Voyages of Samuel De Champlain — Volume 02

by Samuel de Champlain

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.