Campobello Part 2

=The Admiral's Stock Company.= Among other doc.u.ments belonging to the period of the Admiral's active life on the Island is a pamphlet printed in London in 1839, ent.i.tled "The Campobello Mill and Manufacturing Company in New Brunswick, British North America."

This Company was incorporated June 1, 1839, with a capital of $400,000 in two thousand shares at $200 each; interest at 6 per cent. was guaranteed on all sums actually paid on the shares, secured on the fixed property on the Islands and responsibility of the Company. The President was William Fitz-William Owen. There were also six Directors, who were all in official life, with the exception of "John Burnett, Esq., of Campobello, Merchant." The property, says the pamphlet, "is valued at $100,000, and offers available means of employing five times the capital." The returns in four or five years would probably be twenty-five per cent, on the capital. The situation of the Island "is extremely commodious for commerce with Great Britain, the West Indies, and the United States." An early prospectus of the Company's extols the situation, because, by order of His Majesty in Council, Campobello was const.i.tuted a free Warehousing Port. Jacob Allan, Deputy Surveyor and Commissioner of Crown Lands, "certifies that there is now standing a sufficient quant.i.ty of spruce and pine of the finest growth for saw logs to keep four double saw-mills going for the s.p.a.ce of forty years; that is, perpetually.... The fisheries on the coasts of the Island were let this year by the Company for near 400, and fish were taken on the coasts to the amount of 3,000." It is also "stated that there is a large quant.i.ty of ore about Liberty Point." The Company was incorporated "for the purposes of erecting, using, and employing all descriptions of mills, mill-dams, fulling and carding machinery, and will have a decided advantage over any other spot in British America." "The population would thus grow rapidly, and the Company, having the property of the whole coast, must become the medium of all exchanges with all the population, which now amounts to six hundred only."

Alas, the Admiral's dreams have never been realized. The saw-mills which were built long ago fell into decay. The ores, if there are any, are still unexplored; agriculture does not flourish; the fisheries have decreased, herring are scarce; and the various changes in the imposition of duties have perplexed and thwarted the business activity of the Islanders.

=Admiral's Second Marriage.= Year after year the Admiral saw his hopes deferred. Lady Owen had died. His daughter, Mrs. Robinson Owen, and her children, still lived in the Island home, helping, teaching, guiding all around them with kindliness and wisdom. But the Admiral spent most of the last five years of his life at St. John, for he married a Mrs.

Nicholson of that city, whose maiden name was Vennell.

=His Burial.= His strange, pioneer, semi-royal, administrative career ended in 1857. The boat that bore him back from St. John for the last time to his hermitage ran aground; for the great falling tides bade him wait, even in the pomp of death, until it was their hour to bear him aloft on his oft-trod pier. Men, women, and children, seized lantern, candle, or torch, and carried their hermit lord over the rough stones and the narrow ways to the cemetery, where they buried him at eventide, amid the waving trees and with the sound of falling tears.

His memory nestles in the hearts of the children who play around the weirs, and who have learned from their grandsires the tales of his jokes, his oddities, and his kindnesses. His children and his grandchildren stayed in the primitive ancestral home till 1881, when the Island was sold to an American syndicate. As long as any of the Owen family lived there they were beneficent rulers of the people, and maintained a courtly standard of manners and morals, the grace of which lingers among the Islanders.

=The Cannons again.= Tradition and fact still invest the Owen name with tenderness and homage, as was shown on July 10, 1890, when the great-grandson of the Admiral revisited Campobello. Never has the old cannon belched forth its volume of sound more loudly than it did for Archibald Cochrane, who, as a boy, had often sat astride of it. A "middy" on board Her Majesty's flagship _Bellerophon_, he came back to his ancestral estates, accompanied by Bishop Medley. The boys' sunny blue eyes and gentle smile recalled his mother's beauty to the old Islanders. The Dominion Hag and the English flag waved from every ship in port and from the neighboring houses, to welcome him back. As the steamer came in sight, the aged cannon, mounted on four huge logs of wood, gave forth its welcome. Each time the cotton had to be rammed down, and the cannon had to be propped up. Each time the match and the lighted paper were protected by a board held across the breech at arm's length; but the bra.s.s piece did its duty, and the people called "well done" to it, as if it had been a resuscitated grandsire. The steamer answered whistle for cannon blast, and the children's laugh was echoed back across the water.

It was dead low tide--and the tide falls twenty feet--when the venerable bishop came up the long flight of steps, slippery and damp with seaweed.

