Most all of the information that I used in this blog is
from the "History Sub-Committee of the
Bicentennial Committee"report below.
.
The following was written by the History Sub-Committee of the Bicentennial
Committee: Leland Lowell, Chairman, Arthur M. Joost, Jr., Frances (Delano)
Bemis, Mary (Grindle) Redman, Ben W.D. Craig, Donna (Dunbar) Hoffman.
"In the beginning, more than 10,000 years ago, during a blink of an eye in
geological time, the great glaciers receded to the North, the land rose and
lush vegetation burst from the Earth. The following historical narrative focuses
on a spot of land in the State of Maine where the Penobscot River ends and
the Penobscot Bay begins.
Little is known of the first humans who roamed the forests of this area, but the
American Indians certainly were here when the first explorers and settlers
arrived. It is not a wild supposition that one or more Viking ships sailed up the
river, the Norseman’s breastplates and shields flashing in the sun. If they did
tarry here, scant evidence remains of their presence.
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Here I am,80 years old with not much to do but to reminisce about my past life.
I actually enjoy doing this day after day because right now there isn't a heck
of a lot that is pleasant to look forward to. However, speaking for myself, I
think that I had a very interesting and enjoyable life. Nothing really fantastic.
One of my goals was to enjoy my life as much as possible for as long as I could
and that I did. To date I have posted 183 blogs about"Humor", "Subjects of
Interest","RVing across USA" etc. (Nose around in my "Archives")..
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I was born in Bucksport, Maine way back in 1931. I graduated from (the old)
Bucksport High School in 1949. Although I moved to Florida in 1956, I still
carry many fond memories of my younger years growing up in Bucksport.
For anyone planning a vacation trip to New England, I highly recommend
spending a few days in the Bucksport area. You will be glad that you did.
Take a walk on the waterfront near the marina.Enjoy the view of Fort Knox and
of the River. Get a good look the old "Waldo Hancock Bridge" and the new "Narrows Bridge"with a beautiful Town. For you RVers, I recommend "Shady Oaks" campground
in Orland, the next small town heading north on US Rt #1. We have had many
pleasant stays in our RV there over the years.
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| Taken from across the Penobscot River at Fort Knox |
The following was written by the History Sub-Committee of the Bicentennial
Committee: Leland Lowell, Chairman, Arthur M. Joost, Jr., Frances (Delano)
Bemis, Mary (Grindle) Redman, Ben W.D. Craig, Donna (Dunbar) Hoffman.
"In the beginning, more than 10,000 years ago, during a blink of an eye in
geological time, the great glaciers receded to the North, the land rose and
lush vegetation burst from the Earth. The following historical narrative focuses
on a spot of land in the State of Maine where the Penobscot River ends and
the Penobscot Bay begins.
Little is known of the first humans who roamed the forests of this area, but the
American Indians certainly were here when the first explorers and settlers
arrived. It is not a wild supposition that one or more Viking ships sailed up the
river, the Norseman’s breastplates and shields flashing in the sun. If they did
tarry here, scant evidence remains of their presence.
The Origins of Bucksport
The Legends of Jonathan Buck
Fort Knox
Jed Prouty Inn
East Maine Conference Seminary
The Origins of Bucksport
The following history was published by the Bucksport Bicentennial Committee to
commemorate the 200th anniversary , 1792-1992, of the town of Bucksport, Maine.
The following was written by the History Sub-Committee of the Bicentennial
Committee: Leland Lowell, Chairman, Arthur M. Joost, Jr., Frances (Delano)
Bemis, Mary (Grindle) Redman, Ben W.D. Craig, Donna (Dunbar) Hoffman.
In 1762 a group of 352 citizens of Massachusetts and New Hampshire petitioned
the English General Court of Massachusetts for a land grant of 12 townships
between the Penobscot and St. Croix Rivers. Deacon David Marsh of Haverhil,
Mass. Was issued the grant in the name of all the petitioners. Marsh chartered
the sloop Sally to survey and explore the new lands and the petitioners each
posted a bond of fifty pounds and signed an agreement that cache township,
within 6 years, must:
Be settled with 60 Protestant families.
Build 60 houses at least 18 feet square.
Be only 6 miles on the river of seacoast.
Have 300 acres of land fit for tillage.
Have a church with a minister settled.
Reserve 1 lot for parsonage purposes; 1 for the minister; 1 lot for Harvard
College and for the use of schools.
Jonathan Buck of Haverhill was third on the list of signers and captain and
owner of the sloop Sally.
