Maine pioneer settlements ..

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MAINE PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

Old*^ Cascoe

Old York

SoKOKi Trail

Pemaquid

Land of St. Castin

the author inscribes

this volume to a

Scholar, Soldier, and Gentleman

General JOSHUA L. CHAMBERLAIN

OF Maine

MAINE PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

®16^ Cascoc

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

HERBERT MILTON SYLVESTER

^'

<

y

BOSTON

»♦ 115, Clarbe Co.

26-28 Tremont St.
1909

V

THE NEW YORK

PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

R 1911 L

May i9 '-'

Copyright, 1904, by Herbert M. Sylvester

All rights reserved
Copyright, 1909, by Herbert M. Sylvester

AUTHOR'S EDITION, DE LUXE

This edition is limited to one thousand copies
printed from the type. This is No.

AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

[T is with hesitant and uncertain step
one betakes himself backward into
days obhterate as to their living
except where some tradition lingers
in the semi-obscurity of some musty
historical record. The once lumi-
'''^•\ nous high-lights of the seventeenth
century have dimmed into the far-
off glimmer of unfamiliar stars,
hardly discernible with the unaided
vision, — islands on the distant marge
' of unknown waters, charted by un-

known hands, that come and go like the mirage of
the desert. Sail as one will, with the most favoring

11

12 AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

p;alos, they are as unattainable as the Islands of the
I^imini. Look as one may, the things one most de-
sires to see are never quite distinct. Nor can one make
mucli out of the old mansions of history, silent,
speechless; for, given three centuries of progress, the
primitive is difficult to resurrect.

Like the Lost Arts of Egypt, the story that began
with the coming of Du Guast to the Island of the
Holy Cross and of Weymouth to the waters of the
Sagadahoc is as a tale that is told. From the Revela-
tion of Ingram of the Golden City of the Bessabez,
whose roofs outshone the setting sun among the dusky
pines of Kadesquit, one unreels a tenuous thread of
romance along which are hung the more modest
annals of Champlain, Smith, Rosier, and Strachey.
That there were once days of isolate and scanty
living along the Maine Coast, peopled by a sturdy
race of men and women, whose cabin-smokes blew
away on the wind that followed the indents of the
Gulf of Maine from the Piscataqua to beyond the
Sagadahoc, is become a landmark of history. Like
the Israelites, they were a peculiar peo]jle. For the
Wilderness of Zin, were the untrodden wilds of an in-
hospitable country beset with unknown perils of
climate and unaroused savagery, where they began
the building of a new state and a new civilization.

It is a romantic story the annalist recalls of the
days when five settlements made up the tale of the
English occupancy of the Maine Province, settle-
ments widely separate and thinly populate, whose
only means of communication w^as an Indian trail, or

AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 13

the seashore at ebb-tide, compelling days of arduous
travel: a journey that began at Kittery and ended on
the far side of Pemaquid — lean days, of a surety,
yet pregnant with mighty prophecy.

After a fashion, all history is romance when it is
so old only the warj) remains, dull and faded, with.
only the ancient wooden loom, its dusty sleys, its
empty shuttle, and its rude bobbin of elderberry-
stem to perpetuate the wholesome activities of the
homespun days. Dry and uninteresting would be the
history of any people without atmosphere and en-
vironment. One needs many colors on his palette to
paint its scenes.

The author finds in those days that intervene be-
tween the Popham and Gilbert fiasco of 1607-08 and
the outbreak of the Second Indian War, 1690, —
which drove the English settler back over his ventur-
ous trail and for a half-generation made the settle-
ments east of York into blood-spots of savage re-
prisal, — the inspiration for his contemplated labor.
It is a field not overmuch tilled. Here or there some
local writer has essayed the historian, but only after
a most desultory and impoverished fashion. The
adequate story of the beginnings on the Maine Coast
does not yet seem to have been told; but with such
ravellings as he has been able to gather among the
musty shreds of men's doings through the middle of
the seventeenth century, the author has rewound
the old bobbins, and with his feet upon the treadles,
shuttle in hand, the sleys move up and down and the
web has assumed already some considerable jjropor-

14 AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

tions. He has dipped his yarns in the dyes that most
appealed to him, and hopes, the fabric complete, that
the student of history will say of it that it was prop-
erly mordanted.

As for matters of history, the author has been over
a considerable space, meagre as it would seem to be.
He is free to say that, as to the facts stated, they may
be taken as authentic history, the judgment of the
captious or opinionated critic to the contrary not-
withstanding. His work is the result of years of care-
ful and curious reading, much arduous research, and
patient comparison of every writer of pioneer history
— none of whom, as it seems to the author, is wholly
to be relied upon. He has not seen fit to encumber
his work with numerous citations and foot-notes, —
as the manner of some is whose erudition, acquired or
appropriated, is perhaps their only recommendation
to the top shelves in one's library, — preferring to
leave something to his critics.

Historians are not infallible. Not a few are guilty
of palpable errors; and in the absence of documentary
evidence — for it is true that much of written his-
tory is hardly more than hearsay, and more lacks the
verification of tradition — it has seemed wisdom to
take the middle course. It has required something
of skill to steer between Charybdis and Scylla amid
the varying winds. Whether the author has been
able to do so, having reference to the prescriptive
rights of others to this particular domain who insist
upon the acceptance of their dicta, willy-nilly, is to
be determined only after a careful reading of the

AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 15

volumes which he proposes to entitle, generally,
"Maine Pioneer Settlements." The plan is to treat
the localities separately, making the story of each a
volume by itself. There is sufficient material for a
dozen volumes; but as the author is not writing a
genealogical gazetteer or compiling a collection of
heterogeneous "papers," he reserves to leave the
rubbish-pile undisturbed, and to use only what to him
seems essential to the purpose in hand.

If hitherto he has not assumed to enter the field of
local history which is to be regarded as the heritage
of every inquiring mind, or has laid himself open in
some quarters to the charge of presumptuousness in
essaying to lend some color of interest to the doings
of far-off days that have been embalmed in the pro-
ceedings of one historical society or another, it is not
because he has not been a student of Maine history,
but rather because until latterly the opportunity has
not olTered to tell to others the story of the lean days
and the men who lived in them, as it appealed to
him. He has essayed, however, to relate it after his
own fashion, his only censor being his literary con-
science, his sincere admiration for the actors who
played their heroic parts to perhaps indifferent audi-
ences, and his desire to be helpful to the general
reader.

Maine draws no small portion of her glory from the
days in which her people had no time for the chi-
caneries that not only belittle the men who practise
them, but make them ridiculous. Notwithstanding
the obstacles against which all men who have a per-

16 AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

i^onal belief are liable to take a tilt, the author has
not consciously allowed himself to be tainted by
prejudice or bias. He has tried to tell his story fairly;
to accord to the French explorer and the Jesuit
propagandist, as to the English adventurer and set-
tler, the Episcopal formalist and the Puritan poli-
tician, the credit of their several achievements; to
weigh impartially their worth to the times in which
they lived. If he has allowed his imagination the
saddle at times, it is because the sober drab of an
obsolete environment suggested the need of color.
History, as history, is a prosy thing — except to
our Dryasdust, who prefers his fish without a spray
of lemon-juice or a sip of Madeira, and his steak
overdone, without its garnishing of watercress. To
such the author's present work will undoubtedly
seem a puerile innovation.

The opening of the Second Indian War closes this
relation, as the author has in projection an ^'Account
of the Indian Wars of New England," — a work
which, to him, seems important, — to be comprised
in two volumes, to appear as soon after the comple-
tion of this series as may be. The material is abun-
dant and inspiring.

From the author's point of view the past is poten-
tial in its relation to the present and future; and it
is worth while to halt for a moment in the mad race
of Commercialism, which seems to have possessed
itself of the present-day thought, for a backward
look, if for nothing more than to verify the purpose
of our living. We certainly live in a great country.

AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 17

We have accomplished great things; but the towering
oak was once a tiny acorn. The day of small things is
not to be forgotten; but were the pioneer days so in-
significant, after all? To one acquainted with the
story of their hardship and denial it would seem an
age of humble heroisms, when men and women made
history unconsciously, whose loyalty and patriotism,
shorn by the lapse of time of their roughnesses, sug-
gest the soft luminousness of the breaking dawn.

It was the Scotch dominie Baillie who said of the
English Puritans at the time when they were going,
many of them, from the Old World to the New,
''They are a people inclinable to singularities; their
humor is to differ from all the world, and shortly
from themselves" — a bit of humor at once wise and
prophetic. Out of this inclination was evolved the
Yankee, — the survival of the fittest.

The record of the English settler in America is a
notable one. It was a record of stress, of unacknowl-
edgment and repression; but the failure to get the
world's ear while one is living is the price the world
makes genius pay for posthumous celebrity. Our an-
cestry is best known by what it has made possible
to us. As the world goes, one rarely comes to his own
in his lifetime, and easy appreciation is the fame of
the moment. A prophet is no prophet who does not
live ahead of his time. One plants; another reaps.
Recalling Goethe's letter to Carlyle in the latter's
early days of literary craftsmanship, wherein he
wrote, ''It may be that I shall hear much more of
you," if the reader of this present volume shall feel

18

AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

impelled to go on to those which are to follow, the
author will be abundantly satisfied.

H. M. S.

i^*^..-;'{4

PREFACE

E Romance of Casco Bay is a book of

free-hand sketches. Trutliful enough

in their setting and local coloring,

they are not offered to the public as

history, but appear here much as did

their originals to the author when he

saw them from day to day, and

when more familiar with the purlieus

of Casco Bay than has been his good

fortune in later years. These old

things have the fascinating mystery

,and romance of bygone days, and a

___^ bygone race; and are not the less

delightful to recall because they look

out over a sheet of water, the beauty and charm of

which are unrivalled by any other part of the Maine

Coast, — a sea-front unequalled by any other from

19

20

PREFACE

Quoddy Head to St. Augustine, in its wild, stormy
grandeur and windy headlands, or in its countless
islands and roadsteads asleep in its summer sunshine.

THE AUTHOR.

and:\iarks

Prelude.

Caseoe.

Stogunimor.

A Relic.

Harrow House.

A Wayside Inn.

An Old Fish-Yard.

Mountjoy's Island.

The Wizard of Casco.

The Troll of Richmon's Island.

The Passing of Bagnall.

/ THE

V

Page

Portrait of Author Frontis'piece

Headband, Cape Elizabeth 11

Tailpiece, Menikoe 17

Headband. Cape Porpoise 19

Tailpiece 20

Initial 21

Headband, Ulustrations 23

Tailpiece 27

Headband, Old Tnkey Bridge 35

Initial 35

Map of Casco 36

Glen Cliff 38

A Fisher Hut 41

Longfellow's Birthplace 44

Simonton Cove 53

Fort Gorges 56

Old Fort Halifax 64

23

24 ILLUSTRATIONS

Page

An Old Garrison House 67

A Bit of Deering Park 69

The Bay 73

Th' Cox House 74

The McLellan House 75

A Fruiterer 77

The Harbor 78

Off Martin's Point 80

Tailpiece, Bird Island Light 82

Headband, A Glimpse of Scarborough 85

Initial 85

Autographs, Gorges, Cleeve, and Tucker 86

Norombegua 92

Rasle's Chapel Bell 94

A Bit of Spurwinke 96

Black Point 96

To Pine Point 97

Near Stamford Ledge 100

A Fine Old Town 101

Pur Poodack 102

Tailpiece, Cleeve Monument 103

Headband, Ye Burying-ground 107

Initial 107

Fore River 109

The Old Shipyard 112

The Bridge Over the Canal 113

TheSaltmill 115

Odd Peaked Gables 116

Some Quaint Headstones 118

The Means Sidehoard 120

The Tate House 122

Door of Tate House 124

The Buffet 126

An Old Sawmill 130

ILLUSTRATIONS 25

Page

The Tate Homestead 134

Haunted 135

Tailpiece 136

Headband, The Glimmering Tide-river 139

Initial 139

The Grist-mill 140

The Meadow 144

A Vision of Harrow House 145

The Site of Harrow House 146

The Rasle Copper Spoon 147

The King's Arrow 148

The Rasle Treasure Chest 151

Fickett House 153

Patrick House 154

Crucifix found at Norridgewack 155

The Westhrook Trencher 158

From the Windows 159

The Spinning-wheel 162

Tailpiece 163

Headband, an English Inn 167

Initial, Broad Tavern Sign 167

Shadowy Eaves 168

An Old Rookery 170

Approach to Broad Tavern 171

The First Sign of The Broads 174

Broad Tavern 177

Bradley Church and Parsonage 182

Wayside Inn, Sudbury 182

Corner of an Old Kitchen 183

An Ancient Hostelry 186

An Old Flaxwheel 190

Tailpiece 194

Headband, An Old Fishy ard 197

Initial 197

26 ILLUSTRATIONS

Page

A Fish-house 200

A Lobster Cannery 202

Lobster Grounds 204

Wrecked 208

Site of Greele Tavern 211

The Old Elm Tavern 212

Scammell 214

Portland Head 218

Trefethren's 223

A Fishing Schooner 226

A Banker 228

Tailpiece 231

Headband, Along tJie Sands 235

Initial 235

Joneses 236

An Old Settler 238

One of Nature's Court-yards 241

An Island Road 243

Monhegan 249

Tailpiece, Island Cottages 253

Headband, Sand Dunes 257

Initial 257

In Trouble 260

A Sternly- featured Face 261

The Low-roofed Farmhouse 264

On the Rocks 269

Alewive Brook 273

A Bit of Scarborough 278

From Wells to York 286

The Witch-trott 289

Beadle's Tavern 291

A Corner of Old Salem 297

Parris' Pasture 302

On the Road to Quamphegan 307

ILLUSTRATIONS 27

Page

Tailpiece 313

Headband, A Bit of Richmon's Island 317

Initial : 307

Casco Bay, Scarborough Marsli 319

On the Edge of the Marsh 321

Alongshore 323

A Bit of Jie Old Country 332

Tailpiece 333

Headband, Among the Dunes 337

Initial 337

White Head 340

Richmon's Island 340

Ebb-tide 341

A Sketch 343

Tailpiece 348

PRELUDE

The sea in the offing, white with foam,

Breaks over the outer bar;
Beyond the gray sand-dunes, nearing home,

Is the ghnt of a ship's tall spar.

Above the surf, with the sea-bird's scream,
Comes the sound of a loosened sail;

Tlirough the slow dusk burns a ruddy gleam
Of hght from the larboard rail.

So, in and out, on the ebb and flow

Of the tide, the ships sail past,
Till, with folded wings, the winds droop low.

And the day is done at last.

But days that are dead are full of pain, —
So the Reaper sings the Song, —

The blossom falls with the ripened grain
That swayed in the wind so long.

Yet, now, as then, beyond the low shore

And the mists that overlie.
The ships sail over the azure floor,

And silently down the sky.

And never the sunset mystery
Fades out with the autumn day

But glimpses come with the sounding sea
Of others so far away.

31

CASCOE

■ilil-

^^■J'?/''

CASCOE

'HAT I am about to relate is not alto-
gether history. It is in part so
old, that one can hardly tell what
part is history and what is legend.
Two hundred and fifty years have
yellowed its story; and the mem-
ory of man is somewhat to be
relied upon in places where all that is
authentic has not been printed in the
books. Years have mellowed the tragedies of old
Cascoe into tales that children read by the winter
fireside; or that grown-up folk read by the seashore
thereabout on a summer day, environed by so much
of the old-time scenery of

"Winding shores,
Of narrow capes, and isles which he
Slumbering to ocean's lullaby,"

in which their plots were laid.

We shall have to do without the orchestral prelude
that ushers in the play in a well-regulated playhouse,
for the showman is tinkling his bell, and the curtain
will rise in a moment. A drama is never so attrac-

35

36

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

live as when well staged ; and with others, I find my-
self wondering what the scene is to be like. But
the curtain is up at last, and I find pictured across
its ample stage an

"Old and quiet town,
The ghostly sails that out at sea
Flapped their white wings of mystery;
The beaches glimmering in the sun,
And the low wooded capes that run
Into the sea-mist, north and south,"

and an island-studded bay that has a peculiar fasci-
nation for the lover of the picturesque in nature. It

is a real bay, with real water and real ships plough-
ing through it; and a real wind puffing out their
sails; a rare bit of scenery, which lacks not a single
quality to make its beauty perfect. Coves and inlets

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 37

mingle their outlines of tree and reef, inextricably;
and rocky bluffs, bold and threatening, near at hand,
shorten into low relief as they recede into a far-away
perspective, their gray tones blending with their in-
verted reflections in the placid waters at their feet,
giving to them the soft, dreamy effects so common
to sea landscapes. The irregular, zig-zag-like mark-
ings of the island and mainland shores, jutting be-
tween and by each other, abound in fantastic shapes
and broken lines, which add to the charm of the
constantly varying landscape.

Two centuries and a half ago, a day's sail from old
Pentagoet southward, would have brought the voy-
ager to the easterly boundary of this sheet of water,
the northeast wall of this bay; which,

" Stretching its shrunk arm out to all the winds
And relentless smiting of the waves,"

makes a slim, ragged peninsula trending to the south-
ward, better known in Colonial times as Pejepscot.
Still southward, some eight leagues away, is its
southern land-wall, where perhaps we have pitched
our tents; and lying between, dotting the blue sea,
is an island for every day in the year. In summer
the cattle may be seen upon some of the larger of
them cropping their scanty herbage; but in winter
they are for the most part deserted. Parts of these
island shores are ragged and broken into sharp
needle-like shapes, that at low water resemble huge
teeth; their extremities are slim outreaching arms of

38

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

rock, black with seaweed, stretching far into the
waters that chafe and fret themselves into fleecy

. y ,Nij' whiteness about
these rude bar-
riers of Nature.
►Steep cliffs end
in abrupt preci-
l)ices that tower
above the tallest
masts ; and up
their sides shoot
the straight
spruces, tall,
a r r o w y , their
tops crowned
with sparse foli-
age. Here are
the quarries of
the b r o a d-
winged, white-
headed eagles,
whose rights of
piscary are older
than the most ancient
/ of charters. One may
see, any day of the year,
the eagles hovering about the
bay in search of plunder, watching
the fish-hawks and ospreys at their
sport among the islands and roadsteads, only to rob
them when they have made an especially good catch.

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 39

When fish are scarce and the eagle's fishermen fail
him, a plmnp sea-gull will whet his appetite as well.

Clmnps of willows follow the yellow sands as they
curve backward from the cliffs, the bright green of
their foliage standing out in sharp contrast to the
darker tones of the dwarf pines and spruces; their
long, drooping branches are wet with the spray of
every incoming tide. White sails glide into the
shadows of the headlands, or fade away below the
horizon, lending the romance of the ships to the in-
tensity of color which pervades the outlook. The
atmosphere is clear, and Nature's lines are sharply
drawn. The high lights are strong and the shadows
deep, with well-defined gradations. They are like
musical notes strung upon a staff, so perfect is the
harmony of color that greets the eye.

Only the centuries have left their footsteps about
the worn crags and ledges, along the seaward sides
of which the scanty tufts of spruce, gray and stunted,
are twisted into ungainly shapes by the storms of
the Atlantic ; while over their gray reaches of broken
shingle is strewn the debris of wreck, and driftwood,
and floating kelp. These bold shores have wit-
nessed many a tumult of storm-driven wave racing
inward with the flying rain and sleet; but the same
granite buttresses are here as of the post-glacial pe-
riod, in all their silent pride and massive strength,
only a bit more shattered and worn, their polished
walls telling of many a Titan shock.

A glance at the southeastern coast of Maine shows
this sheet of dark water to be, if not the largest in-

40 Y^' ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

dentation of the series of bays and salt-water inlets
which give to the whole coast its irregular contour
and marked characteristics of rugged strength and
attractiveness, possessed of a more delicate charm
and fascination than either the Penobscot or the
Passamaquoddy, with its islands, their outlying ledges
and low, rocky reefs anchored so thickly about, long,
narrow and thickly wooded, every one of them trend-
ing to the southwest. This very plainly indicates
the course of the immense glacier, that, ages ago,
left its footprints, not only among these sea-girt
rocks, but along a line hence that would take one
over the highest of New Hampshire's AMiite Hills,
where other footprints of the same might}^ force are
as plainly to be seen.

At the Pejepscot, or easterly end of this bay, these
islands, together with Harpswell Neck, resemble a
huge hand outspread in the midst of the sea; and
as one sails down through them to the southward,
the snowy summits of the far-off New Hampshire
mountains are plainly discernible, forming the extreme
western horizon. About Harpswell Neck, so the
legend runs, was the old-time cruising-ground of the
"Dead Ship." The ill-boding prophecy of its appear-
ing, but a few years ago, was wont to terrify the credu-
lous crones and fisher-wives of Orr's Island, who
watched for its coming with the keenest anxiety and
dread.

"Old men still walk the Isle of Orr

Who tell her date and name ;
Old shipwrights sit in Freeport yards,

Who hewed her oaken frame."

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 41

And now, when the boats are late, the olden tale
comes to mind; and the gray phantom of a ship
beating slowly landward, with silent and deserted
decks, leaves its weird picture on the imagination.
Bright skies and cool seas dispel such vagaries; but
with the dark lowering storm swept along the wooded
headlands, and over the barren sands before the fu-
rious winds, the vision of boats among the breakers
and of desperate men struggling with the merciless
waters is too often one of stern reality.

Along the bluffs and sandy dunes of the shore that
vniwinds like a tangled thread among the Cascoe
islands, are isolated fish-
ing hamlets, — brown,
weather-beaten houses 1' 1>
among the rocks, - — '■ ^^

often perched high ^,_^ -^WM
up against a ^'iH

background -'•■■-"^^^Mx/' ' . ,^,
of scanty birch "^^^^^^ kzr^j^^-s^ w

growth. With the "^^^-E^^^^- 33*===^

fishing-boats drawn up on

the sands below, and the quaintly-dressed figures
of their dwellers, they are exceedingly picturesque
and afford fine studies for the painter. A ship
with full-blown sails against the sky, a sea that
looks "wet," — with such inimitable art are the
colors laid on, — is a beautiful thing; but there is
nothing human about it. An old interior with all
the paraphernalia of everyday living, with a touch
of humanity about it, a child at play among the

42 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

knotted seines, a net-mender, a bar of sunshine,
is a poem, with all the rhythm and speech and
sympathetic quality of poetic expression.

"When the tide is out, the yellow marsh-grasses
bend under the breeze. Flocks of sea-birds scurry
over the odorous flats. Here and there, dun-colored
stacks of marsh hay with sharpened domes, break the
monotony of these salt levels. Wide-mouthed rivers
stretch seaward; the broad mouth of the Presumscot
makes an arm of the bay; farther south is Casco
River fringed with black wharves, once the hermit
settlement of Ingersoll. It is no wonder these beau-
tiful waters, with their numerous coves, and inlets,
and snug places for the sheltering of vessels, attracted
the attention of the storm-beaten voyager of the
early days. No doubt then, as now, the bay was
possessed of the same delicate tones of light and shade,
its grays, browns, yellows and purples, its emerald or
slaty waters, its wood-embossed landscapes of ever-
varying attraction. In these clays, frequently on
summer afternoons, dense low-hanging mists gather
about the roadsteads, choking them entirely; throw-
ing across the gateways of the offings, bars of dulled
silver; or slowly creep between the islands, and with
stealthy, hesitating movement roll away inland,
leaving the worn crags and gray ledges more sharply
defined than ever in the strong, clear sunlight. The
dancing waters, the soft blue sky pictured with flying
clouds that one sees only by the sea, and the snowy
sails of the ships beating in, or out the narrow
channels, are but parts of a picture to be seen from

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 43

the heights of the ukl town that has grown up within
the shelter of this southernmost headland.

From the Merrimac to the Kennebec extended the
Laconia Grant. It was a goodly country. Hither
came many an adventurous man from the Massachu-
setts settlements, the tide setting noticeably to the
eastward before the Plymouth Colony had obtained
its foothold. Richmond's Island, Monhegan and
Pemaquid were then prominent fishing stations, and
had their influence in opening this territory to men
of the type of George Cleeve, who, if ancient report
be true, was a man of brave parts, shrewdness, grit,
and untiring energy, and a considerable politician;
for, outwardly a good subject of the king, he found no
difficulty in espousing the cause of Cromwell, His
service in Cromwell's army, — for he went from
Cascoe to take up arms for the Commonwealth, —
proved a profitable venture to himself, for it strength-
ened his title from Gorges by his purchase of the
old charter rights from Rigby, one of Cromwell's
officers.

When Cleeve returned to Cascoe, there came with
him a young fellow who became an inmate of his
household. There was another who became inter-
ested in this newcomer, we may believe more for
companionship's sake than through any warmer in-
terest, — for it is quite likely pretty Betsey Cleeve
was as demure as a Puritan maid of those times
should be. Alas for demureness and maidenly sim-
plicity! It was not long before Betsey's heart went
into the clearings with her lover, while his remained

44

Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

with the red-cheeked girl, spinning wool and flax, or
weaving the family homespun in the cumbrous
wooden-loom. It is not unlikely this colonial court-
ship went as smoothly, and pleasantly, in the firelight
of this log-sheltered hearth of two centuries and a
half ago, smothered in deeps of drifting snows, as it
does to-day within the parlors of the stately brown-
stone fronts that overlook the site of this first love-
making in these parts. Betsey's lover had one ad-

LONGFELLOWS BIRTHPLACE

vantage J^oung men do not have nowadays : there
was no "other fellow" constantly fanning the flame
of his uneasiness; and there is no intimation that the
course of his affection did not run smoothly, — for it
is a recorded fact that Elizabeth Cleeve became Mrs.
Michael Mitton in due time, the first English mar-
riage in this section: a very interesting event, in
which the whole neighborhood, which then consisted
of two families, no doubt actively participated.

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 45

Mitton was more fortunate in his romancing than
the brave Standish.

In the case of John Winter against George Cleeve,
one of the earUest and most important legal con-
tests heard in the Courts of Provincial Maine, the
deposition of William Gibbins, Mariner, dated Sep-
tember 8th, 1640, "saith that the River which runs
vp by Mr. Arthur Mackworthes house was called
by the name of Casco River for seventeene yeares
gone or there about e."

From this it would seem that Gibbins was here
about 1623. As Mr. Baxter says, it was ''c^uite
likely that Gibbins was one of Levett's men, and
perhaps one of the ten, whom Levett left in charge
of the ' strong house ' which he built — perhaps at
Machegonie — before his return home."

This "Casco River" was the Presumpscot. Here
about 1635, Mackworth built a house. He was
undoubtedly a companion of "factor Vines," who
came over in 1630, to take up his grant at Saco.
On the northeastern bank of the Presumpscot, was
a point of land which the Indians called Menickoe;
and it w\as here that the Mackworth manse was built,
and which he dignified by the name of "Newton."
It was a spacious house for the times according to
tradition, and beautiful for location, — a breezy and
sightly spot, commanding a wide view of this bay of
many islands. Its Indian name was Menickoe, which
in the language of the aborigine, meant the place
of pines; and, although, in these days, one sees
naught but fertile fields, and scattered growths of

46 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

(loeiduous trees, and runs of alders and dwarf birches;
yet, in the time of Mackworth, here was, d()u})t-
less, a pine-chid rib of land that broke the low-rol-
ling mists of the bay apart, to send them up the
Presumpscot on the flood of the tide, or eastward,
Pejepscot way. It was an enchanting, and an ideal
country; and here Mackworth spent his days in
gentlemanly leisure; meanwhile bringing up a nu-
merous family, and doing a deal of entertaining. Mack-
worth was famous for his gracious hospitality, and
Mistress Mackworth was a most charming helpmeet.
It was he who made the delivery of seizin to Cleeve
and Tucker in 1637, by "twig and turf," according
to the old English custom, of what is now the charm-
ing city of Portland, or rather that part originally
incorporated as such.

Mackworth's occupancy of these Presumpscot
lands is still kept in mind by the rehabilitation of
Meckinoe into the corruption of Mackworth, —
namely, commonplace Mackey, by which cognomen,
the point and an island adjacent, are now known.
And here is Martin's Point, where is now estab-
lished the Government Marine Hospital, and which
recalls Widow Martin ; for here was the Martin farm,
where young Benjamin Martin was killed by the
Indians in one of their skulking excursions here-
about.

Cleeve may well be called the pioneer of this
part of the Province, coming here with Tucker, as
he did, in 1633, from Spurwinke two years earlier
than Mackworth. Tucker was in a way a subordi-

Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 47

nate or servant of C'leeve, who later brought a
suit for an accounting for .services in the Saco Court.
Not nuich is heard of him after a year or so of the
sojourning here. Cleeve seems to have been the
man of affairs. Before the coming of Cleeve and
Tucker, however, another had preceded them; for
there was a goodly liouse on one of the islands adja-
cent to the mouth of Fore River, the tide stream
which Gibbins confounded with the Presumpscot.
This house was built by Christopher Levett, who
came over here in 1623 in a vessel of his own, and
who sailed up the Presumpscot, perhaps to the Falls.
He made a considerable exploration of the coast
hence, to the southward as far as the mouth of the
Piscataqua, where he was the guest of one Thom])son,
perhaps the earliest settler about the immediate mouth
of that picturesquely beautiful stream. He made
written memoranda of his impressions of the country
and his experiences. He had a commission, in which
Capt. Robert Gorges, Capt. Francis West, and the
Governor of New Plymouth were associated with him,
"for the ordering and governing of New England."
He came as one clothed wdth authority; but there
was but little opportunity for the exercise of such,
with only the defunct enterprise of Popham at
Pemaquid, and the straggling hamlet on Cape Cod;
with the bare possil^ility that Neale, as the agent for
Gorges and Mason, mider their patent of August, 1622,
might have been laying the stone foundations of
Mason's house around Quamphegan Falls on the
Piscatac^ua. Undoubtedly Levett preceded Neale by

48 y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

some time, as Levett was the guest of Thompson at
Odiorne's Point; and Thompson left his cabin imme-
diately upon Neale's coming, of which the latter took
possession for himself.

One of his first acts upon his coming to Casco,
was to ingratiate himself into the good graces of the
Queen of Quack, — in other words, he procured a
grant, upon his arrival, of the site of Casco Neck
and four islands in the harbor, from the wife of the
Sagamore of this locality. The "Sagamore's wife" is
the " queen," undoubtedly, with whom Levett sailed
to Quack, along with the prince, the dog, and the
kettle. Levett gave this place the name of York;
and Charles I. recognized it as York, as well, in the
interest which he subsequently took in the affairs of
Levett. It was here at Casco, and without doubt,
on one of the four islands at the entrance to the
harbor, that he built his house. There was a house
on House Island for years before Cleeve came here,
and there was no other house mentioned; therefore
it is entirely rational to say that the improvements
on House Island were those of Levett. Levett says
he fortified his house. If he was so cautious as that,
he could not, in the exercise of good judgment have
selected a better, or safer, location. This forsaken
cabin was used by fishermen for years after its aban-
donment by Levett's ten men who were left behind.
It was in a degree isolated, and of limited area, and
swept the harbor in all directions.

It must have been of some considerable dimen-
sions, to accommodate its garrison of ten, who were

Yi'^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 49

to see to its care and protection while he should sail
to England for his family, and make his return.
He makes a record that he "fortified it in a reason-
able good fashion." He seems to have had not much
knowledge of the natives, even by hearsay; for, by
his relation it is evident he expected some inter-
ference. Levett's intent was evident. He found
the country attractive; and he hatl decided to make
it the scene of his future adventurings. That he
did not return, was by reason of the unsettled state
of international affairs between England and Spain.
After some delay of a year or more, and owing to
his inability to enlist the royal aid, he became dis-
couraged. In 1627, he got the royal ear; and Charles
I. ordered the churches of York to take a contri-
bution to assist him in the building of a new city in
the land which Levett had spyed out. This city
was to be called York. After that, the story of
Levett is involved in obscurity, and nothing more
is heard of him. His men at Casco scattered, the
residence at House Island, set up with so many
fond hopes, and in which he hoped to install his
family, was given over to absence, and decay. But
his labor was not lost; for that fair city of York
which Charles saw building over-seas, became the
famed Gorgeana of Accomintas; and it was about
the waters of York River instead of Casco Bay, that
these projected activities were to be in some degree
realized.

At this time, and for twoscore years after the
coming of Cleeve, here was the wilderness of the

50 YE ROMAXCE OF CASCO BAY

aborigine. At best, Casco Neck was a thin and
scattered hamlet, even as late as the beginning of
the Indian forays of 1675; but in the days when
Winter and Cleeve were pleading and repleading
before Thomas Gorges, a half-dozen log-houses, squat-
ted, here and there, between Fore River and Indian
Cove, made up the tale of its inhabitants. It is a
good three miles from one point to the other, and
few of these huts were within sight each of the other.
Except, where the conflagrations, started from the
Indian camp-fires, had over-nm the woodlands, or
with here and there, a rough-set opening where the
neighboring tril^es grew their maize, the remainder
of the comitry was an unbroken and unexplored
wilderness. Casco Neck was ahnost an island at
high tide, with an area of considerable extent; and
from the water's edge, on the harbor front, the
dense woods crept up over its somewhat elevated
spine, to dip again to the flats of Back Cove. Amid
these forests were swamps, which afforded ample
lurking place for the savage.

Recalling Joc5dyn's quaint relations of his sport-
ing exploits along with Michael Mitton, and how
a red shred of cloth was as good a bait as any, for
the taking of fish, one can imagine these old-time
worthies, like Cammock, and his contemporaries
among the adjacent settlements, with their muskets
and fishing-lines, starting out after fish, fowl, and
larger game; jaunting up and down these shores, or
through the woods of Cape Elizabeth, or the Neck.
And how abimdant a supply that must have been,

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 51

when the herring were piled in windrows along [\w
Scarborough sands, so that one walked through
them ''half-way to his knees!"

The wild pigeons flew in clouds to darken the
sun; and when the sun was down, they went to roost
among the forest trees, loading their branches so
they broke under their w(Mght, and the settlers
gathered them by torchlight, in bags. They were
the pests of the early rye-fields; and, after a time,
were netted like fish. The streams, unpolluted by
the refuse from the sa\Mnills, or factory chemicals,
were thronged with salmon; and the red spot trout
were so plenty that they could be caught with the
hand, or kicked ashore with the foot. A bear-steak,
or a haunch of venison, could be had by a shot
almost from one of these cabin thresholds. The
coves and inlets along the island or mainland shores,
were the breeding-places of the succulent lobster,
and were to be had for the picking up at every shal-
low tide. Mackerel and cod followed the shallows
in schools; and on Back Cove that ran from Sandy
Point westward, toward the Capisic River, and up
into what was later, Brackett's woods, was the al-
most continuous sound of duck's wings along the
water; for here were excellent feeding-grounds for
sea-fowl; and among the grasses of the wide marshes
they bred in countless numbers. Here was a hun-
ter's paradise; and had it not been for this super-
abundance of natural food-su]jply, the settler's larder
would have many a time run short. I have heard
old men relate, how, in their boyhood, a bushel-

52 r^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

basket of largo trout were taken from the brook in
a few dips of a coarse hand-net; and which were
pickled, or corned, in barrels, mackerel-fashion, and
stored for winter use. Nor was this all. Every
meadow had its otter-slide; and every brook, or con-
siderable stream, its beaver-dam; and the fur-trade
was most profitable. With the predatory wolf, the
prowling catamount, and the treacherous, cat-like
lynx, came an added element of personal danger
that lent an adventurous cast to this frontier life.

Richmond's Island, through all these days, was
an important trading station where numerous men
were employed, and a quotation from Winter's ac-
counts is suggestive, —

£ s. d.
" For 95 ducks at 4d. p duck from Benjamin

atwell is 1118

" foull from Myhell Myttinge of Casko, geese

at Is. pece, 4d. a pace for ducks, & 2d.

a pece for taill, which amounted to 8 13

".32 ducks at 4d. p duck is los. 8d., & 14

geese at Is. p goose is 14s., from John

Bouden of Blacke pointe, all is 14 8"

Epicurean times, when such gastronomic delecta-
tions were possible; and at, ye gods, what prices,
when a pair of wild fowl in these days is cheap at
a dollar and a half!

In these days one may spend his time between
sun and sun, scouring the fiats of Fore River, from
its wide-flaring mouth, to where the silver thread of
the Capisic comes trickling down to meet the tide;

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

53

or beat up the meadows beyond Martin's Point, and
one may hardly see a blue-winged teal, a stray rail,
or a snipe on ragged wing.

Mitton became a favorite with, his wife's father,
for the latter gave him considerable grants of land,
notably of Peak's Island, which in the early days went
by the name of Momitjoy's, and known still earlier
as Pond Island, I believe. Cleeve gave hun a

SIMONTON COVE

large tract of land on the Cape Elizabeth side of
Fore River, w^here Mitton lived for some time. This
is now identified as the Widgery Farm. It was on
a pomt reaching into this stream, designated by
Willis, as Clark's; but Mr. Baxter says this is an
error.

There was no need in those days of an Annanias
Club, with only the famous trio of Mitton, Jocylyn,
and Cammock for story-tellers. These men were
intimates; and their visits back and forth were of

64 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

great frequency. The distance between Casco and
Black Point was not far, with a fair wind; and with
plenty of aqua-vitse, a crackling fore-stick, and such
jolly fellowship, what roars of mirth, stories of Mer-
man and Triton, adventurous and startling exploits,
and marvels of escape and dangers, real or imag-
ined, set the rafters of these rude shelters a-quiver!
Jocylyn hints at some of these tales in his journal,
but they are only the bare threads from which the
original webs were woven.

Men build their camps in the deeps of the wil-
derness in these days ; but their experiences are hardly
up to an expurgated edition of the racy originals
with which Mitton and his acquaintance were once
so familiar.

With now and then a new settler, the hamlet grew
slowly. The Indians came and went; bringing in
their furs, bartering them for "kill-devil," and such
other things as answered their needs, or their fancy;
and this place came to be a considerable trading-
post, which aroused great jealousy in the mind of
John Winter, the agent of Trelawney at Richmond's
Island.

The first dwellings at Casco were around Mach-
igonne Point, east of Clay Cove. If the curious
would be better satisfied with the exact locality,
he will find this old stamping-ground about the new
terminal station of the Grand Trunk Railway. East-
ward was the home of Mackworth. Richard Mar-
tin was at Martin's Point; and from thence keep-
ing to the southward, and following the trend of the

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 55

shore around the base of the Western Promenade,
and up Fore River and across to Stroudwater, was
the course of the early extension of the settlement
of Casco Neck. Across Fore River, in the vicinity
of Fort Preble, was Purpooduc; and it was here the
Phippens, Whites, Stannafords, Penleys, and Wal-
lises lived. At Spurwinke, lived Robert Jordan, who
ministered spiritually to the contingent at Winter's
trading station; and who married the only daughter
of Winter; and who, thereby, through his wife, en-
joyed the emoluments of his father-in-law's absorp-
tion of the Trelawney Grants, the first land-steal of
which we have any record in this new country ; unless
the aborigine may have had the original right by
preemption. According to Willis, five or six fam-
ilies occupied the territory between the eastern and
western extremities of what is now the city proper.
Cleeve's was to the east. Mitton was in the west;
and Tucker's house was between the two. Falmouth
town was of large area. All of these isolated locali-
ties, with Spurwinke as the western limit, were in-
cluded in its jurisdiction. This was the status of
the place about 1675, the total number of its families
being about forty.

At this time, which was 1675, the thirteen settle-
ments in the Dominion of Maine contained a popu-
lation of perhaps six thousand, widely dispersed, and,
for that reason, miable to successfully repel savage
attack. After long years of peaceful intercourse a
tragedy was to be enacted, whose run depended upon
French muskets, French intrigue, and Indian savag-

56 Y^^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

ery. The stars in this real tragedy were all of local
reputation except when Baron Castine left his Penob-
scot wigwam to play some leading part in the mas-
sacre that was sure to come.

King Philip, uneasy and jealous of the English
settler, was slowly perfecting plans for his extermina-
tion. The English, guilty of constant encroachment
upon the hunting-grounds of the Indians, had afforded
sufficient provocation, which was augmented by the
restrictions imposed upon the settlers by the General
Court of Massachusetts, prohibiting the sale of arms

FORT GORGES

to the Indians, or the repairing of them for use by
the Indians.

The Indian, after thirty years of acquaintance with
the English nmsket, had become a stranger to the use
of the bow and flint-head arrow. It was impossible
to undo his education in the use of firearms. His
living depended in great part upon the unerring aim
of his musket. It was too late. Messengers carried
the news of the coming of the commissioners to dis-
arm the natives to every tribe on the northern fron-

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 57

tier; antl a state of suspicion and liostility resulted
which prepared the Indians, urged on by the French,
who were jealous of the English advance toward
Acadia, for the treacherous overtures of Philip's em-
issaries and to engage in the war, which broke out in
the midsummer of 1675.

The first act in this tragedy, which, with few in-
tervals of quiet, lasted forty years, was that of the
New Meadows River, a Brunswick stream, a few
miles to the eastwartl. A settler's house was robbed
of its guns and annnunition, and his cattle killed.
What would have happened to the settler and his
son had they not fled on their horses is a matter of
speculation. The settler's wife was unharmed. A
few days later, Stogummor, better known as Fal-
mouth in the colonial geography, was partly de-
stroyed, and this was followed by an aggressive cam-
paign on the settlers in these parts after the desul-
tory style of Indian warfare. Bands of marauding
savages were scattered over the province, burning,
killing and making captives. The most hideous
atrocities were committed at French instigation, and
the settlements were demoralized; for the larger part
of this, Castine and Pere Rasle were responsil^le. The
seventh of October in this year was observed by the
English colonies as a day of fasting and prayer,
which might have been more profitably observed
at an earlier period in the interest of the prevention
of -those acts of which the savages had abundant
cause to complain, and the bitter fruits of which the
settlers were now reaping. The first act of the trag-

68 r-B ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

edy extended over a period of three years, when the
Peace of Casco was consummated, and Massachusetts
took Maine under her colonial wing by a sort of
pro])rietary purchase.

