Most American history students learn that King William’s War began in New England as an extension of the war between England and France, when in July 1689 the French governor of Canada incited the Indians to brutally attack Dover, N.H., then known as Cochecho. By then, according to the letters of Edmund Andros, governor of New England, Maine had already been deeply embroiled in the conflict for a year. 

Andros was appointed governor by the Catholic King James II of England in 1686. To test the boundaries of his jurisdiction, Andros raided the home and fort of the French Baron de Saint Castin in March of 1688, absconding with his furniture and family’s personal effects. Castin had lived among the Penobscot Indians for 20 years and had married the daughters of chief Madockawando, the most powerful of the eastern sachems, or tribal leaders. The baron and his family were forewarned of the attack and had taken to the Penobscot woods, but the insult ruptured the tenuous peace that had existed between the Maine Native Americans and the colonists since the end of King Philip’s War. There is evidence that Castin did arm his Indian brothers, but at first their violence was mostly directed at livestock.  

Tensions built during the summer of 1688. A handful of North Yarmouth Indians, who had reportedly been drinking, threatened to shoot one of Henry Lanes’ hogs. The Abenaki tribe at Saco was meanwhile being deprived of many sources of food. A 1678 treaty with the English stipulated that the tribe be paid so many bushels of corn each year in exchange for territory. The colonists had ignored the debt. They were also stretching their fishing nets across the Saco River, thereby preventing the migration of fish to the Indian fishing grounds.  

In August of 1688, Saco Indian families complained several times that the colonist’s cows were eating their crops; about the only source of food they had left. Their complaints were ignored. When the cows got into their corn again, the Native Americans shot at the cows, wounding some. Saco Justice of the Peace, Benjamin Blackman, felt justified in taking drastic action against the Indians, especially in light of the hog incident at North Yarmouth.

He rounded up 16 to 20 members of the Saco tribe who had participated in attacks against the colonists during King Philip’s War and sent them to Boston. Two weeks later, New Dartmouth and North Yarmouth were attacked in earnest by avenging Indians. They let it be known, in no uncertain terms, that their actions were in retribution for the imprisonment of their brothers from Saco. Andros released the prisoners but it was too little too late. Several members of the Barrett family were killed and others kidnapped by members of the Saco tribe at Cape Porpoise on Oct. 11, 1688.

Andros, who was generally despised by his mostly Protestant constituents in New England, organized an army to overtake the enemy in Maine. When none of his regular officers were willing to go, Andros decided, with disastrous results, to lead the men himself. An army of 500 men was easily detected and the enemy disappeared into its native forest. The only casualties of the expedition were English soldiers who froze to death or died of disease in the cold Maine winter.

While Andros was in Maine, his boss King James II abdicated the English throne. William of Orange succeeded him in February of 1689, but word of his coronation didn’t reach the colonies until the end of March. It was good news for the colonists, who hoped their old charter would be restored under the new Protestant king. Andros had by then returned to Boston, leaving his soldiers stationed in makeshift forts along the Maine coast. His commanding officers wrote to him repeatedly requesting ammunition and supplies but the Catholic governor ignored their requests. He was focused on protecting his own political future.

A rumor began to spread among the soldiers in Maine that Andros had sold them out and was negotiating with the Indian sachems to make Maine a Catholic territory. On March 28, 1689, Andros received notice that 17 soldiers at Saco Falls had deserted their majesty’s service. Mention was also made of mutinous actions by soldiers from Cochecho and other garrisons.

On April 12, 1689, Andros ordered Capt. John Floyd, commander of the Saco fort, to go after his AWOL soldiers and arrest those unwilling to return. He also ordered Floyd to relieve Lt. John Puddington of his command at the Cape Porpoise fort and send him to Boston to account for releasing his soldiers against the governor’s orders. The soldiers from Saco and Cape Porpoise were long gone, already marching to Boston to participate in a movement to depose Androsm when Floyd received his orders.