The Sally left Newbury, Mass. On June 18, 1762 and sailed in Fort Pownell
(Stockton Springs) 8 days later. The Haverhill group, and one other, cast lots
for the townships. The Haverhill group drew the 6 townships west of the Mt.
Desert River-renamed the Union River because it united the two groups of
townships.
The 6 townships drawn by Buck and his party were :
Plantation No. 1… Bucksport
Plantation No. 2….Orland
Plantation No. 3…Penobscot (Castine)
Plantation No. 4…Sedgwick
Plantation No. 5… Blue Hill
Plantation No. 6 …Surry
This group was back in Haverhill by August of that year but Buck, along with a
group of settlers, returned again on the Sally, in June 1763 to begin building the
town. In 1857 Rufus Buck wrote a history of Bucksport. In fancy prose he tried
to paint for his readers a picture of what Buck and his companions might have
seen from the shores of their new village-to-be.
…Not a mark of civilization greets the eye. Before us the great Penobscot is
silently rolling to the ocean, its mirrored surface giving back a true picture of
every variety of foliage upon it’s banks. The island, with its varied hues of
green, is now dressed in its richest attire, and the rays of the rising sun are just
breaking upon the tops of the tall pines like streaks of gold. As we look in the
west, there seems to arise a vast pyramid of wood, whose branches are reaching
down to the water’s edge. On yonder point a little opening is seen, and two Indian
wigwams of conical form, from which the smoke is slowly ascending till it
vanishes in the thick forest behind. There for a time dwelt the natives of the
woods. Behind us, all around is one vast primeval forest, which has cast a gloom
over the earth for centuries.
The settlers fell to the tremendous task of carving their homes out of the
wilderness, and what a formidable undertaking it must have been. Virgin pines
towered over 100 feet into the sky- 3 to 4 feet, and sometimes more, in diameter.
Felling one of these giants with hand tools was difficult enough, but the
difficulties were compounded when the massive turns finally rested on the
ground.Having no draft animals to move them, the trees were chopped up with
axes and fed into roaring bonfires built around their stumps, turning both the
tree and stump into ashes.
Fishing, hunting and agriculture, in a primitive form, were an endless chore in
putting food by for the long winters.
To add to their travails, the Revolutionary war moved to the Penobscot. A
British naval blockade effectively shut off any communications or supplies and
the settlers of Plantation No. 1, short of food and powder, faced almost certain
extinction. Several children died from lack of food and the town fathers sent off
a message to the General Court of Massachusetts seeking aid. A portion of that
message read:
Sensible that winter is approaching and that we have been deprived of any
succor from the eastern towns for near three months past occasioned by the
present distressed situation the whole colony is in and we your petitioners more
especially from a number of vessels lying in the bay at Long Island (Ilesboro)
the mouth of said river who had made prizes of numbers of vessels bound in here
for our relief and if said vessels continue there our distress will be increased and
that your petitioners are in a very defenseless state respecting ammunition- your
petitioners humbly pray that your honors would take our case into your
considerations and in your great wisdom would point out and direct us in a
method that we may be supplied ammunition and provisions of bread kind.
The message was delivered and 200 bushels of corn, along with powder and shot,
were smuggled into the town, to be paid for with lumber.
Massachusetts sent a fleet of 19 armed ships, twenty transports, and a force of
over 1000 men to dislodge the British from Fort George in Castine. The 21-day
battled that followed resulted in one of the greatest fiascoes in US military
history. Until Pearl Harbor it remained the largest naval defeat. Because of the
incompetent leadership, a small British force was able to defeat an opponent who
vastly outnumbered it. Writing of this, an historian of the day said that the
leaders managed to "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory." Every one of the
colonist’s ships were destroyed, their corpses littering the shores of the
Penobscot from Sandy Point to Bangor. The survivors took to the woods, walking
their way to safety.
The day was August 14, 1779. One of the American commanders later wrote:
To attempt to give a description of this terrible day is out of my power. It would
be a fit subject for some masterly hand to describe it in its true colors, to see four
ships pursuing seventeen sail of armed vessels, nine of them were stout ships,
transports on fire, men of war blowing up every kind of stores on shore, throwing
about, and as much confusion as can possibly be imagined.
Buck and his family, along with the other princes of Plantation No. 1, left their
homes with what possessions they could carry and rowed or walked north to
Bangor- thence overland 200 miles home from Haverhill. Land travel, away from
navigable waters, was relatively safe then.
