Almost every American who visits Nova Scotia goes to the Annapolis Valley,\u00a0the land of Evangeline. So wei I known is Longfel low!s poem to every American\u00a0who attended school anywhere in the United States, that many people on this\u00a0side of the Canadian border identify Nova Scotia with Longfellow’s heroine\u00a0of the Acadian exi Ie.<\/p>\n
The Annapolis Val ley is much more than the historic land of the exi led\u00a0French settlers. It is one of the best known and most productive apple regions\u00a0in North America; it grows lucious, big strawberries, and its farms are large\u00a0and abundantly ferti Ie. It has at Wolfvi I Ie one of the best of Canada’s colleges,\u00a0Acadia University, and at Kentvi I Ie one of the finest, moderately priced\u00a0hotels to be found anywhere, the famous Cornwal lis Inn.<\/p>\n
But after all, Longfel low was born in Maine. So were many lesser folk\u00a0like me. What could be more natural than that we Maine natives should want\u00a0to see, above al I else in the Annapolis Val ley, the site of old Grand Pre on\u00a0the Basin of Minas?<\/p>\n
TlThis is the forest primeval”. Such are the opening words of Longfel-:low’s\u00a0poem. If he takes them literally, the reader can get a very wron!=! impression\u00a0of Grand Pre. There never was a primeval forest on the site of the\u00a0old Acadian vi Ilage. The thick woods were not far away, and more than once\u00a0the harassed settlers fled for refuge to its concealing growth. But a careful\u00a0reading of the poem wi I I reveal that, although Longfel low never visited Nova\u00a0Scotia, he knew very well what the region around Grand Pre was like.<\/p>\n
These first French settlers had come from the lowland district of France,\u00a0where for centuries they and their ancestors, like the Dutch, had kept out the\u00a0sea by bui Iding dikes, and had thus been able to cultivate the marsh lands. So,\u00a0unlike the English, who cut down the big trees and made clearings in the forest,\u00a0these Frenchmen diked the marshes and turned the salty waste land into\u00a0ferti Ie meadows, so marvelously ferti Ie that the whole level region was called\u00a0Grand Pre, the Great Meadow.<\/p>\n
From those rich farms, lush with crops and herds, the thrif.ty Canadians\u00a0were expel led by the British conquerors in 1755 in the tragic dispersal that\u00a0gave Longfellow the ~tory of Evangeline and her life-long search for her separated\u00a0lover. The present inhabitants of the Annapolis Val ley are loyal subjects\u00a0of Queen Elizabeth, just as true to the British crown as were their ancestors\u00a0to the successors of the first Elizabeth, 300 and 200 years ago. So\u00a0these good British folk wi I I tel I you that it was the stubbornness of those Acadian\u00a0French — their determination not to cooperate with the conquerors -that\u00a0made their deportation necessary. But even those apologists admit it was\u00a0a brutal act.<\/p>\n
On the site of the old Acadian church the Canadian Pacific Rai I road maintains\u00a0a public park, with spacious lawns, numerous flower beds, and a series of\u00a0ponds with pond Ii lies ranging in color from pure white to deep lavender. In\u00a0the replica of the old church is housed a museum of historical relics. The\u00a0church is a reminder of Acadian days, but the museum is disappointing. There\u00a0is no order to the exhibits. Articles used in the early eighteenth century by\u00a0the Acadians are jumbled together with later British relics. The visitor with\u00a0a liking for historical accuracy is often baffled by the confusion. It is a\u00a0pity that the articles authenticated as truly Acadian cannot be placed by\u00a0themselves. For perhaps the vi I lage blacksmith who was the counterpart of \u00a0Longfel low’s Basi I made some of the very tools in the Grand Pre museum — the\u00a0spades, the three-tined pitch forks, the hand-wrought nails, the huge hinges,\u00a0the plow shares, and the spiked harrow teeth. Many an Acadian girl like\u00a0Evangel ine carded and spun and wove on the old cloth-making household implements.<\/p>\n
