It is not doubted that a small plantation was maintained here antecedent to the settlement in Massachusetts Bay, but it as certainly lacks confirmation that it had assumed either the proportions or outward appearance of a well and regularly built town at any time during the seventeenth century. If it were true, as Sullivan states, that in 1630 there were, exclusive of fishermen, eighty-four families about Sheepscot, Pemaquid, and St. George's, it also becomes important to know by what means these settlements were depopulated previous to the Indian wars.
The commissioners of Charles II., sent over in 1665, reported that upon the rivers Kennebec, Sheepscot, and Pemaquid were three plantations, the largest containing not more than thirty houses, inhabited, say they, "by the worst of men." The commissioners gave impartial testimony here, for they were trying to dispossess Massachusetts of the government she had assumed over Maine since 1652. They wrote further, that neither Kittery, York, Wells, Scarborough, nor Falmouth had more than thirty houses, and those mean ones. This was the entirety of the grand old Pine-tree State two centuries ago.
Colonel Romer had recommended, about 1699, the fortifying anew of Pemaquid, and the building of supporting works at the next point of land, and on John's Island. Nothing, however, appears to have been done until the arrival of Colonel David Dunbar, in 1730, to resume possession of the Sagadahoc territory in the name of the crown.
Dunbar repaired the old works, giving them the name of Fort Frederick. At Pemaquid Point he laid out the plan of a city which he divided into lots, inviting settlers to repopulate the country. Old grants and titles were considered extinct. His possession at Pemaquid conflicting with the Muscongus patent was revoked through the efforts of Samuel Waldo. The garrison was replaced by Massachusetts troops, and the so-called Sagadahoc territory annexed to the County of York.[56]
When in the neighborhood, the visitor will feel a desire to inspect the extensive shell heaps of the Damariscotta, about a mile above the town of Newcastle. They occur on a jutting point of land, in such masses as to resemble low chalk cliffs of guano deposits. The shells are of the oyster, now no longer native in New England waters, but once abundant, as these and other remains testify. The highest point of the bank is twenty-five feet above the river. The deposits are rather more than a hundred rods in length, with a variable width of from eighty to a hundred rods. The shells lie in regular layers, bleached by sun and weather. Among the many naturalists who have visited them may be named Dr. Charles T. Jackson,[57] and Professor Chadbourne, of Bowdoin College. Some animal remains found among the shells were submitted to Agassiz, who concurred in the received opinion that the shells were heaped up by men.
From point to point excavations have been made with the expectation of finding the Indian implements which have occasionally rewarded such investigations. Williamson mentions a tradition that human skeletons had been discovered in these beds. The bones of animals and of birds have been found in them. Situated in the immediate vicinity of the shell deposits is a kiln for converting the shells into lime, which is produced of as good quality as that obtained from limestone rock.
In walking along the beach at low tide, I had an excellent opportunity of surveying these remains. A considerable growth of trees had sprung from the soil collected above them, the roots of some having penetrated completely through the superincumbent shells to the earth beneath. From an observation of several cavities near the surface and in the sides of the oyster banks, the shells, in some instances, appear to have been subjected to fire. The entire stratum was in a state of decomposition that sufficiently attests the work of years. Even those shells lying nearest the surface in most cases crumbled in the hands, while at a greater depth the closely-packed valves were little else than a heap of lime.
The shell heaps are of common occurrence all along the coast. The reader knows them for the feeding-places of the hordes preceding European civilization. Here they regaled themselves on a delicacy that disappeared when they vanished from the land. The Indians not only satisfied present hunger, but dried the oyster for winter consumption. Their summer camps were pitched in the neighborhood of well-known oyster deposits, the squaws being occupied in gathering shell-fish, while the men were engaged in fishing or in hunting.
Josselyn mentions the long-shelled oysters peculiar to these deposits. He notes them of nine inches in length from the "joint to the toe, that were to be cut in three pieces before they could be eaten." Wood professes to have seen them of a foot in length. I found many of the shells here of six inches in length. Winthrop alludes to the oyster banks of Mystic River, Massachusetts, that impeded its navigation. During recent dredgings here oyster-shells of six to eight inches in length were frequently brought to the surface. The problem of the oyster's disappearance is yet to be solved.[58]