Voyages of Samuel De Champlain — Volume 02

by Samuel de Champlain

ENDNOTES:

107. Isle de la Tortue, commonly known as Seguin Island, high and rocky, with precipitous shores. It is nearly equidistant from Wood, Pond, and Salter's Islands at the mouth of the Kennebec, and about one mile and three quarters from each. The United States light upon it is 180 feet above the level of the sea. It may be seen at the distance of twenty miles.

108. Ellingwood Rock, Seguin Ledges, and White Ledge.

109. Pond Island on the west, and Stage Island on the east: the two rocks referred to in the same sentence are now called the Sugar Loaves.

110. This was apparently in the upper part of Back River, where it is exceedingly narrow. The minute and circumstantial description of the mouth of the Kennebec, and the positive statement in the text that they entered the river so described, and the conformity of the description to that laid down on our Coast Survey Charts, as well as on Champlain's local map, all render it certain that they entered the mouth of the Kennebec proper; and having entered, they must have passed on a flood-tide into and through Back River, which in some places is so narrow that their little barque could hardly fall to be grazed in passing. Having reached Hockomock Bay, they passed down through the lower Hell Gate, rounded the southern point of West Port or Jerremisquam Island, sailing up its eastern shore until they reached the harbor of Wiscasset; then down the western side, turning Hockomock Point, threading the narrow passage of the Sasanoa River through the upper Hell Gate, entering the Sagadahoc, passing the Chops, and finally through the Neck, into Merrymeeting Bay. The narrowness of the channel and the want of water at low tide in Back River would seem at first blush to throw a doubt over the possibility of Champlain's passing through this tidal passage. But it has at least seven feet of water at high tide. His little barque, of fifteen tons, without any cargo, would not draw more than four feet at most, and would pass through without any difficulty, incommoded only by the narrowness of the channel to which Champlain refers. With the same barque, they passed over the bar at Nauset, or Mallebarre, where Champlain distinctly says there were only four feet of water.—Vide postea, p. 81.

111. West Port, or Jerremisquam Island.

112. This was Wiscasset Harbor, as farther on it will be seen that from this point they started down the river, taking another way than that by which they had come.

113. Hockomock Point, a rocky precipitous bluff.

114. The movement of the waters about this "narrow waterfall" has been a puzzle from the days of Champlain to the present time. The phenomena have not changed. Having consulted the United States Coast Pilot and likewise several persons who have navigated these waters and have a personal knowledge of the "fall," the following is, we think, a satisfactory explanation. The stream in which the fall occurs is called the Sasanoa, and is a tidal current flowing from the Kennebec, opposite the city of Bath, to the Sheepscot. It was up this tidal passage that Champlain was sailing from the waters of the Sheepscot to the Kennebec, and the "narrow waterfall" was what is now called the upper Hell Gate, which is only fifty yards wide, hemmed in by walls of rock on both sides. Above it the Sasanoa expands into a broad bay. When the tide from the Kennebec has filled this bay, the water rushes through this narrow gate with a velocity Sometimes of thirteen miles an hour. There is properly no fall in the bed of the stream, but the appearance of a fall is occasioned by the pent-up waters of the bay above rushing through this narrow outlet, having accumulated faster than they could be drained off. At half ebb, on a spring tide, a wall of water from six inches to a foot stretches across the stream, and the roar of the flood boiling over the rocks at the Gate can be heard two miles below. The tide continues to flow up the Sasanoa from the Sheepscot not only on the flood, but for some time on the ebb, as the waters in the upper part of the Sheepscot and its bays, in returning, naturally force themselves up this passage until they are sufficiently drained off to turn the current in the Sasanoa in the other direction. Champlain, sailing from the Sheepscot up the Sasanoa, arrived at the Gate probably just as the tide was beginning to turn, and when there was comparatively only a slight fall, but yet enough to make it necessary to force their little barque up through the Gate by means of hawsers as described in the text. After getting a short distance from the narrows, he would be on the water ebbing back into the Kennebec, and would be still moving with the tide, as he had been until he reached the fall.

115. Merrymeeting Bay, so called from the meeting in this bay of the two rivers mentioned in the text a little below, viz., the Kennebec and the Androscoggin.

116. The latitude of Seguin, here called Tortoise Island, is 43° 42' 25".

117. The head-waters of the Kennebec, as well as those of the Penobscot, approach very near to the Chaudière, which flows into the St. Lawrence near Quebec.

