Campobello: An Historical Sketch. Wells Kate Gannett
me to obtain the promotion I think I have a right to.... I have spent a great deal of money in Town, have no Fortune, and want a sum soon on a very urgent Occasion.... I hope, notwithstanding the disparity between us in point of Rank and Fortune, that your Lordship will honor me with a Continuance of the Friendship and Regard which I had reason to imagine subsisted between us during the five years we Messed together."
This beseeching letter must have been effectual; for in course of time he did receive, not only thanks and promise of promotion, but through the intercession of his friend, Sir William Campbell, who was Governor General of Nova Scotia, he obtained possession of the Island which Hunt and Flagg had ruled.
Royal Grant. As it embraced more land than could then be granted to one person, Owen induced others to join him in asking for the grant, that the whole Island might eventually be under control of the Owen family.
Origin of Name. Consequently, in 1767, the Island was deeded to William Owen and his cousins, Arthur Davies, David and William Owen, Jr., who, in grateful compliment to Campbell, changed its name from Passamaquoddy Outer Island to Campobello, thus "punning on the donor's name, and also expressing the beauty of the natural scenery." It was like the Admiral to invent a name which should include both a joke and a subtle allusion to his classical learning.
First Colony. William Owen immediately brought over from the mother country a colony of seventy persons; stationed his ship at Havre De Lute, a Franco-Indian corruption of Harbor of the Otter; and, having settled his people according to his liking, returned to England; but soon left it again on public service, and died with the rank of Admiral.
David Owen. David Owen acted as agent for the grantees, and was a veritable lord of the Island, always interested in protecting the fisheries. His house, near the site of the cottage now owned by James Roosevelt, Esq., had even more roof than the usual sloping, barn-like home of former days. He built a rude church, read the service, and preached. What matter if the sermon was oft repeated, or now and then was original! Could not he, though a layman, best tell the needs of his congregation? He played the fiddle for dances, married the people, scolded them as a self-constituted judge, and kept a journal of Island events in microscopic chirography. He was an occasional correspondent of the "Eastport Sentinel" on matters of British history and theological controversy. "He had a fine library of old books, and was well versed in scholastic subjects," said Dr. Andrew Bigelow, the first Unitarian minister of Eastport, who often visited him.
To "Hue and Cry." Once David Owen committed to the gaol in St. Andrews a Frenchman, for "feloniously taking and carrying away some fish from flakes at Campobello." As the offender went on his way to gaol in his own vessel, he threw overboard the deputy sheriff who accompanied him, drew his dirk on the other man and compelled him to follow, and then escaped himself with his own vessel. Therefore, Owen advertised in the "Sentinel" of September 25, 1819, "To all officers and others to whom the execution hereof may belong … to search for the said Appleby [the Frenchman], and therefore to 'hue and cry' after him as the law directs." Signed "D. Owen, J.P."
When David died he left his share of the land to William Owen, Jr. This younger Owen sold Campobello, which had now come into his sole possession, to William Fitz-William, who, as the natural son of the Owen of Pondicherry fame, could obtain possession only through purchase of his father's grant.
Primitive Life. Island life was still very primitive. The people raised stock, and the creatures fed on the wild grass and young hemlock. But, as David had freely deeded the land to the settlers, the underbrush was soon killed off and stock raising ceased. The Campobellians also proved no exception to the rule that agriculture is seldom a favorite occupation with those who can support themselves by the precarious life of fishermen, even if that has its perils.
Illness. Here, too, as everywhere in pioneer life, the women suffered as much as, if not more than, the men. When sickness came upon them they endured it patiently, with that kind of meek despair which looks upon illness either as fate or as the will of the Lord. Fortunately for them, a young girl, who had been born on the Island, became at sixteen a skilful nurse. She was sought from far and near, and taken out at night when she had to be blindfolded on account of the storms. The description of one of her visits must be given in her own words, as she told it when she was eighty-four:—
The Indian's Squaw. "Once I and my husband were abed a howling night, and I heard a knock. Says I, 'Jim, I bet that's for me; get up and see.' And I sorter guessed it was a foreigner. And he came back and says, 'P. (that's what he called me, short for Parker), it's an Indian from down on the Narrows; and he's been for the doctor, and he's down at Robinson, and won't be fetched 'cause he's having a good time.' So I got up and dressed and went down with him; for the squaw's skin was as dear to her husband as a white woman's is to her, and her heart may be just as good to God. And when I got there I saw two squaws, and one was all in a heap; and they made eyes at me, and I didn't know whether it meant murder or not, only I guessed not. And I says, 'Sister, what is it?' And she says, her husband tell her 'white doctor no come. You white woman come and make his squaw live.' So I went to work. And when all was right, they wanted me to take a blanket and lie down; but I could no way make believe Indian, so I sits up till morning. Then the Indian asked me what he should give me; and I told him my gineral price was three dollars, but when folks was no better off than I, I turned in and asked nothin'. And he says, 'We give five dollars if it's a girl, and three dollars if it's a boy.' 'Well,' I says, 'sure enough it's a boy'; and I come home. And next day he travels down here [to the Pool], and says me better than man doctor, and wished he could give me twenty dollars."
Some sixty years after this incident had occurred, when Mrs. Parker was driven up to the Narrows where the squaw had lived, and past the Tyn-Y-Coed and cottages, that she might see the changes which time had wrought, she exclaimed, "As the Bible says, now I can die in peace, for mine eyes have seen the salvation, I will not say of the Lord, but of Campobello."
The Admiral. The salvation, such as it was, came slowly; at first through Admiral William Fitz-William Owen. His life was curious and pathetic, from the time when a boy five years old, an inmate of the artillery barracks, he replied, on being asked his last name, "I don't know, mother can tell you," to his old age, when, dressed in admiral's uniform, he paced back and forth on a plank walk, built out into the bay, over the high cliffs of the shore, in memory of the quarter deck of his beloved ship. Conceited and religious, authoritative and generous, humorous and ceremonious, disputatious and frank, a lover of women more than of wine, his fame still lingers in many a name and tradition.
His Growth. When very young, a friend of his father's took him away from the barracks and from his mother, of whom he never again heard. He was boarded and punished in various homes in North Wales, but as recompense wore a cocked hat and a suit of scarlet made from an old coat of his father,—"the first sensible mark of the earthly pre-existence of some one who claimed to be my father" he had ever received, wrote the Admiral, in his later days. He learned the catechism and collects, repeated the Lord's prayer on his knees, and thought of raising the devil by saying it backwards; but he never completed the charm, and for four or five years after was self-punished by his fear that the devil was waiting for him at the church door.
By degrees he learned something of his father, the William Owen of Pondicherry fame, who had died while he was a baby. When about fourteen he went to a mathematical academy, where his "progress was as remarkable as it had before been in classics." Here religious instruction consisted in going to church "to talk with our fingers to the girls of a school who used the adjoining pew." As a boy, he "had no other distinct idea of our Lord Jesus Christ than that he was a good man."
His Dreams. His belief in the direct interposition of the Creator on his behalf frequently solaced him in these youthful days of loneliness and misdemeanor. The literal and instant fulfillment of two dreams on special and unthought-of subjects were convincing proof, to quote his own words, that "they were sent by God Almighty himself, as a simple way of assuring me that as I was under his eye he would himself take care of me."
Man-of-War Garden. So he grew up to be presumptuous, adventurous, resolute, and strong. In 1788 he became a midshipman in a line-of-battle ship, in due course of time cruising in the