CASTINE--_continued._
"Baron Castine of St. Castine
Has left his chateau in the Pyrenees,
And sailed across the western seas."
LONGFELLOW.
I confess I would rather stand in presence of the Pyramids, or walk in
the streets of buried Pompeii, than assist at the unwrapping of many
fleshless bodies. No other medium than the material eye can grasp a fact
with the same distinctness. It becomes rooted, and you may hang your
legends or traditions on its branches. It is true there is a class who
journey from Dan to Beersheba, finding all barren; but the average
American, though far from unappreciative, too often makes a business of
his recreation, and devours in an hour what might be viewed with
advantage in a week or a month.
After this frank declaration, the reader will not expect me to hurry him
through a place that contains so much of the crust of antiquity as
Castine, and is linked in with the Old-world chronicles of a period of
surpassing interest, both in history and romance.
Very little of the fort of the Baron Castin and his predecessors, yet
enough to reward the research of the stranger, is to be seen on the
margin of the shore of the harbor, less than half a mile from the
central portion of the town. The grass-grown ramparts have sunk too low
to be distinguished from the water in passing, but are evident to a
person standing on the ground itself. Not many years will elapse before
these indistinct traces are wholly obliterated.[29]
The bank here is not much elevated above high-water mark, while at the
wharves it rises to a higher level, and is ascended by stairs. The old
fort was placed near the narrowest part of the harbor, with a firm
pebbly beach before it. Small boats may land directly under the walls of
the work at high tide, or lie protected by the curvature of the shore
from the heavy seas rolling in from the outer harbor. The high hills
over which we were rambling in the preceding chapter ward off the
northern winds.
A portion of the ground covered by old Fort Pentagoet is now occupied by
buildings, a barn standing within the circumvallation, and the dwelling
of Mr. Webb between the shore and the road. A little stream of sweet
water trickles along the south-west face of the work, and then loses
itself among the pebbles of the beach.
Fort Pentagoet, at its rendition by Sir Thomas Temple, in 1670, after
the treaty of Breda, was a rectangular work with four bastions. The
height of the curtains within was eight feet. On entering the fort a
_corps de garde_, twelve paces long and six broad, stood at the left,
with a _logis_, or quarter, on the opposite side of the entrance. On the
left side were also two store-houses, each thirty-six paces long by
twelve in breadth, covered with shingles. Underneath the store-houses
was a cellar of about half their extent, in which a well had been sunk.
Above the entrance was a turret, built of timber, plastered with clay,
and furnished with a bell. At the right hand was a barrack of the same
length and breadth as the store-houses, and built of stone. Sixty paces
from the fort was a cabin of planks, in which the cattle were housed;
and at some distance farther was a garden in good condition, having
fruit-trees. There were mounted on the ramparts six six-pounder and two
four-pounder iron cannon, with two culverins. Six other pieces were
lying, useless and dismounted, on the parapet. Overlooking the sea and
detached from the fort was a platform, with two iron eight-pounders in
position.
The occupant of the nearest house told me an oven constructed of flat
slate-stones was discovered in an angle of the work; also that shot had
been picked up on the beach, and a tomahawk, and stone pipe taken from
the well. The whole ground has been explored with the divining-rod, as
well within as without the fort, for treasure-trove; though little or
nothing rewarded the search, except the discovery of a subterranean
passage opening at the shore.
These examinations were no doubt whetted by an extraordinary piece of
good luck that befell farmer Stephen Grindle, while hauling wood from a
rocky hill-side on the point at the second narrows of Bagaduce River,
about six miles from Castine peninsula. In 1840 this worthy husbandman
saw a shining object lying in the track of his oxen. He stooped and
picked up a silver coin, as bright as if struck within a twelvemonth. On
looking at the date, he found it to be two hundred years old. Farther
search was rewarded by the discovery of several other pieces. A fall of
snow interrupted the farmer's investigations until the next spring,
when, in or near an old trail leading across the point, frequented by
the Indians from immemorial time, some seven hundred coins of the
nominal value of four hundred dollars were unearthed near the surface.