The museum makes much of a letter written by LongfeJ”low to Nathaniel Hawthorne,\u00a0thanki ng the I atter for g i vi ng the poet the idea for Evange line, and\u00a0especially saying that Hawthorne had been very generous to give up the idea of\u00a0writing on the subject himself, in prose that readers might take for a poem,\u00a0only to let Longfellow write it in poetry which the reader might take for\u00a0prose. In that humorous compliment, Longfel low perhaps spoke more wisely than\u00a0he knew, for he wrote Evange line in dacty I i c hexamete r, a form of ve rse bad I y\u00a0suited to English words, though admirable in Greek or Latin.<\/p>\n
But anyhow, we Ma i ne fo I ks are especi ally interested in that letter, for\u00a0Grand Pre boasts only a copy of it, whi Ie the original in Longfel low’s own hand\u00a0reposes right here in Maine, in the library of Bowdoin College, from which both\u00a0Longfel low and Hawthorne were graduates.<\/p>\n
Not far from the church is the old vii I age wei I, appropriately cal led Evangel\u00a0ine’s wei I, and on the spacious lawn in front of the church is a I ifesized\u00a0statue of the girl herself. It makes no difference that Evangeline was\u00a0a fictional character, the product of a poet’s imagination. Many girls quite\u00a0like her actually lived and loved and lost in that tragic community 200 years\u00a0ago. There she stands, carved in stone, on the flowered lawn at Grand Pre, a\u00a0reminder that a man from Portland, Maine, immortalized in verse her and her\u00a0stricken people, who first made habitable the great Acadian land.<\/p>\n
In Grand Pre there is also a post-Acadian bui Iding worth a visit. It is\u00a0the Church of the Covenanters, erected by Presbyterians early in the nineteenth\u00a0century, who came to the region as Loyalists at the time of the American Revolution.<\/p>\n
It is preserved in its original state, like the old church at Alna,\u00a0Maine, or the old German church at Waldoboro. Its immense high pulpit, with\u00a0sounding board like that in the Old South Church of Boston, dominates the\u00a0sanctuary and looks down on the old box pews. Services are sti I I held here\u00a0in July and August, but not in the winter, although two huge box stoves are\u00a0st i I lin p I ace.<\/p>\n
As I sTood in the Church of the Covenanters, I could not but contemplate\u00a0how the hand of fate deals with communities over historic time. Here in 1755\u00a0the Acadians were driven out into exi Ie — to New Orleans, to Alabama, to our\u00a0own St. John Val ley, to other parts of New England, to the then desolate, uninhabited\u00a0west shore of Cape Breton Island. And here, to the same place,\u00a0thirty years later in 1785, had come members of the same conquering British\u00a0people, themse I ves dri ven into exi Ie from Boston and New Haven and other New\u00a0England towns. Exi les come and exi les go. Such is the cruel dictate of conquest.<\/p>\n
Patriotic loyalty is a fine thing, and one ought not to think too\u00a0harshly of patriots who back a losing side. If we had not won the Revolution,\u00a0it would have been the Washingtons, the Jeffersons, and the Adamses who, instead\u00a0of the Grand Pre Covenanters, went into exi Ie.<\/p>\n
The City of Hallowell, one of the oldest Kennebec settlements,above ~!1errymeeting\u00a0Bay, is known today chiefly as the site of the fartPus Wooster House.<\/p>\n
In the 1870’s and 80’s Hallowell was a noted granite center. In 1871 had\u00a0been organized the Hallowell Granite Company under the presidency of Governor\u00a0Joseph Bodwell. The company opened extensive quarries 2t mi les from the Hallowell\u00a0wharves near the Manchester town line. The company became very prosperous\u00a0and its stone was said to be the finest grade of white granite found anywhere\u00a0in Maine. IT became one of the nation’s largest suppliers of ~ranite for publie\u00a0bu i I dings. Of Ha flowe I I gran i te are the custom house at New Or leans, the\u00a0New York StaTe Capitol at Albany, the Equitable Life Insurance Building in New\u00a0York, the Pi Igrim monument at Plymouth, Mass., the Soldier’s Monument on Boston\u00a0Common, and the mertPrial monuments at Gettysburg. The granite works at\u00a0one time employed more than 400 men, shipped out 100,000 cubic feet of ~ranite\u00a0a year, and did a yearly business of a quarter of a mi Ilion dol lars.<\/p>\n
