“One winter,” he says, “as we were moving from place to place our hunters killed some moose. One lying some miles from our wigwams, a young Indian and myself were ordered to fetch part of it. We set out in the morning when the weather was promising, but it proved a very cold cloudy day.
“It was late in the evening before we arrived at the place where the moose lay, so that we had no time to provide materials for a fire or shelter. At the same time came on a storm of snow very thick which continued until the next morning. We made a small fire with what little rubbish we could find around us. The fire with the warmth of our bodies melted the snow upon us as fast as it fell and so our clothes were filled with water. However, early in the morning we took our loads of moose flesh, and set out to return to our wigwams. We had not travelled far before my moose-skin coat (which was the only garment I had on my back, and the hair chiefly worn off) was frozen stiff round my knees, like a hoop, as were my snow-shoes and shoe clouts to my feet. Thus I marched the whole day without fire or food. At first I was in great pain, then my flesh became numb, and at times I felt extremely sick and thought I could not travel one foot farther; but I wonderfully revived again. After long travelling I felt very drowsy, and had thoughts of sitting down, which had I done, without doubt I had fallen on my final sleep. My Indian companion, being better clothed, had left me long before. Again my spirits revived as much as if I had received the richest cordial.
“Some hours after sunset I reached the wigwam, and crawling in with my snow-shoes on, the Indians cried out, ‘The captive is frozen to death!’ They took off my pack and the place where that lay against my back was the only one that was not frozen. They cut off my snow-shoes and stripped off the clouts from my feet, which were as void of feeling as any frozen flesh could be.
“I had not sat long by the fire before the blood began to circulate and my feet to my ankles turned black and swelled with bloody blisters and were inexpressibly painful. The Indians said one to another: ‘His feet will rot, and he will die;’ yet I slept well at night. Soon after the skin came off my feet from my ankles whole, like a shoe, leaving my toes without a nail and the ends of my great toe bones bare.... The Indians gave me rags to bind up my feet and advised me to apply fir balsam, but withal added that they believed it was not worth while to use means for I should certainly die. But by the use of my elbows and a stick in each hand I shoved myself along as I sat upon the ground over the snow from one tree to another till I got some balsam. This I burned in a clam shell till it was of a consistence like salve, which I applied to my feet and ankles and, by the divine blessing, within a week I could go about upon my heels with my staff; and through God’s goodness we had provisions enough, so that we did not remove under ten or fifteen days. Then the Indians made two little hoops, something in the form of a snow-shoe, and sewing them to my feet I was able to follow them in their tracks on my heels from place to place, though sometimes half leg deep in snow and water, which gave me the most acute pain imaginable; but I must walk or die. 72 Yet within a year my feet were entirely well, and the nails came on my great toes so that a very critical eye could scarcely perceive any part missing, or that they had been frozen at all.”
We turn now to the consideration of the state of affairs on the St. John after the removal of the seat of government from Fort Nachouac to Menagoueche and subsequently to Port Royal.
After the retirement of the French from the river, at the close of the seventeenth century, our knowledge of that region for the next thirty years is small. We know, however, that the Maliseets continued hostile to the English. War parties from the St. John united with the neighboring tribes, roaming over the country like hungry wolves, prowling around the towns and settlements of New England, carrying terror and destruction wherever they went. The resentment inspired by their deeds was such that the legislatures of Massachusetts and New Hampshire offered a bounty of £40 for the scalp of every adult male Indian.
For sixty years Indian wars followed in rapid succession. They are known in history as King William’s war, Queen Anne’s war, Lovewell’s or Dummer’s war and King George’s war. In nearly every instance the Indian raids were instigated or encouraged by their French allies, who feared that otherwise the English would win them and thereby gain the country.
Civil and ecclesiastical authority in France were at this time very closely united. The missionaries of New France were appointed and removed by the authorities at Quebec and received an annual stipend from the crown, and however diligent the missionary might be in his calling, or however pure his life, he was liable to be removed unless he used his influence to keep the savages in a state of hostility to the English. The Maliseet villages on the St. John, the Penobscot and the Kennebec rivers were regarded as buttresses against English encroachments in the direction of Canada, and the authorities at Quebec relied much upon the influence of the missionaries to keep the savages loyal to France.
The first missionary at the Medoctec village, of whom we have any accurate information, was Father Simon, who has already been frequently mentioned in the extracts from John Gyles’ narrative. He belonged to the order of the Recollets, founded early in the 13th century by St. Francis of Assissi. The missionaries of that order began their labors on the St. John as early as 1620; they came to Acadia from Aquitane. Father Simon was a man of activity and enterprise as well as of religious zeal. He did all that lay in his power to promote the ascendency of his country-men in the land they loved to call “New France,” but his influence with the Indians was always exercised on the side of humanity. On this point Gyles’ testimony is conclusive. He says: “The priest of this river was of the order of St. Francis, a gentleman of a humane generous disposition. In his sermons he most severely reprehended the Indians for their barbarities to captives. He would often tell them that excepting their errors in religion the English were a better people than themselves.”
We have no exact information as to the number of years Father Simon labored at Medoctec, but he died near the close of the century. Governor Villebon in December, 1698, wrote, “Father Simon is sick at Jemseg,” and as his name does not 73 again appear in the annals of that time it is probable that his sickness proved mortal. He was succeeded in his mission by one of the Jesuit fathers, Joseph Aubery, who came to Medoctec about 1701, remaining there seven years. He then took charge of the Abenaki mission of St. Francis, where he continued for 46 years and died at the age of 82. Chateaubriand drew from his character and career materials for one of the characters in his well known romance “Atala.”