All the pieces were of silver.
[Illustration: PINE-TREE SHILLING.]
The honest farmer kept his own counsel, using his treasure from time to
time to pay his store bills in the town, dollar for dollar, accounting
one of Master Hull's pine-tree shillings at a shilling. The storekeepers
readily accepted the exchange at the farmer's valuation; but the
possession of such a priceless collection was soon betrayed by its
circulation abroad.
Dr. Joseph L. Stevens, the esteemed antiquary of Castine, of whom I had
these particulars, exhibited to me a number of the coins. They would
have made a numismatist's mouth water. French ecus, Portuguese and
Spanish pieces-of-eight, Bremen dollars, piasters, and cob-money,[30]
clipped and battered, with illegible dates, but melodious ring, chinked
in better fellowship than the sovereigns whose effigies they bore had
lived in. A single gold coin, the only one found in the neighborhood of
Castine, was picked up on the beach opposite the fort.[31]
The theory of the presence of so large a sum on the spot where it was
found is that when Castin was driven from the fort by Colonel Church, in
1704, these coins were left by some of his party in their retreat, where
they remained undiscovered for more than a century and a quarter. Or it
may have been the hoard of one of the two countrymen of Castin, who, he
says, were living two miles from him in 1687.
The detail of old Fort Pentagoet just given is believed to describe the
place as it had existed since 1654, when captured by the colony forces
of Massachusetts. General Sedgwick then spoke of it as "a small fort,
yet very strong, and a very well composed peese, with eight peese of
ordnance, one brass, three murtherers, about eighteen barrels of
powder, and eighteen men in garrison."[32]
It would require a volume to set forth _in extenso_ the annals of these
mounds, scarce lifted above the surface of the surrounding plateau. But
to arouse the reader's curiosity without an endeavor to gratify it were
indeed churlish. I submit, therefore, with the brevity, and I hope also
the simplicity, that should characterize the historic style, the essence
of the matter as it has dropped from my alembic.
The reader is referred to what is already narrated of Norumbega for the
earliest knowledge of the Penobscot by white men. The first vessel that
ascended the river was probably the bark of Du Guast, Sieur de Monts, in
the year 1604. De Poutrincourt was there in the year 1606.[33]
No establishment appears to have been begun on the Bagaduce peninsula
until our colonists of New Plymouth fixed upon it for the site of a
trading-post, about 1629.[34] Here they erected a house, defended,
probably, after the fashion of the time, with palisades, loop-holed for
musketry. They were a long way from home, and had need to keep a wary
eye abroad. Governor Bradford mentions that the house was robbed by some
"Isle of Rhe gentlemen" in 1632.
The Plymouth people kept possession until 1635, when they were
dispossessed by an expedition sent from La Have, in Acadia, commanded by
the Chevalier Charles de Menou, or, as he is usually styled, D'Aulnay
Charnisay. The chevalier's orders from Razilly, who had then the general
command in Canada, were to expel all the English as far as Pemaquid.
Plymouth Colony endeavored to retake the place by force. A large ship
for that day, the _Hope_, of Ipswich, England, Girling commander, was
fitted out, and attacked the post in such a disorderly, unskillful
manner that Girling expended his ammunition before having made the least
impression. Standish, the redoubtable, was there in a small bark, fuming
at the incompetency of the commander of the _Hope_, who had been hired
to do the job for so much beaver if he succeeded, nothing if he failed.
Standish, with the beaver, returned to Plymouth, after sending Girling a
new supply of powder from Pemaquid; but no further effort is known to
have been made to reduce the place.
The Pilgrims then turned to their natural allies, the Puritans of the
Bay; but, as Rochefoucauld cunningly says, there is something in the
misfortunes of our friends that does not displease us. They got smooth
speeches in plenty, but no help. It is curious to observe that at this
time the two colonies combined were too weak to raise and equip a
hundred soldiers on a sudden call. So the French remained in possession
until 1654.
