The following was written by the History Sub-Committee of the Bicentennial Committee: Leland Lowell, Chairman, Arthur M. Joost, Jr., Frances (Delano) Bemis, Mary (Grindle) Redman, Ben W.D. Craig, Donna (Dunbar) Hoffman. "In the beginning, more than 10,000 years ago, during a blink of an eye in geological time, the great glaciers receded to the North, the land rose and lush vegetation burst from the Earth. The following historical narrative focuses on a spot of land in the State of Maine where the Penobscot River ends and the Penobscot Bay begins. Little is known of the first humans who roamed the forests of this area, but the American Indians certainly were here when the first explorers and settlers arrived. It is not a wild supposition that one or more Viking ships sailed up the river, the Norseman’s breastplates and shields flashing in the sun. If they did tarry here scant evidence remains of their presence. This story begins with the tale of what is known of the life of Colonel Jonathan Buck and of the people who worked with him to establish the community of Buckstown, now Bucksport" The Origins of Bucksport The Legends of Jonathan Buck Fort Knox Jed Prouty Inn East Maine Conference Seminary   The Origins of Bucksport The following history was published by the Bucksport Bicentennial Committee to commemorate the 200th anniversary , 1792-1992, of the town of Bucksport, Maine. The following was written by the History Sub-Committee of the Bicentennial Committee: Leland Lowell, Chairman, Arthur M. Joost, Jr., Frances (Delano) Bemis, Mary (Grindle) Redman, Ben W.D. Craig, Donna (Dunbar) Hoffman. In 1762 a group of 352 citizens of Massachusetts and New Hampshire petitioned the English General Court of Massachusetts for a land grant of 12 townships between the Penobscot and St. Croix Rivers. Deacon David Marsh of Haverhil, Mass. Was issued the grant in the name of all the petitioners. Marsh chartered the sloop Sally to survey and explore the new lands and the petitioners each posted a bond of fifty pounds and signed an agreement that cache township, within 6 years, must: Be settled with 60 Protestant families. Build 60 houses at least 18 feet square. Be only 6 miles on the river of seacoast. Have 300 acres of land fit for tillage. Have a church with a minister settled. Reserve 1 lot for parsonage purposes; 1 for the minister; 1 lot for Harvard College and for the use of schools. Jonathan Buck of Haverhill was third on the list of signers and captain and owner of the sloop Sally. The Sally left Newbury, Mass. On June 18, 1762 and sailed in Fort Pownell (Stockton Springs) 8 days later. The Haverhill group, and one other, cast lots for the townships. The Haverhill group drew the 6 townships west of the Mt. Desert River- renamed the Union River because it united the two groups of townships. The 6 townships drawn by Buck and his party were : Plantation No. 1… Bucksport Plantation No. 2….Orland Plantation No. 3…Penobscot (Castine) Plantation No. 4…Sedgwick Plantation No. 5… Blue Hill Plantation No. 6 …Surry This group was back in Haverhill by August of that year but Buck, along with a group of settlers, returned again on the Sally, in June 1763 to begin building the town. In 1857 Rufus Buck wrote a history of Bucksport. In fancy prose he tried to paint for his readers a picture of what Buck and his companions might have seen from the shores of their new village-to-be. …Not a mark of civilization greets the eye. Before us the great Penobscot is silently rolling to the ocean, its mirrored surface giving aback a true picture of every variety of foliage upon it’s banks. The island, with its varied hues of green, is now dressed in its richest attire, and the rays of the rising sun are just breaking upon the tops of the tall pines like streaks of gold. As we look in the west, there seems to arise a vast pyramid of wood, whose branches are reaching down to the water’s edge. On yonder point a little opening is seen, and two Indian wigwams of conical form, from which the smoke is slowly ascending till it vanishes in the thick forest behind. There for a time dwelt the natives of the woods. Behind us, all around is one vast primeval forest, which has cast a gloom over the earth for centuries. The settlers fell to the tremendous task of carving their homes out of the wilderness, and what a formidable undertaking it must have been. Virgin pines towered over 100 feet into the sky- 3 to 4 feet, and sometimes more, in diameter. Felling one of these giants with hand tools was difficult enough, but the difficulties were compounded when the massive turns finally rested on