pounds.

Sometimes, instead of catching the same fish twice, a fisherman caught one fish on two hooks. Once at Tim Pond a fellow had two hooks on his line, one baited with worms, the other with a minnow. A rushing salmon, after the minnow, pushed his open mouth right through the worm, so that when he took the minnow, he was impaled on both hooks.

A lot of tall stories have come out of the Maine woodlands through the years. One s~ch concerns Zeke Pettingill’s robins. Zeke was a canny Maine native who had a cabin on Saddleback Lake up in the Rangeley region. Zeke trained a couple of robins. He would sell a can of worms to a city visitor who wanted to go fishing. When the angler would set the can down and become intent on his fishing, Zeke’s robins would get busy and carry the worms one at a time back to Zeke’s cabin. Then Zeke would proceed to sell them allover again.

And now as we close, here is one more of these tall stories. Some Rangeley guides were once hunting when they came upon a trap that showed signs of having once held a bear that got away. By the drops of blood on the snow, the guides traced the critter right to their own camp, and there they found that bear sitting on the edge of a bunk bathing his foot with Johnson’s Liniment.

Year: 1958