America's Spirit

JE SUIS REVEILLE.

September 1976 at the Hyde School, Bath, Maine:

Our Bicentennial- Based Show, “America’s Spirit” has come off of a very successful run. This show, a collaborative effort between faculty and students, portrays various “sections” of American history such as Religious Liberty, Slavery and the Civil War, Westward Expansion and the controversial Altamont scene complete with stabbings and Hell’s Angels. I am just 16 years old and new to at Hyde, which I have often described as a combination of Military Academy and Free School.

This fall, we are beginning to flesh out what next year’s show will look like. One of the areas of American history our headmaster, Ed Legg, would like to add is the Acadian Experience. Growing up in Texas, Ed had many Cajun influences and his move to Maine reinforced this growing interest with exposure to Longfellow’s “Evangeline” and Maine’s Acadian population. Ed’s favorite music is the acclaimed roots group, The Band. Their iconic song, “Acadian Driftwood”, is chosen to build a scene upon.

My friend Gail Kelly and I, ever the background singers, composed the harmonies and the dance was choreographed. Costumes were drafted and sewn together. Instrumentals are developed and we are off. That summer of 1977, we performed “America’s Spirit” up and down the Eastern Seaboard, on Broadway, the steps of the Smithsonian, in small and large auditoriums and at School for Bath residents. “Acadian Driftwood” got into me in ways I could not understand. (Even now, writing about it brings tears to my eyes...) I sang that song from my gut. It was about injustice, home, hope, survival, and recovery. I had no way of knowing that that song would send me on a journey that has, in some way, defined my life.

The Bicentennial Celebration of 1976 was set in an America that was in the midst of upheaval. The Vietnam War has ended only the year before. President Nixon has resigned in shame because of the Watergate Scandal, and our current President, Gerald Ford has been the victim of two assassination attempts. Heiress Patty Hearst has been arrested for robbery in San Francisco. Lines stand still at gas stations due to an energy crisis and subsequent rationing. A growing sense of multiculturism is growing with the American Indian Movement, Feminist movements and protests, African-American and Latino awareness movements and others. We grow in our understanding that our history is not simple or always pretty, and that the core of what it means to be American is evolving.

Je Suis Acadienne!

JE SUIS ACADIENNE!

Once I had a copy of the genealogy, which Dottie had arranged to be prepared, things began to fall into place. Our Martins came from the longtime Acadian Capital, Port Royal, in present-day Nova Scotia.

                Port Royal, D’Acadie

                  

                           

 Port Royal was now well established.  The colony, founded by Champlain on St. Croix Island in Maine in 1604, barely survives a brutal winter and the decision is made to move to the Minas Basin.  The ship “St. Jehan” arrives with both men and women in 1636. A church,“aboiteau”dyked fields, and a Fort with an imposing view of the Riviere Dauphin are part of the settlement they create. It is securely French, but that safety will not last long.

 Port Royal went from French hands to English hands many times during the Martin's time there.

                                               Fish and fur, both valuable commodities for trade.

                              a Rochelle slave ship Le Saphir ex-voto, 1741.

                                              Anonymous, 18th century - "La Traite Rochelaise" Jean-Michel Deveau

                                          Transporting slaves needed in sugar plantations of the West Indies 

         First Generation:

Barnabe Martin (about 1635-between 1678-1686) marries Jeanne Pelletret (about 1643-1706)

Barnabe is coming to Acadia, most likely, on a resupply boat from La Rochelle. According to George L. Findlen, author of book on the Martins of the St. John River Valley, the name Barnabe is a Protestant name. La Rochelle, a Calvinist center, was heavily involved in the triangular trade routes involving fish and fur from New France, slaves from Africa and sugar plantations in the West Indies.

           

LaRochelle Connection:

                                                                                                               

   Early Acadian marriage records often did not survived due to repeated attacks by New England Militia during clashes between France and England that occurred during the 17^th and 18^th centuries. (Acadia was only a day’s sail from Boston.) But Jeanne’s first child’s birth is recorded, and Barnabe‘s occupation is listed in the 1671 census as “laboureur”. (Findlen, pg. 2) Etienne’s male line has since died out, leaving Rene as the link to descendants living in Canada, New England and Louisiana.