118. Casco Bay, which stretches from Cape Small Point to Cape Elizabeth. It has within it a hundred and thirty-six islands. They anchored and passed the night somewhere within the limits of this bay, but did not attempt its exploration.

119. These were the White Mountains in New Hampshire, towering above the sea 6,225 feet. They are about sixty miles distant from Casco Bay, and were observed by all the early voyagers as they sailed along the coast of Maine. They are referred to on Ribero's Map of 1529 by the Spanish word montañas, and were evidently seen by Estevan Gomez in 1525, whose discoveries are delineated by this map. They will also be found on the Mappe-Monde of about the middle of the sixteenth century, and on Sebastian Cabot's map, 1544, both included in the "Monuments de la Géographie" of Jomard, and they are also indicated on numerous other early maps.

120. This conjecture is not sustained by any evidence beyond the similarity of the names. There are numerous idle opinions as to the kind of plant which was so efficacious a remedy for the scurvy, but they are utterly without foundation. There does not appear to be any means of determining what the healing plant was.

121. The four leagues of the previous day added to the eight of this bring them from the Kennebec to Saco Bay.

122. The small island "proche de la grande terre" was Stratton Island: they anchored on the northern side and nearly east of Bluff Island, which is a quarter of a mile distant. The Indians came down to welcome them from the promontory long known as Black Point, now called Prout's Neck. Compare Champlain's local map and the United States Coast Survey Charts.

123. Champlain's narrative, together with his sketch or drawing, illustrating the mouth of the Saco and its environs, compared with the United States Coast Survey Charts, renders it certain that this was Richmond Island. Lescarbot describes it as a 'great island, about half a league in compass, at the entrance of the bay of the said place of Choüacoet It is about a mile long, and eight hundred yards in its greatest width.—Coast Pilot. It received its present name at a very early period. It was granted under the title of "a small island, called Richmond," by the Council for New England to Walter Bagnall, Dec. 2, 1631.—Vide Calendar of Eng. State Papers, Col. 1574-1660, p. 137. Concerning the death of Bagnall on this island a short time before the above grant was made, vide Winthrop's Hist. New Eng., ed. 1853, Vol. I. pp. 75, 118.

124. Lescarbot calls him Olmechin.—Histoire de la Nouvelle France, par M. Lescarbot, Paris, 1612, p. 558.

125. They had hoped that the wife of Panounias, their Indian guide, who was said to have been born among the Almouchiquois, would be able to interpret their language, but in this they appear to have been disappointed.—Vide antea, p. 55.

126. From the Indian word, M'-foo-ah-koo-et, or, as the French pronounced it, Choüacoet, which had been the name, applied by the aborigines to this locality we know not how long, is derived the name Saco, now given to the river and city in the same vicinity. The orthography given to the original word is various, as Sawocotuck, Sowocatuck, Sawakquatook, Sockhigones, and Choüacost. The variations in this, as in other Indian words, may have arisen from a misapprehension of the sound given by the aborigines, or from ignorance, on the part of writers, of the proper method of representing sounds, joined to an utter indifference to a matter which seemed to them of trifling importance.

127. Febues du Brésil. This is the well-known trailing or bush-bean of New England, Phaseolus vulgaris, called the "Brazilian bean" because it resembled a bean known in France at that time under that name. It is sometimes called the kidney-bean. It is indigenous to America.

128. Citrouilles, the common summer squash, Cucurbita polymorpha, as may be seen by reference to Champlain's map of 1612, where its form is delineated over the inscription, la forme des sitroules. It is indigenous to America. Our word squash is derived from the Indian askutasquash or isquoutersquash. "In summer, when their corne is spent, Isquoutersquashes is their best bread, a fruit like the young Pumpion."—Wood's New England Prospect, 1634, Prince Society ed., p. 76. "Askutasquash, their Vine aples, which the English from them call Squashes, about the bignesse of Apples, of severall colours, a sweet, light, wholesome refreshing."—Roger Williams, Key, 1643, Narragansett Club ed., p. 125.

129. Courges, the pumpkin, Cucurbita maxima, indigenous to America. As the pumpkin and likewise the squash were vegetables hitherto unknown to Champlain, there was no French word by which he could accurately identify them. The names given to them were such as he thought would describe them to his countrymen more nearly than any others. Had he been a botanist, he would probably have given them new names.