Guarded on each side and before and behind, with umbrella in his hand for his walking-stick, the metropolitan of eighty-four years accepted the unneeded protection which Church of England reverence dictated.

=The Great-Grandson.= But as the boy ran quickly up the same steps, there was not a man who did not rush forward to greet him. The band played, while the women crept out from among the piles of lumber and waited for recognition. It came as the boy was led from one to another, bowing low in his shy, frank manner, cap in hand, to the women and girls, who had known him as a child, and shaking hands heartily with all the men, young and old. Away off stood two old ladies, who blessed the morn which had brought back their young master. Up to them he went with pretty timidity, and then, boy-like, hurried off to look at the cannon.

He put his finger on it with a loving touch and a lingering smile, which to the older ones who saw it told of hidden emotion, which, perhaps, he himself scarcely recognized.

Silence fell as the Metropolitan rose from the chair where he had been resting and thanked the people for their greeting to the boy, because of his grandparents. The midshipman's eyes shone as they fell on the faces, lighted up as they had not been for years, to see that the fair, five-year old boy who had left them had grown into the straight-limbed, graceful, manly, modest youth, whose greeting was as unaffectedly frank as their own. After a while midshipman and bishop stole silently away up to the graves of the old Admiral and his wife, of the captain grandfather, and the cousin, all of whom had been naval heroes.

=The Old Home.= On to the Owen house went the boy and found his old haunts,--first, the nursery, then his mother's room, and next his grandmother's; out among the pines to the places where he had played, on to the sun-dial and the quarter-deck. All were revisited, with none of the sadness which comes in middle life, but with the sure joy of a child who has found again his own. He clicked the unc.o.c.ked pistols of the Admiral, and took up the battered, three-cornered hat.

In the afternoon a game of baseball was played in his honor; and never did his great-grandfather watch more eagerly for victory over the pirates than did this descendant watch that the game might be won by the Campobello boys. At evening, in the little English Church, where the bishop blessed the people and told of Lady Owen's deeds of mercy, the boy bent his head over the narrow bookrest, and after the service was over he again shook hands with those who had so easily and quickly become his friends.

The next day the people gathered again at the wharf. The midshipman was a new old friend by this time. Once more the bra.s.s-piece sounded farewell as he crossed the bay. It had been the playmate of his boyhood, his imaginary navy, his cavalry horse, his personal friend. By its side he had never wanted to rest on chairs or sofas. Once more he turned to look at it as he went down the steps to the water's edge, and waved adieu to those who loved him for his mother's sake, with a fondness and pride and sense of personal ownership unknown in "the States," where ancestry counts for but little.

The old cannon still stands upright in Mr. Batson's store. No one would ever steal it again. No one can ever buy it away. From father to child it will descend, to tell of the English-American feudalism of a hundred years ago, and of the happy, bright boy, who found his father's house turned into a modern hotel.

The wonderful loveliness of Campobello can never be taken from it by any possessor. It is a beauty partly its own, and partly borrowed from the soft rounded headlands, the toy-like islands, the vanishing rivers, and the far reaches up the bay, which make the opposite sh.o.r.e. Busy shining Eastport, with its New England steeples, spreads itself gently in a long line down to the water's edge.

=The Sunsets.= At evening the sunset sends its glory over the waters and the land, blending all into the wondrous charm of changing, glowing color. The sunsets of the Island have been likened to those of Italian skies and Swiss lakes. They need no comparison. They make their hours those of exceeding beauty and reverent silence.

=Treat Island.= Treat Island is one of the places which enhance the enjoyment of Campobello. It lies between Lubec and Eastport. Its first owner was Colonel John Allan, who gave it the name of Dudley Island, in recognition of his friend, Paul Dudley Sargent, a descendant of the Earl of Leicester. As Colonel Allan's revolutionary sentiments compelled him to leave Nova Scotia, his American patriotism eventually led to his appointment of Superintendent of the Indians. He thus became involved in perplexities and hairbreadth escapes. At the end of the war he went into business on Dudley Island, and counted among his guests Albert Gallatin.

Allan was buried on the island in 1805. In 1860 two hundred of his descendants gathered there, and dedicated to his memory the marble column which the antiquarian and the picnic lover alike visit. After a while the island began to be known as "Treat's," for a gentleman of that name had bought it, and carried on there a large fish-curing business.

He was also the successful pioneer of the canning industry. But with the scarcity of herring and multiplicity of duties, the weirs became disjointed and the houses dilapidated. Alas! now the land is hired for pasturage, and excellent thereof is the milk.

