Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast Part 8

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 a.s.sumed 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 fas.h.i.+oned 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 sh.o.r.e, "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 "smas.h.i.+ng" 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 Ma.s.sachusetts. 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 Pen.o.bscot 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 ba.s.s. 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 Ma.s.sachusetts people, is just across our eastern border. Arrived on the Pen.o.bscot, 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 s.h.i.+ft the responsibility forbade further pursuit of this fict.i.tious 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 lat.i.tude 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 Ma.s.sachusetts. Of one thing I am persuaded--Down East is nowhere in New England.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 quant.i.ties 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 Ma.s.sachusetts."

[36] Aglate la Tour, granddaughter of the chevalier, sold the seigniory of Acadia to the crown for two thousand guineas.--DOUGLa.s.s.

[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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD FORT FREDERICK, PEMAQUID POINT.]

CHAPTER VI.

PEMAQUID POINT.

"Love thou thy land, with love far-brought From out the storied Past, and used Within the Present, but transfused Thro' future time by power of thought."

TENNYSON.

A very small fraction of the people of New England, I venture to say, know more of Pemaquid than that such a place once existed somewhere within her limits; yet it is scarcely possible to take up a book on New England in which the name does not occur with a frequency that is of itself a spur to inquiry. If a few volumes be consulted, the materials for history become abundant. After acc.u.mulating for two hundred years, or more, what belongs to the imperishable things of earth, this old outpost of English power has returned into second childhood, and become what it originally was, namely, a fis.h.i.+ng-village.