Campobello: An Historical Sketch

Оглавление

Wells Kate Gannett. Campobello: An Historical Sketch

Campobello

Отрывок из книги

THE mysterious charms of ancestry and yellow parchment, of petitions to the admiralty and royal grants of land, of wild scenery and feudal loyalty, of rough living and knightly etiquette, have long clustered round a little island off the coast of Maine, called on the charts Passamaquoddy Outer Island, but better known under the more pleasing name of Campobello.

Its Discovery. It belongs to the region first discovered by the French, who, under Sieur De Monts, in the spring of 1604, sailed along the shores of Nova Scotia, and gave the name of Isle of Margos (magpies) to the four perilous islands now called The Wolves; beheld Manthane (now Grand Manan); sailed up the St. Croix; and established themselves on one of its islands, which they called the Isle of St. Croix. The severity of the winter drove them in the following summer to Annapolis, and for more than a hundred and fifty years little was known of this part of the country, though the River St. Croix first formed the boundary between Acadia and New England, and later the boundary between the Provinces of Nova Scotia and Massachusetts Bay.

.....

First Colony. William Owen immediately brought over from the mother country a colony of seventy persons; stationed his ship at Havre De Lute, a Franco-Indian corruption of Harbor of the Otter; and, having settled his people according to his liking, returned to England; but soon left it again on public service, and died with the rank of Admiral.

David Owen. David Owen acted as agent for the grantees, and was a veritable lord of the Island, always interested in protecting the fisheries. His house, near the site of the cottage now owned by James Roosevelt, Esq., had even more roof than the usual sloping, barn-like home of former days. He built a rude church, read the service, and preached. What matter if the sermon was oft repeated, or now and then was original! Could not he, though a layman, best tell the needs of his congregation? He played the fiddle for dances, married the people, scolded them as a self-constituted judge, and kept a journal of Island events in microscopic chirography. He was an occasional correspondent of the "Eastport Sentinel" on matters of British history and theological controversy. "He had a fine library of old books, and was well versed in scholastic subjects," said Dr. Andrew Bigelow, the first Unitarian minister of Eastport, who often visited him.

.....