and the Kennebecks at once proceeded to their part of the play. A party came down the river,- September 1, probably,― seized and plundered "the Merrymeeting house," doubtless the above blockhouse, and took a number of persons as captives, or hostages. Thomas Stevens it is inferred, the settler from whom Steven's river derived its name, had at this time removed to the Kennebec. He was on his way by canoe to the house of John Bisbe, who lived on the east side of Long Reach, or Tuessic Neck. As he reached the house, five Indians rushed out, seized him, saying he was their prisoner, as also was Bisbe within his house. They told him they did this because Captain Blackman had taken twenty Indians and sent them to Boston, and when those should be returned, these prisoners should be released. They had already taken Captain Rowdon and John Hornibroke with their wives and children, and had them in custody in Rowdon's house. To capture the captain of the Kennebec militia was a feat worthy of their boasting. The new captives were taken up to Rowdon's, and then all but Mrs. Rowdon were sent to Merrymeeting. She was left in her house, and commanded to stay till they should send down a letter, which she must convey to the English authorities. Stevens was told not to be afraid as he would see a great many Indians by and by. At Merrymeeting bay, the captives were welcomed with joyous demonstrations and the firing of guns. In the night, a party of Androscoggins came, and then there were more salutes, shouting, and exultation; "See how many English servants we have got," the Indians cried. Captain Rowdon was directed to write the letter, but the messenger sent down with it returned, reporting that Mrs. Rowdon had run away, which led them to inquire if that was English fashion. Casting about for a messenger, they selected Stevens, now seventy years old, saying, "This old fellow shall go, for he can neither do us good nor hurt." He judged there were nearly fifty men well-armed with various weapons. Hopehood and Egeremet were among them, and the latter sent word to the English, that now they would have time to gather in their corn and cattle, as there would be no more stir till they heard from Boston. Hopehood proposed to have a party call on Mr. Dennis and have him send a demand to the governor for his two sons. The Indians then with their captives retired up river. They regarded themselves as aggrieved 1 Mass. Archives, vol. cxxix, p. 166. by that arrest of their men, and in reprisal had secured these hostages; but their conduct and apparent spirit at this time commends them for self-restraint, and it was highly honorable and considerate to suggest that now the English could freely secure their property before the Indians felt compelled to make war. This hapless woman, points in whose eventful history have been touched, a third time in her home at Kennebec was separated from a husband. Death had early seized the first; the tomahawk struck down the second; and now the third is forced from her side into the wilderness, to the abodes of savages ready on slight pretexts for murder and cruel war. Later at a conference, to the inquiry for Rowdon, the chief replied that he was far away up Kennebec river, and it is stated that he never returned.1 His fate is not difficult to infer, for when war began his life would be cast in, to balance the loss of some of their chief men. The wife had found one bitter experience in captivity at Teconnet enough. Overborne by fear and distrustful of Indian faith, she fled down river to the forts, toward the shelter of civilized homes, and Hammond's head was again deserted. It is presumed that in a little while all of these captives, except Rowdon, were restored. Hornibroke certainly returned. The Indians were not pacified, but probably took no attitude of further hostility on the Kennebec till spring. And then by reason of the watchfulness of the inhabitants, not many lives were sacrificed. On the twelfth of May, 1689, the garrisons left by Andros, abandoned Pejepscot and Fort Ann. A week later the savages swept down on the west of the Kennebec, burning houses and killing cattle. The people had sought the protection of the fortified posts at Newtown and Sagadahoc. A few soldiers helped to hold these places, and earnest pleas were sent to government, to reinforce them or to remove them all to places of safety. In June, those at Newtown represented their peril and distress, and reported that they had some two hundred cattle and nearly as many swine. It must have been soon after this, or not later than July, that the houses, all but one, in Newtown were destroyed and the fort abandoned.2 1 Mather's Magnalia, vol. ii, p. 508-9 * Vide Coll. Me. Hist. Soc., vol. v, p. 394, but not in agreement in date. Certainly inhabitants and soldiers continued there till after the 10th of June, and the government voted supplies. [Mass. Archives, vol. cvii, pp. 97, 100.] Quite probably Newtown was held as long as Sagadahoc, which