water is in general uncommonly pure. The relative position of the hills and valleys favors a brisk circulation of air through all parts of the town, and particularly in the direction of north and south. Though the elevations are not mountainous, there is comparatively little low ground; and the fog, which lies in the valleys and along the river almost every morning in summer, while it favors vegetation, is not found to produce debility or disease. The agricultural employments of the inhabitants are highly conducive to vigor and strength. Indolence and luxury are almost unknown. Men, women, and children wear the hue of health. From thirty to forty years ago, it was a common remark of strangers, that there was more female beauty in Union than in any other town in the county or State. The fresh countenance, the clear or brilliant eye, the natural, uncompressed form, were testimonials to the generally good habits and customs of the people, as well as to the healthfulness of the town. SCENERY. It would be unjust to the town not to allude to its scenery. By some visitors, at the season of the year when the earth is in its richest attire, it is said to be the most beautiful which they have ever beheld. Hills and valleys, ponds and streams, the romantic and the picturesque, are combined in the prospects. On a bright June morning, a ride in almost any direction affords a rich enjoyment to people of taste and admirers of nature. One person might be pleased to leave the beaten road, and stroll along the river below the bridge at South Union, and watch the water tumbling over and among the rocks overhung with bushes, and threading its way down to the pond. Another, of a more pensive turn, might stand by the large rock in the Old Burying Ground. On all sides are graves. There sleep the fathers and the mothers of the town, at rest from worldly anxiety, suffering, and toil. Around them are gathered many of their children and children's children. On the east lies a placid lake. To the north-west opens a bright, sunny landscape, winning the thoughts away from the clouds and storms and melancholy of this life, and directing them to higher and holier scenes. For a broader view, ascend the summit of the hill near the Common. About one hundred rods north of it is a snug house, almost hidden by trees; and beyond it, for a long distance, the ground is nearly a plain, but varied with pleasing undulations. On the right, near the foot of the hill, glides Seven Brook; and on the left, twenty or thirty rods distant, is St. George's River. Beyond these, and circumscribing them from the east around to the west, the rise of land is not unlike an elongated amphitheatre. On this extensive hillside may be seen farms above farms, covered with cattle and sheep, and dotted over with houses and barns. The rows of corn and potatoes, two or three miles distant, are so regular that with a good eye it seems as if they may be counted. Flitting clouds throw their racing shadows, and wave chases wave, over the surface of the bending fields of grain. Immediately at the foot of the hill on the south is the green Common, surrounded with neatly painted houses and shops, which extend to the west till they meet the mills carried by the St. George's. On the rise of land 150 or 200 rods distant in the south-southwest, the back part of the Old Burying Ground juts out from behind a hill, and exposes to view the marble gravestones which have been placed there by the hands of friendship and affection. A little to the east of south lies Seven-tree Pond, so clear that in it may be seen mirrored, two or three miles distant, the trees and fields on its southern banks. And east of this pond is a moderate swell of land intersected by Crawford's River, which drives the spindles, the shuttles, the hammers, and the saws of the busy little village of South Union. There are still broader views. Barrett's Hill to the north-east, and the swell of land on the west, command extensive prospects of Kennebec County; and, in very clear weather, a glimpse of the White Hills of New Hampshire, about one hundred miles distant. In the south-east part of the town is Mount Pleasant, the highest of the eminences, known to all seamen on the coast, for nearly three hundred years, as the Penobscot or Camden Hills. From its summit, a short distance beyond the town-line, may be seen below, as on a map, a great part of Penobscot Bay with as many islands as there are days in the year; and far to the east the apparently unbounded Atlantic Ocean. How often, before a European had removed trees for the first building-spot in the vast wilderness of New England, was this summit welcomed by Smith,1 Pop 1 In 1603, Martin Pring, according to "Purchas his Pilgrimes," iv. 1654,"fell in with a multitude of small Ilands, in the latitude of 43 degrees, the of June, which Ilands were found very pleasant to behold. Here we found an excellent fishing for Cods.... We sayled to the South-west end of these Ilands, and there rode with our ships vnder one of the greatest. One of them we named Foxe Iland, because we found those kind of beasts thereon. So passing through the rest with our Boates to the mayne Land, which lieth for a good space North-east and South-west, we found very safe riding among them in sixe, seven, eight, ten, and twelve fathomes. At length, comming to the Mayne in the latitude of 43 degrees and an halfe, we ranged the same to the South-west." In 1604, Champlain was for some time among the islands; and, in September, went up the Penobscot River twenty-five leagues to a small stream, not far above which were falls. He speaks of Cape Bedabedec, which, according to Jeffery's Atlas, is Owl's Head. He was probably the first white man who explored the river. He gives minute directions