Radio Script #777

Little Talks on Common Things

October 13, 1968

One historical group that is actively at work on an important episode of American history is the Arnold Expedition Society, seeking archeological information that may cast light on many obscure details of Arnold’s Expedition to Quebec, early in the Revolutionary War in 1775. Many times on this program I have referred to that disastrous march on which many men died of disease and hunger. Most of my listeners know that the big army went up the Kennebec in four divisions, over a period of several days; that they stopped at Fort Halifax where Dr. John McKechnie, the Waterville physician, surveyor and pioneer, ministered to the sick; that Arnold had dinner at the Weston home in Old Canaan, south of the present Skowhegan; that they rendezvoused at Norridgewock, left the river just above Solon and carried from pond to pond across the chain of three ponds to the Dead River.

The Society has been recently trying to find remains of the log hospital that Arnold ordered somewhere constructed along these carries, and it is difficult to establish the exact location nearly 200 years after the crude hospital was built. Of course the logs have long ago rotted away; but the present searchers hope to locate the place through remains of fire places, cooking utensils and other artifacts.

It occurs to me that listeners to this program may be interested to know what marchers of the expedition of 1775 themselves left in writing that may cast some light on the location of that hospital. From a study of old records, John Francis Sprague. Maine’s noted historian, who for 16 years early in this century published his Journal of Maine History, made the following statement: “At Dead River, after Col. Enos deserted with three companies, Arnold gathered his remaining forces and pitched his camp at Flagstaff Plantation, where he raised the first flag after leaving Fort Western at Augusta. Here he cared for the sick and fatigued.”

As Miss Ava Chadbourne pointed out in her book “Maine Place Names” that incident gave Flagstaff Plantation its name. In his book “Arnold’s Expedition”, Codman published a map on which are listed the distances between certain points in Arnold’s march. Mouth of the Kennebec to Fort Western, 58 miles; Fort Western to Fort Halifax, 18 miles; Fort Halifax to Skowhegan Falls, 16 miles; Skowhegan Falls to Norridgewock, 9 miles; Norridgewock to Caratunk Carrying Place (near Solon), 19 miles; up the Kennebec to the 12 Mile Carrying Place, 18-miles~ C6dm~n lists the 12 Mile Carfyi~g_Place as b~~ng 14 miles long. It actually consisted of four carries of varying length and three ponds.

On the modest map those ponds are named East Carry Pond. Middle Carry Pond and West Carry Pond. Somewhere along those carries was the hospital. if we can trust the contemporary records. Let us see exactly what those records said. One of Arnold’s officers was Major Jonathan Meigs. His journal under date of October 12, 1775 has this entry: “I went up the river and gave orders from Col. Arnold to build a block house, then returned across the first pond and encamped.”

On the same date Arnold wrote in his own journal: “I employed Capt. Goodrich’s company in building a log house on the second carrying place, to accomodate our sick whom we are obliged to leave behind.” That would be between East Carry Pond and Middle Carry Pond. About distances, Arnold was more explicit in another entry: “Distance from the Kennebec over the portage to the first pond (course W 27 degrees North) is 3t miles, rising ground. Over the pond is half a mile, which pond is 1t miles long. The second portage is W 6 degrees North, half a mile and 20 rods. very rough. The second pond is 2t miles long and 3/4 mile wide. The third carry is t mile and 40 rods, very bad traveling. Course is W 10 degrees North. The third pond is three miles long and two miles wide. The fourth and last portage is W 20 degrees North, 2 3/4 miles and 60 rods. much of it through swamp 6 to 8 inches deep.”

A physician with the expedition, Dr. Isaac Senter, wrote in his journal under date of October 16: “We now found it necessary to erect a building for the reception of our sick, who had now increased to a formidable number. A block house was erected and christened Arnold’s Hospital. It was no sooner finished than it was filled. ”

A soldier with Arnold, James Melvin, also kept a diary. On October 12 he wrote in it: “There was a log house built on the first carrying place, between the first and second ponds.” As we have seen, he meant the second carrying place. The first was between the Kennebec and the first (East Carry) pond. On the same date another soldier, Caleb Haskell, wrote: “Took our boats and loaded them on our backs. Carried them about four miles, rough walking, no path. In the afternoon we built a block house to leave our sick.”

There seems to be some dispute about the name of the hospital. Oliver Stocking, another soldier. wrote in his diary: “We carried our bateaux and baggage 3/4 mile to another pond, one mile across, then to a third. two miles across. Between these ponds we built a block house, designed for our sick, and named it Fort Meigs.”