130. Petum. Tobacco, Nicotiana rustica, sometimes called wild tobacco. It was a smaller and more hardy species than the Nicotiana tabacum, now cultivated in warmer climates, but had the same qualities though inferior in strength and aroma. It was found in cultivation by the Indians all along our coast and in Canada. Cartier observed it growing in Canada in 1535. Of it he says: "There groweth also a certain kind of herbe, whereof in Sommer they make a great prouision for all the yeere, making great account of it, and onely men vse of it, and first they cause it to be dried in the Sunne, then weare it about their neckes wrapped in a little beasts skinne made like a little bagge, with a hollow peece of stone or wood like a pipe; then when they please they make pouder of it, and then put it in one of the ends of the said Cornet or pipe, and laying a cole of fire vpon it, at the other ende sucke so long, that they fill their bodies full of smoke, till that it commeth out of their mouth and nostrils, euen as out of the Tonnell of a chimney. They say that this doth keepe them warme and in health: they neuer goe without some of it about them. We ourselues haue tryed the same smoke, and hauing put it in our mouthes, it seemed almost as hot as Pepper."—Jacques Cartier, 2 Voyage, 1535; Hakluyt, London, ed. 1810, Vol. III. p. 276.

We may here remark that the esculents found in cultivation at Saco, beans, squashes, pumpkins, and corn, as well as the tobacco, are all American tropical or subtropical plants, and must have been transmitted from tribe to tribe, from more southern climates. The Indian traditions would seem to indicate this. "They have a tradition," says Roger Williams, "that the Crow brought them at first an Indian Graine of Corne in one Eare, and an Indian or French Beane in another, from the Great God Kautantouwit's field in the Southwest from whence they hold came all their Corne and Beanes."— Key to the Language of America, London, 1643, Narragansett Club ed., p. 144.

Seventy years before Champlain, Jacques Cartier had found nearly the same vegetables cultivated by the Indians in the valley of the St. Lawrence. He says: "They digge their grounds with certaine peeces of wood, as bigge as halfe a sword, on which ground groweth their corne, which they call Ossici; it is as bigge as our small peason…. They haue also great store of Muske-milions. Pompions, Gourds, Cucumbers, Peason, and Beanes of euery colour, yet differing from ours."—Hakluyt, Vol. II. p. 276. For a full history of these plants, the reader is referred to the History of Plants, a learned and elaborate work now in press, by Charles Pickering, M.D. of Boston.

131. The latitude of Wood Island at the mouth of the Saco, where they were at anchor, is 43° 27' 23".

132. The site of this Indian fortification was a rocky bluff on the western side of the river, now owned by Mr. John Ward, where from time to time Indian relics have been found. The island at the mouth of the river, which Champlain speaks of as a suitable location for a fortress, is Ram Island, and is low and rocky, and about a hundred and fifty yards in length.

133. For Sunday read Tuesday.—Vide Shurtless's Calendar.

134. This landing was probably near Wells Neck, and the meadows which they saw were the salt marshes of Wells.

135. The Red-wing Blackbird, Ageloeus phoeniceus, of lustrous black, with the bend of the wing red. They are still abundant in the same locality, and indeed across the whole continent to the Pacific Ocean.—Vide Cones's Key, Boston, 1872, p. 156; Baird's Report, Washington, 1858, Part II. p. 526.

136. Le Port aux Isles. This Island Harbor is the present Cape Porpoise Harbor.

137. This harbor is Goose Fair Bay, from one to two miles north-east of Cape Porpoise, in the middle of which are two large ledges, "the dangerous reefs" to which Champlain refers.

138. This was the common red currant of the gardens, Ribes rubrum, which is a native of America. The fetid currant, Ribes prostratum, is also indigenous to this country. It has a pale red fruit, which gives forth a very disagreeable odor. Josselyn refers to the currant both in his Voyages and in his Rarities. Tuckerman found it growing wild in the White Mountains.

139. The passenger pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius, formerly numerous in New England. Commonly known as the wild pigeon. Wood says they fly in flocks of millions of millions.—New England Prospect, 1634; Prince Society ed., p. 31.

140. Champlain's latitude is less inaccurate than usual. It is not possible to determine the exact point at which he took it. But the latitude of Cape Porpoise, according to the Coast Survey Charts, is 43° 21' 43".