An attempt was made by Plymouth Colony to liberate their men captured at
Penobscot. Isaac Allerton was sent to demand them of La Tour who in
haughty terms refused to deliver them up, saying all the country from
Cape Sable to Cape Cod belonged to the king, his master, and if the
English persisted in trading east of Pemaquid he would capture them.
"Will monseigneur deign to show me his commission?"
The chevalier laid his hand significantly on his sword-hilt. "This,"
said he, "is my commission."
I have mentioned three Frenchmen: Sir Isaac de Razilly, a soldier of the
monastic order of Malta; La Tour, a heretic; and D'Aulnay, a zealous
papist.
Razilly's commission is dated at St. Germain en Laye, May 10th, 1632. He
was to take possession of Port Royal, so named by De Monts, from its
glorious harbor, and ceded to France under the treaty of 1629. This was
the year after the taking of La Rochelle; so that we are now in the
times of the great cardinal and his puissant adversary, Buckingham. The
knight of Malta was so well pleased with Acadia that he craved
permission of the grand master to remain in the country. He was
recalled, with a reminder of the subjection exacted by that
semi-military, semi-ecclesiastical body of its members. Hutchinson says
he died soon after 1635. There is evidence he was alive in 1636.
In 1638 Louis XIII. addressed the following letter to D'Aulnay: "You are
my lieutenant-general in the country of the Etchemins, from the middle
of the main-land of Frenchman's Bay to the district of Canceaux. Thus
you may not change any regulation in the establishment on the River St.
John made by the said Sieur De la Tour, etc."[35] Three years afterward
the king sent his commands to La Tour to return to France immediately;
if he refused, D'Aulnay was ordered to seize his person.
Whether the death of Louis, and also of his Eminence, at this time
diverted the danger with which La Tour was threatened, is a matter of
conjecture. D'Aulnay, however, had possessed himself, in 1643, of La
Tour's fort, and the latter was a suppliant to the English at Boston for
aid to displace his adversary. He obtained it, and recovered his own
again, but was unable to eject D'Aulnay from Penobscot. A second
attempt, also unsuccessful, was made the following year. The treaty
between Governor Endicott and La Tour in this year was afterward
ratified by the United Colonies.
In 1645 D'Aulnay was in France, receiving the thanks of the king and
queen-mother for his zeal in preserving Acadia from the treasonable
designs of La Tour. The next year a treaty of peace was concluded at
Boston between the English and D'Aulnay; and in 1647, the king granted
him letters patent of lieutenant-general from the St. Lawrence to
Acadia. He died May 24th, 1650, from freezing, while out in the bay with
his valet in a canoe. La Tour finished by marrying the widow of
D'Aulnay, thus composing, and forever, his feud with the husband.[36]
For some years quiet reigned in the peninsula, or until 1654, when an
expedition was fitted out by Massachusetts against Stuyvesant and the
Dutch at Manhattan. Peace having been concluded before it was in
readiness, the Puritans, with true thrift, launched their armament
against the unsuspecting Mounseers of Penobscot. Although peace also
existed between Cromwell and Louis, the expenditure of much money
without some gain was not to be thought of in the Bay. For a pretext,
they had always the old grudge of prior right, going back to Elizabeth's
patent of 1578 to Sir Humphrey Gilbert.
Robert Sedgwick and John Leverett were two as marked men as could be
found in New England. They sailed from Nantasket on the 4th of July,
1654, with three ships, a ketch, and two hundred soldiers of Old and New
England. Port Royal, the fort on St. John's River, and Penobscot, were
all captured. Afterward they served the Protector in England. Sedgwick
was chosen by Cromwell to command his insubordinate and starving army at
Jamaica, and died, it is said, of a broken heart, from the weight of
responsibility imposed on him.