On April 18, 1689, Andros was imprisoned by his subjects in Boston in spite of his efforts to escape by dressing in women’s clothing. After the soldiers had vacated the forts at Saco and Cape Porpoise, both defenseless villages were attacked by “Indians well known to them.” Two houses were burned at Saco and several inhabitants were wounded. John Barrett of Cape Porpoise was killed as his father and brothers had been the previous autumn. The “unprovoked” Cochecho massacre, often referred to as the beginning of King William’s War, was still three months away.                                 Sources

White-Flag Ploy Thwarted

Less than 100 families lived in Wells when blacksmith, Louis Allain arrived from France around 1684.  The colonists probably received him with some trepidation, given the alliance between his countrymen in Canada and the Indians that had plagued them, off and on, for a decade.  Little did they know that Allain would one day use their acquaintance to spy for the Governor of l’Acadie.

French Protestants or Huguenots fled religious persecution in France during the reign of King Louis XIV, many of them settling in New England.  Louis Allain’s indentured apprentice, Anthony Coombs, was a Huguenot.  Louis, himself may also have represented himself as such to the people of Wells.  He would later prove his loyalty lay in his pocketbook. 

At thirty years old, Allain was already a man of means.  He purchased ½ of Samuel Storer’s Cape Neddick-built brigantine, Endeavor, in August of 1685.  A month later, he purchased a mill on the western bank of the Little River, lots on both sides of the river and the home of William Frost. 

Territorial tensions grew between the colonists from France and England and between the Indian tribes allied to both monarchies.  Allain decided to move to Port Royal, Nova Scotia, leaving Anthony Coombs behind to protect his Wells property.  In 1687 he obtained permission to build windmills along the river that has since been known as Allain’s River.  He raised a family there and his fortunes grew. 

Within a few years Louis owned a grain mill, a saw mill, a store and several coasting vessels that made regular trading voyages to the English city of Boston.  He and his partner shipped lumber and flour from their mills in Port Royal and brought back Boston goods to sell to their Acadian customers.  Andre Faneuil, the wealthy Boston Huguenot whose fortune financed the building of  Faneuil Hall, traded regularly with the Acadians, even as Governor William Phipps burned Port Royal in 1690.  When the legality of their trading arrangement was questioned, Allain and other Acadian businessmen declared their allegiance to the English King.  At the same time they were supplying the French Navy with mast timbers.   

Indians attacked the villages along the York County coast in 1703.   It was a horrible year for Wells.  Thirty-nine of her inhabitants were either killed or made prisoner.  The following Spring Colonel Benjamin Church led an expedition through Penobscot, Passamaquoddy and the Bay of Fundy, collecting French prisoners and Indian scalps for bounty along the way.  Under orders from Massachusetts Governor Dudley, he left Port Royal unscathed.  Some people of Massachusetts, including Puritan minister Cotton Mather, suspected that Dudley was trying to preserve illegal trade between Boston and Nova Scotia. 

Feeding prisoners of war became expensive for both the French and the English and an agreement was made to exchange prisoners in 1705.  Allain and his business partner, who were fluent in English and familiar with Boston, were sent to seal the deal.  According to the September 10, 1705 issue of the “Boston News-letter”, Allain arrived in Boston on the 20^th of August under a flag of truce, with the signed agreement.  He returned to Port Royal at the end of September carrying a few French prisoners back as a show of good faith.  A January 1706 report in the same paper indicates that he sailed again for Massachusetts a few months later.  “On Thursday last the 26^th day of December there arrived at Nanguncket [Ogunquit] near to Wells in the Province of Maine, A Flag of Truce from Port-Royal with 34 English Prisoners. 

E.E. Bourne writes in his “History of Wells” that Lewis Allen came to Wells under the Flag of Truce and was authorized to trade prisoners.  The people of Wells were immediately suspicious of the Frenchman’s motives and searched his pocketbook.  In it, they found incriminating instructions for Allain to report to the French Governor of Acadia any efforts underway to fortify Wells against the Indians.  “If any enterprise was afoot that he should join L.A. the two first letters of his name, close together.  If it was only in agitation, place them at some distance; but if nothing was in motion, then to sign a cross.” 

