<\/p>\n
Readers of Kenneth Roberts’ Arundel will remember Jacataqua, the Indian girl who accompanied Aaron Burr on Benedict Arnold’s expedition to Quebec. As he always did, Roberts based that romance on historical fact, but like any good novelist he expanded the facts to suit his story. What do we really know about that Indian girl? She was an Abnaki princess, daughter of the sub-chief of the Canibas tribe of Abnakis with their headquarters on Swan Island in the Kennebec River near Richmond. She was not a full-blooded Indian, but was partly of French descent. She had enjoyed some education in Quebec, so that she combined the lore of Old France with the nature-knowledge of the Abnakis.<\/p>\n
When Arnold’s officers arrived at Swan Island on their way up the river to Fort Western,Jacataqua was captive of a British officer. Swaggering Aaron Burr, a junior officer with Arnold, offered the man a good price for the girl. Jacataqua seemed delighted with her new owner and showed no reluctance to undertake with him the arduous journey through the Maine wilderness to the St. Lawrence. By one of those ironies of history, both Benedict Arnold and Aaron Burr became unfavored, disgraced Americans. Arnold, the traitor of West Point, died in poverty in England. Burr was elected Thomas Jefferson’s vice president, but entered into a conspiracy over our Mexican border lands that made him also accused of treason. He killed a much greater American, Alexander Hamilton, in a duel, fled the country, and like Arnold died in disgrace.<\/p>\n
Burr was always ready for adventure. In 1775 he joined Arnold’s expedition and was one of the officers who got all the way thru the wilderness to Quebec. There Arnold sent him as a messenger to General Montgomery who was to join Arnold before Quebec, approaching down the river from Montreal, while Arnold had been coming down the Chaudiere to the St. Lawrence. Montgomery put Burr in charge of a raiding party of 40 men to climb the dangerous heights of Quebec. Every man except Burr and a guide were killed in the attempt. Later Burr was on Washington’s official staff and commanded a brigade at the Battle of Monmouth.<\/p>\n
It seems unquestioned that Jacataqua was with Burr when Arnold’s army left Swan Island, but how long she stayed with him can only be guessed. Her reputation spread so widely, however, that many years later the poet Longfellow referred to her in his Tales of a Wayside Inn.<\/p>\n
“He would face a painted savage stride
\ninto the room with shoulders bare.
\nAnd eagle feathers in her hair,
\nWearing a robe of panther’s hide.
\nInstead he saw with secret shame
\na form of beauty undefined,
\nA loveliness, without a name,
\nNot of degree but more of kind,
\nNor bold, nor shy, nor short nor tall,
\nBut a mingling of them all.<\/p>\n
Yes, beautiful beyond belief,
\nTransfigured and transposed,
\nThe daughter of an Indian Chief.”<\/p>\n
There long persisted in the vicinity of Swan Island a story about Jacataqua and Aaron Burr. A settler complained that his cornfield was being devastated by bears. Jacataqua asked the settler what he would give her if she brought him the offending animal’s scalp. A bargain was made, and she set out, accompanied by Burr. When they entered the field they saw a bear and two cubs eating the corn. Jacataqua fired and the mother bear fell. The cubs climbed to the top of a tree. Burr rushed to the supposedly dead bear, but the animal attacked him, tearing his clothes and leaving him minus one coattail. Then down from the tree came the cubs and attacked Burr. With his axe Burr killed one, while Jacataqua shot the other. “Now,” said Burr, “we’ll skin these bears.”<\/p>\n
“No, no,” said Jacataqua. “They are fat. A fat bear must be cooked with the skin on. We Indians scorch off the hair before cooking.” So off she took the bear scalp and went back to the farmer to claim her reward.<\/p>\n
For many years after Arnold’s Expedition there stood on Swan Island a tree known as Jacataqua’s Oak.<\/p>\n
Did you know that Maine had a hero at Bunker Hill? Indeed she did and that man lived in my own native Maine town of Bridgton. At the age of 23, Robert Andrews had left his native town of Boxford, Mass. when he heard of the fighting at Lexington and Concord. He went at once to the mustering place at Cambridge, where he enlisted in Captain William Pearson’s company. He served at different periods for five years until 1780, being stationed at Ticonderoga before Burgoyne’s defeat at Saratoga, the turning point in the Revolution. But it was at Bunker Hill in June 1775, that he first encountered the horrors of battle. Robert Andrews had a long life after the Revolution, and 50 years after the battle of Bunker Hill, then an old man, he heard his own name mentioned by Daniel Webster in the famous oration and saw the Marquis de Lafayette lay the cornerstone of the monument.<\/p>\n
After the Revolution, Robert Andrews decided to join a group of men from his own town of Boxford to seek homes in the wilderness of Maine. They were interested in a tract granted by the Mass. Legislature to their ancestors for service under Sir William Phipps in the French and Indian conflict of 1690. When it was discovered that the promised tract was actually across the line in N. H., they accepted instead a township seven miles square, east of the Saco River, adjoining a township already granted to Joseph Frye, a tract that became the town of Fryeburg.<\/p>\n