the ground. Having no draft animals to move them, the trees were chopped up with axes and fed into roaring bonfires built around their stumps, turning both the tree and stump into ashes. Fishing, hunting and agriculture, in a primitive form, were an endless chore in putting food by for the long winters. To add to their travails, the Revolutionary war moved to the Penobscot. A British naval blockade effectively shut off any communications or supplies and the settlers of Plantation No. 1, short of food and powder, faced almost certain extinction. Several children died from lack of food and the town fathers sent off a message to the General Court of Massachusetts seeking aid. A portion of that message read: … Sensible that winder is approaching and that we have been deprived of any succor from the eastern towns for near three months past occasioned by the present distressed situation the whole colony is in and we your petitioners more especially from a number of vessels lying in the bay at Long Island (Ilesboro) the mouth of said river who had made prizes of numbers of vessels bound in here for our relief and if said vessels continue there our distress will be increased and that your petitioners are in a very defenseless state respecting ammunition- your petitioners humbly pray that your honors would take our case into your considerations and in your great wisdom would point out and direct us in a method that we may be supplied ammunition and provisions of bread kind. The message was delivered and 200 bushels of corn, along with powder and shot, were smuggled into the town, to be paid for with lumber. Massachusetts sent a fleet of 19 armed ships, twenty transports, and a force of over 1000 men to dislodge the British from Fort George in Castine. The 21-day battled that followed resulted in one of the greatest fiascoes in US military history. Until Pearl Harbor it remained the largest naval defeat. Because of the incompetent leadership, a small British force was able to defeat an opponent who vastly outnumbered it. Writing of this, an historian of the day said that the leaders managed to "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory." Every one of the colonist’s ships were destroyed, their corpses littering the shores of the Penobscot from Sandy Point to Bangor. The survivors took to the woods, walking their way to safety. The day was August 14, 1779. One of the American commanders later wrote: To attempt to give a description of this terrible day is out of my power. It would be a fit subject for some masterly hand to describe it in its true colors, to see four ships pursuing seventeen sail of armed vessels, nine of them were stout ships, transports on fire, men of war blowing up every kind of stores on shore, throwing about, and as much confusion as can possibly be imagined. Buck and his family, along with the other princes of Plantation No. 1, left their homes with what possessions they could carry and rowed of walked north to Bangor- thence overland 200 miles home from Haverhill. Land travel, away from navigable waters, was relatively safe then. The day after the naval disaster ended, the British sloop NAUTILUS dropped anchor in the harbor of Plantation No. 1. The NAUTILUS crew went ashore to pillage and burn the properties of the departed patriots. The few settlers who remained, by pledging allegiance to the crown, were spared. Colonel Buck and his family, now in Haverhill, were not to see the town again for five more years. After a treaty was signed with British in 1783, most of the former townspeople, along with some new adventurers, returned from Haverhill- some again aboard the sloop Sally. The town was rebuilt rapidly after the sawmill was put in operation. Saw logs of the highest quality were readily available and houses and barns sprang up, but the people were poor by the end of the war, so no fine buildings were built. In 1784 the people began governing themselves by meeting each March to choose a Committee that acted much as the Selectman form of government does today. No records have surfaced regarding the activities of this Committee. With this government already in place, the Plantation was prepared when the General Court of the Province of Massachusetts passed an act, in 1789, establishing the County of Hancock. They immediately petitioned the Court for permission to incorporate Plantation No. 1 as the town of Buckstown- honoring by its name, Colonel Jonathan Buck. On 18 August, 1792, the first warrant calling for a town meeting was issued. The first town meeting, on 6 September 1792, elected the first officer of the town. The first officers and their order of election were: 1st Phineas Ames: Moderator 2nd Abner Curtis: Town Clerk 3rd James Clements, Daniel Buck ,Theophilus Brown: Assessors and Selectman 4th 5th Eben Colson, Benjamin Farnham: Collectors and Constables 6th AbnerCurtis: Treasurer 7th James Clements, PhineasAmes: Surveyors and Highways 8th Benjamin Farnham, Ephraim Stubbs,Nathan Atwood: Fish Committee 9th Jonathan Putney, Abner Clements, Nathaniel Lowell: Hogreaves 10th Voted that all swine should run at large yoked as the law directs 11th Voted that Hogreaves shall take hogs in their custody, and proceed in the same manners Pound Keepers are by law directed. 