The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1897-11-30
New York SUM-

New York Sum-
Bog Hill, Me. Nov. 27-Having reached
the advanced age of more than 400 years.
the historic yellow birch tree which grew
on Smart's farm at the four corners has
been cut down and converted into cord
wood. 1t was famous tree long before
the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth and
began to send their hunters and traders
to the Eastern forests for spoils. When it
first came to colonial notice at the becin-
ming of the last century the Cannabis.
Norrigwoes and A bernaki had been max
ing the spot a gathering place for 20
years or more, the three tribes meeting
here to exchange furs and wives and to
make treaties among themselves as often
as once q year. The ground for half a
mile about the tree was strewn with great
piles of clam and quohog shells and heaps
ofscharred bones, which gave evidence of
the festivities that had taken place,
Hunters and outlaws of the woods made
post offices of the woodpecker holes and
crevices in its bark as long ago as 1888,
when William Hopkins. afterward q
noted witch hunter of Salem, was sent
to Old Town with presents for the Tara
tines, and passed ye night beneath va
yellow birohe tree which gro Yves above
ye Bogge Hill. -
Eastern Maine began to be settled by
colonists from Massachusetts Bay as long
ago as twenty years before the French
and Indian wars broke out. In FEBRUARY.
young men who lived on the shore of
Goose Pond in Swanville, went to Frank
fort village to purchase supplies They
started to return soon after noon, carry
ing we'll loaded packs, but never reached
home. A week later their friends, who
had been searching for them, found their
frozen bodies among the snowdrifts
banked against the yellow BIRCH A
small mountain half a mile away. over
which their snowshoe tracks had been
traced, was named Mount Misery to
commemorate their death, and the yellow
birch was called Misery Birch, name
it has carried a century and half.
No record has been found that mentions
the tree during the Revolutionary war,
which is probably due to the fact that
most of the white residents had been
either killed or driven away in the previ-
GUS war, SO that there was nobody left to
tell what happened. -Four years after the
peace of l783-in September, lisa party
of surveyors who were sent to run out
land between the kennebec and Penob-
scot rivers, having used up all their food
and water and Icing unable to get more
of either-a great drought prevailing at
the tine-deposited a woful written COM
plant in the hollow of the yellow birch,
in which the writer declares: eve have
plenty Of rumme, but no water and no
meat except what we shoot This is
claimed to be the first and only time that
a Woodsman was ever known to lament
the abundance of ''rumme."
After the beginning of the present CEN
fury the name of Misery Birch appears
frequently in the records. 1t stood at the
junction of four roads which led to Gas
tine, Camden, Cushnoc. and Old Town,
and persons going or coming over these
roads always stopped here to collect and
read the messages that had been left for
them, and to write and deposit notes to
those who were to come later. The same
sentiment which had made the tree
news centre for all eastern Maine soon
converted tho surrounding lands into fit
ting places for the interment of those
who were killed or CHANGED to die on the
buried in the Bog Hill Cemetery previous
to 1900, one of whom was Swedish
naturalist who had crossed the Atlantic
to study new species of birds, and had
lost his life in falling from a tree that
contained an osprey's nest.
The war of 1879 added new honors to
Misery Birch The British troops were
fleet of warships. The Yankees, having
lost their vessels, were encamped at Bel
fast and Hampden, making feeble At
tempt to maintain two posts thirty miles
apart. Late in the summer OF 1914 word
came to the Belfast garrison that the
English ships were about to sail up the
river and burn every village between Cas-
tine and Bangor. No sooner was this
made known than horseman was de-
spatched to Misery Birch, where another
was in waiting to carry word
to Gen. Blake at Hampden. The second
bearer started off in such haste that his
horse cast a shoe. Stopping at Frankfort
to get new shoe he improved his time in
the tavern drinking rum. he liked it so
well that he took several glasses more
than he needed, and finally concluded to
STAY where he was until he was in fit con-
dition to meet the commanding officer.
Meantime the British ships had sailed I'D
river as announced, and meeting Blake
Oh Academy Hill, had won an easy vic
tory, some of the refugees fleeing as far
rs Waterville before they stopped. In the
court martial whioh followed the drunken
soldier was put upon broad and water for
six months, and a written announcement
Of the sentence was posted on the. trunk
Of the yellow birch.
From that date until now Misery Birch
has been busy agent in the arts of peace.
When stages were slow and far between
the crevices in it's sides were used as let
ter boxes. For more than century it's
ragged yellow bark has been plastered
over with notices of administrators on
estates and foreclosures upon mortgages.
Nearly hundred town meetings and as
many moro for the election of officers
N the old school district have been nailed
II tackled to its trunk. The man who
lad pigs for sale or he VINO wanted tn
hire help on his farm wrote out his desire
md nailed it to Misery Birch in the firm
belief that no greater publicity than this
vas possible. During the late war the
bulletins which announced Volunteers
Wanted" covered the tree from limbs To
'oots. AS many of those We're printed on
stout cloth and firmly nailed, they staved
Until long after hostilities had ceased
md were finally obsoured by later notices
If dances, church sociables and exc1r.
ions. Last of all came the patent medi-
line advertisers, who painted the bark