Voyages of Samuel De Champlain — Volume 02

by Samuel de Champlain

The description here given of the barrenness of the island clearly suggests the origin of the name. Desert should therefore be pronounced with the accent on the first syllable. The latitude of the most northern limit of the island is 44° 24'.

93. Penobscot. The name of this river has been variously written Pentagoet, Pentagwet, Pemptegoet, Pentagovett, Penobskeag, Penaubsket, and in various other ways. The English began early to write it Penobscot. It is a word of Indian origin, and different meanings have been assigned to it by those who have undertaken to interpret the language from which it is derived.

94. The Abbé Laverdière is of the opinion that the river Norumbegue was identical with the Bay of Fundy. His only authority is Jean Alfonse, the chief pilot of Roberval in 1541-42. Alfonse says; "Beyond the cape of Noroveregue descends the river of the said Noroveregue, which is about twenty-five leagues from the cape. The said river is more than forty leagues broad at its mouth, and extends this width inward well thirty or forty leagues, and is all full of islands which enter ten or twelve leagues into the sea, and it is very dangerous with rocks and reefs." If the cape of Norumbegue is the present Cape Sable, as it is supposed to be, by coasting along the shores of Nova Scotia from that cape in a north-westerly direction a little more than twenty leagues, we shall reach St. Mary's Bay, which may be regarded as the beginning of the Bay of Fundy, and from that point in a straight line to the mouth of the Penobscot the distance is more than forty leagues, which was the breadth of the Norumbegue at its mouth, according to the statement of Alfonse. The Abbé Laverdière is not quite correct in saying that the river Norumbegue is the same as the Bay of Fundy. It includes, according to Alfonse, who is not altogether consistent with himself, not only the Bay of Fundy, but likewise the Penobscot River and the bay of the same name, with its numerous islands. Alfonse left a drawing or map of this region in his Cosmography, which Laverdière had not probably seen, on which the Bay of Fundy and the Penobscot are correctly laid down, and the latter is designated the "Rivière de Norvebergue." It is therefore obvious, if this map can be relied upon, that the river of Norumbegue was identical, not with the Bay of Fundy, but with the Penobscot, in the opinion of Alfonse, in common with the "plusieurs pilottes et historiens" referred to by Champlain.—Vide copy of the Chart from the MS. Cosmography of Juan Alfonse in Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, in Mr. Murphy's Voyage of Verrazzano, New York, 1875.

95. An indefinite region about Rockland and Camden, on the western bank of
the Penobscot near its mouth, appears to have been the domain of the
Indian chief, Bessabez, and was denominated Bedabedec. The Camden Hills
were called the mountains of Bedabedec, and Owl's Head was called
Bedabedec Point.

96. Isle Haute, high island, which name it still retains. Champlain wrote
it on his map, 1632, "Isle Haulte." It has been anglicized by some into
Isle Holt. It is nearly six miles long, and has an average width of
over two miles, and is the highest land in its vicinity, reaching at
its highest point four hundred feet above the level of the sea.

97. Camden Hills or Mountains. They are five or six in number, from 900 to 1,500 feet high, and maybe seen, it is said, twenty leagues at sea. The more prominent are Mt. Batty, Mt. Pleasant, and Mt. Hosmer, or Ragged Mountain. They are Sometimes called the Megunticook Range. Colonel Benjamin Church denominates them "Mathebestuck's Hills,"—Vide Church's History of King Philip's War, Newport, 1772, p. 143. Captain John Smith calls them the mountains of Penobscot, "against whose feet doth beat the sea." which, he adds, "you may well see sixteen or eighteen leagues from their situation."

98. This narrow place in the river is just above Castine, where Cape Jellison stretches out towards the east, at the head of the bay, and at the mouth of the river. At the extremity of the cape is Fort Point, so called from Fort Pownall, erected there in 1759, a step rocky elevation of about eighty feet in height. Before the erection of the fort by Governor Pownall, it was called Wafaumkeag Point.—Vide Pownall's Journal, Col. Me. His. Soc., Vol. V. p. 385. The "rock" alluded to by Champlain is Fort Point Ledge, bare at half tide, south-east by east from the Point, and distant over half a mile. Champlain's distances here are somewhat overestimated.

99. The terminus of this exploration of the Penobscot was near the present site of the city of Bangor. The small river near the mouth of which they anchored was the Kenduskeag. The falls which Champlain visited with the Indians in a canoe are those a short distance above the city. The sentence, a few lines back, beginning "But excepting this fall" is complicated, and not quite logical, but the author evidently means to describe the river from its mouth to the place of their anchorage at Bangor.

100. The interview with the Indians on the 16th, and the taking of the altitude on the 17th, must have occurred before the party left their anchorage at Bangor with the purpose, but which they did not accomplish that year, of visiting the Kennebec. This may be inferred from Champlain's statement that the Kennebec was thirty-five leagues distant from the place where they then were, and nearly twenty leagues distant from Bedabedec. Consequently, they were fifteen leagues above Bedabedec, which was situated near the mouth of the river. The latitude, which they obtained from their observations, was far from correct: it should be 44° 46'.

101. The Indian chief Cabahis here points out two trails, the one leading to the French habitation just established on the Island of St. Croix, the other to Quebec; by the former, passing up the Penobscot from the present site of Bangor, entering the Matawamkeag, keeping to the east in their light bark canoes to Lake Boscanhegan, and from there passing by land to the stream then known as the river of the Etechemins, now called the Scoudic or St. Croix. The expression "by which they come to the river of St. Croix" is explanatory: it has no reference to the name of the river, but means simply that the trail leads to the river in which was the island of St. Croix. This river had not then been named St. Croix, but had been called by them the river of the Etechemins.—Vide antea, p. 31.