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Scarborough Maine

The Siege of Scarborough and Maine’s Long War

In 1676, the colonial settlers in Scarborough, Maine, had abandoned the town after fierce fighting with a small army of Indians. That set the stage for the siege of Scarborough the following year.

King Philip’s War had been raging since 1675. Maine — the war’s northern theater — had so few settlers the fighting was on a relatively small scale.

West Point, Prout’s Neck by Winslow Homer (owned by the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass.)

The government in Massachusetts had banned weapons sales to the natives. The natives had generally allied with the French, who encouraged them to harass the English settlements along the Maine coast. Some tried to negotiate a peace between the English and the Maine natives, and the tribes were not of one mind about whether to fight or make a treaty.

Around the mouth of the Saco River, one Wabanaki leader, Mogg Heigon, had gathered a force of perhaps 100 men and some 30 ships. Mogg, who had friendly relations with the English settlers, had been slow to support the war. Nevertheless, by the fall of 1676 his army had successfully harassed the fishermen and farmers until many abandoned the area. In October of 1676, Mogg’s men surrounded the small garrison at Scarborough’s Black Point.

The Surrender of Scarborough

Henry Jocelyn led the English settlers at Black Point. Mogg and Jocelyn knew each other, and Mogg spoke English. Mogg offered Jocelyn a deal. If the colonists would surrender, they could leave peacefully.

It’s not clear why Mogg made the generous offer. It may have been simple decency. Or he may have had some reason to suspect taking the garrison by force would be more challenging than it appeared. It may simply have been that he was accustomed to friendly dealings with the settlers and the negotiation came naturally.

Jocelyn accepted the offer, and Scarborough was left completely in Indian control. Having driven off the settlers in much of the Maine coast, however, the Wabanaki were not nearly numerous enough to protect their lands. In 1677, a group of the settlers came out of hiding and returned to Scarborough, along with a larger military force that included Bartholomew Tippen, most likely a sergeant.

The return of the colonists provoked Mogg to action. He returned to Scarborough with his small army. He sealed off the garrison and lay siege to it. But the colonists inside were better armed in 1677 than they had been in 1676. They were not considering retreat. After three days, during which the Indian’s siege had inflicted only a few casualties, Tippen shot and killed Mogg.

After the Siege of Scarborough

The loss of their leader prompted the Wabanaki to abandon the siege. It also cleared the way for another leader to emerge among the natives, Squando. In retaliation for the death of Mogg, Indians returned to the Black Point garrison and again attacked about a month later. This time they were cleverer, drawing roughly 100 of the settlers outside. The fight killed the colonists’ military leaders and decimated the settlement.

Site of Black Point Fort

According to legend, Squando had become an ardent foe of the English when settlers drowned his son. True or not, his elevation weakened any chance for a peaceful settlement of the disputes. King Philip’s War would continue in Maine until 1678 when it ended by treaty.

But it hardly ended the fighting between the persistent English colonists and the Indians (aided by the French). A new garrison was established at Black Point in 1681, near what was then known as Great Pond. The tug of war with the Native Americans would continue for more than 20 years, and in 1703 a group of Indians attacked and killed a group of settlers at the Black Point garrison, inspiring the name the pond has today – Massacre Pond.

Mogg’s name, meanwhile, was immortalized by John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem, Mogg Megone, which was also turned into a film. Its story line bears little relation to actual history.

This story about the Siege of Scarborough was updated in 2022.

Image of Black Point Fort By John Stanton via FortWiki, CC By-SA 3.0.

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Eliza Southgate, Maine Girl, Moves to NYC in 1803

Eliza Southgate during her short lifetime traveled from rural Maine at the tail end of the American Revolution to the social whirl of New York City. She came from a prosperous family and then married into more prosperity. Her letters to her mother reveal a young woman deliriously happy with her upward mobility.

She was born in Scarborough, District of Maine, on Sept. 24, 1783, to Dr. Robert Southgate and Mary King Southgate, the daughter of a wealthy landowner. Eliza was the third of 12 children. Dr. Southgate’s practice flourished, and he eventually became a judge.