Although the King of France testified great displeasure because the
forts in Acadia were not restored to him, Cromwell continued to hold
them fast, nor were they given up until after the treaty of Breda, when
Pentagoet, in 1669-'70, was delivered by Sir Thomas Temple to M. De
Grand Fontaine, who, in 1673, turned over the command to M. De Chambly.
[Illustration: COLBERT.]
On the 10th of August, 1674, M. De Chambly was assaulted by a buccaneer
that had touched at Boston, where an English pilot, as M. De Frontenac
says, was taken on board. An Englishman, who had been four days in the
place in disguise, gave the pirates every assistance.[37] They landed
one hundred and ten men, and fell with fury on the little garrison of
thirty badly armed and disaffected Frenchmen. After sustaining the onset
for an hour, M. De Chambly fell, shot through the body. His ensign was
also struck down, when the fort surrendered at discretion. The
sea-robbers pillaged the fort, carried off the cannon, and conducted the
Sieur De Chambly to Boston, along with M. De Marson, whom they took in
the River St. John. Chambly was put to ransom of a thousand
beaver-skins. Colbert, then minister, expressed his surprise to
Frontenac that the forts of Pentagoet and Gemisee had been taken and
pillaged by a freebooter. No rupture then existed between the crowns of
England and France.
Another subject of Louis le Grand now raps with his sword-hilt for
admission to our gallant company of noble French gentlemen who have
followed the lead of De Monts into the wilds of Acadia. Baron La Hontan,
writing in 1683, says, "The Baron St. Castin, a gentleman of Oleron, in
Bearne, having lived among the Abenaquis after the savage way for above
twenty years, is so much respected by the savages that they look upon
him as their tutelar god."
Vincent, Baron St. Castin, came to America with his regiment about 1665.
He was ensign in the regiment Carignan, of which Henry de Chapelas was
colonel. Chambly and Sorel, who were his comrades, have also left their
names impressed on the map of New France. The regiment was disbanded,
the governor-general allowing each officer three or four leagues' extent
of good land, with as much depth as they pleased. The officers, in turn,
gave their soldiers as much ground as they wished upon payment of a
crown per _arpent_ by way of fief.[38] Chambly we have seen in command
at Pentagoet in 1673. Castin appears to have plunged into the
wilderness, making his abode with the fierce Abenaquis.
The young Bearnese soon acquired a wonderful ascendency among them. He
mastered their language, and received, after the savage's romantic
fashion, the hand of a princess of the nation, the daughter of
Madocawando, the implacable foe of the English. They made him their
great chief, or leader, and at his summons all the warriors of the
Abenaquis gathered around him. Exercising a regal power in his forest
dominions, he no doubt felt every inch a chieftain. The French governors
courted him; the English feared and hated him. In 1696, with Iberville,
he overran their stronghold at Pemaquid. He fought at Port Royal in
1706, and again in 1707, receiving a wound there. He was, says M.
Denonville, of a daring and enterprising character, thirsting for
distinction. In 1702 he proposed a descent on Boston, to be made in
winter by a competent land and naval force. Magazines were to be formed
at Piscataqua and Marblehead.
It is known that some earlier passages of Castin's life in Acadia were
not free from reproach. Denonville,[39] in recommending him to Louvois
as the proper person to succeed M. Perrot at Port Royal ("si M. Perrot
degoutait de son gouvernment"), admits he had been addicted in the past
to riot and debauchery; "but," continues the viceroy, "I am assured that
he is now quite reformed, and has very proper sentiments on the
subject." Perrot, jealous of Castin, put him in arrest for six weeks for
some foolish affair among the _filles_ of Port Royal.
"For man is fire and woman is tow,
And the Somebody comes and begins to blow."
In 1686 Castin was at Pentagoet. The place must have fallen into sad
neglect, for the Governor of Canada made its fortification and
advantages the subject of a memoir to his Government. It became the
rendezvous for projects against New England. Quebec was not difficult of
access by river and land to Castin's fleet Abenaquis. Port Royal was
within supporting distance. The Indians interposed a barrier between
English aggression and the French settlements. They were the weapon
freely used by all the French rulers until, from long service, it became
blunted and unserviceable. They were then left to shift for themselves.