Marquette, Joliet and La Salle, with other mis-
sionaries, had penetrated the western wildernesses.
Along the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and the
Mississippi, to the Gulf, a chain of French posts had
been established. The English regarded this exten-
sion of the French boundary, as threatening rights
under their charter from James I., by which they
claimed all the territory from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, south of a line drawn along the latitude of
the north shore of Lake Erie, and thence westward.
On the other hand, the French claimed the territory
watered by the Great River, by reason of their being
the earliest explorers and settlers. The French
claim was certainly well-founded. Whatever causes
combined to engage the two nations in war, this was
a sufficient cause in those days of jealous acquisition
of territory in the New AVorkl. Best known in his-
tory as King William's War, the war was marked by
a wickedness and devastation never before known in
the annals of Lidian warfare, and falling heaviest
along the northwestern frontier of New England.
Most of the remote settlements had been destroyed
or abandoned. This settlement on Casco river was
to share the fate of Dover, and Schenectady. During
the summer of 1689, the depredations of the Indians
were extended to the whole frontier. None knew
how, or when the blow was to fall. Settlers were

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 59

hardly safe in the larger towns and settlements.
Men carried their muskets slung to their backs as
they wended their way to church, or wrought in the
fields with plough or scythe. The low fences of rails,
and ragged, uprooted stumps, which formed the
primitive boundaries of their limited domains, and
the thick shadows of the neighboring woodlands were
constantly scrutinized for the hidden foe.

Acute to an abnormal degree, a literal translator
of the hieroglyphics of nature, inured to exposure,
fatigue and hunger, always alert, no vigilance could
protect the settler from the craft and treachery of
this nomad of the wilderness. Very early in the
war, few settlers w^ere to be found east of the Pis-
cataqua. It was a war of extermination. Monhe-
gan, a fishing station at the eastern limit of Casco
Bay, offered five pounds for every Indian head. By
proclamation, savages were outlawed.

Topographically, Cascoe was almost an island.
The tides from the sea swept up the bay and through
the narrow gap at the north end of the neck, up over
the flats of Back Cove, a broad inlet making into the
mainland and extending well back to the westward;
while, on the south and west, were the deep waters of
Casco River. This river swamg round to the north-
ward, so that at high tide the sea, east and west, al-
most met. The rough clearings of this earlier set-
tlement had become fertile fields, that extended
beyond the spine, or ridge, that ran midway the
length of the peninsula and down to the edge of
the salt creek that bounds the new city park with

60 1'^' ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

its acres of ancient oaks, better known as Deering
Woods.

Cleeve was dead; Tucker had gone to Portsmouth.
Fisheries, lumber, and agriculture were the engage-
ments of the people. The trade at Richmond's
Island had been diverted to Casco on the east; and
York and Kittery on the west. Then came King
Philip's War; and like a bolt from out the sky, the
savage horde swept down upon this settlement; and
with fire and axe the devastation was thorough
and complete, in which thirty-four individuals were
slain, or carried captive into the wilderness, among
whom the inmates of the Brackett home were num-
bered. Thomas Brackett was killed, along with
John Munjoy and Isaac Wakely, all leading men at
the Neck. In 1678, a Peace Compact was entered
into here, between the Colonial Government and the
Indians; and slowly, those who escaped the ruth-
less tomahawk returned to their houseless acres.
Two years later, Fort Loyall was erected near the
foot of India Street; and in the latter part of that
year, 1860, Governor Danforth came down from Bos-
ton, and a Court was held within its walls; and an
orderly arrangement was effected, by which the set-
tlers were to receive better protection. The record
says, — " The fort was erected and the houselots
ordered on a considerable part of Cleeve's corn-
field." Or in other words, the settlement was com-
pacted into semblance of solidarity.

A stone house was built on Munjoy Hill, Eastern
Promenade, by Captain Lawrence. After this, the

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 61

secontl growth of the old town was rapid. Edward
Tyng was the first commander of Fort Loyall, who
was afterward appointed Governor of Annapohs; hut
saihng thither, he was captured by the French, and
died in France, a prisoner of war. In 1690 the popu-
lation was seven hundred ; and Willis says, — " Of
this number, about twenty-five families lived on the
Neck, forty at Purpooduck, Spurwink, and Stroud-
water; the remainder at Back Cove, Capisic, and
Presumpscot."

The establishment of the stronghold at Casco, was
a thorn in the French flesh. The French had long
maintained a foothold at Norridgewack, and on the
Penobscot, where Castine held sway; and it was the
ultimate purpose of the French to absorb the entire
Province of Maine. In order to accomplish this,
the Indians must be incited to other and further
atrocities against these frontier settlements. The
authorities in Canada were prompt in their reports
to the Home Government, and were fertile in their
suggestions and plans; and the response of the
Home Government was ready and generous. The
French were most fortunate in the possession of
these nomad allies; and under their schooling they
were formidable, and much to be dreaded antago-
nists. Rasle at Norridgewack, was untiring in his
devotion to the church, and let slip no opportunity
to impress upon the untutored mind of the savage,
that his sole errand in life was the complete and utter
extirpation of the " Yengees" " from the face of New
England, and more especially the coast of Maine."

62 I'i' ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

He was especially diligent in inculcating daily the
lessons of devotion to the Cause of the Church, which
was primarily the extension of the Jesuit influence;
and secondarily, the widening of its territory. All
this was legitimate enough, perhaps, but the bar-
barities practised by his uncouth and brutal tools,
were as well chargeable to the rude ideas of civili-
zation, and its rights, common to the times. The
underlying principle was aggrandizement. There was
an immense profit in the trade of the New World,
and perhaps the acquisitions of Spain around the
Gulf of Mexico, and the immense value of its mines
of silver acquired under the Conquests of Pizarro,
and those who came after him, were at the bottom
of the French cupidity. In this warfare, the French
were hardly better than brigands.

And, again, the activity of the French, and the
inactivity of the authorities of Massachusetts Bay,
were notable. There was a strain of meanness run-
ning through the administration at Boston, that
could not but provoke the criticism of those to whom
it should have lent its active interest. It was an
administration for Revenue only. It levied taxes
promptly upon its Provincial possessions; and was
as prompt, and severe, in its collection of them; but
when it came to the depleting of its treasury for the
maintenance of a sufficient force to protect its fron-
tier interests, its machinery moved with exceeding
slowness, and generally not at all. Casco was a
most promising colony; and, according to its loca-
tion so far eastward, a rapidly growing one. Its

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 63

trade was important. Its people were orderly, in-
dustrious, and highly intelligent. It was a settle-
ment to be nursed and protected; yet it was, in the
main, left to its own devices in times of stress and
extreme danger.

After Fort Loyall was built, its support became
irksome to Massachusetts. The General Court did
not care to pay out more than it received; and a
glance at its now ancient records will show its dis-
position in the numerous orders, passed at one time
and another, which were, however, of little real or
solid benefit to the object of so much futile legis-
lation. Here is one order, which would indicate the
indifferent estimation of the General Court toward
the Casco settlement:

"The survey or gennerall is ordered to deliver
vnto Capt. Edward Ting for the use of Fort Loyall
one barrell of powder of the meanest of the countries
store and waist, and the value to be repajed by the
Treasurer as soon as the quit-rents come in."

Casco was not alone in this neglectful experience.
It was the same with all the settlements south, to
Portsmouth. It was apparently a well-defined and
understood policy, this ignoring of the rights of the
settlements in the Province of Maine. And it was
well adhered to.

It was decided by the French Government that
the fort at Casco must be annihilated; and the later
attack upon this place was the result of mature
deliberations by the Court of Versailles. It was
approved by Louis XIV.; and it was a part of the

64

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

general assault to be made on all the English settle-
ments as far as New York. The English were to
be driven out; and the Fleur de lis of France and the
Bee-spangled banner of Louis, upheld and borne
along upon the yells of the Indian devils, and guer-
doned by the trailing smokes of the English cabins,
was to extend New France to the River of Hendrik
Hudson. Able militarists were despatched to head
the wild forces of the Abenake woods; and after

OLD FORT HALIFAX

due preparation and equipment, the onslaught was
to be made. This happened in 1690. As early as
1688 outbreaks occurred here and there; nor was
the English Government unaware of the French pur-
pose. The War of King William kept its pace.
It was a sympathetic chord in the contest then going
on between France and England, across the water.
James II. had been deposed. William and Mary
had assumed the English throne. The revolution

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 65

which had accompHshecl this, drew Louis into the
espousing of the cause of the Stuarts, and he thus be-
came the aggressive defender of the dethroned James.
It was the fight that ahvays came, when Jesuit
and Protestant found their interests at odds. While
the fight was on across the seas, httle regard was had
for the interests of the colonists.

While this was going on, the saw-mills in the
Provinces were taxed for the support of this fort
at Casco; and the amount of the tax was around
.$500. per annum. The uprising in Boston against
the unpopular and tyrannical Sir Edmund Andros,
who was Governor of New England at this time,
resulted in his arrest there on the 18th of April,
1689, and afterward, his deportment to England
for trial. Andros was represented at Fort Loyall
by Captain Lockhart. Like his master, he was of
the Jesuit faith, and his soldiers rebelled and de-
serted the fort, refusing to serve under him. About
the Province similar episodes occurred in the several
forts, leaving them defenceless, so hateful was the
name of a Papist to the the ear of the settler. Papist
and Indian were transposable terms. For fifty years,
the venturous and hardy Fathers of the Church of
Rome had traversed the wilderness, from the mouth
of the St. Lawrence to the land of the Hurons; and
southward, their outposts had been established on
the Kennebec. The titled Castine had become the
step-son of Madockawando, and had chosen his home
among the wigwams of the Tan-atines along the banks
of the Penobscot. It was a piece of astute diplo-

66 Yf-^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

macy; for through Castine, the French exercised un-
b()iiiul(Hl sway over the savage tribes of New France.
If the athninistration at Boston ever had any care
for the interests of the settler in Maine, it was badly
exliibited in the Andros expedition to the Penob-
scot in the spring of 1688, where he plundered Cas-
tine's residence, visiting his brutality likewise on the
Indians whom he found there. This unwarranted
and ill-atlvised proceeding, on the part of Andros,
crystallized the purpose of Castine, who was some-
thing of a pacific by nature, into goading his savage
allies to burn and kill upon all occasions, and made
him a willing and active coadjutor of Frontenac,
then Governor of Canada.

Frontenac had JDeen to France. This same year
so fraught with rebellion to Andros, he had returned.
He brought explicit instructions to begin operations
against New England, and New York, The plan
of the French campaign had been thoroughly dis-
cussed; and the French and Indians in Canada were
roused to a pitch of enthusiasm, especially the latter,
to whom Frontenac was, indeed, a father. The
colonies were anxious, even fearful, and correspond-
ingly depressed.

The first surprise was made upon a small settle-
ment at Yarmouth, and not so far away but a fleet
rurmer could reach Casco in little over an hour's
time. There was a garrison-house here in process
of construction, upon which the settlers were at
work ; but the enemy came too soon. Near by, two
men had been killed while out hunting up their oxen;

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

67

and immediately after, the assault was made on the
workmen. The fight became a general one; the
English retiring to the river, where they were pro-
tected by a high cliff. Here they made a decided
stand. Across the river were other settlers who took
the alarm. Among these was Capt. Walter Glen-
dall. Suddenly the firing under the river bank
ceased. Glendall, with a bravery common to the

AN OLD GARRISON HOUSE

■settler of the time, secured a bag of powder and ball,
and made for his boat, but was too late. Just as he
was leaping into his boat, he was struck mortally;
and throwing the bag with a wonderful strength, he
shouted, — ''I have lost my life in your service!"
but before he died he heard the renewed shots from
the river-side; and with the rattling of the mus-
ketry for his requiem, he fell into his boat, dead.

68 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BA Y

The Yarinouth settlers made a sturdy defence, and
beat off their assailants, who retired to Lane's Island,
down the bay, to spend the night in an uproarious
carousal. These settlers fled to the islands, and
finally escaped to Boston. This was in mid-August
of 1688.

Immediately after this, George Andros of Boston
raised a force of seven hundred men, with which he
went as far as Pemaquid, Nothing was accom-
plished; yet there was something in the raising and
disposition of a force of such numbers, that augured
a breaking away from the indifference that had so
long been the Massachusetts policy. The Govern-
ment that succeeded him dropped, at once, back into
the same lethargic disposition, from w^hich Andros
seemed to have broken away; and whatever their
conviction may have been as to the importance of
maintaining a strong post at Casco, it merged into
acute atrophy. With the successful holding out of
Fort Loyall, the eastern frontier would have oper-
ated as a menace to invading forces; and would, in
some degree, have served as a check to the ravages
that swept over Cape Neddock, and up over the
back-lots of Kittery. As it was, its defence was
left to the brawn and courage of the Casco settlers,
after a fashion. After repeated demand, Massachu-
setts did send Captain Church and a small troop of
soldiers and friendly Indians, and a pitched battle
was had, October, 1689, in what is now Deering
Park. After a stiff rencounter, Church won out;
and the Indians retired to their wilds beyond the

YE ROMANCK OF CASCO BAY

69

Penobscot. Rejoicing in their success, the settlers
knew, that with the returning springtime, the butch-
ery would be renewed; and Church, assuring them
that he would come again, marched his force back
to Boston, while the settlers kept to their firesides
for the winter, in comparative safety.

A small company of soldic^rs was left in the fort,

under Captain Willard. But Frontenac was not
idle. His plans were soon to be put into activity.
Three parties were to be sent out; and the first
set out for Schenectady, which was destroyed in
February, following. Of all the horrible butcheries
that history records, that is midoubtedly the worst.

70 y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

Another detachment, under Hartel, started by the
way of Three Rivers the last days in January. In
March they were at Salmon Falls, New Hampshire.
This was a midnight assault. Salmon Falls was
burned, and its settlers slaughtered in cold blood.
This attack, however, resulted in a retreat, and the
Indians made their way to the Kennebec to meet
the force which was to make Casco its viltimate des-
tination.

This was headed by Portneuf. He led his force
overland to the head-waters of the Kennebec, and
thence, down stream, adding to his contingent from
every village; keeping on, until he met St. Castin
and Madockawando. Here they were also joined by
Hartel, and the combined forces camped at Merry
Meeting Bay, where their plans for the assault on
Fort Loyall were finally perfected.

Fort Loyall was in a perilous state. Sir William
Phipps had embarked on his expedition against
Nova Scotia — as if there were not sufficient need to
keep whatever of military force that was to be
had, at home — and had taken Captain Willard and
his soldiers along with him. Willard was succeeded
by Sylvanus Davis, whom Willis describes as the
most energetic man of his time. This was in May,
five days before the combined forces of the French
and Indians appeared under the walls of the fort.
At this time there were not seventy-five available
men in the whole town capable of making a defence.
These were to be opposed to about five hundred of
the allied enemy, who came into Casco Bay in canoes.

YE ROMANCE OF CASVO BAY 71

Phipps had just sailed down the bay on his way
to ArcatHe, and he had been discovered by the in-
vaders, who, with the cautious habit pecuUarly
savage in its nature, waited until the Phipps fleet
should have got four or five days' sail away.

A party of one hundred militia, with a few of the
men from Fort Loyall, scoured the adjacent country
for them. AVhile they were away, some thirty
young men, with more bravery than wit, threw out
a skirmish line over Munjoy's hill, to see if they
could discover any indication of the enemy. The
crest of this hill was perhaps a half-mile from the
fort. Here was a lane embowered in trees that led
to a cabin in the edge of the woods. Here was a
herd of cattle; and the young men noticed them.
The kine were staring in a startled fashion at
the fence which surrounded the enclosure. With a
loud cry the whole party rushed at the barrier, to
meet a blaze of musketry that killed fourteen of
them. Those who got off unharmed, took to their
heels with such success that they got to the fort
safely. This party was under the command of
Lieut. Thaddeus Clark. This was on the fifteenth
of May, 1690; and immediately after the ambush
of Clark's men on Munjoy hill, the savages made
a general attack on the houses in the village, where-
ever the inmates had not had time to get to the fort,
— a series of onslaughts which continued through
that day. During the night the settlers mostly got
into the fort.

The next morning the assault began. The enemy

72 Yf^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

came out into the open and summoned the fort to
surrender.

Captain Davis shouted back, in reply, — " We shall
defend ourselves to the death."

Then the settlement was looted. Here and there,
the flames broke through the roofs, and the air was
thick with smoke and war-whoops, and the boom-
ing of the fort cannon. So the first day passed,
without incident, other than the demoniac uproar
among the French and Indians outside the fort
walls, and the determined attitude of the besieged.
On the second day, the French began a regular ap-
proach by trenching, or mining. Surrender was inev-
itable; but the little garrison held out. Then an
ox-cart, heaped with combustibles, and lighted, was
pushed up to the wooden wall of the fort, which
was at once in a fierce blaze. The white flag was
then shown from the fort.

" Are there any French among you, — and will
you give quarter?" shouted Davis.

" Yes, and we will give good quarters," was the reply.

Then Davis surrendered to Burneffe, who had
charge of the combined forces; and the usual scene
of butchery began. The terms of the capitulation
were violated, and the prisoners were unhesitatingly
turned over to the savages, when the gory tragedy
of Schenectady was enacted anew. Only a few were
left alive, some ten or twelve, and these were carried
captive to Canada. Everything was burned or razed
to the ground; after which, this horde of French and
Indian devils returned to Quebec.

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 73

This downfall of Fort Loyall completed the tale
of disaster to this section of the Province of Maine;
for, after this, all the garrisons east of Wells were
abandoned.

If the Phipps expedition had sailed earlier in the
season, perhaps this settlement of Casco would have
remained unmolested; as, not long afterward, the
French ceased their operations in Maine, having
enough to do in o})posing the invasion of their own
Province.

For fourteen years after, Casco was left to the
dominancy of Nature. If there were anyone here,

it must have been the hermit Ingersoll. There is
a tradition that he remained among the ruins. At
this day one can hardly imagine these things, as
one looks down the bay up which this flotilla came;
yet it all came to pass, as it is written.

The story of the capture of the garrison at Casco
must needs be a short one, but the environment is
interesting. Here was a mimic stage, thronged with
actors, the plot of the play beginning with the French
Occupation, and continuing down through years of

74

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

international quarrel. The French Court was cor-
rupt and conscienceless. The English were stubborn
and stolid. Both were intensely selfish. It was
the English game of shuttle-cock and battle-door,
and the colonists were the unfortunates to bear the
buffets and misfortunes of the contest. Perhaps the
French were more considerate of those who had
sailed away from the sunny slopes of France, than
was England of her Puritan fomenters of religious
discord and dissent. Whichever way it was, the

THE COX HOUSE

English settler would have been exterminated, but
for his bull-dog tenacity, and his like stolid disre-
gard for everything but the preservation of the new
State, which, even then, he saw with prophetic vision.

The trail has been taken at its beginning, and has
been followed, as at a gallop; for one can hardly
span a period of two generations, within so nar-
row a boundary as has marked this glimpse of the
Casco of Cleeve.

The treaty of Ryswick, 1697, terminated the war,

Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

ib

with neither peace, nor safety, to the colonists.
Europe was constantly disturbed by wars, as preg-
nant with disaster to the American colonists as to
the home country. With the advent of the Spanish
succession controversy came the wars of Queen Anne.
The French were particularly active. One of the
results was the Boston expedition against Acadia,
which place was devastated and its peasantry driven
into exile: a never-to-be-forgotten event, — for the
story of Evangeline and her wandering lover thrills

McLELLAN HOUSE

with a pathos which will live as long as the world
has a language. The treaty of Utrecht, 1713, was
followed by thirty years of peace; and the country
about this beautiful bay was again repeopled.

Recalling something of the history of the times,
the death of Charles VI, emperor of Germany, be-
came the occasion of a fierce war for the Austrian
succession, in which all the European powers and
their colonies became actively engaged. Frederick,
the youthful king of Prussia, struck the first blow in

76 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

his attempt to secure Silesia, and succeeded in en-
listing a powerful aid in his support. France joined
the alliance; and England, four years after, declared
war against France. The Massachusetts colonists,
apprehending danger, and anticipating this event by
two years, had, as early as 1742, ordered the erection
of fortifications at Falmouth Neck for the defense of
the harbor; and a fort was built upon the site of old
Fort Loyall. In May, two years later, came the con-
flict which let loose, from their swamps and forest
lairs, the subtle and ever active enemy of the English
settler, — the foe characterized by Cotton Mather as
" half-one and half t'other, half-Indianized French
and half-Frenchified Indians," — whose depreda-
tions were to cease only with Harmon's capture of-
Norridgewock, and the battle of Love well's Pond.
This war was known as King George's, in America.
The principal event in it, was the capture of Louis-
berg, the great stronghold of French America, by
Sir William Pepperell. The war was terminated by
the treaty of Aix la Chapelle. Of the subsequent
hostilities, Canada was the theatre.

From the bluffs of this old town a beautiful pan-
orama of sea and shore, miles in extent, attracts the
attention of the sight-seeing visitor. Behind, are the
roofs of a charming city; and before, is the bay full
of white sails of yachts and ships; while the horizon
of the sea is hazy with the trailing smokes of incoming
and outgoing steamers. Instead of the single dun-
colored sail of Cleeve, there are ships from far Cathay,
^nd from all the world; and there are islands by the

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

77

score, dotted with summer cottages and hotels and
the white tents of the campers. In olden time, these
islands offered great attractions to the settlers, with
their picturesque beauty, their large areas, bold
cliffs and variety of scenery. They were the great
resorts for sea-fowl, whose spring migrations reached
their height about the middle of May, when the
ledges afforded good shooting. Now, one sees noth-
ing but the brown sea-birds or sand-birds, with an

///

A FRUITERER

occasional "ring-neck" or "yellow-leg," whirling
along the flats with a peculiar, quick rolling motion,
like a flurry of leaves in the autumn wind. The
woods and rocks abound in charming nooks, their
floors carpeted with trailing vines and soft mosses,
seamed with byways and old roads, choked with
half-grown bushes and tall, flaunting weeds. The
unfenced island pastures are full of delicate ferns and
lichens, with here and there, among the saucer-
shaped American yew, spots of arbutus growing lux-

7«

r^ ROMANCE OF CA6C0 BAY

uriantly, with great waxen green leaves, blooming in
the early spring, even while the winter snows linger
among the hillocks. Tall, gaunt mulleins are scat-
tered about, sentinel-like, among the gray boulders;
and over the ledges, in sunny spots, trail masses of
the blackberry vine, with richly colored stems and
leaves, and later in the summer, laden with juicy,
dusky fruit. On the ledges, clumps of fire weed reach

THE HARBOR

up their tall, lance-like stalks, flaunting their spiky
blossoms in the sunlight, making one think of crim-
son banners streaked with floss of ripened seeds. As
the wind comes up with the sun, their downy em-
broidery in myriads of tiny shreds is blown over the
pastures, and out upon the blue waters, argosies to
Nowhere.

The outlook is a peculiarly pleasing one, over-
looking as it does the broad expanse of the bay,

Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 79

with all its variety of natural adornment. To the
north and west, beyond the roofs of old Stroudwater,
are patches of forest, making a rare setting for hun-
dreds of thrifty farms that reach far inland and
along the shores of the bay, and forming the sub-
urbs of the city. Eastward the dark line of Harps-
well makes the limit of vision, broad stretches of
water intervening. Overhead the gulls wheel in
silent, graceful flight; and along the horizon of the
sea, soft, bright-colored clouds are piled low down
vipon the gray waters, against which the sunlit sails
of the coasters and fishing-fleets are clearly outlined.
"When the storm-signal is up, the fishing smacks may
be counted by scores in the offings, or within the
shelter of the numerous island roads, or under the
lee of the gray old forts. The dredgers ply their
work with slow and lazy movement, the black smoke
drifting away from their dingy stacks in dense ragged
ribbons as the shovels lift loads of mud from the deeps
of the channels. A different spectacle certainly is
this from that which might have been witnessed here
a hundred and seventy years ago, when the bay un-
der the eastern promontory of the Neck was thronged
with flotillas of gayly decorated Indians from all parts
of the Maine Province, representing the great Etche-
min family by scores of Sagamores and their accom-
panying delegations, — an occasion graced by the
presence of the governors of both Massachusetts and
New Hampshire, all having come together to solem-
nize the Dummer treaty.

A few miles southward are the marshes of Scar-

80

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

borough, where the outlaw Bonython and his comely
daughter made their rude home; and where, as well,
the former held some sway after a savage sort, among
the Saco tribes. Ruth Bonython was a wilding
flower of rare and modest beauty, and equally se-
ductive charm; and with all the passions of a savage,
she loved as other maidens are like to do; yet, all

OFF MARTIN'S POINT

we have left of that, to her, sweet passion, is lost
in the glamor of untold romance. It was the old
story of the times, — a jealous lover, a rival among
the Saco sagamores, a story of hate and treachery,
and that, too, lost, or submerged in a dark tragedy
that lives only among the silences of the woods and
fields that hem the yellow marsh-lands to the sea,
Whittier has hallowed the womanhood of Ruth Bony-
thon in poetic fancy, a legend of fascinating and
romantic character.

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 81

Mogg Megone, whose love for Ruth Bonython cost
her, her own and her lover's life, lived but a few
miles away from the Bonython home. They were
neighbors, with a strip of woods between. His were
the shades of gloomy silence among the Druid-like
shafts of the giant pines and hemlocks; and Ruth
Bonython's, the reaches of open lands that lost them-
selves in the salt-marsh grasses seamed with shallow
creeks, sinuous, each a filiament of translucency to
catch and play riot with every fleeting hue of the
sky, like a pile of rich yellow stuffs overshot with
threads of silver and azure, and all this headed against
the restless sea.

But, here is Sagamore Bonython's epitaph, —

"Here lies Bonython,
Sagamore of Saco;
He lived a rogue,
He died a knave,
And went to Hobomoko."

There is nothing in all this to suggest the site of a
town once so utterly blotted out, that after a half-
generation, no vestige of its former self could be
found, the culmination of a tragedy of which this
sketch affords but the merest outline. Instead of a
wilderness, here is a beautiful city, all of the ap-
proaches to which, by land, are of incomparable
beauty. And it is the same, whether one comes
through the winding avenues of its suburbs, or
through some one of the many gateways where the
countless islands stand in the waters like pickets, the

82

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

shores serrated with low-bastioned forts, each over-
topped by gid(hly-poised derricks that lean as lazily
against the sky; there is enough to fascinate the
stranger so that his indifferent sojourning of hours,
is like to become one of days and weeks, even.

STOGUMMOR

STOGUMMOR

4

X^

\i

that part, purpart, and portion
of land, beginning at the farther-
most point of a neck of land called
by the Indians Machigonne, and
now forever and henceforth to be
called or known by the name of
Stogummor, and so along the same
as it tendeth to the first fall of a little river issuing out
of a very small pond, and from thence overland to the
Falls of Pesumsca, being the first falls in that river,
upon a straight line, containing by estimation from
fall to fall as aforesaid about one English mile, which
together with said neck of land which the said George
Cleeve and Richard Tucker have planted for divers
years already expired is estimated in the whole to
be fifteen hundred acres or thereabouts; as also one
island — known by the name of Hogg Island — to
the end and full term of two thousand years, fully
to be completed and ended."

So read a bit of faded blue paper, upon which

85

86

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

these lines were traced in a delicate hand and with
a wonderful regularity, the beautiful characters of
which had bleached into an aknost invisible yellow
in some parts, so that I had much difficulty in de-
ciphering that which has just passed under the
reader's eye; and even this was fast being destroyed

by the mischievous
mice, for its edges
were gnawed on all
sides, — so evenly
that they reminded
me of a kind of
handiwork my
mother used to do
with her pinking
iron.

This p a p e r,
though mutilated,
was dated in the
early part of the
year 1636, and bore
the appearance of
being quite ancient,
though it c o u 1 d

<^^^^^

t^j

(]{dr^

■LI ec v~e <xt.-\A Ju-ckers '(jLutL,

r"t

aUlwi

hardly have been the original indenture, lacking as it
did the handsome seal of Gorges, and his scrawling
signature as well ; for this old pine chest would be hard-
ly the proper depository, even if it were held among
the treasures of this old-time hostelry, for so distin-
guished a document, in which were originally described
the ancient boundaries of Stogummor, now the site of

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO HAY 87

a certain fair city; but it was an accurate copy cer-
tainly of the (lescrii)tiYe part of the original lease
from Sir Fertl. Clorges to the first two settlers of this
part of the country, — for which, considerable tract
of country, but a hundretl pounds were paid, with a
small annual rental besides. The consideration for
so much land, — and there were several square miles
of it, — seems small indeed; but there had been
difficulty in effecting a settlement on this same spot
only two years before by some adventurers w^ho came
over from the city of London in the good ship Plough,
only to return a few months later, a disheartened
and half-starved colony, — which may have had
something to do with the matter ; unless the fact that
the Council of Plymouth had made so many land-
grants to one person and another, the boundaries
of wdiich overlapped, plunging everybody into land
controversy wdio claimed an acre of land along the
coast, furnished a stronger and better reason. Land
titles were much in doubt, and Indian deeds were
in many instances preferred by settlers to deeds from
the English proprietors. I have in mind a popu-
lous township at the eastern extremity of the great
bay of which this purchase made the southern coast
trend, that was once deeded by Sachem Robin Hood
for a hogshead of corn and thirty pumpkins. This
lease was in fact ecpivalent to a fee simple, in legal
parlance, the seizin to which was no doubt made in
the old-fashioned way, by the lessor or his agent giv-
ing to the lessee a twig or bit of earth taken from
the premises conveyed, — a custom grown obsolete

88 y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO HAY

in these days of crowded poiuilations and sul^divided
titles.

The entire coast-hne of Maine is remarkable for
its historic landmarks, its islands, inlets and wide-
mouthed rivers, and their old-time peoples, whose
history is one of inexorable living; for it was more
than strenuous, environed with such a multitude of
precarious circumstance. Cabot had sailed past its
headlands. "Captyne" John Smith of Virginia fame
had fished in its deep bays, and had filled the sails
of his ships with its pin(>-flavored land breezes, and
drenched them in its dripping, drifting mists; and
later, it became closely identified with the settle-
ments of New France. It was a part of that Ar-
cadie whose little village of Grand Pre has become
the saddest, and yet the sweetest land of romance of
the New World. The floors of its almost pathless
woods were seamed with a network of trails, — be-
wildering almost, as those of Dtedalian Crete, —
that marked the French Occupation.

About the first decade of the seventeenth century,
the pioneer Jesuits, Quentin and DuThet, fired with
holy zeal for the Church, and with a laudable am-
bition in the behalf of the French king, had crossed
the seas with other French adventurers, and had
planted the Cross on what Champlain had named,
"The Isle of Monts Deserts." Here was established
the first Mission on the Maine coast, the Mission of
St. Sauveur; and which w-as shortly after completely
obliterated by Argall in one of his buccaneering
forays; which, to be more exact, was in the summer

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 89

of 1G17. Du Thet was killed, iiuitchlock in hand;
and the only memorial of this ill-starred venture of
the Church, are the crags and wooded slopes that
loom and tower above the waters that bore its vest-
ments hither.

Sieur De Champlain had wintered and explored
amid its deeps of winter snows; had stalked its deer
and moose through its wilderness of dusky spruce,
— the same old forest giants that to-day cast their
gloomy shadows across the waters of the upper Pe-
nobscot, — for here, in the heart of this densely
wooded inland, was old Norridgewack, a French out-
post, and afterward the scene of the Jesuit Rasle's
mission work.

It was here in these deeps of shaggy gloom that
this church diplomat gathered his settlement of In-
dians to school them in the white man's ways of
worship, and as well his art in war. It was here he
built his chapel devoted to priestly service, matin
and vesper, which to the untutored savage were but
mystic rites; and by which Rasle held in leash the
''half-Frenchified Indians," as Mather styled them,
and who were let loose at one time and another upon
the Enghsh settlements from St. George to York,
with Madockatvando or Castine at their head. Rasle's
rude chapel was a most convenient rendezvous for
the perpetrators of these savageries, and which was
partly destroyed by Westbrook's Penobscot expedi-
tion, and a year or so later, completely obliterated
by Harmon of York.

Eastward, where the Penobscot widens out into

90 YE ROMANCE OF C.4*SC'0 BAY

the Bay, yet hardly so far down as the Havens, the
wigwam fires of Baron Castine burned, and with so
steady a glow, that the waters, even now, thereabout,
are tinged with the romance of the dusky wife who
fed them, and whose heart was no less warm toward
her titled French lover.

And, why not!

Here was a Realm of Romance, with all the ele-
ments of love, devotion, intrigue, treachery, and con-
flict; for the beautiful Penobscot was the highway
to that mythical Norombegua, whose gleaming towers
were the Will-o'-the-wisp of many a perilous New
World pilgrimage and as delusive search; for it was
hither in quest of this Eldorado of the pathless woods,
that Sir Humphrey Gilbert was sailing, in the brave
ship Admiral when it foundered off Cape Sable in an
autumnal gale, and which he abandoned for a " little
ffrigate" that afterward met the same fate in a furious
storm off the Azores. Nothing was ever afterward
heard of her captain, or crew, after the waves had
hidden the glow of their binnacle lamp from sight.

From the days of Hieronymas da Verrazano, who
made maps in 1529, this lost city of Norombegua be-
came the vainly sought-for Mecca of many a knightly
soul, whose devotions, tinged first with desire, were
finally absorbed in a great purpose, that saw, in the
golden sunsets that set the wilderness treetops a-swirl
in a sea of molten glory, visions akin to those of
John at Patmos, when the old heavens were rolled
up as a scroll and he saw a new heaven, and a new
earth — the simple memorial of which was a rude

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 91

cross that marked the spot of that revelation of the
Heavenly City to the New World pilgrim. Such a
cross was found by Champlain. Very old and mossy
it was; and buried in the deeps of the Penobscot
woods; the only relic of this city of barbaric splendor,
with its towers and roofs and domes of gold aglow
with the living light of the sun. An ignus jatuus it
proved to be: an empty dream; a splendid fable.
But the legend on this old isolated cross — there
was none. His days of toilsome search ended, the
story was lost, buried with him, whose last resting-
place some faithful henchman had marked with one
of the fleeting elements of Time. Only the finger of
God had traced his epitaph in the tender, graceful
hieroglyphics of the vagrant mosses and lichens, that,
like lover's kisses, clung to this emblem of a more
sacred memory.

David Ingraham, one of John Hopkins' sailors,
who had been set on shore, and deserted somewhere
about the Gulf of Mexico, along with a hundred others
of his companions, and who found his way north-
ward along the coast and over the Indian trails to
St. John, imagined he saw those roofs of gold upheld
by their pillars of silver; but the strange sights and
the wonderful Noromhegua of which he told the mar-
velling Londoners on whose behalf Gosnold, and Mar-
tin Pring became explorers, were never seen by mor-
tal eye. It was a splendid dream of a rich and mag-
nificent city; a New World Babylon; which, had it
been realized, might have been classed as the eighth
wonder of the world, worthy of the fairest legendary

92

Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

Yii HOMANCE OF CASCO BAY 93

setting, such as a Longfellow or Whittier might fabric
out of a forest wilderness whose tapering spires and
massy domes of tree-tops leaned sheer against,

"The embers of the sunset's fires
Along the clouds burned down, — "

and one can say with AVhittier's Norman henchman
to his master,

" 'Is it a chapel bell that fills
The air with its low tune? '
'Thou hear'st the tinkle of the rills,
The insect's vesper drone.'"

Thus Norombegua has ever been amid the moss-
festooned hemlocks of this land of shadows and beaded
lakes, a shadow and a dream. Had the explorers
traversed this same wilderness a century and a half
later, they might have heard " the Voice of One cry-
ing in the wilderness," and mayhap his master, as
well ; and had they followed its challenge into the
deeper glooms of the forest, they, like Ingram, might
have told of another city where Te Deums and Mag-
nificats were the gold and silver of the realm — a city
of God's own adoption whose vespers were rung by
the spirits of the dead; for, here, amid the ancient
grandeur of these Penobscot woods are the ashes
of the old N^orridgwack Mission, where, under the
roots of a hoary hemlock that had kept the calendar
of the centuries, burdened to its death with the keep-
ing of its weird secrets of Indian savagery, of sack
and fire-lit ruins, and that had fallen, a prey to a

94

}'^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

century of remorse, was found the Jesuit Rasle's
chapel l^ell whose first response to the touch of the
stranger was a challenge, that became momently a
requiem, to die away in a soft, sweet benedicite.
0, the speech of Rasle's chapel-beh!
I have listened to its weird vibrations; and if its
first notes unconsciously quickened the pulsing of

my life currents,
those which fol-
lowed gave me
a singular sense
of chill, like
one's contact
with some cold,
uncanny thing
after the dusk
has fallen — a
bar of spider's
web across the
face, or the
touch of some
harmless crawl-
ing thing that
makes one's
hands the acci-
dental highway
of its predatory excursion. Ah! but those long un-
awakened voicings — abrupt, imperious, militant —
softly pleading? hardly; but rather the rasping utter-
ance of a bigot soul, whose nakedness is but scantily
concealed l)y the worn shreds of its ascetic garb. Its

4^1<^L|,£f l^t."^

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 95

heart is gone, and its speech is hollow as if from the
fieshless lips of a skull, and as thin as the cerements of
the long-buried dead; and as hopeless as the cause for
which it once stood. As the dim light of the lofty-
ceiled room where it reposes in silence, but for the
touch of strange hands, falls upon it, visions of ascetic
vigil, savage tumult and massacre, yes, and misguided
prayer are painted upon its bronze sides. Every dent
and scar upon its time-worn surface are epics of adven-
ture and war waiting to be translated — love lyrics,
too, and low-voiced chants, and songs of triumph and
defeat smothered in the smokes of countless council-
fires. Swarthy faces glower and scowl at one, until
one turns away involuntarily under the stress of such
vivid imagery. For a century one may believe this
old bell has swung amid the gloomy naves of these
primeval forests,

"God's first temples,"

tolled by every surging tempest; but vainly has it
called to the disembodied spirits it once knew so
well. A Wandering Jew, cast in lasting bronze, haunt-
ing secrets hide within the cavern where hangs its
silent tongue ; secrets weird, uncanny ; and no wonder
it cries out in sharp agony at every alien touch. Who
knows but that Rasle's restless soul is as yet unre-
leased from its brazen thrall? The Book of Reve-
lation was closed with Patmian John, and from now
on, to the end of Time, we can only look and dream
over the treasures of the past that have come down
to us through such stress of exposure and hardship,

96

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

while the imagination runs riot for the lack of some-
thing more authentic.

So much of a digression from the matter outlined
at the opening of this chapter may be pardoned, for
a mental pilgrimage across this old-time Dominion
of Maine, with so much of legend and romance lin-
gering about one's footsteps, is not without its charm.
But to return to its more southerly part, to Stogum-

mor, which soon be-
came the easterly
outpost of the earlier
English colonization,
the student of early
New

Eng-
land
history
will
find the
coming
hither

of the English, to have followed close upon the heels
of a settlement upon the Saco River, which may be
credited to the enterprise and daring of Richard ^^ines,
who was somewhat of an adventurer; and who is
said to have lost his life in a drunken brawl in Vir-
ginia some years afterward. Here, upon the Saco
River, rude mills were erected, and with a few like,
rude dwellings, they formed the primary settlement
of the English in the wilderness then known to the
Massachusetts Bay Colony as the Province of Maine.

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

97

As the eastern-bound traveller leaves the Saco of
to-day behind him, long barrens of shifting sands
and reaches of ocean shore widen out along his path-
way. The broadly-dyked marshes, fringed with
stunted Norway pine growth, through which, with
many a twist and turn, come winding down the
waters of the Nonsuch and Spurwink, that rush in
with every tide, to slink away a bit later with scarcely

TO PINE POINT

perceptible ebb; the hazy line of distant woods al-
most as blue as the sky that reaches so tenderly
down to meet it, and the salt sea-winds, combine to
arouse the most pleasurable sensations, impelling one
to lay aside reading matter, and, with car window
wide open, to drink to the full the enjoyment of the
constantly changing scenery that makes the exqui-
site charm of the breezy lowlands of old Scarboro.
A ride over these marshes flecked with the blue waters
of their salt creeks, with their flights of sea-birds,
their peaked stacks of brown marsh hay, their shift-

98 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

ing shadows of flying clouds, with the low-browed
farmhouses along their uplands, is one of increasing
interest; for hereabout, and just south of the land
described in the Gorges lease as Casco Neck, lived two
men, who, within two years and a half after they had
built their log cabins upon the Scarboro clearings,
left them to become the pioneer settlers of so-called
Stogummor. It was about these low, green, salt-
marsh levels, where in the time of Mary Garvin,

"Westward on the sea winds
That damp and gusty grew,
Over cedars darkening inland
The smokes of Spurwink blew,"

that George Cleeve lived. Here his narrow acres
were cleared. Here he planted his corn among the
blackened stumps of the newly burnt lands.

One late summer day in 1633, a small vessel ap-
peared off Poodack shore, trimming her sails past
this bold cape of many islands, beating up the lower
roadstead of Casco Bay, with Hogg Island over her
starboard rail. A motley freight comprised her bill
of lading, if she had any, which is doubtful, as this
voyage took place before the day of custom-houses.
Men, women and cattle, and rude utensils and furni-
ture were huddled together under the sheltered cool-
ness of her dun-colored sails, their soft gray shadows
deepening and lengthening as the afternoon wore on.
Instead of broad acres of roofs, with scores of stately
towers and mellow haze of low-lying smokes, to greet
this strange wayfarer of the sea; instead of slips and

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 99

spacious docks, only a rib of yellow sand, — and
overlooking it, a long ridge of woodland lay out-
stretched under the summer smi. A New World
wilderness of forest-clad peninsula, with many a
morass, and whortleberry swamp, and run of spark-
ling spring water within its dense growths of oak
and pine ; the roaming-gromid of wild beasts ; and of
Mogg Megone, who in after days sold a part of it to
Sagamore Boynthon in consideration that his pale-
faced daughter should

"sit in the Sachem's door,
And braid the mats for his wigwam floor,
And broil his fish and tender fawn,
And weave his wampum and grind his corn;"

a thing which never came to pass, though the deed
was made, and Mogg's signature of a hunter's bow
duly affixed.

