ANCIENT
DOMINIONS OF MAINE,
Embracing
The earliest facts, the recent discoveries of the remainss of
aboriginal towns, the voyages, settlements, battle scenes, and
incidents of history, together with the relicious developments
of society within the ancient Sagadahoc, Sheepscot and Pemaquid
precincts and dependencies.
By Rufus King Sewall, author of
Sketches of the City of St.
Augustine.
BATH:
Elisha Clark and Company, Boston,
Massachusetts: Crosby & Nichols.
Portland: Sanborn & Carter, 1859.
Entered according to Act of Congress in the
year 1859, by R. K. Sewall, In the Clerk's
Office of the District Court of the District
of Maine.
Stereotyped and Printed by B. Thurson, Port-
land, Maine.
INTRODUCTION.
OUTLINES OF THE WORK.
Nature and the Bible are the great textbooks, of which
History is a running commentary of Providence. In History,
the forces and principles of cause and effect, in their
bearings on the state of man as developed in human act-
ions, in the distribution of good and evil, are, or ought
to be, illustrated. No study, therefore, is more full of
interest, or better fraught with more important instruct-
ion, giving so varied a scope to the exercise of the moral
and intellectual powers in a discipline so well adapted to
store the head with useful and entertaining knowledge, and
train the life to natural and truthful impulses, as the
studies of History; and a taste for such studies is no
mean indication of the intellectual and moral attainments
of any people.
History has a natural division into three views. The first
relates to discovery; the second treats of settlement and
occupancy of the country; and the third embraces an account
of the accidents, disturbances, and disasters incident to
the establishment of the homes of a new race.
The Ancient Dominions of Maine in the Virginia of the North,
exhibit the vestiges of three grand convulsive epoch, grow-
out of the struggle of races in the collision of those seek-
a new home with those in possession of the soil; the con-
flicts of rival states; and the revolutionary issues in
England, on the displacement of the reigning dynasty of the
House of Stuart, and the elevation of the Prince of Orange
to the throne.
The Ancient Dominions of Maine, beginning in a series of
European plantation hamlets on the Kennebec and Sheepscot
waters, and around in the vicinage of the magnificent harbor
of Boothbay - the Pentecost Harbor of George Weymouth's ex-
pedition, which in his account of discoveries became a center
of attraction - at length were created a Dukedom; and
X. INTRODUCTION.
then transformed into a Province; and finally consolidated
into a County as the integrant part of a State. The phases
and facts of these several changes we shall endeavor to
sketch; and shall follow more particularly the development
of these changes in the facts detailed in the more latent
and philosophical exhibit of causes; designing to give but
a narrative of events according to the measure of our means
and abilities - with a view to amuse and instruct, as well
as to preserve what is fast going into oblivion.
ANCIENT SAGADAHOC, SHEEPSCOT AND & PEMAQUID PRECINTS.
The view we shall take, therefore, within the "Ancient Dom-
inions" of Maine, will embrace the facts written on the
Earth's surface, found among the newly explored remains of
the ruins of the ancient Arambec and Menikuk, towns of the
aboriginal existence on the Damariscotta and Sheepscot
waters during the ante-colonial period; the voyages of dis-
covery and settlement; Indian battle scenes; massacres and
other historical details and incidents of Social, Religious,
and Civil development of the population within the ancient
Sagadahock, Sheepscot and Pemaquid precincts.
Much more might be done, which must be left to other and
abler pens, and shaped to meet a different aim than the
purpose we have.
K. W. SEWALL.
Wiscasset, July 13th, 1858.
|
