young and able-bodied men set suddenly at liberty who had been
engaged in military or semi-military pursuits. Liberal inducements
were offered these people to go to the projected metropolis. A free
passage, maintenance for a year was promised, and grants of land
varying from fifty to six hundred acres were given. The Imperial
Government voted the sum of forty thousand pounds to help defray
expenses. This sum was increased to four hundred thousand pounds
before five years had passed. The Hon. Edward Cornwallis was
appointed and the protection of British institutions and laws was
promised.
[Illustration: VIEW FROM CITADEL HILL, HALIFAX, N. S.]
The fleet on which the colony set sail entered Chebucto Bay in the
month of July, 1749. There were thirteen transports, conveying
nearly three thousand settlers. These were men of good stock, and
the vigor with which they attacked the problems before them was
sufficient evidence of this fact. Streets were promptly laid out,
a civil government was organized, and the entire population got to
work on the practical issue of providing shelter for themselves
and their families. Houses were built, and, last, but not least,
in that day and generation a fort was erected on the rounded top
of the hill around which they had plotted their town. This was the
forerunner of the citadel of Halifax of to-day. Around the entire
settlement was built a high palisade.
The early history of Halifax did not include sieges or sustained
attacks by an enemy, but it was in the atmosphere of unrest and
conflict from its first days. While the French residents of Acadia
had not been molested in their possession of land in Nova Scotia,
they had never taken the oath of allegiance to England. Among them
were many turbulent spirits who incited the Micmac Indians of the
country to outrages against English people and who took part in
these outrages themselves in the disguise of savages. Moreover,
the French had pressed the boundaries of Canada as close to the
boundaries of Acadia as they dared, and they continually tried to
foment ill feeling amidst the simple Acadian peasants against the
English. The story of the days between the conquest of Acadia by
the English and the final peace between France and England in the
New World is one of partisan warfare, of forays and minor sieges
and attacks by land and water.
All of these things went on around Halifax, and enemy vessels
even slipped into her harbor in bold dashes upon rich covey or
unsuspecting foe. From Halifax went forth Lawrence at the order
of Governor Cornwallis to oppose the French at Beasejour, now
Cumberland, where the French had built a fort on what they claimed
was their own ground. Lawrence built another fort on the opposite
side of the little stream of Missigouache, which the French claimed
to be the boundary between the rival domains, and went back to
Halifax for reinforcements. His building the fort was opposed by
the French skirmish, and the blood shed in this little skirmish was
the first blood to flow in combat between France and England in Old
World or New since the treaty of Aix la Chapelle.
In the council rooms of the citadel at Halifax the order to
deport the French peasantry, or Acadians, was debated. From the
government house here went forth the orders that this act should
be done. The story of the deportation of the Acadians and of their
sufferings has been told many times in prose and very beautifully
by Longfellow in verse.
[Illustration: OLD MARTELLO TOWER NEAR HALIFAX, N. S.]
During the American Revolution and during the War of 1812, Halifax
was the centre of activity of the British naval forces, and so it
has continued to this day. During the War of the Revolution and the
War of 1812 merchant vessels were brought to this port to be sold
as prizes. During the great European war of this time of writing
merchant vessels suspected of carrying contraband and seized by
the British in the American Atlantic waters have been taken to
Halifax to be passed on by a prize court.
The citadel of Halifax is not one of its prime defences to-day.
It has become more of a public park than a strong arm for battle.
From its walls magnificent views of the harbor of Halifax can be
obtained, one of the most splendid harbors in the world, to-day as
stimulating to enterprise as in the days when Chebucto Bay was cast
for the part of a great port by the Lords of Trade of England.
FORT GEORGE
CASTINE--MAINE
The little town of Castine, on the Penobscot River, Maine, is a
favorite resort for summer visitors, who are attracted by its
fine air, its abundance of sea food, and its accessibility to
the interior of the country. These same considerations together
with the fine strategic location of Castine Peninsula at the head
of Penobscot Bay, guarding the entrance to the Penobscot River,
influenced the French adventurers of three hundred and more years
ago to plant their settlement of Pentagoet and to build a fort in
this very vicinity. Traditions of the settlement and grass-covered
ruins of the fort are still to be discovered at Castine.
