Radio Script #738

Little Talks on Common Things

October 15, 1967

This program has frequently mentioned the Aroostook War, the only war ever fought by the State of Maine in sovereign capacity apart from the federal government. Fortunately no one had been killed, only a few on each side had been taken prisoner, and very few shots had been fired when the government in Washington did intervene. While Daniel Webster and Lord Ashburton were carrying on the negotiations that led to the treaty that established the boundary between Maine and New Brunswick as it remains to this day, the U.S. Army took over the control of the border fortification Maine had established at Fort Kent. So it happened that on September 1, 1842 Col. Sylvester Churchill, a regular army officer and a graduate of West Point made an inspection and received from Captain L.B. Webster, the resident U.S. Commander at Fort Kent, a detailed report.

Recently presented to the Maine Historical Society were the papers preserved by Captain Webster during that eventful year when he commanded Maine’s border fort. Included in the papers is Webster’s official report to Col. Churchill. Let us see what Captain Webster said about his experience in the Aroostook War. He begins with this statement: “I took command of this post on September 17, 1841. It then consisted of a block house of hewn timber, 22 feet square, two stories high, with walls 15 inches thick. That small building furnished the only quarters for the men and was then in a rough condition. It has since been improved by the laying of new floors and other repairs. A second building to house the officers has also been erected, and log huts have been put up for the laundresses of the several companies, and another small building is used as a hospital. The buildings for quartermaster’s commissary and ordnance stores are barely adequate.

“Our only piece of ordnance weapons is a six-pounder, the property of the State of Maine. It is mounted on a crude low carriage and I have for it only 80 rounds of ammunition.

“With me is only one officer of the regular army, Lt. Donaldson, who is active, sober and well instructed in exercises and maneuvers. Of the sergeants and corporals, two are American, three Irish, one Scotch and one German. Fortunately I find the American privates have no objection to the appointment of foreigners as non-commissioned officers.”

The captain then referred to conditions when he assumed command in 1841: “Because the post was new and decidedly in an un-military condition when the U.S. troops under my command took over a year ago, my men have had an unusual amount of fatigue duty just cleaning up the place and putting up new structures. Yet all have been drilled one hour every day.”

In 1841 the old-time army punishments of British regulars were still practiced in the American Army, but Capt. Webster seems to have had more humanitarian ideas. He wrote in his report: “I do not permit officers or non-corns to whip men as punishment, nor do I know of any incident in this command when an officer has struck an enlisted man. For small offenses I have occasionally given the men knapsack drill as puni shrnent. ”

Captain Webster joyfully reported that unlike some U.S. commands, his men had been paid up to the 30th of June. I wonder what our present-day soldiers would think of a government that was two months behind with their pay. Yet Capt. Webster thought it remarkable that the pay was only two months behind. The captain remarked that payment had been made in gold, silver, and Boston notes. The captain then explained how certain amenities were obtained for the men at this isolated post far up the St. John River: “The post fund”, he wrote, “is derived from a tax on the sutler, and from savings produced from baking the flour. This amounts to about $25 a month. It is used to maintain a post school, furnishes periodicals and newspapers, garden seeds and expenses of the bake-house. The school is kept by a soldier four hours each day, and is composed of about ten children of the soldiers. I am also setting up an evening school to instruct several enlisted men who desire to improve themselves.”

The captain regretted that there was no post library because, as he put it, “the men read with avidity everything that falls in their way”.

Captain Webster ended his report with a strong recommendation: “I cannot too emphatically recommend the construction of a road from the settled part of the state near Bangor to this post. Only thus can the conveyance of stores be facilitated and a post office be established. Furthermore, this post must be maintained until the present conflicting interests have been settled and this frontier can yield to the influence of a permanent and stable government.”

Such is the interesting report made in 1842 by the U.S. commander of Fort Kent, while Daniel Webster and Lord Ashburton were threshing out details of the boundary treaty.

Today I want again to bring up the subject of how some of our Maine towns got their names. Here are some I have not previously discussed on this program.