Allain was clasped in irons and sent to Boston to be dealt with.  In a surprising twist that Bourne does not reveal, Governor Dudley released Allain.  He made some excuse about owing Louis his life and sent him back to Port Royal to continue his lucrative lumber and flour trade.   

Anthony Coombs, whose indenture expired, had long since deserted Allain’s Wells mill on the Little River.  Louis hired his “trusty and well-beloved friend Lewis Bane of York,” [who had represented the English in treaty negotiations at Port Royal] to recover his title to the Wells property.  Bane eventually bought the property from him in 1720 and Louis boldly appeared at the courthouse in Biddeford to acknowledge the instrument May 9, 1733.  When he died in Port Royal several years later Louis Allain was one of the richest men in town.

Illustration by Frank Handlen

The town of Wells was settled by the Antinomian Minister John Wheelwright and his followers in 1641. Rev. Wheelwright’s son and grandson, Samuel and John respectively, owned two of the garrisons in Wells in April of 1689 when Indians attacked Saco and Cape Porpus during what is referred to as King William’s War.

After the devastating Indian attacks of King Philip’s War, Wells had taken precautions and fortified several garrisons, two of which were owned by the Wheelwright family. Wells was considered the colonial stronghold of Maine in 1689. Inhabitants of the besieged towns to the east of Wells took refuge at the garrisons there. Samuel and John Wheelwright were among those who wrote to Boston for military assistance in a letter dated April 25, 1689.

King James II of England, who had declared the old charter of the Massachusetts illegal, had fled England and William, Prince of Orange, and his wife, Mary, were invited to ascend the throne. Colonists hoped that the new leadership would honor their old charter thereby restoring a degree of self-rule to New England.

When the soldiers stationed at Saco and Cape Porpoise got word of the abdication they left their posts and marched to Boston to participate in the overthrow of Governor Edmund Andros on April 18, 1689. This left the towns vulnerable to Indian attacks.

The government in Boston was in chaos. The frantic settlers at Wells did not know who was in charge but desperately wanted to summon assistance for their neighbors in Cape Porpoise.

An original letter, addressed to the unknown “superior powers now in being at Boston” is preserved by the Massachusetts Historical Society. It reads:

“WELLS ; 25th Aprill 1689 — May it plese your Hon. wee haue receiued certain information that ye 2_th of this Instant being Lords day, the Indians; suposed to be eight or ten ; sundry of them well known to y inhabitance of Saco came upon said town, surprising y people, in their houses: wounded to y number of fiue or six, burnt two houses, with all the goods y owners with great difficulty escapeing: y next day they came to Cape-Porpus burnt a house begun to be Garrisoned, belonging to Nicho Moorey slew one young man: uiz: John Barrett (whose father and two Brothers, were killed by sum Indians as is supposed, ye last fall) took y slain mans horse and another out of a pasture and rode about triumphantly in uiew of y desolate Inhabitance: who for their safty) were forced to forsake y Terra firma or main. and to betake themselues to an Island: where is a Garrison, where they remained in a deplorable case, and are subject to staruing, or murder, or both if speedy succor be not afforded. their cattle, it is to be feared, are mostly killed y Indians shooting uery often in y woods. y certainty, of y premises we reciue from two men, who went on purpose for information : of which we thought meet to giue your Hon an account so leauing your Hon to y Protection of heauen, and y sad case of y distressed to your most serious compastionate thoughts. wee subscribe — Your Hon. most humble seruants”.