 Dykeland Construction

A) Aboiteau at low tide

1. Flow of fresh water from the marsh
2. Clapper valve opened by the pressure of the flow of the fresh water
3. Sluice (aboiteau)
4. Dyke

                                 

 

 B) Aboiteau at high tide 

1. The drained marsh is below sea level
2. Clapper valve closed to prevent salt water from entering the dyked area
3. Sluice (aboiteau)
4. Dyke

© Parks Canada

 Resources 

BLEAKNEY, J. Sherman. Sods, soil, and spades: the Acadians at Grand Pré and their dykeland legacy, McGill University Press, 2007. 

  RENE

Rene, Barnebe and Jeanne’s son is born sometime around 1671.

Second generation: Rene Martin dit Barnabe (1671-1756) marries Marie dit Lagasse (1671-1756)

Rene’s name appears in six censuses between 1693 and 1714. He and brother Etienne move about five miles upriver to an area known as “Village Barnabe”, near another larger area known as “Bellisle”. The Martin family will remain in Bellisle until they flee Acadia in 1754.                         

 

Understanding the Port Royal that Rene and his wife live in is helped by discoveries made in nearly Parks Canada Site, The Melanson Settlement. Located near the recreated buildings of Champlain’s second  habitation, the Melanson site is one of few that have not been too disturbed or built upon and reveal much about early Acadian life in Port Royal.

                                                                              
          

Revealed by a grass fire in the 1980’s, this multifamily habitation founded in 1664 by Englishman Charles Melanson and his French Huguenot wife, Marie Dugas . the sites content reveals ceramic shards from China, Germany and England, scissors, beads and coins. It also shows evidence of a garden space where cabbages, turnips herbs and flax could be grown as well as what appears to be an orchard.

Heavy timbered buildings had grass and clay fill. (The clay in Riviere Dauphine is red and plentiful. I dug some and brought it back with me after my visit to the Marie Brun home site.) It had a large fireplace inside and outdoor brick ovens, as are evidenced in homes in Bellilse. The home also had lead camed windows, one of which is stamped 1740. Buildings were rebuilt various times throughout the Melanson settlement, and various styles of architecture are evident.

Many lower river Acadians, such as Rene, moved up river to avoid the disruption of constant skirmishes with the British, which fired on Port Royal  during its French period five times from Goat Island, near the Melanson site. Several times, area homes were fired upon and burned.

After deportation, English officers described returning to the Melanson site and finding pear and apple trees so heavily laden with unpicked fruit that their branches were weighed down.

Mom, Dottie and Richard

QUI  SUIS-JE?

Four kids came along; Monica. Alex, Tess and John. For the next 20 years, I was pretty busy taking care of them and our small family farm in Scarborough. Inspired in part by the rugs I saw in Cheticamp, I began to raise sheep and spin their wool.

During this time, my Grandmother Virginia passed away after suffering with Alzheimer’s disease for many years. My Grandfather still lived in Island Falls, and my Uncle retired and moved home.  My son Alex began to take violin lessons from Daniel Guillemette, of Sanford. His Grandfather, Ben, part of Maine French Fiddlers, had taught Daniel and his brothers to play traditional French tunes. At one point we went to visit my Grandfather as he was in now in a Nursing Home in Houlton. Alex brought his little ¼ size fiddle and played something for him, “That fella’s not too bad., replied my Grandfather.

When my Grampy passed on, my son received that violin and plays it to this day.

After my Grandfather passed away, it was becoming apparent that my Mother was exhibiting the first signs of Alzheimer’s, as well.

