\nThe explorations of Mrs. Helen Camp at Pemaquid have aroused wide interest in the history of that settlement which played a large part in the early development of Maine. By patient, skillful archeological excavation and scientific excavation of unearthed artifacts, Mrs. Camp has brought to light a great deal of information about the ordinary living and merchandising of the fishermen and traders who made the little village near the present Fort William Henry at Pemaquid a calling point for sailing vessels of the European world.<\/p>\n
It was to Pemaquid in 1621, that Governor Bradford of Plymouth sent the Pilgrim shallop for much needed supplies to replenish the diminished stock of the Plymouth Colony. Although there was then no permanent settlement at Pemaquid, Bradford knew his men would find there the well-stocked ships of British fishermen, waiting while their fish dried on the racks erected on the Pemaquid shore.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Camp has built at Pemaquid Fort, near the well-known Gilbert Lobster Pound, a small museum, in which are several hundred artifacts, including clay smoking pipes of the 17th century. Every year the place attracts hundreds of tourists, as well as Maine people from every county in the State.<\/p>\n
Today I want to tell you a bit about ancient Pemaquid from information gleaned from many writings about that historic area, writings that give interesting items many of which have been confirmed by Mrs. Camp’s discoveries.<\/p>\n
The first English names to be associated with land ownership at Pemaquid were Robert Aldsworth and Gyles Elbridge, who in 1631 received from the London Association known as the Council for New England the following deed: “Whereas King James I granted to the President and Council for New England all the land of New England in America lying between the 40th and the 45th parallels of north latitude, and from sea to sea, the said Council in consideration that Robert Aldsworth and Gyles Elbridge do, at their own cost, transport diverse persons to New England, and there build a town and settle diverse inhabitants, do agree and grant to said Aldsworth and Eldridge 100 acres of land for every person so transported and settled by them within the seven ensuing years, and provided the transported settler remains three consecutive years at this settlement. These lands are to be chosen by Aldsworth and Elbridge in any place adjacent to the 12,000 acres herein after mentioned.<\/p>\n
“The said Council do further grant to Aldsworth and Elbridge 12,000 acres, in addition to the above grant for settlers, the same land to be bounded and laid out near the river commonly called by the name of Pemaquid, and up that river as far as may contain the said 12,000 acres.<\/p>\n
“And it shall be lawful for Aldsworth and Elbridge to trade in lawful commodities with the savages in any part of New England at their will and pleasure. ”<\/p>\n
That began the Pemaquid settlement. After Aldsworth died in 1634, Elbridge become the sole proprietor. Elhridge’s son John inherited the grant but sold it in 1646 to his brother Thomas, who then came from England and took charge of the property. But the Elbridge family did not long retain possession. By 1657, through various sales, all the land except that owned by individual settlers on the hundred acre lots had become the property of Nicholas Dennen of Charlestown, Mass. When trouble arose between settlers and the proprietor of this vast adjoining land, it was Dennen who became known as “the hated proprietor”.<\/p>\n
Throughout the rest of the 17th century, though some attention was given to farm crops, especially grains, the chief occupation of the Pemaquid settlers was fishing and a large area of the shore front near the fort was covered by the fishing steps where the catch was dried. In the Catholic countries of Europe there was big demand for fish, and the dried and salted cod and similar species from Pemaquid were largely destined for the dining tables of Europe. Summer after summer as many as a dozen sailing vessels could be seen at one time at anchor in Pemaquid harbor, waiting for their fish to dry.<\/p>\n
An early figure of importance at Pemaquid was Abraham Shurte. In 1631 Aldsworth and Elbridge, the original proprietors, had sent Shurte to the area, and he had first settled on Monhegan Island because of danger from Indians on the mainland. In 1635 the proprietors ordered Shurte to build a home at Pemaquid and take charge of their interests. This began Shurte’s long residence on the mainland of our state, and his subsequent trouble with successive proprietors and their agents who sought to oust him.<\/p>\n
During most of the 17th century no proprietor tried to set up any form of local government. Such justice as there was had to be administered by Shurte as the local magistrate. He and many of the first settlers were loyal adherents of the Church of England, and as valiant Episcopalians, they were antagonistic toward the government of Puritan Boston. So, when the colonists of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth and New Haven former a coalition of defense in 1643, Pemaquid was not asked to join. However, by 1652 Massachusetts had begun to extend its authority beyond the Piscataqua at what is now Portsmouth, and by 1658 it had reached Old Falmouth, now the City of Portland.<\/p>\n
Despite conflicting claims by the heirs of Ferdinanda Gorges, Massachusetts secured authority over all Maine lands as far as the Kennebec and along the coast to Machias.<\/p>\n