for entering it. The edition of his voyages published by Jean Berjon at Paris, in 1613, of which there is a copy in the library of Harvard University, contains many passages omitted in later editions. Rosier, in Weymouth's Voyage, already alluded to on page 2, states, that from "S. George's Iland we might discern the main land from the west-south-west to the east-north-east, and a great way (as it then seemed, and we after found it) up into the main we might discern very high mountains, though the main seemed but low land," &c. Williamson, History of Maine, i. 193, states that the place where they went ashore and amused themselves in hunting, June 12, 1605, was Penobscot, now Camden, Hills. The Strachey MS. in the details of the voyage of the Popham party to Sagadahock, in 1707, states, “there be three high mountaynes that lie in on the Land, the Land called Segohquet, neere about the River of Penobscot," and gives drawings of their appearance from different points of view. In 1614, Capt. John Smith, whose history, in connection with ham, Weymouth, Champlain, Pring, and the seamen, who, for half a century or more before them, sailed along the coast to fish and to trade with the Indians! How many thoughts crowd the mind respecting those times, and the changes which have since taken place! Though no thrilling events, to command the attention of the general reader, have ever occurred in the town, there are around it associations with olden time, which give additional interest to scenery which it would require a poet and a painter properly to describe. Pocahontas, is familiar to every school-child, spent several months exploring the coast in an open boat with eight men. In 1616, he published his Description of New England, accompanied with a map. On page 24, he says, "North-west of Penobscot," meaning only Penobscot Bay, "is Mecaddacut, at the foot of a high mountain, a kind of fortresse against the Tarrantines, adjoining to the high mountaines of Pennobscot, against whose feet doth beat the Sea: But over all the Land, Iles, or other impediments, you may well see them sixteen or eighteen leagues from their situation. Segocket is the next: then Nuscongus, Pemmaquid," &c. Mecaddacut, on Smith's map, is called Dunbarton or Dunbarte. From its situation at the south of the range of hills and east-north-east of one or two other eminences, it is not improbable that Smith meant to locate the Indian village at Camden, on the Megunticook, or perhaps a little further south. Indian territories were not distinctly bounded. Bedabedec may have designated the coast, and included the Penobscot Hills and Owl's Head. When it is considered that Indians, giving to the consonants a soft or obscure sound, do not enunciate them distinctly, that Smith gives the name as it sounded to his English ears, and Champlain as it sounded to the French, it is not improbable that Bedabedec and Medambattec and Mecaddacut are meant to represent the same Indian word. It is somewhat remarkable that the accounts of the early explorations of the coast of Maine have not been more carefully examined. Many of the harbors, headlands, and islands, as laid down on Smith's map, are easily identified, by recurring to page 205 of his "Generall Historie of Virginia, New England," &c. published in 1626, where the Indian names stand side by side with the English names given by Charles the First, while Prince Charles. Smith was here in the summer. He speaks with enthusiasm of the country. In 1616 he published his book and his map, for the purpose of prevailing on people in England to form a colony. If his project had been carried out successfully, some spot in this vicinity, and not Plymouth, would have been chronicled as the birthplace of New England. The settlers, however, would have been adventurers in quest of pelf, rather than the sturdy pilgrims who fled from persecution to enjoy religious liberty. They probably would not have given the Pilgrim-leaven to the character of New England, and more or less to that of the whole world. And it may therefore be considered fortunate, perhaps, that his plan did not succeed. CHAPTER II. ANTE-PLANTATION HISTORY. Muscongus or Waldo Patent. - Disputed Territory. - St. George's River proposed as a Boundary. — Indians. — Hart's and Boggs's Escape from them.— Dické and the Comet. MUSCONGUS OR WALDO PATENT. UNION was part of the tract of land called the Muscongus Patent, which was a grant made March 2, 1638, by the Plymouth Council to John Beauchamp, of London; and Thomas Leverett, then of Boston in England, and subsequently of Boston in New England. Afterwards this tract was called the Waldo Patent. DISPUTED TERRITORY. Union is in the territory over which, for more than a century, the French and the English alternately claimed jurisdiction; and, if there had been any inhabitants, they would have been constantly harassed by the conflicting parties and by the Indians. The changes of the governments, and the quarrels and hostilities connected therewith, do not claim special notice, as the beginning of a settlement on the soil of this town had not then been made. ST. GEORGE'S RIVER PROPOSED AS A BOUNDARY. In 1711 or 1712, it was proposed to make St. George's River the boundary between the English and the French. If this had been effected, the inhabitants 1 Mémoires des Commissaires du Roi et de Ceux de sa Majesté Britannique, sur les Possessions et les Droits respectifs des deux Couronnes en Amérique, ii. 382, 4to, Paris, 1755. Memorials of the English and French Commissaries concerning the Limits of Nova Scotia or Acadia, i. 420-5, 4to, Lond. 1755. Remarks on the French Memorials concerning the Limits of Acadia, p. 58, 8vo, Lond. 1756. Histoire et Description Générale de la Nouvelle France, &c. par le |
