Kate Wells - Campobello - An Historical Sketch

For those who are desirous of exact knowledge concerning thep "Story of the Boundary Line," and the political history of Eastport and its vicinity, there is no more comprehensive work than that by William Henry Kilby, Esq., entitled, "Eastport and Passamaquoddy." To him, and also to two friends who kindly gave me the names of a few of the Island flowers, do I express my gratitude.

THE mysterious charms of ancestry and yellow parchment, of petitions to the admiralty and royal grants of land, of wild scenery and feudal loyalty, of rough living and knightly etiquette, have long clustered round a little island off the coast of Maine, called on the charts Passamaquoddy Outer Island, but better known under the more pleasing name of Campobello.

Its Discovery.It belongs to the region first discovered by the French, who, under Sieur De Monts, in the spring of 1604, sailed along the shores of Nova Scotia, and gave the name of Isle of Margos (magpies) to the four perilous islands now called The Wolves; beheld Manthane (now Grand Manan); sailed up the St. Croix; and established themselves on one of its islands, which they called the Isle of St. Croix. The severity of the winter drove them in the following summer to Annapolis, and for more than a hundred and fifty years little was known of this part of the country, though the River St. Croix first formed the boundary between Acadia and New England, and later the boundary between the Provinces of Nova Scotia and Massachusetts Bay.

Campobello itself could scarcely be said to have a history till towards the end of the eighteenth century. Moose roamed over the swamps and looked down from the bold headlands; Indians crossed from the mainland and shot them; straggling Frenchmen, dressing in skins, built huts along the northern and southern shores, till civilization dawned through the squatter sovereignty of two men, Hunt and Flagg. They planted the apple trees whose gnarled branches still remain to tell of the winter storms that howled across the plains, and converted the moose-yards into a field of oats, for the wary, frightened animals vacated their hereditary land in favor of these usurpers. Their mercantile skill taught them how to use, for purposes of trade rather than for private consumption, the shoals of fish which it was firmly believed Providence sent into the bay.

Post Office.There were not enough inhabitants to justify the maintenance of a post office till 1795; then the mails came once in two weeks. Lewis Frederic Delesdernier was the resonant, high sounding name of the first postmaster who lived at Flagg's Point (the Narrows). But when a post office was opened in Eastport, in 1805, this little Island one was abandoned, or rather it dwindled out of existence before the larger one established by Admiral Owen at Welsh Pool.

Welsh Pool.The Narrows, because of its close proximity to the mainland, was a favorite place of abode in those early days. Yet Friar's Bay, two miles to the north, was a safe place for boats in easterly storms; and thus, before the advent of the Owens, a hamlet had clustered around what is now called Welsh Pool. A Mr. Curry was the pioneer. The house opposite the upper entrance to the Owen domain was called Curry House until it became "the parsonage," a name abandoned when the present rectory was built. Curry traded with the West Indies, and owned, it is said, two brigs and a bark.

People also gathered at the upper end of the Island, Wilson's Beach, and on the road between Sarawac and Conroy's Bridge, where there were several log houses.

Garrison's Grandparents.That some kind of a magistrate or minister even then was on the Island is attested by the fact that William Lloyd Garrison's grandparents, Andrew Lloyd and Mary Lawless, chanced to come to Nova Scotia on the same ship from Ireland, and were married to each other "the day after they had landed at Campobello, March 30, 1771." Lloyd became a commissioned pilot at Quoddy, and died in 1813. His wife was the first person buried in Deer Island. Their daughter Fanny was Garrison's mother.

Many of the early inhabitants were Tories from New York. Some were of Scotch origin, especially those who lived on the North Road.

Captain Storrow.Among these settlers was a young British officer, Captain Thomas Storrow, who, while he was prisoner of war, fell in love with Ann Appleton, a young girl of Portsmouth, N.H. In vain did her family object, "British officers being less popular then than now; but young love prevailed," and the marriage, which took place in 1777, "was a happy one." Captain Storrow took his bride to England; but after a while sailed for Halifax, where they remained "nearly two years." In 1785 they went to St. Andrews. Through the courtesy of their grandson, Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the following extract is given from a manuscript sketch of the life of Mrs. Storrow, prepared by her niece, Mrs. Norman Williams:—

False Sale."Soon after this (1785) they removed to Campobello, which had been purchased by Mr. Butler and Captain Storrow. There were two houses on the Island, one for each family, and here they lived very happily and pleasantly. There was always a garrison at St. Andrews, and a ship of war stationed near Campobello; so Captain Storrow had congenial society, and they had many pleasant lady friends, and, as their hospitality was unbounded, they were seldom without company at one or the other of the houses.... All was bright and prosperous. But a change came. In 1790 or 1791 the Butlers and Captain Storrow had gone to Halifax on business, and Mrs. Storrow was left alone with her children on the Island, when a notice was served to her that she must quit the Island immediately, as it had been sold to them under a false title, and the real owner had come to take possession. The Island had been granted by William Pitt to his former tutor, David Owen, a hard man who would not move from the position he had taken. Mrs. Storrow sent to my father, who was her husband's lawyer, and he, with some other gentlemen, chartered a sloop and brought the family to St. Andrews, where a house was already prepared for them. Here they remained a year or more. But Capt. Storrow's finances were so crippled by the loss of Campobello that he and his family sailed for Jamaica, where he had a small estate."

William Owen.David Owen, to whom this manuscript referred, was a cousin of William Owen, through whom the Island became connected by royal gift and by romance with the fortunes of his immediate descendants. As naval officer William Owen had been "in all the service and enterprise where ships, boats, and seamen were employed," had labored at Bengal for the re-establishment of the affairs of the East India Company, and had fought under Clive. At the blockade of Pondicherry he lost his right arm, and the Sunderland, to which he belonged, having foundered, he was ordered to England. Broken in spirit and weak in body, the copy of what was presumably his memorial to the Admiralty in 1761 has a piteous sound. It begins:—

His Petition."My Lord, permit me, with the most profound respect, to lay by your Lordship a true State of my past service, with the accidents that happened to me during the same, praying your Lordship not to judge hard of me, in being reduced to the disagreeable necessity of doing that myself which would appear in a much more favorable light were any of my Friends in Town who could take the Liberty of Introducing me to your Lordship." After recounting the services he rendered, and the injuries he received, he ends with these words: "I beg you will be pleased to represent to the Right Honorable the Lords of the Admiralty that I am the person mentioned in Admiral Steuen's [the spelling is illegible] Letter to have lost my Right Arm, when I had the Honor of Commanding one of the Divisions of Boats ordered by him to cut out the Two French Ships, La Baline and Hermione, from under the Guns of Pondicherry, on the 7th of October last, and that I had been wounded before in that country with a Musket Ball, which lodged in my Body above three years and a half. My long service in the East Indies, together with the Wounds I received, having greatly impaired my health, lays me under a necessity to be the more urgent with you on this occasion, that I may the sooner go into the Country to endeavor to re-establish the same, as well as to see my Friends, from whom I have been above nine years absent. Let me, therefore, Sir, entreat you to move their Lordships in my behalf, humbly praying that they will be pleased to direct something to be done for me, either by Gratuity, Pension, or Preferment, such as their Lordships may deem me to deserve."