This is something I found online yesterday on a website for
Upton, Maine. The Jonathan West is my great great
grandfather, Jonathan Phelps West, and the interview was
done about 100 years ago. It was edited out of the finished
book but the website creator found the full journal and
texts at the Harvard Zoological Society.
"Jonathan West spent his entire life in Upton, having been born on
East B Hill in 1831. In his youth Lake Umbagog was much less extensive
in summer than it is at present. It was then bordered in many places by
natural meadows where the farmers cut large of coarse hay which they
took off with horses and wagons, for the ground was quite dry and firm
except in early spring, when it was flooded for a few weeks. The forest
trees growing at high water mark and for some distance back of this, were
chiefly white pines. They fringed the banks of the Cambridge, the
Androscoggin and the Magalloway Rivers and sometimes occurred on high
ground, but not very generally or numerously. Most of those near the water
were cut and rafted off by the lumbermen between 1840 and 1850. Very
little clear white pine was wasted but spruce trees were accounted no value
and whenever the encumbered land was desired for farming purposes they
were almost invariably piled up and burned, after being cut down.
"When Mr. West was a boy, moose were numerous, although less so than in
earlier times. There were only a few deer and the first settlers had found but
few. Caribou occurred plentifully in certain locations. The Canada Lynx, the
fisher and the sable were common. The otter was perhaps the most abundant
of all the fur-bearing animals (except the muskrat) which frequented the shores
of the lake and that of its connecting rivers. Partridge abounded in the forest.
Wild pigeons visited the clearings in enormous numbers sometimes "darkening
the sun" as their winged phalanges came between it and the eye of the observer
and doing much damage to the farmer's grain. They appeared chiefly in spring
and autumn but Mr. West has never known more than a few scattered pairs
to breed anywhere about the Lake. He remembers when the lake attracted
innumerable water fowl, among which were many Canada geese.
"According to Mr. West, Metalluk was a St. Francis Indian, banished from his
tribe because of some offense of a political nature committed when a young
man.After leaving Canada he lived for many years about the lower lakes of the
Rangeley chain having a permanent camp at the Narrows on Richardson Lake
and one used less regularly, yet not infrequently on the island in Lake
Umbagog that bears his name. He was a thoroughly "good" Indian, honest,
upright, truthful and very kind and friendly, in his dealings with the early
settlers, all of whom liked and trusted him.When they were hard pressed for
food he often brought them trout and moose meat, for, like most of his race,
he was an expert fisherman and hunter. He frequently accompanied them as
a guide and assistant during their excursions into the forest and whenever he
visited the settlement of Upton he was cordially welcomed at their houses. He
stood in much fear of their dogs, however, and Mr. West remembers that
when he came to his father's house on east B Hill he was accustomed to call
from the road requesting that their dog be tied before he would enter their
door. His only vice was drunkenness, to which he was hopelessly addicted.
But he was invariably mild-tempered and inoffensive when under the
influence of liquor."
The Bards of the Lake Umbagog Region of Maine,
Professor William Brewster 1907
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