Acadiensis/Volume 2/Number 4/Four Old Houses at Campobello

by Kate Gannett Wells

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Four Old Houses at Campobello.

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NOT in all New Brunswick is there another shore so beautiful, with its bold headlands and sunny coves, as that which skirts the Island of Campobello, where, looking up the far reaches of the St. Croix river and fronting Eastport, was still standing, some twenty years ago, the residence of Admiral Owen. Long before his advent on the island, however, it had been deeded by the English Crown, in 1767, to Admiral William Owen and his cousins, who, in gratitude to Lord William Campbell, then Governor-General of Nova Scotia, had changed its name from Passamaquoddy Outer Island to Campobello. The "First" Admiral (William) lived upon it a year, 1770–1771, and founded the little town of New Warrington, near the head of Havre de Lute.

"The settlement," says Professor William F. Ganong in his historical monograph on the Island, "did not prosper as was expected, nevertheless it fulfilled the conditions of the grant and secured the Island to Owen's family. ... It affords the best, if not the only, example of a persistence to our own day of the system under which those great grants were no doubt expected to be held, that of a large landed estate descending from father to son, with the tenants paying rent to the proprietor, as in England."

Connected with this tenure of Campobello, it is interesting to speculate upon what might have been the future of Grand Manan if Lord William Campbell, who had a grant

VIEW OF CAMPOBELLO, A.D. 1777.
From the collections of the New Brunswick Historical Society.

of that island at the same time that Owen received his grant of Campobello, had not "failed to fulfil the conditions, viz., colonization; therefore it lapsed."

In 1789, David Owen came over from England to manage the affairs of the island, which after the Admiral's departure had been superintended by Captain Plato Denny. David lived where is now the Roosevelt estate, near the Tyn-y-coed hotel, and led a life harassed by the cares of a petty magnate and the embargo troubles of 1812. At his death Admiral William Fitz William Owen became sole owner of the grant, save the Head Harbor settlement. "The Quoddy Hermit" was the name he chose for himself when at 61 he came to Campobello to live.

In the grove at the northern end of the present hotel he planted two or three English oaks. He placed the sun dial of his vessel in the garden fronting his house, and put a section of his beloved quarter-deck close to the shore, not far from the seedling oaks. There, pacing up and down in uniform, he lived over again the days of his attack upon a Spanish pirate. He had brought with him building material, and, with the aid of a frame house taken from Rice's Island, he constructed a dwelling that had an imposing appearance. Two large, low rooms opened each side of the front door, a most comfortable stair case leading from the small entry to equally pleasant rooms in the second story. Damask and Indian muslin curtains shaded the many paned windows; heavy mahogany and rosewood chairs, sofas and tables furnished the apartments; great logs on tall andirons burned in the monster fireplaces; sacred maps hung around the evening parlor; and the dining-room carpet was said to have been a gift from the King of Prussia. The long curved mahogany sofa, the carved chairs, and other pieces of furniture are now owned by the Islanders. The library table, the coach, the Admiral's hat, pistols, and picture are carefully treasured as relics in the Campobello Public Library.

His daily life held much of ceremony as befitted his admiral's rank. At four o'clock the husband and wife dined with the family and the frequent guests. The dinner of four courses was served in silver and gold lined dishes, with wines from Jersey and game from the Provinces. Silver candelabras shone upon the table. After the dinner of an hour came tea at seven and a family rubber till nine; then Scripture reading and worship, when the ladies and servants retired, leaving the Admiral and his gentlemen friends, fortified with cigars, whiskey, and water, to relate naval stories and discuss religious themes till two or three o'clock in the morning. Methodism and Romanism were alike hateful to the hermit admiral, who, in quoting from Holy Writ, always rendered "the wiles" as "the methoddisms" of the devil. Every week he read to his neighbors two lectures "from unexceptionable sources, yet so modified as to contain all that was expedient to explain of his peculiar opinions." Often he held church service in what was almost a shanty, omitting from the liturgy whatsoever he might chance to dislike on any special Sunday.

The day began and ended with prayers which all the household servants attended, the "maids," as the Admiral called them,—"for we are all servants of God,"—bringing their work and sewing throughout the service, except when the prayer itself was said. If some one occasionally was disinclined to such steady improvement of the devotional hour, the Admiral, with a benevolent smile, inquired, "My dear, do you feel lazy to-night?"