=Benedict Arnold.= Among Allan's customers when he lived on the island was Bened.i.c.k Arnold; for Allan spelt the name with a _k_, as his account book shows. Arnold at that time, though in business at St. John, N.B., was living for a short time in Campobello, at Snug Cove. In the Centennial year this account book was exhibited at Dennysville, as one of its curiosities. In 1786 Arnold bought a new vessel, which he called the "Lord Sheffield," and made trading voyages in her along the coast and to the West Indies. Once, while cruising in Pa.s.samaquoddy Bay, he invited Colonel Crane to dine with him on board his vessel. But the Colonel, who was a revolutionary veteran, stamping his foot, wounded at the siege of New York, furiously replied, "Before I would dine with that traitor I would run my sword through his body." Arnold went to England in 1787, where he insured his St. John store and stock for 6,000. The next year he came back; a fire consumed all, and Arnold collected the insurance. Two years later Arnold's partner accused him of setting fire to the store. Arnold sued for slander, and claimed 5,000 damages. The jury awarded twenty shillings! When he left St. John his house was sold at public auction. "A quant.i.ty of household furniture," reads the advertis.e.m.e.nt: "excellent feather beds: mahogany four-post bedsteads, with furniture; a set of elegant Cabriole chairs covered with blue damask; sofas and curtains to match; an elegant set of Wedgewood Gilt Ware; two Tea-Table sets of Nankeen china; Terrestrial Globe; a double Wheel Jack; a lady's elegant Saddle and Bridle, etc." Yet whoever now owns them must be glad that they are not family heirlooms. Auction sales are more honorable for some china.

=Smuggling.= Whether Arnold was attracted to the Pa.s.samaquoddy region by its opportunities for smuggling can never be known. But certain is it that the embargo law of 1807 had put a stop to foreign trade, and in 1808 destroyed the coasting trade. Before then it had been easy to carry breadstuffs and provisions across the line. Thousands of barrels thus reached Eastport; and many thousands were brought to Campobello and Indian Island, at one dollar a barrel. Smuggling began, or, if it did not then begin, it increased. Sudden wealth and bad habits kept pace with each other. At first the price for smuggling was twelve and one-half cents a barrel, which quickly rose to three dollars a barrel.

One man is said to have earned forty-seven dollars in twenty-four hours.

Fogs helped,--"that's why they were made".

In the war of 1812, Indian Island and Campobello were very busy in shipping English goods and wares from the large colonial ports. Neutral voyages were constantly made. American vessels had a Swedish registrar, and went from Sweden to Eastport in three or four hours. Silk, wool, cotton, metals, were thus carried up the bays and streams, and shipped in wagons to the Pen.o.bscot, then to Portland, Boston, etc.

Provincial trade was peculiar. British vessels, laden with gypsum and grindstones, because they came from ports not open to American vessels, sailed to the frontier out on the lines, and transferred their cargo to American vessels waiting there. Slaves from Norfolk, Virginia, were sent to some neutral island, from there transported to an English ship again out on the lines, and then carried to the West Indies.

=Rice Island.= One of the islands which was cognizant of some of the smuggling was Tuttle's, now called Rice Island, after Solomon Rice, who kept store there. It is a little round spot of beauty in the chain of islands bridged by fallen weirs, between Lubec and Eastport.

=Lubec.= Lubec itself owes its existence to the attempt of five citizens of Eastport to avoid the payment of duty bonds to the British. Lubec Point was then only a forest. Though by 1818 it had become a rival of Eastport, it is now but a small town. Yet it is more picturesquely situated than almost any other town in New England. Its single steeple and its flagstaff dominate the steep hill down which run two gra.s.sy streets to the water's edge, where stretch out into the Narrows the piers, which change their aspect with each rising and falling tide. When the fog sets in over the bay, the last point it hides is Lubec steeple.

When it lifts, it leaves its gay flower gardens damp with a moisture that brightens each tiny petal. From the top of Mulholland's Hill, on Campobello, Lubec looks like some quaint foreign spot, with streaks of American activity across it.

Out beyond the town is Quoddy Lighthouse, built about 1809. Near it is the Life Saving Station. On the left of the hill are the low marshes off Lubec, and beyond them the long purple line of Grand Manan.

There is no more varied excursion than to row over to Lubec, and from there to drive through woods and over sandy roads to the lighthouse.

Then drive back and along the upper sh.o.r.e to North Lubec, where the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociations have bought land and erected a hotel, with the privileges of fair accommodations and the enthusiasm of camp-meetings. At sunset take the Lubec Ferry to Campobello. There is so much to see in each place, and so many hills for the horse to walk up, that it is better to take two separate days for these drives.