In the course of the years there came here the British at war
with the colonies, and His Majesty’s forces built Fort George,
an important post in its day and one of the best preserved
Revolutionary works in New England. These ruins are the scene of
pilgrimage of hundreds of people annually--merry parties from the
summer colonies which dot the shores of Penobscot Bay or from Mount
Desert Island, around the corner as the land lies from Castine.
The remains of Fort George might even to-day be, with no
disproportionate labor, put into condition for defence. The fort
was a square bastioned work protected by a moat excavated down to
solid rock. Each bastion was pierced with four embrasures. Though
no buildings now remain inside the fortress, the position of the
barracks, magazine and guard-house may easily be traced.
Standing on the ruined wall of Fort George, one can easily discern
in what features lay its strength and importance. The approach on
three sides is by steep ascents, and especially is this the case
to the south or seaward, the quarter from which attack might be
expected. The shape of the peninsula is seen. Very similar to the
peninsula on which Portland is situated, it is a large swollen
heart of land hung to the mainland by a cord from the north. To
the south the eye has a wide prospect, bounded in the distance by
the blue mountains of the Camden range. To the west is Brigadier’s
Island, and blue water where Belfast lies in the distance. To
the north Fort Point can be seen with the granite walls of the
never-completed Fort Pownall, begun by Governor Pownall in 1759.
North of east is more water and the distant solitary Blue Hill.
The military history of Fort George reflects no great credit on
American sagacity, though it throws into strong light the national
aggressive spirit. The first four years of the American Revolution
passed very peacefully in Maine (then a part of Massachusetts),
though its hardy seamen and backwoodsmen were not backward in
joining the fighting forces to the south. Then, in 1779, the
British powers in Halifax decided to carry the war into the
northern colonies. Accordingly, in June of that year, Colonel
Francis M’Lean was despatched from the aforesaid port with nine
hundred men to seize and fortify the well-known peninsula of
Castine or, as it was then known, Penobscot Peninsula. He landed
on the 12th of June, and with great energy commenced to establish
himself firmly in his position.
The news was immediately carried to the Massachusetts fathers at
Boston. Hancock was then Governor and General Gates commanded
the Eastern Department of the colonies, with headquarters at
Providence. With that cocksureness for which the Puritan colony
has been distinguished since its foundation, the rulers of
Massachusetts at Boston put their heads together without notifying
Gates, the Continental Congress, or the leaders of the war in this
country, and resolved to push an expedition against M’Lean. An
embargo of forty days was put upon vessels in Massachusetts ports,
so that transport possibilities could not put to sea, and a large
land and naval force was raised.
The army was commanded by Solomon Lovell; the fleet by Captain
Saltonstall of the _Warren_, a fine frigate of thirty-two guns.
Peleg Wadsworth was second in command to Lovell, and Paul Revere,
of Longfellow’s poem, was in charge of the artillery. The land
forces numbered about twelve hundred men, and this number might
be augmented by three hundred marines from the fleet. There were
enough guns of large calibre and other supplies of war. The fleet
was formidable in appearance and equipment, but it was entirely
lacking in discipline and co-ordination, as was shortly to be seen.
The force appeared off Castine on the 25th of July, 1779, and
found the fort unfinished and thoroughly unprepared for defence.
M’Lean despatched messengers to Halifax for aid, and kept busily
on with his defences. Two bastions had not been begun and the two
remaining, with the curtains, had not been raised more than four
or five feet. Captain Mowatt, a thoroughly-hated British naval
officer, and the bombarder of defenceless Portland, was in the
harbor with three light vessels with which he took position to
prevent a landing on the south side of the peninsula. A deep trench
was cut across the isthmus connecting with the mainland.
No landing could be made except beneath the precipitous bluff, two
hundred feet high, on the west.