seems to have been abandoned by the first of August. Thornton's Pemaquid, Coll. Me. Hist. Soc., vol. v, p. 277.] On the twentieth of July, ten of the inhabitants, protected by soldiers, going from the fort at Sagadahoc1 to their possessions on the west side of the river, for cattle, were assailed while in the boats, and six were killed, three soldiers, with John Vereen, William Baker, and Charles Hunnewell. Provisions were now becoming scarce, as in the straitness of a siege, and in a few weeks it appears that the people and the soldiers were withdrawn, and the Indians left in undisputed possession of the country for a time. 1 On Stage island. ROBERT HALLOWELL GARDINER. BY REV. ASA DALTON, D.D. Read before the Maine Historical Society, February 9, 1888. A DUE regard to the fitness of things requires us to put on record our sense of the loss we have sustained in the death of our late associate Mr. Robert Hallowell Gardiner. Mr. Gardiner was endowed with those personal qualities which inspire the affection of friends, and compel the respect of all, and he belonged to a family long and closely connected with the interests and growth of this community. The family not only enjoy the distinction of giving their name to the city of Gardiner, but the higher satisfaction of having contributed largely and uninterruptedly to its prosperity and culture. Doctor Sylvester Gardiner, the great-grandfather of the late Robert Hallowell, was a descendant in the fourth generation from Joseph Gardiner, who emigrated from England and settled in Rhode Island. Joseph was the father of Benoni, Benoni of William, and William of Sylvester, who, after studying medicine in Edinboro and Paris, became a physician of eminence in Boston, where he accumulated a fortune by the importation of drugs. He invested his money freely in eastern lands on the Kennebec river, and became the leading director, as well as president of the Kennebec Land Company, from which he subsequently purchased the tract on the west side which bears his His principles, tastes and prejudices inclined him to side with the English government in the Revolution, in consequence of which his real and personal property was confiscated. His furniture and library were sold and scattered. Happily for the family a flaw in the legal proceedings against the estate at Gardinerston caused a delay in the proceedings, and peace was proclaimed before a renewal of the action. After the war Doctor Gardiner removed to Newport, Rhode Island, where he for some years practiced his profession, and died the year before the adoption of the constitution, one hundred and two years ago. name. Doctor Gardiner provided in his will that a part of his property should be sold and the proceeds be equally divided among his six surviving children, John excepted, whom he partly disinherited as a rebel in politics, and a radical in religion. William, the second son, inherited the bulk of the Gardiner estate on the Kennebec, but died unmarried. The remaining four children were daughters, all of whom married. By the terms of Doctor Gardiner's will Gardinerston fell next to his grandson, Robert Hallowell, whose father had married the doctor's daughter Hannah. Robert Hallowell jr., adding the name of his maternal grandfather to his own became Robert Hallowell Gardiner. Graduating at Harvard, class of 1801, he soon took up his residence at Gardiner, the name by which the town, which up to this date had been a part of Pittston, from this time was called, a great improvement upon Gardinerston. For more than threescore years Mr. Gardiner was the leading citizen of that community, to whose welfare he devoted himself with a conscientious zeal and steadfast purpose seldom seen. Beside improving his own estate and building the beautiful Elizabethan house upon it, he established the Gardiner Lyceum and erected the Episcopal church, whose Gothic style was at that time novel in New England. He also presented the town with the plot of ground known as the Common, now an elegant park adorned with shrubbery and shade trees. His interest in the town continued to the day of his death in 1864, and in Robert Hallowell jr., his third child and eldest son, he had a worthy successor. Of nine children six survived him, as in the case of Doctor Sylvester Gardiner. Robert Hallowell, the immediate subject of this paper, was born in Pittston, November 3, 1809. He died in Gardiner, September 12, 1886, having lived seventy-seven years-a long, useful, and honorable life. His boyhood was healthy and happy. He grew up in an atmosphere of refinement, knowledge, and piety. His mother was a Boston Tudor, a woman of unusual mental activity and superior culture. His early education was under the direction of private tutors, but he subsequently entered a class in the Lyceum, established at Gardiner by his father; a school similar to and anticipating the schools of technology of the present day, and afterward studied at the well-known Round Hil |