Campobello Island

“ But when an English man-of-war came into the harbor, the Fenians, to avoid capture, sank their own vessel off the Narrows, beyond the lighthouse, and escaped themselves towards Machias.
Climate. The summer climate of Campobello is cool and delightful, the thermometer ranging between fifty-five and seventy-five degrees; so one can be outdoors all day long without becoming oppressed by the heat. The extensive forests of balsamic firs seem to affect the atmosphere, soothing and invigorating the visitor by day, and inviting sleep by night.
Water. The greater part of the Island is fertile. ”

“ Remember in all these drives to turn to the left, and when you walk not to be afraid of cows.
Perhaps it is the water excursions which render Campobello most famous. Among these is the sail to St. Andrews, which offers modern Wedgewood ware for sale, and where is the far-famed Algonquin Hotel and Cobscook Mountain. The West Isles and Le Tete Canal make another [Pg 40] pleasant sail. To go around the Island on a calm day is delightful. Very exquisite in its limited beauty is the sail up St. George's River, the trees on either side arching their branches over the little steamer. ”

“ Never start on any excursion at Campobello until you have adjusted your hours to the tides, or else your plans will fail.
Mill Cove. This waiting upon the tide is of special importance at Mill Cove, the road to which branches off from Head Harbor road. There is no place on the Island equal to this for surprises. When the fog is "in" half of it is non-existent, as it were. At high tide you see an island which you cannot reach by carriage. At low tide you urge your horse up a short, pebbly beach, down into the water, and up on to an island. ”

“ The Admiral's domains extended beyond Campobello to Head Harbor, Pope's Folly, Sandy, Spruce, and Casco Islands. Since his reign some of these islands have been sold, while Casco Island was given to Chief Justice Allen, of New Brunswick, by Lady Owen. When the little fishing vessels and ferry boats, which ply between these islands, and the big schooners and large steamers, are now counted on any one summer day, it is difficult to realize how comparatively uncrossed were these waters in the Admiral's early years of Island life. ”

“ The length of the island from north to south is under 20 miles, the extreme width 7 miles, the distance from the borders of Maine, 9 miles, and from Campobello, 12 miles. The steamer lands at North Head, the principal port of the island with unpretending hotel accommodations. Here the bluffs rear sky-ward with the vigour of Blomidon. Behind the town is a cemetery filled with graves of the ship-wrecked. The west coast opposes to the mainland a wall several hundred feet high which affords only one refuge for fleeing vessels. ”

“ After first going to the Owen, at Campobello, the Pasmers took rooms at the Ty'n-y-Coed, which is so much gayer, even if it is not so characteristic of the old Welsh Admiral's baronial possession of the island. It is characteristic enough, and perched on its bluff overlooking the bay, or whatever the body of water is, it sees a score of pretty isles and long reaches of mainland coast, with a white marble effect of white-painted wooden Eastport, nestled in the wide lap of the shore, in apparent luxury and apparent innocence of smuggling and the manufacture of herring sardines. ”

“ Great improvements are likewise making in Agriculture in these Parishes, particularly in Pennfield, which produces wheat in great perfection. The settlers in this Parish are good farmers, and are making great improvements.
The Parishes of Campobello and Deer Island comprehend the Islands so called. Campobello includes the Islands on the south east side of Passamaquoddy river. It contains several thousand acres of land fit for cultivation. Many of the inhabitants are employed in the fishery along the shores. ”

“ Florida, as then known, extended from the peninsula indefinitely to the north.
185. Seal Cove, which makes up between the south-west end of the Grand Manan and Wood Island, the latter being South of Manan and is plainly the island referred to in the text. This cove is open to the South wind and the sea in a storm. Wood Island has a sandy shore with occasional rocks.
186. Port aux Coquilles, the harbor of shells. This port was near the northeastern extremity of Campobello Island, and was probably Head Harbor, which affords a good harbor of refuge.—Vide Champlain's Map of 1612, reference 9. ”