King Philip’s War breaking out in 1675, soon spread from the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts to the banks of the Saco, the Androscoggin and the Kennebec, arousing the usually peaceful Abnakis against the settlers. Yet certain Abnaki chiefs, especially the Canabas and the Norridgewocks, wanted peace. In 1676 they sent messages to Pemaquid asking for a council at Ticonic Falls in what is now Waterville.<\/p>\n
As Shute and other men went up the Kennebec for the conference, they found most of the few white settlers they encountered doubtful of the Indian sincerity. But when they reached the little Indian village at Ticonic, the whites were treated with respect. The result was a treaty that held for two years until news of the Indian attack and massacre at Casco aroused the Pemaquid and neighboring settlements against the red men. The Abnaki tribes were so stirred that the Pemaquid folks had to take refuge on Monhegan and other islands. The cabins and wooden fort at Pemaquid were burned to the ground.<\/p>\n
Previous to that disaster, the ownership of this territory had passed to the Duke of York, by royal action in 1664, disregarding the previous royal patent to Aldsworth and Elbridge, and lots were promised to new settlers allover again. The existing settlers had to pay the Duke of York’s agent for release of their claims. In 1686, by royal proclamation, the fort and county of Pemaquid was detached from the jurisdiction of New York, the headquarters of the Duke’s grant, and Sir Edmund Andrew was appointed “Captain General and Governor in Chief of the Territory and Dominion of New England” an area that then comprised Massachusetts Bay, New Plymouth, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island and Connecticut.<\/p>\n
In 1689 a French and Indian raid again forced surrender of the fort at Pemaquid. The garrison troops were not made prisoners but were permitted to go to Boston. But the civilian inhabitants who survived were taken captives to Canada. When the English returned three years later, in 1692, Sir William Phipps, the first British commander born in Maine, built the first stone fort at Pemaquid. The next year saw a renewed treaty with the Indians, but the fort was again captured by Baron Castine in 1696.<\/p>\n
Not until 1729 was a really strong stone fort erected. When Col. David Dunbar built this fort, he built at the same time the paved street between the fort and cemetery, the outline of which is still visible from the air today. It became the principal street of the village whose remains Mrs. Camp has now unearthed. By 1725 the village and its immediate surroundings had become a sizable community with 800 people.<\/p>\n
As for the Indians with whom Pemaquid settlers came in contact, the old records refer to a great chief or bashaba, to whom all the lesser chiefs or sachems paid tribute. The great chief was said to rule all the sub-tribes between the Piscataqua and the Penobscot, and he held full sway when the Popham colony set up at the mouth of the Kennebec in 1607. As for the separate sub-tribes, the Anasejunticooks had their center at the falls of the Androscoggin in what is now Brunswick, the Canabas here on the Kennebec above Merrymeeting Ray and the Wawenocks extended from the mouth of the Kennebec along the coast to St. George.<\/p>\n
Great was the importance of Pemaquid fisheries. Probably nowhere else in the world has fishing been carried on so long and so continuously as it has off the Maine coast and along the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. European fleets began to come in number after the Cabot voyage of 1497, but scattered fishing vessels had probably reached Monhegan Island, and perhaps the nearby Pemaquid shore at least a century earlier. Definite records show that Spanish ships dried fish in this region as early as 1517, more than a hundred years before the landing of the Pilgrims. French records reveal that by 1740 as many as 27,000 men were in the French fishing fleets that visited Maine waters. A hundred years earlier, in 1640, as many as a hundred English fishing ships came yearly to the Maine coast.<\/p>\n
After 1618, two years before the settlement at Plymouth, Monhegan Island was never without some permanent residents. By 1650 Pemaquid had surpassed Monhegan as the center of coastal trade, and other settlements had begun. One was at Damariscotta Falls, another at Sheepscot Farms (now Wiscasset), a third at Cape Newagen or the present Southport, and a fourth at Nequasset (now Woolwich). The colonial trade regulations especially favored Pemaquid by making it the only port of entry for the entire coast between the Kennebec and the Penobscot. Hence, every fisherman on that coast was obliged, before casting a line, to enter the Pemaquid Customs House and pay a stipulated fee.<\/p>\n
At New Harbor on the Pemaquid peninsula , on the other side from the fort, is a granite boulder with a bronze marker, noting the place as the spot where was conveyed the first Indian deed of Maine land – a grant by two Indian chiefs to John Brown at Pemaquid in 1625. In the middle of the 18th century, just before the American Revolution, the commander of the fort at Pemaquid was Captain John North, whose daughter married John McKechnie, surveyor of the lots in Waterville and builder of Waterville’s first mill.<\/p>\n
With that tribute to Pemaquid and with special thanks to Mrs. Helen Camp for her notable discoveries, we must say goodbye until next week.<\/p>\n
Year: 1973<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #962, Broadcast on February 25, 1973<\/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":[35313,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9320"}],"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=9320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}