Of course stone was quarried around Hal lowe I I for local purposes long before\u00a01871, but it is interesting that Emma Huntington Nason’s big history, !~Old\u00a0Ha II owe lion the Kennebec”, makes no menti on of gran i te at a II. Yet, as Mrs.\u00a0Nason clearly shows, Hal lowel I was a prosperous town long before the founding\u00a0of its granite indusTry.<\/p>\n
As one drives along Hallowell’s river front today, it is hard to real ize\u00a0that in 1800 that river front was a beehive of activity_ Hal lowel I was then\u00a0the busi est place in Ma i ne east of Portl and, and its peop Ie\u00b7 fe It sure it was\u00a0on the way to becoming the metropolis of the whole District of Maine. Its\u00a0wharves were lined with packets, loading barley, oats, corn, lumber and potash,\u00a0or unloading manufactured goods from Boston or products of the West Indies.<\/p>\n
Ferry boats carried persons, horses, and carts across the Kennebec. Out\u00a0of the vi Ilage ran sixteen stage coaches. The main street was often so\u00a0crowded with country teams that it was difficult for carriages to pass. Merchants,\u00a0in from their country stores as far away as Belgrade and Readfield,\u00a0Winthrop and Wayne, drove directly to the wharves, where they bought groceries,\u00a0rum, molasses and other products right off the ship. Hal lowell was the\u00a0bus i ness center of a reg i on 60 mi les around.<\/p>\n
Prominent Hallowel I citizens got delusions of grandeur. They hoped to\u00a0dispute with Montreal and Quebec the business of lower Canada north of New\u00a0Hampsh ire and VermonT. In 1807 the Ameri can Encyc I opedi a sa i d that Ha I lowe II\u00a0was the natural head of Kennebec navigation, that it was a better distribution\u00a0point for Canada than was Portland, and that it was certain to become one of\u00a0the largest American cities.<\/p>\n
The principal source of the town’s prosperity was trade resulting from\u00a0its access by ocean-going ships. It was practically a seaport town, and like\u00a0many such towns, it took to shipbui Iding. The vessels bui It and owned at Hal 1-\u00a0owel I sai led not only up and down the American coast, but to foreign ports across\u00a0the Atlantic and even around the Horn. Return cargoes brought huge\u00a0profits to the owners. Much of the capital of the town was invested in its\u00a0ships.<\/p>\n
The expected trade with Canada did not develop. Instead the bui Iding of\u00a0the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Rai I road turned that trade to Portland. Then\u00a0came the Portland and Kennebec Rai I road, going through to the new state capital\u00a0at Augusta. Bit by bit Hal lowe I I lost the trade of a wide area, the Androscoggin\u00a0and Kennebec Rai I road picking up the farmer’s products between Watervi\u00a0I Ie and Danvi lie, the rai I road to Farmington taking the business of Franklin\u00a0County. At I ast there was left I:i tt J-e- more than loca I bus i ness unt i I the great\u00a0granite industry got underway in the 1870’s.<\/p>\n
It is fascinating, disappointing, and disi Ilusioning — this story of the\u00a0rise and fall and the rising again of a Maine town, only in our day to fal I\u00a0again to the commercial depths it knew at the time of the Civi I War. The ups\u00a0and downs of fortune, characteristic of many an American town, tell the story\u00a0of Central Maine’s once most prominent city, old Hallowel Ion the Kennebec.<\/p>\n
Year: 1956<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #311, broadcast on September 23, 1956<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[790,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7654"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7654\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}