My Mother Ramona, a complicated person, had left home and gone to school in Boston at a branch of Tufts, Forsyth, a professional school for dental hygienists. Boston and Aroostook has been linked easily through the Bangor and Aroostook railroad

which made its way through Aroostook County with passenger cars and heated potato cars. From Bangor, a Maine Central Railroad car would take her to the Boston and Maine in Portland.  Trips like this were common to people in Island Falls, which had been one of the first stops on the B and A.  (Bangor Public Library Bangor Community: Digital Commons@bpl Books and Publications Special Collections 1-1-1900 A Brief History of the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad George F. Mulherin)

During one college summer break, my Mother worked at a resort in Rangeley Lake and became close friends with an intrepid soul named Dottie Alford. My Mother introduced my Uncle Richard to her and a whirlwind romance ensued. But Dottie and Richard parted ways and lived out their lives without one another.

                             

 1950s  B and A

“Flyer”

My parents and my Aunt Dottie all rode this train to Boston and beyond.

          

                                  A view of Rangeley Lake

In 2008, while on a trip to Island Falls. Dottie stopped just for fun at my Uncle’s home and knocked on the door. My Uncle answered.

 “Do you know who I am?” she asked.

 It has been over 50 years since they had seen one another.

“Of course I do! You're Dottie St. Onge!” The old flame was instantly rekindled and they were married six months from that meeting.

 My Mother was well enough to attend the wedding, but soon afterwards, she, too succumbed to Alzheimer’s.

I began visiting my Aunt and Uncle regularly in Island Falls. About a year after my Mother’s death, my Aunt Dottie lost her only remaining child, her daughter Anna, 53 years old. Dottie and I were suddenly thrown together in our grief. We began to develop a deep bond that sustained us both. My Uncle Richard, the last living representative of an era we both understood and loved, redefined our relationship.

My Uncle Richard, my “handsome Uncle” who once resembled Elvis Presley, also began to show signs of Alzheimer’s. Dottie cared for him as long as she could until it became too difficult for her to keep him at home.  He and I spent many hours together talking about his life and our family. He often did not know who I was, but he knew I was a relative and it was obvious that that was a comfort to him. He and Dottie had a love that is hard to define. The spark that ignited in the 1950s remained strong until he died in the fall of 2014, almost 4 years to the day of my Mother’s passing.

This precious relationship with Dottie and Richard included an understanding that I was “the keeper” of family information.  I am the holder of family albums and documents, including a genealogy of The Martin Family. From this genealogy, my Acadian journey began to have a discernable path.

Island Falls and the KKK

Qui perd sa langue perd sa foi…


I have choses the Women of the Klux Klux Klan Seal from Houlton, Maine as my Maine Memory Network primary source.  The reason I have chosen this is my desire to understand why my forbearers stopped speaking French and practicing their Catholic Faith. Although there is no way to be certain that the activity of the Ku Klux Klan in the Southern Aroostook area was, in fact, the sole reason for this behavior, the presence of anti-Franco and anti-Catholic sentiment may have had a profound effect on my Acadian relatives as they made their home in Island Falls in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Prior to their relocation in Southern Aroostook, my relatives had lived in heavily French Catholic Van Buren, located in the St. John River Valley, home of many Acadian families.  The Martins, like many other Acadians, settled the area after being deported by the British in 1755 from Nova Scotia and other settlements in Maritime Canada. Their loss of both their Catholic and French identity poses an interesting question that Nativist sentiment of the time could partially answer.

The seal of the Women of the Ku Klux Klan of Houlton, a subgroup of the Aroostook Klan is from the Aroostook County Historical and Art Museum, in Houlton, Maine. It is used in embossing papers, perhaps for official purposes, such as membership and correspondence with other Klan groups. It has a braided, circular raised edge, with the word “Women of the Ku Klux Klan, Aroostook Klan “, and “ No. 21” separated by a shield with a cross inside it, the letters “K,K,K” and the letter “W” on the cross’s top. Another word, “Klan” is above the cross, and “Houlton, Maine” below it. The word Klan appears three times on the seal.

