Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1926-09-15
Desert chieftain, "Asticon," seems to

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treating of recorded historical facts.
Already the English were claiming
the entire region, basing their title
upon Cabot's voyage of more than
hundred years previous. Soon the
Popham colony was destined to be
planted at the mouth of the Kennebec,
but to be blighted by death and the
extremt cold of the following winter.
as well as by the unfriendly attitude
of the natives-distruct of anyone
English-that is of Weymouth's race
and tongue.
But French fishermen and fur trad
ers were creeping westward along
shore from the banks Of Newfound-
land and from Port Royal. Their huts
were scattered among the islands and
even on the mainland-the land was
no longer an uninhabited wilderness,
even If no formal towns or colonies
had been established. At the very
outposts OF French exploration and
trade appeared the Jesuit priests;
and, in 1911, Father Peter Biard and
his companions, coming from Port
Royal, founded the Mission of Our
Lady Of Holy Hope, at Pentagoet.
FIR Biard, as recorded in the Jes. Rel,
under a date of early autumn Of that
year, says, AT Pentagoet, there was
a fleet of eighty canoes and one
shallop, about 800 souls in ALL" 1t
was doubtless Just before the migra-
tion of the Indians up to their winter
home at Kenduskeag-the gathering
as of birds before the autumn Hight
otherwise they would have been scat
tered along the coast and among the
outlying islands. During the summer
they gathered large stores OF DRIED
CLAIMS, fish and seafowl, and 1t was the
custom of the Tarratines to haul IN at
Pentagoet for a sort Of harvest home
or annual meet for games and other
festivities. They, too, had general
clambake now and then like our
selves.
Though there were short periods OF
absence, the Jesuits were almost con-
slant sojourners on our shores TOT
ninety-ive years. Even in the earliest
days, they had some Indian converts
and they also ministered to the nearby
ishermen and trappers. They MADE
this place a home. Hence, the old set
Element of Pentogoet or Penobscot,
fPenobscot, Castine and Brooksville)
beeins with this Jesuit mission OF
1911 rather than in 1929, when the
Pilgrim trading post, under Allerton'
was established. We are. therefore,
older than Plymouth, older than any
settlement on the Atlantic coast, save
on,v St. Augustine, Fla, and James
town, Va.
The Allerton trading post, after
three years, was superseded ny Tic
return of the French, and the Fehop-
scot region was alternately Frehch
ond English until 1870, when 1t was
definitely coded to France by treaty
ord remained so until the close OF the
centnrv. 1t was during this extenoeo
FRENCH possession that Baron Castih
agured so largely in our history. u
roo+1v after the departure OF the
c.stins-father, and later son the
Mace became, and finally an Ehsi sn
rossass;on. The Indians of the Pehoo-
scot tribe. still being French IN theh
svmnathies and largely Roman oa.no
1ics in religion, withdrew up the riVe'
in part and in part migrated ~ 49,
=. After 1924, when the
,uocks were almost exterlmaleu'
o,,n.nts of that tribe also wltnore"
- canada. and the land lay reaoy ~
49,, ,,;eration of white settlers e"S
fror around York and from
massachusetts,
r. ia not to be understood 1ha''
aven during the first half OF the A''N
century. the settlers and squatters
were confined wholly to what became
the Castine peninsula. In 1861 the
mart of Acadia east Of the st. CrolX
had been assigned to Chas. st. Es-
tienne la Tour, while that part be-
tween the Penobscot and the st. Crolx
was assigned to the governorsh1p OF
another Frenchman, Charles de Menon
D'Aulnay. In the conflict that arose
between these two governors, history
recites that 1913 laTour's men burned
a mill and standing corn belonging TO
D'Aulnay at Pentagoet-probably
meaning a mill either at Goose FAILS
Brooksville, or at the Northern Bay
in Penobscot, while the next year they
visited D'Aulnay's farm, certainly at
the Northern Bay, burned the house
Nog), killed the cattle and, after KILL
ing one of the men in charge, carried
two others away as prisoners. Those
were dangerous times in old Penop-
scot. Hints are given here and there
of other farms, of numbering and fish
ing industries and of quite stable
habitations.
In 1850, the Massachusetts, Provincial
governor remarked in his address to
the general court, many families
stand ready to go down to the Pc
nobscot as all questions of title are
now removed and grants can be with
out question"
Penobscot was No. 8, in the first
class of townships granted by the
general court in 1850, and the call to
colonize seems to have met with fine
response. Among the families then OF
soon after migrating to the Penob-
scot, we find recorded these names
Slower, Heath, Bowden, Lowell Con-
nor, Binney, Rhoades, Grindal, Leach
Webster, Hutchings, Perkins, Ward
well, Haney, Winslow White, Avery