Our nearby town of Canaan was of course one of many Maine towns to which the devoutly religious settlers gave a Biblical name. When the Westons and the Heywoods came to the region surrounding Skowhegan Falls in the 1770’s, the wide area had the Indian name of Wesserunsett. Some of the settlers wanted to call it Heywoodstown. Both names were considered to be too long. So in 1778, with customary religious zeal. the people agreed on the name Canaan. There is a tradition that the fertility of the region reminded them of the Bible’s description of Palestinian Canaan as a land of milk and honey. Anyhow, the original town comprised a large area that included all of present Skowhegan, most of Cornville, part of Norridgewock, and most of the present town of Canaan. Years later, when the present town of Skowhegan was set apart and incorporated as a new town, the boundaries of the present town of Canaan were fixed until it got two additions later from Hartland. Ever afterwards the original town was referred to as Old Canaan. The site of Old Canaan’s first settlement is noted by a marker on the Waterville-Skowhegan river road a few miles south of Skowhegan Village. On that site is the community’s original cemetery and it was at Squire Weston’s house that stood nearby where Benedict Arnold stopped on his way to Quebec in 1775.

How did a Kennebec town happen to get a Russian name? Why was the place just above Bingham called Moscow? The petition for the town’s incorporation was presented to the Massachusetts Legislature in 1812, the year when many Americans were deeply impressed by the gallant defense of Moscow against Napoleon’s invading army and the disastrous French retreat during the bitter Russian winter.

The first community to achieve size and prominence within the large area of Maine covered by the Waldo Patent was not the site of the present town of Waldoboro, but a town actually on Penobscot Bay, the town of Belfast. It is interesting to note how that place got the name of the largest city in Ireland’s Protestant district of Ulster, the only part of Ireland that still in 1967 is not a part of the Irish Republic. A group of Scotch Presbyterians, encouraged by the liberal offers of James I, the first Scottish king of Great Britain, settled in Ulster and from there in the 17th century came across the Atlantic to America. In 1718 more than a hundred of those families arrived in Boston, moved into the New Hampshire wilderness, and established the town of Londonderry. On a fishing voyage one of those men, John Mitchell, had been impressed by Penobscot Bay, especially by its sheltered harbors, and he persuaded a number of his Londonderry neighbors to join him in the purchase of land there. It seemed to Mitchell only appropriate to name the new settlement in honor of Ireland’s Belfast.

I think I have previously told you about the name Skowhegan. It will bear repeating for the wrong explanation persists to this day. There are people about us now who still believe, despite denial of all reputable historians, that the name originated in Indian attempts to speak English. The story is that it referred to a boat being swept over the falls and an Indian saying “skow he gone”. Another version has it “squaw he gone”. Anyhow, that is completely wrong. Skowhegan was itself an Indian word meaning “place of the watch”. That meant a place to watch for salmon and other fish going up the river to spawn. Below the falls, behind rocks and in eddies, the fish rested between their frantic rushes to surmount the falls. Naturally it was a choice place for the Indians to watch for fish.

I want to close this program today with reference to a Waterville woman of half a century ago, who had considerable talent as a poet. I do not refer to Martha Baker Dunn, whose writings were nationally known and were praised by President Theodore Roosevelt. I refer to Mrs. Dunn’s neighbor directly across the street, Mrs.Mary Keely Boutelle Taylor. Her poems were privately published in a small edition and were never widely circulated. But I assure you her verses had literary merit. So let me end this broadcast with lines that Mrs. Taylor wrote on the occasion of Waterville’s one hundredth year as an incorporated community in 1902.

“Who will love his country — the dear 1 and where he was born?
And we who love thee in our pride, today will love thee more,
Thou who sits between the seas with hand on either shore!
The sunset gold ;s in thy locks, thy face is toward the dawn,
And in thy lap the orchards lie, the vineyard and the corn.
Oh, well it is to dwell with thee, north, south, or east or west,
But in thy pleasant borders from mountains to the sea,
The Valley of the Kennebec is the place where I would be!
For here’s a little city, dearer far than all the rest;
‘Tis now her hundredth birthday. Cheer her now, who know her best.
Gone are the early settlers. Another century will see
The green turf growing over our own unheeded dust;
But well for thee, my city, if lives both generous and just
Sow in thy midst the growing seed whose harvest then shall be
A city’s crown of glory — people worthy to be free.”

Year: 1967