12th Voted that Taxes assessed for clearing roads shall be collected. 13th Voted that the Selectman shall be a committee to take care of the town’s public lots and prevent any tip or waste of the same. 14th Voted that the Town Clerk shall take money out of the town treasury, and purchase a book for town records.  A true record of said meeting-- Abner Curtis, Town Clerk Back to Links Legends of Jonathan Buck Written by Valerie Van Winkle for the Bicentennial Edition Generations have puzzled over the legend of Col. Jonathan Buck: which came first, the monument of the witch’s curse? Ironically, Bucksport’s founder, a regional Revolutionary War hero, has achieved national prominence not for his service to his town and country, but because of the image of a woman’s foot and leg which appears on his memorial. Born in Woburn, Mass., Feb. 20, 1719, Buck grew up in Haverhill, Mass. On Oct. 19, 1742, Buck married Lydia Morse. They had nine children, six of whom survived childhood. In July of 1762, Buck sailed the sloop Sally up the Penobscot River to survey six plantations which have since been designated Bucksport, Orland, Penobscot (Castine), Sedgwick, Blue Hill and Surry. Buck made another trip to the Plantations in 1763, and in 1764 began construction of the first settlement on Plantation No. 1, the present town of Bucksport. Buck joined the disastrous expedition to Castine and siege of Fort George in July of 1779. The day after the Patriots defeat by the British, Buck took his wife and seriously ill daughter, Lydia, to safety in Brewer. At the age of 60, suffering from gout, he walked the nearly 200 miles from Bucksport to Haverhill. Five years later he returned to Plantation No. 1 and rebuilt everything that had been destroyed by the British in 1779. Buck and his sons were leaders of the community, and in 1792 Plantation No. 1 was renamed Buckstown in Col. Jonathan’s honor. March 18, 1795, at 4:30 p.m., Buck died. He was buried in a cemetery east of Buckstown. Buck might have remained a traditional local hero, but in August of 1852, his grandchildren erected a monument near his grave site. As the monument weathered, an image in the form of a woman’s leg and foot appeared under the Buck name. Although there is little doubt that stories began to circulate as soon as the image was noticed, the first record of it appearing in print was in the Haverhill Gazette of Marsh 22, 1899. However, that article attributed a quote to an undated edition of the Philadelphia Enquirer. The Gazette article’s recounting of the Buck legend has become the classic version, although there are certainly many variations on the theme. Briefly restated, the tale runs: Jonathan Buck was a Puritan to whom witchcraft was anathema. When a woman was accused of witchcraft, he sentenced her to be executed. Then according to the Haverhill Gazette, "the hangmen was about to perform his gruesome duty when the woman turned to Col. Buck and raising one hand to heaven, as if to direct her last words on earth, pronounced this astounding prophecy: ‘Jonathan Buck, listen to these words, the last my tongue will utter. It is the spirit of the only true and living God which bids me speak them to you. You will soon die. Over your grave they will erect a stone that all may know where your bones are crumbling into dust. But listen, upon that stone the imprint of my feet will appear, and for all time, long after you and you accursed race have perished from the earth, will the people from far and wide know that you murdered a woman. Remember well, Jonathan Buck, remember well." In 1902, a similar version of the story appeared in the New England magazine, written by Bucksport resident James D. Wittemore. According to a pamphlet in the Bucksport Historical Society titled Jonathan Buck of Bucksport, The Man and The Myth, a longtime Bucksport resident and authority on legends, Rev. Alfred G. Hempstead, said that Buck’s descendants were dismayed by the