The day after the naval disaster ended, the British sloop NAUTILUS dropped
anchor in the harbor of Plantation No. 1. The NAUTILUS crew went ashore to
pillage and burn the properties of the departed patriots. The few settlers who
remained, by pledging allegiance to the crown, were spared. Colonel Buck and
his family, now in Haverhill, were not to see the town again for five more years.
After a treaty was signed with British in 1783, most of the former townspeople,
along with some new adventurers, returned from Haverhill- some again aboard
the sloop Sally.
The town was rebuilt rapidly after the sawmill was put in operation. Saw logs
of the highest quality were readily available and houses and barns sprang up,
but the people were poor by the end of the war, so no fine buildings were built.
In 1784 the people began governing themselves by meeting each March to
choose a Committee that acted much as the Selectman form of government does
today. No records have surfaced regarding the activities of this Committee. With
this government already in place, the Plantation was prepared when the General
Court of the Province of Massachusetts passed an act, in 1789, establishing the
County of Hancock. They immediately petitioned the Court for permission to
incorporate Plantation No. 1 as the town of Buckstown- honoring by its name,
Colonel Jonathan Buck.
On 18 August, 1792, the first warrant calling for a town meeting was issued. The
first town meeting, on 6 September 1792, elected the first officer of the town.
The first officers and their order of election were:
1st Phineas Ames: Moderator
2nd Abner Curtis: Town Clerk
3rd James Clements, Daniel Buck ,Theophilus Brown: Assessors and Selectman
4th 5th Eben Colson, Benjamin Farnham: Collectors and Constables
6th AbnerCurtis: Treasurer
7th James Clements, Phineas Ames: Surveyors and Highways
8th Benjamin Farnham, Ephraim Stubbs,Nathan Atwood: Fish Committee
9th Jonathan Putney, Abner Clements, Nathaniel Lowell: Hogreaves
10th Voted that all swine should run at large yoked as the law directs
11th Voted that Hogreaves shall take hogs in their custody, and proceed in the
same manners Pound Keepers are by law directed.
12th Voted that Taxes assessed for clearing roads shall be collected.
13th Voted that the Selectman shall be a committee to take care of the town’s
public lots and prevent any tip or waste of the same.
14th Voted that the Town Clerk shall take money out of the town treasury, and
purchase a book for town records.
A true record of said meeting-- Abner Curtis, Town Clerk
Back to Links
Legends of Jonathan Buck
Written by Valerie Van Winkle for the Bicentennial Edition
Generations have puzzled over the legend of Col. Jonathan Buck: which came
first, the monument or the witch’s curse?
Ironically, Bucksport’s founder, a regional Revolutionary War hero, has
achieved national prominence not for his service to his town and country, but
because of the image of a woman’s foot and leg which appears on his memorial.
Born in Woburn, Mass., Feb. 20, 1719, Buck grew up in Haverhill, Mass. On
Oct. 19, 1742, Buck married Lydia Morse. They had nine children, six of whom
survived childhood.
In July of 1762, Buck sailed the sloop Sally up the Penobscot River to survey
six plantations which have since been designated Bucksport, Orland, Penobscot
(Castine), Sedgwick, Blue Hill and Surry. Buck made another trip to the
Plantations in 1763, and in 1764 began construction of the first settlement on
Plantation No. 1, the present town of Bucksport.
Buck joined the disastrous expedition to Castine and siege of Fort George in
July of 1779. The day after the Patriots defeat by the British, Buck took his wife
and seriously ill daughter, Lydia, to safety in Brewer. At the age of 60, suffering
from gout, he walked the nearly 200 miles from Bucksport to Haverhill. Five
years later he returned to Plantation No. 1 and rebuilt everything that had been
destroyed by the British in 1779. Buck and his sons were leaders of the
community, and in 1792 Plantation No. 1 was renamed Buckstown in Col.
Jonathan’s honor.March 18, 1795, at 4:30 p.m., Buck died. He was buried in a
cemetery east of Buckstown.
Buck might have remained a traditional local hero, but in August of 1852, his
grandchildren erected a monument near his grave site. As the monument
weathered, an image in the form of a woman’s leg and foot appeared under the
Buck name.
Although there is little doubt that stories began to circulate as soon as the image
was noticed, the first record of it appearing in print was in the Haverhill Gazette
of Marsh 22, 1899. However, that article attributed a quote to an undated edition
of the Philadelphia Enquirer. The Gazette article’s recounting of the Buck legend
has become the classic version, although there are certainly many variations on
the theme.
