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I never heard that the Indians understood the occasion of the fright, but James and I had many a private laugh about it." The old Medoctec fort was on the west bank of the River St. John about eight miles below the town of Woodstock. The spring is readily identified; an apparently inexhaustible supply of pure cold water flows from it even in the driest season.
John to the Medoctec village, thence by Eel river and the chain of lakes to the Mattawamkeag and down that river to the Penobscot. The savages became discouraged and offered favorable terms to the garrison, Converse replied: "We want nothing but men to fight with." An Indian, who could speak English, shouted, "Don't stay in the house like a squaw, come out and fight like a man!"
A number of the settlers accordingly presented themselves at Annapolis, where they took the required oaths and agreed to take out grants. The little French colony were settled at or near St. Two families lived at Freneuse and three at the mouth of the river. The story of the old Medoctec village in later times will be told incidentally in the chapters that are to follow.
Vaudreuil admits that he encouraged this idea, and that his proposal to build a church for the Maliseets at Medoctec had as one of its principal objects the cementing of their alliance with the French and providing them with another inducement to cling to the locality where their church stood, and not by any means to abandon their old fort and village.
But Medoctec possessed many local advantages; the hunting in the vicinity was excellent, the rivers abounded in salmon, sturgeon, bass, trout and other fish, and the intervals were admirably adapted to the growth of Indian corn which seems to have been raised there from time immemorial. The reader by examining the accompanying plan will have a better idea of the situation of the old fort.
Two Indian scouts sent down the river quickly returned with information that the English had given up the chase of West and his party, who fled by way of the Oromocto river, and were on their way to Medoctec in pursuit of Allan. This decided the Indians to proceed at once to Machias. The exodus was a remarkable one even for so migratory a people as the Maliseets.
The pestilence scattered the savages in all directions and for a time their town of Medoctec was abandoned. A party of warriors who went with Montigny, an officer of Villebon's garrison, to assist their brethren to the westward was sent back to Medoctec on account of the contagion that had broken out among them. The nature of the disease it is impossible at this distance of time to determine.
After his death the work among the Indians passed into the hands of the Jesuit missionary, Joseph Aubery, and his successors Jean Baptiste Loyard, Jean P. Danielou and Charles Germain. The whole river was included in the mission and the priest had many journeys to make, but Medoctec, as the principal village, was for years the headquarters of the mission.
In consequence of the charges preferred against him Portneuf was superseded by Villieu, an officer of reputation whom Count Frontenac sent to Acadia in October, 1693, to lead the savages against the English. This new lieutenant spent the winter at the Nashwaak fort and as soon as the ice was out of the river went in a canoe to Medoctec, where he assembled the chiefs who promised to assist him.
After the arrival of the Indian delegates from Medoctec and Madawaska a general conference was held at Aukpaque, and it was agreed "that peace and friendship be now established permanent and lasting between the United States and the several tribes"; also that a truck house be established by John Preble where the Indians should obtain good prices for their furs.
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