story and threatened to sue for slander. The details of the rather different version of the story, retold by Oscar Morill Heath in Composts of Tradition: A Book of Short Stories Dealing with Traditional Sex and Domestic Situations, are so lurid that many of his embellishments are tastefully skipped over by those writing about the Buck legend. In one variation Heath created a son for the doomed woman, fathered by Buck. At the time of her execution, the woman is pregnant again by Buck. In his role of Justice of the Peace, Buck condemns her, has her tied to the door of her house and then sets her on fire. The son grabs his mother’s burning leg and permanently cripples Buck by hitting him with it. The leg becomes a relic, and when, after Buck dies, it touches the dead body, Buck emerges from his coffin to confess all. At the end of the story, Buck returns to his coffin and says to the woman’s deformed son, "Close the lid, boy." Heath’s story seems to have inspired a long poem written by Robert P. Tristram Coffin in 1939, The Foot of Tucksport. Coffin has added his own interesting elaboration’s to the story, including making the illegitimate son deformed. In another version written in the 1930’s by A. Hyatt Verrill, a "half-witted" man is brought before Buck accused of murdering a woman and removing one of her legs. Buck condemns the man, who says that the appearance of the leg on Buck’s tombstone will be his vengeance. Many subsequent articles about the legend seem to be attempts to prove or disprove the various versions of the story. Research suggest that there is no basis for the legend. It has been noted that there is no record of anyone having been executed by burning in Maine. As a Justice of the Peace, Buck did not have the right to sentence anyone to death. The witch trials in New England occurred more than 25 years before his birth. Although clearly a character of energy and determination, Buck was admired by the soldiers who served under his command, and letters to his wife in Buck’s spidery handwriting promising eternal affection are on display at the library in Bucksport. But then there is the leg. Attempts have been made to remove the image, but it has always returned. Over the years, people knowledgeable about monuments have explained that the image is the result of a natural flaw in the stone, perhaps a vein of iron which darkens through contact with oxygen. The Bucksport Library has on file an undated piece about local legends by Ester E. Wood. It begins, "Kenneth Roberts wrote, ‘Local tradition spins on truth and tramples the gown of common sense.’ It could well be said, ‘Local tradition feeds upon lies and flies far and fast on wings of nonsense.’" Writers who have researched the legend seem to conclude that it is a fiction concocted after the appearance of the image on the monument. No records have been discovered suggesting that any version of the legend predates the appearance of the leg. It all seems very reasonable, unless you have seen the image of the leg firsthand. It has a vitality, a naughtiness, which seems to laugh at rational data. Back to Links Fort Knox The following information was obtained from a brochure printed courtesy of the Maine Army National Guard and Champion International paper Company for the Department of Conservation and the Bureau of Parks and Recreation. The 32 mile section of the Penobscot River between Castine and Bangor has been the site of fierce conflicts. Great Britain controlled this section of river during both the American Revolution and the War of 1812. Later, in 1839 when Great Britain and the United States fell into dispute over the northern border between Maine and New Brunswick, fear and mistrust of the British spread. It seemed all too likely that British ships would once more sail up the unprotected Penobscot and take control of Bangor, Maine’s wealthy, unprotected lumber capital. Fort Knox was built to prevent this and possible future attacks. The fort saw two periods of military activity. As many as 117 Maine Volunteers were garrisoned here from 1863 to 1866, during the Civil War. About 500 Connecticut troops were stationed at the fort in 1898, during the Spanish-American War. No enemy ships ever appeared on the Penobscot River or threatened its towns during these wars. Army engineers and work crews began building Fort Knox in July, 1844. Lieutenant Isaac Stevens, who supervised the fort’s early construction, tried first to complete the earthen batteries nearest the river. By the fall of 1845, one battery was ready for cannon. Workers continued to excavate the entire fort site, removing