Cleeve might have noted, as he rode in on the flood
of the tide, once over the rocks of Staniford Ledge,
at his right, and standing boldly out on the verdant
incline of House Island, Christopher Levett's house,
built some dozen years before. There may have
been no verdant fields, but rather a tangle of bush
and jungle that always comes to abandoned places.
The Levett house may have been hidden by the low
spruce growths that were common to these patches
of land amid seas. It may have, in that time, rotted
down, or have been overwhelmed by some one of
the autumnal gales that were wont to sweep land-
ward from the Gulf Stream. It is natural to sup-

48^351

100 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

pose that the tooth of Time would not neglect so
fair a prey; and yet, in those far-off daj's, the habi-
tations of men were most solidly constructed of
hewn logs; and the roofs were made tight; and the
shingles were riven and shaved; and they should
have been good for a century, at least, — but there
were other vicissitudes, of fire, of savage retaliation
upon so helpless and lonely a vestige of a feared and
hated intruder. That Cleeve made no mention of it,

is perhaps singular. But Cleeve was a busy man,
with grave and weighty projects on hand. He was
occupied with his own acres, with John Winter sow-
ing tares even within the shadow of the Cleeve door-
step. He might have mentioned it a hundred times,
and the telling of it might not have got beyond the
kitchen walls; but that it was there is something
not to be doubted for a moment; for Levett's own
story is as authentic as anything written of those

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

101

early days. It is at least a cheerful thing to think
of, as all old rooftrees are, with so much of mys-
tery and romance lurking in the dusky corners of
their olden garrets amid the dust and webs of the
spider.

Two years after the murder of Bagnall, and the
date of the tragedy is put down as Oct. 3, 1631,
the Council of Plymouth granted to Robert Tre-
lawney and Moses Goodyeare, merchants of Ports-

A FINE OLD TOWN

mouth, Eng., Richmond island; and from the ruins of
Bagnall's cabin arose that of John Winter, as Tre-
lawney's agent, a man who, if history tells the truth,
was not less scrupulous than his predecessor, though
more politic. But George Richmon and Walter
Bagnall were the first w^hite men, with the exception
of Levett's brief sojourn at House Island, to occupy
any part of what was afterward known as Falmouth,
living at Richmond's Island as early as 1628. Where
Bagnall came from, or who he was, is uncertain.

102

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

Sainsbury in his "Calendar of Colonial Papers," says,
''Dec. 2, 1631, Patents to Walter Bagnall for a
small island called Richmond, with 1,500 acres of
land." Winthrop says, "He lived alone upon his
island, and in three years had accumulated about
£400 by his trade with the Indians, whom he much
wronged."

Up the harbor came the little vessel, to the tawny
sands that then lay so still and peaceful under the

r- a

PUR POODACK

shelter of their lofty promontory. It was Cleeve,
who had sailed hither from Scarboro marshes, hoping
to avoid hereafter the covetous interference of Tre-
lawney's agent; and it was Cleeve's destiny to lay
here the foundation of a memorable old town.

^Miat a fine old town it is! To the north ebb and
flow the broad waters of an ocean inlet; eastward
is the island-crowded bay, that reaches almost to
Pemaquid; on the south is an estuary of the sea,
that runs west and south around its curving shores,
making at high tide almost an island of this wild

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

103

country of the old clays, the metes and bounds of
which the reader has already scanned;

"Which stretches away on either hand,
As far about as my feet can stray
In the half of a gentle summer's day;"

and which held the romance of old Stogummor.

A RELIC

A RELIC

|F my reader will go with me to an
old harbor, not less ancient and
historic than many others along
the New England coast, reckoned
quite famous; nor less distin-
^^ guished because an adventurer,
one Capt. John Smith of A^irginia,
should have anchored within the
shelter of its charming islands and
broad, peaceful roads, more than
two centuries ago, much of the
old-time landmark will be dis-
covered ; and signs of a period when plain living and
unpretentious comfort, were as much the accompani-
ments of prosperity and forehandedness, as are some
of the more garish externals of to-day; easily recog-

107

108 YJ^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

nizcd as standing for a real or simulated gentility,
whose occupation, is as nuich, the keeping up of pros-
perous appearances, as the profitable spending of a
genteel leisure.

Now, a flourishing suburb of a fair and flourishing
city, as it was in more ancient times a place of some
local importance, once provincial. Pur Poodack is
as good a place as any in which to pitch one's tent
for a few days in midsunnner; for not only do its
winds blow freshly from the sea, bringing the sound
of the tide with it, l)ut right here upon this neck
of land, named in honor of good Queen Bess, are
scores of beautiful sunnner cottages and sightly lo-
cations yet to be occupied, and countless beauties
and suggestions of rare color of landscape and water.
Everything hereabout has the genuine New England
flavor. The city across the tide-river is a typical
New England city, with all of New England's con-
servatism and slow adoption of new things; adhering
to the old-fashioned principles of economy with a
steadiness marvellous in these days of swift progres-
sion; with as much money and brains as of anything
else. A quarter of an hour's walk or ride from
town will bring one in sight of homely homesteads
and ancient orchards; homesteads whose cellars were
excavated before the first foundation stone was laid
in the more pretentious metropolis of the state;
surroundings not less interesting than quaint and
ancient-looking, possessing a charm and value to
the true New Englander that words and figures
fail to express, so loyal is the heart to the homely

YE ROMANCE OF (WSCO BAY

109

commonplaces that made up the dehghts of earher
(hiys.

Beautiful, old-fashioned New England has abund-
ant charm for all her children, and of all her varied
scenery none is more beautiful and attractive than
the indented coast line and the inland bordering upon
it of southwestern Maine. From the highlands of
the city that overlook and shelter the low domain
which is in part the subject of this sketch, and

FORE RIVER

which lies just across a stream, or estuary, always
called by the unpoetic name of Fore River, looking
due west, the eye spans the easterly approaches to
the mountains of New Hampshire, comprised in
countless suggestions of meadows, yellowish streaks
of green; slender, winding threads of river-fog that
spread out into mazy ribbons, and follow, in and out
the wanderings of many a wayward stream, the
charm of their restful valleys; with hill-slope upon
hill-slope rising in regular gradation, broken only by
their revelation of granite buttress amid their wood-

110 5"A' ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

clad beauty. Here and there are thrifty farms and
cosey homesteads blown over by summer gales fresh
from the western mountains, or swept inland from
the big ocean, with scents of appetizing flavor of
salt sands and wide-spreading marsh; or beaten in
winter by storms that pile the drifts to hide the
low eaves of the farmhouses that lie in the pathway
of the north winds.

From this outlook one can hardly see the great
lake of the Sokoki, named after an Indian tribe
which flourished about its shores some two centuries
ago, but now known by the equally euphonious name
of Sebago; but one can see where it is ; and on a clear
day, one does not find it difficult to make out the low
trail of mist that locates this sheet of water some-
what to the north of the direct line to the white-
capped summit of Mount Washington,

The imagination is not taxed severely if its gunda-
lows with their ungainly sails seem to be outlined
against the far-ofT horizon, as we know they must
be; for there was in the days gone by no inconsider-
able water traffic passing up and down this inland
water way. These clumsy affairs seemed then not
at all incongruous or out of place; but rather to lend
a poetic charm and interest to this out-of-the-way
sheet of water, and a certain quality of romance as
well; when it was known that these same gundalows
had been anchored under the shadows of these same
highlands in the quiet harbor of Pur Poodack, moored
not unlikely beside some ship from "furrin parts."
In this manner, they had, in some sort, attained

yi' ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 111

the prestige of having scraped an acquaintance with
the outer world, which gave them a certain quaUty
of distinction, in spite of the long highway of homely
canal, with the tow horses, the clumsy, leaky locks
and creaking timbers; and for all this tardy move-
ment to reach this inland destination with one cargo
after another of West India goods. Such household
necessities as could not be gleaned from the fields,
or turned out of the old hand-loom, or realized from
other means common to the times and locality, came
by canal. These " necessities " were most likely com-
prised in the two staples of molasses and Jamaica
rum, the latter of which was used upon all occasions
from birth to burial.

But one sees nowadays from this outlook more
than this panorama of treetop and rolling green. At
the foot of this bold bluff is a white streak of high-
way, that runs around the town like a swathing band,
to hold its roofs together. Just outside this white
dusty line, over which somebody seems to be con-
stantly travelling, around to the south and west, is
the estuary, or tidal river that separates the larger
town from the lesser, which is spanned by numerous
bridges that radiate from the city like the spokes of
a huge wheel. Its shores are far apart, and the
bright foliage of birch and willow shows brilliantly
against the heavier masses of woodland, of darker
pine and hemlock, that tower above them. The con-
tours of these shores, curving landward as they do,
make a natural basin, a little lake when the tide is
at its flood; and here are ships at anchor, that have

112

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

come no doubt for their cargoes of brick, for along
these flats are abundant clayey lands, and sand, and
pine woods, with which to burn them into hard build-
ing material. Ships were once built at the head of
this salt-water creek ; and these forest-lined banks in

Mm^-'''-

THE OLD SHIPYARD

the old privateering days concealed many a Yankee
sloop from his Majesty's men-o'-war, which had cap-
tured many a richly-loaded prize, and taken it into
Boston, Salem or Newburyport, much to the chagrin
of English cruisers, and much to the profit of these
bold highwaymen of the sea.

The blue waters of the sea disappear at low tide,
leaving the flats bare; and down these, the slender
stream of the Capisic river flows, winding in and out,
a thread of silver, to find its way slowly into the
broad basin where the coasters are anchored; and
where, years ago, the canal, long since abandoned, let
its inland ships and gundalows into the harbor. The
old towpath, not yet overgrown and hidden within
its fringe of rank alders, may still be traced along
the east side of the creek. It is a pleasant place to
"wander, for along the margin of the old canal there is

YE ROMANCE OF C A SCO BAY

113

many a bit of beautiful landscape that meets one in
a surprising sort of a way. The tide runs far up into
the woods among the farming lands ; and the stream
is notched and ragged, with many a slender ribbon

THE BRIDGE OVER THE CANAL

of woods running out into its silver current; and many
a reach of yellow marsh, rusty with briny incrusta-
tions, making into the pasture-lands or the low
fields, often up to the gardens of the farmhouses,

114 y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

making rare pictures whichever way one may turn.
The canal follows the creek within the shadows of
the woods, and where one does not care to follow for
the underbrush, and tangle of thick sapling pines ; but
one turns to the slow-running creek, a dignified
enough stream at times, when the tide is in; when it
is out, it is a mass of black ooze and mud, with here
and there streaks of light-green grasses, that lend to
the flats the rare color that only the salt water can
impart.

There does not seem to be the romance about this
stream that one might expect. It is not a highway
to any place in particular. It leads, in fact, no-
where; and its life is only such as is lent to it by the
sea during parts of the day. When the tide is at its
flood it is a stream of liquid silver, and within its
setting of autumn haze, one understands Corot. I
never felt any interest in making the discovery of its
upper limits, which could not be far away; and as
for there being any secret springs, or life-giving or
life-sustaining brooks flowing into the marshes that
dam its farther progress into the interior, it did not
seem possible there could be any, from the knowledge
I had of the country. As for its consequence, it
seemed to me to be of small consideration, unless to
turn the old salt-mill by the old post-road to Boston
before the days of the railroads.

But whether this river made by the sea has any-
thing of history or not, does not much matter nowa-
days, so long as its banks are full twice a day; and
an occasional salt-laden schooner may reach the

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

115

dilapRlated wharf with its cUlapidated old mih; with
only the great white gulls sailmg up and down its
length to keep it company. There are plenty of rail
and teal about these marshes all summer long, with
plenty of boys no doubt after them; and later in the

THE SALT-MILL

season, flocks of sand-peeps and plover, and occa-
sionally a few snipe, find abundant feeding ground
over these wide areas of marsh, going up with the
tide and down with it, much as a bit of driftwood
does, — a dancing sort of a life.

From this swathing-band of white, the old trail
stretches out to a little hamlet as old as any in this
region, which its dwellers call Stroudwater. "WTiere it
got its name I cannot tell, unless it was named after
another older hamlet in English Gloucestershire.
Spanning the deeps and shallows of this wide water-
way comes the dusty highway, — which less than a
century ago was the way to all the big towns south;
and over this old, gray bridge went the rattling

116

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

coaches, by the way of York and Portsmouth, on
their journey to Boston town. Through this single,
narrow street of this most ancient hamlet, came, and
went, all the travel from this section. It was the
great artery, a hundred years ago, of provincial'
travel, and has not yet lost entirely its provincial
flavor, as one finds who stops to look at the old
houses beside it, that belong to the ante-Revolution-
ary period, and are still in a state of good preserva-

ODD, PEAKED GABLES

tion ; houses which in these modern times afford curi-
ous and interesting specimens of early American
architecture.

As one goes through the streets and byways of a
strange town, there is always a curiosity to know
something of its history; something of its quaint and
ancient belongings; especially if there be hints along
its thoroughfares in the guise of odd peaked gables,

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 117

dormer windows with the smallest of small panes of
glass, whose color is the seal of their antiquity; low
overhanging eaves, and curiously cut-up roofs, with
huge square chimneys atop of all.

There is much of suggestion oftentimes in what
one discovers of this sort, which spins the thread
upon which may be strung rare bits of information.
I never meet an old man, withered and wrinkled and
bent, without asking myself hosts of questions about
him; questions of the old-fashioned sort, which are
not less fascinating because they do not bring im-
mediate answer. It is the same with these old things
which an old race has left behind. Stroudwater long
ago lost its place in the line; and only its nearness
to the city, which it can serve as a suburb, gives it
value.

The village, the only ancient suburb relict of old
Falmouth, possesses a peculiar charm. AYith its face
to the east, half-hidden among the wide-topped elms
that line its streets, it is a place of the Sleepy Hollow
sort, with its lack of industry and its drowsy silence;
save by the old salt mill — which never goes except
with the tide. Quaint and ancient, full of restful-
ness and content, its old importance lingers only in
traditions; yet the new race, who walk its ancient
ways under the shadows of its ancient elms, and
sleep under its ancient roof-trees, and who have
inherited its ancient acres, are not unmindful of its
prestige.

If one had waited beside the old tavern, that on a
January of a hundred years ago stood near the centre

118

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

of provincial Falmouth, he would have seen the rude
placard which informed th(^ traveller concerning a
"stage" that was about to leave this old hostelry for
the first time. "Those ladies and gentlemen who
choose the expeditious way of stage travelling will
please to lodge their names with Mr. Motley. Price

Hb^^/^

for one passage the whole distance, twenty shillings."
It is the first day of departure. With many a flour-
ish of the whip the lumbering vehicle that served as
a coach takes an early leave of the tavern folk. With
parting halloo the cumbersome affair creeps up the
main street of the town, past Ryerson's tavern, a

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 119

dilapidated rookery even then, to rattle down Rag-
gett's hill; thence past the narrow Capisic, and through
this hamlet, on its way to Portsmouth, rousing the
people as it goes, with the loud twang of the driver's
horn. Over the marsh, past the salt mill comes the
old coach, to the abrupt rise in the highway that
connnences even at the edge of the creek, and that
goes up the sharp incline of the hill as straight as
a taut chalk-line; now as then, to go through
the village under the tall elms that line the road-
side, with branches sweeping down over the gray
roofs of the century-old dwellings. The stage has
dropped its traveller, mayhap, at "the fork of the
roads." One road runs past the ancient cemetery,
— the other keeps on southward to old Ports-
mouth.

In this fork is the Means house, — an antique hab-
itation, with sharp angular roof and sides of wood,
clapboarded, and painted red. It is a charming re-
minder of the old days. It is not of the Pompeiian
hue, or any other of the fashionable shades of red,
but the old-fashioned red of the plain, durable, un-
pretentious sort that one sees on barndoors in the
country; even now, wdien the farm economy does not
allow of so much expenditure of paint as to cover the
whole barn, — or that one finds on the rear of the
farmhouse, while the front is painted a brilliant
white.

The gables of this old house are of brick, laid in
yellow clay, while its window-panes are of the di-
minutive sort. Inside are the high wainscotings and

120

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

huge fireplaces, — a treasure house it is of suggestion
for the antiquarian.

No special history or romance attaches to this
house of the Revolutionary period. Its ancientness
is its certificate of character, while its weather-beaten
lineaments lend it dignity. Built by Capt. James
Means, at the end of the Revolution, it was fur-
nished with good old English furniture, brought
from over the sea in some stanch vessel, built may-

THE MEANS SIDE-BOARD

hap within a gunshot of the old house, — of all
which furniture there remain only a mahogany
sideboard, and a massive chair, which take on
some added interest from the fact that upon
Lafayette's last visit to America he dined with
Captain Means ; and these old-fashioned reminders of
an old-fashioned day were used by the distinguished
man, who thus honored this hero of the entire
Revolutionary conflict. It is something, that this
Sleepy Hollow of Stroudwater remembers the inci-

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 121

dent, to repeat it with much pride to such as stop
for a moment's chat with the dwellers in its old-
fashioned houses.

Behind the Means house, just across the road
that follows the ridge to the northward, is another
mansion, no less distinguished — from the fact that
it was built a century and a half ago by one Tate,
who came here, and laid the foundation when Stroud-
water was a wilderness. It is a gambrel-roof affair,
with a huge pile of brick chimney in its centre; its
clapboards are worn with rain and sleet, unpainted
and iron-gray in the sunlight; deserted and silent,
one indulges in many a curious reverie as to the
people whose footsteps once roused the echoes of its
now untenanted halls. The interior is barren of its
old-time furnishings, but throughout are very human
finger-marks.

A narrow carved staircase in the hall, and a buffet
in the corner of the parlor, are unique and beautiful ;
graced with its old-fashioned blue Dutch ware, the
latter must have been more beautiful. Made of pine,
and wrought entirely by hand with the rude tools
of the time, one wonders at the excellent art and the
elaborateness of the buffet of a c^uaint shell pattern,
which well matches the wainscoting, shoulder-high
about the room. The windows, the same that have
been here since the house was built, are of good size
and well glazed. The architecture of the front door
is ambitious and noticeable; and there is a flavor of
old-time aristocracy about the entrance to this an-
cient mansion, standing alone, with its silent knocker

122

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

that has no friend to sound its ahirni ; with its mem-
ories of olden days looking out its blurred panes, as
out of eyes tired with looking in vain for the old
forms that darkened them so many years ago, and
that will never come back.

I have passed this house in the darkness of the
night, and it seemed to me as if its dwellers in pro-
^'incial days must be there in spirit, if not in body.
It was an uncanny thought, yet I doubt if I
should have been much startled had I seen the

\ V.!, i r) .

jrv 4^4'"''^

fe-3s-iii5?r^^rl

,JJ.'iH-'i

THE TATE HOUSE

flickering candle-flames reflecting their dim light
upon the windows that looked out upon the high-
way. I have no difficulty in re-peopling these old
houses. I think their inmates nuist have been like
other people; less selfish perhaps, more quaint in
speech and manner, but men and women, like our-

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 123

selves, with likes and dislikes, and with secrets,
may be.

The romances of their old homes which one en-
counters in one place and another along the older
highways, snugly ensconced within the shelter of
some tree-shadowed hillside, as if shrinking from the
gaze of passers-by, their roof-trees grown decrepit,
sagging deeper with each succeeding year, as if tired
of so long holding up their mossy roofs, are buried
romances; but these places held many a simple life,
and knew many a grand deed which has never been
written, except upon the hearts of those who knew
their dwellers, or in the Great Book. One feels a
touch of pity at the sight of their windows looking
outward with a dull vacant stare of half-conscious
apathy at the w'orld's desertion. At other times
there seems to be just a hint of suspicion lingering
about them, as if it were hardly the thing to be left
with only a pair of ragged Lombardy poplars to tell
the story of one's decayed gentility; and again, there
are traces of the old importance in the flashing panes
of some ancient, two-story, hip-roofed mansion
hedged about with the gnarled apple-trees that knew
the old house in its younger days, and knew the
young life going in and out over its century-old
threshold. These old houses have big, warm hearts
for those who know- them best ; and a life of comfort
for the dwellers in them.

This house in particular has been a remarkable one
in its day. Its superior architecture was the badge
of an old-time aristocracy that placed it far above

124

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

the plel)eian dwellings that in after years grew up
within sight of its one red chimney. Singular to

record, the hearth
fires of these ple-
beian dwellings
still have a cheery
welcome for the
comer, while the
hearth of this de-
serted aristocrat
is cold and tireless
and stark, and
forever forsaken,
A 1 1 attempts to
keep up appear-
ances are laid aside ;
even the front-
yard fence, — for
I know there must
have been in those
prim Puritan days
something of that
sort which the
house drew about
itself to keep the
common herd
away from its pri-
vacy — is simply indicated by the huge elms, a-row,
that overshadow^ its front windows, growing in the'
side of the highw^ay that has for so many years
led past its worn, but footless threshold. The gray

DOOR OF TATE HOUSE

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 125

shingles on the roof are thin from years of ex-
posure; and curled, and split, and twisted into
forlorn shape, laying bare the roof boards; and
making bad leaks, and flooding ceilings when the
rains come. I noticed on the door of the front
entrance, the old brass knocker which had the sem-
blance of iron, so black was it from want of use or
scouring. I wondered how long ago it was last used
to warn the house of a ceremonious caller, or of the
coming of some stranger who wished for its hospital-
ity. Once within its narrow doorway, a strange feel-
ing stole over me as my footsteps resounded through
the vacant rooms; while the stairs leading to the
chambers creaked with such noisy answer to my
passage over them, that it seemed as if my intrusion
upon the long silence were resented by some indig-
nant spirit. There was a strange smell of dampness,
and sense of uninhabitableness about the place, that
made these impressions all the more vivid; yet it
gave me a certain pleasure to imagine myself not
alone; but attended and entertained by my unseen
host, who must, in some way, have had his eye upon
the property all these years, that it should have been
so well preserved. There was a big pile of straw in
one of the chambers, and this was the only sign of
humanity about the place; unless the one or two
charred sticks of firewood that I had seen upon the
broad hearth of the kitchen below told of the fire
once kindled there. All the rooms below were wains-
coted to -the height of the eye ; and of them all, the
parlor had the greatest charm, with its buffet and

126 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

THE BUFFET

deep window-seats, and ample fireplace, with high
old-fashioned mantel. The woodwork had been
painted white originally, and the gloss had not de-

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 127

parted from the i^aint wholly at this late day. AVhat
a handsome old room it must have been at one time,
furnished with oddly-patterned furniture, no doubt
brought from old England with much trouble and
expense! If the furnishings of this room were in ac-
cordance with the simple elegance the carpenters
gave it, it must have been a luxurious apartment,
with the antique l^rass-dogs to hold the blazing fire
on the hearth ; a half dozen tallow dips held bravely
up in as many brass candlesticks; all polished to
their brightest ; and the customary mug of flip warm-
ing upon the ruddy coals, with a bit of grated cinna-
mon sprinkled on the top to give it a foreign flavor.
The round, brass-mounted, brightly polished mahog-
any table, drawn into the centre of the room, on
either side of which were goodman Tate and his
equally ancient dame, completed the picture. The
crackle of the fire, the questioning purr of the house
cat, and the sizzle of the hot teakettle depending
from the black crane, make the music of this fire-
side, and its company as well; unless some belated
traveller has come in to warm himself in the l)laze;
or to inquire the way to Broad's tavern, which was
in fact just over the hill, but which, on a dark night
might as well have been a league away, for the mat-
ter of one's seeing its fire-lighted windows from the
highw^ay at this point. There was much to think of
in the way of personal history of the builder of this
great house, great in the days of its building, and
who became the founder of a notable family. He
was the successor of Colonel Westbrook as mast-agent

128 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

of the king, coming hither prior to 1756. His family-
extraction was of the most unexceptionable quality
and character; being a direct descendant of the De
La Prey Abbey Tates of Northamptonshire, England.
Of his three nephews, it may be said in passing,
two were in turn. High Sheriffs and Lord Mayors of
London; and the other was an Ambassador of Henry
VnL to the Court of France. George Tate was at
one time a seaman on the first frigate built by Peter
the Great, who learned the carpenter's trade at
Saardam, Holland, antl wdio afterward went to Lon-
don to learn the art of ship-building, so he might
the better direct personally the erection of his own
navy, and the building of the fortifications about
St. Petersburg. After that he came to Maine, as
purchasing agent for the Russian Peter, to buy the
spars for the new Russian Navy.

George Tate of Stroudwater, his service with Peter
the Great completed, set himself to the fomiding of
a family. The result was four sons. Three of these
became seafaring men, and became notable in their
chosen spheres of action. Of these, George, the
third son, distinguished himself alcove the others.
He entered the Russian naval service in 1770, ob-
taining the appointment as lieutenant under Cath-
erine II. His English pluck stood him in good stead,
for his advance was rai)id; and he particularly dis-
tinguished himself in the wars with the Turks.

In 1790 the Russians laid siege to Ismail fortress
at the mouth of the Danube. In the final storming
of the fort l^y which the place was captured with an

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 129

immense booty, yomig Tate was womided. The fa-
mous Suwarrow was in command, and Tate was pro-
moted, receiving from the Empress Catherine a
medal. He was also made an Admiral, and as a
further evidence of her royal favor, she presented
him with her miniature set with diamonds. Subse-
quently, the Emperor Alexander created him First
Admiral, and made him a member of the Russian
senate. He was the recipient of several distinguished
orders from the sovereigns to whom he rendered ser-
vice at one time or another. He afterwards became
a Rear- Admiral, and for all his foreign service, did not
forget his friends at home, among whom were to be
reckoned the Deerings, and Kents. He died in 1821,
having never married, and as the " Gentleman's Maga-
zine," London, said, "fulle of years and honors."
Robert, the fourth son, was the grandfather of the
wife of Joseph Walker, a distinguished and beloved
citizen of Portland in his lifetime.

The elder Tates were of a hardy and resolute
character, energetic and thrifty; and their careers
were of the strenuous sort that went to the building
up of that kind of manhood which has made New
England famous; and to-day, the descendants of the
king's mast-agent may be found living within a
stone's throw of the old mansion l^uilt nearly one
hundred and sixty years ago. The date of its erec-
tion is set around 1755, and its builder died at Fal-
mouth in 1794, and is remembered as one of the
founders of the first Episcopal Church in Portland,
and who served as one of its first wardens.

130

YK ROMANCE OF CA:SCO BAY

1 imagine a great many things might have hap-
pened to a pioneer in these parts out of the common,
of adventure and perilous episode ; and among them
comes to mind one that became a tragedy of the most
unfortunate sort. The story was related to me on
the spot, and to make more sure of the reality I go
to the door that looks out upon the tangle of a long
disused garden where stood in the days of yore the

family storehouse.
Here is a veritable
tangle of briars, or
should be according to
the eternal fitness of
things, with so much
of neglect and abandon-
ment. A small frame
structure is still stand-
ing, which was shown
to me by my cicerone, as the old storehouse; and
as a place which had come to be avoided after
nightfall by reason of the grewsome tale which hung
thereby; and which, old and weather-worn as it is,
has a peculiar fascination for me. The conjuring
process begins, and the picture is limned; and the
only regret I have in mind is, that the thief did not
get what was intended for him, — an unchristian
feeling, undoubtedly, but honest enough, withal.

It is cold and damp these first days of May, and I
go to the straw-pile in the long-ago forsaken chamber.
How the straw happened to be there I do not know;
however, it is damp enough and mouldy enough to

^?

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY lol

discourage anyone in search of fuel. The old bel-
lows that once hung to the chimney-jamb is gone;
but I manage to get the charred wood in the kitchen
fireplace into a feeble blaze for company's sake; but
only a smoke smudge answers my diligent effort; a
smoke which hangs about the mouth of the dusky
flue, as if it were uncertain whether to go up or not.
Whether it does the one thing or the other, I hardly
know, so deeply am I involved in one vagary and
another.

In this, as in all patrician households of the time,
there were huge fireplaces, and all else was kept up
on the same generous scale. Huge hampers of gro-
ceries were brought from over the ocean, that were
on extra occasions to be drawn upon and enjoyed;
and the Tates were, like most of their neighbors,
abundantly provided with luxuries, and those which
were brought, or sent by the admiral, were treasured
in high degree; and were said to have been deposited
in this selfsame outhouse along with the commoner
stores for the family table. This might have been a
safer depository in those days than now, when its
sagging door, warped and split by the weather, hangs
by a single old hand-wrought hinge to its hewn pine
lintel, leaving the floorless, barren interior to be in-
vaded by every vagrant wind.

Unfortunately for the goodman's peace of mind
and the good wife's comfort, this precious store of
luxuries was being unaccountably depleted.

Was there a thief?

One loss after another occurs, until one of the

132 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

boys, taking the law into his own hands, set a spring-
gim at the storehouse door, hoping therel^y to deter
the culprit from further cherishing sinister designs
upon these expensive delicacies. These were not over-
honest times, to be sure, but in this pioneer settle-
ment of Stroudwater, all were counted honest, for
here was a reputable community. None was more
so.

But William Tate counted wrongly on his victim.

The next morning goodwife Tate sent black Betty
to the storehouse for some needed supplies; but the
servant, fearful of the gun, returned without having
performed her errand ; whereupon, the goodwife took
it upon herself to get what she desired; and though
conscious of the danger, and doubtless exercising the
utmost care, was killed by the deadly device.

It is a barren thread upon which to hang so tragic
a legend; but, as is frequently the case in these later
times, the accident dilated into a hideous crime ; and
the community did not hesitate to accuse young
Tate of having had evil designs upon his mother,
looking upon the alleged losses as a myth, a specious
ruse to cover up a matricidal intent.

The old man who had the key to the front door,
and who kindly unlocked it for me, knew but little
more than the sombre outline I have here repeated.
He did not know where the young man Tate was
apprehended, only that the ancient Court records
show the finding of an indictment upon which a sub-
sequent arrest was made, and a trial was had before
good men and true of the Province; and that a ver-

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 133

diet of "Guilty," was declared, and a sentence of
death was imposed. As if that were not enough,
after all.

To my own mind, the apprehension should have
been here in this old kitchen, in the small hours of
the night, when its silences lent a sharper edge to
remorse; or w^hen the storm beset the old roof-tree
with imperious accusation; and the howling winds
beat against the windows; or rattled up the side of
the house, along the roof and down the chimney,
driving the dense smoke into the low-ceiled room, to
the great discomfort of its tenant, until his eyes wept
tears of smarting annoyance; while great floods of
wet came down the throat of the huge chimney to
put out the last vestige of fire in the wide fireplace.

It is reasonable to believe that young Tate suffered
sufficiently, — he would have been doubly inhuman
had he not done so; but to my mind, he should have
been afraid of the dark.

He should have piled the fire higher with fuel. Its
flame should have been made to have leapt up the
chimney-throat with a louder and more angry roar-
ing. The w'inds should have risen higher, and the
rain should have fallen in floods. He should have
gotten quickly into the way of seeing things, in the
dancing shadows on the walls, that were uncanny
and awesome ; but there is no evidence of these facts.
So far as he was concerned, the offense was of a
purely technical character; but the law was like that
of the Medes and Persians, and a verdict for the Crown
was a foregone conclusion. Luckily for him, the

134

)'A^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

king was the Court of Last Resort, and the royal
pardon was not difficult to obtain. In time it had
been brought across the seas; and William Tate,
absolved, was restored to his estates and his char-
acter, and the companionship and respect of his fel-

THE TATE HOMESTEAD

lows ; for William was a merchant who had his edu-
cation in England, and well-known for his honesty
and kindheartedness ; and if one desires to see one
of his landmarks, one has only to glance at the old
store where Mr. Andrew Hawes still carries on the
trade begun by William Tate and continued by
Robert Tate, his son, the father of the Tates now
living at Stroudwater. George also built ships here.
But this all happened before the days of sleuth
newspaper reporters, staring headlines and private
detectives, — otherwise, what might one not have
looked for, all for the sake of a breakfast-table story.

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

135

But the sun is getting down in the sky, and the
shadows are creeping over the kitchen-floor and up
the side of the fireplace. I reahze that I have been
here a great while; and a shiver creeps over me. A
moment more, and I have passed through the ancient
parlor into the hall, laying my hand for a moment
upon the carved balustrade, and stepping from the

worn doorstep out into the wholesome air, full of
salt smell from the marshes with the tide well out,
and just a bit a-tremble with the whir of the big
stones of the old salt-mill at the bridge. I look back
at the house, and my cicerone has closed the door;
the knocker jars a trifle as it is shut. I look at the
old rookery, of once grand traditions, with the wish
that I might have known its bulkier personally; but
its dusty window-panes have no ray of intelligence;
and from the flat doorstone to the top of the crum-

136 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

bling chimney, the gray memorial of the old colonial
days is silent and inscrutable. There is a strange
persistence about it, for I turn a half a dozen times
to take a parting look of a place I have not seen
from that day to this. If there had been anything
in the old house to have rummaged a bit, it might
have seemed more human. There was nothing
but the hazy memories of those whose disembodied
spirits seem still to linger here; and this must ac-
count for the feeling that dogged my footsteps down
the road until the thick elms had built a barrier to
hide all but its ruddy chimney, which seemed to
catch a cheerful tinge from the deep glow of the
setting sun.

HARROW HOUSE

HARROW HOUSE

ARROW HOUSE was the name
of the old-time manor that
covered many of the Stroud-
water acres in the days when
Harmon of York, Moulton
of Wells, and the Jesuit,
Rasle, with his " Frenchified
Indians," were the chief
actors on the local stage.
It was the old manse of Col. Thomas M, West-
brook, who, in his latter life, made it his home when
he was not about the king's affairs, branding the
giants of the woods with the " broad arrow," or
hunting " redskins " in the wilds of Norridgewock.
It was here he died; and the ancient manor by the
edge of Fore River did not long survive its master.

Down the highway, a little back from this broad,,
glimmering tide-river over which I have come, and
over the hill from the house I have described, is a
rollicking stream of perennial spring water, that
comes from somewhere out in the depths of West-
brook's thick pine woods, to find its way blocked by
a narrow, but lofty, dan:i across the deep, dark fiiraie;

139

140

YJ^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

that makes the bed of the stream, — a dam full of
seams and crevices, through which a score of tiny
streams find their way, to fall among the black rocks
far below with graceful poise and noisy rhythm and
spatter of drops that catch from sun and sky swift
reflections of glorious color. It is a deep channel
that one looks down into from the sagging rail of
the dilapidated bridge; a channel that has been

THE GRIST MILL

made, in the years gone by, by these waters rushing
without let or hindrance through this schistose ledge,
that shows the dip of its stratified formation the
whole of the way back, from the wet sands of the
creek, with its acres of drooping, marsh grass, to this
crest of the upland, where it furnishes the founda-
tion to the old corn mill. To this old mill the country

Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 141

folk come even now with their corn and wheat grist,
paying the miller his toll of a tenth for the grinding.
One may see the same ancient, wide-mouthed hop-
pers, into which the bags of grain are emptied; or,
if one likes the feeling of the meal as it comes hot
from the great burr-stones, whose whirring sets the
mill-timbers a-tremble, he may catch it as it drops
from the tiny tin cups on their endless belt of leather,
emptying their burdens into the meal box, whence
it is filled into the wide-open bags with a battered
tin scoop of a pattern as ancient as the mill itself.
Here are methods, and appliances, as ({uaint and old-
fashioned as were our ancestors when these lands
were first put to raising corn and wheat; and a
strange bit of the old way of doing things it is, to
be found within sight of the roofs and spires of a
bustling city.

Northward from the highway across Fore River
is another old mill of great antiquity, as things go
hereabout. It is perched high up the side of the
narrow gorge among the gray birches ; the only thing
left of its stout dam, and the wdiarf that kept it com-
pany, but little of which latter now remains. The
tide at its flood creeps up to lap the wobbly-looking
piles, as it has every day for a century and a half ;
and the west wind blows the white caps beyond, to
meet the trickling silver of the Capisic as it filters
through the slippery rocks that run, ever narrowing
up, and into the gray shadows of the ravine that
shows beyond, the low roof of a weather-stained
farmhouse of the old regime. This is in such thor-

142 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

ough keeping with the old mill of the Capisic, there
is such a consonance of ancientness, that one takes
a swift journey to dreamland, to come back as empty-
handed as one went.

This old mill is doubtless a close follower of the
grist mill built by one Ingersoll along with the sec-
ond settlement of Stogummor. Ingersoll's mill was
destroyed in the first Indian war, and there is every
reason to believe that this structure was the next to
serve the hardy settler with his salt and meal. It
must have been a famous place in the old days, when
a ride on horseback to mill, and back, over the narrow
trails with the "blazed" trees for guideboards was
the whole of a day's journey. What stories its old
beams and walls might tell had they the tongues of
men — stories of perilous times and episodes ! For
a hundred and forty years it has stood, the relic
of busier days, deserted by man and all else —
unless the swallows build under its eaves — with the
flavor of scraps of horn to savor its breath ; for here
were manufactured combs less than a century ago.
When that industry was abandoned, the place was
deserted altogether. It is a rare study for the
sketcher. The old, moss-grown roof is as stanch as
ever, with its roof-tree of pumpkin-pine uphekl by
huge and sturdy rafters, though the old, shrunk
w^indow-sashes rattle in the wind, and the winter
snows find their way through the creviced walls and
over the silent flooring. The sea-green window-panes
light up with the same red blaze of sunset as of old,
a warm fellowshij) in the gray setting of a weather-

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 143

beaten, weather-stained (lecrepitude, — for this old
building is just that; with a huge shaft of its overshot
wheel pulled from its pit, and rotting at its very-
threshold ; while the leaky old flume is as completely
absent as if it had never existed. The clumsy burr-
stones are gone, and their song is the song of silence.
To look one way from this old bridge, is to see this
arm of the sea filled to its brim of willow-fringed
marsh by the inflowing tide ; its farther margin fretted
by low black wharves, that set hardly above high-
water mark; with their black warehouses, above the
roofs of which are the thick-set spars of the vessels,
and rising above them all, the smoky chimneys and
glistening roofs of the seaport town. To turn one's
back upon this picture of sea, and ships, and houses,
is to see the old post-road winding up the hill to
Broad's tavern, that lies just beyond its farther slope.
It is an old, worn country road, with grass growing
close down to the deep ruts made by the teams that
are constantly going and coming through the day;
with deep ditches outside these grassy margins ; with
rills of melted snow water trickling down their muddy
banks, and rambling walls of cobble stone surmount-
ing all; over which lean the outposts of the strag-
gling orchards on either side, — all leading up, up
to the hilltop, till they meet the bluest of blue sky.
Just above this old grist-mill is the green cup of the
mill-pond, with its placid sheet of water just a bit
ruffled by the wind that is blowing up from the south
on this spring day ; for I have chosen what the coun-
trymen designate as "mud time" in the calendar of

144 yA' ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

the year as the day for my outhig. Beyond this
foreground lay a middle ground of meadow land,
with its brook drowsy with the slow pace the slug-
gish mill-pond compels it to take. Its pathway, with
all the modesty one is likely to find in nature, courts
the leafless tangles of the black alders, or of the
yellow-green catkins that flaunt their new-born color,
not only in this bit of meadow, but in every other
wet place as well. Smooth sloping farm-lands, that

THE MEADOW

reach away in gentle undulations to the woods, hem
the meadow in; and just back of the mill, peeping
over the crest of the higher lands, is the red chimney
of a farmhouse, with its blue ribbon of smoke lazily
curling upward into the tops of the elms that reach
out widely above it. The whole has a decidedly
English aspect. It is one of Birket Foster's bits of
landscape; a quiet composition enough, and made
up of warm tones, for all there are patches of snow
in the edges of the woods and hints of lingering frost
in the roads. Here it is: a bit of meadow, a glint of
running water, with a boy and his alder fishpole
beside it, — but it is too early to catch trout ; a girl
with ruddy cheeks and wind-blown hiiir to keep him

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

145

sympathizing company; a house-roof and a gHmpse
of chimney through the thick tops of the willow
hedges; a stately elm, and over all, a patch of blue
sky. Had it come from Birket Foster's brush, it
would have seemed hardly less real than Nature's
own sketching. It is a delightful sketch for one to

\:/i^^^::^^^^^^^ i'^^m^-

A VISION OF HARROW HOUSE

carry in his mental portfolio; for to look at it, is to
hear the splash and spatter of this river in miniature,
and feel the spring winds drinking up the dampness
in the roads and fields, blowing up the runs and over
the uplands with a marvellous quality of vigor and
freshness.

There is more room in these parts, now, than when
the builder of Harrow House came here something
less than two hundred years ago. The woods are
not so thick, and the farming lands are in sight every-

146

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

where. There are wood-lots, but no forests ; the field
and pasture acreage exceeds that of the woodlands
by a large percentage. There is more breathing
space; and from the rise in the highway toward the
Broad Tavern the outlook is a far-reaching one. The
fields slope to the southward with a gentle inclina-
tion, ending in a slender cape of thick pine growth

THE SITE OF HARROW HOUSE

that reaches out its darkly-foliaged finger into the
bright w^aters of the river basin. It is evident that
these park-like areas about the shores of this inland
sea, with its nearness to the larger sea beyond the
land of Pur Poodack, led the people who came from
England into this part of the Province of Maine, with

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

147

their English-bred incHnation toward beautiful es-
tates, to select these lands in the vicinage of Stroud-
water most frequently as mansion sites, — as one
may discover by a visit to this region.

Here was the grand residence of Colonel West-
brook, which bore the aristocratic, and English-like
title of Harrow House. Harrow House has not been
in existence since the memory of the
oldest inhabitant; but down on this
point of land by the river, overshadowed
by a dense growth of pines, dark and
silent, is still pointed out to the curious
wayfarer the ruined walls of its old
cellar, now overgrown with dwarf birch
trees, and choked with dead vines of
briars. It must have been a noble
place when its distinguished dweller of
the earlier colonial days kept open house
here, and entertained with princely hos-
pitality, as befitted a man in his station.

It was while living here that West-
brook commanded the Penobscot ex-
pedition, which brought home among
its numerous trophies the papers of the
Jesuit Rasle, upon the destruction of Norridgewock.