Breakfast was served at nine. After that, Lady Owen, clad in an enormous apron, entered the kitchen and taught the mysteries of salads and jellies. Lady Owen was queen as he was king; and never did a lady rule more gently over store-room and parlor, over Sunday-school and sewing school, fitting the dresses of her domestics or of the island children. She was a handsome woman, with silver hair, and a pink and white complexion, who, like her daughters,

William Owen

From the collections of the New Brunswick Historical Society.

wore long trains and low corsages. Sometimes the mother wrapped herself in a certain gold and black scarf with such a courtly grace that its remembrance has never faded. Great was the jubilee among the domestics when a box arrived from England with fabulous dresses ready-made. Twice a year occurred house-cleaning, when a dress was given each busy worker and once each twelve months the maids and men had a ball, the ladies playing for them even all night. Nowhere on the coast of Maine has there been a more curious mingling of rank, with the investiture of ceremony, and of simple folk-life, of loyalty to the Queen and her representatives, and of the American spirit of personal independence.

After the death of the Admiral, in 1857, his daughter Mrs. Robinson Owen, and her children still lived in their Island home, helping, teaching, guiding all around them with kindliness and wisdom, until in 1881, the Island was purchased of the Owen heirs by a few New York and Boston gentlemen. The Admiral's house has now become a small part of a large modern hotel, though one end of it has been moved across the road for an office building. But his low rooms and small windows, easy stair case and glorious view are the same as ever, and will always make Owen Point beloved of the imagination, while the dwelling itself holds pre-eminence among the few old houses of Campobello.

Next in age, if not antedating the Admiral's house, is the old Wilson homestead, in a lane near the breakwater at Wilson's Beach, the northern end of the island,—a low frame house, built about 1790, which once had three ells. Here lived James Wilson, son of the Mr. Wilson who bought the settlement from a Mr. Kelly, the original squatter. The Wilsons came from New Brunswick and were an energetic race of men, who, early, made that part of the island so prosperous that they successfully withstood the Owen claim to its ownership. To this day it is in possession of their descendants and grantees.

The old house was the centre where ship building enterprises were talked over and social festivities were held, as far as Baptist proclivities deemed righteous. Like the Owens, the original Wilsons left the settlement some fifty years ago, but their first house is still standing, as well as the later one in which James Wilson lived [now owned by John D. Small, Esq.], while tradition continues to weave its charm around the old homestead.

Some nine miles from it, down on Mulholland's Point, opposite the narrows at Lubec, could still be seen, six or seven years ago, part of what had once been the first Mulholland dwelling. Built in 1816, of logs and shingled outside, boarded and plastered inside and set amidst a forest of bird's eye maples, birches and beeches, it was the scene of many delightful merry makings, and afforded ample shelter to the brave settler and his descendants, who, in turn, erected for themselves other houses at the Point. The old home in time became a blacksmith's shop as population increased at this lower end of the island, until at last, much to the sorrow of the grandchildren, who in their youth had played in it, it became unsafe even as a refuge in storms, and what was left of it was torn down four years ago.

About a mile from it on the side of Friars' Hill, erected at the same time with the Mulholland house, was the dwelling place of Captain John Patterson, a long, large, high, two storied frame house, much more commodious than the Owen residence. Like that, it had its front door in the middle of the house, fronting Snug Cove. When Captain Patterson failed in business, Mr. Joseph Patch took the place and under him the hospitality of the mansion was extended far and wide. Its dances were famous, for the rooms were large enough for all who came, sometimes by boat, more often by walking across the Beach from Welsh Pool, and then along the narrow road on the top of the cliff to Friars' Head.

D. Owen

From the collections of the New Brunswick Historical Society.

Mr. Patch was in active business, for his own packet plied back and forth between Campobello, St. John and Halifax. Then in his store, close to the shore and just below his house, were sold dry goods, groceries and spices, carpets from St. John, molasses from the West Indies. Men's tailor-made suits and women's garments also found ready sale, but not always for cash payments, and thus the store in time lost much of its ability to do business, though Mr. and Mrs. Patch had moved down into it from their house on the hill. Finally, about eleven years ago, there came a fearful, blinding storm of rain and lightning which entirely destroyed the store, both husband and wife dying within a few hours of each other from injuries caused by their attempts to escape from the burning building. Not long after the upper house was pulled down.

Thus there is not now a vestige left of that sociability which once made the Mulholland home, still more the Patch dwelling, as famous in its own honorable way as the more costly festivities of the Owen mansion.

Kate Gannett Wells.