Here Castin continued with his dusky wife and brethren, although he had
inherited an income of five million livres while in Acadia. By degrees
he had likewise amassed a fortune of two or three hundred thousand
crowns "in good dry gold;" but the only use he made of it was to buy
presents for his fellow-savages, who, upon their return from the hunt,
repaid him with usury in beaver-skins and peltries.[40] In 1688 his
trading-house was plundered by the English. It is said he died in
America, but of this I have not the evidence.
Vincent de Castin never changed his wife, as the Indian customs
permitted, wishing, it is supposed, by his example to impress upon them
the sanctity of marriage as a part of the Christian religion. He had
several daughters all of whom were well married to Frenchmen, and had
good dowries; one was captured by Colonel Church in 1704. He had also a
son.
In 1721, during what was known as Lovewell's war, in which Mather
intimates, with many nods and winks set down in print, the English were
the aggressors, Castin the younger was kidnaped, and carried to Boston a
prisoner. His offense was in attending a council of the Abenaquis in his
capacity of chief. He was brought before the council and interrogated.
His mien was frank and fearless. In his uniform of a French officer, he
stood with true Indian _sang froid_ in the presence of men who he knew
were able to deal heavy blows.
"I am," said he, "an Abenaquis by my mother. All my life has been passed
among the nation that has made me chief and commander over it. I could
not be absent from a council where the interests of my brethren were to
be discussed. The Governor of Canada sent me no orders. The dress I now
wear is not a uniform, but one becoming my rank and birth as an officer
in the troops of the most Christian king, my master."
The young baron was placed in the custody of the sheriff of Middlesex.
He was kept seven months a prisoner, and then released before his
friends, the Abenaquis, could strike a blow for his deliverance. This
once formidable tribe was such no longer. In 1689 it scarcely numbered a
hundred warriors. English policy had set a price upon the head of every
hostile Indian. Castin, soon after his release, returned to the old
family chateau among the Pyrenees.
"The choir is singing the matin song;
The doors of the church are opened wide;
The people crowd, and press, and throng
To see the bridegroom and the bride.
They enter and pass along the nave;
They stand upon the farthest grave;
The bells are ringing soft and slow;
The living above and the dead below
Give their blessing on one and twain;
The warm wind blows from the hills of Spain,
The birds are building, the leaves are green,
The Baron Castine of St. Castine
Hath come at last to his own again."
According to the French historian, Charlevoix, the Capuchins had a
hospice here in 1646, when visited by Pere Dreuillettes. I may not
neglect these worthy fathers, whose disputes about sleeves and cowls,
Voltaire says, were more than any among the philosophers. The shrewdness
of these old monks in the choice of a location has been justified by the
cities and towns sprung from the sites of their primitive missions.
Here, as elsewhere,
"--These black crows
Had pitched by instinct on the fattest fallows."
"I," said Napoleon, at St. Helena, "rendered all the burying-places
independent of the priests. I hated friars" (_frati_), "and was the
annihilator of them and of their receptacles of crime, the monasteries,
where every vice was practiced with impunity. A set of miscreants"
(_scelerati_) "who in general are a dishonor to the human race. Of
priests I would have always allowed a sufficient number, but no
_frati_." A Capuchin, says an old dictionary of 1676, is a friar of St.
Francis's order, wearing a cowl, or capouch, but no shirt nor
breeches.[41]
Opening our history at the epoch of the settlement of New France, and
turning over page by page the period we have been reviewing, there is no
more hideous chapter than the infernal cruelties of the Society of
Jesus. Their agency in the terrible persecutions of the Huguenots is too
well known to need repetition. St. Bartholomew, the broken pledge of the
Edict of Nantes, the massacres of Vivarais, of Rouergue, and of
Languedoc are among their monuments.
