To the editor:
On July 4, 1827, John Baker and 14 fellow American neighbors celebrated Independence Day. Festivities at the confluence of the Meriumpticook Stream [Baker Brook] and the north bank of the St. John River included a flag-raising ceremony, a French fiddler, and a ball at the home of James Bacon, at which many of the French settlers from nearby Madawaska attended. The flag (with an eagle surrounded by stars) offended New Brunswick authorities; it advertised the Americans’ “disregard for foreign authority.” After the celebration, a paper was drawn up and signed by most of the Americans. It was a compact to settle disputes among themselves for a year, during which time application was to be made to the government of Maine, to obtain state instituted authorities.
On July 18, 1827, John Baker heard rumors the mail route by canoe up the St. John River to Quebec would be changed. Baker met the carrier Peter Sileste, but learned the mail would still be carried on its usual route. Sileste later alleged Baker had tried to stop the passage of mail.
On August 9, 1827, an American, Phinias Harford complicated matters by having a financial complaint sworn out, through New Brunswick courts, against James Bacon. On August 11th, Bacon successfully resisted arrest — with the (armed) aid of John Baker and others. The constable, of the Parish of Kent, gave up and left.
With response from New Brunswick authorities nearly certain, John Baker and James Bacon were appointed to a mission to the Maine seat of government in Portland. Traveling by canoe, by way of the Allagash River, through Moosehead Lake to the Kennebec River, they presented to Maine Governor Enoch Lincoln (on September 1, 1827) a long list of complaints, with an appeal that the “guardian care” of State and federal government would be extended to them.
Baker and Bacon received reassurance from Lincoln, along with orders (injunctions) to “observe the greatest caution in their conduct.” They left their application to be presented to the Legislature. Governor Lincoln then apprised Secretary of State Henry Clay of the situation. Clay sent copies to President John Quincy Adams and British envoy Charles R. Vaughn.
On the morning of September 25, 1827, John Baker was arrested at his home on charges of trespass and intrusion on Crown Lands — and for sedition. The other offenders, James Bacon and Charles Stetson, escaped. Baker was convicted of trespass, fined, and sentenced to six months in the Fredericton prison. He would not come to trial for sedition until May 28, 1828.
General James Irish, Maine’s Land Agent, was informed by the mail carrier from Houlton that John Baker had been committed to the Fredericton prison, and that a British officer, who had tried to attach some property belonging to settlers on the Aroostook River, was “resisted by force of arms and driven out of the settlement.” Irish notified Governor Lincoln who, on November 9, 1827, issued a proclamation condemning Baker’s removal from U.S. soil to a New Brunswick jail.
On February 20, 1828, President Adams demanded release of John Baker, and indemnity for his losses due to trial and imprisonment. Support for Maine’s interests was also demonstrated by notification from Secretary of War James Barbour (March 22, 1828) that four companies of U.S. Infantry would soon be stationed at Houlton Plantation.
John Baker, perhaps the first hero of the looming Aroostook War, finally left Fredericton on the 25th of October, 1828, having given his bond to pay his fine on the 25th of December. He had been separated from his home and family for a year.
It’s interesting to note Baker’s prison discharge was produced directly or indirectly by “some French people at Madawaska.” They had given their note, payable on the 25th of December. (To be continued.)
Presque Isle