=Eastport.= Another favorite pastime with the summer visitor is to row across to Eastport. It is the great shopping place, not only of Campobello, but of its own county. Most excellent and tasteful are its shops, whose proprietors have a courtesy of manner which city merchants might well emulate. The drives from Eastport are pleasant, each one different from the other. Go along the water up to Pleasant Point, where a few Indians live under the care of the kindly sisters of the Catholic Church, and where Rev. John Cheverus once visited, or over to Pembroke with its mills, and up and down long hills.

=Meddy Bemps.= Best of all is it to forsake the viands of the hotels, drive up to Meddy Bemps, and camp there for two or three days; catch what early fish you can, ba.s.s and pickerel; eat as big and as sweet blueberries as ever grow; pull up the water lilies by their long stems; buy rag mats; and enjoy the quiet and beauty of the lake and its sh.o.r.es.

=The North Road.= On Campobello itself the most lonesome and picturesque drive is that along the North Road, over stony and narrow ways, up rough hills, and by beaches which seem close to the houses. The view framed by the New Brunswick hills is ever changing, while the St. Croix River extends off into an unrimmed distance. From Head Harbor, lines of fishing boats, brilliant with the red flannel shirts of the men, stretch out into the bay. Eastport seems near and far. Part of the North Road is gay with gardens, for dearly do the Islanders love their dahlias, their princely flowers, and all the lesser floral dignitaries. Here stands the Baptist Church, against which the lambs crouch as if in sacrificial symbol. Far beyond it is Mallock's Beach, sentinelled by high cliffs, reverenced for generations as the baptismal beach. Then come the desolate, low peaks of bare, purple rock, which shut out all but gloom, when suddenly appear the bright, laughing waters of Havre de Lutre--Harbor of the Otter--and its opposite wooded sh.o.r.es, leading to Head Harbor. Let your horse find his own way homeward, and climb home yourself along the sh.o.r.es of Havre de Lutre, which will bring you out at the head of the harbor, near where William Owen first settled.

=Head Harbor.= The longest drive on the Island is to Head Harbor,--the Queen's Highway, as it is called,--past Cold Spring, Cranberry and Bunker Hills. Climb both, and you will never forget the view. Drive on past Conroy's Bridge, the schoolhouses, the church, Wilson's settlement (where do not fail to buy sticks of checkerberry candy), up and down the hills to Head Harbor River (where, report says, the Admiral once built a brig), to Head Harbor Beach, and there picnic. Then, refreshed by a lunch, which tastes better in the open air than indoors, walk over to the Fog Horn House, and, if the tide is right, go down a rocky hill, across a rocky ford, up a short iron ladder and on to Head Harbor Lighthouse. Never start on any excursion at Campobello until you have adjusted your hours to the tides, or else your plans will fail.

=Mill Cove.= This waiting upon the tide is of special importance at Mill Cove, the road to which branches off from Head Harbor road. There is no place on the Island equal to this for surprises. When the fog is "in"

half of it is non-existent, as it were. At high tide you see an island which you cannot reach by carriage. At low tide you urge your horse up a short, pebbly beach, down into the water, and up on to an island. By permission of its occupant, you drive through his land out into a broad green field, with the Bay of Fundy fronting you, and the Wolves looking hopelessly lonely. Give a whole day to the weird and sunny beauty of the cove and its nooks.

=Nancy Head.= Between Mill and Schooner Coves are the White Rocks and Nancy Head, so called from a ship that was wrecked there.

=Schooner Cove.= Schooner Cove is another surprise, but a single one.

After you have reached it, put on your rubbers and take the mile walk to the left along the cliffs. Ten years ago it was the most solemn trail that you could follow. Now, as civilization has come nearer, and sunlight has penetrated it, the grey moss hangs less heavily from the close branches, leafless even in summer, while the water dashes up over the rocks on the other side of the narrow path. On the right of the cove go with care, and at your peril, over the headlands, along the coves, and in through the almost untrodden forest to Herring Cove.

Here is the longest beach in Campobello, with curiously tinted and marked pebbles. It is but a mile through the woods, starting from the Tyn-Y-Coed, and is the favorite walk and drive of all those who like smooth and shady roads and an air laden with "spicy fragrance." On the left is Eastern Head, never to be forgotten as a place of exploration, with wonderful views from its points and down its ravines.