According to “Acadian Culture in Maine”, a website developed by the University of Maine at Ft. Kent, “discussion of Maine Acadian worldview is always influenced by who is asking about the subject and of whom; the respective age, gender, and educational and economic status of each person involved in the discussion; what community each is from; whether they have experienced stigmatization based on ethnic, religious or linguistic affiliation; and the context and language in which the discussion is conducted.” This set of criteria is important to consider how Acadians living in Island Falls saw the anti-French/Catholic activities in the Houlton area of the 1920’s and how it affected them. Given this background, demonstrations of anti-Franco/Catholic prejudice were widely known in Maine. One, the tarring and feathering in the community of Ellsworth of Jesuit priest John Bapst in 1854 shows that Nativist sentiment was already present in Maine before the year 1920. The choice to name the new Bangor Catholic High School in 1928 by Monsignor Nelligan and Father Houlihan as a "tribute in recognition of the great works of the pioneering priest" (Maine Memory Network) suggests resistance to ant-Catholic forces in the area. Indeed, Milo, Maine, located between Bangor and Houlton, saw the first daylight parade if the Klan in Maine and New England in 1923. That same year, a rally was held in some woods in Waterville, drawing some 15,000 people.( Lewiston Daily Sun, August 27, 1923.)

Certain Maine politicians were also sympathetic to the Klan cause, including Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, James G. Blaine, who ran for President in 1884. During that campaign, an important Blaine supporter commented that the opposing Democrat party was characterized by “rum, Romanism & rebellion”. Blaine was defeated narrowly by Grover Cleveland. (Summers, Mark (2000). Rum, Romanism & Rebellion: The Making of a President, 1884. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.)

The Maine Klan was overseen by F. Eugene Farnsworth, who hailed from the Downeast town of Columbia Falls. Farnsworth, often accompanied by Protestant Clergy, toured Maine and held large rallies, specifically targeting the growth of Catholic Schools in Maine.  Large influxes of Canadian workers flooded Saco, Biddeford, Lewiston and paper towns such as Millinocket, seeking work.  This growing Catholic influence was particularly concerning to Farnsworth. His answer to this was to strengthen the moral influence of the home. What better way to do this than to enlist women? Mrs. Gertrude Witham was promoted to Major Kleagle (recruiter) of the Maine Chapter of the KKK. Witham’s efforts were thwarted, however, when it became known that several  Klanswomen were actually foreign-born, from Canada.  

Farnsworth’s dismissal of these women and subsequent financial finagling, specifically in fees charged women Klan member, eventually resulted in his resignation as King Kleagle of Maine. (Richard, Mark Paul (2010). "'Why Don’t You Be a Klansman?' Anglo-Canadian Support for the Ku Klux Klan Movement in 1920s New England.". American Review of Canadian Studies 4: 508–516. doi:10.1080/02722011.2010.519396.)

Island Falls in the 1920’s was a bustling town with a bark grinding mill, tannery, lumber mills, pulp drives and hotels, halls and entertainments for itinerant workers and townspeople. Some of the entertainment of the day was holding a parade or ball game; opportunity for  the community of outlying farmers and local townsfolk to gather and socialize. One such gathering occurred in the year 1924, on July the 12th.  The Maine Memory Network page, obtained from the Cary Library reads as follows: “Notations on the album page where this photograph is found state, "The park where we watched the Houlton ball team beat I.F." and "The KKK at Island Falls July 12, 1924." The Houlton Times of 1924-07-16 , under "News From Island Falls and Patten" states: The Orangemen's celebration which has been looked forward to with so much interest for several weeks was most successful in every way....There were the most Orangemen ever seen here in a parade, many different lodges being represented. The Orangemen were followed by about one hundred members of the Ku Klux Klan from different towns, and as they appeared in their white robes and masks they were greeted with much enthusiasm all along the line of march..... Two ball games were played between Island Falls and Houlton both were won by the latter team." In this photo the Klan is seen marching across the ballfield.”

Orangemen, a Protestant Fraternal order, commemorate the victory of William of Orange’s Protestant forces over those of Catholic James II, in the year 1690. In heavily Scot-Irish Southern Aroostook, the sense of cultural pride ran deep. The report of this day’s festivities are included in the Town of Island Fall’s Centennial Commemorative book, compiled by Nina Sawyer in the year 1972. Missing from that account, however, is the mention that members of the Ku Klux Klan were present in the same parade. (Island Falls 1872-1972, Nina G. Sawyer, 1972.)