On the third day the Americans succeeded in landing and in
securing a position on the heights. Instead of making a final
assault upon the unfinished fort now, however, they dallied where
they stood, threw up earthworks and fought out a wordy battle
amongst themselves as to how to go ahead. The commanding officers
disagreed on any one plan, so, finally, at this late date, they
appealed to General Gates for instructions. Two weeks passed and
Sir George Collier arrived with a British fleet to relieve his
beleaguered countrymen. The Americans were obliged to take to their
heels.
General Wadsworth retired to his home near Thomaston, not a great
distance from Castine, and was captured by a British detachment
sent out from the fort for the purpose. His escape from the fort
with a companion, Major Burton, is one of the interesting minor
episodes of the history of that point. Suffice it to say that
General Wadsworth on a dark night managed to get over the walls by
the aid of a torn blanket and reached the mainland. Eventually he
made Portland and safety.
For the remainder of the Revolution the British were at Castine,
from whence they went forth on many expeditions of depredation.
The loss of this little peninsula became a serious consideration,
indeed, to the Americans.
During the War of 1812 Castine once more became a British
stronghold, when, in 1814, the American defenders gave up the post
to a force which made it a centre for plundering coast towns east
and west, levying forced contributions, and destroying ship-yards.
At this time Bangor was taken, Belfast visited, and Hampden
pillaged. After a stay of eleven months the British left Castine
in April, 1815. In the neighborhood of the fort they left a
reputation for gayety, their stay having included a round of balls,
teas, and dinners.
The history of Castine as a fortified point under New France
commences with the re-occupation of Acadia, Nova Scotia, under
Richelieu’s strong direction. Castine, or Pentagoet, as the French
called it, was an extreme outpost against the English and was
to be maintained at all costs. In 1654, however, it fell to the
conquering hand of Sedgwick, a Massachusetts officer who reduced
all French posts in Acadia. Sedgwick describes it as a small
well-planned work mounting eight guns. It was not until 1670 that
the French flag was again unfurled over Pentagoet, and, at this
time, it is shown in old records that the place was considerably
enlarged and strengthened, only to fall, in 1674, to buccaneers
from San Domingo, who carried off Chambly, the commander, and held
him to ransom.
The next Frenchman whom we find at Pentagoet was that strange
product of sophistication and savagery, the Baron St. Castine.
Vincent, Baron St. Castine, came to America with his regiment in
1665, and the wild life of the great forests seems to have called
him from the first. When his regiment was disbanded shortly after
its arrival in this country, Castine plunged into the forests and
took up life in the fashion that the Indians lived it. He joined
the tribe of the Abenakis, a mighty people of that day, and become
so high in their favor that he married the daughter of the chief,
Madocawando, an implacable foe of the English. In 1685 we find
Castine in command at Pentagoet with his dusky followers around
him. He never changed his wife, though we have reason to believe
that, like Sir William Johnson, of later times, he found pleasure
in many coppery enchantresses. Toward the close of this century his
fort and trading post was captured and destroyed by the English,
and the Baron himself, it is believed, returned to his native
France. His half-breed son, by his Indian wife, for many years
carried fire and sword against the English and was a picturesque
figure in the wars of the Massachusetts border.
FORT FREDERICK
PEMAQUID--MAINE
The English clenched hand which answered the brandishing of the
French mailed fist at Pentagoet, now Castine, was Fort Frederick at
Pemaquid, that anciently-known peninsula which marks the entrance
to the Kennebec River. Parts of the walls of old Fort Frederick are
still standing, its entire outlines are plainly to be discerned,
and it is a favorite point of visit with the many people who make
their homes in this part of the Maine coast during the summer
months.
Pemaquid, itself, is one of those long arms of rock which are
characteristic of the Maine coast. A good word picture of the
locality has been painted by S. A. Drake, the chronicler of Maine
coast history. “A belt of rusty red granite stretches around
it above low water mark,” he writes, “and out into the foaming
breakers beyond. Pastures pallid from exhaustion and spotted
with clumps of melancholy firs spread themselves out over this
foundation. In the extreme corner of this threadbare robe there is
a light-house. You look about you in vain for the evidences of long
occupation which the historic vista has opened to you in advance.”
