The young sailor whose earthly career was thus suddenly terminated, whose name even has not come down to us, was doubtless the first European, if we except Thorvald, the Northman, whose mortal remains slumber in the soil of Massachusetts.
As this voyage of discovery had been planned and provisioned for only six weeks, and more than five had already elapsed, on the 25th of July De Monts and his party left Nauset harbor, to join the colony still lingering at St. Croix. In passing the bar, they came near being wrecked, and consequently gave to the harbor the significant appellation of Port de Mallebarre, a name which has not been lost, but nevertheless, like the shifting sands of that region, has floated away from its original moorings, and now adheres to the sandy cape of Monomoy.
On their return voyage, they made a brief stop at Saco, and likewise at the mouth of the Kennebec. At the latter point they had an interview with the sachem, Anassou, who informed them that a ship had been there, and that the men on board her had seized, under color of friendship, and killed five savages belonging to that river. From the description given by Anassou, Champlain was convinced that the ship was English, and subsequent events render it quite certain that it was the "Archangel," fitted out by the Earl of Southampton and Lord Arundel of Wardour, and commanded by Captain George Weymouth. The design of the expedition was to fix upon an eligible site for a colonial plantation, and, in pursuance of this purpose, Weymouth anchored off Monhegan on the 28th of May, 1605, new style, and, after spending a month in explorations of the region contiguous, left for England on the 26th of June. [48] He had seized and carried away five of the natives, having concealed them in the hold of his ship, and Anassou, under the circumstances, naturally supposed they had been killed. The statement of the sachem, that the natives captured belonged to the river where Champlain then was, namely, the Kennebec, goes far to prove that Weymouth's explorations were in the Kennebec, or at least in the network of waters then comprehended under that appellation, and not in the Penobscot or in any other river farther east, as some historical writers have supposed.
It would appear that while the French were carefully surveying the coasts of New England, in order to fix upon an eligible site for a permanent colonial settlement, the English were likewise upon the ground, engaged in a similar investigation for the same purpose. From this period onward, for more than a century and a half, there was a perpetual conflict and struggle for territorial possession on the northern coast of America, between these two great nations, sometimes active and violent, and at others subsiding into a semi-slumber, but never ceasing until every acre of soil belonging to the French had been transferred to the English by a solemn international compact.
On this exploration, Champlain noticed along the coast from Kennebec to Cape Cod, and described several objects in natural history unknown in Europe, such as the horse-foot crab, [49] the black skimmer, and the wild turkey, the latter two of which have long since ceased to visit this region.
ENDNOTES:
34. De Monts's Island. Of this island Champlain says: "This place was named by Sieur De Monts the Island of St. Croix."—Vide Vol. II. p. 32, note 86. St. Croix has now for a long time been applied as the name of the river in which this island is found. The French denominated this stream the River of the Etechemins, after the name of the tribe of savages inhabiting its shores. Vide Vol. II. p. 31. It continued to be so called for a long time. Denys speaks of it under this name in 1672. "Depuis la riviere de Pentagouet, jusques à celle de saint Jean, il pent y avoir quarante à quarante cinq lieues; la première rivière que l'on rencontre le long de la coste, est celle des Etechemins, qui porte le nom du pays, depuis Baston jusques au Port royal, dont les Sauvages qui habitent toute cette étendue, portent aussi le mesme nom."—Description Géographique et Historique des Costes de L'Amerique Septentrionale, par Nicholas Denys, Paris, 1672, p. 29, et verso.
35. Champlain had, by his own explorations and by consulting the Indians, obtained a very full and accurate knowledge of this island at his first visit, on the 5th of September, 1604, when he named it Monts-déserts, which we preserve in the English form, MOUNT DESERT. He observed that the distance across the channel to the mainland on the north side was less than a hundred paces. The rocky and barren summits of this cluster of little mountains obviously induced him to give to the island its appropriate and descriptive name Vide Vol. II. p. 39. Dr. Edward Ballard derives the Indian name of this island, Pemetiq, from pemé'te, sloping, and ki, land. He adds that it probably denoted a single locality which was taken by Biard's company as the name of the whole island. Vide Report of U. S. Coast Survey for 1868, p. 253.
36. Penobscot is a corruption of the Abnaki pa'na8a'bskek. A nearly exact translation is "at the fall of the rock," or "at the descending rock." Vide Trumball's Ind. Geog. Names, Collections Conn. His. Society, Vol. II. p. 19. This name was originally given probably to some part of the river to which its meaning was particularly applicable. This may have been at the mouth of the river a Fort Point, a rocky elevation not less than eighty feet in height. Or it may have been the "fall of water coming down a slope of seven or eight feet," as Champlain expresses it, a short distance above the site of the present city of Bangor. That this name was first obtained by those who only visited the mouth of the river would seem to favor the former supposition.
37. Dr. Edward Ballard supposes the original name of this stream, Kadesquit, to be derived from kaht, a Micmac word, for eel, denoting eel stream, now corrupted into Kenduskeag. The present site of the city of Bangor is where Biard intended to establish his mission in 1613, but he was finally induced to fix it at Mount Desert—Vide Relations des Jésuites, Quebec ed., Vol. I. p. 44.