Briefly restated, the tale runs: Jonathan Buck was a Puritan to whom witchcraft
was anathema. When a woman was accused of witchcraft, he sentenced her to
be executed. Then according to the Haverhill Gazette, "the hangmen was about
to perform his gruesome duty when the woman turned to Col. Buck and raising
one hand to heaven, as if to direct her last words on earth, pronounced this
astounding prophecy: ‘Jonathan Buck, listen to these words, the last my tongue
will utter.It is the spirit of the only true and living God which bids me speak them
to you. You will soon die. Over your grave they will erect a stone that all may
know where your bones are crumbling into dust. But listen, upon that stone the
imprint of my feet will appear, and for all time, long after you and you accursed
race have perished from the earth, will the people from far and wide know that
you murdered a woman. Remember well, Jonathan Buck, remember well."
In 1902, a similar version of the story appeared in the New England magazine,
written by Bucksport resident James D. Wittemore. According to a pamphlet
in the Bucksport Historical Society titled Jonathan Buck of Bucksport, The
Man and The Myth, a longtime Bucksport resident and authority on legends,
Rev. Alfred G. Hempstead, said that Buck’s descendants were dismayed by the
story and threatened to sue for slander.
The details of the rather different version of the story, retold by Oscar Morill
Heath in Composts of Tradition: A Book of Short Stories Dealing with
Traditional Sex and Domestic Situations, are so lurid that many of his
embellishments are tastefully skipped over by those writing about the Buck
legend. In one variation Heath created a son for the doomed woman, fathered by
Buck. At the time of her execution, the woman is pregnant again by Buck. In his
role of Justice of the Peace, Buck condemns her, has her tied to the door of her
house and then sets her on fire.The son grabs his mother’s burning leg and
permanently cripples Buck by hitting him with it. The leg becomes a relic, and
when, after Buck dies, it touches the dead body, Buck emerges from his coffin to
confess all. At the end of the story, Buck returns to his coffin and says to the
woman’s deformed son, "Close the lid, boy."
Heath’s story seems to have inspired a long poem written by Robert P. Tristram
Coffin in 1939, The Foot of Tucksport. Coffin has added his own interesting
elaboration’s to the story, including making the illegitimate son deformed.
In another version written in the 1930’s by A. Hyatt Verrill, a "half-witted" man
is brought before Buck accused of murdering a woman and removing one of
her legs. Buck condemns the man, who says that the appearance of the leg
on Buck’s tombstone will be his vengeance. Many subsequent articles about
the legend seem to be attempts to prove or disprove the various versions of
the story. Research suggest that there is no basis for the legend. It has
been noted that there is no record of anyone having been executed by burning
in Maine. As a Justice of the Peace, Buck did not have the right to sentence
anyone to death. The witch trials in New England occurred more than
25 years before his birth. Although clearly a character of energy and
determination, Buck was admired by the soldiers who served under his
command, and letters to his wife in Buck’s spidery handwriting promising
eternal affection are on display at the library in Bucksport.
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| Buck's Tombstone with Leg |
but it has always returned. Over the years, people knowledgeable about
monuments have explained that the image is the result of a natural flaw in
the stone, perhaps a vein of iron which darkens through contact with oxygen.
The Bucksport Library has on file an undated piece about local legends by
Ester E. Wood. It begins, "Kenneth Roberts wrote, ‘Local tradition spins
on truth and tramples the gown of common sense.’ It could well be said,
‘Local tradition feeds upon lies and flies far and fast on wings of nonsense.’"
Writers who have researched the legend seem to conclude that it is a fiction
concocted after the appearance of the image on the monument. No records
have been discovered suggesting that any version of the legend predates the
appearance of the leg. It all seems very reasonable, unless you have seen the
image of the leg firsthand. It has a vitality, a naughtiness, which seems to laugh
at rational data.
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Fort Knox
The following information was obtained from a brochure printed courtesy of the
Maine Army National Guard and Champion International paper Company for the
Department of Conservation and the Bureau of Parks and Recreation.
The 32 mile section of the Penobscot River between Castine and Bangor has
been the site of fierce conflicts. Great Britain controlled this section of river during
both the American Revolution and the War of 1812. Later, in 1839 when Great
Britain and the United States fell into dispute over the northern border between
Maine and New Brunswick, fear and mistrust of the British spread. It seemed
all too likely that British ships would once more sail up the unprotected
Penobscot and take control of Bangor, Maine’s wealthy, unprotected lumber
capital. Fort Knox was built to prevent this and possible future attacks
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| Fort Knox taken from pier in Bucksport |
The fort saw two periods of military activity. As many as 117 Maine Volunteers
were garrisoned here from 1863 to 1866, during the Civil War. About 500
Connecticut troops were stationed at the fort in 1898, during the
Spanish-American War. No enemy ships ever appeared on the Penobscot
River or threatened its towns during these wars.