This exploit brought him, no doubt, the further
distinction of becoming chief-in-command of the
frontier forces. He was at one time His Majesty's
mast-agent; and I have heard old men who knew
these woods well in more primitive days, say they had
seen, long after the Revolution, the king's broad

\

148

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

KING'S ARROW

arrow upon not a
few of the towering
monarchs of the
forests hereabout,
undoubtedly put
there by West-
brook's hand.
There were mast
yards upon the
shore that looked
eastward upon this
bit of ocean, and it
would seem reason-
able that more
than one good ship
came into the
shelter of these
waters to step a
new mast, or to
replace her lost or
disabled spars.
How much it must
have differed in
those far-off days,
with its rude activ-
ities, from what it
\ is to-day, with its
drowsy woodland
silences and d e-
serted shores !
Among the

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 149

grievances, real or iniaginetl, that were entertained
by the colonists about the time the term "Boston
Rebel" began to be used, was the putting of the
"broad arrow" of the king upon the best and tallest
trees in the forest. Westbrook, for all I know, may
have had his assistants in this work of labelling these
pine monarchs of the king's choice; but I have
no hint of such a fact historically, — and I imagine
he must have been too busy in the woods most of
the time, had this been the case, to go Indian hunt-
ing among the wilds of Norridgewock, if the seal of
the royal injunction were to be found upon every
shapely pine or spruce. But the complaint nmst
have been in some sort magnified by the ow'ners of
these inmiense forests, that in those days might be
called limitless, — days w4ien the rarest of pumpkin
l^ine was not only used for spars and masts, and in
the construction of houses whose lightest roof tim-
bers w^ere not less than a foot square; and when
nothing that betrayed the slightest sign of a knot or
stain of pitch was eligible for the inside finish, or even
the outside dress of the house, and when things were
made to last "a hundred years to a day;" not only
this, but when the stateliest trees were w' antonly felled
for firew^ood, or to make the clearings about the set-
tlement a bit more ample ; or to add to the acres about
the log-house, — trees — the massive trunks of which,
priceless in these days of threatened scarcity and
drought among the pine woods, were left prone and
helpless along the field fences, or strewn about the
back-lots that are white with rye every August ; or in

150 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

the woods among the mulorbrush; to be the source
of much curious (questioning on the part of strangers
to the topography of the home acres, who discover
for the first time these dumb witnesses of the van-
dahsm of the ancestor of a lialf-dozen generations
ago.

I have seen in my wanderings in the newer, second-
growth w^oodlands of the northern part of the coun-
try, more than one stately tree of yellow birch upheld
by its tripod of stout, purple-stained roots reaching
down on either side of a prostrate forest giant that
was once a stalwart pine, with a rare kindly touch
and clinging grace. The sap of this fallen tree has
been transmuted by the moisture of the rains, and
snows, and the woodland shadows, into a rime of
brownish-red decayed matter, as soft to the touch as
plush; which imparts a delightful sense of coolness,
on a hot midsummer day, when it crumbles in one's
hand to the semblance of fine flour, tinged with deep
sienna color. • The log itself, partly covered with the
leaves that have so many autumns drifted down
from the tree-tops, and spotted with wood-moss, and
lichen, and all the strange forms of polypori that
thrive in damp places, is hardly to be distinguished
from the yielding scurf in which it lies half buried;
and which, stripped of its mummy-like wrapping of
rotten wood — for this is all it is — reveals the big
stout heart of an ancient pine, whose color is akin to
the fine warm tint of a salmon steak cut from one of
Penobscot's rarest catch. I have in mind a strip of
woodland — more familiar in my boyhood than now

y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

151

— that overlooked a bit of meadow ; long and nar-
row it was; and there were scores of these huge pine
trees to be found lying in every direction across the
floors of the woods, many of them not less than
three to four feet in diameter. They would scale
thousands of feet; and saw into boards of extra di-
mensions, cut up at the saw-mill, if it were not easier
and cheaper to "log"
the sapling growth
that stands so thick-
ly about, than to dig /LSyT^oS^Jf^ZU/// t,i
these half-buried,
centurv-old m o n-

\jm\

sters from their rest-
ing-places. I know
for a fact, that these
woods were once
mowing lands. No
one is alive to-day who has mowed about these
immense tree trunks that are now so deeply hidden
within the shadows of a new forest; but these acres
are all named, as one may see by reading the titles
to them.

Men were as jealous for their domain, and as pica-
yunish in many respects, then, as they are now, —
as if there were not pine trees in sufficient number
on these new shores to supply all the needs that they
might know during their brief stay upon them; or
the needs of their posterity who might succeed to
their clearings.

I have no doubt, had Westbrook been less fond of

152 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

using the royal prerogative of the broad arrow within
his hniited province, liis n(Mghl)ors would have been
no less prodigal, felling and burning their acres for
wider fields. But it is human nature to resent en-
croachment upon private rights, even if it is sanc-
tioned by the " divine right of kings."

I climb the low wall between the field and the
highway, and go down the slope, through the limp
stubble, sodden and drenched with the melted snows,
to this old cellar, closely hedged about with scrub
pines and wild cherry bushes; with gray birches with
their tops bent to the ground where the winter has
left them; with scrawny sumac, its bark covered
with a soft yellow nap; with all the tangle of bush
and briar that hold in all old pastures the approaches
to the woods, — as if there could ever have been a
fine old English house here in this wilderness. But
this is the site of Harrow House, if all tales are true,
— and it is pleasant to think they are.

The reader will pardon me if I digress from all
that remains of Harrow House, to speak of two, very
old houses in the immediate vicinity, undoubtedly
built full one hundred and forty years ago. Stroud-
water is rich in these mementos of the old days.
The old Broad Tavern just over the crest of the hill
is in the heyday of a respectable yet thrifty old age.
This side of the hill is the Fickett House, once the
old Stroudwater garrison. One can see the timbers
of the once blockhouse by an inspection of the inte-
rior; but the structure has been so modernized, that
in its neatly white painted exterior and fresh green

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

153

blinds, the wayfarer would little dream that it had
ever been a stronghold against Indian attack. Yet
on this identical spot the settlers hereabout in the
troublous times that followed the French occupation,
built their heavily-timbered blockhouse and stock-
ade. Night after night the hardy frontiersman
brought his family hither as the gray shadows

FICKETT HOUSE

hinted the going down of the sun, the intangible sug-
gestions of color, in misty threads and grotesque
shapes in the woodland, thrilling the alert imagina-
tion, tainted with sup*erstition, oftentimes with a
sudden dread. Distance did not count in those early
times; and on horseback, or afoot, the backwoods-
man, with wife and children, sought shelter and the
good cheer of companionship in peril; to sleep in se-

154

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

curity until the next dawn; rising with the sun to
return homeward by the "spotted" trees; thankful
for their own safety, yet always expecting to see,
instead of the humble log-cabin amid the tasselled
maize, a heap of smouldering ashes. Back they went
then to their clearings, to take up the labor of the
previous day.

Among the oldest houses at Stroudwator is the

PATRICK HOUSE

little, one-story Patrick House. It may well be called
one of the oldest in Maine. Its coat of durable, yel-
low paint gives it a dressy, youthful look, yet it is
very old. Patrick built his house, and then went
to England after the woman who was to be his wife.
She came over in the Pink and Dolphin, a schooner
built almost within a stone's throw of the old house
at the mouth of Little Stroudwater River. It has

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

155

been said that here was a busy shipyard, where there
had been seen no less than fourteen vessels on their
ways at one time. Patrick and his wife set up house-
keeping in this yellow house, that is older than the
Tate House.

The story is told of the days of the Indian out-
break — how Mrs. Patrick came
in from her milking at sundown,
bringing in each hand a pail of
foaming milk, to set them on the
old pine table, after which she
started upon another errand;
but before she had left the low
kitchen, a stealthy footstep told
her she was not alone. She
turned backward, to see the
dusky shadows of two Sunapes
cross the threshold; and before
she could speak, each in silence
had raised a pail of milk to his
lips and was drinking his fill.
She watched them, speechless in
her terror, and defenceless in her
loneliness, expecting momently
to be killed by the savages.

"Ugh!"

It was the Sunape salutation and thanks in one.
Silently they passed out of the house, to disappear in
the gloom of the woods.

I have come to a considerable depression or hol-
low in the ground, with a slightly elevated rim about

CRUCIFIX FOUND AT
NORRIDGEWOCK

15G yi ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

it, that reminds one of a deserted circus ring; only
this old cellar is somewhat oblong in shape, if indeed
it has any shape at all, — and, standing beside it in
the bright sunshine, a mere suggestion of the old
ruin before me, I could but realize how much a crea-
ture of circumstance, how nuich the sport of nature,
man is.

Here was once a spacious park; with perhaps a
stately country house adorning it; with facade, por-
tico, and pillar peeping out between its stately elms,
to get a view of the river and of its master as he came
sailing in with wind and tide, — the white sails of
his sloop not a whit whiter than the mansion itself.
No doubt Westbrook sailed up this river many a
time in the night; and I can imagine the lantern
signalling, to and fro, as he made the landing-wharf
somewhere about the lower end of the point, — as
there was possibly deeper water for the ships there-
abouts. This may have been a Utopia once; but it
is now, hardly better than a tangle of dwarf growth,
without a single hint of humanity about the place,
except an isolated apple-tree, scraggy, unshorn, and
for that matter unknown, if one is to judge by the
quantities of frozen apples among the leaves that
drifted over them as they dropped one by one last
fall.

Nature has full sway here, for the speech of the
wind is all these bushes hear from one day to another,
unless it be the dripping of the rain on wet days.
There is a remarkably persistent quality about this
universal law which men call Nature, for the want of

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 157

a better name, whose silent activities are most to be
guarded against. Plough the garden and plant your
seed, and the weeds are staring you in the face with
a singular imperturbability, as they eat and drink
the sap and substance you have provided for others.
Leave your smooth pasture, or your mowing-lands to
the care of the wind and rain, and a decade will raise
you a crop of stunted pines instead of herdsgrass; or
cover them with patches of blueberry bushes; and a
hedge of brambles will have hidden the fences about
them. Men may sleep, but the spirit of life, the
spirit of renewal goes on with its eternal work, renew-
ing and rebuilding, or destroying and tearing down,
growing or decaying. Nature, robust, luxuriant with
vegetation, tireless, constant, in season and out of
season, dominates everything and everyw^here; com-
prising everything, — time, matter, space, and the
elemental forces: all are hers, in all the variety of
the Infinite conception. Here it is, with all these
things within her control, that Nature has the advan-
tage over men. She is never compelled to resort to
weak and apparent subterfuges, or equivocations to
crown her work with success. Her story is the story
of to-day, — the story of outdoor realism, the proof-
sheets of w^hich are spread constantly before every-
body who has eyes and ears. Nature tells things as
they are.

Therein lies her superiority over men, who are cow-
ards; or who are the unfortunate victims of a de-
fective eyesight; and who try to soften Nature's un-
yielding lines of rugged makeup, as if they could tell

158

Yi^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

WESTBROOK TRENCHER

her story best. Can you write a water-ripple in a
single ink-stained line — or the sound of a dropping
stone as it strikes its placid surface? Can you trans-
late the deafening crack, the terrible jarring of the

thunder, or describe the path-
way of the lightning to the
earth? Is there among men
the interpreter of that beauty
that makes a day in June so
rare? This is the realism of
Nature. These things make
the poet, for all great truths
are poems or tragedies, —
and therein lies Nature's love-
liness, and her appealing to men. One cannot tell a
true story without a more, or less, distinct touch of
realism entering into the story and making a part of
it. I tell these things as I
see them here, only with the
regret that my reader cannot
see through the lens that has
revealed them to me; for the
place, charming as its wild-
wood surroundings make it,
is so poverty-stricken in its
suggestion of human things,
and of human accjuaintance,

that I might think myself buried amid the gray
tops of these leafless trees; another Westbrook plan-
ning another mansion beside these sparkling waters;
so firmly has this olden tale of Harrow House taken

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 159

hold upon my sympathy; so real has seemed the
legend of its olden state and living.

Harrow House! ^Miat a medley of thought fol-
lows in the train of this quaint, aristocratic title!
There is something in its very sound, that, like the
rubbing of Aladdin's Lamp, conjures into existence a
host of vagaries. One is of a great, square, many-
gabled house, with generous chhnneys that crown it

gracefully, and lend a hint of hospitality to the grand
air that attaches to such great old-fashioned houses.
Within, are roomy halls and high-posted apartments;
all square, and much alike ; with ample light from the
windows, that east and south look out upon a won-
derful perspective of color, of water, woodland and
sky, that are all shut out when the thick mists drift
in from the sea. Then the fires are lighted in the big

160 r^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

fireplaces that are found in every room, and lend their
attractions to keep out the gloom that creeps into
the great house, with the opening of every door,
from the wet, dripping world outside. What cosey
places there are in the chimney corners and in the
broad window-seats that look north and west through
vistas of towering elms and prim Lombardy poplars,

— while the rain beats its tattoo on the little window-
panes, or the glow of the sunset lights them up!
Another vagary of mine is, that this fine old mansion,

— as it must have been, — held to the English coun-
try ways and service, so hospitable and generous, as
it was the custom to maintain in many of the colo-
nial residences in the Dominion of Maine. "Open
house" had a meaning in those days of royal enter-
taining, that the rushing, hurrying world of to-day
knows nothing of, — at least the world that I have
known, where a chance to take a long breath is a
luxury. It is another vagary of mine, that the floors
were waxed to the lustre of a mirror; in which the
antique furnishings of carved oak and mahogany, and
the old spinet, — for of course there was one in its
corner, — were tipped upside down in their reflec-
tions, as they were arranged about the big rooms:
and that there were

" Hanging in shining array along the walls of the chamber,
Cutlass and corselet of steel, and his trusty sword of Damas-
cus,
Curved at the point and inscribed with its mystical Arabic

sentence,
While underneath, in a corner, were fowling-piece, musket,
and match-lock," —

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 161

as might have been seen in brave jNIiles Standish's
Plymouth house, when he sent young Alden on his
amorous errand. What gatherings were here of the
colonial ehte, before the owner's downfall and death;
with their courtly manners; their sturdy English
pluck and physique; their stately dames who could
not forget their English birth, with their sweet ruddy-
cheeked girlhood as a mildly-tempered foil! For I
venture to say there was more than one PrisciUa in
the house, who knew what it was to have

"The carded wool like a snowdrift
Piled at her knee, her white hands feeding the ravenous
spindle,"

making the fire-lighted rooms, and for that matter
the whole house,

" Beautiful with her beauty and rich with the wealth of her
being."

And on set occasions, there was more than one gallant
youth to keep them company.

But these are vagaries that disappear, as I part the
portals of these pasture birches on my return to the
highway up the hill. Like Lot's wife of old, I cannot
forbear turning about as I climb the slope to the high-
way, to see if I may not discover the old-time roofs,
with their incense of blue smoke curling up into the
sky of this early spring day; or the glimmer of their
window-panes in the sunlight. But it is a vain wish ;
for there is only a bit of woodland and a wide stretch
of water to see, and a stray white sail, — or when

162 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

the tide is out, the water is become a sea of waving
marsh grass, the hirking place for many a black-
winged rail and marsh bird.

Little, as is known, of Harrow House, there is not
much more known of its provincial dweller. Gen-
erous-hearted, impulsive, open-handed, and patrician
in his tastes and carriage, with but little of the spirit
to brook serious disaster, though l^rave as a lion and
of the best of pioneer fighting mettle, a man of in-
fluence in affairs, it is remarkable that so little is

known of him in
a historical way.
Unlike some men
whose lesser ex-
ploits have gained

for them a biogra-
phy of some sort,
the meagre sketch

7 irC\ ^"^"Z f \ °^ Westbrook that

has been preserved
in local history is
unsatisfactory, leaving its subject shrouded in obscu-
rity that seems undeserved and ungrateful. Accord-
ing to a local historian, Westbrook was led into land
speculations through the influence of General Waldo,
and others of his trusted friends, which brought him
only misfortune and disaster. For all his prominent
services to the Dominion of Maine and its colonies,
and his worth as a member of the community, broken
and disheartened by his losses, he died here at Harrow
House, an insolvent; and his mansion, bc^autiful for

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

163

those days, was sold at auction to pay his debts.
Not even his burial-place is known; and nothing re-
mains to his memory but his name, which was given
to a part of Falmouth, to-day, one of the most flour-
ishing and charming of the suburban boroughs which
border on this old seaport of ante-Revolutionary fame.

It would have been different, undoubtedly, had
Waldo been less selfish and unscrupulous, and more
humane. But for Waldo's unnatural desire to at-
tach the lifeless body of the unfortunate Westbrook
for debts into wliich his creditor's ill-advice had
plunged him, the world would know his last resting-
place, and would do it honor. Nothing is remem-
bered to Westbrook's dishonor. He was a brave,
tender-hearted man, whose generous faith in his own
kind was larger than his shrew dness.

The provincial records, the neighlioring graveyard,
and men's memories as well, are each, and all silent,
respecting the man whose family found in him, its
last representative.

A WAYSIDE INN

WAYSIDE INN

fS there anything more abound-
ing in rest fulness and content,
more individually charming
or attractive, than a country
house grown old, so gracefully,
that the days when it was young
have been forgotten? Its sober-
going disregard of the new-fangled
notions that get into the roofs —
heads, I should say, perhaps, — of the
more modern house family, with their Queen Anne
delusions, their gingerbread decorations, their ex-
aggerations and neuralgic affectations of style, is
delightful. Is there a surer panacea for over-worked
humanity than one of these quiet, old-fashioned,
unpretentious domiciles, such as one finds nestling
under the patriarchal elms along some secluded
by-way; overlooking some slow-flowing river, with
its perspective of meadows, and sloping farms
and blue hills; or buried deep in the afternoon
shadows of some New Hampshire valley — houses
whose recommendations are never called for; whose

167

168 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

simple comforts are proverbial; comforts that peep
from the corners of one cosey room and another,
upstairs, downstairs, in the big kitchen, even, haunted
here and there by quaint, time-stained furniture of the
century-old pattern; whose reputations are founded
upon a good old age — and whose broad roofs and

stately dignity
'^It^''%.. are the certifi-
cates of an emi-
nent respectabil-
ity?

Looks tell in
houses as in men. Faces have their attractions; so
have shadowy eaves and sloping roofs, and big-
topped chimneys. Sometimes they give the houses
they shelter a bad repute, that is fostered by stories
of spooks and legends of unsavory doings at untimely
hours. What surly, glowering visages are such,
that look out upon untidy front yards, owning per-
haps a single lonely clump of lilac bushes, with
pinched, appealing look akin to what one sees in the
face of a mendicant ; with the dilapidated fence,
that hedges in an unkempt, flowerless enclosure,
arousing swift feelings of commiseration, — that kind
of pity which is better kept to one's self, and which
hastens one's footsteps down the road in self-de-
fence! More often than not, the presence of even
this solitary clump of lilacs is lacking, with its hint
of freshness, its kindliness of suggestion and rugged
encouragement, — as if Natvire, after so long a pe-
riod of doubting hesitancy, and delay about the time

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 169

of her going, liad excused herself from such ill-man-
nered company, that did nothing all day long but
leer at her with eyes stuffed with a motley array of
rags; or patched here and there with an expression-
less bit of shingle, for the want of a few cents' worth
of glass, and putty, and some slight exertion, — way-
marks common to country highways that lead not
unlikely to some place known in the region as Poverty
Corner. I remember once passing through a country
hamlet, which was better known as Hard-scrabble
than by the name of the big town that taxed its
polls ; and there was hardly a house in the place that
had not a piece of pine shingle, or a bit of old quilt,
or the crown of a castaway hat, where a pane of glass
should have been. It struck me as something very
discouraging if the world were always to be seen
through such a patched-up medium. But, then,
some people get used to their places so easily! I
query whether it is because they expect so little in
life, and so accept what comes to them with a sort of
querulous resignation, or expect nothing at all more
than a hand-to-mouth existence. I suspect that
these people, and the houses that lend them shelter,
and an ill-looking certificate of character, are the
natural irritants which humanity needs; for a slov-
enly poverty is a misfortune that carries its own
quality of repulsiveness ; to say nothing of the quality
of the bondage which it imposes upon the body and
soul of its unfortunates. One is likely to keep out
of the company of such, as he would avoid a nest
of cockles.

170

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

I do not believe in the total depravity of the hu-
man race. There is a taint of meanness hugging the
shadow of such a belief. Like some other things that
have been preached for years, the more it is preached,
the less people believe in it; because it is contrary
to human nature and men's truer instincts. The
heart speaks louder than the book; and repels the
doctrine that would absolve the few, and leave the
many in the outer courts of the Hereafter. One

likes to believe in his neighbor; but with the ghost
of Total Depravity at his elbow, it is a difficult thing
to do. With old houses it is the same. I like to
believe all houses as good as they look; and I rarely
get disappointed upon closer acquaintance.

Like all old roads, this artery of travel into the
inland, from which the little hamlet of Stroudwater
draws its nourishment, holds many a surprise for
the wayfarer who follows its narrow trend for the
first time.

From the top of Stroudwater Hill one sees a group
of stately elms; and within the gray shadows of
their shapely domes, doubly conspicuous from their
height and massive proportions, and their isolation
in the midst of the rolling farmlands, a cluster of

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

171

dark roofs of ancient aspect, that have uplield the
honor of their builder these hundred years and more.
This place was known as Broad's Tavern over a cen-
tury ago, — one of the famous hostelries along the
ancient coach road to Boston, past which the lum-
bering coaches went on their way, to or from, old
Falmouth town twice a week; which was some-
thing remarkable in the w^ay of travelling accommo-

APPROACH TO BROAD TAVERN

dations for those times ; considering the primitive con-
dition of the roads, that gave the traveller a shak-
ing-up that lasted him several days. To be exact,
this superior service dates from 1760, before which
time the mails were very irregular; mail matter not
being despatched until enough had accumulated to
pay the carrier, who came, and went with it, on foot,
carrying the mail-bag on his back. After a time,
horses, and the more convenient saddle-bags were
used; but the mail came and went as leisurely as
ever. A schedule of arrival and fleparture was a

172 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

thing unthought of. A case in point is an anecdote
told by Willis, of a Falmouth gentleman who, by
stress of business was obliged to make the trip to
Boston, — no mean undertaking then, — who had
waited several days for his mail, but the mail-car-
rier did not come. Impatient to be off, the gentle-
man began his journey. He met Barnard, the carrier,
in Saco woods, where the mail was deliberately
opened by the roadside and the wished-for com-
munication delivered. Barnard's honesty must have
been of the proverbial ''Downeast" sort.

The deep ruts that once turned into the ample
tavern yard are gone; likewise the big sign that
swung to and fro in the shadow of the big elm across
the road by the barns. The only suggestion of the
former, is a narrow footpath made by the housefolk
in their commonplace goings and comings ; while only
the gray, weather-stained post, leans out over the
highway to still remind the traveller of its ancient
occupation, — as lonely, and neglected now, as it is
barren of its old-time importance. I do not imagine
that the old Broad Tavern was so much different
from that famous wayside inn, the firelit windows
of which flashed their red flame,

"One Autumn night in Sudbury town,
Across the meadows bare and brown;"

for it is of the same kith and kin.

" As ancient is this hostelry
As any in the land may be,

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 173

Built in the old Colonial day,
When men lived in a grander way,
AVith ampler hospitality."

Better still, as I turn into the spacious yard, un-
der the great elms, that from the hilltop, looked so
much like a great green dome, I see an old estate
with hardly a single sign of decay about it, unless it
be the sagging ridgepoles of the horsesheds, that
extend down the road from the barns that stand as
staunch, as though a hundred winters had not hurled
their sleet, and drifting snows, and January rains
against their moss-patched gables. There are no

"Weather-stains upon the wall,
And stairways worn, and crazy doors,
And creaking and uneven floors,"

in this old tavern, for it is one of the best-preserved
houses hereabout; and when it was my good fortune
to see all there was to see about the old place, it pos-
sessed a store of anticiuated things that would turn
the head of any bric-a-brac hunter.

This was comparatively a new country when
Thacldeus Broad came hither, more than a century
ago, to build his cabin and, with his good wife Lucy,
settle down beside the old trail, which was soon to
be the great thoroughfare between the more impor-
tant settlements of three States. All of the worldly
chattels of the elder landlord of the Stroudwater Inn,
coming hither from the older and more populous
Massachusetts colony, were carried in an ample hand-
kerchief. Here, at the edge of Stroudwater, he be-

174

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

gan a humble enough career, with his saw, broadaxe
and hammer, to get together a shelter which the way-
farer of those days w^as willing to accept w^hen over-
taken on his journey by the nightfall; or the tough
storms that swept in-
land from the sea,
scouring the s a n d-
dunes and marshes.
This entertainment
grew to be a custom.
The little house on the
Stroudwater road was
enlarged into a com-

modious tavern. Big
barns were built, and
new lands were
cleared for grass and
grain with w^hich to
fill them, A sign was
swung to the winds,
and the criticism of
the traveller.

One can see a bit
of the old black sign, once ambitious enough, at the
old place. I found it in the Broad tool-house, along
with the last one that swung from the Broad gable.
On one side of this old relic was a painting of the

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 175

frigate Constitution under way, with all sails set. On
the reverse were depicted a Continental soldier and
a red-coat in belligerent attitude. Appropriate and
patriotic mottoes might be read on either side of
the old sign; while across the lower panel was printed
the name of the tavern-keeper and the date of the
tavern "house warming."

In 1834, the son Silas replaced this ancient and
much shattered symbol of his father's hospitality
with one which resembled a huge bunch of grapes
painted a bright yellow against a wooden background
of vine-leaf deftly carved at the edge. This hung
from a huge wooden hand until long after the rail-
road was opened eastw^ard from Portsmouth to Port-
land, which soon perceptibly affected the travel over
the old Boston road, and likewise the revenue of
the Broad hostelry.

For years Silas Broad kept open house; and with
him passed away the routine of tavern-keeping, but
not the flavor of olden romance that was peculiarly
appurtenant to the Broad acres and savory chimney
smokes, nor the legend of its hospitality — which
hospitality indeed is to this day graciously dispensed
in private life, under the same old roof-tree, by the
last of the line, Miss Almira Ann Broad, whose
horizon-line of Stroudwater woods does not by any
means mark the boundary of her influence and phi-
lanthropy.

The Broads were a hardy and toil-toughened race.
Lucy, the first hostess of the famous Broads, died at
the age of one hundred and five, and the present

176 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

dweller at the old inn, at the ripe age of seventy-
one, possessed the freshness, and vivacity, and ruddy
health of a woman in the prime of life.

Standing on the broad flag of granite that held the
approach to the gabled porch, apparently the now-
adays entrance to the big house, I grasped the black
iron knocker; and a strange metallic crash of sound
went clattering down the hall within, up the front
stairs, and through the house, out into the great
kitchen, to tell, with hollow voice, its message. A
feeling almost of remorse stole over me at this cold-
blooded invasion of what seemed a sacred precinct;
for I was a stranger to the people who lived here,
the direct descendants of old Colonel Broad, who
might reasonably be expected to resent such flagrant
curiosity. But no one answering, I sent the echoes
of the huge knocker flying through the house a second
time. The door opening just a bit, I caught the
glimpse of a pair of mild brown eyes, with just a
hint of doubt about them, peeping out between its
narrow edge and the stout pine lintel. Satisfied with
this preliminary survey, a sweet-faced woman with
white kerchief pinned about her shapely shoulders,
her hair with just a hint of silver in it, combed straight
back, without a single artificial touch or garnishment
to mar its simple beauty, stood within its shadow.

"I called to see the house!" I said.

"Will you walk in, sir?" was the gracious response.

Over the charmed threshold, down the long hall,
into the old-fashioned sitting-room I went. One side
of it, mostly of glass, looks out over a green slope of

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

177

mowing-land extending down to the woods that partly
hide the blue waters of the creek. I sit in the big
rocker that was the favorite a century ago, with a
sense of restfulness that makes the chat of old times
and the old house delightful enough. A bright fire
of seasoned birch is blazing upon the wide hearth
that has burned out many crackling back-logs; and

BROAD TAVERN

upon whose glowing coals many a mug of flip has set
"a-simmering" to serve its turn with the travellers
and wags who sought the hospitality of the old tavern.
Incongruous as the fire may seem, with the roof-
tree overshadowed by the green tops of the elms, it
was cheerful on this mornmg early in June, for the
days preceding had been days of cold rain, leaving
a feeling of dampness and chill about the old house,

178 Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

for all the summer sun was shining so brilliantly
upon the fields and woods. It added to the pleasure
to see the old hearth made young again in its glory
of leaping flame.

It was here in these rooms that the elite of old-
fashioned and aristocratic Falmouth were enter-
tained by their jolly landlord, whose two hundred
avoirdupois and ruddy face gave ample proof of good
cheer; and the long hall that runs through the centre
of the house was the scene of many a hilarious fes-
tivity, where now, on either side, are bits of real old-
fashioned mahogany : the straight-backed chair with
curiously woven bottom of greenish rushes, a cun-
ningly-carved escritoire with brightly polished brass
candelabra, and shining table-top, each one of which
has a history of its own. This desk belonged to Judge
Mellen, and that other thing to some other distin-
guished person, making them enviable possessions in
these days of swift fortunes and swift social elevation.

It was a great place for winter dancing parties
from town, and it is not difficult to imagine the beau-
tiful picture of an evening at Sudbury Inn, having
its counterpart at this ancient ruin at Stroudwater
— when,

"Round this old-fashioned, quaint abode,
Deep silence reigned, save when a gust
Went rushing down the country road,
And skeletons of leaves, and dust,
A moment quickened by its breath,
Shuddered and danced their dance of death,
And through the ancient oaks o'erhead
Mysterious voices moaned and fled. "

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 179

In this crackling birchen flame, I see the gay
townfolk who have come out here for a good time,
in their smart costumes ; their hair white with powder,
and their cheeks berouged and bepatched; the gen-
tlemen not a whit the less stylishly gotten up; with
their long queues done up in ribbons; their silk
hose and velvet breeches ; their embroidered waists-
coat and dainty laces; their silver or gold knee-
buckles and pumps, waiting for some tardy exquisite
who is looked upon as the leader of this jolly set; or
it may be the fiddler who is belated, — for a dance
is nothing without a fiddle, and an old-fashioned
fiddler to fiddle it.

But the time has come for the festivity to begin.
There is a hush in this youthful hilarity that is merged
in the bustle incident to the more immediate prep-
arations for a stately minuet, or a more rollicking
measure still. Over all there sounded

" The music of a violin.
The firelight, shedding over all
The splendor of its ruddy glow,
Filled the whole parlor large and low ;
It gleamed on wainscot and on wall," —

and rivalling the flickering of the home-made "tal-
low-dip," it shone into the faces of fair women, only
to find a rival warmth in the ruddy glow of their
cheeks. It was a dissipation that was kept up into
the wee small hours of the morning, if the chronicler
of these events is to be believed, — and much to the
scandal of the communitv ; for to the orthodox mind

180 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

in those clays, dancing was a lure of the fiend. In
Provincial Falmouth dancing was prohibited by law,
in places of "pubHc resort." The "quahty" in town
held their dances at Freeman's tavern, an old-time
hostelry of most excellent repute, and on one occa-
sion, as early as the first year of the Revolution, the
dancers were indicted. Among them was Theophi-
lus Bradbury, who afterwards became a distinguished
lawyer, and with whom the distinguished Theophilus
Parsons studied in after years. Bradbury appeared
for the respondents with the ingenious defence that
as the dancers had hired the room for the season, it
became a private apartment and was not a place of
"public resort." The court sustained the counsel's
view of the case, and the "quality" danced to their
heart's content ever after.

Sitting here, with the sound of the fire-music within,
and the wliistle of the robin in the orchard trees
without, my hostess told a story connected with the
inn, of a couple of not over-hardened gamesters, and
their experience with the occupant of the Bradley
parsonage. It was on a Saturday night. In this self-
same room it may have been, that a group of revel-
lers, betwixt their hot toddy, their card-playing, and
their wooing of the fickle goddess, with a constantly
increasing pile of winnings on one side and a con-
stantly lightening purse on the other, grew so ob-
livious to churchly precept that the game lasted
well into Sunday morning. A look at the tall clock
in its corner in the hall told them what, with all its
loud striking, had gone unheeded, that midnight had

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 181

come and gone, — a revelation not unmixed with
twinges of conscience, that caused the cards at once
to disappear. With an extra mug of flip around,
they said their good-night.

"Alone remained the drowsy squire,
To rake the embers of the fire.
And quench the waning parlor light ;
While from the windows here and there,
The scattered lamps a moment gleamed,
And the illumined hostel seemed
The constellation of the Bear,
Downward, athwart the misty air.
Sinking and setting toward the sun.
Far off, the village clock struck one."

Not all of those midnight revellers took their can-
dles from the narrow mantel to light them to bed
along the big hall and up the stairway. Two of the
hilarious company, wishing their sleepy landlord a
good night's rest, went out into the dark highway
that crept past Parson Bradley's. With uncertain
steps they kept the faintly discernible track, down
the hollow and up the hill between the inn and the
old grist-mill brook that went down to the marsh as
noisily in the dark as in broad daylight, as if it knew
the way so well it had no need of eyes, — which was
more than could be said of the two scapegraces who
went creeping over it by the help of the sagging
handrail of its old bridge.

The nearer they came to the parsonage, the livelier
grew their consciences at having trespassed upon the
Lord's time. After a brief debate, and not without

182

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

misgiving, they concluded to call up the parson and
divide the spoils with him, thinking that by turning
into the church treasury a part of their illgotten gains,
partial absolution might be secured. They plodded
along through the dark and over the hill by the

Tate house, past its black elms, glancing no doubt at
its gloomy windows, as if expecting some uncanny
thing, perhaps some old woman's ghost, might be
there to cast its glowering eyes upon them, — for
those were times when uneasy spirits went abroad
o' nights. They kept up their courage by dint of

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

183

loud talk and an occasional pull at the black bottle,
dreading most of all the parson's scathing rebuke,
which would undoubtedly greet their endeavor to
make him a party to their unchristian practices. The
parson's slender wicket rattled loudly as they opened
it, and they made a furious din with the brazen
knocker at the door, whereat the preacher, noted for
his dry sayings, his keen satire, and his eccentricities,
came to the door to listen to the midnight confession.
What they said is not recorded, but hardly had the
old man received the silver, when he astonished his
callers by his mild acquiescence and the half-approv-
ing inquiry:

"Well, gentlemen, why did you not play longer?"
Along a narrow, old-fashioned mantel, so high up

that I could no more than easily reach it standing,
were the same old candlesticks a-row which belonged
to the earliest days of this inn, and which gleamed as

184 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

kindly and looked as gay as if they had just come
from the modern manufacturer of bric-a-brac; only
there was the not easily describable flavor of an-
tiquity about them which is lacking in the modern
article.

The ancient brass-mounted andirons, the fender
and heavy tongs, and the long, slender-backed,
broad-bladed shovel, polished to the brilliancy of
gold, keep them demure company about the broad
fireplace, that with its short, chunky jambs speak of
the stout-heartedness and toughness of things in gen-
eral when its virgin flues were first aglow with flame.
What tales these quaint appurtenances of this old
room could tell, with its medley of experiences of
home life, that began with the hanging of its stal-
wart crane, the dawning of its child life, the in-
coming and the outgoing of its stranger guests, its
episodes of roistering entertainment, and its mid-
night revels! What a store of precious secrets are
held within the heart of its old roof-tree of pine; as
sound, every timber about it, as when with big
broadaxe they were hewn square, and, with mallet
and chisel, were fitted into a perfect roof-plate, rafter,
and ridgepole! A square house, goodly in propor-
tions, set upon capacious foundations, with two good
stories above. It is painted white, with cool-looking
green blinds, to give a pleasing contrast; and from
the eaves on the side toward the highway, its sharply-
pitched roof runs up to a stout ridgepole with its
single stout chimney amidships; to make as steep a
descent on its rear side, keeping on down over its

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 185

ell, shed-like, until its low eaves overshadow the
windows of the ancient kitchen. East, and west, its
gables look with the highway. From the horsesheds,
eastward, it is a delightful vista of birchen woods
over the June landscape to the farthest point of the
horizon, old "Black-strap," with its wooden monu-
ment, a relic of a coast survey made in the early
part of the century. Westward, from the hooded
doorway, with its sidelights of green-glass, one sees
the sun set amid the orchard tops; and that is all.

From the restful entertainment of this old room
and its smouldering hearthfire, the musical speech of
my gentle hostess in her suit of gray, and the June
sunlight without, with the west wind blowing through
the orchard and into the open windows, bringing with
it a bar or two of some orchard singer's madrigal, it
is but a step to the quaint staircase with its slender
handrail. The shadows thicken as the garret is ap-
proached with its single window in either gable, a
roomy, unfinished interior, rich in memorials of a
time and a people, the simplest episodes of whose
most matter-of-fact existence are tinged now with
the color of romance.

This old garret is not so different from one I knew
as a playground on wet days at the home farm when
a boy; and I never hear the rain beating on the
roof, or tapping, with its wet fingers, at my window-
pane, but the sloping rafters of that garret come to
my mind. I look again out of its cobwebby panes
upon the dripping woods across the pastures, while all
the sky between is gray with driving mists and wind-

186

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

blown rain swept across the dark background of the
pines in slanting sheets of wet, that leave the tus-
socks of kalmias white with crystal drops; paint the
walls and fences and the trunks of the trees black
with the drenching; and drive the birds into their
leafy hiding-places. What strange things one finds
in these garrets of old houses, with their stained
pine rafters and sloping walls, so thickly hung with

AN ANCIENT HOSTELRY

tapestry from the loom of some vagrant spider!
What antique furnishings are these that fill every
nook with a presence that inclines one to silence, and
makes one step softly over the creaking boards of
the floor, as if in fear of disturbing the slumbers of its
dusty tenants that have been asleep so long! These
old garrets are the homes of the ghost family, and it
is no w^onder that one feels the weird influences that
lurk behind every shadow. It is a drowsy enough

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 187

place, — but what suggestions look out upon one
with puzzhng query from the medley of old para-
phernalia that has outlived its day and people by so
many generations! What a rare place for an auc-
tion, — a real old-fashioned country "Vandoo," to
which everybody would come for miles around, to
have a bit of harmless gossip about their neighbors,
or their crops; to bid a few cents for some coveted
object that has been long cherished in this "Old
Curiosity Shop!" These auction entertainments,
however, as I remember, were largely of the out-of-
door kind; whatever was to be sold under the ham-
mer was piled promiscuously into the ample front
yard for everybody to see; while many a yarn was
spun at the expense of one article after another; and
it was a miracle, if the rain did not come down before
the sale was over, or the day was out. Fair, or foul,
it did not matter, as the whole transaction bore a
funeral aspect; while the auctioneer's wit was of the
subdued melancholy sort; as if this selling of family
heirlooms were an indefensible piece of sacrilege ; as if
there were something of shame attaching to the gar-
rulous part he felt himself to have taken in this clos-
ing act of an old-time drama.

There are several families living peacefully in this
out-of-the-way community, where the first day of
April has no more significance than the first day of
any other month, so far as the visit of the town as-
sessors is concerned; and the tax collector evidently
knows nothing of the place, for he is never seen here.
What taxes are levied and collected here are those

188 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

common to the domain of the house-cat, whose
bright eyes may be seen at ahnost any time of the
day flashing hke a pair of emeralds aflame, set in the
black obscurity of the farthest garret corner, while
their owner knows no more delightful occupation
than this silent waiting for the unsuspicious rodent
whose appetite is like to be his ruin. Here is a rare
table for the squirrels and the lesser mice; with the
garret floor strewn with the yellow harvest of the
corn-rows; where every setting sun ushers in a field-
day, or rather a field-night, for these mischief-makers,
who go scampering, up and down, with a queer rus-
tling footstep that reminds one of shivering leaves,
and winter snows. An old battered squirrel-trap of
wood, sprung long days ago for the last time, is here;
with its nubbin of corn stripped bare of every kernel
by some sly chipmunk, or by the mice that have
crawled in and out its spindle-hole, no doubt some-
what enlarged by the sharp chisels of their teeth.
Here is the identical tow string that, I trow, has
more than one bit of l^oyish romance twisted into
its yellow fibre, that carried the message from the
spindle to the heavy box-cover that it was time to
shut its squirrel guest in, — when down it dropped
with a terrible crash, holding the striped marauder
a close prisoner, until a flaxen-haired boy, whose
counterpart I some time knew, should come to re-
lease him. It is a wonderful panorama of bygone
days that unwinds from this self-same spindle, as I
lift the heavy cover, tied down with many a mesh
of cobweb. Unlike Pandora's box, this is over-

Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 189

brimming with good things; and hke it, too, they
come trooping out so fast, and so many of them,
that it is impossible to keep them in, — for every
day in all of boyhood's fleeting years is here; and each
is crowded with a reminiscence for every hour. It
is a music-box as well ; for it seems to be full of tunes
of bobolinks; of white-throated sparrows; of thrash-
ers and robins; and of swift-rmming brooks and fall-
ing raindrops; and there are hints of flame of cardi-
nal blossoms, of wind-flowers and bluets, of yellow and
purple corn leaves, and of orchard bloom and dande-
lions, of mellow sunlight and flashing wings. This is a
delightful family to visit, and once in its company
there is nothing to say, although so much to think of.
Near neighbors to these are the flax-wheel, and
hatchel, and the huge bunch of tow. I twirl the
little wheel round and round, and it is a rare song
of old days it sings, for all the rickety treadle creaks
its remonstrance in a way not to be misunderstood,
— for it sets up to belong to the aristocracy of the
Linen family, and a good old Irish family it is. The
big spinning-wheel, with a musical burr to its speech,
chides the flax-wheel upon this exhibition of family
pride; and suggests in a brisk sort of way common to
the connections of the Woollen family, that the
family name does not go a great way now-a-days in
the getting of a living; and people who rely on their
ancestral honors to win them a place in the world,
find themselves in a precarious way. The great hand-
loom, that has made, I do not know how many yards
of homespun in its day, sets its ponderous seal of

190

}'-P liOMANCK OF CASCO DAY

approval to this opinion of the spinning-wheel, with
a single clash of its emjjty sleys. There is an affirma-
tive rustling among the bobbins in the huge square
basket of ash, that keeps its place beside the bench
on ^^•hich the good wife sat at her weaving. Not

knowing how the
matter may end, and
wishing to keep good
friends all around, I
turn my back upon
this cousinly differ-
ence, to catch a
glimpse of a brave
old muster-coat of
stained and faded
blue, with its huge
brass buttons and
chevrons wrought in
red cord, the only
relic of a once warlike
family, peaceful
enough in these peace-
ful days. The bat-
tered sword that hangs beside it, that glistened bravely
at the old-fashioned musters, and on training days, is
now subjected to a more ignominious fate. To keep
it fitting company, the equally ancient flintlock
musket stands guard in a corner close by, with a box
of battered flints that were brought home from
Madawaska, or from some other forage; and a cart-
ridge-box covered with black leather hanging by a

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 101

rusty nail, close by the rustier musket-muzzle. There
is no smell of powder-smoke about the old coat; but
visions of woodland trails, and gleams of campfires in
the shadows of the deep hemlocks, of watchful men,
and of roistering training clays, with their butts of
Jamaica rmn and gingerbread booths that lasted long
after the Revolution, are painted up and dowTi its
dusty lapels. JMy eyes are not old enough to see
all there is here, for it all occurred before my day.
The old u'on sword, never dra^Mi upon a more belli-
gerent occasion than one of these trainings, if the
truth were known, — a bloodless relic, — made a
capital corn-sheller before the mechanical device for
shelling corn was invented. I suspect that more
than one country boy has sat a-straddle the corn-box,
with the point of one of these old sword relics held
in place by an iron staple driven into the end of the
box before him, while the handle, placed between
two boards set cross-wise this selfsame box, was held
down by the avoirdupois of the operator, his legs
sprawling wide apart, and his left hand grasping the
back of the sword, while the ear, held in the right,
was drawn stoutly upward against the dull edge of
the clumsy weapon, and so the corn was scraped clean
from the cob, first at the little end, and then at the
butt. This was a not unusual occupation on rainy
days in summer ; or in the firelight of a winter even-
ing, when the meal chest needed replenishing; it
was a sign that the next stormy day would send
some one of the menfolk to the miller. That was a
part of the story of the old sword to me.

