On December 2, 1749, a few days after the peace conference at Falmouth, a group of fifteen Wabanaki were ambushed near Wiscasset by a group of relatives or friends of Obadiah Albee, Sr., a recent settler from Massachusetts. “The whites fired on the Indians without provocation, killing one Indian man and wounding two others; they then tried to hide the dead man’s body. Later, back in town, they bragged about their exploit” (Ghere and Morrison, p. 196).
In what came to be called the ‘Wiscasset Incident’, Albee and his group had managed to assault a well-traveled group of Wabanaki, representing a wide array of tribes. The man killed, Chief Hegan, was a Narantsouak (Kennebec) who also had resided at Bécancour. The wounded men were Capt. Job, also a Narantsouak, and Andrew, from St. Francis.
The survivors fled the scene by canoe to Parker’s Island (Georgetown), where Hegan’s widow reported the crime to Major Samuel Denny, the chief magistrate of the lower Kennebec and Justice of the Peace. He issued a warrant for the arrest of the perpetrators to Deputy Sheriff Captain Samuel Harden. He also requested government aid for fourteen members of the deceased and injured families, left destitute by the attack. The government feared “a pan-Abenaki uprising, endangering the entire New England frontier, in this time of supposed peace” (Ghere and Morrison, p. 196).
Arriving at Wiscasset on December 7, Denny and Harden were accosted by a group of vigilantes intent on preventing any arrests. Denny was thrown to the ground in the scuffle, but Harden courageously went about his business and arrested the six individuals involved in the incident who were still in town. The ringleader, Albee, had already fled to Boston on a schooner. Among those arrested, two were indicted, Samuel Ball and Albert Ledite; two were released outright, and two were put under bond to appear as witnesses.
While Ball and Ledite were being detained in a house in Falmouth, a sympathetic mob freed them. The authorities offered a reward of £50 for each recapture, but a counteroffer of £25 was also made for anyone aiding their escape. After being on the lam for three weeks, they were finally captured by Captain Jonathon Bean of Saco and placed in the York County jail on January 10. Nine men were instructed to guard them against another escape.
The ringleader, Albee, was also apprehended a little later and placed in the York County Jail. He was caught after boasting to the crew of the schooner about the murder. The captain turned him in for the reward.
Albee was tried by a Jury on June 9, 1750, in York County. To the astonishment of the Massachusetts authorities, who had gone to great lengths to gather evidence for his conviction, he was declared not guilty. This verdict was particularly embarrassing, as Wabanaki leaders had been invited to Boston to see justice done. Twelve months later, another jury found Ledite guilty of assaulting Capt. Job and Andrew, for which he was sentenced to a whipping, but was declared not guilty of abetting in Hegan’s murder (Ghere and Morrison, 1996).
Trying to head off any mayhem in the frontier in response to such weak justice, Governor Phips invited the families of the victims and tribal leaders to confer with him in Boston, where they were “plied with food, drink, and platitudes of peace’ and given “gifts of shirts, blankets, hats, stockings, a kettle, and money” as remuneration for their losses and damaged honor (Dekker, 2015, p. 101).
Retribution
These diplomatic efforts did little to quell the tension that was once again roaring across the Maine frontier. Authorities in New France took “full advantage of these English flounderings” to encourage the Wabanaki to vengeance (Ghere & Morrison, 1996, p. 109).
In September 1750, a group of frustrated Kennebec and Penobscot joined with about a hundred Canadian Wabanaki to attack Fort Richmond and the surrounding settlements of the Pejebscot Proprietors. The assault on the fort was thwarted by some conciliatory Kennebec, who alerted the soldiers of the imminent attack; however, the people in the surrounding settlements were not so lucky. Near the fort, cattle were slaughtered, property destroyed, and a captive was taken, Philip Jenkins. The assailants fell on the Nobel and Whidden families on Swan Island and took thirteen members of their family captive. Mr. and Mrs. Widden escaped by hiding in the basement of their home. Later in Sheepscot, William Ross and his son John were taken captive, several abandoned homes were destroyed, and many cattle were butchered. In the Brunswick/Topsham area, another man, John Thompson, was snatched, and more cattle were killed, and homes destroyed.
These raids left the whole mid-coast region in a state of high anxiety and fear. On September 26, the remaining residents petitioned Governor Phips, begging for help. In response, 150 soldiers were sent to protect the outposts scattered from Saco to St. George, releasing the tension. Finally, in a conciliatory mood, the Penobscot told the soldiers at Fort St. George that the attacks had satisfied them, “having, as they say, paid themselves for the mischief at Wiscasset, and will hurt us no more (Baxter, 1908, p. 105).
Bibliography
Baxter, J.P. (1908) Documentary History of the State of Maine. Vol. X. Maine Historical Society. Press of Lefavob-Towee Company.
Dekker, M. (2015) French & Indian Wars in Maine. The History Press. Charleston, South Carolina.
Ghere, D. L., & Morrison, A. H. (1996). Sanctions for Slaughter: Peacetime Violence on the Maine Frontier, 1749-1772. Algonquian Papers-Archive, 27.
New England Historical Society (undated) The Wiscasset Incident Sets Off Maine’s Indian Wars of 1750. https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/the-wiscasset-incident-sets-off-maines-indian-wars-of-1850/
Turmoil in Dawnland 