Army engineers and work crews began building Fort Knox in July, 1844.
Lieutenant Isaac Stevens, who supervised the fort’s early construction, tried
first to complete the earthen batteries nearest the river. By the fall of 1845,
one battery was ready for cannon. Workers continued to excavate the entire
fort site, removing stone and building roads. Finally, in 1851, river barges
brought granite in and the rooms and alleyways of the main fort began to take
shape.
The main fort building measures 252 by 146 feet. It’s two levels contain mounts
for 64 cannon. Four batteries, mounting a total of 69 cannon, cover four lines
of defense outside the main building.
Fort Knox was the first of many granite forts built in Maine. These forts, with
their large granite casemates protecting cannon, could handle more armaments
and provide stronger defense than outdates wooden blockhouses. The design
and construction of Fort Knox was a model for later Maine forts such as
Fort Popham, Fort Gorges, Fort Preble and Fort Scammell.
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| The granite walls of Fort Knox on "Fort Knox Day" |
The fort ground once included other buildings. According to a military report
in 1870, an officers’ quarters, mens’ quarters, blacksmith shop, carpenter
shop, office, large barn, unfinished kitchen building and implement houses
were also on the site.
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| Music on "Fort Knox Day" |
The Fort was named after Major General Henry Knox, America's first Secretary
of War and Commander of Artillery in the American Revolution. General Knox
lived in Thomaston, Maine during the finals years of his life. America’s other
Fort Knox, which is located in Kentucky, was also named after him.
Fort Knox’s granite was quarried on Mount Waldo, located about five miles upriver
from the fort in Frankfort, Maine. Huge granite blocks ware quarried, transported
down the mountain, then carried by river barge to Fort Knox’s wharf.
Nearly a million dollars was spent to build Fort Knox. Congressional
appropriations were sporadic and construction continued for 25 years.
When work finally stopped in 1869, the fort was still not completely finished.
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| A & B battery hot shot furnace's |
These small brick structures were built in 1857 and were designed for
use in 32 pound cannons, which were replaced at Fort Knox by Rodman
cannons, such as those seen at the fort today. Hot shot furnaces heated
cannonballs so hot that when the balls hit wooden ships, the ships were
set on fire. With the development of ironclad ships, the firing of red hot
cannonballs was no longer an effective defense and hot shot furnaces
became obsolete.
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| Large Rodman cannon |
"A" battery and the slightly smaller Rodman cannon inside one of the fort’s
casemates. Rodman cannons were actually developed while Fort Knox was
under construction. As a result, "A" and "B" batteries had to be modified to
accommodate these "state of the art" cannons in 1865. Rodman cannons
provided stronger and safer than previous models. The large Rodman cannon
in "A" battery needed about seven people to load and fire it. A shell used in
this cannon weighted 315 pounds, had a charge weighing 50 pounds, and
could be fired as far as 4,680 yards.
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Jed Prouty Inn
Bucksport's Jed Prouty Inn probably dates from 1783 and was built by Asa
Peabody;he and his brother Stephen were prominent merchants in early
Bucksport. The hotel was originally built as a double house; note that it has
two distinctly different doorways, one with a fan light, the other with a rectangular
Federal over-light. Mr. Sparhawk bought the premises around 1820, raised the
roof to a peaked roof, and with these improvements took up inn keeping.
By 1850 it was owned by Daniel Robinson and the name was changed to the
Robinson House, a name it was to carry for the next 100 years. In 1860 the
hotel was owned by B.F. Farnham. James F. Moses, recently from Skowhegan,
bought the hotel that February for $787.26 (including furnishings). A member of
the staff was a young man named Richard Golden who wrote, produced and took
the lead in a play called "Old Jed Prouty", Mr. Moses assured guests that it must
be "another" hotel that they were thinking of. By Tom Parker
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East Maine Conference Seminary
In 1848 the Eastern Maine Conference of the Methodist Church held its first
meeting in Bangor and proposed the establishment of a seminary or what we
would call a preparatory school. Bucksport offered the land and raised $25,000
for the project. East Maine Conference Seminary opened in August 1851 to a
class of 13 boys and 14 girls. In 1888 the school had 526 students. It closed in
1933 after Bucksport opened its first public secondary school.
New life came to the buildings when they opened as the Oblate Fathers Seminary
to train priests for missionary work. But this too came to a close. Today some of
the buildings have been turned into apartments. Other buildings atop Oak Hill
stand empty and neglected. By Tom Parker
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