192 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

But there is a more royal family yet in this old
garret; for, in a sequestered corner, I have spied a
pair of rusty iron dogs with their legs crossed in a
dignified way; and hanging from the rafters over-
head is an old copper warming-pan with a long
handle, that, filled with glowing coals raked from
between these identical andirons, lent its warmth to
its owner's bed on cold winter nights. Close beside
it is the ancient tin baker, in which countless batches
of cream biscuit have been baked to perfection; and
to keep it company is the spit on which the Thanks-
giving turkeys were basted, and done to a turn; and
here is the iron crank, dreaded by boy and girl alike,
by which the roast was turned, round and round,
with a slowness that was exasperating. An ancient
tin lantern, with perforated sides, and a socket for
its "dipped" candle, that had its usual place upon
the mantel over the sitting-room fireplace, that no
doubt lighted the goodman safely over the drifted
path to the barns, and that had, as well, shed its
dim light over many a husking bout, is here. It is
of a quaint pattern, with square sides and a top that
resembles the hip-roof to a toy house; and its sides
are figured with scrolls and flower-work, deftly out-
lined by puncturings large and small ; and at the top,
or peak of its roof, is a little loop of tin, just big
enough to receive a single finger, which was to serve
the lantern-bearer for a bail. To keep this old lan-
tern from being lonesome, is a tin horn, a good yard
in length, that used to sound its alarm across lots on
week days to call the farm-help to dinner; and on

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 193

Sundays, maybe, to call the good people of the
vicinity to church; and in case of conflagration to
summon the neighbors with their buckets; this was
before church-bells could be afforded, and before the
new-fangled trumpets with their whanging notes came
in with the peripatetic vender of Connecticut notions.

Here is something that could tell a story if it
would, — a curiously gotten-up affair that, in the
days before such a comfort as a fire w^as known at
church, was taken along, with the rest of the family,
full of ruddy coals to keep the feet of the women
warm.

But this is not all I have found in this haunted
spot; for there is a warning of singing-wings, and I
have discovered a huge wasps' nest over the window,
which has no doubt been there many a year^, for
wasps are partial to such places; and once well-set-
tled, are loath to leave; no matter how much they
may discommode the housewife as she goes after her
herbs that hang from the adjacent rafter.

Was there ever an old garret without its pine chest,
into which all things have been piled from decade to
decade, which always repays rummaging to the bot-
tom? I have found one here, and scarcely have I
lifted the lid before there is a scampering of mice,
and a rustling among the bits of faded paper that
cover the bottom so thickly; and sure enough, I find
just what I expected after I caught the scampering
sound, a nest of tiny mice, as snugly ensconced in
their house of paper, as the people downstairs in their
house of wood. If there were ever any tales of olden

194

1'^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

days in this chest, the mice have worn them out with
their reading of them; or found them so dry, that,
critic-Hke, they have torn them into bits to build
them into an edifice of their own.

It was years ago that I saw these things, and I
know not how much fact and fancy are mixed in the
order of relation. A rare memorial of a rare and
bygone race is this Wayside Inn of old Stroudwater,
with its peaked gables, its black roofs, and its big
chimney, that bespeak a comfort, a substance and a
thrift of exceptional ciuality; and a hospitality the
like of which is as rare as the brass-mounted bed-
steads I found in its sleeping-rooms, — all four posts
of which, of dainty and slender proportions, reached
to the ceiling, each bedstead surmounted by a bed
of royal dimensions, white as the driven snow, that
no doubt owned the magic panacea of perfect rest
for humankind. A grand house then, it must be
the same to-day. The best wish I have for it is
that it may stand a century longer, or as long as
the world stands, for that matter; for the story it
tells to the wayfarer is one that will bear repeating
every day.

AN OLD FISH-YARD

AN OLD FISH- YARD

GET a sniff of salt breeze through
my window almost any hour of
the day, for I do not live far
from the sea, and there often
comes to mind a town that is
very old; so old in fact, it some
time since celebrated its quarto-
decennial, for its settlement was
' ' almost coincident with that of

good old Plymouth. This old town in its stripling
days had a ferry as it has now ; nor was there anything
strange in that, as the sea hemmed it in on every side,
unless one mentions a slender neck of land on its north-
west corner; no doubt left there to keep it from alto-
gether getting into the water. This ferry had a
landing-place, or slip, at the foot of what was then
known as King Street, near what was once the site of
its first settler's cornfield ; a not important fact in itself,
but interesting historically, as this scant allusion to it
may assist the reader in locating long forgotten King
Street, if the reader ever knew of King Street at all.

197

198 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

South of this old ferry landing, now metamor-
phosed by the wharf-builders into a compact mass
of oak piling and granite wall, with its rows of
long, brown, iron-plated "bonded" warehouses of
a certain great corporation of common carriers, is
the Government House of Customs. Opposite, on the
water-side of the broad street which now faces the
whole southerly water-front of a city, the island steam-
ers take their passengers, the way to which is through
a long narrow lane. At the head of this passageway
is posted a sign, " Private way. Dangerous passing."
What one would ordinarily regard as its meaning, is
a query, with so many people going up and down;
unless one is to observe greater care in wending his
way between its rows of low-eaved dusky-gray
wooden buildings of the ancient rambling tumble-
down sort that hedge it so closely in. This lane is
odorous with the smells of the shipping and the wide
docks. It is a savory odor when the fishermen have
been out a day or two, and the tide has washed the
slips clean ; for the harbor, of itself, is a wonderfully
fresh and invigorating picture on a hot summer after-
noon, with its white sails, its cool winds and dark
emerald floods of salt sea-water. Everything here
smacks of the sea, and sea-toggery. A half-score of
ship-chandlery shops line this narrow lane. Over
the floors of their interiors are heaps of bright-look-
ing tackle, anchors, huge cables, cordage, barrels of
tar, dirty and sticky-looking. There are roomy at-
tics with low-sloping rafters, that hold up broad
slated roofs, into which are set rows of square win-

Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 199

dows, under which the sail-makers sit on their flat
benches all day long and sew piles of snowy duck
into white wings for the ships that have been brought
round from their ways at Fisher's Point, or up from
the Bath ship-yards. Here are fruiterers from the
Bermudas with their sails blown into tatters by some
Gulf Stream tornado, so quietly moored within their
docks, that one would hardly think of them as having
sailed under the Equator, and perhaps around the
workl, at one time or another. Through this thor-
oughfare is the way of the tourist to the island boats.
There is only a narrow plank walk for foot passen-
gers, while in the lane, or alley, is barely room for one
team to pass another; and when the steamers come
in from down, the bay, one, who tries to make his
way thitherward, experiences no inconsiderable jos-
tling and elbowing, as everybody seems bent on get-
ting up town in the shortest possible time.

There is more even, than this, to attract one's at-
tention as he gets into this odorous atmosphere.
Lobster-houses open out upon this narrow footway,
where the pleasure-seeker for the day may buy a
freshly boiled lobster for an outing lunch. In these
damp, dirty shops the toothsome crustacean is boiled,
packed into barrels and boxes, and labelled for Bos-
ton, New York, and Montreal. Hundreds of barrels of
this delicious shell-fish are shipped hence, every week
throughout their season, so that the home market
has hardly an abundant supply at any time. A
lobster-house is not an inviting place to one inclined
to neatness, for the floors are slippery with accumu-

200

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

lations of dirt and slime, though some of them are
really cleanly washed every day, and drenched with
the purest of water from an inland lake; but such a
one is rather the exception than the rule.

Set in a low brickwork along the wall, are black,
wide-mouthed kettles, into which the live lobsters are
thrown for boiling as they are taken from the lobster

FISH HOUSES

smack in the dock ; and piled about the floor awaiting
the "sorting" process, are bushels of boiled lobsters,
the ruddy hues of which lend brilliancy to the dingy
interior. Rarely does one see such beauty of color-
ing as these homely shell-fish exhibit in their coats,
spattered with the richest of tints, from a pale green
to a most brilliant scarlet. From the open door at
the rear of the shop one sees the entire dock, with
its varied sailing craft. Some fishermen are empty-

Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 201

ing some salt-water tanks in the hold of a fishing-
smack, that has just come in from a trip clown the
coast. The lobsters, pulled up with long forks, two
and three at a time, and thrown into big, square bas-
kets, are rapidly hoisted to the wharf, where the con-
trast between these, so soberly clad in suitings of
dun-colored olive-green, and those just from the
boiling sea-water, rich in glowing color, is a marked
one.

" Fresh-b'iled lobster, sir? purty nigh outer th'
last on 'em this year,"

From the bright light of a mid-August afternoon,
into the damp cool shadows of this old shop, lighted
only by its two low doors and a pair of dingy win-
dows, is too abrupt for the normal vision. The half-
light of this interior has the quality of semi-opacity.

"Have one, sir? No sof'-shells in that heap," —
and the old man who kept this place came forward
from his background of Rembrandt browns, thumb-
ing the ruddy back of a good sized specimen, as if to
corroborate his assertion.

"Getting scarce, are they?"

"Lord bless yer! Ther's lobsters 'nuff, only th'
law's on arter th' fifteenth."

Straightening out the stoop in his shoulders slowly,
and pulling and twisting his oiled overalls into place,
a hardy, weather-beaten old salt, with a rim of gray,
stubby beard around his chin, and above that a pair
of ruddy cheeks, and peering out over them, a pair
of keen gray eyes that light up rather a pleasant face,
and over all a rusty black felt hat of a certain non-

202

Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

descript style common among fishermen, my lobster-
seller, apparently delighted, keeps on with his griev-
ance :

" It's nigh onter thirty year sence I took t' fishin',
an' in them days there wuz hardly mor'n a half-dozen
smacks runnin' lobsters on the ]\laine coast; nowa-
days, ther's nigh onter half a hund'ed sail. I've
heerd tell as haow there wuz two thousan' men an'
as many bo'ts a-ketchin' lobsters fer the fleet;

/T^r^

A LOBSTER CANNERY

but they're like t' pull the'r bo'ts up on the bank ef
folks don't change th' law. I'm agin the law eny-
how, fer the Province folk send the'r lobsters here
free, w'en we can't ketch s'much as a crab; an' they
allers come w'en they're least wanted. Why, I've
seen thousan's o' lobsters shoveled overboard this
very w'arf fer the want of a market. No need o'
pertectin' the lobster. Natur' '11 take care ther's
lobsters 'nuff. Can't ketch 'em all no mor'n yer can

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 203

all the mussels an' clams. They ain't no fools, as
any fisherman knows; an' they'll spawn an' hatch,
an' spawn an' hatch, spite o' lobster-pots, er law; for
a single female of 'em perduces twenty thousan' aigs,
an' finds a place for 'em in th' seaweed or rocks, er
some'eres. Ther'll be lobsters 'miff; but yer see th'
trubble is, country folks don't know nuthin' 'bout
'em. It jes' helps the cannin' folks, an' thet's all.
My boy tells me ther's twenty-four hund'ed mile o'
coast-line thet belongs t' the Stet o' Maine, but 't
might be less, well 's more, fer the ketchin' o' lobsters
fer a livin' from this aout. I tell yer, sir, 'taint right.
I'm agin th' law. Gittin' a livin' anyway, 's preca-
r'ous 'nuff; but ketchin' lobsters 'n the Stet o' Maine
's precareser."

From the southern boundary of this State, north-
ward, is the fishing ground of the world, and here-
abouts along the island shores are the homes of some
of its most hardy fisher-folk.

The summer voyager among the islands of this
bay, will discover, here and there, odd-looking bits of
lattice-w^ork among the rocks, or on the sands. They
are the tools of the lobster-catcher that bring these
toilers of the sea over a half-million dollars yearly.
Anybody who has had a sniff of salt water along this
coast, can tell you they are lobster-traps; homely,
ungainly bits of handiwork, half-round, perhaps four
feet in length, with slender slats nailed lengthwise,
their ends covered with a netting of coarse wire, or
hempen twine; and in this netting is an aperture
through which the hungry crustacean enters after

204

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

the bait so temptingly displayed. Two men usually
go "snacks," handling from a single boat about two
hundred traps or pots, altogether.

By daylight the fishermen are pulling toward the
lobster-grounds, most likely some sheltered cove, or
narrow inlet that makes into the shore, here and
there down the bay, their boat piled fore and aft

THE LOBSTER GROUNDS

and loaded to the water's edge with traps that are
to be baited and thrown overboard at intervals off-
shore, where they remain over night, or until the
lobster-catchers return for them. They are easily
found by their painted floats; and pulled up, one by
one, their contents are emptied into the dory; the
bait replenished, the traps sink out of sight. So
these fishermen go, until every trap has been visited.
Then they return home; unless, as is often the case,
they have a camp under some of the island bluffs.

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 205

or along their yellow sands, when they take their
booty to a lobster-car anchored somewhere in the
immediate vicinity, until a lobster-smack shall sail
their way to take this product of the sea to market.
So, through wet, and fog, and summer sunshine, these
toilers ply their industry in the sea.

Custom House wharf is a familiar place, with its
small steamer rubbing uneasily against its piling,
grinding against its coating of barnacles, bobbing up
and down as the tide, turning from ebb to flood,
comes into the dock with a long heavy swell, setting
agog the big ships moored against the coal-sheds
opposite. The sun-heat is at its flood on the sloping
roofs, and the tremulous motion of the atmosphere
is as plainly visible as is that of the water beneath
us. The noisy puffing of a hoisting-engine, lifting
huge buckets of coal from the hold of a vessel close
by, adds to the annoyances that seem always to beset
one, with the mercury "rising" ninety, on the shady
side of the house. A breeze comes from '' out in the
stream" that one wishes might blow more pertina-
ciously; but it has died away, smothered in a flurry
of dust along the street; and the air is more stifling
yet. The people about the awning-sheltered decks,
scarce conceal their impatience to be off and down
the bay; but the boat lazily swings, and tugs at its
moorings, as if its sole mission were to teach on-
lookers the Philosophy of Indifference, for it seems
no nearer starting than a quarter of an hour ago.

It is a mixed company one sees here; Canadians
from as far west as Ottawa and Toronto; islanders

206 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

with their baskets and bundles — hale, heartj^ bluff
fellows as ever pulled a cod-line on the Banks; city
people by the score, off for the afternoon; with a
sprinkling of fishermen and coasting-men going to
their vessels anchored in the adjacent "roads," while
their seines are being mended on the upland fields.
A trio of youthful Italians, with a harp and two
violins, begin a potpourri of melody that puts every-
body in more generous humor. These children from
a far-off country, are shrewd, and keenly alive to the
chance of getting a penny, or what is better, a nickel ;
and are apt to measure their modicum of really
pleasing arias by such surface indications of wealth,
or impecuniosity, as the audience may possess. The
httle fellow who brushes by me with a shabby violin
under his arm, jingling his handful of nickels and
pennies in his brimless hat, with clothes rusty with
exposure to rain and sun, has a warm heart, for his
cheeks are flushed; and his eyes, big and brown and
sparkling with pleasure, lend a piquant beauty to
his olive-tinged face. Perhaps the stray, silver
quarter dropped into his old hat by the beautiful
girl who leans idly against the flagstaff" has something
to do with it. Now it is a gavotte; and the little
fellow plays as if at a serenade under the soft moon-
light of Italy's skies, and the generous girl were his
innamorata, in truth. Now it is one of Strauss's
waltzes; and two little misses are making the most of
these delightful strains. I hardly know which most
to admire, the soft strains of the music or the grace-
ful movements of the children.

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 207

But there is a hint of starting. Some late-coming
freight is hastily put aboard, and we shall be off a
moment later. There is enough to see when one is
tired of looking at his neighbors. Under the wharf
great, lazy rats come out stealthily, and then scamper
away with clumsy haste into the crevices in the
granite walls, frightened perhaps by the puffing of a
tug that has come into the dock after a vessel, for
it makes as much noise as if it had a Cunarder in
tow. The white-winged gulls sweep by the end of
the wharf, and the loosely-hanging sails of the ships
about us, mirrored in the green waters below, twist
and bend into a multitude of intermingling sinuous
lines and shapes among the bits of brilhant color
reflected from their hulls. The. air is palpitating
with mifamiliar sounds, and is thick with pungent
smells.

"All aboard!"

A long shrill whistle, the lines are cast off, — first
fore, then aft. A belated islander, market-basket in
hand, hastens across the wharf, and with a daring
leap, lands safely on deck, — an episode that some-
times ends differently. The steamer backs from her
mooring-place, stopping occasionally, as if short of
breath, but really to let some sailing vessel go by.
Once in the stream, we make our way down the har-
bor crowded with coasters, for the storm-signal is up,
on the Government building, though the zenith is
clear, with a copper-colored horizon to eastward. A
queer-looking ol^ject, which might be taken for a
working model of Noah's Ark, has just passed our

208

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

stern. It is a ferry-boat, that, despite its ungainly-
lines, is an improvement on the opposition line,
especially if one wishes to take his horse and carriage
along. The captain of the steamer has a great in-
clination to blow, not his horn, JDut his whistle.
Every steam craft that comes within earshot is greeted
with three ear-splitting blasts from somewhere over-
head, and an answering triplet of shrieks comes in
reply across the intervening waters. I notice with

a conscious feeling of elation, that a steam yacht
goes past without deigning to notice a hail that is
growing monotonous, and, that is without necessity
in broad daylight, with a half-mile of leeway and
plenty of sea-room.

With so many vessels going in and out, there are
no pilot boats. Pilotage is not compulsory in these
waters; so a shipmaster may pilot his ship into port
without penalty or forfeiture. The harbor is so easy
of access that few seafarers find occasion for as-

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY^ 209

sistance, though the Enghsh steamers invariably
take a pilot. For the matter of need, it might be
asserted with the utmost truthfulness, that there is
hardly a coaster, or fishing-smack from this to Quoddy
Head, but almost any one of its crew might be de-
pended upon, individually, to make port in the dark-
est night, for the island roads are fairly broad and
safe, and lead to Fore River, and the inner Cape shore.
When a pilot is signaled from the outside, the steve-
dores draw lots to see which one shall go out after
the vessel and pocket the commission, or pilotage;
but the men who go piloting, rarely have no more
than their reputation to lose, and of which most of
them are very proud.

The steamer makes straight for a dumpy, white
light-tower at the end of the granite Breakwater, and
on the port side, —

"Are the black wharves and the slips," —

over which the great West tumbles its products into
the holds of immense European steamships; and a
historic spot it is : for here, at the foot of India Street,
ancient King Street that was, where the roundhouse
of a Canadian railway now stands, is the site of old
Fort Loyall of Colonial fame. The sunken ledges of
Spring Point are close under our keel ; and the Point
itself is within a pistol shot ; where the low, gray
walls of Fort Preble, named for a famous commo-
dore, bask peacefully in the afternoon sun, which
we might take to be deserted, but for the enlivening

210 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

strains of the fort band that come to us over the
water; and that bring to mind the days when the
fields, now in plain sight, were white with thousands
of army tents. Recalling an episode of the Revolu-
tion, it was no doubt in this near neighborhood that
Captain Mowatt anchored the Canseau, the Cat, and
two other small sloops one bright October morning
in 1775, remaining until sundown, during which time
he diverted himself with the burning of the old town,
in which he was completely successful.

One takes a backward look toward the city, with
Mowatt's attack in mind, and the sites of two
ancient landmarks are in view, as one follows the
sky-line of the old town. One is westward, just al)ove
the jagged roofs of the Falmouth Hotel, and marks
the site of the old Marston Tavern which stood on the
easterly edge of old Market Square, on the water
side. Mowatt was detained for a short time by Col.
Thompson here, at the old tavern, as a prisoner.
Perhaps it was for that reason, that the guns of the
Canseau were trained so destructively upon the old
hostelry. The old tavern was the place of booking
for all the stages out of Falmouth, or until the Elm
Tavern was built, which was about 1826. In the
course of time the old hostel had served its ends as
a place of entertainment, and the huge chimney
amidships was demolished, and with it went the
ancient association of its like huge open fires, where
the cocked hats of the town had wagged their gossip,
or fulminated their anathemas against the English
oppression, for almost three generations. In the

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

211

brickwork of the great chimney was found one of
Mowatt's shot. It was a companion to others that
on that same eighteenth of October, 1775, went
crashing through the walls of the big house. If one
has a curiosity to see the old tavern, one will find it
on the south side of State
Street, next above the inter-
section of York.

Running along the sky-line
to eastward, just beyond the
green domes of Lincoln Park,
on the corner of Hampshire
and Congress streets, was the
old tavern of Mistress Alice
Greele. It was even more
renowned than the Marston
hostel. It was the favorite
stopping-place of the trapper,
the farmer, and the lumber-
man. Of course it had a
cosey tap-room. Such was
an important adjunct of all
inns of the time; and that

of ]\Iistress Greele's must have been crowned with
warmth and good cheer. Its landlady was famous
as a cJief, but her cooking was nothing to her
heroism as the red-hot shot from Mowatt's fleet
hurtled through the autumn sunlight, and straight
toward this old tavern. Of the buildings that
overlooked the bay that October morning, four
hundred and fourteen had been burned during the

SITE OF GREELES TAVERN

212

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

day's bombardment. The Greele Tavern escaped the
general destruction, but not through any loyalty its
habitues felt for it, for, when Mowatt's little fleet
opened fire, there was a general exodus from town;
but Mistress Alice Greele remained behind. Unlike
Mrs. Partington and her broom, Mistress Greele

THE OLD ELM TAVERN

caught her water-pail and tlipper, and began the
patrol of her tavern. Wherever a spark appeared,
the water flew; and so she fought the English. She
saved her house, which was, doubtless, all she pos-
sessed; and her name was added to the list of heroic
women of the time.

Here, incoming and outgoing tide meet, making

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 213

a heavy swell. The boat is soon within the shelter
of House Island, where the bay is as smooth as an
inland pond, with here and there a white-cap where
the wind bears down a bit too hard on the water.
Over the grassy parapets of Fort Scammell, an un-
completed fortification that occupies half of the
island, the summer winds and the shadows of flying
clouds run riot. The huge derricks stand stark,
gaunt, and useless in the sunlight. Piles of granite
obstruct its approaches, and its beautifully designated
portals will undoubtedly remain unfinished memen-
tos of the past. Its gray, forsaken bastions, with
their closed ports, the huge guns lying unmounted,
and in peaceful solitude along their tops, make better
Songs of Peace than are written with the pen. There
was once a blockhouse stockade here that was kept
in repair by the government for many years; and
here too was an ancient burying-ground of the In-
dians, remains of whom were found in a fair state
of preservation by the builders of Fort Scammell.
The story-and-a-half cottage of the sergeant who
watches over Uncle Sam's interests in this vicinity,
and the comfortable homes of three families, over-
look the bay from its uplands, and,

"Blown out and in by summer gales,
The stately ships with crowded sails
And sailors leaning o'er the rails." —

Had one the vision of Cobbler Keezar and his
magic lapstone, one could see more than heaps of
faced granite, and unfinished scarp; or, even, with

214

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

"the gift of the Mormon's goggles
Or the stone of Doctor Dee," —

could one crowd out the present and open up the
old, these walls of Scammell would be as a film, a
shell, within which was another and more ancient
place of refuge, or rather an old wooden blockhouse,
a rude defense which stood for years, before, a suf-
ficient menace to untoward intrusion, and an abun-
dant protection against active
aggression. It is difficult to
say when this earlier structure
was built ; but it was a stur-
dily-built affair, with walls of
fourteen-inch pine, and oak
timbers, pinned and dowelled
together, solidly. It was
octagon in shape, supplied
w i t h embrasures, pintle-
blocks, and gim-circles for
four guns. The magazine
w^as of brick, and its upper
story, for it was a double-decked affair, projected
over the lower, and was pierced with loop-holes for
musketry.

Around all this was a stout stockade of cedar. It
was allowed to stand for several years after the new
lines of Scammell were constructed; but that was in
1808, and five years later Fort Scammell had been
completed according to the then existent plans. No
vestige of the blockhouse has existed for many years.

SCAMMELL

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 215

Scammell, as a defense against modern armaments,
would be more destructive to its inmates than open
exposure to the hottest fire of an assault; but House
Island is now Government property ; and dirt instead
of stone, unobtrusive hummocks of bending grasses,
mildly suggestive of pastoral delights, instead of
granite angles, and low-browed bastions, and glower-
ing ports, will meet the scrutiny of the curious.

This island holds a pleasing prominence in the early
history of this part of the Maine coast, for it is un-
doubtedly a fact that here Christopher Levett, wdio
sailed hither from York, England, in the days of
James I. built the first house to grace the shores of
Casco. This was some five or six years before the
coming hither of George Cleeve from Scarborough to
begin anew his pioneer life along the low shores of
Stogummor; and had Levett's house been standing,
as one has reason to believe it was, it may have been
for this alone that Cleeve planted his Casco roof-
tree where he did, for House Island was but a short
distance dow^n the bay; and Levett's house was
doubtless, easily discernible. Levett held his house
in short occupancy; but it is recorded that after his
abandonment of it, it was frequented by other toilers
of the sea, who used it for temporary shelter, and its
surrounding slopes for the partial drying of their
catches of cod and haddock taken from the neigh-
boring waters. Casco Bay was the scene of much of
this early activity in fishery, and was much fre-
quented by the English fishermen. Likewise, curi-
osity, among the Old World dwellers, was actively

216 Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

agog as to what transpired in this hmd of continually
new discoveries; and the wortl went from mouth, to
mouth, with a remarkable celerity, the Gospel of
Commerce. It is to this lively interest we owe most
of what has come to us through the increasing lapse
of years, and of the annals of these early doings along
our New England coast.

The coming of Levett was some eighteen years
after the voyage of de Monts and Champlain along
this coast; and perhaps it is fortunate that so beau-
tiful and attractive a spot should have escaped the
scrutiny of so excellent an observer as Champlain.
Had it been otherwise, it is safe to assume that here
would have been a French settlement, and the his-
tory of the later English settlements, especially around
Massachusetts Bay, would have recorded a nuich
more strenuous experience than fell to the lot of the
Puritans. The detour of Champlain up the Sheep-
scot, possibly as far as what is now Wiscasset, under
the direction of Panounias, a Mt. Desert Indian, is
doubly suggestive of the adventurous and curious
disposition of this French explorer. Surely, no more
promising or seductive array of woods and waters,
snugly ensconced, and capable of natural defense,
could be found south of the St. Lawrence; and
the climate was certainly more equable and easily
withstood when the inclement days of winter came
with the southern-going suns. As a base of supplies,
it would have been incomparable. Champlain would
have discerned all this, and here would have been
the nucleus of the French Occupation.

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 217

As it was, Levett was the first to attempt a settle-
ment of this particular part of the coast. Richmon
Island, the "Bacchus" Island of de Monts, first oc-
cupied by George Richmon, from Bandon-on-the-
Bridge, Ireland, and the scene of the Bagnall tragedy,
was but slightly its senior in occupancy. Richmon,
of an adventurous disposition, and of a somewhat
roving character, is saitl to have built a small vessel
here, which he loaded with fish and furs, setting
sail for England; but he was lost on the homeward
voyage. After his departure from this island, he
became, like Westbrook of later colonial fame, simply
a human landmark along the way to its later civi-
hzation.

Before the coming of Richmon, Capt. John Smith
had cast his lines into the teeming deeps hereabout.
Other adventurous voyagers had filled their ships with
its treasure of the sea, or filled their wide-spread
sails with its bracing winds, hastening their pace for
"merrie England," their holds stuffed with choice
pelts obtained of the natives along the coast adjacent.

According to the annals of these early voyagers,
de Monts and Champlain were here in July of 1605;
and it was about 1623, seven years before Cleeve
went to Scarborough, that Levett made his voyage
hither, touching first at the Isle of Shoals, and after
that, at the mouth of the Saco, where he first saw the
"Crystal Hills,'' the Waumhek Methna of the abo-
rigine. He evidently did not find the basin of the
Saco to his mind, for he kept on along the coast
until he had passed through the southerly roadstead

218

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

of Casco Bay, into the mouth of Fore River, which
was about two leagues from "Quack," so named
after a Saco sagamore, and which comprised the
mainland now known as Cape Elizabeth, a more
royal and euphonious cognomen.

Doubtless in those days the low shores of the Cape
from Portland Head, following the trend of Simon-

PORTLAND HEAD

ton Cove, were garnished with dense deciduous
growths ; unless, perhaps, the ledges, that now make
the Breakwater foundation, broke the green waters,
sea-serpent-like, with here and there a glimpse of its
ragged spine, black and serrate, where now the
slow lengths of Fort Preble show a narrow strip of
gray above the yellow sands; and higher up, in the
middle distance, are the multi-colored villas daintily
ensconced, —

" 'mong the embow'iin"; trees."

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 219

Levett dropped his anchor in the river to which
he gave his name. That he was dehghted with the
locality is certain, for not long after he acquired the
right to set up a plantation at "Quack." That he
made an extended visit hereabout is likewise certain,
for, he says, in his relation of his voyage, — "I
sailed to Quack or York, with the king, queen and
princes, bow and arrow, dog and kettle, in my boat,
his noble attendants rowing by in their canoes," —
the first voyage of state in these regions of which
there is mention. Here at York, he says he found
ships from Weymouth, England, the crews of which
were storing their vessels with fish. When Levett
told the Indian queen these Englishmen were his
acquaintances, she bade him welcome them to her
country and "drank to them." What this vehicle
of goodwill and affection was, is wholly a matter of
conjecture. Levett does not say. It must have been
palatable, for " she drank also to her husband, and
bid him w^elcome to her country, too ; for you must
understand that her father was the sagamore of this
place, and left it to her at his death, having no more
children. And thus, after many dangers, much labor
and great charge, I have obtained a place of habita-
tion in New England, where I have built a house
and fortified it in a reasonable and good fashion,
strong enough against such enemies as are these
savage people."

One Phippen is said to have been the first authentic
occupant of House Island. He carried on a fish-yard
here, but bought land on Cape Elizabeth in 1650;

220 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

and it is probable that he later located permanently
on the mainland. A local aiinalist says, referring to
Phippen's occupancy of this island, "but there nmst
have been a previous settler; as in 1663, Sampson
Penley levied an execution against Phippen, upon
one-quarter of the islands, half of the old house, and
all of the new house, together with half of the stages."

Levett's house must have been built of logs, with
cobbled corners; a most substantial affair, after the
fashion of the early settler; and it is far to infer, in
the absence of other record, that this "old house''
in which Phippen w^as alleged to have had an attach-
able interest, was the one constructed by Levett.

No better evidence than this can be had that
Levett built him a house; and it is as certain that
House Island was so called because of its distinguish-
ing landmark, — the house that Levett built, — and
no doubt the island was chosen by reason of its iso-
lation by its environing waters, and the additional
security to be derived from so favorable a situation.
The next year, 1624, Levett sailed for England, not
however without leaving a guard of ten men behind,
and with the probable purpose that they should en-
gage in the improvement of his new estate. From
this, he must have intended to return. It is unfor-
tunate that he was unable to do so, for he was, for
the times, a wise and temperate man, conciliating in
his policy toward the natives; acquiring his territory
of several thousand acres by purchase from the
Sagamore who owned it. Evidently his ambitions
were large, and his views of the future, sanguine.

r^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BA Y 221

He had in mind a populous settlement, after the
fashion of his own English York. He was of the
right sort of metal; but like Gorges, and others who
followed after, other hands were to reap the harvest.
Once in England, he found affairs unsettled. The
royal aid he had a right to expect never came. The
rupture with Spain, the intrigues of Buckingham,
warlike preparations, internal dissensions, the plague,
and finally the death of King James, precluded the
realization of Levett's brilliant scheme of coloniza-
tion of Casco Bay. England and France were at
serious odds over boundaries, and sovereign rights,
and grants to the country east of the middle Maine
Province; but as late as 1627, Levett, still persever-
ing in the face of great discouragements, had so pre-
vailed with Charles I. that the latter had ordered
the churches at York to contribute toward the build-
ing of the new city across the Atlantic and near the
domain of the former, and which was to be called
York. Charles was undoubtedly actuated to do so
much as this, that a nucleus might be formed to off-
set the growing influence of the Puritan colony on
Massachusetts Bay. Whatever may have been the
financial results of Charles' interest in the matter, a
year later, we find Levett enveloped in that opacity
of oblivion which becomes complete under the hard-
ening process of the accumulating centuries.

The last reference to Levett, is through Cleeve, from
whom we have it that Levett, conveyed his Casco
property to "one Wright," and further, that he,
Cleeve, bought the W^right title to support his own

222 Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

against the claims of Winter under the Trelawney
grant. One might be exceeding curious as to the
fate of the stewards of the Levett vineyard, but
their story is lost in the wrecking of their master's
ambitions. They drifted, no doubt, to other settle-
ments, or mayhap lived among the natives. There
was Richmond Island not far away, a day's trail
perhaps along the Cape shore, and less than that
across country ; and the English fishermen were com-
ing and going; and southward, reaching along the
coast to Cape Cod, were here and there the slender
footholds of their own race. Like other adventurers
of those early days, they may have been caught up
on the winds of adversity, and swept, like the dust
of the highway, into intangibility.

At the time of Cleeve's coming hither, there is no
mention of any house on the Neck, or adjacent thereto.
Had there been such, the legal contest between
Cleeve and Winter would have developed the fact;
but such a structure on House Island would have
attracted no attention, as House Island does not
appear to have entered the controversy. This latter
island is of considerable area. Its slopes are easy and
inclined to the south and west ; and apparently of fair
quality as tillage land; but the fishing interest pre-
dominated; and for years the low-roofed, white
house of the Trefethren family has looked landward
across the inner bay, and over the reef long crowned
by the granite pile of old Fort Gorges. Trefethren's
has been a fish-yarcl since the memory of man; but
like all else, the mutations of Time, and Change,

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

223

have left only the old white house, and the rotting
wharves, as the vestiges of a former importance. A
small fortune was accumulated here; for at one time
the fishery trade of this Bay was worth annually
nearly two millions of dollars. A half-million quin-
tals of cured fish were shipped from here annually,
and the mackerel pack averaged near one hundred
thousand barrels for the same time. To this might

TREFETHREN'S

be added the herring and lobster catch, which was a
business of equal importance and value.

In those days the eastern slopes of the island were
covered with fish-flakes that gave to them the sem-
blance of a gray shed-roof of enormous dimensions.
Down by the water were the cobble-wharves that
are there to-day, and the neatly whitewashed store-
houses flank the runs that led up to the flakes. Al-
most always, in season, one could see a "Banker"

224 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

unloading her catch. In the adjoining sHps, or on
the shelving beach, three or four "smacks" are
heeled partly over with the tide on the ebb; but the
little steamer has bumped against the end of the
old wharf, and I clamber ashore. Then it drifts
away, to head across the channel for " Jones's," one
of the embryo watering-places of local celebrity,
hereabout.

Although it all happened years ago, let me tell it
as if it were a visit of to-day. I listen, and the voice
of long ago comes back, — a voice as I remember it,
that seems to have the quality of a sea-water pickle,

"Look aout thar, mister!"

Turning quickly, I barely avoid a wheelbarrow
load of half-cured fish that is being steered down the
slopes of the fish-yard, and across the slippery wharf
into the storehouses.

"Beg pard'n, Cap'n. Ye see the rain's comin',
an' these ere fish must be gut under kiver. A black
claoud in th' west like thet yender, wi' a stiff s'utherly
breeze t' coax 't daown th' bay, iz a sure sign o'
wet."

Here the islander tipped his shapeless slouch hat
back to take a look at the wooden fish whittled out
of a pine shingle, no doubt by some youthful Yankee,
and that played weather-cock on the gable of the
nearest fish-house. A squint at the darkening dome
of the thunder-gust that had already hidden the sun,
a spurt of tobacco juice, an ominous shake of the
head, and my man ti'undles his wheelbarrow up the
slope, nmttering to himself, " 't may, an' 't mayn't."

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 225

The work goes on hurriedly. The fish on the flakes,
the dryest, are piled upon the big wheelbarrows and
run down the hill into the houses on the wharf, the
men hardly stopping to wipe the dripping sweat from
their faces, so great is their haste, with the shower
close upon them. There is a low muttering of thun-
der as the wind dies down, while the sea is like a
mirror, so still and breathless is the air above it.
The sea-gulls have disappeared; only the swallows
dip and skim over the flats, and up the island slopes,
and over their crest to the parapets of the old fort,
to wheel about sharply, and again sweep dowm past
the men among the fish-flakes, with never a whistle,
or shrill note to disturb the brooding c^uiet, to scour
the flats again for their winged food. How silent
and majestic, this approach of the black cloud bear-
ing down its sullen weight upon the city roofs, and
crowding along the edge of the mainland! The sails
of the vessels in the offing, hang limp and spiritless,
flapping mayhap with some fugitive gust that has
ridden out in advance of the windy cohorts of the
storm; but mark the colors of the sky! Huge snow-
banks of massed cloud seem always to be on the
point of rolling down the steeps of this black preci-
pice of vapor, creviced with such jagged seams of
flame. On either side, the sky is of a rich metallic
brilliancy, gleaming like the softest lustre of tur-
quoise, with just a tender hint of emerald about it;
as if it had caught some faint reflection of the trees
and fields that lay so breathless below. One can
hear the roar of the wind now; and the dust, like a

226

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

low cloud of smoke, rolls off the land into the sea.
What a cool sound it is, so full of moisture and
shadow !

The men work on, wheeling the dryer fish into these
low-roofed whitewashed storehouses, piling the more
moist into heaps of a dozen or more along the hem-
lock boards of the fish-flakes, covering them one after
another with a simple device — two short boards
nailed V-f ashion — which affords
effectual shelter during the
heaviest rain-storm.

A few big drops come patter-
ing down; that is all. The
'4ieft" of the shower has crept
eastward by the mainland, but
the work is over for the day,
among the flakes. There will
' be no more showers to-day and

the sun is too low clown in the sky to be of any
more service in the fish-yard. If to-morrow dawns
clear, the flakes will be covered with cod and hake
before the dew is well off the grass.

It is an interesting process, this curing of the fish
that have come from the far-away Newfoundland
Banks. Here is a schooner that has arrived from
the Banks to-day. Her sails are mildewed and tat-
tered; her spars are gray and weather-worn with so
much of fog and storm, but her lines are as graceful
and beautifully drawn as if she had been built for
yachting, instead of fishing along the Grand Banks.
" Han'sum, ain't she? Tuk th' prize in the schooner

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 227

race two years ago. She's been t' the Gran' Banks
this five year, an' has alius bin lucky. Some air
lucky, an' sum ain't; some git good fares, an' some
doan't pay thar stockin'!''

It is the owner of the wharf who has accosted me.

"Rather an uncertain way by which to get one's
living, I should say."

"Wall, yis, 'pears so; but some on 'em git well off;
more doan't. It's like enything else. Depen's on
the man summat. I alius tho't the man made the
chance. I tell ye w'at 'tis. Mister, ther's folks an'
folks; ther's smart ones, an' them az ain't s' smart.
Them ez is alius in debt an' spen's ez fast ez they go,
an' a leetle bit faster, '11 never git on nohow. I've
hearn tell on a feller ez wuz called Franklin, who
saved half 'is airnin's, ef 'twarn't mor'n tupence a
day; but the most o' the men ez goes in the Bank-
ers air too gen'rous t' save 'a dollar, an' th' lawyers
gits arter 'em wi' trustees an' sich like; so, 'twixt
one thing, an' anuther, an' the big prices they lies t'
pay fer ther hooks, an' lines, an' ile-clo'se, an' ther
drinks, ther's nuthin' left fer the folks t' hum. My
'sper'ence is, a man hes t' hev er mean stre'k, er
som'thin' mighty nigh outer it, t' git fore-handed."

"W'at time do they git away t' the Banks? Most
on 'em lay in ther salt an' bait, thet is, stock the ves-
sel, so ez ter git away 'bout the fust o' Aprel. It's
'a thousan' mile ter the Gran' Banks: an' it's a' tol-
'able smart vessel thet gits thar in ten days, with
fogs 'n icebergs alius in the way, an' steam craft t'
look aout fer day an' night. Thar's danger 'nuff in

228

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

th' best o' weather fer th' schooner ez goes ther three
t' four months arter salt fares.