141. Cape Anne.

142. The point at which Champlain first saw Cape Anne, and "isles assez hautes," the Isles of Shoals, was east of Little Boar's Head, and three miles from the shore. Nine years afterward, Captain John Smith visited these islands, and denominated them on his map of New England Smith's Isles. They began at a very early date to be called the Isles of Shoals. "Smith's Isles are a heape together, none neere them, against Accominticus."—Smith's Description of New England. Rouge's map, 1778, has Isles of Shoals, ou des Ecoles. For a full description and history of these islands, the reader is referred to "The Isles of Shoals," by John S. Jenness, New York, 1875.

143. Champlain has not been felicitous in his description of this bay. He probably means to say that from the point where he then was, off Little Boar's Head, to the point where it extends farthest into the land, or to the west, it appeared to be about twelve miles, and that the depth of the bay appeared to be six miles, and eight at the point of greatest depth. As he did not explore the bay, it is obvious that he intended to speak of it only as measured by the eye. No name has been assigned to this expanse of water on our maps. It washes the coast of Hampton, Salisbury, Newburyport, Ipswich, and Annisquam. It might well be called Merrimac Bay, aster the name of the important river that empties its waters into it, midway between its northern and southern extremities.

144. It is to be observed that, starting from Cape Porpoise Harbor on the morning of the 15th of July, they sailed twelve leagues before the sail of the night commenced. This would bring them, allowing for the sinuosities of the shore, to a point between Little Boar's Head and the Isles of Shoals. In this distance, they had passed the sandy shores of Wells Beach and York Beach in Maine, and Foss's Beach and Rye Beach in New Hampshire, and still saw the white Sands of Hampton and Salisbury Beaches stretching far into the bay on their right. The excellent harbor of Portsmouth, land-locked by numerous islands, had been passed unobserved. A sail of eighteen nautical miles brought them to their anchorage at the extreme point of Cape Anne.

145. Straitsmouth, Thatcher, and Milk island. They were named by Captain
John Smith the "Three Turks' Heads," in memory of the three Turks'
heads cut off by him at the siege of Caniza, by which he acquired from
Sigismundus, prince of Transylvania, their effigies in his shield for
his arms.—The true Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captaine
John Smith, London, 1629.

146. What Champlain here calls "le Cap aux Isles," Island Cape, is Cape
Anne, called Cape Tragabigzanda by Captain John Smith, the name of his
mistress, to whom he was given when a prisoner among the Turks. The
name was changed by Prince Charles, afterward Charles I., to Cape
Anne, in honor of his mother, who was Anne of Denmark.—Vide
Description of New England by Capt. John Smith, London, 1616.

147. This was the bay west of a line drawn from Little Boar's Head to Cape
Anne, which may well be called Merrimac Bay.

148. Massachusetts Bay.

149. It is interesting to observe the agreement of the sign-writing of this savage on the point of Cape Anne with the statement of the historian Gookin, who in 1656 was superintendent of Indian affairs in Massachusetts, and who wrote in 1674. He says: "Their chief sachem held dominion over many other petty governours; as those of Weechagaskas, Neponsitt, Punkapaog, Nonantam, Nashaway, and some of the Nipmuck people, as far as Pokomtacuke, as the old men of Massachusetts affirmed." Here we have the six tribes, represented by the pebbles, recorded seventy years later as a tradition handed down by the old men of the tribe. Champlain remarks further on, "I observed in the bay all that the savages had described to me at Island Cape."

150. This was the Merrimac with its shoals at the mouth, which they had passed without observing, having sailed from the offing near Little Boar's Head directly to the head of Cape Anne, during the darkness of the previous night.

151. The latitude of the Straitsmouth Island Light on the extreme point of
Cape Anne is 42° 39' 43". A little east of it, where they probably
anchored, there are now sixteen fathoms of water.

152. Emmerson's Point, forming the eastern extremity of Cape Anne, twenty
or twenty-five feet high, fringed with a wall of bare rocks on the
sea.

153. Thatcher's Island, near the point just mentioned. It is nearly half a
mile long and three hundred and fifty yards wide, and about fifty feet
high.

154. It is not possible to determine with absolute certainty the place of this anchorage. But as Champlain describes, at the end of this chapter, what must have been Charles River coming from the country of the Iroquois or the west, most likely as seen from his anchorage, there can be little doubt that he anchored in Boston Harbor, near the western limit of Noddle's Island, now known as East Boston.

155. The fishermen and fur-traders had visited these coasts from a very early period.—Vide antea, note 18. From them they obtained the axe, a most important implement in their rude mode of life, and it was occasionally found in use among tribes far in the interior.