=Herring Cove.= A unique pleasure, which, though obtained by driving, cannot properly be counted among the drives, is the visit at night to Herring Cove, to see the men "driving the herring." Each wherry has a ball of cotton wool, or a roll of bark, on a stick saturated with kerosene, or else it is put into an iron cradle fastened to an iron pole. As the cotton or bark burns, the moving boats look like a fitful procession of lights. The brightness attracts the herring, and, as one man rows, while another "drives," the nets are hauled up full of wriggling, shining fish.

Lake Glen Severn, so called after the Owen place in Wales, is separated by a short bridge from the high beach before it slopes down to the water.

=Meadow Brook Cove.= Beyond Herring Cove is Meadow Brook Cove, an ideal place for the scene of a summer idyl. Into it runs a tiny brook which starts somewhere near the head of Havre de Lutre, marking the division which once took place in the Island, according to geologists. The ruins of a stone wall which runs along the brook are no longer supposed to have been built by the Northmen, for the Admiral erected it as part of his scheme in draining the meadow.

Branching off from the Herring Cove Road is the Fitz-William road, where many lots have been sold, and also the road to Racc.o.o.n Beach. This drive is along another wonderful tangle of forest skirted by beaches. It leads to Liberty Point, the cable line from Welsh Pool to Grand Manan pa.s.sing by it, on to Skillet Cove, where there is a split rock, on again to Owen Head, desolate and vengeful in its height, down to Chalybeate Spring,--a fortune for the future,--across beaches too rough for a single team with four people, to Cranberry Point, and back to where you started. At Deep Cove, near the Point, is a rock bearing p.r.o.nounced glacial marks. Take the drive at low tide, and feel its gloom, with the fog drifting across your face. Take it at high tide, on a sunny morning, and feel its cheerfulness.

Once more drive down to the Narrows, past the cottages; stop at Friar's Head, whose Indian name was _Skedapsis_, the Stone Manikin. Go to the paG.o.da-like structure on top of the hill, climb down its side, and at low tide go walk between the Friar and the hill; then at high tide wonder how you ever did it. Retrace your steps. Go along the road, past Snug Cove and the schoolhouse, till you come to the Narrows, where runs the swift current which only the experienced boatman can cross in his flat-bottomed boat, that carries alike the pa.s.senger or his horse, or brings over from Lubec the funeral hea.r.s.e.

Yet these are not all the drives. Subdivisions of them lead you into marshes, plains, and woods, though they are preferable as bridle paths or walks. They began as cow-paths, and may end as country roads.

Adventures can still be sought over dangerous cliffs. It is more than easy to get lost in the woods. Still, no matter where you go, you cannot help coming out somewhere near water and a fisherman's hut; for Campobello,--in Indian dialect _Ebauhuit_, signifying by or near the mainland,--having an area of twenty square miles, and a circ.u.mference of twenty-five miles, is ten miles long and two to three miles wide.

Remember in all these drives to turn to the left, and when you walk not to be afraid of cows.

Perhaps it is the water excursions which render Campobello most famous.

Among these is the sail to St. Andrews, which offers modern Wedgewood ware for sale, and where is the far-famed Algonquin Hotel and Cobscook Mountain. The West Isles and Le Tete Ca.n.a.l make another pleasant sail.

To go around the Island on a calm day is delightful. Very exquisite in its limited beauty is the sail up St. George's River, the trees on either side arching their branches over the little steamer. St. George's Falls and the stone quarry should also be visited on landing at the pier.

=Johnson's Bay.= For a short outing, row across Friar's Bay to Johnson's Bay; climb the little hill to the pleasant, neat, and hospitable farm-house; go through a grove to the wooden look-out, and clamber upwards. For wondrous beauty of beach and land-locked bay, of great headlands and brown hay-c.o.c.ks, of the mystery of nature's secretiveness in South Bay, the view is unsurpa.s.sed.

=South Bay.= Then, inspired by its loveliness, come home to the hotel, engage Tomar and his canoes, paddle across the wide bay, and in and out of the islands and crannies of South Bay, the happiest, sunniest, cosiest bay on the Maine coast. Go through the ca.n.a.l at high tide; paddle everywhere around till the tide turns, and you can pa.s.s back through this narrow and again water-filled ca.n.a.l into Friar's Bay, the cottages at Campobello serving as guide in steering the homeward course.

=The Tides.= But truly there never is any guide among the tides and currents setting in from the different islands and headlands save that of correct knowledge of their ways. To lose an oar in these waters might mean drifting for hours; and then if the fog sets in! That fog, which is the basis of conversation on first acquaintance, the spoiler of picnics, and the promoter of a beauty of landscape so infinite and varied that one only wonders how any summer place can be without it.