While there have been many wild reports that the settlement on
Pemaquid antedated that on Massachusetts Bay, itself, there is
lacking weight of historical evidence to support this contention.
Pemaquid was visited by Captain John Smith in 1614, but that
doughty mariner makes no mention in his account of his visit of
having seen any Europeans at the place, as he undoubtedly would
have done had his vision encountered any such settlers. William
Bradford, the conscientious chronicler of early Plymouth doings,
tells us that in 1623 “there were also in this year some scattered
beginnings made at Pascataway by Mr. David Thompson, at Monhegan
and some other places by sundry others,” and it is very conceivable
that Pemaquid Point might properly be included amongst these “some
other” places. In 1625 we find Samoset, the famous chieftain of
Pilgrim days, selling to a certain John Brown land at Pemaquid, the
sign-manual Samoset used, according to his custom, being a bended
bow with an arrow fitted to the string.
In 1630 there were certainly the beginnings of a settlement at
Pemaquid and the foundations of a fortress. Shortly after this time
the locality was visited by Dixy Bull, one of the freebooters of
that day, who pillaged the place in leisurely and thorough fashion.
Another settlement was developed and this shared the fate of its
predecessor during the evil days of King Philip’s War. But the
close of King Philip’s War brought better days to Pemaquid, when
the government of New York, under royal letters patent, assumed
control of that place and constructed a strong timber redoubt
there with a bastioned outwork. This was to provide a rallying
point for the frightened settlers. It was completed in 1677 and
garrisoned by soldiers from New York. The fort was known as Fort
Charles and the town around it, which was built up on the site of
the old settlements, was known as Jamestown. Under the new régime
a military government was established, of which the commandant of
the post was the head. The free living inhabitants of the post were
irked at being under strict martial rule.
Under the terms of the Treaty of Breda, Acadia had been returned
to France and with it Pentagoet (Castine) and the possession of
the Penobscot River. The French, in the general fashion which they
affected, declared that the Kennebec and the country tributary
thereto belonged to Acadia. This contention the English disputed.
We have, therefore, the rival powers at their two extreme
outposts,--the French at Pentagoet and the English at Pemaquid,--in
violent opposition to each other.
In 1688, Sir Edmund Andros, Governor of Massachusetts, made a
sudden descent upon Castine, the town, and plundered the place.
Castine, the man, incited his friends the Abenakis and soon had
the border in a blaze. He planned a retaliatory descent upon
Pemaquid. Spies were sent to New Harbor, an outpost of Pemaquid,
and preparations were made to move in force.
In August, 1689, the war party, led by Castine in person, landed on
the eastern shore of Pemaquid Peninsula without being discovered.
The attack was planned with care. The main village lay about a
quarter of a mile from the fort. The farms where most of the
inhabitants were at work were three miles from the fort. One band
of the assailants was to throw itself upon the fort and village,
and another to cut off the village from the farms.
The plan was carried out without a hitch. The men at the farms ran
for the fort and were shot down or taken prisoners. The assailants
next turned their attention to the fort. The big rock in back of
the fort, which makes so conspicuous a feature of the locality
to-day, was occupied by savages, who fired down upon the defenders
of the stronghold, and the attack was pressed fiercely from other
quarters. For twenty-four hours Weems, the commander, held out.
Then, when fourteen out of his garrison of thirty had been wounded,
he surrendered on condition that the occupants should be free to
leave unmolested. Fort and village were set on fire and Pemaquid
for the second time had been swept out of existence.
Under Sir William Phips, who acted by royal instruction, Pemaquid
was rebuilt and regarrisoned in 1692. Unlike the old fortress,
the new one was built of stone in a most substantial and enduring
fashion, and so enlarged as to take in the high ledge of rock
which had been the vulnerable point of the old defences. The
new work was known as Fort William Henry. Cotton Mather, the
indefatigable chronicler of that period, speaks of it as follows:
William Henry was built of stone in a quadrangular figure, being
about 737 foot in compass without the walls and 108 foot square
within the inner ones. Twenty-eight ports it had and fourteen (if
not eighteen) guns mounted, whereof six were eighteen-pounders.
