and through the arm, killed and wounded 22 and wounded six more; they retreated to the dykes, and Major Frye landed with what men he got on shore and made a stand; but their number being superior to ours, we were forced to retreat.

To Col1 Winslow Commanding the Troops at Minas.

Your sincere friend,

JEDIDIAH PREBLE.

March 13, 1758, Preble received from Gov. Pownal a commission as Colonel of a Regiment of Foot, raised by him for a general invasion of Canada.

March 12, 1759, just a year later, he received from Governor Pownal a commission as Brigadier General of the Forces raised by him to be employed in His Majesty's service the ensuing campaign.

There is a family tradition that he was present at the siege of Quebec, and near General Wolfe when he fell, Sept. 13, 1759; that he was wounded in the thigh on the Plains of Abraham, and that the ball which wounded him struck his old fashioned broad-flapped waistcoat, and drove the cloth in with it. The ball was pulled out and long preserved in the family as evidence of the fact. I am led to doubt his being present and wounded in that battle, as I can find no account of any large body of Provincial Troops being engaged in it, and had he been, his rank as a Brigadier General would have made him a prominent actor in the battle.* The family tradition asserts that he was a Captain, and promoted for his gallantry. It is certain he was twice wounded during the war, probably at an earlier day.

Soon after, or perhaps immediately before the capture of Quebec, he was appointed by the Governor to the command of Fort Pownal, a new fortress just completed on the Penobscot, at what is now called Fort Point. Fort Pownal was commenced early in May, 1759, under the superintendence of Governor Pownal and Gen. Waldo, and was one of the most substantial and well appointed fortifications that had ever been erected in Maine, and cost the Colony £5000, which was repaid by England.†

Massachusetts raised 6800 men for the invasion of Canada, 2500 of whom served in the garrison at Louisburg, several hundred in the Navy, and 300 joined Gen. Wolfe before Quebec (was Gen. Preble the Brigadier commanding there ?), and the remainder served under Gen. Amherst, who entered Canada by Lake Champlain with a triumphal progress, capturing in his course the Forts at Ticonderoga, Crown Point and Niagara.

A Fort on the Penobscot was first recommended by Gov. Shirley in his message to the General Court, April 9, 1756. Gov. Pownal reiterated its necessity three years afterwards, and arrived at Falmouth, the most eastern town but one in the Province, May 9, 1759, where he had directed materials for the Fort to be collected, and found the wood part framed and ready. In due time the troops, consisting of 333 men under the command of Brig. Gen. Jedidiah Preble, were embarked, with the exception of those that were to follow

Joseph Holt, in his Journal of a Penobscot voyage (published in the N. E. Histor. and Genealog. Register, October, 1856), mentions, under date June 24, 1762: "About 2 o'clock arrived safe at anchor at Fort Pownal, on Penobscot River; and there went ashore and drunk good Punch with Brigadier Preble, and evening went on aboard. 25th, Friday, we sent nine men to view the lands on the West river; and about 2 o'clock I went off in a whaleboat with four men to view the land on the East branch of the Penobscot river. On Sunday, the 27th, these parties returned to the sloop at the Fort, and on Monday started in his sloop in company with a Duxbury sloop and York schooner, down the bay, towards Mount Desert."

In a deed dated Sept. 13, 1760, the subject of this memoir is styled Jedidiah Preble, of Falmouth, otherwise called Jedidiah Preble, Commander of Fort Pownal, at Penobscot.

with the materials. They arrived on the 23d of July at the mouth of the Penobscot river, landing on the East side.

Upon reconnoitering, a location was selected twenty-five rods from the water's edge, and about the same distance from the present (1868) site of Fort Point Light House, “where a Flagstaff was erected and the King's colors hoisted and saluted, after Divine Service. Treated the Troops with a barrell of Rum." The Fort was completed in July, 1759, at an expense to the Province of £5,000. The General Court highly approved of the measure, and, June 10, voted to call the fortification Fort Pownal in honor of the Governor. A garrison was constantly maintained there until the Revolutionary war. In 1775, Mowatt, that "infamous scoundrel," as Doctor Deane calls him, who burnt Falmouth, came there in a British Man-of-war, and dismantled the Fort, and in July the same year Col. Cargill burned the block house, &c., fearing that it might be occupied by the enemy. Mr. Willis states that Capt. Mowatt accompanied Gov. Pownal on the expedition when the Fort was established. The ruins of Fort Pownal are now distinctly visible, and the remains of the breast works are quite prominent at Fort Point, Cape Jellison, at the mouth of the Penobscot river, in what is now the town of Stockton. The object of the expedition, as explained by Gen. P. in a speech, Feb. 1, 1759, was to complete His Majesty's (George II.) dominion on the Atlantic, and secure the title to the subjects of the Province, for, says he, "as long as the British Crown has secured and fortified St. John's River, the enemy (the French) has now no other outlet to the sea, than through the Penobscot, the door being shut upon them in every other part. These lands ought to be in our possession, for as long as an Indian has any claim to them, the French will maintain a title to them."