The rigor with which infractions of the discipline of the order were
punished would be difficult to believe, if unsupported by trustworthy
testimony. Francis Seldon, a young pupil of the Jesuit College at Paris,
was imprisoned thirty-one years, seventeen of which were passed at St.
Marguerite, and fourteen in the Bastile. His crime was a lampoon of two
lines affixed to the college door. A _lettre de cachet_ from Louis XIV.
consigned this poor lad of only sixteen to the Bastile in 1674, from
which he only emerged in 1705, by the assignment of a rich inheritance
to the Society, impiously called, of Jesus.
The siege of La Rochelle, and slaughter of the Huguenots, is believed to
have been nothing more than a duel between Richelieu and Buckingham, for
the favor of Anne of Austria. It was, however, in the name of religion
that the population of France was decimated. Colbert, in endeavoring to
stem the tide of persecution, fell in disgrace. Louvois seconded with
devilish zeal the projects of the Jesuits, which had no other end than
the total destruction of the reformed faith. In 1675 Pere Lachaise
entered on his functions of father-confessor to the king. He was
powerfully seconded by his society; but they, fearing his Majesty might
regard it as a pendant of St. Bartholomew, hesitated to press a decisive
_coup d'etat_ against the Protestants.
There was at the court of Louis the widow Scarron, become De Maintenon,
declared mistress of the king, who modestly aspired to replace Marie
Therese of Austria upon the throne of France. To her the Jesuits
addressed themselves. It is believed the compact between the worthy
contracting parties exacted no less of each than the advancement of
their mutual projects through the seductions of the courtesan, and the
fears for his salvation the Jesuits were to inspire in the mind of the
king. Louis believed in the arguments of Madame De Maintenon, and signed
the Edict of Nantes; he ceded to the threats or counsels of his
confessor, and secretly espoused Madame De Maintenon. The 25th October,
1685, the royal seal was, it is not doubted by her inspiration, appended
to the barbarous edict, drawn up by the Pere Le Tellier, under the
auspices of the Society of Jesus.[42]
France had already lost a hundred thousand of her bravest and most
skillful children. She was now to lose many more. Among the fugitives
driven from the fatherland were many who fled, as the Pilgrims had done
into Holland. Some sought the New World, and their descendants were such
men as John Jay, Elias Boudinot, James Bowdoin, and Peter Faneuil.
Before the famous edict of 1685, the Huguenots had been forbidden to
establish themselves either in Canada or Acadia. They were permitted to
visit the ports for trade, but not to exercise their religion. The
Jesuits took care that the edict was enforced in the French possessions.
I have thought the oft-cited intolerance of the Puritans might be
effectively contrasted with the diabolical zeal with which Catholic
Christendom pursued the annihilation of the reformed religion.
The Jesuits obtained at an early day a preponderating influence in
Canada and in Acadia. It is believed the governor-generals had not such
real power as the bishops of Quebec. At a later day, they were able
well-nigh to paralyze Montcalm's defense of Quebec. The fathers of the
order, with the crucifix held aloft, preached crusades against the
English to the savages they were sent to convert. One of the fiercest
Canabas chiefs related to an English divine that the friars told his
people the blessed Virgin was a French lady, and that her son, Jesus
Christ, had been killed by the English.[43] One might say the gray hairs
of old men and the blood-dabbled ringlets of innocent children were laid
on the altars of their chapels.
We can afford to smile at the forecast of Louis, when he says to M. De
la Barre in 1683, "I am persuaded, like you, that the discoveries of
Sieur La Salle are altogether useless, and it is necessary, hereafter,
to put a stop to such enterprises, which can have no other effect than
to scatter the inhabitants by the hope of gain, and to diminish the
supply of beaver." We still preserve in Louisiana the shadow of the
sceptre of this monarch, whose needy successor at Versailles sold us,
for fifteen millions, a territory that could pay the German subsidy with
a year's harvest.