“ The population of the Island increased, and the old man married the boys and girls at church or at home, slowly or hastily, as his humor bade him, always claiming the first kiss of the bride. A certain sailor who had wooed a Campobello maiden was determined that this privilege should not be allowed by her, and therefore tried to salute his bride before the service was ended. "You are not married yet. ”

“ In the war of 1812, Indian Island and Campobello were very busy in shipping English goods and wares from the large colonial ports. Neutral voyages were constantly made. American vessels had a Swedish registrar, and went from Sweden to Eastport in three or four hours. Silk, wool, cotton, metals, were thus carried up the bays and streams, and shipped in wagons to the Penobscot, then to Portland, Boston, etc. ”

“ The saw-mills which were built long ago fell into decay. The ores, if there are any, are [Pg 30] still unexplored; agriculture does not flourish; the fisheries have decreased, herring are scarce; and the various changes in the imposition of duties have perplexed and thwarted the business activity of the Islanders.
Admiral's Second Marriage. Year after year the Admiral saw his hopes deferred. Lady Owen had died. His daughter, Mrs. Robinson Owen, and her children, still lived in the Island home, helping, teaching, guiding all around them with kindliness and wisdom. ”

“ Alas! now the land is hired for pasturage, and excellent thereof is the milk.
Benedict Arnold. Among Allan's customers when he lived on the island was Benedick Arnold; for Allan spelt the name with a k, as his account book shows. Arnold at that time, though in business at St. John, N.B., was living for a short time in Campobello, at Snug Cove. In the [Pg 34] Centennial year this account book was exhibited at Dennysville, as one of its curiosities. In 1786 Arnold bought a new vessel, which he called the "Lord Sheffield," and made trading voyages in her along the coast and to the West Indies. ”

“ A deep, unbroken silence ever reigned here, save when some gay party from the opposite coast visited the island to fish or shoot partridges. Sometimes during the summer, pleasure parties were held here, but in the winter all was silent and dreary on the lonely, isolated little spot.
This island had been, from time immemorial, in the possession of a family named Campbell, handed down from father to son. The people of the surrounding country had learned to look upon them as the rightful lords of the soil, "to the manner born." ”

“ Croix first formed the boundary between Acadia and New England, and later the boundary between the Provinces of Nova Scotia and Massachusetts Bay.
Campobello itself could scarcely be said to have a history till towards the end of the eighteenth century. Moose roamed over the swamps and looked down from the bold headlands; Indians crossed from the mainland and shot them; straggling Frenchmen, dressing in skins, built huts along the northern and southern shores, till civilization dawned through the squatter sovereignty of two men, Hunt and Flagg. ”

“ Within a few years past, missionaries from the Society group have settled among the Leeward Islands, where the natives have treated them kindly. Indeed, nominally, many of these people are now Christians; and, through the political influence of their instructors, no doubt, a short time since came tinder the allegiance of Pomaree, the Queen of Tahiti; with which island they always carried on considerable intercourse.
The Coral Islands are principally visited by the pearl-shell fishermen, who arrive in small schooners, carrying not more than five or six men. ”

“ On the death of the old Queen in 1877, the French recognised her son, Pomare V., who had married his cousin Marau. The new Queen was the daughter of a chiefess known as Arii Taimai, who had married an English Jew named Salmon. [85] Miss Gordon Cumming, who visited the island at the time, gives an interesting account of the procession round the island to proclaim the new sovereigns, in which she herself took part. In 1880 Pomare handed over his claims to the French Government, by whom the island was then formally annexed. ”

“ It is generally very warm and close, yet we have had sometimes very heavy seas, with waves breaking over us. We passed Rossell and Adele Isles, part of the Louisiade Archipelago off the south-east coast of British New Guinea. Rossell Isle is large and very hilly. A ship carrying Chinese to Cooktown in Queensland was once wrecked on it. Three hundred Chinese were landed on the island. When, later, a steamer was sent to fetch them away, only three survivors were found, roaming about the rocks and quite mad, the natives having killed and eaten the rest. Adele Isle has great cocoanut palm groves. ”