The wall on the south line, fronting to the sea, was twenty-two
foot high and more than six foot thick at the ports, which were
eight foot from the ground. The greater flanker, or round tower,
at the western end of this line, was twelve foot high. The wall
on the east line was twelve foot high, on the north it was ten,
on the west it was eighteen.
Impoverished Massachusetts demurred at having to pay the bills for
the work, but Phips drove the State to meet the obligation.
The ruler of New France at this time was the energetic and
far-sighted Frontenac, who believed that he must reduce the new
English fortress or himself lose his hold on his Indian allies.
With characteristic promptness he set out about the task that
he had visioned. Two ships and some hundreds of savages were
despatched to take the fort. The fort had been forewarned through
the heroism of a young New Englander, John Nelson, who faced
the Bastile or death by the headsman’s hands to get word to his
brethren in New England of the expected expedition. The garrison
was on its guard and so the expedition miscarried.
Frontenac was not the man to be put off with one reverse, however,
as the New Englanders should have realized but did not. In August,
1696, Iberville, with two war-ships and a mixed force of French and
Indians, appeared before Fort William Henry and took the garrison
completely by surprise.
There were about one hundred men in the fort under the command of
Captain Pascho Chubb. Castine and his Indians who are supposed to
have landed at New Harbor, two miles away, set up entrenchments in
the rear of the fortress (where the cemetery is), thus cutting off
the garrison on the land side. Cannon were landed and batteries
erected on adjacent shores and islands. With so much energy did the
besiegers work that their batteries opened fire at three o’clock of
the afternoon following the day on which they appeared before the
fort.
To the first summons to surrender Chubb returned a defiant answer,
but when the first shells began to burst within his lines he seems
to have lost his courage. Intimidated, in addition, by Iberville’s
threat to show no quarter if he persisted in resistance, he
hastened to throw open his gates to the foe. The Indians, hard
enough to keep in order, anyhow, found one of their race in irons
in the prison of the fortress and immediately began a slaughter
of the surrendered English. This outbreak was restrained with
difficulty, and the English were loaded on ships and sent to Boston.
Two days were consumed by the French in destroying the
fortifications at Pemaquid and they then set sail for St. John’s
River, narrowly escaping destruction by a fleet sent out from
Boston in pursuit.
The next attempt to fortify Pemaquid was made in 1729, when Colonel
Dunbar was sent over with a royal commission to rebuild the fort at
the charge of the English crown. This work he set himself to with
a right good will, and he called his fort Fort Frederick in honor
of the Prince of Wales, father of George III. Fort Frederick stood
until the opening of the Revolutionary War, when the inhabitants of
Pemaquid destroyed the works rather than man them, advancing the
unique argument that since the people were not strong enough to
defend them they were a source of weakness rather than strength!
That the inhabitants of this coast were not lacking in spirit is
shown, however, by an incident of the War of 1812, which may be
told here. The enemy’s cruisers kept the whole coast in alarm
because of their frequent depredations against defenceless points.
One day one of these cruisers hove to in New Harbor and a barge
fully manned put out for shore. A small militia force had been
stationed by the Americans at old Fort Frederick and this force was
hastily summoned. The English barge drew near. It was hailed by
an old fisherman who warned the British officer not to attempt a
landing.
“If a gun is fired the whole town will be destroyed,” replied the
Britisher.
Not a single gun, but a number of them, answered this threat. The
rocks of the shore bristled with fowling pieces and ducking-guns
and all manner of fire-arms. The barge drifted helplessly to sea,
its occupants badly wounded, and the master of the war-ship, after
taking his helpless men on board, sailed away to Halifax.
Old Fort Frederick, in 1814, saw the beginning of the historic
combat between the vessels _Boxer_ and the _Enterprise_, in which
the _Enterprise_, U. S. A., commanded by Lieutenant Burrows, was
victorious.
FORT NIAGARA
AT MOUTH OF NIAGARA RIVER--NEW YORK