The new township, to which Robert Andrews and his comrades came was called Pondicherry, but the name was soon changed to Bridgton in honor of one of the proprietors, Moody Bridges.<\/p>\n
Robert Andrews and the others came to a near wilderness, where only a few scattered settlers had made little progress toward clearing the land. An old Indian trail through the forest had been made a bridlepath to the garrisoned fort at Standish, and Sebago Lake, Songo River, and Long Pond provided a natural waterway to the Presumpscot which led to Portland.<\/p>\n
In the south part of the township on Adam Pond, Robert Andrews cleared his farm. It covered 400 acres and was productive – so much so that when the First Parish Church was organized in Bridgton, Andrews’ subscription equalled that of Proprietor Enoch Paley, $1,000.<\/p>\n
As a Revolutionary veteran, Andrews was especially active in the Bridgton militia. It was called the Bridgton Light Infantry, organized in 1792. Andrews was the Company’s first lieutenant. Every man in the Company took a solemn oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the United States of America, and denied any obedience to the King, Queen or Government of Great Britain or any other foreign power.<\/p>\n
When Bridgton was incorporated in 1794, Robert Andrews was one of the selectmen. He served five terms in that office, and three terms as town treasurer. Though Robert Andrews was never married, the fine house that he built several years after his original cabin, was always filled with relatives or with boys apprenticed to him who worked on his farm. He had little success keeping housekeepers, because the young men married them in succession.<\/p>\n
In later life, Andrews was called “the old leftenant.” He loved to joke, and one morning said to a niece in his house, “Rachel, did you have a beau last night?” “No, sir,” snapped Rachel. “Well, Rachel, I wonder who did. It couldn’t have been Abigail could it?” And Andrews turned with a grin toward Rachel’s sister. Abigail snorted and ran out of the room. She did indeed have a steady boyfriend.<\/p>\n
There was much activity on the Andrews farm. Oats, barley and wheat were reaped, as well as many bushels of corn, for which Maine farms were already famous. There was often land to be plowed, fences to be mended, flax to be flailed, oats to be threshed, cows to be milked, oxen to be shod, horses to be curried. In the house there was the dairy work, the spinning and weaving, the baking and the. household chores.<\/p>\n
The militia muster field was a five-acre plot just west of the meetinghouse, and a similar plot on the other side was the town’s first cemetery. When the district schools in Bridgton were established, Robert Andrews was appointed to build a schoolhouse in the south district, and that despite another family was much more prolific. In 1806, 27 pupils in that school were named Ingalls.<\/p>\n
Perhaps just because Robert Andrews never married, he wanted to make sure of some other way to perpetuate his name. He made a standing offer that any boy named for him would receive the gift of a cow. So several prominent figures in Bridgton history carried his name. Among them were such leaders as Robert Andrew Barrows and Robert Andrew Cleaves. But others named for him had less enviable reputations, and folks called them “cow relatives.”<\/p>\n
Robert Andrews was a prodigious dealer in timber. It is said that at one time he had cutting rights on 50,000 acres.<\/p>\n
As late as 1916 there lived in Bridgton an aged lady who remembered that hero of Bunker Hill. She was Mrs. Ann Davis, widow of the landlord of the old Bridgton House. Asked if she really knew Robert Andrews, she said: “Indeed I did. I can see him now, coming across the street from house to house with his cane in his hand. He often went into the barn to look over his cattle. I often rode with him up to the Congregational Church. He had many queer notions. One was that he preferred a bunk to a bed. He used to tell the children stories about the Battle of Bunker Hill. He never used profanity. His most violent expression was “rot it all!”<\/p>\n
“Every year after he killed his hogs,” said Mrs. Davis, “Lt. Andrews would have a grand dinner party. He invited the minister, the doctor, and their wives, and other prominent persons in town. He owned a choice set of pink lustre dinnerware and he would say to his niece, “Ruth, put on the good china.” Bread and pastry were baked in the brick oven and the roast on a spit over the open fire. Years after Robert Andrews’ death there was an auction of goods belonging to the executor of the estate. A neighbor rummaging over the debris after the auction found thrown away an old musket. It was the weapon the old soldier had carried at Bunker Hill.<\/p>\n
Year: 1974<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #1015, Broadcast on May 26, 1974<\/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":[1203,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9465"}],"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=9465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}