La Cadie. Carelessness or indifference in regard to the orthography of names was general in the time of Champlain. The volumes written in the vain attempt to settle the proper method of spelling the name of Shakespeare, are the fruit of this indifference. La Cadie did not escape this treatment. Champlain writes it Arcadie, Accadie, La Cadie, Acadie, and L'Acadie; while Lescarbot uniformly, as far as we have observed, La Cadie. We have also seen it written L'Arcadie and L'Accadie, and in some, if not in all the preceding forms, with a Latin termination in ia. It is deemed important to secure uniformity, and to follow the French form in the translation of a French work rather than the Latin. In this work, it is rendered LA CADIE in all cases except in quotations. The history of the name favors this form rather than any other. The commission or charter given to De Monts by Henry IV. in 1603, a state paper or legal document, drawn, we may suppose, with more than usual care, has La Cadie, and repeats it four times without variation. It is a name of Indian origin, as may be inferred by its appearing in composition in such words as Passamacadie, Subenacadie, and Tracadie, plainly derived from the language spoken by the Souriquois and Etechemins. Fifty-five years before it was introduced into De Monts's commission, it appeared written Larcadia in Gastaldo's map of "Terra Nova del Bacalaos," in the Italian translation of Ptolemy's Geography, by Pietro Andrea Mattiolo, printed at Venice in 1548. The colophon bears date October, 1547. This rare work is in the possession of Henry C. Murphy, LL.D., to whom we are indebted for a very beautiful copy of the map. It appeared again in 1561 on the map of Ruscelli, which was borrowed, as well as the whole map, from the above work.—Vide Ruscelli's map in Dr. Kohl's Documentary History of Maine, Maine Hist. Soc., Portland, 1869, p. 233. On this map, Larcadia stands on the coast of Maine, in the midst of the vast territory included in De Monts's grant, between the degrees of forty and forty-six north latitude. It will be observed, if we take away the Latin termination, that the pronunciation of this word as it first appeared in 1547, would not differ in sound from La Cadie. It seems, therefore, very clear that the name of the territory stretching along the coast of Maine, we know not how far north or south, as it was caught from the lips of the natives at some time anterior 1547, was best represented by La Cadie, as pronounced by the French. Whether De Monts had obtained the name of his American domain from those who had recently visited the coast and had caught its sound from the natives, or whether he had taken it from this ancient map, we must remain uninformed. Several writers have ventured to interpret the word, and give us its original meaning. The following definitions have been offered: 1. The land of dogs; 2. Our village; 3. The fish called pollock; 4. Place; 5. Abundance. We do not undertake to decide between the disagreeing doctors. But it is obvious to remark that a rich field lies open ready for a noble harvest for any young scholar who has a genius for philology, and who is prepared to make a life work of the study and elucidation of the original languages of North America. The laurels in this field are still to be gathered.

156. The islands in Boston Bay.

157. This attempt to land was in Marshfield near the mouth of South River. Not succeeding, they sailed forward a league, and anchored at Brant Point, which they named the Cape of St. Louis.

158. This purslane, Portulaca oleracea, still grows vigorously among the Indian corn in New England, and is regarded with no more interest now than in 1605. It is a tropical plant, and was introduced by the Indians probably by accident with the seeds of tobacco or other plants.

159. Here at the end of the chapter Champlain seems to be reminded that he had omitted to mention the river of which he had learned, and had probably seen in the bay. This was Charles River. From the western side of Noddle's Island, or East Boston, where they were probably at anchor, it appeared at its confluence with the Mystic River to come from the west, or the country of the Iroquois. By reference to Champlain's large map of 1612, this river will be clearly identified as Charles River, in connection with Boston Bay and its numerous islands. On that map it is represented as a long river flowing from the west. This description of the river by Champlain was probably from personal observation. Had he obtained his information from the Indians, they would not have told him that it was broad or that it came from the west, for such are not the facts; but they would have represented to him that it was small, winding in its course, and that it came from the south. We infer, therefore, that he not only saw it himself, but probably from the deck of the little French barque, as it was riding at anchor in our harbor near East Boston, where Charles River, augmented by the tide, flows into the harbor from the west, in a strong, broad, deep current. They named it in honor of Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts, the commander of this expedition. Champlain writes the name "du Gas;" De Laet has "de Gua;" while Charlevoix writes "du Guast." This latter orthography generally prevails.