This settlement is believed to have been the first in the vicinity for a military or civil purpose.

Gen. Waldo, whose zeal for the service prompted him, at the age of 63, to attend Gov. Pownal on the expedition, is said to have died of apoplexy while on a reconnoissance for the site, or, according to Whipple, while in the act of depositing a piece of lead (meaning a leaden plate), or, according to still another account, while pointing out to the Governor the limit of his territory, in or near the site of the present city of Bangor. However this may be, he was buried at the head of the first falls, and a leaden plate was buried with him, bearing this inscription:

"May 23, 1759. Province of Massachusetts Bay, Dominion of Great Britain. Possession confirmed by T. Pownell, Gov."

Gen. Waldo was buried with military honors, and on the occasion the Rev. Mr. Phillips, of Lynn, preached the first sermon ever delivered in what is now Waldo county. Gen. Waldo was an accomplished gentleman, and had crossed the Atlantic ocean fifteen times. He was a large proprietor of the Waldo patent, on which the Fort was laid, and was deeply interested in its construction.

October 29, 1762, he purchased of the heirs of Brig. Gen. Samuel Waldo, all the land surrounding Fort Pownal, to the amount of twentyseven hundred acres, for the sum of seven hundred and twenty pounds; the fort, the Government buildings (none of which are now in existence), and certain quarrying and mining privileges, being reserved by the heirs. The same year, at the settlement of the estate of his father-in-law, Capt. Joshua Bangs, he was the purchaser at the valuation of the following real estate, viz. :

Androsse's Island*

Mansion house and garden

Wharf and warehouses, near foot of King Street
Breastwork and flats

The mansion house and garden were situated on Thames Street in Falmouth, near the foot of what is now India Street. The house was destroyed at the burning of Falmouth by Mowatt, and another afterwards built upon its site, which after the Brigadier's death was purchased by his son Capt Enoch, who with his family occupied it many years, until he sold it to Capt. Lemuel Dyer. This house, after numerous alterations, is still (1868) standing. Originally a green sloping bank extended from its front to the water, affording a pleasant and always cheerful prospect, and the house was two storied, with a low, flat, hipped roof. At this time (1868) the street, the name of which has been changed to Commercial Street, has been graded down and the house slightly raised. The roof has also been raised, and its ends brought out, a granite basement has been added underneath, and a large addition made to the rear of the house. With these changes, from a two storied hipped-roof house, it has become four storied, with a plain slanting roof, and can scarcely be recognized. The green sloping bank has long since disappeared, and was at first replaced by a marine railway, which in its turn has disappeared, and granite and brick warehouses now (1868) cover the site of the green bank and sandy shores.

March 3d, 1763, Jedidiah Preble received from Francis Bernard, Captain General and Governor of the Province of Massachusetts, a commission as Justice of the Peace in the County of Lincoln, with authority, in conjunction with two or more Justices, to hold a court, &c. A few words in Parson Smith's Journal, under date February 4th, of this year, show us the grave Justice in a more jovial light. He says "Brigadier Preble, Colonel Waldo, Captain Ross, Doctor Coffin,

* This island was first called Portland, then Androsses or Andrews, and, after its purchase by Joshua Bangs, Bangs Island. It is now called Cushing Island, after its present proprietor, though the name of Bangs Island is retained on the U. S. Coast Survey and other maps and charts.

Nathaniel Moody, Mr. Webb and their wives and Tate set out for a frolic at Rings, and are not yet got back, nor like to be, the roads not being passable." On the 11th of February he says-" Our frolickers. returned from Black point last night, having been gone just ten days. They got homeward as far as long Creek last night, and with vast difficulty and expense reached home."

