To the editor:
On March 15, 1820, during the presidency of James Monroe (a veteran of the Revolutionary War), Maine became the 23rd state to join the Union. Ninety percent of Maine’s precious timber was untouched. The northeast boundary of Maine with New Brunswick was still not settled. To reinforce their claims, officials at the province and state levels began a practice of committing clear acts of jurisdiction in the “Disputed Territory.”
The first stirring in the run up to the “bloodless” Aroostook War occurred on May 20, 1820. New Brunswick’s Attorney General issued a subpoena for “trespass and intrusion on Crown lands” to John Harford, a new settler in the Madawaska Settlement from Saco. For the first time, a Maine citizen residing on the St. John River, west of a line (as yet unsurveyed and marked) had been called to account by a New Brunswick Court.
Mr. Harford was ordered to appear in Fredericton on July 15, 1820. It’s unknown (to me) how things went for him. Fortunately, I learned he was later elected as one of three selectmen in Madawaska’s first Town Meeting on August 20, 1831.
That meeting (to incorporate Madawaska as a town) had been called by a justice of the peace for Maine’s Penobscot County. Captain Leonard Coombs of the Madawaska Militia and Francis Rice, a New Brunswick Justice of the Peace attended. They threatened the roughly 60 inhabitants assembled with imprisonment if they voted. Fifteen voted.
In 1825, the U.S. Senate considered, but decided against, employing a military force to drive out the “depredators” from Maine’s territory due to the expense “and the danger of involving the national government and Maine citizens near the Line in serious difficulties.”
Also in 1825, Maine’s Land Agent James Irish was authorized to prevent trespassing in the valleys of the Aroostook, Meduxnekeag and the Presquile [Presque Isle Stream] west of the meridian line marked by the Amity monument. He reported to the Governor that “great depredations were under way on the Aroostook River by British subjects, under British permits, with at least one hundred teams of six oxen each” and that Plymouth Township [Fort Fairfield] and Eaton half-township [Caribou] “were in danger of being stripped.”
Irish and George Coffin (Land Agent for Massachusetts) were sent to investigate the situation and execute deeds to settlers with permits from their respective Land Offices. On October 3, 1825, Irish and Coffin surveyed and conveyed to Americans John Baker and James Bacon 100 acres each at the mouth of the Maryumpticook [Baker Brook]. The day before, Baker had advised them that most of the inhabitants of Madawaska “desired to unite their destiny with the United States, and would be pleased to have magistrates appointed among them and be represented in the Legislature of Maine.”
When Coffin and Irish arrived at the mouth of the Aroostook River, the water was so low they had to give up on visiting settlers in the Aroostook Valley. At Fredericton, they were informed New Brunswick had received instructions from England not to grant any more permits to cut timber next to the Aroostook or Madawaska Rivers “until the line was permanently settled.”
On October 7, the Miramichi Fire of 1825 broke out. This hellish disaster was described as “42 miles by 100.” Destroyed were stands of old-growth white pine (and farms) in central New Brunswick. Interest in Aroostook timber heightened. (To be continued.)
Presque Isle