I’ve been reading a book from our local library and came across a story that was too good not to share. The book is called The Masardis Saga, written by Paul M. Moureau, with a subtitle of Nineteenth Century Life In Aroostook County, Maine. He talks about the early settlers of the region, and how a border dispute we now refer to as the bloodless Aroostook war was responsible for soldiers coming to the area to build a small fort at Masardis where the two rivers come together.
Diplomacy won the war, and in 1842 a treaty was signed. Then they had to determine where the new border would be. And here’s where the story gets good. From the book (p.19-20):
“The new treaty was ratified by the United States senate on August 20, 1842 and it was called the Webster-Ashburton Treaty. The people who lived and owned land along the border found that the new boundary would place some of their land in the hands of the British. According to local legend, when Lord Ashburton’s surveyors came to Aroostook to survey the line, they hired local guides to assist them on the trek along the St. John River to establish the final boundary. This was a mistake that proved to be impossible to correct! They hadn’t learned what Yankee ingenuity is, not even after we thrashed them in the Revolution. When the guides and the surveyors arrived at the point where the St. John joins the St. Francis River, which is equally deep and wide, the guides led the surveyors along the St. Francis instead of the St. John, thereby placing British property on the United States side of the line. The guides’ cunning is still appreciated and is a source of merriment to the people in the area to this day. The homemade alcohol with which the guides kept the surveyors well lubricated was replenished by every homesteader along the route as word spread through the grapevine of what was afoot. When the merry group reached certain lakes not listed in the surveyors’ itinerary, they sobered up fast, too late to learn that they had been duped by the cunning Yankees. Not even knowing just where they were or how to get back to the point of origin without the aid of the guides, who promptly declined to assist them, they decided to make a beeline for the St. John on the western side of Aroostook. They did just that. If you consult your map of Maine, you will the very straight line they followed from Lake Pohenagamook down to Lac Frontiers.”
So now when anyone asks if you’ve ever heard the story of how some Aroostook County guides who, using their knowledge of the land and some homemade liquor, duped the British surveyors into giving the USA more land when finalizing the location of the border, you can say “Ayuh.”
