106 



£!)e Jfavmcv's iHontljlij Visitor. 



successive editions of tier limps. Mitchell's 

 map (and we have something to offer of its au- 

 thor) was made not hy measure of the actual po- 

 sition of the land, but hy examination of the 

 coasts and harbors upon the sea after its first set- 

 tlement. It seems to have been impossible un- 

 der the grant of the treaty of 1783 that there 

 should have been any dispute about the bounda- 

 ry. The description could not be mistaken. 

 Pursuing a line directly north from the head 

 water of the St. Croix the line extended to that 

 highest point of the highlands dividing (he wa- 

 ters running into the Atlantic, ocean from the 

 waters of the St. Lawrence. From this descrip 

 tion the Ashburton treaty abstracted a distance 

 along the line of New Brunswick extending 

 seventy miles and a line upon Canada of full 

 two hundred miles, leaving in the circuitous and 

 zig-zag course of the highest point in the high- 

 lands an average width say of thirty-five miles: 

 this takes from Maine a much larger territory 

 than the entire Granite Stale. When civilization 

 shall reach it, instead of being poor and sterile, 

 our opinion is, that this excluded territory will 

 be found some of ihe richest, most endurable 

 and most profitable soil for cultivation in the 

 northern country. The Madawaska settlement 

 was made nearly a century ago: that settlement 

 extends along both siiles of the St. John's river 

 about sixty miles. The greatest portion of the 

 settlement is upon the north or Canada side. 

 The immensity of timber (nothing but the beau- 

 tiful tall pines are yet called timber in Maine) 

 will hold out for many years, while almost every 

 acre opening will be valuable for cultivation. 

 The growing crops upon the upper St. John's 

 on the first of July were said lo be quite as for- 

 ward as down south a hundred ami fifty miles at 

 Bangor upon the Penobscot. 



It is strange, in any unsettled country, how 

 little distance and space are comprehended. 

 Back of Penobscot near the waters of the Pis- 

 cataquis a new place is opened called Kaiadu 

 iron works. This led strangers travelling from 

 curiosity and pleasure to make that a point as 

 opening the scenery of the higher mountain of 

 Maine ; but on approaching these iron works, 

 old Katadn, herself rearing her head so high as 

 to be seen in the Penobscot towns, was further 

 removed than ever, being inaccessible hy any 

 carriage or horse-back path, and only to be gain- 

 ed at its foot by rude canoe river navigation in 

 part, and pathless close forest ravines, swamps 

 and uplands in the remainder. Katadn is on 

 the one side of a yet immense wilderness at the 

 sources of the many heads of the. Penobscot and 

 southerly branch of the St. John's — measured on 

 the map it is nearly a hundred aud fifty miles south 

 of the St. John's at the Madawaska settlement 

 ami fully an equal distance north from the mouth 

 of the Penobscot at Thomaston. The boundary 

 of the State of Maine was enlarged, because the 

 highland ridge below Quebec, narrowed down 

 from some thirty miles directly against Quebec 

 to sometimes less than ten miles below, leaving 

 but a margin strip in Canada as belonging to 

 Great Britain under the treaty of l?S;j ; and the 

 course of the river north of east. 



We have said that the State of Maine is des- 

 tined to become the most commercial and tin.' 

 most wealthy Stale of the Union upon the At- 

 lantic : we repeat the opinion. The severity ol 

 a northern climate is not to be a serious obstacle 

 to this consummation. Her climate is well 

 adapted to her soil; and when denuded of her 

 immense growth of forest nines, both climate 



and soil unite to make it the most desirable 

 country to be settled purely for the most profita- 

 ble and most enduring agriculture. 



Of the county of Penobscot we were surprised 

 to learn that some of its most flourishing town- 

 ships were yet cleared only to an amount of 

 one-sixth or one-eighth. Carmel is one of these 

 townships westerly of Bangor in the direction 

 of Augusta, some fifteen miles: it is one of the 

 timbered townships in which so many land 

 speculators were ruined some twelve years ago. 

 To this town, on invitation, we rode the day after 

 our arrival at Bangor. All the way over a fine 

 road because then dry, the land was very good: 

 growing belter at Herman than at Bangor, it 

 was still belter at Carmel. For agricultural 

 purposes merely, rich land as this any where 

 fifteen miles from the Merrimack would be 

 worth at least double the high price of the lim- 

 ber lands paid in the time of speculations. The 

 gentleman visited at Carmel was George VV. 

 Chamberlain, Esq. formerly of Gil man ton, who 

 went down there some ten years ago as an agent 

 to make available something of value out of the 

 land speculated upon by citizens of New Hamp- 

 shire. This town of Carmel had its splendid 

 fields of glass of spontaneous growth. Corn 

 grows upon it without manure: we brought 

 away with us ears of eight-rowed corn taken 

 from one half acre which measured as its pro- 

 duct at t lie rate of seventy bushels of sixty-one 

 pounds each shelled corn. Mr. Chamberlain 

 instructed us in his new fields of this year how 

 this was done. The rows were four feet apart, 

 with the corn three stalks in a hill eaidi twelve 

 inches asunder: thus — 



He found the strength of the land, with the 

 position of the lows north and south letting in 

 the sun, sufficient to give the greatest full pro- 

 duct to every blade. The spot of land upon 

 which this corn grew, like much of the land of 

 the town, was a slaty limestone, the slate appa- 

 rently decomposing by atmospheric action. 