"Haow meny go in sich a craft ez this ere? Wal,
sum'times mor, an' sum'times less. Um, twelve t' fif-
teen's 'a fair crew, with 'a dory t' each man; an',
when they git thar, the men go aout inter th' mist an'
fog thet comes daown wi' the icebergs, day arter day,

A BANKER

sawin' away et the rail o' the dory with a big cod-
line witli a hook an' clam on the end on't. Sum'-
times the fog settles daown s' thick the men can't
find the schooner. A New F'un'lan' fog hain't t' be
grinned et; an' thar's hardly 'a day goes by, but
thar's rain, an' sleet, an' mist. Wen I vised t' go t'
the Banks, arter the day's fishin', all ban's 'd turn

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 229

tew, an' dress the fish. V\e used t' be mighty quick
'bout 't. Didn't hev no loafin' 'n aour crew. \\"en
we gut 'em all split an' dressed we packed 'em away
'n the hold, pihn' the salt onter the fish t' keep 'em
'tell the fare wuz full, w'en we'd set sail fer hum,
gittin' daown 'ere sum'eres 'bout th' fust o' August."

It is a life of danger, and the men w^ho engage in it
are keenly alive to the fact; but there are few salt-
water enterprises that engage the attention of a
hardier, or more intelligent class of New Englanders
than this.

Here the fish, sodden with salt, are being thrown
from the hold of the schooner to its deck with a
pitchfork, such as the inland farmer uses in his
haying field; and are thence taken to the wharf,
where they are thoroughly washed in large tubs of
sea-water. Well-rinsed, they are thrown into large
piles, backs down, — kentched — and left a day or
so to flatten, after which they go to the flakes to dry.
A few days of bright sunshine, with an off-shore wind,
prepares them for the storehouse, where, closely
packed from floor to ceiling, they go through the
^^ sweating'' process which occupies about fifteen clays.
The last drying follows, for which, one clear wdndy day
suffices; and the white, tender codfish of the market
and grocery-store is packed away for shipment. In the
dull, heavy atmosphere of "Dog-days" the fish, not
infrequently, rot on the flakes, tho' the sun shines
never so brightly. This is the " light-salting'' method;
but the greater part cured hereabout, are ^^heavy-
salted,'" which require less time and labor, and are

230 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

darker in color. It is healthy, vigorous work about
the fish-yards, and the men have the breezy out-of-
door air that is characteristic of their calling. It is
not singular that fish-yards have been of ancient
repute here ; for, among these islands was the favorite
fishing-ground of the savages, whose campfires, burn-
ing for the most part far inland, were lighted once a
year, and the smokes of their wigwam fires blew out
to sea with the autumn mists, while their dusky
dwellers went to their fishing in this realm of Nature's
silences.

Among the earliest who came into this section of
the country was Henry Jocelyn. His brother John
came over from England and a reception was given
to him; and among the quaint memoranda in his
journal is his description of the occasion, reproduced
here, as it referred mostly to an incident said to have
occurred in this immediate vicinity. "At this time,"
June 26th, 1639, ''we had some neighboring gentle-
men in our house who came to welcome me into the
country, where, amongst a variety of discourse, they
told me of a young lion not long before killed at
Piscataqua, by an Indian; of a sea-serpent or snake
that lay coiled up like a cable upon a rock at Cape
Ann; a boat passing by, with two English aboard
and two Indians, they would have shot the serpent
but the Indians dissuaded them, saying that if he
were not killed outright they would all be in danger
of their lives. One Mr. Mitton related of a Triton
or Merman, which he saw in Casco Bay; the gentle-
man was a great fowler and used to go out with a

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

231

small boat or canoe, and fetching a compass about
a small island, there being many islands in the bay,
for the advantage of a shot, he encountered a Triton,
who, laying his hand upon the side of the canoe,
had one chopped with a hatchet by Mr. Mitton,
which was in all respects like a man. The Triton
presently sank, dyeing the water with his purple
blood and was no more seen."

These story-tellers must have enjoyed themselves
hugely at Jocelyn's expense, whose imagination no
doubt kept even pace with his credulity ; and no doubt
many a group of wide-eyed English children listened
to these wonderful tales from the New Land, when
Jolm Jocelyn sailed back across the sea in his old-
fashioned sailing-vessel, to his old-fashioned English
fireside. It is not to be wondered at, that New
England owns so many good story-tellers nowadays,
when her early settlers could show themselves so apt
at romancing.

OLD MOUNTJOY'S ISLAND

^■SSSi^i.,

OLD MOUNT JOY'S ISLAND

f HOVE off, man!"

A half-mile from these old fish-
yards on House Island, across a
'--^ narrow ocean roadstead, and a
short two miles eastward from
ancient Poodack, is what was once
old Moimtjoy's Island. There
was a stone house here two hun-
dred years ago, a place of refuge from the Indians,
no traces of which exist at the present time. The
place of its standing is a mystery. On an ebb tide, a
strong current runs out this narrow water-way by
famous "VMiite Head, and, as my ferry-man sets me
across, every dip of his port oar throws the salt spray
into the dory and about my shoulders, with a sensa-
tion of increasing moisture, for the wind has fresh-
ened since the shower, and the channel is covered
with white-caps.
Here, is "Jones's."

I toss my ferryman a silver coin, which he tests
with his teeth, and, with a movement expressive of

235

236

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

satisfaction, he drops it into what, in its newer days,
was a shot-bag, which, puckered, and twisted, and
tied with a single string, he thrusts into his baggy
trousers, to push offshore with a broad smile on his
face, and a "Thanky, sir!" rolling off his Yankee
tongue.

"Jones's " was once a heterogenous community, a
semi-populous one at certain seasons of the year, and

JONES'S

at certain times of the day, which one realized as, leav-
ing the stubby-nosed wharf, he climbed the steep,
ungraded foot-way, rain-gullied, and stre^^Tl with loose
pebbles, to a sloping greensward littered with bits
of torn paper and the debris of lunch-baskets; for
here was a group of ancient apple-trees, with some
benches under them, that were occupied, most of the
time in sunny weather, by youngish folk of flirta-
tious tendencies, who ogled and grimaced with vary-

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 237

ing degrees of success, to the great amusement of
grown-up people.

It was a slovenly-kept green, with onh* the wind
to sweep it every afternoon.

I query whether this may be the place I knew
some years before, with all these affairs of booths
and buildings, crowding about its gateway.

Reaching the single island street, I find the same
old incomparable pictures that Nature paints in
June to hang against the sky.

"Jones's'' has aspirations. It will tell you, if you
let the native play oracle, that here is to be a second
Mont Desert; but don't for the world look incredu-
lous; he believes it, as does every other native who
has a plat of land to sell. Taking boarders, or ply-
ing some catch-penny occupation makes up its sum-
mer enterprise; but the growth of the place as a
summer-resort, has come more by reason of the charm-
ing outlooks from its hill-tops, its cool, invigorating
winds, its bold shores and salt water environment,
than by any good wit of its resident population, or
the generosity of the city of which it is a part; for
its artificial attractions are all in the line of dime
shows, and like enterprises, to lure transient patron-
age.

The land is mostly in the hands of the old settlers,
who dislike to part with a parcel, here or there, and
who dream of fabulous prices. It is a vain dream,
with only a single thoroughfare along its cityward
side, hardly equal to some country roads I have in
mind, — a few weeks of limited accommodation in

238

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

summer, a dance-hall, a roller-coaster, and a monkey-
garden, with a dime opera house and the consequent
hubbub. But get away from this artificiality, and
summer life here has the charming quality of natu-
ralness and restfulness; or it had, some years ago,
when I spent a summer tramping over its woodland
paths, its fields, and along its rocky shores after an
idle fashion; or rowing from one island to another,

AN OLD SETTLER

digging a basket of clams one day, and on another
shooting a bag of plover for a pot-pie, either of which
are toothsome enough to tempt an epicurean, with
their fresh, juicy, gamey flavor.

Strolling over the beaches in June, one sees broad
lines of yellow along their pale sands as the tide
creeps slowly out. It crumbles between the fingers
like a powder, and is the cause of much speculation
as to its origin. The natives insist that it is sulphur;

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 239

and that it comes from the chffs on Chebeague, but
the naturahst knows better. It is the yellow pollen
of the ox-eyed daisy that makes the fields of the
mainland white all summer long. It is very notice-
able some years. Sometimes the water is covered
with it, as with a yellow scum.

A trip city-ward on a June morning is a treat never
to be forgotten by the lover of the picturesque. The
mainland, not over a league away, is a broad streak
of rich, warm tones, and above this is as blue a sky
as one can imagine, a cloudless west in truth; and
over the bay a light, thin vapor, a filmy diaphanous
mist, rises from the waters to a level of two or three
feet; and there it hangs, wavering with tremulous
hesitancy until the smi has drunk it up, when the
sea is an immense emerald-tinted mirror, within
which every object above it is reproduced with a
marvellous distinctness. The island shores are
touched with high lights, and dented with deep shad-
ows; and the city, a league away, is just a bit blurred
and softened by the smoke of its countless chimneys.
The quiet is absolute; and over all is the fairest,
mellowest of summer skies. If the morning is de-
lightful, the return at sundown is not less so, or less
refreshing. Leaving town as the shadows of its gray
walls creep out over the docks, huge masses of dusky
house-roofs lean against a wall of gold, with every
spire, tower, and gable silhouetted against the glory
beyond. It is a rare grouping of sombre tones and
shadows in the middle-groimd, drawn sharply against
the brilliance of a sunset sky; it is dark against light.

240 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

with inarvellous effect. The picture grows more
beautiful as the western fires go down. There is the
same quiet of the morning. But here is a picture at
sea. The harbor is glassy-hke, and drowsy, as in the
morning, only the emerald is become turquoise; and
the ships are motionless against the background of
the island landscape, while their masts cast attenu-
ated reflections in the water below. A low mantle
of mist drifts in over the island horizon; and the
slender shafts of the spruces break through into the
ruddy glow above, and much resemble the spires of
a distant town; but, as w^e get nearer the islands,
the fog recedes, and the atmosphere is perfectly clear,
as in the earlier day.

The islands hereabout, have much the same char-
acteristics in connnon. The same mixture of ever-
green and deciduous woods crown the island cliffs
and hillocks; the same outlying formations of schis-
tose rock, worn and eaten into ragged, dangerous
spines by the constant wearing of the waters; the
same overhanging w^alls of massive stone-w^ork,
scarred with deep fissures, and set with huge embras-
ures; the same green water breaking over ledges and
hurriedly receding, leaving pools in their crevices,
tinted with the color of sky and cloud, singing to
themselves with a low crooning monotone, surging
in and out with the tide; the same blue dome, bright
and clear as heart might wish; or choked with
clouds, and fog, and wet, or black with wind storms,
and sleet and snow\ These outer island barriers
make the coast a dangerous one, when the equinoc-

Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

241

tial and winter gales blow the sea in upon them,
making incessant roar, and hurling great waves, tons
in weight, like missiles, up over the tops of the highest
cliffs, or far in over the lower shores. Language is
powerless to paint the grandeur, and power of these
waters, the sullen music of which is lost in ever-
lowering cadences among the neighboring islands.
But when the waves are still, as the afternoon shad-
ows deepen, and grow along the polished sea-walls.

ONE OF NATURE S COURT-YARDS

stained and streaked with ochres, yellows, reds and
purples, some of these cliffs and rocky battlements
look like huge mosaics set in a sea of bronze. The
charm is not all in the sea, for over the rough acres
that make the great tramping-ground for the multi-
tude who come here for an afternoon outing, are
spots of wild beauty. I have never seen the Swamp
rose in such profusion, as along the walls and fences
in the lower grass-lands of some of these islands. In
the depths of the woods, reached by many a winding

242 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

path, are open wet-places, Nature's court-yards, with
the tall trees hedging them about in abundance; with
wild-flowers spattering their bright green carpets
with rich color-tones, with broad-faced lichens in all
colors on every rock ; rare polypodys for backgrounds ;
and Druid beeches, wide-armed, with smooth gray
coats, that make one long, as in the days of boy-
hood, to girdle them with a name, that another year
would be hardly more than a distorted hieroglyphic;
and then, what sweet odors from the spruces, and
firs, that crowd against one everywhere, — only I
miss the stalwart white pine. It may be here, but
I have not seen it.

Most of the island steamers leaving the city, point
their prows straight for "Jones's"; and it is only a
matter of twenty minutes before they are lazily
chafing their guards against the thick-set, slimy piling
of a wharf built by the ancestor of the ancient family
of "Jones"; and which is likely to remain a monu-
ment, for some years to come, of the way things were
done by a dead-and-gone generation. On this side,
city-ward, the shore falls off gradually; and in the
ofhng, is a fringe of boats of odd size and color, that,
with the action of the tide, are continually grouping
themselves into picturesque disorder, and add a con-
stant charm to the water. Everybody along shore
has a water-craft of some sort, and the punt and dory
are most common; but a dipper is as necessary to
a punt as a pair of oars, for it can hardly be called
water-tight. A punt is a diminutive craft anyway,
holding hardly two persons, which may have been a

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

243

consideration in the mind of its first builder. It is
hardly safe to trust one's self alone in such a leaky
concern; and it is equalh'' hazardous to take a com-
panion. One to row and the other to bail, is a con-
dition of safety in a punt, hereabouts. If there is
an abundance of sailing craft, there is a dearth of
horses and draught cattle; and I doubt if, at any time,
the assessor's v.

books would
show more than
a single horse,
and a pair of
red oxen, — they
were red when
I saw them last,
— they may be
gray by this, for
all I know. They
would be aged
enough certain-
ly, if cattle ever
grow gray.

Along the single roadway I have before alluded to,
are the more pretentious dwellings, the cottages, and
summer houses; with here and there a quaint gable
peering, in a shame-faced way, out upon an avenue
lined with Queen Anne monstrosities, painted in a
half-dozen colors, much as an Indian might get him-
self up for a festival or a war-dance; as if it were not
quite sure of its company. About the ragged hill-
top was a landmark, the slim spire of an old gray

AN ISLAND ROAD

244 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

church, that hi its newer clays was more frequented
than now; and under the shadows of its eaves is the
burying-ground. The schoolhouse, hardly a stone's-
throw from the meeting-house, with the bleak, ex-
posed burial-place, make a group typical of the old
New England of which Drake writes so charmingly.
All these things lend a rare picturesc[ueness to what
one may see about a locality, commonplace enough,
if one takes its patronymic at its face value. About
the older structures, there is the w' eather-worn quaint-
ness, and an air of quiet decadence, that makes one
think of fishing-tow^ns, with the dilapidated wharf and
a fish-house at its shore-end like "Fisher's," within
the shadows of which I have dug many a basket of
luscious clams. There is a charm to the shallows,
and black sands, and the lapsing tides, if one has no
better occupation than the joining a group of urchins
whose desire culminates in the hooking of a cunner
or a tom-cod, to finally dangle a line himself. How
easily the man is metamorphosed into the boy, with
so many boys about; and so much of boyish interest
and inclination to arouse the dormant boyish spirit
that lingers in every man's make-up!

The sight of a small boy bobbing his line on the
flood-tide, gives me a boyish longing to wind that
self-same line about my own finger; to feel for a
moment the sharp conscious bite that betrays the
hungry cunner. The cunner is a beautiful fish,
closely resembling the fresh-water perch in its iri-
descent armor of tiny, close-knit scales that glisten
like mother-of-pearl in the sunshine. There is also

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 245

a family resemblance in the array of bony lances
along its spine, that make grievous wounds if the fel-
low is too carelessly handled. From the digging
over of the wet sands for a handful of stray clams,
and the breaking of their brittle shells on the plank
of the old w^harf, to the cutting off of their black
heads and the impaling of them, one by one, as oc-
casion requires, upon the slender Limerick, — for the
small trout hook is the best for cunner fishing, —
with the sunmier sunshine over all, and a fresh, salty
breeze blowing landward, puffing out the sails of the
yachts, up and down, the island roads, there is a zest;
a fascination; the climax of all which, is the pulling
up of a fat, half-pound cunner, twisting, wriggling,
flopping with all a cunner's energ}-, until you have
landed your prize in your basket. The cunner on
the seashore takes the place of the trout inland.
Catching cunners off the rocks of these bold shores,
with the surf continuall}^ filling one's ears with its
liquid symphonies, along with the whistling wind
and the cry of the sea-birds, is next of kin to catch-
ing trout from the rippling meadow brook; yet, I
prefer the green meadows as a tramping ground, with
their newness and perfume, their narrow vistas of
elms, and songs of cat-birds and thrushes, to the
wide outlook of the sea, with its swirling waters and
ceaseless monody. There is magic in a fishing-pole
wherever you may find it; if, perchance, there be a
pool of sparkling water in the neighborhood over
which one may swing its slender, bending tip, with
the likelihood of catching a fish. This sort of ex-

246 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

hilaration is thought by some to be a cruel sport;
but fishes were made for the well-being of mankind;
and if I am to depend upon my physician for a bit
of "toning up," I prefer to try my luck first with
Sir Salmo Fontinalis.

But what's in a name, with so much poetry of the
sea about! During the mackerel season, schooners
put in here with their seines badly damaged by the
sword-fish that go tearing through them after their
prey; or that have been torn on the ledges in stormy
weather. Then the great seine-boats are loaded
with fathoms on fathoms of these long black nets,
from the herring or mackerel smacks, — often four
to five hundred yards in length ; — then rowed ashore
to be unloaded into neighbor Trott's ox-cart, and
pulled up the gullied footway to the fields, where
they are carefully spread out to dry, and afterward to
be mended. Spread out over the green grass they
look hke immense webs of gauze, or muslin, in the
sunhght ; and so finely spun are the threads, that one
must look closely to see the netting at all. The men
work oftentimes a week on a single net when it is
badly torn; but these fishermen are deft workmen,
and no time is wasted; for they must ply their trade
on the seas, a field whose harvest is always ripe.
These vessels have an Arab-like way of going and
coming; disappearing in the night-time, to, as mys-
teriously, reappear a few days later. This mending
of the nets by the sea has a romance of its own ; and
I never see the shimmering needles of the net-menders,
but I wonder if they are thinking of those humble

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 247

fishers, who from mending their nets by the shores
of GaUlee, became "fishers of men."

A grocery store is prosaic enough at any time, with
its plethora of boxes on its single counter, or on its
dirt-begrimed gray-painted shelves, and scattered
about the floor; its corners occupied by molasses
hogsheads, oil barrels, quintals of salt-fish, bags of
potatoes, and bins of salt, — a sort of squatter sov-
ereignty, — while other shelves are sagging under
their burden of spices, soaps, and caddies of to-
bacco; and atop of all, the inevitable row of glass
lamp-chimneys. Bizarre advertisements, many of
them quite works of art, from a mechanical point
of view, fill in the blank spaces here and there,
compelling brief attention. Their colors are ' pleas-
ing and suggest the days of the famous Prang,
and seem strangely out of place here among these
plebeian smells. Coils of tarred rope and twine
hang from the beams; and from the nails, driven
along their sides, depends a crockery exhibit,
meagre in its variety, but not less interesting to
the housewife who has discovered that things made
nowadays do not seem to last as the old things
did. A couple of settees, notched and hacked by
the knives of the neighborhood loafers, flank the
rusty stove amidships; and the tobacco stains and
whittlings about the floor, show the habitues of
the place to be veritable Yankees; while, outside
the door, numerous boxes are improvised as set-
tees for use in fair weather. Such surroundings
are as familiar to the average countryman, as his

248 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

own fireside; but the grocery at "Jones's" is the
haunt of all the "old salts" on the island; and the
sea-yarns that are spun herein, on quiet summer
afternoons, or on blustering winter nights when the
winds from the sea set the little store a-tremble, lend
to it a charming flavor of romance.

Lounging about this place one summer day, I
heard old Siah Starlin', who saw the famous sea-
fight off Monhegan between the British brig Boxer
and the Yankee privateer Enterprise, relate how it
all took place. It was a mixed group, as one finds at
the grocery, — the neighborhood exchange, — of sum-
mer boarders and natives; as if there WTre something
of stimulating and exhilarating quality in the plain
ways and homely speech of these islanders, as there
really is. Many of them carry more of quaint phil-
osophy in their everyday trousers' pockets, than some
people carry in their noddles; and homely as their
wit may be, it is natural, and entertaining. Some
fishermen, who have been mending their nets in the
field opposite, cross the highway with their bags of
twine, and loiter a moment, their visages brown with
exposure, and their eyes a-t winkle with observant in-
terest, as they scan these "lotus-eaters," these sum-
mer dilettante ; as if wondering what they were really
good for, any way. I am not so sure but the people
who live in the out-of-the-way places by the seashore,
and who never get out of sight of their gray roofs,
or the hearing of the restless sea, and they who live
the larger part of the year in town, when they meet
at the seaside, or among the hills, may each look upon

YE ROMA.XCE OF CASCO BAY

249

the other as foreigners, with such differences in garb,
in tastes, and ways of living.

The weather, and the next " fishin' trip" with Cap'n
Fisher are congenial topics; but a knot of gray-
headed "salts" sitting on the stoop in the shadow
of the grocery gable, are discussing this Monhegan
fight; and the old man Starlin', who seemed to know

MONHEGAN

more of the matter than any of his hearers, begins a
story, that is all the more interesting, from the fact,
that it was up this roadstead the Enterprise towed
the Boxer the next day after the fight. From this
highway one may see a group of trees, under the
shadows of which, was laid all that was mortal of the
brave commanders of the two vessels, both killed on
that historic summer afternoon of 1814.

250 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

"1 r'member it, 's if 'twaz yisterday. I saw the
hull on't, — 'n' 'twaz a big fight. We lived on
M'nhiggin 'n them ar days, 'n' 'twixt farmin', 'n'
fishin', 'n' the like, managed t' git on with a big
fam'ly o' yomikers. The Boxer an' Rattler hed bin
standin' off 'n' on M'nhiggin, the hull summer,
watchin' fer coasters; 'n' a gret meny hed bin de-
stroyed; 'n' pressin' the sailors inter the British sar-
vice, a matter consarnin' which I allers hed my own
idees; but arter a while the Rattler went off, leavin'
the Boxer cruise'n on her own hook. The day, afore
the fight, wuz Saturday, We began t' dig the per-
taters; 't had been a dry summer, and the pertaters
ripened off arly. Thet arternoon, the coasters hove
'n sight. The Britisher gut sight on 'em, 'n' launched
her barges; but they didn't 'mount ter nuthin'; fer
they'd scursely left the ship afore a ' sliavin^ -milV cum
aout o' New Harbor 'n' driv' 'em back. Thet's wut
they called privateers 'n them days.

"Ther wuz 'a gret movin' 'bout on the Boxer t'
git under sail. A signal-gun wuz fired fer the men
az wuz ashore after game 'n' berries, 'n' sich; a com-
mon enuf happenin'. But gittin' under way, she
bore t' west'ard 'thout ketchin' either on 'em, an'
finally put inter John's Bay. The nex' day noon,
'twuz the fifth o' September, we went t' the top o'
the hill, takin' a spy-glass with us, 'n' there we wuz
jined by three officers of the Britisher, the ship's
doctor, a leftenant, 'n' a middy, who wuz ashore,
gunnin', the day afore', 'n' didn't hear the signal.
They wuz gettin' the lay of the'r ship; but the only

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 251

sail 'n sight, wuz a brig off Seguin, bearin' daown
the s'utheast side of M'nhiggin."

'"Wut brig 'z thet?' asked tlie surgin, o' father.

"'It's the Enterprise,' wuz the reply, arter a long
look.

" The surgin sed t' the leftenant in 'n undertone, —
I heerd it all, ef I wuz a boy, — ' Ef Cap'n Blyth
takes 'er, he's t' hev a fine ship w'en we git hum.'

"The Boxer 'd discivered the brig, 'n' under full
sail, steerin' 'bout sou-sou-east, bore daown the bay,
but tew late, fer the Yankee shot squar' 'cross 'er
bow, hauled up t' the wind, keepin' t' th' s'uth'ard
past M'nhiggin in sarch 'f the Ratthvy w'ile the
Britisher gave starn chase. The Rattler hed gone.
The Yankee hauled in sail 'if gut reddy for t' fight.
The Boxer cum up, 'n' poured in a wild bro'dside,
w'en the Enterprise whirled short on 'er heel, 'n'
jest raked the Boxer fore 'n' aft. A few minits arter,
she passed her starn with a secon' rakin' fire. The
Boxer wuz completely outsailed. In less then a
half-hour, a third rakin' fire wuz sent 'cross the
Boxer's bows, thet bro't daown the main-top-mast
'n' er number o' men who wuz tryin' t' tare her
flag from whar it had bin nailed, — 'n' the fight wuz
over. The ships wer' side by side, 'n' the smoke hed
drifted aout ter sea. 'T wuz jest a good workin'
breeze, 'n' the Enterprise sailed raound, 'n' raound her
enemy, no daoubt disabled the fust fire.

"The officers bo't a boat of father 'n' put off t'
th'r own ship, but wuz not allowed t' bo'rd 'er. So
they cum back t' the farmhouse fer shelter over night.

252 Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

" Supper wuz over, 'n' mother 'd cleared the things
away. 'Twuz mos' dark, w'en ther wuz a rap on the
door; father went t' see w'at wuz the matter, an'
it wuz the officers cum back.

"'Mr. Starhn', we hev no money, but aour guns
ar' jest aout on the porch 'n' you may hev 'em 'n'
welcome, ef you'll take us in over night.'

"Gran'mother cum t' th' door an' said, 'I hev
em, my son!' She 'd taken the guns 'n' hidden
'em."

Such was Uncle 'Siah's story of a memorable, and
always glorious, exploit, — the first seafight won by
an American cruiser after the loss of the Chesapeake.
There was no one here who could dispute the tale,
that, told in the dialect of a bronze-visaged sea-dog,
owned something of the old-time romance of the
battle; and the moist eyes of the narrator were not
least in the charm of personal relation.

The winds blow across the waters the fragrant
odors of the mainland fields and woods, where the
wide marshes give way to the mowing-lands that
slope so gently down to the sea; and fast asleep amid
the trees along their highways are the thrifty farm-
houses. Faint lines of dust show where their beaten
tracks run; and over all falls the strong white sun-
light. In the low-lying shore opposite, with its net-
work of shadows, its bright sands, wet and dripping
with the tide, holding everything in bright reflection,
the painted boats drawn up here and there, the
tender blue of the sky, with the roofs and domes of
the neighboring town leaning against it, the spark-

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

253

ling waters streaked with wooded isles, with white-
winged ships coming and going between, or swinging
out the stream with slackened sails, are pictures that
once seen, are forgotten never; while their traditions
seem onlv the more real.

THE WIZARD OF CASCO

THE WIZARD OF CASCO

L]\IOST three centuries ago, a
Spanish navigator, named Car-
tier, came to the coast of North
America, and, sailing along its
northeasterly trend, discovered
an extensive sheet of water
hemmed about by miles of curv-
ing mainland, and studded with beautiful islands.
To the broad tongue, or southerly rib of this, which
makes its southwestern wall, he gave the name of
Cabo de Muchas hias, Cape of ]\Iany Islands,
though on Hood's map, 1592, the name is given to
the western headland at the mouth of the Rio des
Guamos, probably the Penobscot. This bold, out-
reaching cape, or promontory rather, if one goes by
his knowledge of physical geography, was depicted
with much accuracy of outline upon the various Span-
ish maps; it appears, as well, upon the atlas of ]\Ter-
cator; and is given much geographical importance and

257

258 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

prominence in the charts of an earlier date. Starting
from ancient Cape Hondo, better known in these
days to school-children and sailors, as the Nova Sco-
tian Cape Sable, and running southerly, the first
prominent point, or landmark, is the Penobscot; a
river once known as the Rio de Goynez of the old-
time map-makers. Next southward, is this striking
headland overlooking the swarthy rocks and yellow
sands of Poodack, with their twin lighthouses and
their towers that day and night, —

Watch the salt tides rise and fall,

And the seas of Casco glisten,
Where, beneath the wind-blown mist,

Birchen slopes and barren ledges
Greet their shores of amethyst.

All along the coast of Maine, from Piscataqua, east-
ward, over two thousand miles of ocean frontage,
fretted with the embroidery, that Nature works
through the ages, of hundreds of capes and bluntly-
moulded promontories, broad harbors and shelter-
ing coves, gusty inlets that run a long way inland
among the pleasant farms and home-lots, and tree-
embossed islands, there is not a single one of them
all, more bold and picturesque, or more grand on
stormy days, or when the equinoctial gales blow in
from the Gulf Stream, than this Spanish-christened
cape of many islands, that, a hundred years later
had taken on the local cognomen of Pur Poodack.
Before that it was known as Quack by the Indians.
Where the name Pur Poodack originated, or how it

YE ROMAXCE OF CASCO BAY 259

came to be affixed to the lands hereabout, is tradi-
tionally accounted for, by the pathetic legend of an
Indian of the vicinity who shot at a duck, and dis-
abled, instead of killing it. Whereat the Aborigine
exclaimed, in his compassion, — "Poor duck! Poor-
poor-duck! "

I give it, as it came to me: and, homely as it is,
one hears it to this day among the natives, though
it bears a more royal name.

This whole coast is one of romantic interest, and
almost every inlet or jutting point has its legends,
that are told to the children when the shadows of
the evening shut down over the woods and hills; or
as a sleep-distilling accompaniment to the snapping,
crackling, winter indoor-fires. Here was a land of
marvellous beauty; a New World Archipelago; for in
sight of this breezy dome of rock and stunted wood-
land, was an island for every day in the year. Pur
Poodack, or by a more queenly translation, Cape
Elizabeth, in a heavy wind, from any point of the
compass between south and east, is considered by
sailors, one of the most dangerous places on the
Maine coast; a double assurance of which one may
read in the two snow-white towers that stand at the
gateway of these island roads; and the bright hghts
of which, are a most welcome sight to the helmsman
when the thick drizzling fog shuts down over him;
or a driving squall builds its crystal barrier between
him and the ledges along shore.

There is nothing of a cowardly or shrinking quality
in the impression one gets in the seeing of this head-

2GU

r-^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

land for the first time. Puritan maidens of indus-
trious habit were wont in bygone days, to spread
their daintily-wrought samplers on the walls of their
humble dwellings for everybody to see; so Nature
seems to have laid her mighty handiwork out above
the waters, as if to show puny human-kind what she
can do at setting stone. How many ages ago this
mixture of bits of mica, clusters of gleaming crystals,

IN TROUBLE

veins of smooth red porphyry, and slabs of schist, were
fused together, and moulded into this rugged forma-
tion, no one will venture to say; but ever since,
against its gray, sternly-featured face that is set lit-
erally out to sea, mountains of water have come
thundering across three thousand miles of blue rest-
less ocean, — it may be from England's white cliffs,
— to batter these immense bastions of rock into
strange freaks of form that are countless in their
variety. Here are flights of massive stairs that lead
up from these stone-yards of the sea to the green-

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

261

sward that crowns their domes, or the sparsely-clad
spruces that reach out over their sloping roofs to
catch the storm-tossed spray. Precipitous walls
tower, cathedral-like, as one sails within their shad-
ows; walls stained with rare colors; their rich, deep-
toned shades predominating; and looking up at them,
one thinks himself gazing upon some mighty concep-
tion of frescoing; and at whose feet, are strewn broken

A STERNLY-FEATURED FACE

pillars, and huge cubes of rock ; as if the workmen who
had wrought ages before in this quarry of Nature, had
left in a marvellous hurry, so crude are the designs
traced upon them. But it is only when the storm
swoops down upon the waste of adjacent waters that
the workmen return ; when the spray is so dense they
are hidden from observation. Only their pounding,
deafening at times, and the trembling of the earth
under their heavy blows, betray them. It is no
dwarf, like the

"Troll who dwelt in Ulshoi hill,"

262 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

and who built Kallundborg Church for Esberne Snare,
wlio makes the strange sounds among their secret
fissures and caves; but the surf, that goes chasing in
and out, all day long, and all night, for that matter.
Its speech is remarkable for its deep sonorous
quality, even when the waters wear the glimmer of
glass, and make one think of Coleridge's "Ancient
Mariner," with the big ships idly drifting with the
tide, their wrinkled sails hanging against the blue
wall of the sky ; for nothing lies between this Poodack
country and the broad Atlantic.

There is not a single out-lying rib, rock, bar of
sand, or island even, to break the monotony of sea
that seems ever moving bodily landward. But at
the base of its outermost cliff, the sea sings a wonder-
ful song when urged by the winds, that one trans-
poses into Te Deums, Stabat Maters, and Glorias at
will; forgetting, in the breaking of the long inrolling
swell, the dash and splatter, the gush, the swirl, and
confused roar, as of a thousand voices in one, that,
heard one moment, sounds unlike itself the next;
the glittering spray, and flashing, sibilant foam;
the waning, veering, gusty freshening of the winds;
that this grandly beautiful outlook was once plain
Pur Poodack Point in the local vocabulary ; forgetting
too, with all this seething water beneath, that Southey
ever attempted to translate such sounds, into rhyme,
as haunt these rocks day and night.

But all this romance of the sea fades away when
the afternoon merges into a leaden-hued nightfall;
and the winds rise higher as the dusk comes on, wet

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 263

with rain, blowing stiffly in from the southerly quar-
ter, strengthening into a gale as they reach the land
to raise clouds of dust along its highwaj's. There
are a few drops of rain, and the prophecy of the storm
is spoken. The woods grow darker in the increasing
wind, and are streaked w^ith silver where the poplar
leaves are blown up; the swallows have left the
fields, and the roads are turned into trails of swirling
dust; for there is not enough rain, as yet, to dampen
them. The farmer goes to the pasture a bit earlier
for his herd, noticing on his way, with silent dis-
content, the falling of the unmatured fruit by the
roadside, as some impatient gust of wind shakes the
orchard tree-tops, covering the ground with " wind-
falls."

The apples drop upon the stone wall, and bounce
into the dull-colored dusty highway at their o-\Mier's
feet; tid-bits for the cattle to gather, one by one, as
they come up the road, homeward. The solitary
whistle of a belated plover drops down from some-
where in the sky, — a tremulous note that sounds
weird and lonesome enough, with not another bird in
sight. The dull thunder of the surf, a mile away,
scarcely noticeable in clear weather, comes distinctly ;
and has a low, guttural, ominous quality, as of haz-
ard or threat, in its far-off speech, that makes one
conscious of impending evil, and the companionship
of one's kind, a keen enjoyment. The cattle are
driven up, and everything is made taut and snug
about the farm buildings for a hloio of two or three
days. An extra supply of wood is brought from the

264

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

pile in the dooryanl, to last through the storm; and
a fire is lighted on the broad hearth for the first time
in the season ; for a September gale, blowing in over
the Gulf of Maine, narrowing the fury of the tornado-
tossed Gulf Stream between Cape Cod and Cape
Sable, and driving its mountain-high waves with all
of Nature's wanton strength against this headland,

with terrific shock,
and an uproar heard
above the tmnult of
the wind and rain,
a good league away,
is the event of the
year.

I have a vivid
recollection of a
great storm that
years ago swept in
from the Gulf
Stream, deluging
these shores with its immense seas. I recall a low-
roofed farmhouse on the " shore road," and its glow-
ing flame in the September night.

The afternoon had been cold, gray, and threaten-
ing. The wind had blown in from the sea with a
low moaning sound since noon, gathering force, as
dusk came on. The cattle came up the road with
a strange air of preoccupation, as if the winds had
been telling them secrets, turning into the yard with
decorous, obedient step, quite uncommon to them.
The wind scurried up the road, as it blew over the

THE LOW-ROOFED FARMHOUSE

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 265

pastures, fresh from the sea, damp and odorous with
salty flavor. The doors slammed; the smoke came
down from the chimney-tops into the dooryard, to
whirl twice, or thrice, about the huge pile of rifted
firewood, as if dropping it a hint to keep out of the
house until the storm was over; winding out over
the house garden-patch, through the tall old-fash-
ioned hollyhocks, until the wind caught it beyond
the shelter of the big barns and spirited it away into
the woods further inland.

From the dooryard I could see the black waste of
the sea, streaked with seething foam; and a constant
sound, as of distant artillery mingled with the lesser
roar of innumerable volleys of musketry, came up
from it. As I watched, the line of breakers seemed
to grow whiter, broader every moment; and there
came down the sky, huge drops of rain, as if the
storm were close upon their heels; but no more than
these few premonitor}' drops fell. There was no twi-
light. It was nightfall before one thought of it, as
if the outdoor curtains had been suddenly drawn;
for the fire brightened up in a cheery sort of a way,
and a fresh glow overspread the room. The win-
dows were but blank spaces in the walls. The burn-
ing wood between the clumsy iron dogs, askew on the
scarred, uneven bricks, made lively music; Tind the
sparks and smoke, went flying and roaring up the
big flue; as if to remonstrate with the drooping
branches of the great elm, — the patriarchal tree
of the farm, — for making such uncanny, creaking
noises w4th their rubbing up and down the moss-

2()6 y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

frescoed shingles; but the ancient ehii shook its top
more uneasily, and swished its branches the more
recklessly, while the sparks scurried downward to
the ground, to go out in the wet. The wind, without,
seemed to have a supernatural freakishness and the
power of doing a great many things at once. It
whistled through the tawny foliage of the big elm as
if a hundred puckered mouths were blowing at the
same time; it thundered down the great square
chimney, to fill it with hollow, blustering sound and
jarring tremor; it played fisticuffs with the seaward
gables with many a feint, and now, and then, a stout
blow that made every timber in the house shiver; it
mopped the windows with the driving rain; and
ripped the shingles, here and there, from the roof,
where the old hand-wrought nails had rusted off,
tearing down the road, to leave them wrecked in the
apple-tree tops, or in the orchard stubble; it crept
through the crevices about the shrunken window
casings, to wander about the old sitting-room in
draughty gusts, that sent indefinable creepy sensa-
tions up one's spine; and impelled one to heap the
already abundantly supplied fire from the stack in.
the chimney corner; while, over all, sounded the
surly message of the sea.

The supper was of hominy, with plenty of cool
sweet milk, which was set upon the table in a shallow
ten-quart pan with flaring rim, just as it came from
its cool shelf in the milk-room. From it, each was
helped in turn. A bowl of home-made hominy and
milk, eaten in the light of the roaring fire, was an

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 267

experience that afforded exquisite enjoyment. The
cheerful faces that bent over this homely repast lent
to it a rare, sweet dignity.

My host had been master of more than one sailing
vessel in earlier days, and had been nmch among
the Bermudas, and up and down the Gulf Stream;
but, after so much of sea-faring life, he had returned
to the acres of his ancestors to haul kelp and sea-
weed from the kelp-cove that belonged to the old
farm, and to plant its fields after the fashion of his
forefathers. It was a good old name that never was
stained with dishonor, and that had stood well with
every tax collector since the time provincial dues
were collected in these parts.

Nature finds many a heart in sympathy with her-
self, appealing to humanity in one guise and another;
subjecting men to her moods unconsciously; setting
their brains agog with strange fantasies, and micanny
imaginations, — thoughts that belong to far-off days
and have no reference to, or influence upon, one's
present existence. My host, like his cattle, wore a pre-
occupied, or ruminant, air, as if something of unusual
gravity were about to happen. With every gust of
wind, and dash of rain, and the dismal noises that
accompanied them, he seemed only the more alert,
with just a shade of added anxiety clouding his
rugged face. The table, quickly cleared of its rem-
nant of repast, was neatly spread with its cover of
faded red cloth, and strewn with the few books and
papers which had a temporary attraction for the
household, keeping company with the two or three

268 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

brightly-burning candles, that helped the flashing
firelight to illumine the room quite sufhciently. Peo-
ple did not expect much in those days of high prices,
and self-denial, and Rebellion, of the early sixties.

The conversation turned upon ghosts and spiritual
manifestations, my host saying he could never under-
stand why such things were always the longest to
linger in the mind, forcing themselves upon one,
routing and driving before them all previous thought,
filling one's brain, oftentimes, with a queer tinge of
apprehension, in spite of good sense and precedent,
and most of all, in the face of intelhgent reasoning.

My host continued the subject, by saying, and I
will not attempt to convey the quaintness of his
speech, — • " I have thought folk in the days of witch-
craft might have been half-right, for all of my ortho-
dox bringing-up ; as some I have known before this,
have seemed to be on calling terms with the Devil, if
not in actual business with him. There is no need
of their riding about on broom-sticks after the
fashion of Goody Cole, either ; for there are nowa-
days, witches enough, and devils enough, in the flesh.

"But sailors are the worst folk for superstitions,"
and my host laughed, heartily, to as quickly lapse
into sobriety, as he went on with his half-soliloquy.

" I have seen the day when a Mother Carey's chicken
aloft in the ship's rigging, would have set my heart
thumping like a drum-beat. I am well over that ;
but a storm like this, brings cries for help, and the
sound of a ship going to pieces on the rocks. When
the winds are thick and heavy with ram, the breakers

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

260

dance in my eyes ; and a ship at sea, the low heavy
boom of a gun, and the graveyard up yonder on the
hill, get strangely mixed up in my dreams. I never
see these things when the sky is clear, and the wind

ON THE ROCKS

is offshore, though I always accomit for it, in one
way or another. I believe somewhat in fore-warn-
ings. My father did before me. It runs in the
family. He was a sea-going man, as were all his
children ; and it was natural that they should inherit
some of his ideas. Folk laugh at their neighbors

270 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

who believe in signs, dreams, and fore-warnings, but
I never do. I tell such they do not know what they
are laughing at."

Here my host stopped to nod his head twice or
thrice at the fire, that seemed to burn the more
brightly because he noticed it so much.

