Canada -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
Pemaquid saw constant disturbances. Weymouth, when he traded there in
1605, kidnapped several Indians and carried them back to England. The
fierce Abenaquis from Penobscot Bay attacked the place in 1615 and
massacred all the Wawenock Indians who lived there. Then the old
Sagamore Samoset appeared upon the scene, the same who welcomed the
Pilgrims to Plymouth. He lived near Pemaquid, and told them at
Plymouth his home was distant "a daye's sayle with a great wind, and
five dayes by land." He sold Pemaquid to the first English colonists
in 1625 by deed, his sign manual upon it being a bended bow with an
arrow fitted to the string, ready to shoot. They saw the strategic
importance of the place and built a small fort in 1630. Then a pirate
came along, captured and plundered the settlement, holding it until an
armed ship from Massachusetts recaptured it in 1635, the pirate being
hanged. Then stronger forts were built, and Fort Charles was
constructed in 1674, but in King Philip's War the French and Indians
attacked it, driving out the people, who escaped by boats to Monhegan.
Again, in 1689, the Abenaquis from old Pentagoet, under their chief
Madockawando, captured it with great slaughter, destroying the works.
The English in 1693 once more took possession, this time building a
stone fort regarded as impregnable and said to be the finest work then
in New England. French frigates soon attacked it and were repulsed,
and its fame was great throughout the colonies. But the French and
the Abenaquis were bound to defeat its possessors, and in 1696 the
former with a fleet and the latter under Baron de Castine again
attacked, and captured it with a horrible massacre, all the survivors
being carried into captivity. The English did not reoccupy the Point
for some time, but in 1724 they repaired the ruined fort, and deciding
that a place of so much importance must be held at all hazards, in
1730 Fort Frederick, the great defensive work of Pemaquid, was built,
and a town grew around it. The French and Indians made unsuccessful
attacks in 1745, and again in 1747. Thus fiercely raged the battle
between the rival possessors of the Penobscot and the Kennebec, and
the ruins of this last and greatest work, Fort Frederick, have been
the place where for years the antiquarians have been delving for
relics, much as they do in Pompeii. It was an extensive exterior
fortress with an interior citadel, located upon a slope rising from a
rocky shore and controlling the approach from the sea. A high rock in
the southeastern angle, forming part of the magazine, is the most
prominent portion of the ruins. A martello tower stood in front on the
sea-beach, but is now pulverized into broken fragments. A graveyard,
several paved streets, and cellars of buildings have been disclosed.
The final destruction of Fort Frederick was by the Americans in the
Revolution, to prevent its becoming a British stronghold, and its last
battle was in 1814, when a force in boats from a British frigate
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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