FRENCH SETTLEMENT IN MAINE 199 



aud iu every community they contributed to the best 



citizeushii). 



As a whole, these colonists of Dresden township were a Good Type 

 earnest and capable, though poor. Contending against 

 poverty, besides being menaced by Indians, snow and ice, 

 wolves and bears, they yet managed to wrest a fair degree 

 of prosperity from the wilderness. By dint of hard and 

 persevering labour they turned the forest into a farming 

 country. Among numerous other products, they cul- 

 tivated flax with good success, and so deftly did their 

 wives and daughters spin this into linen that many of 

 their fabrics are in existence to-day. Among the number 

 of these settlers whose names have been preserved are the 

 following : Charles Houdelette, Louis, his son, John 

 Pochard and his four sons, Jean Goud, Daniel Goud, 

 James Goud, Jacques Bugnon, Daniel Malbon, Amos 

 Paris, Philip Fought, John Stain, John Pechin, John 

 Henry Laylor, Francis Eiddle, Michael Stilphen, George 

 Jaquin, James Frederick Jaquin. 



Ill 



The two letters which follow are interesting documents, Two charac- 

 and not the less so because they show a remarkably rapid ters 

 progress in a new and stubborn language : 



Frankfort, Septem,ber 13, 1752. 

 Sirs : — "We have learnt from James Frederick Jaquiu, lately from 

 Halifax aud settled amongst us that all those that arrived there since 

 some short time from Urope, was by means of the letters we wrote to 

 our friends in our country, and instead of their being transported to 

 Boston according to our intentions, was carried to Halifax by the ill 

 conduct of the comraisary J. Crelious, which is verified by the wife 

 aud children of Malbon being there, and ye mother, brothers aud sisters 

 of Daniel Jacob likewise, aud generally their own brother and brothers- 

 in-law, or other relations, which makes us humbly entreat of the honour- 

 able company to have the goodness and regard for us, that all those 

 the said Jaquin proposed to the gentlemen he should go and bring to 

 our settlement from Halifax by transporting himself to Boston in the 

 first sloop, the which persoues would be very necessary amongst us, 



