| Lieutenant John Le Couteur kept a diary, and sketched the sceneries on his way. He stayed less than two days in the upper St. John Valley, but kept his eyes open and chatted with the priest. His description is the first example of a trend which gathered subsequent strength; the equation of the St. John Valley "Acadian" settlement with the Arcadia of antiquity. He describes the French inhabitants as settled in "peaceful retirement," their habits and manners as "simple and kind." The settlers grew enough in summer to be able to spend the winter in "mirth and friendly intercourse." Le Coteur explicitly made the parallel with the ancient world, asserting that "this is the only Arcadia now existing in the world." Le Couteur was a rather sentimental young man, prone to idealize all and sundry (especially the young ladies he met). The realization that the St. John Valley settlers were different may not inevitably lead to such effusive and drippy statements, though. Peter Fisher, the first historian of the Province of New Brunswick, and subsequent author of an almanac aiming at enticing immigrants to come to the province, was obviously unsettled by what he found. And yet, he had little negative to report. His 1825 History of New Brunswick describers a flourishing settlement growing significant surplus, and trading it in Fredericton. So does his 1838 Noticia. Both texts mention the politeness of the inhabitants (everybody, even ill-disposed visitors, commented on the St. John Valley people's politeness and kindness to visitors). The Notitia , published at the peak of th eboudary dispute, asserts that the settlers were "warmly attached" to the British government. Like Le Couteur, Fisher found the Madawaska French peaceful and contented, leading an orderly life. Crime was unknown among them and they had had no need of magistrates until traders and other strangers settled among them. So far, Fisher was describing the Madawaska French in practically the same terms as Le Couteur, less the teen-age sentimentality. All these praises make the conclusions of both his descriptions surprising. The description in the History of New Brunswick ends by stating: The men are about the middle size, generally spare built and active; the women, on the contrary, are very stout and short. They are very lively and hospitable, but slovenly in their house and cookery. In short, they appear a different race from the English. A stranger going above the falls finds himself suddenly among a new race of people, different in their language, religion, habitations and manners. His opinion had not improved much by 1837. The French were still a breed apart, but one that intercourse with the English was improving. Local housing, for instance, still did not meet Fisher's standards, but fortunately (in his eyes) "within a few years, some of them have begun to imitate the English in constructing frame houses, which is making a great improvement in the face of the country." Le Couteur, who equated the Madawaska settlement with the Arcadia of ancient times, and Fisher, who set off the French as a "race" apart and hinted that emulation of the English could only improve their way of life, heralded two trends which came to characterize American descriptions of the Madawaska French in the later part of the century. One of those trends ws strengthened by an opportunistic reading of St. John Valley history during the boundary dispute, and by the publication of Longfellow's Evangeline. The other was reinforced by the practical problems of integrating the St. John Valley into the Maine body politic. The first Americans to reach the upper St. John Valley after Park Holland and leave accounts of their journeys were the officials sent by the State of Maine in the 1820s and 1830s. They took note of the inhabitants' Frenchness, but probably would not have wasted much ink over it had thy not been able to use it to bolster Maine's claim to the territory. They presented the Madawaska French as Acadians who had been evicted from their settlements on the lower St. John when the loyalists had arrived, and who had deliberately resettled above the Grand Falls because they knew the region was not under British jurisdiction. Their presence then was proof that the British claim to the disputed territory was a sham: the upper St. John Valley, and therefore the entire disputed territory was, and had always been, American. The first of those state officials was the party of Geroge W. Coffin, who had been sent to the disputed territory in 1825 to investigate the activities of the Provincials. They were allowed to grant bona fide settlers up to 100 acres. Theri local guide and informant was John Baker, an American lumberer and miller originally from southern Maine. Baker told the visitors that the French inhabitants were very desirous to become part of the United States, and the two officials reported that the French settlers themselves had expressed such a desire. They also discovered thay had nither the time nor the authority to issue grants to the Madawaska settlers, who were too numerous, and usually occupied more than 100 acres. |