In 1766 he was chosen a Representative to succeed Samuel Waldo, without opposition. In 1768 he was a member of the house from Falmouth and Cape Elizabeth, and one of the "glorious ninety-two" who voted nay to the command of the King to rescind the celebrated circular letter. The same year the strict execution of the revenue act produced mobs and riots in the seaport towns, which caused the government to call to its support a military and naval force. The intimation on the 8th of September that a body of soldiers had been ordered to Boston, produced a greater degree of alarm than had been caused by any other measure. A town meeting was immediately held in Boston, which recommended that a convention of committees from all the towns in the Province should be held in Faneuil Hall, to consult and advise such measures as the public peace and safety required. This recommendation met with a hearty response, and a convention, numerously attended, assembled in Faneuil Hall on the 22d of September. An express from Boston reached Falmouth on the 18th, and on the 21st the inhabitants held a meeting and appointed General Preble, who was already their Representative to the General Court, as their delegate to this convention. He was, however, instructed very cautiously to do nothing illegal or unconstitutional, but to use every endeavor within the limits of legitimate resistance to procure a redress of grievances. The result of the convention was much more moderate than the friends of government anticipated. The convention enumerated their griev ances, declared their loyalty and that of the people, and advised all to avoid tumultuous expression of their feelings, and to yield obedience to the civil magistrate. They firmly expressed their opinion that the civil power without the aid of a standing force was fully adequate to suppress all tumultuous disorders; but notwithstanding this expression of opinion, on the 28th of September, two regiments, numbering about a thousand men, under command of Colonel Dalrymple, from Halifax, landed at Boston. These troops were refused quarters and supplies by both the General Court and the town of Boston. In February, 1769, when the news reached England, Parliament denounced the proceedings of this convention of town delegates at Faneuil Hall as subversive of government, and as showing a disposition to set up an authority independent of the crown.

It will be seen from this, that thus early our subject was prepared to take the people's side in the gradually approaching struggle of the Revolution, and that he was already looked upon as a leader.

In the town valuation of 1772, his property had a higher valuation put on it than any other in Falmouth, viz., £311 8s.; the total value of all the property on the Neck and at Back Cove at the same time being £9,408. The next largest property-holder in Falmouth was Enoch Ilsley, whose estate was valued at £300. There were but two others whose valuation was above or equal to £150 each.

In 1773 he was chosen a Councillor of the people, and though of course of the popular party, was one of six accepted by the Royal Governor. The same year, by a schedule, we find him the owner of 110 tons of shipping, which he the next year had increased to 135 tons-not a large investment in navigation for these times, but a very considerable one for those.

January 25, 1774, he was chosen by the town of Falmouth one of a committee of seven, of which he appears to have been chairman, to make answer to the several letters received from the Committee of Correspondence in Boston, and to report what ought to be done for the public welfare under the alarming circumstances which existed. The 3d of February this committee made a long report, in which they say, that having waited too patiently a long time in hopes that the Governor would join the other branches of the Legislature in petitioning the King for a redress of American grievances, and finding it vain to hope or expect any relief through his means, they declare it the duty of the town to declare as their opinion, in a matter which so highly concerned their own and future generations, that neither the Parliament of England, nor any other power on earth, has a right to lay a tax on the people of the colonies, but by their own consent, or the consent of those whom they may choose to represent them—a right guaranteed by the glorious Magna Charta, and not only agreeable to the laws of God and Nature, but interwoven in the constitution of the human mind. This report was accompanied by a set of Resolves, in which they declared their determination not to suffer to be imported into the town any article on which Parliament had laid a duty, nor to have dealings with those who promoted such arbitrary acts; and further, that they would neither buy nor sell, and would desist from the use of India Tea, and discountenance its introduction, while the duty continued; and finally acknowledged their obligations to Boston for early notices of approaching danger, and "for their intrepid behavior upon the late tea ships' arrival." Two of the committee entered their dissent to the resolve relative to Boston, and to epithets given to the ministry and the E. India Company. The whole Report, with the accompanying Resolves, may be found in the appendix to Willis's History of Portland.

September 22, 1774, a convention of delegates from towns in Cumberland County, assembled at Falmouth, recommended that Jeremiah