Glimpses of the Past: History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784

by W. O. Raymond

Early in 1690 Count Frontenac dispatched an expedition from Quebec to ravage the New England settlements; their leader was Portneuf, brother of Menneval and Villebon. There were fifty French and seventy Indians in the original party, which was afterwards joined by thirty-six French and a large band of Maliseets from the St. John, also by the Indians of Passamaquoddy and Penobscot, making a war party of five hundred men. On the 26th of May they attacked the town of Falmouth—now Portland. The inhabitants fled for protection within the ramparts of Fort Loyal. At the expiration of four or five days the garrison was obliged to surrender and Portneuf promised the vanquished quarter and a guard to the nearest English town. The terms of surrender were shamefully violated, Fort Loyal and Falmouth were reduced to ashes and over one hundred men, women and children murdered by the savages. From May to October their bodes lay exposed to the elements and wild beasts but were finally buried by Major Benjamin Church as he passed on an expedition to the eastward.

To revenge themselves on the French, whom they regarded as the instigators of this savage warfare, the New Englanders fitted out an expedition under Sir William Phips which captured Port Royal and carried Menneval, the governor, away a prisoner. His brother Villebon, who suceeded to the command, concluded to abandon Port Royal and to re-establish the post at the mouth of the Jemseg on the River St. John.

Villebon, with all his faults, is one of the most picturesque characters in the history of Acadia. He was greatly admired by the savages who deemed him to be every inch a chief. Diereville, the poet historian, saw him at St. John in 1700 and describes him as “a great man of fine appearance and full of energy.” Having served for several years in a subordinate capacity at Port Royal he was now called upon to fill a difficult position and it must be confessed he acted with zeal and ability. Adverse fortune embittered him at the outset. Two pirate vessels came to Port Royal while he was absent preparing for his removal to the St. John river. These marauders burned the houses and killed the cattle; they even hanged two of the inhabitants and burned a woman and her children in her own dwelling. What was still worse for Villebon they captured the ship Union, just arrived from France with merchandize, provisions, ammunition and presents for the savages.

Villebon was well fitted for such an emergency as this; he assembled his dusky allies, explained the loss of their presents and offered himself to go to their great father, the King of France, for more. The Indians pledged their fidelity and promised him one hundred and fifty warriors the next spring to aid him in his designs against the English.

At the court of France Villebon was favorably received and returned with a commission from the king to command in Acadia. Soon after he abandoned the Jemseg Fort and moved up the river to the mouth of the Nashwaak where in the upper angle formed by the junction of that river with the St. John he built in 1692 a new fort which he called Fort St. Joseph. It was an ordinary palisaded fort about 120 feet square, with four bastions, and had eight cannon mounted. In the old French documents of the period it is usually called Fort Nachouac, with many varieties of spelling, such as Naxoat, Naxouac, Natchouak, etc. The older French 41 maps place the fort on the south, or Fredericton side of the river, but there can be no doubt as to its proper location in the upper angle formed by the junction of the River Nashwaak with the St. John. The greater portion of the site has been washed away, but traces of the ramparts were visible within the memory of those yet living and many cannon balls and other relics have been found in the vicinity.

Villebon had now been some years in Acadia, for Bishop St. Vallier says that he was in command of the garrison at Port Royal at the time of his visit there in 1686. He had ample opportunity of becoming familiar with the country and its native inhabitants, and was in this way fitted to second the ambitious designs of the French, which embraced the destruction of New York and the conquest of New England.

When Count Frontenac came out to Quebec in 1689, to fill for the second time the position of Governor and Commander-in-Chief of New France, he was in his seventieth year, yet his old time vigor and determination were unabated. It was part of his plan to avail himself of the hostility of the savages to wear down and discourage the English settlers and so to pave the way for French supremacy. He had no abler lieutenants in the work he had undertaken than the sons of Charles le Moyne, of whom Villebon, Portneuf and d’Iberville were particularly conspicuous in the Indian wars. Immediately after his arrival, Frontenac encouraged the savages to begin those operations against the English settlements known in the history of New England as the “winter raids.” Montague Chamberlain tersely describes the situation thus: “Frontenac decided that he could only succeed in holding Canada for the French crown by enlisting the aid of the savages, and to secure that aid he must permit them to make war in their own savage way, and so from all the doomed hamlets came the same horrifying tale—houses burned, men, women and children slaughtered or carried into captivity.”

It is difficult at this distant day to conceive the horrors of the savage warfare that prevailed at this time on the New England frontiers. The Indians roamed over the country like wolves, and the white settlers never knew when their appalling war whoop would ring in their startled ears. It was an age of cruelty and the outrages perpetrated provoked reprisals on the part of the New Englanders. The close alliance between the Indians and the French, and the fact that in several of the raids the savages were led by French officers, led to a bitter race hatred and mutual distrust between the descendants of the Saxon and the Gaul, which lasted for generations.

In the course of the desultory warfare that followed the destruction of Falmouth, more than 200 houses were burned in various parts of the country, and Frontenac himself speaks of the ravages of the savages as “impossible to describe.” On the 5th February, 1692, they raided the frontier settlement of York, which they left in ashes after killing about seventy-five persons and taking 100 prisoners—among those killed was the venerable Mr. Dummer, the minister of the place.

With the opening of the spring time Villebon received a delegation of 100 warriors of the Kennebec and Penobscot tribes at his fort. The visitors were welcomed with imposing ceremonies; there was the usual interchange of compliments and 42 speeches by the chiefs and captains, presents from the king were distributed and the inevitable banquet followed with its mirth and revelry. It was agreed at this conference to organize a great war party. Couriers were dispatched to summon all the tribes of Acadia and the response was general. The site of what is now the village of Gibson, opposite Fredericton, was dotted with the encampments of the Indians, and as the warriors arrived and departed, arrayed in their war paint and feathers, the scene was animated and picturesque. The Maliseets of the St. John sent their delegation from Medoctec, the Micmacs of the Miramichi arrived a few days later, and then came another band of Micmacs from Beaubassin (or Chignecto), accompanied by Father Baudoin, their priest. Speeches of welcome, presents and feasts were made in turn to all, and each band proceeded by the old and well known route[6] to the rendezvous on the Penobscot, near Oldtown (Maine.) Here there gathered a war party of at least 400 men, including a score of Frenchmen. Their first attack was made on the little village of Wells, where there were only some thirty men to resist the attack, but they were led by Captain Converse, a very courageous and determined officer, who had already tried the mettle of the savages and who was not to be overawed even by overwhelming numbers. The attacking party advanced with hideous yells, firing and calling on the English to surrender, but the bullets of the defenders was the only answer they received. Even the women of the settlement took part in the fight, passing ammunition to the men, loading their guns, and sometimes themselves firing on the enemy.