“ The situation of the islands is wholly isolated; the nearest land is Staten Island, distant 250 miles by chart—they are 350 miles from Terra del Fuego, and 400 from the coast of Patagonia in direct lines, countries either uninhabited, or peopled by savages, without port or shipping—and there is no small shipping trade in or about the Falklands. By means of the semaphore, a communication can be kept up every ten minutes between the extreme western point of the West Island and Port Stanley on the extreme east of the group—consequently the naval force stationed there need be very trifling. ”

“ The island turned out to be one of the Pomotu or Low Group—sometimes called the Coral Islands—perhaps the most remarkable and interesting in the Pacific. Lying to the east of Tahiti, the nearest are within a day’s sail of that place.
They are very numerous; mostly small, low, and level; sometimes wooded, but always covered with verdure. Many are crescent-shaped; others resemble a horse-shoe in figure. ”

“ Until recently, so little was actually known of these Block Island folk, who were nearly all born there, and relatives, that a strong belief was prevalent on the adjacent mainland that the genuine native Block Islanders had only one eye apiece. They are strange and antiquated, and many of the old people have never been off the island. Some of them recall as a wonderful journey taken years ago, in early youth, how they ventured so far away from home as to sail "across to the Continent," as they call the remainder of the United States. ”

“ When I emerged from my cabin I found it was blowing rather stiffly, and we were steaming close to the coast amidst picturesque rocky islands and islets. Captain M‘Lean was a pleasant, cheery, kind old man, but he and the passengers expressed the greatest wonder that I should be bound for Thursday Island, and evidently thought me “a freak” to want to go to such a place for pleasure.
We stopped at Flat Top Island about midday, it being only a small isle with a lighthouse. We arrived in Cleveland Bay and anchored off Townsville about 11 p.m. A steam tender took passengers and baggage ashore. ”

“ The harbour, which is in the latitude of 7° 50′, we named the port of Santa Isabel del Estrella; and we named the island, Santa Isabel. The Indians called the island Camba; and their cacique is named Billebanarra. This harbour lies nearly in the middle of the north coast of the island, and is 26 leagues north-east and south-west from the reefs. ”

“ The Falklands archipelago is made up of two major islands, East Falkland and West Falkland, and several hundred smaller islands including Pebble Island, Keppel Island, Saunders Island, Carcass Island, West Point Island, Jason Islands, New Island, Beaver Island, Staats Island, Weddell Island, Swan Island, Speedwell Island, George Island, Beauchêne Island, Sea Lion Island, Bleaker Island, Lively Island etc. ”

“ The group lies between the south end of New Ireland and the north end of the great Bougainville Island in the Solomon Archipelago, and consists of six low, well-wooded and fertile islands, enclosed within a barrier reef, forming a noble atoll, almost circular in shape. All the islands are thickly populated at the present day by natives, who are peaceable enough, and engage in bêche-de-mer and pearl-shell fishing. ”

“ The tides or currents are strong and irregular here, as may be expected, from the extending reefs, shoals, and keys, and its vicinity to Endeavour Straits.
We steered from these hostile savages to other islands in sight, and sent some armed men on shore, with orders to keep pretty near us, and to run close along shore in the boats. But they returned without success. This island we called Plumb Island, from its bearing an austere, astringent kind of fruit, resembling plumbs, but not fit to eat. ”

“ The pertinacity with which he urged his scheme showed that he was not a man easily diverted from any settled purpose, and few governments could have resisted the powerful influence he brought to bear for the attainment of his object. There can be little doubt that whatever might be the consequences of possession to the Lord Paramount himself and his family of nine children, the destiny of the island would have been far better in his keeping than in that of the men to whom it was afterwards unfortunately committed. ”

“ It was one of the most interesting and pathetic places of which the human mind can conceive—a place of grim tragedies. There were about twelve hundred lepers on the island, divided into two colonies, one at each end of the island. The island itself forms a natural fortress from which escape is almost impossible, the sea on one side and mountains on the other. ”