Digesting this somewhat contradictory information, the historian Codman put the following account into his book on the expedition: “At the Great Carrying Place the physical condition of the men began to show serious deterioration. Cases of dysentery and other camp diseases were augmented by long exposure in the water by day and the cold river mists by night. Invalids were now frequently sent back. When Col. Enos arrived at the Carrying Place on October 12, his division of 1,100 had been reduced to 950.

“For five days Major Meigs superintended the passage of troops across the 12 Mile Carry and the building of a block house between the first and second ponds for the reception of the sick. Another block house had already been erected on the Kennebec side of the first carry. The first block house became known as Fort Meigs and the second as Arnold’s Hospital.”

Re-examination of the contemporary records, of which Arnold’s own journal is probably the most reliable seems to confirm Codman’s statement. Confusion among the various accounts is probably explained by there having been two block houses, one where the first carry started near the Kennebec, the other nearer the Dead River, between the first and second of the chain of ponds. It was the block house between the two ponds that was used as a hospital.

When he wrote his fictional account of the expedition in his book “Arundel”, Kenneth Roberts made meticulous search of all the old journals, letters and records. Even such a diligent researcher as Roberts was confronted with an unsolved mystery. What happened to those sick men left at the block house between the ponds? No contemporary writer ever mentioned them again. Although there are several accounts of other sick being sent back to Norridgewock, there is no evidence that those at the hospital block house were ever evacuated. Did they, or at least some of them, ever get back to civilization, or did they die in the Maine wilderness? Nobody knows.

From time to time I have given on this program biographical sketches of prominent men of Central Maine. Here are a few more, to whom I have not previously referred. First, let me tell you about the grandfather of two men prominent in Waterville industry today. Those modern men are Carroll Abbott. treasurer of Keyes Fibre Co. and Henry Abbott of the C.F. Hathaway Co. Their grandfather, Dr. Carroll Waite Abbott was born in Rumford in 1855, a descendant of George Abbott, who came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1640.

Carroll graduated from Hebron in 1877 and from the Bowdoin Medical School in 1881. He worked his way through college. as many young men did at that time. by teaching winter terms of school. With his medical degree secured, Dr. Abbott set up practice in Albion, where he remained for eleven years. In 1893 he moved to Waterville, after studying surgery at the New York Polyclinic. In 1898 he was elected Mayor of Waterville. He was much interested in finance and was a director of the Waterville Trust Co.

Dr. Abbott’s son Henry, born in 1884, succeeded to his father’s practice, and is well remembered today as one of Waterville’s truly beloved physicians.

I suppose, if one searched long enough, he would find that almost everyone who had ancestors in colonial New England is related to everyone else who had such ancestors. Until a short time ago, for instance, I had no idea that I was related distantly to Waterville’s late prominent citizen, Cyrus W. Davis. Mr. Davis was born in Buxton in 1856. His great-grandfather, Josiah Davis, had settled in Gorham, where his son John was born in 1761. John Davis married Patience Irish, daughter of James and Mary Gorham Phinney Irish. Their son Cyrus was born in 1812 and lived to the age of 90 in 1903. He was the father of Cyrus W. Davis.

Now Mary Gorham Phinney was the first white child born in Gorham, Maine. She was Cyrus W. Davis’ great-grandmother through his mother’s side of the family.

Now where do I come into the picture? Cyrus W. Davis’ grandmother. Patience Irish, had a sister called Patty, who became the wife of a Revolutionary soldier. Stephen Whitney, who spent his last years in Harrison, Maine. His son, Ebenezer Whitney of Bangor, was the father of Calvin Whitney, who moved from Gorham to Bridgton about 1880. And Calvin Whitney was my grandfather. What relation am I to Cyrus Davis? You figure it out. It’s too much for me.

Cyrus Davis graduated from Gorham Academy in 1870 and for several years was clerk in a dry goods store in Biddeford. In 1875 he entered a partnership with Samuel Smith, Jr. in Waterville. In 1890 he established the brokerage firm of Davis and Soule with offices in both Waterville and Boston. He represented Waterville in the State Legislature from 1901 to 1904, and was Mayor of Waterville in 1903. He was a prominent figure in civic affairs and a thoroughly public-spirited citizen.

Some day we’ll have more of these biographical sketches, but these must suffice for today. So we will say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1968