 Such land on its first cultivation seems lo re- 

 quire less deep ploughing than our older lands. 

 The soil had a highly stimulative action, for the 

 corn blades planted on the 2SJth of May were on 

 the 2d of July of a deep healthy color and 

 growth large as at the usual second hoeing. 

 This same land is also productive of spring 

 wheat, of which the weave! in the last two or 

 three years here as elsewhere in Maine had se- 

 riously injured the crops. 



Mr. Chamberlain, besides an extensive busi- 

 ness of lumbering, has done much for the agri- 

 culture of his neighborhood since he removed 

 from New Hampshire: he has cleared and 

 brought into cultivation one hundred and sixty 

 acres of land: he has erected a water grist flour- 

 ing mill with burr stones at an expense of about 

 .i?50U0— :i more complete and finished structure 

 than we have ever seen in this Slate of that 

 kind. His enthusiasm lo improve agriculture 

 has induced him to purchase a stud horse, an 

 English blood sired in New Brunswick, called 

 John Ball, that in our poor judgment in fine pro- 

 portions, color and spirit of movement has no 

 superior in the country: his weight is 1912 

 pounds, and his mice of purchase two years 

 e.go was §500: the income the first year was 

 $300— this season §100. From a breed of 

 swine called the Mackey breed, imported by Dr. 

 Nourse of Hallowed, Mr. C. has a sow three 



years old, the mother already of seven litters of 

 pigs. She has more than paid her price of 

 forty dollars by the additional price of her off- 

 spring breeders : she bad eighteen pigs at one 

 litter, but usually rears eight and leu. At five 

 weeks her pigs have weighed 3G pounds, selling 

 at five dollars each. Mr. Chamberlain has a 

 yoke of oxen of ihe Durham breed said to be 

 one of the handsomest of all the fine oxen of 

 the lumber region. [lis Durham calf at six 

 months of age weighs 800 pounds. 



It was gratifying to witness from a New 

 Hampshire man gone down east the effects of 

 so much enterprise under the discouraging cir- 

 cumstances which brought him there and which 

 the few early settlers of Carmel had encountered 

 up to his time. A new face had been put upon 

 Carmel within Ihe last ten years: amends for 

 the disastrous speculations in its lands had been 

 made in the increased prospects of its agricul- 

 ture. Of 23,000 acres of good land which the 

 town contains, only about 4,000 acres have as 

 yet been cleared ; and this is made probably into 

 over one hundred farms. The village at the 

 centre is a beautiful location in which are mills 

 upon a waterfall of the Sowadabscook. At the 

 compensation of fifteen hundred dollars, Mr. 

 Chamberlain has erected a handsome little 

 church which cost him two thousand, occupied 

 alternately by the four denominations of which 

 the inhabitants are composed : the town lias a 

 lawyer, but no settled minister. We had the 

 pleasure of listening to two discourses on Sun- 

 day from the Rev. Mr. Ellis of the town of 

 Etna ; a clear-headed, strong-minded man of 

 one of the free denominations — a preacher who, 

 with sterling good sense, drew bis comparisons 

 and his inferences from the face of nature and 

 the common events of life assisted hy the light 

 of the holy hook which lay on the cushion be- 

 fore him: this gentleman, a farmer at home and 

 a stone-worker abroad, with his own hands 

 placed the substantial foundation of the church 

 in which he was preaching. Mr. Chamberlain's 

 neat cottage residence standing nearest, as a 

 compliment to the stone-layer, was Cvea to en- 

 tertain him whenever it came to his turn to he 

 the preacher. The door fastening advertised us 

 that all the family were in the church at the 

 time of our arrival : we followed them in season 

 to hear the forenoon sermon. Returning, the 

 mother and daughters prepared the hasty noon 

 repast, at which all, parents, daughters, son-in 

 law, minister, and visiters from a distance, sat 

 down together. The foundation of the minis- 

 ter's preaching was as substantial as the well 

 laid stone of his building : the ashler of the 

 moral edifice Was equal to the smoothed stones 

 underlaying this house of worship: the ethics of 

 ihe preacher were as easy and natural of ascent 

 as his door steps. 



In addition lo his enterprise in the improve- 

 ment of the town and near neighborhood of 

 Carmel, Mr. Chamberlain has urged forward 

 with zeal a railroad leading from the Kenuebeck 

 to Ihe Penobscot. The bend produced by two 

 river vallies over which this road will be most 

 expedient carries it more conveniently for the 

 whole county in a half circle to the north and at 

 the same time passes the more natural resorts of 

 business all the way. The Sehasticook river at 

 its confluence with the Kenuebeck from its 

 mouth at Waterville takes a nearly direct course 

 north-east through the towns of Sehasticook, 

 Clinton, Burnham and Pittslield to Newport, 

 twenty-six miles ; thence through Etna, Carmel 