stone and building roads. Finally, in 1851, river barges brought granite in and the rooms and alleyways of the main fort began to take shape. The main fort building measures 252 by 146 feet. It’s two levels contain mounts for 64 cannon. Four batteries, mounting a total of 69 cannon, cover four lines of defense outside the main building. Fort Knox was the first of many granite forts built in Maine. These forts, with their large granite casemates protecting cannon, could handle more armaments and provide stronger defense than outdates wooden blockhouses. The design and construction of Fort Knox was a model for later Maine forts such as Fort Popham, Fort Gorges, Fort Preble and Fort Scammell. The fort ground once included other buildings. According to a military report in 1870, an officers’ quarters, mens’ quarters, blacksmith shop, carpenter shop, office, large barn, unfinished kitchen building and implement houses were also on the site. The fort was named after Major General Henry Knox, America’s first Secretary of War and Commander of Artillery in the American Revolution. General Knox lived in Thomaston, Maine during the finals years of his life. America’s other Fort Knox, which is located in Kentucky, was also named after him. Fort Knox’s granite was quarried on Mount Waldo, located about five miles upriver from the fort in Frankfort, Maine. Huge granite blocks ware quarried, transported down the mountain, then carried by river barge to Fort Knox’s wharf. Nearly a million dollars was spent to build Fort Knox. Congressional appropriations were sporadic and construction continued for 25 years. When work finally stopped in 1869, the fort was still not completely finished. Fort Knox’s "A" battery and "B" battery each have a hot shot furnace. These small brick structures were built in 1857 and were designed for use in 32 pound cannons, which were replaced at Fort Knox by Rodman cannons, such as those seen at the fort today. Hot shot furnaces heated cannonballs so hot that when the balls hit wooden ships, the ships were set on fire. With the development of ironclad ships, the firing of red hot cannonballs was no longer an effective defense and hot shot furnaces became obsolete. Some of Fort Knox’s most memorable features are the large Rodman cannon in "A" battery and the slightly smaller Rodman cannon inside one of the fort’s casemates. Rodman cannons were actually developed while Fort Knox was under construction. As a result, "A" and "B" batteries had to be modified to accommodate these "state of the art" cannons in 1865. Rodman cannons provided stronger and safer than previous models. The large Rodman cannon in "A" battery needed about seven people to load and fire it. A shell used in this cannon weighted 315 pounds, had a charge weighing 50 pounds, and could be fired as far as 4,680 yards.  Back to Links Jed Prouty Inn Bucksport's Jed Prouty Inn probably dates from 1783 and was built by Asa Peabody; he and his brother Stephen were prominent merchants in early Bucksport. The hotel was originally built as a double house; note that it has two distinctly different doorways, one with a fan light, the other with a rectangular Federal over-light. Mr. Sparhawk bought the premises around 1820, raised the roof to a peaked roof, and with these improvements took up inn keeping. By 1850 it was owned by Daniel Robinson and the name was changed to the Robinson House, a name it was to carry for the next 100 years. In 1860 the hotel was owned by B.F. Farnham. James F. Moses, recently from Skowhegan, bought the hotel that February for $787.26 (including furnishings). A member of the staff was a young man named Richard Golden who wrote, produced and took the lead in a play called "Old Jed Prouty", Mr. Moses assured guests that it must be "another" hotel that they were thinking of. By Tom Parker Back to Links East Maine Conference Seminary In 1848 the Eastern Maine Conference of the Methodist Church held its first meeting in Bangor and proposed the establishment of a seminary or what we would call a preparatory school. Bucksport offered the land and raised $25,000 for the project. East Maine Conference Seminary opened in August 1851 to a class of 13 boys and 14 girls. In 1888 the school had 526 students. It closed in 1933 after Bucksport opened its first public secondary school. New life came to the buildings when they opened as the Oblate Fathers Seminary to train priests for missionary work. But this too came to a close. Today some of the buildings have been turned into apartments. Other buildings atop Oak Hill stand empty and neglected. By Tom Parker Top of Page