Eliza Southgate

All the Southgate children had good educations by the standards of the time. After they finished the Scarborough public school, they went to boarding school near Boston. At 14, Eliza attended Susanna Rowson‘s Young Ladies’ Academy in Medford, Mass.

Eliza Southgate Bowne

She met Walter Bowne while visiting the fashionable Saratoga Springs resort in the company of Mr. and Mrs. Haskett Derby. Bowne, a wealthy Quaker from Long Island, would later win election as the 59th mayor of New York City in 1829. They married in the spring of 1803 and moved to New York.

The city captivated her. “You cannot imagine anything half so beautiful as Broadway,” she wrote to her mother in June 1803. On July 8, 1803, Elizabeth Southgate wrote another letter to her mother:

You must have perceived, my dear mother, from my letters, that I am much pleased with New-York. I was never in a place that I should prefer as a situation for life, and nothing but the distance from my friends can render it other than delightful. We have thus far spent the summer delightfully; we have been (on) no very long journeys, but on a number of little excursions of twenty or forty miles to see whatever is pleasant in the neighborhood.

‘Every attention’

Mr. Bowne’ s friends, though all very plain, are very amiable and affectionate, and I receive every attention from them I wish. I have a great many people call on me, and shall have it in my power to select just such a circle of acquaintance as suits my taste : few people whose prospects of happiness exceed mine, which I often think of with grateful sensations. Mr. Bowne’s situation in life is equal to my most sanguine expectations, and it is a peculiar gratification to me to find him so much and so universally esteemed and respected. This would be ridiculous from me to any but my mother, but I know it must be pleasing to you to know that I realize all the happiness you can wish me. I have not a wish that is not gratified as soon as ’tis known. We intend going to Bethlehem, Philadelphia, and a watering-place, similar to the Springs, about thirty miles beyond Philadelphia : shall probably set out the latter part of this month. At present we have done nothing toward housekeeping, and Mr. Bowne won’t let me do the least thing toward it, lest I get my mind engaged, and not enjoy the pleasure of our journeys.

Walter Bowne

‘ Tis very diffeerent here from most any place, for there is no article but you can find ready made to your taste, excepting table-linen, bedding, etc., etc. One poor bed-quilt is all I have toward housekeeping, and been married two months almost. I am sadly off, to be sure. We have not yet found a house that suits us. Mr. Bowne don’t like any of his own, and wishes to hire one for the present, until he can build, which he intends doing next season, which I am very glad of, as I never liked living in a hired house, and changing about so often. Uncle and Aunt King want we should get near them ; they have hired a ready-furnished house about two miles out of the city for the summer, and intend hiring a house in town in the winter. I have been very busy with my mantua-maker, as I am having a dress made to wear to Mrs. Delafield’s to dinner on Sunday. They have a most superb country-seat on Long Island, opposite Hell Gate. He is Uncle Rufus’s most intimate friend, and a very intimate one of Mr. Bowne’s. We shall probably meet them there. I have not seen them to ask.

Malbone Paints Eliza Southgate Bowne

She had her portrait done by a society painter, Edward Green Malbone, who also died young.

My picture is done, but I am disappointed in it. Malbone says he has not done me justice; so says Mr. Bowne; but I think, though the features are striking, he has not caught the expression, particularly of the eyes, which are excessively pensive, — would do for Sterne’s Maria. The mouth laughs a little, and they all say is good, — all the lower part of the face,- but the eyes not the thing. He wants me to sit again; so does Mr. Bowne Malbone thinks he could do much better in another position. I get so tired, 1 am quite reluctant about sitting again. However, I intend showing it to some of our friends before we determine.

Missing Friends and Enccountering Smallpox

How do all our friends at Saco and Topsham do? I often think of them ; and Mr. Bowne and myself are talking of coming to see you next summer very seriously. How comes on the new house? We are to come as soon as ever that is finished. If you choose to send so far, I will purchase any kind of furniture you may wish, perhaps cheaper and better than you can get elsewhere. Adieu! Remember me to all the children. Dear little Mary.’ I can’t help crying sometimes, ‘with all my pleasures and amusements : ’tis impossible to be at once reconciled to quitting all one’s friends. I thought a great deal without wishing them here. How does Horatio succeed in business, — as well as he expected? How come on Fathers turnpike and diking? Tell him I yesterday met a woman full broke out writhe the small-pox. I was within a yard of her before I perceived it. The first sensation was terror, and I ran several paces before I recollected myself. As soon as I arrived in town. Dr. Moore examined my arm, inquired the particulars, and refused to inoculate me again; that he would venture to insure me from the small-pox; that he had inoculated hundreds, and never had one take the small-pox after the kine-pox. Adieu!