The wind and rain vied, each with the other, in
keeping up a continual disturbance out of doors;
and the latter ran down the window-panes in broad,
wavy streams, as if poured from a bucket. Now
and then, a wet gust would strike the house, broad-
side, and the big drops would spatter over the inner
window-sill. The seal of silence had fallen upon the
room, unless the lazy tick of the little peaked-roofed
Connecticut clock on the end of the fireplace mantel
might be heard above the storm. Each seemed to
be listening to the tumult of the elements, or in-
dividually thoughtful, except the housewife, whose
knitting-needles kept up a flirtation with the blazing
fore-stick, flashing brightly in the firelight as they
clicked together in a brisk sort of a way.

" I suppose," said my host, beginning again, " there
are as many addled folks nowadays as ever. Most
everyboddy has some sort of a maggot in his head;
I've one in mine I guess, for I've seen a ship driving
onto the beach beyond the kelp-cove since the wind
began to blow in from the sea. It's only an idea,
mebbe, but it sticks like a beggar's-tick.

"By the way," turning to speak to me after he
had poked the fire well together, " did you ever hear
the story of Parson Burroughs who preached in these

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 271

parts before Castine came with his Penobscot Indians
to burn what there was left of the Neck settlement,
— Burroughs was hanged at Salem on account of
Mary Wolcott?

" Speaking of folks getting maggots in their heads,
puts me in mind of it. I calculate it might have been
just such a night as this, the sheriff took the parson
to Salem. AVhen he got to Portsmouth, he told them
there w^as a horde of devils at his back the whole
way."

"A race,'' I suggested, "that would put Tarn
o' Shanter's, with all the devils of Alloway Kirk after
him, out of sight."

I was familiar with most that had been written of
the witchcraft days of Salem. I had read of the
execution of Margaret Jones of Charlestown in 1648,
suspected of having and using the "malignant
touch," a persecution that dogged the footsteps of
the old herb-women and the neighborhood crones,
the climax of which came to Salem village when
good old Rebecca Nurse was hung on Witches' Hill,
and dumped at the foot of its gallows. I had heard
of old Goody Proctor and her str.uige doings; of pots
jumping from their cranes; of hayracks tipped bottom-
side up in the narrow barn floors, with their bulky
loads beneath; of all the castaway boots and shoes
in the farmhouse garret being thrown to the foot of
its stairs at midnight by invisible hands ; and of hay-
cocks hanging in the orchard tree-tops; and all on
the self-same farm where I lived as a boy; for there
was a haunted cellar on the hill-top to lend the old

272 Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

place somewhat of distinction. The story of Abigail
Hobbs, who saw the devil's sacrament administered,
was not a new one. I had seen hardly more than
a mention of Parson Burroughs.

The children put aside their books and papers and
drew nearer the fire, as if the coming tale w^ere a new
one to them, while the story-teller, settling comfort-
ably into his broad-armed, high-backed rocker, began
a tale so old, and of times so far away, that it needed
the setting of just such a wild, boisterous night as
this, with its dismal storm, to lend it the semblance
of reality. The knitting-needles stopped their click-
ing; the knitter rolled her ball of stout homespun
yarn and the half-completed stocking together, and
putting them in the little basket on the table, pre-
pared to listen anew to this story of the old provincial
days, when, —

O'er the Witch-trott road to Portsmouth,

Past its salt creeks winding down,
Out through Hampton's sea-bleached meadows,

Burroughs went to Salem town.

These preliminaries ended with the story-teller put-
ting a bit of Virginia leaf somewhere within the hid-
den recesses of his right cheek, as if he might extract
some inspiration from it after the fashion of De
Quincey, an incident that raised my expectancy to
a higher pitch, to which my host referred as the
only habit that had followed him home from the
sea.

" In early Pur-poodack days, houses were as ' scarce

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 273

as hen's teeth,' — as my mother used to say before we
laid her away in the hill burying-groiind where she
might be always in sight of the sea, for she had one
boy somewhere in its blue waters. A single road
stretched the length of the Neck settlement over which
folk travelled to southward. It began at the foot
of a rough road that ran down from the Casco Neck
uplands to the shore, and was known as old King
Street. Folk crossed the river to the Cape by a

♦ ' /^ //^^^ vO--' (''7 "y/^^/

■^^J^-i

iM^-^^^^^^

ALEWIVE BROOK

ferry-boat, a flat-bottomed craft that set sail when
the wind served; and at other times the ferry-man
rowed them over. The trail crept round the Cape
shore, and across Alewdve Brook to Spurwink Creek,
that twists like a blue ravelling of yarn through thou-
sands of acres of salt marsh whenever the tide is in ;
and here, when the tide was well out, one could cross
to follow the shore to Piscataqua. Across the Pis-
cataqua was old Portsmouth, and from that place to
Salem and Boston, the way was more convenient.

274 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

That was the way the Parson came from Salem to
preach at the Neck settlement. He was a little man
with bushy, black eyebrows, and powerful strong in
his arms. While he lived at Wells, the folks in Salem
were beginning to hang their neighbors; and it is not
singular either, that folks should have got a grudge
against him and called him a wizard, to pay off old
scores; but every man has his enemies. It was not
singular, the children should make fools of them-
selves when the old folks set them up to it, as
they did Mary Wolcott; when such a paper could be
made by the court" — the story-teller here arose,
and going to the little unpainted shelf at one corner
of the room, took from it an old volume bound in
black-looking sheep, and turning its stained pages
toward the fire as if in search of something, ending
his sentence, — "as this."

"I bought that at a vendue some years ago, on
one of my sailing trips into Salem. I always had a
curiosity to see the hill where so many folks were
trundled in a cart to be murdered. A barren place
enough, it was then, with nothing to shelter it from
the sea winds, and maybe it is now, for all I know.
Standing there in the sunshine is well enough, but
after nightfall, I should steer my craft clear of such a
ghostly old place. Never fancied being rountl dead
folks, anyhow. It isn't healthy-like; they come up
in your face in the dark. It's a hard-looking volume,
— pretty old I imagine, — but the auctioneer said it
was full of witchcraft, and knocked it off to me for
two and six. There," — said the old man, handing me

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BA Y 275

the book, — "is the charge against the parson, —
you'll enjoy the okl-fashioned print; the firelight is
not strong enough for my eyes."

" Aiino Regis et Regince, etc., quarto."
Essex, ss: The Jurors of our Sovereign Lord and Lady,
the King and Queen, present, that George Burroughs, late of
Falmouth in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, the ninth day
of May in the fourth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord
and Lady, WilUam and Mary, by the Grace of God, of England,
Scotland, France, and L-eland, King and Queen, defenders
of the faith, etc., and divers other days and times as well
before as after, certain detestable acts, called witchcraft and
sorceries, wickedly and feloniously hath used, practiced and
exercised at and within the town of Salem in the County of
Essex aforesaid, in, upon, and against Mary Walcott, of
Salem village in the County of Essex, singlewoman; by the
which said wicked acts the said Mary Wolcott, the ninth
day of May in the fourth year aforesaid, and divers other
days and times, as well before as after, was and is tortured,
afflicted, pined, consumed, wasted, and tormented, against
the peace of our Sovereign Lord and Lady, the King and
Queen, and against the force of the statute in that case made
and provided."

I had little difficulty in reading the indictment by
the flickering light of the hearth-fire, for the letters
stood out clearly on their leaf of old-fashioned, blu-
ish, milled paper, so black were they, and so sharply
outlined was the type from which the book was
printed. The book was a quaint thing; and had on
its red-lettered title-page, a cut of an old hag astride
her broomstick, with the new moon over her shoulder;
which, with its antiquity, made my host's story, —

276 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

A story laid in far-off clays,

When Sewall sat in wig and gown
To judge the devil's protegees, —

Quaker, and witch, in Salem town,

By burly Stoughton exorcised

With hangman's scaffold; ill-devised
Provincial edict; dearth of common sense;
Law-sanctioned crime and wickedness prepense, —

the more interesting.

It was not singular, with so formidable a docu-
ment, couched in such stately, teclinical phraseol-
ogy; charging such abominable practices and bear-
ng the seal of an august tribunal, a Colonial court,
that the people should have regarded the same with
somewhat of awe and respect; for it was Jiistice
Sewall's teste, no doubt, that gave to it its legal sig-
nificance; or, that they sanctioned all its ignorance
and wickedness with orderly sobriety and a churchly
zeal, — that to-day seems pitiable if not criminal in
its unreason, — especially when tales were told as
truthful, like that of Mary Osgood's, afterwards re-
lated by her in this court, how she was carried through
the air with Deacon Frye's wife, Ebenezer Baker's
wife, and Goody Cole to a pond, where the devil bap-
tized her, dipped her face in the water and made her
renounce her former covenant with the church,
claiming her soul and body forever; and that she
was brought back through the air on a pole. It was
not incredible that people believed whatever might
be said against the best known and most upright of
their neighbors, if there was anything of the marvel-
lous quality to it. As for that matter, there are

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 277

plenty of credulous people in these times, whose eyes
and ears are always open to anything they may hear,
and whose tongues wag, — but here my speculations
were interrupted.

" It was in the mid-summer of 1690. I have always
heard it was Sunday. The old town has perked up
so much with its ??eu'-fangled ways and its stranger-
folk coming in summer to get a sniff of salt and a bit
of tan in their faces, I don't think it would know
itself in its homespun clothes, even on Sunday, with
no one stirring about, its old-fashioned sunshine laying
across the fields that are wader than they used to be.
Wells is drowsy enough on w^eek-days, you'll say, if
you have ever been there; but on Sundays, the place
is fairly asleep. The sunmier folk like it, no doubt.
All thej^ do is to appear out in a new rig every
day, which is nonsensical, if they can afford it; for
there's enough poor folk as would be glad of the cost
of a dress to help along. Folks, as have plenty, do not
fret much about their neighbors. It's human nature.

" The history of George Burroughs begins for us, wdth
his graduation from Harvard, in the class of 1670.
Very soon after that he went to Casco, later known as
Falmouth, in the Province of Maine, and which com-
prised a W'ide area of the surrounding comitry. In
fact, it compassed about all the settlements east of
the Saco, and south of Merrymeeting Bay. It was,
however, at Casco Neck, to be accurate, that he un-
dertook his life-work, the carrying the Gospel to all
men. At Casco, he received a grant of land of one
hundred and fiftv acres. It is evident that he was

278

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

a domestic man in his tastes and inclinations, for he
was early married, and early widowed, as well. Bur-
roughs was of the rugged type of the times. He was
a man of great strength, as were most of the early
settlers and their descendants, where temperate hab-
its, and healthy environments prevailed. He was of

a saturnine cast of feature,
and of swarthy complexion;
of good height, and broadly
proportioned; nor was it any
wonder he could do those
feats of strength which were
charged to the account of
Satan. Burroughs was a
man of much stability, men-
tally. His judgment was
fortified by a liberal educa-

A BIT OF SCARBOROUGH

tion, the best the times afforded; and like all Harvard
men, he assumed to sway men, and to direct the order
of their going, as has been the fashion of the Harvard
Churchman since the beginning; and perhaps, his
fault was, that he did not exercise sufficient tact.

Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 279

Some local historians have set Burroughs out as a
bad man, and without a particle of evidence. He
was diligent in the service of the church; he under-
went, with others, the hardships of the times; he
conducted religious services at the garrisons, isolated,
and far apart ; he ran the same risks of personal dan-
ger; and there is no evidence that he ever shirked a
duty, or ever ran away from an obligation. He was
a good Indian-fighter; and his metal was tried at
more than one garrison in old Scarborough. It does
not appear that he was lax in his morals, after the
fashion of the earlier preachers of this section. He
was not greedy; but he was otherwise, as is evidenced
by his returning to the donor town the large acreage
of lands given to him, and which to-day lie almost in
the heart of the beautiful city, the Mecca of the sum-
mer tourist to ]\Iaine; and which, from its twin hills,
looks out, east and WTst, over ever-widening perspec-
tives of sea and shore, of classic, romantic, and leg-
endary charm. There was no reason why Burroughs
should have left Casco, except that there was greater
need of missionary work out Scarborough way. He
was, according to all accounts, a man of personal
resource, with ideas of his own. The times were
turbulent. The settler was of crude and credulous
intellectual capacity. Strifes were easily fomented
and carried on; nor was Burroughs the only one of
the cloth who had difficulty with his parish. It was
the complaint of the times; and it was so common,
that wherever there was preaching, there w^as dis-
sension among the lay portion.

280 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

"About the time of Burroughs' graduation, a
church had been organized at Danvers, old Salem
Village, and a Mr, Bayley assumed the pastorate.
The usual dissatisfaction began in a small way, and
widened, until the General Court was called upon to
interfere in the support of the pastor; but even that
was of little avail. The new parish would neither
fiddle nor dance to the Bayley music. The order of
the General Court was openly contemned. Fmids,
food, and fuel, were woefully lacking; and the parson
from Newl^ury cried quits, and retired from the Dan-
vers field.

" It was into this parish of Danvers, where spiritual
turmoil and party animosity were rife, that Bur-
roughs came. If Preacher Bayley went out the back-
door, the parson from Casco may be said to have
stepped upon the former's shadow as he came in at
the front. Burroughs could not have been unaware
of the dissension that compelled the retirement of
Preacher Bayley; and it may be, that he took the
reins with a firm hand. Be that as it may, he soon
found that the Danvers soil was still affording lodge-
ment for abundant tares; and, notwithstanding his
urgent ministrations, for he was a man, instant, in
season, and out of season, he soon was given op-
portunity to feel the Danvers spiritual pulse under its
most feverish aspects. He hammered at this per-
verse and untoward metal for a year; but dogma or
homiletic availed little. They were laggard with
their tithes, and there were times when Burroughs
was actually in want. He kept to his task among

y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 281

this obdurate people for two years; and finally left
the pastorate; but not before his wife had been car-
ried into the Danvers burial-ground, whose funeral
charges her husband was unable to pay for lack of
money.

"Among the funeral charges were two gallons of
Canary rum bought of one Putnam, The debt was
about fourteen pounds. At that time the parish was
indebted to its pastor in the sum of thirty-three
pounds, odd; and for this debt to Putnam, Burroughs
had drawn upon the parish in Putnam's favor to pay
the Putnam claim. After throwing up the Danvers
parish, and adjusting his debts, Burroughs came back
to Casco. This Danvers parish, by the way, was the
same into which the Rev. Samuel Parris was inducted
seven years later, occupying the Bayley-Burroughs
parsonage, and whose voluminous notes of the evi-
dence in the witchcraft trials, taken by order of
Hathorn, make up the records of the numerous cases
of wizardry of which that of Burroughs was a fair
exponent.

" Upon Burroughs' arrival at Casco, he had the con-
stable at his heels. Putnam, notwithstanding the
order upon the Danvers parish, which he had re-
ceived from Burroughs, had pursued him hither, evi-
dently with no other purpose than to expend upon
the preacher the venom of the disaffected portion of
his former parish. It was a fair sample of the Chris-
tian charity of the times; and is not a far remove
from some of the springs of modern church turmoils.
I can think of no better name for such disaffections.

282 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

It is almost beyond belief, that the doings of
the early courts, and the clergy that made up their
most potent support, could have been realities.
There is no doubt, but the existence of the laws
against Quakers, heretics, and witches, gave lever-
age for the visiting upon many a goodman, and
his goodwife, the petty animosities and jealousies,
that, even nowadays, set whole neighl^orhoods by the
ears.

"After this, Burroughs wrought in the rough vine-
yard of Casco until around 1688, when he went to
Wells, where he preached acceptably, and became an
active man in that sparse settlement. Old Wells
was a settlement of garrisons at the time; of which,
perhaps, Storer's may be regarded the chiefest, in
local importance. It was here, principally, that Bur-
roughs officiated; for the savages were abroad; and
conditions were perilous in the extreme. There was
no safety for anyone outside the garrison walls; and
it was within these havens of security that, in those
immediate days, most religious observances were held.
It has been said by an annalist of the times, that
Wells was better supplied with garrisons than any
of her sister settlements. Whether or not this be true,
it is certain that Wells stood the brunt of the frontier
savagery marvellously well.

"On the twenty-first day of July, 1691, a despatch
was sent to Boston, to which George Burroughs' sig-
nature was attached second on the list of signers —
Francis Littlefield's being the first. On Sept. 28,
the same year, the following despatch was sent:

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 283

" ' To the Honored Governor and Council:

" 'Whereas it hath pleased God (both formerly and
now) to let loose the heathen upon us by holden us
off from our improvements, keeping us in close garri-
son, and daily lying in wait to take any that go forth,
whereby we are brought very low, not all the corn
raised in the town is judged enough to keep the in-
habitants themselves one-half year, and our stocks
both of cattle and swine are very much diminished.

" ' We therefore humbly request your honors to con-
tinue soldiers among us and appoint a commander
over them, and what number shall be judged meet to
remain with us for winter that provisions, corn and
clothing suitable for them may be seasonably sent,
also one hogshead of salt, all ours being spent; also a
present supply in that what was sent before is almost
gone. We had a youth seventeen years of age last
Saturday carried away, who went not above gun-shot
from Lieut. Storer's garrison to fetch a little wood in
his arms. We have desired our loving friends, Capt.
John Littlefield and Ensign John Hill, to present this
to your honors, who can give a further account of
our condition. We subscribe, — '

"This despatch is headed by Burroughs. Among
other signatures are those of the two Wheelrights,
and Joseph Storer. This evidences the whereabout
of George Burroughs, on that far-off summer of 1691.
He seems to be given something of precedence in
this most pressing affair of the need of the Storer
garrison. Sullivan gives Burroughs a poor character,
but from all that is left of the meagre detail of his

284 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

life, and of which the largest part is given to the
proceedings at Salem, such a conclusion must be
conjectural.

"At the time of the accusation against him of
witchcraft, Burroughs had a third wife. In the in-
dictment, one notes Burroughs was described as of
Falmouth. At the time of his arrest he was in Wells,
at Storer's garrison, and York was the proper venue
for his trial; but as Bourne says: 'the offense might
be regarded as committed in Salem, because the
spectre of the witch was there, and also the person
injured,' — or, in other words, the act was done in
Salem. There was apparently little law in the mat-
ter, and still less gospel. According to the writer
last quoted. Burroughs had strong friends; one of
whom remarked: 'I believe he is a choice child of
God!' An emphatic testimony, to be sure.

"The date of his arrest does not appear; but the
warrant was issued about the last day of April, 1692,
by Elisha Hutchinson, 'major,' at Portsmouth. It
was directed to Jno Partridge, 'field marshall of the
provinces of Maine and New Hampshire,' command-
ing him to ' apprehend the body of George Burroughs,
at present, preacher at Wells in the province of Maine,
and convey him with all speed to Salem.' The re-
turn on the warrant was, that the officer ' had ap-
prehended the said George Burroughs and have him
brought to Salem and delivered him to the authority
there this fourth day of May, 1692.'

"Burroughs was probably at the Storer garrison
when arrested. Thev blew the horn in those days

F^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 285

to call the people to meeting; and it was a good old-
fashioned forenoon and afternoon preaching, — the
session lasting three hours, with an 'early candle-
light' at the end of it. Folk did not mind the rude
seats, for it did not cost much to go to meeting in
those days; and the preacher was always paid with a
bag of wheat, or corn, or a bundle of woolen rolls.
It is all different nowadays; for, the more folk pay
their minister, the less preaching they get. Good old
times, when the women went to one side, and the
men to the other, and the preacher expoimded the
AVord, and at the same time watched the clearing
for Indian signs, as his own folk for signs of the devil
inside; for every man carried his musket to church,
as he did his conscience.

"The horn had blown its summons that morning
from Storer's for the folk to attend church service.
Everybody attended. There were distinguished vis-
itors present. The Provincial marshal had come
from Portsmouth with his deputies. They were after
Burroughs. Partridge read his warrant, but Bur-
roughs did not know much about Salem witches, or
Salem juries, either. He did not know what queer
verdicts twelve men could find in a jury-room, and
he went along, willingly enough.

"I had a lawing once, and I have my opinion of
juries. I have drawn them out of the jury-box, and
it is mighty poor timber they build them out of, some-
times. Great deal of shaky hemlock in the panel.
Burroughs' sermon that morning was a short one, for
they were at once on the road to Salem, hoping to

286

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

roach Portsmouth early in the evening, even then
afl'righted with their thoughts of Indians, witches and
ghosts. Without this, considering the facilities for

FROM WELLS TO YORK

travel in those days, the execution of the precept
was reasonably swift; and there may have been some
truth in the tradition extant of the happenings upon
their journey Salem-ward. Thoroughly saturated

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 287

with the heresy of witchcraft, their terror was made
more emphatical by tlie actual perils which beset
them. They followed the seashore along Hart's
Sands to York; and from thence, they struck inland,
to cross the river at Quamphegan. ^^'ild imaginings
played riot in their minds as they went; and the
eerie tales of those Salem chits were freshened and
reenforced as the glooms of the Newichawannock
woods deepened about them.

"The stumps in the pastures by the way, were
bogies or ghosts. The skies reeked with ominous
signs. Partridge and his squad were in mortal fear
of Burroughs, who was reputed to have sold himself
to the devil; which is not so surprising, when one re-
members even the judges were so scared that a few
months after, they hanged poor old Rebecca Nurse
after the jury had acquitted her. It was a time
when folk went on a mad hunt for trouble. Every
happening about the house had its occult meaning.
The church-yard was not considered a healthy place
for folk after night set in; and a ride through a strip
of strange woods when ghosts might be abroad, took
a sight of backbone, — more than most folk had in
those times, — when the winds turned the leaves of
the trees into wizard foot-falls; and the creaking of
their interlaced branches were witch jabberings; and
the bent gray birches a crowd of sheeted grave-
sleepers, leering and grinning over the fences; and the
silences of the night were pulsing with hideous things
and hideous sounds. I have heard that the cellar of
the old Samuel Parris house may still be seen; that

288 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

was where the black Tituba from the Barbadoes,
trained eight girl-simpletons into witch-finders. They
were so smart at the business, that they had only to
point a single finger at a poor old woman who had a
stoop in her shoulders, a hook-nose and a wrinkled
face, and she was as good as hung. The girls were
taken to Andover to hunt witches; and with such
effect, it was commonly reported that, ' forty men of
Andover could raise the devil as well as any astrol-
oger.'

" But the officers kept to their journey, and as they
went, their wits oozed out their pores. Witches flew
through the air, and ghosts arose out of the bushes.
Strange and unaccountable whisperings kept pace with
their horses, evil spirits communing with the cul-
prit preacher, whose sober and undisturbed demeanor
was suggestive of grave and devilish machinations.
Night set in quickly, as if a black pall had been let
down from the sky. It was a storm-cloud, that a
moment later burst with tempestuous fury upon them.
The lightning flared, and flapped its pale wings in
their faces, until one bolt, more potent than all the
others, smote a huge pine over their heads. Along
with the fragments of the thunderous peal that fol-
lowed, came the debris of the tree-top, crashing at
the heels of their horses. Horses never flew like those
of the Portsmouth sheriff. Burroughs had wrought
a direful spell, and the friends of Satan had them all
in their grip. They kept no more to the solid ground,
but skimmed the roads like a troop of swallows scour-
ing the fields before the coming rain. It was a wild

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

289

ride, equalled only by that of Ichabod Crane and the
Headless Horseman. But they got over the Piscat-
aqua safely, and were only able to quiet their nerves

THE WITCHTROTT

under the eaves of the tavern at Portsmouth. From
thence to Salem, the ride was uneventful.

" To this day, the road through the shadows of these
old Berwick woods has been dubbed, the Witchtrott.

290 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

Not then had Burns, the Commoner

Of Doon and Ayr, — "and a' that," —
Sung to the world in braw Scotch verse,

"A mon 's a mon, for a' that."
But Burroughs knew the truth, as well.

That simple living teaches.
That manhood is not always found

In laced coats, wigs and breeches.

Not then the old North Church had hung

Its lanterns, redly gleaming,
Into the night, from belfry-tower.

To wake folk from their dreaming,
With clattering midnight hoofs, and shout

Of hurried hoarse-voiced warning, —
"Daybreak, the British march this way!"

No news for idle scorning.

Not then the Concord men had fought.

Nor made of roadside fences
And lichened walls, their ambuscades,

The uncondoned offences
That taught the world a lesson, grim.

With Yorktown for its object.
The "divine right of kings" alike

Is vested in the subject.

"And yet, as one recalls the environment of these
people, what could one look for, other than what oc-
curred? It afforded a most natural soil for the de-
lusions that were abated none too soon. It was a
leafless hedgerow that led to Peter's Gate.

"May 9th, Burroughs was brought up for exami-
nation at Beadle's Tavern. Stoughton and Sewall
came out of Boston to lend countenance to so im-

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

291

portant a case. This was in the nature of a private
enquiry by the adjacent clergy. Here is a part of
the Star Chamber examination:

" ' Being asked when he partook of the Lord's Sup-
per, he being (as he said) in full communion at Rox-
bury, he answered it was so long since he could not
tell, yet he owned he was at meeting one Sabbath at

BEADLE'S TAVERN

Boston, part of the day, and the other at Charlestown
part of a Sabbath, when the sacrament happened to
be at both, yet did not partake of either. He denied
that his house at Casco was haunted, yet he owned
there were toads. The above was in private, none
of the bewitched being present.'

"This preliminary hearing being concluded, pro-
ceedings in open court were begun, and one can im-
agine the crowd agape, half with wonderment, and the

292 Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

rest onlooking with ill-concealed unrest. What a
nudging of elbows, grimaces, shifting of feet, and
uneasy and apprehensive posturings, must have con-
fronted the grave judges, who, under the English
law, which deprived the accused of the right of coun-
sel, were supposed to maintain all reasonable bar-
riers against the prisoner's accusers!

" But follow the record :

"'At his entry into the court room many (if not
all of the bewitched) were grievously tortured. Sarah
Sheldon testified that Burroughs' two wives appeared
in their winding sheets and said that man killed her.

"'He was bid to look upon Sheldon. He looked
back and knocked down all (or most of the afflicted
who stood behind him).

"'Mary Lewis' deposition going to be read and he
looked at her and she fell into a dreadful and tedious
fit.

Mary Walcott Testimony going to be

Elizabeth Hubbard Read and they fell

Susan Shildon Into fits.

"'Being asked what he thought of these things he
answered it was an amazing and humiliating provi-
dence but he understood nothing of it, and he said
(some of you may observe that) when they begin to
name any name they cannot name it.

" ' The bewitched were so tortured that authority
ordered them to be taken away some of them.

"'Capt. Putnam testified about the gun, Capt.

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 293

Wormwood testified about the gun and about the
mohisses.

'"He (Burroughs) denied that about the molasses.
About the gun he said he took it before the lock and
rested it upon his breast.

" ' John Brown testified about a barrel of cider. He
denied that his family was affrighted by a white calf
in his house.'

•'This reference to the record throws a side-light
upon the bias, or mental leanings of the Court. As
ridiculous as seem these stories, for they were not
evidence, their result was to cause the remanding of
Burroughs to the Salem Gaol, where he remained un-
til August; when he came up for trial on the indict-
ments, which, in the meantime had been drawn, to
the number of four, of which one is given to the
reader. Ann Putnam and Sarah Osgood seem to have
been the most lucid and prolific in their imaginings,
as their depositions indicate. Ann said, — and by
the way it was Putnam who some ten years before
had followed Burroughs with legal process into Fal-
mouth, and perhaps it was directly chargeable to
Thomas Putnam that a girl of around twelve years
of age should be able to relate such a tale as is re-
corded by Parris, — that Burroughs' two first wives
had appeared to her and had told her that they had
been bewitched to death by hhn. 'One told me,'
she deposed, 'she was his first wife and he stabbed
her under the left arm and put a piece of sealing-wax
on the wound, and she pulled aside the winding-sheet
and showed me the place.' Also, 'the wife which he

294 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

hath now, killed her in the vessel as she was coming
to see his friends, ' — the revelation of the second wife.

"To quote a recent writer:

"'Simon Willard testified to being in Falmouth,
Me., in September, 1689, when some one was

"■ ' Commending Mr. Burroughs, his strength, saying
that he could hold out his gun with one hand. Mr.
Burroughs being there said, I held my hand here be-
hind the lock and took it up and held it out. I, said
deponent, saw Mr. Burroughs put his hand on the
gun, to show us how he held it and where he held his
hand, and saying there he held his hand when he
held his gun out; but I saw him not hold it out then.
Said gun was about seven-foot barrel and very heavy.
I then tried to hold out said gun with both hands, but
could not do it long enough to take sight.'

" ' Willard also deposed that when he was in garri-
son at Saco some one in speaking of Burroughs's
great strength said he could take a barrel out of a
canoe and carry it and set on the shore, and Bur-
roughs said he had carried a barrel of molasses or
cider and that it had like to have done him a dis-
pleasure, so he intimated that he did not want strength
to do it, but the disadvantage of the shore was such
that his foot slipping in the sand he had liked to have
strained his leg.' Benjamin Hutchinson testified that
he met Abigail Williams one day about eleven o'clock
in the forenoon, in Salem Village. Burroughs was
then in Maine, a hundred miles away. She told him
she then saw Burroughs. Hutchinson asked where.
She answered, 'There,' and pointed to a rut in the road.

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 295

Hutchinson threw an iron fork towards the place where
she said she saw Burroughs. WilHams fell into a fit.

" Coming out she said, ' You have torn his coat for
I heard it tear.' 'Whereabouts?' said I. 'On one
side,' said she. Then we went to the house of Lieu-
tenant Ingersoll, and I went into a great room and
Abigail came in and said, 'There he stands.' I said,
' Where? where? ' and presently drew my rapier. Then
Abigail said 'He is gone, but there is a gray cat.'
Then I said ' Whereabouts?' ' There,' said she, ' there.'
Then I struck with my rapier and she fell into a fit;
and when it was over she said, 'You killed her.'

" ' Hutchinson said he could not see the cat, where-
upon Williams informed his credulous soul that the
spectre of Sarah Good had come in and carried away
the dead animal.'

" These affairs, be it remembered, occurred in broad
daylight. Deliverance Hobbs, called as a witness in
the case, protested her innocence. Subsequently she
was examined in prison and confessed that she was a
witch. She had attended a meeting of witches where
Burroughs was preacher, and

" ' Pressed them to bewitch all in the Village. He
administered the sacrament to them with red bread
and red wine like blood. . . . Her daughter Abagail
Hobbs, being brought in at the same time, while her
mother was present, was immediately taken with a
dreadful fit ; and her mother being asked who it was
that hurt her daughter, answered it was Goodman
Corey, and she saw him and the gentlewoman of Bos-
ton striving to break her daughter's neck.' "

206 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

'' The same annalist says:

" ' I quote at this point a deposition exactly as I find
it on the files, without the change of a letter or a
punctuation mark.

"'The complaint of Sanmel Sheldon against Mr.
Burroughs which brought a book to mee and told mee
if i would not set my hand too it hee would tear me
to peesses i told him i would not then he told mee
hee would Starve me to death then the next morning
hee tould me hee could not starve mee to death but
hee would choake mee so that my vittals should doe
me but litl good then he tould mee his name was
borros which had preached at the vilage the last
night hee came to mee and asked mee whither i
would goe to the village to-morrow to witness against
him i asked him if he was examined then he told mee
hee was then i told him i would goe then hee told
mee hee would kil mee before morning then hee ap-
peared to mee at the hous of nathanniel ingolson and
told mee hee had been the death of three children
at the eastward and had kiled two of his wifes the
first he smothered and the second he choaked and
killed two of his own children.'

"Ann Putnam, it will be remembered, told an en-
tirely different story about the way in which Bur-
roughs 'killed his two first wives,' and she, too,
claimed to have the story directly from the appari-
tions of those wives.

"A jury of seven appointed to search the body of
Mr. Burroughs for witch marks reported that they
found nothing but what was natural.

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

297

"George Herrick testified that in May he went to
the jail and searched the
body of Jacobs. He
found a tett under the
right shoulder a quarter
of an inch long. He ran
a pin through it, but
' there was neither water,
blood, nor corruption, nor
any other matter, and so
we make return.' The
following document is
also among the papers:

" ' wee whose names are
under written ha^dng re-
ceived an order from ye
sreife to search ye bodyes
of George Burroughs and
George Jacobs wee find
nothing upon ye body of
ye above sayd Burroughs
but wt is naturall but
upon ye body of George
Jacobs wee find 3 tetts
wch according to ye best
of our judgements wee
think is not naturall for
wee rmi a pinn through
2 of ym and he was not

sincible of it one of them being within his mouth
upon ye inside of his right cheak and 2d upon

A CORNER OF SALEM

298 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

his right shoulder blade and a 3d upon his right
hipp.

Ed Welch sworne John Flint jurat

Will Gill sworne Tom West sworne

Zeb Gill jurat Sam Morgan sworne

John Bare jurat.'

"Burroughs w^as convicted, however, and on the
19th of August hanged on Gallows Hill, Salem."

Calef says Burroughs was

"Carried in a cart with others through the streets
of Salem to execution. When he was upon the lad-
der he made a speech for the clearing of his inno-
cency with such solemn and serious expressions as
were to the admiration of all present: his prayer
which he concluded by repeating the Lord's Prayer
so well worded and uttered with such composedness
and such (at least seeming) fervency of spirit, as was
very affecting, and drew tears from many, so that it
seemed to some that the spectators would hinder the
execution. The accusers said the black mand stood
and dictated to him. As soon as he was turned off,
Mr. Cotton Mather, being mounted upon a horse, ad-
dressed himself to the people, partly to declare that
he (Burroughs) was no ordained minister, and partly
to possess the people of his guilt, saying that the
devil has often been transformed into an angel of
light: and this somewhat appeased the people and
the execution went on. When he was cut down, he
was dragged by the halter to a hole or grave, be-
tween the rocks, about two feet deep, his shirt and
breeches being pulled off, and an old pair of trowsers

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 299

of one executed put on his lower parts. He was so
put in together with Willard and Carrier that one of
his hands and his chin, and a foot of one of them,
were left uncovered."

Famous Judge Sewall was moved to make a rec-
ord of the event of the execution of George Burroughs,
and of the unbelief of many of the Salem folk in his
guilt. His note bears date of August 19, 1692.

"This day George Burroughs, John Willard, John
Proctor, Martha Carrier, and George Jacobs were exe-
cuted at Salem, a very great number of spectators
being present. Mr. Cotton Mather was there, Mr.
Sims, Hale, Noyes, Cheever, etc. All of them said
they were innocent. Carrier and all. Mr. Mather says
they all died by a Righteous Sentence. Mr. Bur-
roughs by his Speech, Prayer, presentation of his
Innocence did much move unthinking persons, which
occasions their speaking hardly concerning his being
executed."

This judge was the only one of them all to make
public confession of his error.

Referring to the quotation from Calef, and his al-
lusion to the repeating of the Lord's Prayer by Bur-
roughs, a witch was not believed to be able to repeat
the same correctly. As a part of the examination of
an individual found guilty of witchcraft, that was
one of the ordeals to which the culprit had to sub-
mit; it was regarded in the light of corroborative
testimony, and its repetition was always exacted by
the presiding justice at the trial. Nevins, in a note
to his work on Salem Witchcraft, says, — " the ac-

300 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

cused often voluntarily repeated the prayer, as Bur-
roughs did on this occasion."

As to Burroughs' character, Fowler, in his edition
of Calef's "More Wonders, etc.," disagrees with Sul-
livan. Increase Mather termed him a " very ill man."
Hutchinson declares that Burroughs at his trial, " was
confounded, and used many twistings and turnings
which I think we cannot wonder at." Cotton Mather
writes, " his tergiversations, contradictions, and false-
hoods were very sensible at his examination, and on
his trial," Nevins opines, "that all these state-
ments were based, more or less, on Cotton Mather's
'Wonders of the Invisible World.'" Cotton Mather,
and his Double-headed Snake of Newbury, demand
equal credence with his tales of spectral visitations
and influences. Mather and the Salem judges were
no respecters of the infirmities of extreme old age;
nor were they qualified to judge of the competency,
or incompetency of evidence. They purged the
threshing-floors of Truth with the brutal flail of De-
lusion; and Sewall, alone felt the stings of Conscience.
Stoughton was the Provincial Jeffries who presided
most ably at this feast of crime. George Cor win, the
sheriff, was a willing tool; and poor Samuel Parris,
how his little brain must have throbbed and ached,
as he tried to keep up with this drivel of adolescent
hysterics !

Degenerate days!

Not a few writers upon the occurrences of those
days, have made serious attempt at palliation of so
grave an outrage against personal right, and com-

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 301

muiial decency; but it has been at the expense of the
standard of intelhgence exhibited by the Puritans in
other hues of self-government. Had this weeding
out of heretical tares been less cruel; or less tainted
with apparent malice; or even less hasty in piling
stones upon old Giles Corey, and swinging its vic-
tims from the rude gallows on Witches' Hill; or
somewhat more doubtful in its credulity, one might
be inclined to plead leniency of judgment. Had the
official sanction of these terrible deeds, that smacked
of the days of the Duke of Alva, been less pronounced,
and active, it might have been easier. But this was
done by the Crown, which left its victim without
coimsel, or the intervening arm of the Court; which,
under the old English law, was bound to ward off
irrelevancy and hearsay; and to shelter the accused
within its mantle of absolute justice, so far as the
same was possible of attaimnent under the existing
laws, and a wise and temperate application of them.
John Proctor, who was convicted as a witch, and
who was hung on the same day as Burroughs, affords
an instance of evident, and malicious persecution.
He was a "proper sort" of a man, and was possessed
of some local importance. He was referee in a
matter of law between Giles Corey and John Gloyd,
and undoubtedly incurred the enmity of Corey. He
had his idea of dealing with this moral distemper;
and he was one of those who kept his wits, when
those of others were balanced about evenly between
witch-ridden Parris' pasture, and Beadle's Tavern.
He did not hesitate to express upon proper occasion,

302

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

his personal disapprobation of these untoward hallu-
cinations of Abigail Williams and her conscienceless
coterie of adolescents. Proctor said, he " could whip
the devil out of them," and it was a public calamity
that he was not given the opportunity to apply the
birch. Even this sturdy adhesion to sound sense
counted against him in his day of need, to be re-

PARRIS PASTURE

called later with poignant regret by those who had a
hand in his murder.

His wife, Goody Proctor, as she was called in the
witch vernacular, was apprehended, sentenced, and
would have gone to the gallows with her husband,
except for the plea of pregnancy, which procured for
her a stay of proceedings. Before the birth of her
child, the insane delusions of these Salem butchers

I'^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 303

had become weary or affrighted with the ever-present
spectre of gray-haired Rebecca Nurse swinging in the
wind; as, according to Rose Terry Cooke,

"They hanged this wear}^ woman tlicre,
Like any felon stout ;
Her white hairs on the cruel rope
Were scattered all about."

But Proctor was a man of keen perceptions, and
of great determination. He had his prehminary ex-
amination, and was then remanded to jail for triah
An observant witness of the manifest injustice and
one-sidedness of these trials, he asked for a change of
venue to Boston. It was refused him. He then
solicited to be brought before magistrates other than
Stoughton and his fanatical associates, which proved
likewise, unavailing. No other inference can be
drawn, than that these "judicial" proceedings were
attaint with ultra vires, going far beyond the powers
of the Court in these so-called trials. The accused
might as well have been taken to Gallows Hill, and
disposed of at once on the original warrant, as to
Court. The result was the same, for an accusation
was equivalent to a conviction; and the stain of
Goody Nurse's murder is of the color of the fatal
noose that strangled all, from Bridget Bishop to
Sarah Good.

Here is something of interest, as showing the lay
sentiment of Salem ^^illage, and the current opinion
which found definite expression:

"We whose names are underwritten, having sev-

304 Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

eral years known John Procter and his wife, do testify
that we never heard or understood that they were
ever suspected to be guilty of the crime now charged
upon them, and several of us, being their near neigh-
bors, do testify, that to our apprehension, they lived
Christian-like in their family, and were ever ready to
help such as stood in need of their help."

This petition was signed by John Fulton and
twenty others. Here is another of similar character.

"We reckon it within the duties of our charity,
that teaches us to do as we would be done by, to
offer thus much for the clearing of our neighbor's
innocence, viz.: that we never had the least knowl-
edge of such a nefandus wickedness in our neighbors
since they have been within our acquaintance. . . .
As to what we have seen or heard of them, upon our
conscience we judge them innocent of the crime
objected."

This latter was signed by John Wise of Ipswich,
and thirty-one others of his Ipswich neighbors, in
Proctor's behalf. Neither of these, which were pre-
sented to the Court's Assistants, availed anything.
Great moral courage, however, was required to pre-
sent them, so emphatically friendly were they to
Proctor's interest.

These allusions to the Proctor case are luminous,
as illustrating the deeps of the moral slough into
which the Salem authorities had waded, along with
the insipid-faced Cotton Mather, to get altogether
mired. Lieutenant-Governor William Stoughton was
the chief -justice at these trials. His sanctimonious

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 305

affectations made his administration of the law suffi-
ciently odious; but his merciless judgments were
painted with virulence. Once, when one of his vic-
tims was reprieved, he left the bench in a flout of
temper, to exclaim, "We were in the way to have
cleared the land of these. Who is it obstructs the
course of justice, I know not. The Lord be merciful
to the country."

In Proctor's case, notably, he was not allowed the
time he thought necessary to prepare for the sum-
mary exit in store for him. Even the clerg\Tnan who
attended the hangings, refused the usual consola-
tions of the faith, in his last moments on the scaffold,
— the essence of barbarity of the Dark Ages. So it
was charged, as showing manifest persecution, a
charge not to be gainsaid. No doubt these peti-
tions were thorns in the sides of the Court and its
ready assistants, for they were the palpable evidence
of the rising storm of open denimciation, and con-
demnation, which was to follow all the active partici-
pators in these outrages against right and decency, to
their graves.

The horror of those days must have been inde-
scribable, with the short shrift of a fortnight be-
tween the dock and the hangman. But those days
are far away, and it is a pleasing thought that even
the last resting-places of these nineteen alleged
witches, or the, rather, unfortmiates, have been ob-
literated by the soft hands of Nature. Would that
these extracts from the ancient court records had at
once faded into illegibility; but they remain for the

306 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

world to see, even to the bottles of "witch-pins"
carefully hoarded even now in the Salem court-house
for the curious to look ujoon, pinning the traditions
of Yesterday to To-da}^

Here the little clock on the mantel began to strike,
and, unconsciously, I had counted nine, when the
children, with a parting kiss, stole quietly off to bed;
nor, was I omitted in the observance of this old-
fashioned courtesy. I heard their light footsteps on
the uncarpeted stair, and wondered if they would
hide their heads under the coverlid, after hearing
such grewsome tales of witches and ghosts that were
likely to haunt the open chambers in the childish
brain.