Doubtless the little bell in the hospice turret, tolling for matins or
vespers, was often heard by the fisher in the bay, as he rested on his
oars and repeated an _ave_, or chanted the parting hymn of the
Provencal:
"O, vierge! O, Marie!
Pour moi priez Dieu;
Adieu, adieu, patrie,
Provence, adieu."
There is a pleasant ramble over the hill by the cemetery, with the same
accompaniments of green turf, limpid bay, and cool breezes everywhere.
Intermitting puffs, ruffling the water here and there, fill the sails of
coasting craft, while others lie becalmed within a few cable-lengths of
them. Near the north-west corner of the ground I discovered vestiges of
another small battery.
Castine having assumed the functions of a town within a period
comparatively recent, her cemetery shows few interesting stones. The
ancients of the little Acadian hamlet lie in forgotten graves; no
moss-covered tablets for the antiquary to kneel beside, and trace the
time-worn course of the chisel, are there. Numbers of graves are
indicated only by the significant heaving of the turf. In one part of
the field is a large and rudely fashioned slate-stone standing at the
head of a tumulus. A tablet with these lines is affixed:
IN MEMORY OF
CHARLES STEWART,
The earliest occupant of this Mansion of the Dead,
A Native of Scotland,
And 1st Lieut. Comm. of his B. M. 74th Regt. of foot, or Argyle
Highlanders.
Who died in this Town, while it was in possession of the Enemy,
March, A.D. 1783,
And was interred beneath this stone,
AEt. about 40 yrs.
* * * * *
This Tablet was inserted
A.D. 1849.
The tablet has a tale to tell. It runs that Stewart quarreled with a
brother officer at the mess-table, and challenged him. Hearing of the
intended duel, the commanding officer reprimanded the hot-blooded
Scotsman in such terms that, stung to the quick, he fell, Roman-like, on
his own sword.
Elsewhere I read the name of Captain Isaiah Skinner, who, as master of a
packet plying to the opposite shore, "thirty thousand times braved the
perils of our bay."
While I was in Castine I paid a visit to the factory in which lobsters
are canned for market. A literally "smashing" business was carrying on,
but with an uncleanness that for many months impaired my predilection
for this delicate crustacean. The lobsters are brought in small vessels
from the lower bay. They are then tossed, while living, into vats
containing salt water boiling hot, where they receive a thorough
steaming. They are next transferred to long tables, and, after cooling,
are opened. Only the flesh of the larger claws and tail is used, the
remainder being cast aside. The reserved portions are put into tin cans
that, after being tightly soldered, are subjected to a new steaming of
five and a half hours to keep them fresh.[44]
In order to arrest the wholesale slaughter of the lobster, stringent
laws have been made in Maine and Massachusetts. The fishery is
prohibited during certain months, and a fine is imposed for every fish
exposed for sale of less than a certain growth. Of a heap containing
some eight hundred lobsters brought to the factory, not fifty were of
this size; a large proportion were not eight inches long. Frequent
boiling in the same water, with the slovenly appearance of the
operatives, male and female, would suggest a doubt whether plain
Penobscot lobster is as toothsome as is supposed. The whole process was
in marked contrast with the scrupulous neatness with which similar
operations are elsewhere conducted; nor was there particular scrutiny as
to whether the lobsters were already dead when received from the
vessels.
[Illustration: LOBSTER POT.]
Wood, in the "New England Prospect," mentions that lobsters were so
plenty and little esteemed they were seldom eaten. They were frequently,
he says, of twenty pounds' weight. The Indians used lobsters to bait
their hooks, and ate them when they could not get bass. I have seen an
account of a lobster that weighed thirty-five pounds. Josselyn mentions
that he saw one weighing twenty pounds, and that the Indians dried them
for food as they did lampreys and oysters.
