The stage route from the Grand Falls to St. John passes through Woodstock, but the distance from this place to the American town of Houlton is ten miles, and in this direction there is also an established stage route to Bangor.
The next place on the St. John of any note is French Village. It usually contains a thousand souls—most of them Indians. They live in frame and log houses, and though they pretend to do some farming, they are chiefly engaged in hunting and fishing. They are a good-looking race, speak English fluently, and are the followers of a Catholic priest, who lives among them, and officiates in a small chapel which was built by the Jesuits at an early day. This society is said to be one of the most wealthy in the province. The chief of the village is one Louis Beir. He lives in a very comfortable and well-furnished house, is rather a handsome man, dresses in a half-savage manner, and while he offers his visitor a comfortable chair, he invariably seats himself upon the floor in the true Indian fashion.
Frederickton is at the head of the steamboat navigation, and distant from St. John eighty miles. Between these two places there runs a morning and evening boat, and the summer travel is quite extensive. Frederickton contains about eight thousand inhabitants, composed, principally, of Irish, Scotch and English. It contains three principal streets, running north and south, and some half dozen handsome public buildings, including an Episcopal church, after the Tuscan order, a court house and a college. The town is situated on a level plain, and its suburbs are made exceeding beautiful by the number of rural residences which attract the eye in every direction. The elm and poplar both seem to flourish here, and add much to the picturesqueness of the place and vicinity. The business of Frederickton is only of a second-rate character, and it has become what it is, merely from the fact that it has heretofore been the seat of government. This fact has also had a tendency to collect a good society in the place, and its “ton,” though in a small way, have been disposed to cut quite a dash. The “mother Parliament,” I believe, has recently removed the seat of government to St. John, and the lovers of Frederickton are sorry and a little angry.
The city of St. John stands at the mouth of the river of that name, and is also laved by the waters of the Bay of Fundy. I hate cities, but suppose that I must stop a moment in the one alluded to. It is a business place, planted among rocks, contains some twenty thousand inhabitants, (two-thirds of whom are Irish,) and in this port, at the present time, is moored a fleet of two hundred ships. Its public buildings are numerous, the finest of which are the court house, an Episcopal church of the Doric order, another after the Gothic, and a Presbyterian church after the Corinthian order. The city is defended by a fortress, which presents a handsome appearance as you approach the port. The merchants of the place are chiefly employed in the square timber trade, and have, heretofore, done an extensive business. This trade, however, I am inclined to believe, is rapidly running out. On the opposite side of the St. John River is a picturesque point or hill, which is called Carlton Hill. It is surmounted by a massive block-house, and commands an extensive view of the Bay of Fundy, the spring tides of which rise to the height of sixty feet, and when coming in, make a terrible roar.
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Penobscot River.
Off the Coast of Maine, July.
One week ago I was fighting with musquetoes and flies, on the head waters of the Penobscot, and now that I am upon the ocean once more, I fancy that my feelings are allied to those of an old moose that I lately saw standing in a mountain lake, with the water up to his chin. The noble river which I have mentioned, is all my fancy painted it, and in spite of its insect inhabitants, I shall ever remember it with pleasure.
The length of this stream from the mouth of its bay to where its principal branches come together, is about one hundred and forty miles; from this junction, to the fountain head of the west branch, the distance is supposed to be one hundred and fifty miles, while the east branch is probably only one hundred miles in length. Both of these streams rise in the midst of a mountain wilderness, looming above which is old Kathaden, the loftiest mountain in Maine, and elder brother to Mount Washington, in New Hampshire. The mountain is distant from Moosehead Lake only about twenty miles, but it towers into the sky so grandly, that nearly all the people who inhabit the northern part of Maine look upon it as a familiar friend. The two branches of the Penobscot run through a mountainous region, both of them abounding in rapids, though the west branch contains a number of picturesque falls. The soil of this region, generally speaking, is good, but remains in its original wildness. Its stationary inhabitants are few and far between; but it gives employment to about three thousand lumbermen. They spend the winter wielding the axe in the forests, and the spring and summer in driving down the stream logs which they have prepared for the saw-mills, which are mostly located on the lower part of the Penobscot. Nine months in the year they labor without ceasing, but usually appropriate to themselves a play spell of three months, which is the entire autumn. They are a young and powerfully built race of men, mostly New Englanders, generally unmarried, and, though rude in their manner, and intemperate, are quite intelligent. They seem to have a passion for their wild and toilsome life, and, judging from their dresses, I should think possess a fine eye for the comic and fantastic. The entire apparel of an individual usually consists of a pair of gray pantaloons and two red flannel shirts, a pair of long boots, and a woollen covering for the head, and all these things are worn at one and the same time. The head-covering alluded to, when first purchased, is what might be called a hat, but the wearers invariably take particular pains to transform the article into such queer shapes as to render it indescribable. Sometimes they take the crown and tie it in the shape of a fool’s cap, and sometimes they trim the rims with a jack knife into many different fashions. Their wages vary from twenty to thirty dollars per month, and they are chiefly employed by the lumber merchants of Bangor, who furnish them with necessary supplies.