The fire is getting low and everything has a drowsy
sound, unless it is the storm outside. A half after
nine, the ashes on the hearth are raked apart ; the
half-burned back-stick is tipped into the glowing hol-
low against the chimney-back, and covered with hot
coals and a thick outer covering of dull gray ashes.
The fire is raked up for the night to smoulder and
smoke until morning, when it will be unraked to
make the fire for the new day, — a custom not
many steps from a religious observance in most New
England farm households, — a sort of Fire Worship,
— for the day ended and began, at this altar of
smouldering flame. With a parting sip from the
quaintly-fashioned brown mug, I bade Goodman and
Goodwife a "Good night!" and climbed the creaky
stair after the children, to an old-fashioned room
with old-fashioned furnishings, to get an old-fashioned

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 307

slumber under the dripping roofs, and perhaps to
dream that I am on the road to Quamphegan.

''Boom!" It is the wind buffeting the gable.

I do not know how long 1 have slept, but I am
thoroughly awake.

On the brass-mounted bedstead, the tapering,
fluted posts of which reach the ceiling, as I noticed
before blowing out the flame of my candle what

' ''-■ / ->&^«

'<'// / ---'-

^

ON THE ROAD TO QUAMPHEGAN

seemed hours before, my watch ticked in a subdued,
half-apologetic sort of a way, as if its only excuse for
ticking at all, was that of making some companion-
ship for itself. That it took a c^uiet enjoyment in
keeping up its monotonous speech, cheery at times
and brisk-like, dying away into a half-audible asser-
tion of itself at other times, was evidenced \ij the fact
that it was simply doing on this occasion what it had
done every night since it had come into my posses-
sion. All I could make of its iteration was, —

308 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

"Wake up! Wake up!" and I doubt not that had
been the gist of its saying during my shmiber, from
what occurred afterward.

I am not a heavy sleeper. I awake easily if un-
usual sounds are about, or even at will, if I have
fixed the time for such waking before going to sleep.
Some folk sleep with an alarm clock beside their
pillow; but it is more convenient, and less trouble-
some to the family, if one can make the time-keeper
in his brain strike the hours; nor are my slumbers
light, for they are thoroughly restful when in normal
health. Knowing all this, I am wondering why I
am so wide awake on the instant, when I should be
soundly sleeping, with such a storm lullaby over-
head. Something has touched me, and I have un-
consciously responded. I look out into the room,
but nothing is discernible in this cube of opaqueness
into which the thick storm has converted my room
for the time being. I seem to be apart from all evi-
dences of humanity, as for the seeing of them, or
hearing of them. There is no town-clock to send
down the storm-wind the message of the flying hours,
with its clanging note. Not even the little time-
keeper from the "Yankee Notion" country, on the
fireplace mantel below, could be heard, at its loudest
stroke, beyond the front stairs; but, for all this, I
have the uncomfortable impression that I am not
altogether alone. AVho is it, or what is it, that has
thrust itself upon my attention at this unseemly
time of night? There are no sounds about, — only
those of the storm. When the gale lulls a bit, — it

F^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 309

comes in fitful gusts now, with intervals of down-
pouring rain between, — there is a rhythni of thick-
falling drops on the pine roof-shingles that impart a
sensation of wavering, irregular i)ulse to the timbers
that hold the staunch roof and gable together; as
if fairly worn out and discouraged under the pelting
and drenching of such a night of wind, and wet. On
the seaward gable, the rain courses down the warped
shingles to the outer window-sill, with an audible
splash and spatter; and when it comes with a gusty
haste, it is thrown against the ancient gable with a
dry rattling sound, like sleet. A hea\y gust makes
the old house tremble from king-pin to cellar; and
the wooden fireboard at the foot of my bed is blown
outward; falling with a queer flapping noise, as if
trying to catch its breath in the tumult; while the
sounds in the chimney are augmented in volume.
The wind, as it blows over the top of the chimney,
fills the flues with a medley of wind-speech. The
chimney seems thronged with summer-dwellers, the
swifts, there is such a fluttering of windy wings; and
then there is a sound of blowing into an empty bot-
tle, only in larger degree; as if a stray storm sprite
had caught some urchin at his sport of coaxing hide-
ous sounds out of this creation of the glass-blower,
and in a freak of mockery was playing like pranks with
my host's chimney-top. It whistles, mocks, moans,
and mutters all sorts of wind gibberish. It rolls,
or tmnbles, headlong down the gloomy alley where
the Smoke family live, making a deal of disturbance,
and carrying with it swallow nests by the score, and

310 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

huge scales of glossy soot; and, not satisfied with
that, it coaxes great splashing drops of wet along
with it ; an illustration in nature of how folks may go
from bad to worse, when they are not particular what
company they keep. I can hear the pounding of
the sea; and it is like the rolling of distant thunder;
so much like thunder is it, that I am not startled
when my room is flooded with a thin bluish light; a
pallid, weird, quivering flame, that is followed by a
terrific crash that has swallowed up all other noises;
and that makes the old house shudder nervously at
this storm threat. The thunder dies away to wind-
ward, with slow, uneven mutterings; the wind is
awed into silence; and the rain comes in torrents.

How much one can see in an instant of time! In
that brief second of electrical phenomena, I have,
by a sort of instantaneous mental photography, made
a picture of all there is in this room, even to the
quaintly-patterned wall-paper, and the colored prints
that hang against it, and the old-fashioned furniture,
that fills its nooks and corners, — a picture that will
last forever. On the walls is the greenest of green
and white paper ; the whole, a landscape in conglom-
erate, with oblong panels, or blocks, separated by
white seams ; as if set in an irregular sort of masonry
bond, neither English, nor Flemish, but peculiarly
old-fashioned; each pictured panel a duplicate of its
fellow, and suggestive of the times when wall paper
came in patches or squares, instead of rolls; and that
were fastened in place with nails; all of which was
somewhat before paper-hanging had become an art.

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 311

One window-curtain of a like arsenical color, unrolled
to its full length, is decorated with an inip()ssii:)le
landscape, done in gairish colors, that would give one
the nightmare if seen long in such an unearthly
light. The tall, brass-mounted chest of drawers with
its tiny looking-glass in its thinly gilded frame atop,
and the blown-out tallow dip beside it; the square,
top-heavy stand with its four attenuated legs and
ancient blue-ware toilet-set to keep it company; the
black rush-bottomed chairs, each one a ghost of
Puritan dignity, that set stiffly between; and look-
ing down upon them from the walls, the faded faces
of good Queen Bess and the unfortunate Mary, with
a half-dozen wood-cuts from some illustrated news-
paper, pinned here and there in lieu of something
better; all these, with the fireboard fallen prone,
and helpless, athwart the home-woven rag carpet;
and the hearth, dingy, cheerless and forlorn, are as
indelibly imprinted upon my brain at this far-off
day, as when I saw them for that single instant of
quivering light.

There is one thing in this room I have not men-
tioned, — a little square-topped stand at the head of
my bed, an old-fashioned chair close beside it, and
in which was something I had seen in my earlier
days that gave me a momentary chill. I might say
here, I am an utter disbeliever in ghosts or appari-
tions; but here in this chair is the impalpable, but
visual evidence, that might convince a more credu-
lous person than myself, of ghostly visitations, for
one of the spectre family has come to play the ghostly

312 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

watcher over my slumbers. I see in the span of a
Ughtnhig flash, the figure of an old man, with long,
white beard, dressed in most ancient garb, the cut
and fashion of which are before my time, and which
are strange to me. His coat fits loosely about the
stoop in his shoulders, and on his half-bent head is a
slouch hat, that might have hung for years in the
dustiest corner of some old grist-mill. Now, I think
of it, the old man's garb was more like a miller's
than anything else; or like something that had been
taken from its garret nail, with the undisturbed dust
of years upon it. The occupant of this chair does
not look at me, — he never does, — but seems star-
ing vacantly outward into the room, as if depreca-
ting any inquiry he might read in my eyes, or any dis-
covery I might make, could I but get a look into his
own. He is no stranger to me, with his palHd counte-
nance and depressed manner, for I have met him
several times since my early childhood. He always
preserves the same impassive mien. Whatever his
mission, I have never been able to discover it; but
I have become so used to his appearance at any time,
that I sometimes find myself trying to conjure him
into existence, but am rarely successful. Sometimes
he stands at the foot of my bed, but he never looks
me in the face; why, I cannot imagine. He comes
most when my room is flooded with light, usually at
the full of the moon. Whether it is the family ghost
or not, I do not know. I never heard my people
allude to the matter, however fashionable it may be
to have such a well-behaved ghost among the family

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 313

heirlooms. Is it not singular that his visitations
have never before been commented upon? I am
an only child, and my father had numerous brothers,
to any one of whom his Ghost-shij) might have at-
tached himself; but I confess I was startled enough
when I first saw him in his dusty, anticjuated clothes,
that were the farthest remove from the musty ha-
biliments of the graveyard, sitting by the white-cov-
ered light-stand in the big square chamber of the
old farmhouse, a good quarter of a century ago.
There was one singular thing about this old fellow.
While I could see every outline of form and feature,
and could even distinguish the texture of his thread-
bare garments in the moonlight, yet I could see
through and beyond all this, so thin and unsub-
stantial was this, to me, vagary of an unduly ex-
cited imagination. But was it a vagary? Whether
it was or not, will always be a mystery, to be solved
after this house of flesh has been vacated, when, if
restless spirits return to earth, the writer may take
a hand at playing midnight visitant.

THE TROLL OF RICHMON'S
ISLAND

THE TROLL OF RICHMON'S ISLAND

!N these matter-of-fact clays one
does not give much heed to the
superstitions once cherished
among the fireside tales of
singular and so-called super-
natural happenings; but that
such were current coin among
our ancestors is nevertheless
true. They have come down to us as remnants of
one vagrant chronicle or other, weird traditions of
trolls, were-wolves and vampires, of ghost-walks and
haunted houses that made the Salem Witchcraft
Trials the short steps to that series of tragedies that
are almost the only blot upon the civilization of New
England.

Children's tales, nowadays, hardly three centuries
ago, in the days of Jocelyn's Hermans and Tritons,
they were repeated oftentimes in low- voiced murmurs,
when repeated at all — as if the Dead Ship of Harps-
well were ever a ship at all, except in the mind of
some lively romancer of the period, whose unagina-
tion stood for the quintessence of veracity. They
were the days when John Ingram's description of the

317

318 1'^' ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

Golden City of the Penobscot wilderness set the gr(>ed
of all London agog to make immediate pilgrimage to
Norombegua, the then Mecca of the New World ex-
plorer, and whose only rewards were the direst fail-
ure, except that so fair a j^icture as now greets the
eye of the sea-voyager as he approaches the Maine
Coast, would never have been limned, had not this
same spirit of adventurous exploration, as it were,
stretched the canvas and sketched in the perspective
of what was to be an incomparable panorama of sea
and shore.

Southward of Champlain's "Cabo de Muchas Islas"
was Richmon's Island, one of the shifting scenes of
a drama put upon the boards in the days of Charles
I, and which continued to be played with varying
fortunes for many years thereafter.

With Trelawney for prompter, greed, avarice and
murder stalked across the stage with a realism only
to be found in the living heart. Here were the liv-
ing characters, and here they played those parts,
whose entre'acts were enlivened only by the dirge of
the ocean that beat unceasingly against the Init-
tressed shores, as if in protest against the character
of the play that was on, a kind of continuous per-
formance, that was broken into only by the dropping
out of some actor as the musket ball, or knife, cut
short the span of life.

It was here in 1855, on Richmon's Island, that a
pot of gold was ploughed up, an old earthen pot,
within whose recesses for more than two centuries
had been hidden the romance of a far-away day, a

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

319

romance stained \\\{\\ more than one bloody tragedy,
and which would have been as yet mirevealed, but, for
the old Troll who lived, so he told me, about the stone-
yards of this old "cape of many islands" ever since
the days of Chaos, and who, for so many years, was
the self-constituted guardian of this old pot of gold.
This treasure is now the property of the .Maine

Historical Society, where
the ancient coins may
be examined if the
curator regards the
observer as honest as

himself; and it
was here in the
shadows of the
lofty ceilings
under the spell
of the gathering

twilight, as I fingered one of those worn discs of
gold, with all thought of Aladdin, and his Lamp, as
far away as my own book-shelves at home, the old
Troll, hoary with the dust of every geological period
since the Creation, slowly emerged out of the dusk
to perch himself on the glass case beside Father
Rasle's old chapel-bell, from which vantage-point,
with one arm outstretched, his stubby forefinger in-
dicating the coins in my hands, and with a voice
that sounded like the music of the sea, he murmured.
— "You would like to know their storv?"

320 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

"Certainly, — very much, indeed," and eagerly,
I replied, notwithstanding my surprise at the sudden
appearance of this courteous and dwarf-like bit of
humanity.

"I will tell you, — " with something of flattery
in his accent.

I give it to my reader as literally as I am able.

"You know the old Zealand legend of father Fine
and the church at Kallundborg that he built for
Esbern Snare?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, it was a sister of mine whom Fine
had for wife, unfortunately, and who sang, —

"Tie stille, barn min!
Imorgen kommer Fin,
Fa'er din,
Og gi'er dig Esbern Snares

oine og hjerte at lege med!"

his fate of the coming day. Helva of Nevsek, and
Esbern Snare are long since gathered to their fathers,
but I can show you the stones of Kallundborg Church
to-day, Gaffer Fine builded so well. And Gaffer Fine
and his Troll-wife are alive to-day, and living, under
Ulshoi hill. Fine beats his wife and children, still.

"But the Trolls are an ancient people, and the
Norse valleys, and the islands —

"Low lying off the pleasant Swedish shore
Washed by the Baltic Sea, and watched by Elsinore,"

abound in wild tales of their doings. Their lore is
the folk-lore of every race; and their songs are sung

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

321

in every tongue; the crooning lullabys, that mothers
murmur to their drowsy babes, they have caught
from the Troll-wives singing under-ground, —

"Since the Creation, the Trolls have been the
good spirits of mankind, with few like Gaffer Fine.
My clan, allied to the Richmon family, have simply
followed its traditions; and since the days of Cedric,
the first titular king of Wessex, and especially that
comitry, anciently, and since known as Somerset-
shire, the annals of the Richmon family have been

ON THE EDGE OF THE MARSH

our own. During the sixteenth, and the early part
of the seventeenth centuries, Ireland was practi-
cally depopulated by the wars between the Saxons
and Gaels. The recolonization of this waste coun-
try was undertaken by English Queen Bess, and
Popham was sent through the English counties to
organize planter's companies to go over to Ireland
in that interest. Many of the junior members of
the landed gentry of Somersetshire found their way
thither. Among those who went from Somerset-
shire was John Richmon, or Richmond, who was

322 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

one of the assignees of Sir Bernard Granville, who
held a grant of the site of Bandon on the river of
that name, a locality about twenty miles from Cork.
Here, at Bandon, a town Avas erected; and it was
here, on the site of an ancient Danish fort, that the
first Protestant church was founded. These Ban-
don colonists were Puritans, and such were the in-
fluences under which George Richmon was reared.
Several of these Bandon Puritans were among those
who founded the Puritan colony of Massachusetts.

" George Richmon grew like his ancestry, a sturdy,
adventurous Englishman. Ultimately he had sailed
over the sea to New England, and, when he cast
his anchor, it was in the lee of Champlain's and
Du Mont's Isle of Bacchus, which, ever since, has
gone, nominis umbra, by the distinctive name of
Richmond's Island. Here on the shores of the
Dominion of Maine, this adventurous Englishman
engaged in fishing and the accumulation of furs
and such merchandise as would find a ready sale
in his own country. He was the first Englishman
to utilize this island for the purposes of trade, of
which there is any record. Here he built a ship;
and it may have been three or four years after the
first voyage of the Mayflower, to Plymouth, if one
wishes to locate the date, though there is no reason
to be exact al^out it. In this ship he went to
England. It is probable he made several voyages,
as incidental to his career; and it was not long after
this, that Walter Bagnall came to the island. He
purchased Richmon's rights and engaged in barter

Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

323

with the Indians ; and by his cupidity and dishonesty,
soon found himself in bad odor. Richnion was soon
after lost with his vessel on his home voyage to
England. This Bagnall was exceedingly avaricious;
and here is where the story of the Pot of Gold begins.

'' Bagnall's desire was for gold, glowing, yellow gold.

" Dark and swarthy, and repellent in his personal
appearance, like the child of the Evil One he was
soon to become, he could hardly wait for the night to

ALONG SHORE

fall, that he might finger his rapidly accumulating
store of golden coins. When the falling dusk had
deepened into the blackness of night, he pulled his
treasure from its hiding-place, and, pouring its con-
tents upon the table of oaken deal, he washed his
hands in the yellow flood, gloating over it, miser-
like, until his soul was steeped in the glow of his
subtle enjoyments; and then, with a stealthy glance
about his kitchen, he hid his gold until the night
should come again.

324 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

" One night he became more deeply than ever ab-
sorbed in his soUtary counting over of his gains.
The night was rough outside. He was storm-iso-
lated. The equinoctial had broken on the coast;
and the winds howled and shrieked down the wide-
mouthed chimney; the rain rattled and smote gust-
ily against the rough log-gable; and the sea pounded
across the bar to the mainland, to make the solid
shores throb under the shock of the heavy waters;
ever and anon, throwing the spray in sibilant sheets
against the low eaves of the cabin. On the flat
stone hearth the fire made fitful glow; and the single
candle-flame quivered and shrunk to a sinuous thread
under the stress of some random draught.

"Anon a bolt of living fire shot across the narrow
glazing of a single window; and then, the noise of a
jagged explosion, rolled down earthward, a roulade
of dislocated sounds that broke and fell away in
peals of deafening reverberation, landward, and over
the foam-streaks above the churning seas. There
was a lull in the wild storm, and the miser fingered
his gold anew, and his soul cried, 'More! More!'
and his gold filtered through his fingers again and
again, until his heart was hot with desire.

"Another break of livid flame flooded the low-
ceiled kitchen, and about the rough walls tongues of
blue fire curled and twisted, uncannily. They over-
ran the table of oaken deal, and the yellow of Bag-
nail's gold was the ruddiness of blood, each coin a
huge corpviscle, a splotch of dire red. The perspira-
tion that oozed from Bagnall's finger-tips had a

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 325

viscid feel, as if they were fresh from some foul deed.
BagnalFs hair stood on end, each one a sprite of
living fear. The cabin swayed from side to side like
a boat at sea, and, with a final shudder, the toppling
wick of the candle fell inert and flameless.

" But Bagnall was not alone.

"Before the dying embers stood a gentleman
garbed from head to foot in crimson velvet.

"Bagnall began to gather up his gold, which,
strange to say, glowed in the semi-dusk with a mild
phosphorescence, piling the coins into his bag between
his knees under the table, while between his chatter-
ing teeth came the audible exclamation, ' The Devil ! '

" ' If you please, and your very humble servant,
sir, — and, by the ' way, friend Bagnall there is no
hurry,' whereat the Devil picked up the candlestick,
straightened the wick, and blew slightly upon it,
and it was again alight.

"Bagnall, speechless in his amazement, began to
survey his visitor with more calmness.

"'Don't mind me, Bagnall. I'm only calling on a
few of my friends. Suppose you count that gold
over again, Bagnall.'

"The bag dropped to the floor with a smothered
ring of its contents, as Bagnall muttered, 'Gold!
what gold!'

"The Devil snapped his fingers and the bag was
on the table, and before its owner could reclaim it,
it was upside down, held by an invisible hand, and
the golden coins were running from it a steady stream.

"Bagnall's fear was dissipated. Here was more,

326 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

and MORE. But, at last the bag was emptied; and
in its emptiness, it fell prone upon the yellow pile
that scintillated with light of the living sun.

"'You asked for more?' inquired the Devil, smiling
in his evident pleasure at Bagnall's surprise.

"'You must be the , ' was Bagnall's broken

exclamation.

"'Bah! what's in a name? There's a fellow over
across the water, who has just written some very
clever things. I believe he says a rose would smell
as sweet by any other name, — very good, too, —
I am inclined to think the idea is not new. It had
occurred to nle when Adam and Eve were on my list,
but, say, Bagnall, — is it more, and more still, that
you desire?'

"'More what?' replied Bagnall, evasively.

" ' Don't be shy, man, — I've known you for a long
while, and you are one of my sort, — I have a mind
to make a bargain with you.'

" Bagnall was silent, but his eyes wandered from
the Devil's face to the pile of glowing coin on the
table, and his hands went out to clutch the trebled
hoard. As he gathered his hands full of the yellow
metal, each separate disc became instantly a tawny
reptile that scurried off the table to the floor to hide
in the crevices with which it seemed abundantly sup-
plied.

"Bagnall's terror had returned.

" ' Rather elusive stuff, isn't it, Bagnall, — see here,
my friend, the Styx is the principal river in my do-
minions, and it rises in the gold mines of the world, —

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 327

I am the Gotl of Gold, man! If you wish gold, you
can have your fill in a short time.'

'"Can I be sure of that?' was Bagnall's eager in-
quiry.

" ' Certainly, sir, — a little matter of business be-
tween us, — I desire security, of course, — your sig-
nature, — that's all — you'll be in good company,
Bagnall, — very good company, indeed!'

"One by one the coins resumed their place in the
pile on the table, which was noted by Bagnall with
increasing satisfaction, though he was restrained by
a wholesome fear of the man in crimson.

" ' You can handle the coins, Bagnall,' suggested
the Devil, benevolently. 'And, by the way, I can
make you the richest man in the Dominion of Maine,
or in the New World, for that matter, — you love
gold, — and why not. But I am making a longer
stay than I intended. I have an engagement, — a
little bond to foreclose, and, of course, if you are not
ready for business now, some other time will do.'

" Bagnall fingered the gold, nervously, yet caress-
ingly, his eyes snapping and glowing like the red
coals that had for the moment lighted up among the
dusky brands. The coins rang true, with no evident
disposition to crawl off the table. For all the lively
pleasure Bagnall openly evinced at the reality of this
abundance of wealth visible, he was possessed with
mental reservation to drive the best bargain he could
with the Devil, who w^as feeding his propensity for
evil gains with a diplomatic persistency, and an in-
genuity possible only to the Devil himself.

328 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY_

"Bagnall's heart was throbbing Ukewise with a
tremulous fear of his visitor's purpose, and yet, the
cry of his soul was, — ' More, more!'

" Satan had in the meantime not been idle. From
some hidden repository about his person the con-
tract had been produced, and unrolling it, he had
placed it upon the pile of glittering coin; but the
parchment was of so transparent a texture that the
tempting bait was plainly visible through it. How
the gold burned and shone! Its glory filled the
room, to dazzle and intoxicate Bagnall with its
glamour, — fool's gold.

" ' Sign there, Bagnall,' murmured Satan, his voice
softly alluring, like the strain of music, and instantly
the parchment became opaque, and as firm as a slab
of ivory.

" ' What do I get out of it?' suggested Bagnall with
greedy cunning.

" ' Get ! ' and the Devil stripped a splinter of wood
from the firestick that leaned against a blackened
jamb, — 'You see that earthen pot on the dresser?'
pointing a single finger at the bit of rude ware, and
from the tip of that outstretched digit, a single spark
flew straight as an arrow to its mark, to illumine its
flaring rim overbrimming with heaped-up discs as
yellow as those that lay so securely within his reach.

" ' Yes.'

" ' Well, then, in consideration of your duly con-
stituted bond to enter my service, and to continue
obediently in the same, and to deliver up yourself,
body and soul to my disposal; I, of the second part,

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 329

will fill that pot with gold every Friday night so
long as you live, but, with this reservation, that I
find a few coins in the bottom of the pot at my com-
ing; ' and, wetting the end of the splinter with the
tip of his tongue, he handed it to Bagnall, who, after
a moment of hesitation, had affixed his scrawling
signature.

"'This gold is mine,' said Bagnall, drawing the
pile closer.

" ' Certainly, as well as that in yonder pot, — you
are satisfied, now, I suppose,' said the Devil.

" ' And you won't forget to come as you have prom-
ised,' replied Bagnall, in a somewhat doubtful manner.

"*0h, I won't forget, — and, mark you, sirrah,' —
said the Devil, harshly, 'I know your tricks, and
your cheating methods in trade ; so cheat your neigh-
bors, and the poor Indian, at your leisure, but don't
try to cheat the Devil. Remember he is to be
reckoned with, to the letter. He is an exacting
master; and once more, don't forget to leave a few
coins in the pot. It is so nominated in the bond.'

" ' That is easy enough. My soul belonged to your
highness anyway, and I'm only getting my own,
I'm glad you took the trouble to make me a visit,'
said Bagnall, with an easy assumption of boldness.

" ' Now,' said Satan, folding his bond carefully,
' pass that mug at your elbow, — let's have a health
to the bond. After you, my dear Bagnall.'

"Bagnall choked at the first gulp. His rum had
changed to liquid fire, and his tongue was too large
for his mouth.

380 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

" The Devil laughed a merry laugh, and then raised
the mug to his own lips, to send across its rim a
gentle respiration, which Bagnall could liken to
nothing but the yellow reptiles that he saw crawling
off his table, while from the mug, itself, burst forth
a bluish flame. The Devil quaffed his brew with a
single swallow.

" 'Excellent rum, Bagnall, and very much to my
taste. By the way, Bagnall, — count your gold!'

" And the trader fell to counting the coins. When
he next looked up, he was alone with his gold; and,
except for the size of the pile before him, he would
have declared he had dropped asleep to dream of the
Devil, as he often did after his heavier potations.

"Saturday morning seemed a long way off, but
when it came, the earthen pot was brimming with
strange-looking coins stamped with the effigies of
an, to him, unknown people.

" Satan had kept his word, and after that, Bagnall
failed not to leave a few coins in the pot; and his
hoard grew rapidly, so rapidly that he began to be
terrified for fear his good luck would get abroad in
the province; so what he coveted most, was like to
be a curse. The weeks grew into months, and the
Devil had not failed a scintilla of his contract.

" One Saturday, he was up before the break of day ;
Bagnall's wife was sleeping soundly, and standing
before the dresser, he glanced eagerly at the old
earthen pot, to discover it was empty. He lifted
it with sudden anger. He shook it, as he knew the
Devil must have done many times on his weekly

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 331

visitations, but there was no response of the loose
bits of gold. The Devil had done the same thing
before him, to mildly, smilingly soliloquize, — 'It
was so nominated in the bond,' and away he went
to visit his next debtor.

"Bagnall discovered something the Devil over-
looked, however. His wife had poured some rem-
nants of the treacle-jar into the pot, and the coins,
though there, were smothered to silence in the sticky
sediment.

"A storm was brewing along the southern hori-
zon, and unconsciously Bagnall was computing time.
It had been a year and a day the Devil had owned
him, body and soul, and the more he thought of it,
the more his heart and courage failed him. Out
across the island hummocks he went to one of the
hiding-places he had selected for his treasure. Down
on his knees, he pushed the dirt aside,, — but the
yellow gold, it was gone. And so he went, from
hoard to hoard, and all were gone, all but the trifling
handful he remembered counting on that fateful
night when he added his name to the list of Satan's
bonded servants.

"The days came and went, and Bagnall grew
harder with his debtors. He sold poorer rum, and
more of it. He cheated the Indians of their peltry.
He scanted his weight and doubled his charges, so
that they who once disliked him, now feared him.

"But the Devil was not idle. He had not for-
gotten.

"He knew Squidrayset's medicine-man. He bor-

332 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

rowed his garb and began to prophesy. The trader,
Bagnall was at the bottom of their lean maize and
their empty snares. The totem of the tribe had
whispered this in his ears. If Bagnall were killed,
the maize would grow fat, and the singing-birds
would tell them where the otter, the beaver, and
the mink made their new homes. The old days,
before the white man came, would return; and their

A BIT OF THE OLD COUNTRY

warriors would multiply like the sands of the sea-
shore; Bagnall was a little snake, with the belly of
a whale, — he would swallow them all.

" And the Devil's leaven wrought the murder of
Bagnall; and the nomination in the bond was ful-
filled.

"But," said the Troll, " that is a matter of history,
and you can tell that to suit yourself; but the old
cracked pot ploughed up in 1855 on Richmond's

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 333

Island was the same that stood for a year and a
day on Bagnall's dresser; and the same that Squid-
rayset dropped on his way to the bar that con-
nected the island to the mainland, after the judg-
ment of his tribe had been visited on the dishonest
trader. The coins now in charge of the curator,
are the same that were last left in the pot by Bag-
nail, and which were so long held prisoner in the
dried-up treacle, which, by the intervention of a
woman, was the means of the trader's ruin.

"Truth is stranger than fiction," said the old
Troll; whereat he placed the stub of his finger to
one eye, and with a half-wink, faded away as he
came, imperceptibly, into the silence of the deep-
ening dusk.

THE PASSING OF BAGNALL

TTTE PASSING OF BAGNALL

leave a neighboring town some
summer afternoon by the Packet
Line, — a coastwise saihng trio of
steamers, — taking one of its more
commodious vessels for a night trip,
is one of restful pleasure. There
is nnich to see in the charm of the
failing (lay when the roofs and towers
of the old town are darkly, but crisply
etched against the ruddy background
of a sky as beautiful, in its soft brilliancy, it is safe to
say, as any that may be seen in romantic Italy; and
out through the Roads, one may see much that is
not laid down on the navigation chart of the Gov-
ernment Coast Survey with its mysteries of triangu-
lations, topography, and hydrography; for in the
place of its plain surface of white, are the dancing
waters of the bay, and its hieroglyphics of black
diamonds and dots are metamorphosed into black
and red-painted buoys, that bob to one side and
another, in a tipsy sort of fashion ; and into pyramid-
shaped bits of open iron-work, with dolorous-sound-

337

338 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

ing bells suspended from the inner apex of each, that
ring incessantly when the winds are high, driving
the waves into hillocks, up and down which the bell-
buoys climb, wearily, as if tired utterly of such a
restless life; while the lines, that mark the contour
of the coast, black, hard, and faintly suggestive, are
but the symbols of numberless coves, inlets, and rocky
points that possess all the fascination common to the
sands, the bluffs and headlands, and the marshes that
own the sea for their next-door neighbor.

Once past a bit of granite breakwater that takes
the brunt of the in-racing, storm-driven waters upon
itself, with its little white nob of a tower at the outer
end, and its revolving light that seems saying all
night long to the home-coming sailor, — "Don't run
into me!" the vessel runs the harmless gantlet of
gray stone fortifications with grass-grown bastions,
black unmounted cannon, and piles of dressed and
roughly-quarried rock about their dilapidated, or
forsaken docks. Beyond the mifinished forts are
many beautiful Queen Anne cottages, their red roofs
making warm patches of color against the massy back-
ground of the naturally-grouped elms, the more l^eau-
tiful, that Nature has here had her own way. Leav-
ing Ram Island to seaward, and following the curving
trend of the mainland past Catfish Rock and Ship
Cove on either hand, with the newly-lighted lamps
of the twin lighthouses glimmering above the dusky
purple of the sea a mile away, one is at last on the
open water, with all its limitless expanse before. It
is a treacherous sea for all that, for, opposite a main-

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 339

land point that bears the commonplace cognomen of
Chimney Rock, are a half-score of sunken ledges that
lurk, in a villanous sort of a way, just under the sur-
face of the waters, waiting to impale some unfortunate
ship on their ragged needles.

These pictures of sea and shore glow and strengthen
as one calls to mind some red-letter day when the
painter, who sets his easel in the secrets of the eye,
made a host of sketches to store away in the folios
that crowd the eyery-day liying-rooms of the House
in the Brain, — art treasures indeed, fresh from an
outdoor easel, the like of which some people seem
never to haye discoyered.

The traveller by ship to eastward, must needs
pass an island a few miles off the shores of old Scar-
borough, of considerable importance in the early days
of the discovery and settlement of the country
adjacent. Now, only a single habitation is to be
noticed, where were once rude wharves and ample
storehouses for fish and furs; for Richmond's Island,
in the time of the English Trelawneys, was, along
with Monhegan and Pemaquid, one of the few trad-
ing stations along the New England Coast. The
curing of cod, hake, and haddock, and the rendering
of train-oil were the principal industries. Very lu-
crative employments they proved to be.

John Winter, Robert Trelawney's local agent,
apparently had an eye double to his own interest,
even if he possessed one single for his master, —
which, after a perusal of those admirable "Trelaw-
ney Papers" of Mr. Baxter's editing, might be thought

340

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

to be a matter o£ grave doubt, — for, Trelawney,
shrewd and successful as a London merchant, lost
everything to Winter, profitable as the venture turned
out later to be, to the latter and his heirs. Trelaw-
ney, an ardent adherent of Charles I, saw, in addi-
tion to his New England losses, his star fall with
that of his king, until, under the Cromwellian interest
and influence, it disappeared under the Usurpation
into that opaque obscurity that follows the complete
downfall of a great political sovereignty.

Captain John Smith thought it a great coast for
fish as early as 1614; and, in writing of the industry
of the region, says, — " and is it not pretty sport
to pull up two-pence, six-pence, and twelve-pence
as fast as you can haul and throw a line?" Before
Winter came to renew the commerce begun by George
Richmon, and later carried on by Walter Bagnall,
fishing had been very profitable; but with Winter's

1'^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

341

coming, cargoes began to be wafted over seas from
England and Spain, — salt, liquors, fine stuffs for
wearing; and even arms for soldiers, and uniforms,
if one may credit ^^'inter in his accounting to his
principal.

Bagnall, as above intimated, had settled here
some time before the Trelawney and Goodyere Patents
had been issued, and traded with the Indians to his
considerable profit; although in a way to give him
an unsavory reputation; and which, a few years

.31

EBB TIDE

later, brought upon him a terrible retaliation, no
less terrible than unexpected. Bagnall was found
one morning in his kitchen, foully murdered. Guilty
of extortion and dishonesty in his transactions with
the rude sons of Nature whom he found here, his

342 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

retribution was hardly less swift than perhaps well-
merited.

Of the many who came to barter their peltry for
English muskets and ammunition, the crime has
been laid at the door of the Sagamore Squidrayset,
-- a summary vengeance to take upon even so dis-
reputable a character as Bagnall seems to have pos-
sessed. But the crime, if such it can be called, in
the absence of proper court of inquiry, may have
been committed in just such a low-browed habita-
tion as its solitary dwelling of the days when I fre-
quented its shores for a day's sport on the marshes,
— an old weather-worn house that seemed always
to be looking oceanward through its narrow win-
dows, with no other sign of human interest about
it than the thin ribbon of smoke from its lone chim-
ney-top, that seemed ever hastening after some van-
ishing sail in the offing, blown on, and on, until the
slenderly- wooded rib of Front's Neck fails to follow
its mystery.

Front's Neck and Black Point are honorable land-
marks of colonial history, and are not without their
local tragedies, enacted Avhen Mogg Megone, and
the outlaw, Johnny Bonython, were alive to put
their heads together to outwit the English settler.
Scarborough country was afterward known as the
"bloody ground," for here were enacted many a
dark and gruesome deed in the times of the Indian
forays.

There is a grim justice in the trial of Bagnall in
the rudely-timbered kitchen of the old trading-house,

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

343

by these untutored children of the woods; and in
the gloomy secrecy of the night-time, with no one
to motion a stay of proceedings in the accused's
behalf. As one thinks nowadays of the corruption
in high places, and the leniency of courts, and juries,
it is natural to revert to the more primitive days
when Justice gave unsparing judgment, and some-
times erringly; yet, blind as she was reputed to be,
her judgments were duly executed.

What a grim picture, this grimmer episode of

colonial life, — the darkness of the night; the iso-
lated island hedged about by the gleaming phospho-
rescence of the sea; the black landings and the dark-
some group of storehouses; their lonely tenant, and,
the murder! Peaceful times! So Bagnall thought.
In the low-studded room, the stout oaken beams
that reach across the ceiling, seamed with deep
shadows, catch the fitful glow of the smouldering
logs piled against the broad back of the dingy fire-
place. The trader drowses in his three-cornered
chair, while the like dingy clock in its corner tells an
hour that lacks one of midnight. Its loud striking

344 YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

falls unheeded upon the ear of the keeper of these
storehouses; and the regular accents of its slow-
swinging pendulum grow sharper and more acute as
the shadows deepen among the kitchen cross-beams,
for the fire is dying on the hearth, — a silent proph-
ecy of the going-out of another flame, and the
stilling of a hand that will never again coax these
waning brands into life, and genial warmth. There
is a sound of moaning, uneasy waters on the sands
below the fishyards; an undertone of complaining
as of smothered speech; and the wind, damp with
the unerring prophecies of the coming tempest, has
an ominous threat, a surly hint of danger about it,
as it blows up from the sea against the landward
gables of the Bagnall settlement. Black clouds scud
over the low roofs, smiting the single, square-topped
chimney with noisy buffetings, coaxing its single
thread of pungent smoke to steal away with noise-
less going, and the wind still hastening on with its
ill-fraught message. The sleeper drops his head
lower, lower still; his drowsing has deepened into
slumber. An old pewter mug on the oaken deal
table, just within reach, that has an odor of rum,
knows why its master sleeps so soundly when he
should have been wide awake, if ever. It is a long
sleep, and a heavy one. There is still a glimmer
of stars, far-off and fearful, beyond the little square
window; and had Bagnall been awake, he might have
seen the limning of dusky faces upon its glazing.

There are noiseless fingers at the bobbin, and the
latch is unloosed; and creeping as noiselessly over

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 345

the threshold, come the avengers, — a half-score of
painted savages, who gather as noiselessly about
their victim, to look with long, greedy, and silent
gaze upon the sleeper, with a hatred that tinges
his dreams with trouble. Bagnall's drowsing grows
fitful imder the subtle influences that are impelling
him toward waking, with such unwelcome company
about, of whose presence he is as yet unconscious.
Some occult operator is telegraphing over one nerve
circuit and another the premonition of danger; but
Bagnall drowses uneasily. The clock ticks on; the
wooden wheels creak and groan in grim protest; but
Bagnall sleeps on. Only the breaking brands on
the hearth disturb the rhythmic monotone of the
swinging pendulum, while their smokes swirl into the
throat of the chimney, an endless thread of gray
that is being unwound by the Fates on to the reel
of the winds that now come in strong gusts. There
is a dash of rain on the window. There is a low
muttering of thunder to landward.

Like statues stand these dusky figures in the deep-
ening shadows, biding the slow awakening of him
whose sleep is crowded with weird vagaries, as his
insentient self is hemmed about with a cordon of
painted demons. See, — the doomed man twists and
turns, as if his chair were one of inquisitorial torture !
He nmtters the name of Squidrayset. There are
other strange sounds that drop from Bagnall's lips;
but they are lost in the beating of the storm on the
battened roof. The big, wet drops fall into the hot
ashes, with a hiss and sputter.

346 Y^ ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

The clock has begun the twelve strokes of mid-
night, that time when ghosts come out of their
graves to haunt the old familiar places.

Sss-t! The lightning! It comes so near, one can
hear the flap of its livid wings; the room is flooded
with a tremulous, pallid halo. A deafening peal,
and Bagnall is at last awake. With blurred vision
he notes his unheralded visitors. At this untimely
hour they bode no good to him. There is a wild
cry of terror, — a wilder struggle in the darkness, —
and the trader is thrown and pinioned into his chair.
The fire is replenished, —

"With the yellow knots of the pitch-pine tree,
Whose flaring light, as they kindle, falls, — "

on the rough stones of the broad jamb with its cav-
ernous, sooty flue, that yawns like the entrance to
some den of torture; on the black cross-timbers; on
the hemlock floors; up and down the rough mud-
plastered wall, against which stand out in sharp
silhouette the burly shapes of the Indians.

"Ugh!"

It is the sign. The hunting-knives are out-thrust
in the ruddy firelight. Their baleful gleaming is
the silent announcement that Bagnall's arraignment
is over. The chcle narrows about its victim. Now,
the verdict. The swift flashing of a dozen cruel
blades, — a cry of despairing agony, — then the
silence of the midnight falls, — the supreme influence
of the hour.

Is this tallest, broadest-shouldered savage, Scit-

F« ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY 347

terygusset, Sachem of the Presumpscots, or Mogg, the
sachem of the Saco lands? Was it poor Ruth Bony-
thon's father, the unscrupulous outlaw, who has thus
settled his account with the man who gave him
fire-water for his peltry?

The nmrder done, its doers steal away as quietly
as they came, to be swallowed up in the gloom that
held Bagnall in like obscurity.

The sun rose over the waters with the next dawn,
and set over Scarborough woods with the next even-
tide, with only this picture between, —

"The low, bare flats at ebb tide,
The rush of the sea at flood,
Through inlet and creek and river,
From dike to upland wood;
The gulls in the red of morning,
The fish-hawk's rise and fall, — "

with never a sail in sight.

The old wharves and storehouses have long since
disappeared, with never a sign of them left, although
the spot is still pregnant with curious conjecture.

All this is occurrent of the year 1631, and the
records are so definite that the day of the month is
designated. It was on the third day of October
that Walter Bagnall was called to render an account
of his stewardship.

Justice in this case was slow, but in part sure.
Two years later, one of the free-booters of the coast
began cruising off and on Pemaquid; and, according
to Winthrop, an expedition was fitted out at Boston

348

YE ROMANCE OF CASCO BAY

and despatched to intercept the pirate. Upon the
return of the expedition, it stopped at Richmond's
Island, and while there, Black Will, one of Bagnall's
murderers was swung to the winds " without form
of law or benefit of clergy." This was contemporary
with the establishment of the Trelawney interests,
that, under the direction of John Winter, was to
form the nucleus of an important settlement, that
widened out, until the Indian and French raids of
1690 had devastated Casco; with the result, that all
the intervening country between that settlement of
Cleeve, and the Storer Garrison, was depopulated,
and Richmond's Island once more deserted.

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