In spite of best efforts in Wells, help from Boston was not forthcoming. The settlers at Cape Porpoise were trapped behind the Little Stage Island fort for days. The Indians had stationed themselves at the narrow strip of land that, at low water, connects Stage Island to Little Stage Island and the inhabitants were facing certain capture or death. Nicholas Morey, formerly of Wells, whose home at Cape Porpoise had been burned in the attack, took it upon himself to row to Portsmouth for help in the dead of night, with a broken leg, in a broken boat. Charles Bradbury described the incident in his History of Kennebunkport. “there was but little chance of his reaching Portsmouth in safety; but with this forlorn hope, they continued to defend themselves the next day without provisions, till their last charge of ammunition was in their guns.” Miraculously, Morey arrived safely in Portsmouth and returned with an armed sloop to rescue his grateful neighbors. To read more about this incident and King William’s War, visit www.mykennebunks.com and click on the Stage Island Fort page. Many thanks to Kennebunkport Artist Frank Handlen for his original drawing.

York County has a long history of conflicts between Native Americans and Colonists but the Town of Kennebunk spoke in a unified voice protesting the 1830 Indian Removal Act before the United States Legislature.

Thomas Jefferson professed to be a proponent of “Indians assimilating into American culture and Democracy.” He proposed that those Choctaw, Cherokee and Creek tribes not so inclined might retain their right to land occupancy if they traded their cultivated farms and orchards east of the Mississippi River for wilderness lots on his new Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson first introduced the idea of “Indian Removal” in an 1803 Draft of Constitutional Amendment Incorporating Louisiana Territory into the United States. The document is part of the digitized Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress.

It reads, in part, “The legislature of the Union shall have the authority to exchange the right of occupancy in portions where the U.S. have full rights, for land possessed by Indians within the U.S. on the East side of the Mississippi, to exchange lands on the East side of the river for those of the White Inhabitants on the West side thereof.”

Jefferson hoped to finance the Louisiana Purchase from the proceeds of selling eastern Indian lands to wealthy plantationers. At a special session of Congress the Louisiana Purchase was ratified but did not incorporate Jefferson’s plan for “Indian Removal.”

President James Monroe proposed the idea to Congress again in 1825 but it didn’t have broad support until Andrew Jackson became President in 1829. At his first possible Presidential opportunity Jackson spoke to Congress making clear his support of the plan as a way to preserve the endangered Indian culture.

“Surrounded by the whites with their arts of civilization, which by destroying the resources of the savage doom him to weakness and decay,” he said. The Cherokee Nation was participating in the “arts of civilization” by anyone’s standards in 1829. They had a Constitution and a newspaper, The Cherokee Phoenix, in which every column was printed in English and in Cherokee. They also had fertile, gold rich land that the United States wanted.

The town of Kennebunk responded to President Jackson’s support of the bill with a memorial to the United States Legislature praying that the Indians be protected in their rights, and in the possession of their lands.

It read, “That your memorialists feel constrained to come before the National Legislature with an earnest request that the public faith may be preserved inviolate in all the transactions of the Government with the Indians; that these dependent allies, some of whom have been models of good faith and good neighborhood, may be treated with kindness and generosity, as well as with justice; that no encroachment may be made upon their right of territory, or right of self-government, as guaranteed by numerous treaties; and that they may be secure in their possessions which they derived from their ancestors, of which they are now in peaceable enjoyment, and to the continued occupancy of which they have, in the language of the Chief Justice of the United States, ‘a legal and just claim,’ independently of any guarantee from the United States. And your memorialists, as duty bound, will ever pray. Kennebunk, March 10, 1830.”

There was further opposition to the Indian Removal Act.

Maine Senator Peleg Sprague made an impassioned plea to Congress to honor the 15 treaties the U. S. Government had made with the Cherokee Nation between 1775 and 1819 promising that they could live unmolested in Georgia forever. Sprague reminded his audience that the treaties had not been signed out of generosity but in exchange for the maintenance of peace and cessions of territory. Ladies groups, Quakers and seven towns in the United States filed memorials in support of honoring the treaties. Two of those towns were in Maine; Brunswick and Kennebunk.

The Indian Removal Act passed in both houses of Congress by a narrow margin. President Jackson, who had signed the bill into law, opened his first annual message to Congress, December 8, 1830 with the following statement. “It gives me pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation.” The Indian Removal Act was, in reality, only the first shameful step on the “Trail of Tears,” the forcible eviction of the Native Americans living east of the Mississippi began in 1838.