What did my Great-great-grandfather, Theophile Martin, and his wife, Florence Durpeau think of this show? The antagonism of the time as well as the memory the sheer number of Orangemen, who walked with five thousand people on July 13, 1903,( Sawyer, 110) must have been an influence on him, because he changed his name to an Anglicized version of Theophile, “Tofield”. By this name, he is known to my entire family.

That the seal of the WKKK has been saved by the Aroostook Historical and Art Museum is both a good thing and a bad thing. Was it saved by a sympathetic member and passed down through that family until it rested where it is, or was it unearthed in an attic, it’s worth debated, then donated, with the hope that finally the dark past of proud Southern Aroostook could come to light? For this Acadienne, more research must be done, but this seal and accompanying images from Maine Memory Network have added more pieces of the recovery puzzle. Je me souviens! L’Acadie toujours!

Expanded version of a paper I did for my Maine History class in May of 2015

Teddy Roosevelt in Maine

Teddy Roosevelt spent time in Island Falls as a young man with his life long friend, Bill Sewell.  Beginning in 1878, Sewell, a Maine Guide and woodsman, mentored Roosevelt. The two men hiked Katahdin, hunted and camped in lean-tos in the balsam woods. Sewell’s influence was instrumental in the asthmatic Harvard junior’s development into manhood. He remained Roosevelt’s friend through his entire life and the two wrote many letters  back and forth. In the late 19^th century, trips into Maine’s vast wilderness were increasingly fashionable. Trips to Maine’s backcountry promoted  an experienced where people might meet “adversity …with strength and wisdom.” Towns such as Patten and Island Falls were built upon the lumber industry , farming and also hosting those who sought  to encounter the untamed landscape of Northern Maine in the hope to gain the physical and emotional benefits of Nature.

                  

Island Falls

VOUS  VOUS  SOYVENEZ?

My Grandparents, Ronald and Virginia Martin lived in Island Falls, a place I didn’t always enjoy visiting. Their tiny house was too neat, too boring . But when they came to visit us in Camden, they brought presents! My Grammie, a school teacher in nearby Crystal,  brought books , colored pencils, new dresses, and her still- to -this -day amazing cinnamon rolls to go with our Saturday night baked beans. And Grampy would bring his violin! We begged him to play and tell us stories. Our favorite was,” Mysterious Mose”, a Maine Game Warden who always got his man.

After our bean supper, Grampy and  my Dad would head off to their gig and we would migrate into the bathtub and later, watch the remnants of Lawrence Welk and Hee-Haw. It was at one of those dances that my Father met my Mother. In those days, dancing was THE entertainment. At one point my Grandfather had two bands; “The Black Diamonds” and the family Band, “The Martins”. My Mother played piano, Uncle Richard played sax and my Grand Father played his fiddle. Although my Grandfather went on to be the Administrator at the local hospital and ran the local IGA store, it is his dance bands that people recall.

One visit in 1977, I decided to ask my Grandfather about our heritage. I  knew that “Martin” was a French name and had heard stories of  my Great-Great Grandfather, “The Old Frenchman”, Tofield.  I had also heard stories and insinuations about my Great –Great Grand  Mother, Durpeau. “That’s the Durpeau in ya.”, was  standard whenever we got angry or were stubborn about something. We got the feeling that this was not a compliment!

“Grampy, can you tell me about our family? Where did we come from?

“Well….we are French Arcadian.”

He did not tell me much more than that, but I knew he neither spoke French nor was Catholic. The fact that he knew enough to be able to identify our family as Acadian was interesting, but just as interesting and telling, was the fact that he mispronounced the word.

                                         

                                                

A View of the West Branch of the Mattawamkeag

Un Commencement:

This document is only the beginning of recording all that I have learned over the years about my Mother’s family, the Martin’s, and our hidden Acadian heritage. It is my hope that my children, grandchildren and siblings will find it interesting, helpful and explanatory. It is by no means exhaustive, but provides a starting point for a gathering of information. It may provide opportunity for whoever chooses to interact with this information; to comment on it, add to it, detract from it, and hopefully, enjoy it.

Madawaska Morning 8/14