The first-comers into New England waters were not more puzzled to find
the ancient city of Norumbega than I to reach the fabulous Down East of
the moderns. In San Francisco the name is vaguely applied to the
territory east of the Mississippi, though more frequently the rest of
the republic is alluded to as "The States." South of the obliterated
Mason and Dixon's line, the region east of the Alleghanies and north of
the Potomac is Down East, and no mistake about it. In New York you are
as far as ever from this _terra incognita_. In Connecticut they shrug
their shoulders and point you about north-north-east. Down East, say
Massachusetts people, is just across our eastern border. Arrived on the
Penobscot, I fancied myself there at last.
"Whither bound?" I asked of a fisherman, getting up his foresail before
loosing from the wharf.
"Sir, to you. Down East."
The evident determination to shift the responsibility forbade further
pursuit of this fictitious land. Besides, Maine people are indisposed to
accept without challenge the name so universally applied to them of Down
Easters. We do not say down to the North Pole, and we do say down South.
The higher latitude we make northwardly the farther down we get.
Nevertheless, disposed as I avow myself to present the case fairly, the
people of Maine uniformly say "up to the westward," when speaking of
Massachusetts. Of one thing I am persuaded--Down East is nowhere in New
England.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[29] In 1759 Governor Pownall took possession of the peninsula of
Castine, and hoisted the English flag on the fort. He found the
settlement deserted and in ruins.--_Gov._ POWNALL'S _Journal._
[30] "The clumsy, shapeless coinage, both of gold and silver, called in
Mexico _maquina de papa_, _lote y cruz_ ("windmill and cross-money"),
and in this country by the briefer appellation of "cobs." These were of
the lawful standards, or nearly so, but scarcely deserved the name of
coin, being rather lumps of bullion flattened and impressed by a hammer,
the edge presenting every variety of form except that of a circle, and
affording ample scope for the practice of clipping: notwithstanding they
are generally found, even to this day, within a few grains of lawful
weight. They are generally about a century old, but some are dated as
late as 1770. They are distinguished by a large cross, of which the four
arms are equal in length, and loaded at the ends. The date generally
omits the _thousandth_ place; so that 736, for example, is to be read
1736. The letters PLVS VLTRA (_plus ultra_) are crowded in without
attention to order. These coins were formerly brought here in large
quantities for recoinage, but have now become scarce."--WILLIAM E.
DUBOIS, _United States Mint_.
I think the name of "cob" was applied to money earlier than the date
given by Mr. Dubois. Its derivation is uncertain, but was probably
either "lump," or from the Welsh, for "thump," _i. e._, struck money.
[31] On an old map of unknown date Castin's houses are located here.
[32] Sedgwick's Letter, _Historical Magazine_, July, 1873, p. 38.
[33] Williamson thinks the name of Cape Rosier a distinct reminder of
Weymouth's voyage.
[34] Though Hutchinson says "about 1627," I think it an error, as
Allerton, the promoter of the project, was in England in that year, as
well as in 1626 and 1628, as agent of the colony. Nor was the proposal
brought forward until Sherley and Hatherly, two of the adventurers,
wrote to Governor Bradford, in 1629, that they had determined upon it in
connection with Allerton, and invited Plymouth to join with them.
[35] "Archives of Massachusetts."
[36] Aglate la Tour, granddaughter of the chevalier, sold the seigniory
of Acadia to the crown for two thousand guineas.--DOUGLASS.
[37] Mr. Shea (Charlevoix) says this was John Rhoade, and the vessel the
_Flying Horse_, Captain Jurriaen Aernouts, with a commission from the
Prince of Orange.
[38] Estates are still conveyed in St. Louis by the _arpent_.
[39] Denonville, who succeeded M. De la Barre as governor-general, was
_maitre de camp_ to the queen's dragoons. He was succeeded by Frontenac.
[40] Denonville's and La Hontan's letters.
[41] Capuchin, a cowl or hood.
[42] Count Frontenac was a relative of De Maintenon.
[43] Cotton Mather.
[44] Isle au Haut is particularly renowned for the size and quality of
these fish.
[Illustration: OLD FORT FREDERICK, PEMAQUID POINT.]