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZA S. BOWNE.

P. S. — All the family desire to be remembered particularly. Mr. B. is out to dine.

They would have two children, Walter and Mary. But Eliza contracted tuberculosis, and they decided she should spend the winter of 1808-09 in South Carolina.

Eliza Southgate died on Feb. 19, 1809. She was 25 years old.

With thanks to Growing Up Female in America: Ten Lives, by Eve Merriam. This story updated in 2022.

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William King: From Shoeless Wanderer to First Governor of Maine

William King set out on his own at 19 with little more than his portion of his father’s estate: a team of two-year old oxen. Many started with less, but few made more of it.

William King by Gilbert Stuart

King was born in 1768 in Scarborough, which was then Massachusetts. His father died when he was only seven. He did not receive the education his brothers had because the estate was tied up in lands that generated little revenue.

William King, Workaholic?

Instead, King began working at sawmills and learning the lumber trades. At 19, with his oxen, King ventured north, offering his service in exchange for room and board. He found few takers, and by the time he reached Bath he had worn the shoes off his feet. But he didn’t quit.

Finding work in a Topsham sawmill, he began a lifelong habit of working and saving. Soon, he found a partner and owned half a saw. Then it was a sawmill. Then he became an incorporator in the first toll bridge at Topsham. The state’s first cotton mill followed, and then a bank. In Bath, Brunswick and Topsham he would build more than 10 merchant ships.

By 1795, he also represented the Topsham area in the state Legislature in Boston. Later he represented Bath. His respect and admiration for hard work showed in his actions. In Maine’s early days, settlers would push to the edges of the frontier, build a farm and then find a land speculator had a claim to the land lying in wait. The settlers would then find themselves evicted.

William King pushed through a law that changed that. The settlers could be evicted from the land, but the owner had to pay fair value for the houses they had built. Or, in turn, they could sell the land to the settlers.

Statehood

All the while he expanded his enterprises, with a store and wharves and warehouses. By the War of 1812, King was designated major general of the militia, charged with raising troops for the war.

With his war accolades won, King turned his energies toward the one issue that most defined him: Maine statehood. For seven years he fought to liberate Maine from Massachusetts, and in 1819 the Maine Constitutional Convention approved the separation.

The battle then turned to Congress, where southerners didn’t want to create another anti-slavery state. As part of the Missouri Compromise, they agreed to admit Maine and Missouri as states. Maine banned slavery and Missouri didn’t, so the balance of power would remain unchanged.

The people of Maine chose King to be the state’s first governor, but he lasted only little more than a year. He was selected to go to Washington to work in government settling land claims in Florida, which he did for several years.

Caustic Iconoclast

Throughout his life, King was known as a natural leader in business and politics, but he preferred business. He turned his famously caustic sense of humor against his fellow politicians. He enjoyed telling the story of how one night while in Washington he was walking with a friend. When two gaily dressed young women began following them seeking attention,

King and his friend turned a corner. The women continued following until he turned and told them: “Ladies, I can only say to you that we are not members of Congress,” after which the two young women went off looking for other entertainment.

King’s somewhat dour demeanor did not extend to alcohol, which he served at his table despite Maine’s strong prohibition tendencies.

He was also something of a tyrant and an iconoclast. He led the secession from the Congregational church in Bath, creating a second church with the stroke of a pen on a check. And he frequently won his way at town meeting by shouting down his opponents.

Flaws and all, King nonetheless had the strength of will to lead the creation of a state where none existed.

Special thanks to “History of Bath and Environs, Sagadahoc County, Maine: 1607-1894” By Parker McCobb Reed for this portrait of William King. This story was updated in 2022.

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