WAUKEAG NECK & TOWN OF SULLIVAN - PART 1

WAUKEAG NECK & SULLIVAN – PART 1

CAPTAIN DANIEL & SULLIVAN HISTORY BEFORE SORRENTO

Before getting into Sorrento resort history, I thought it would be helpful to start with a short re-cap of Sullivan town history.  Sorrento, of course, was originally part of Sullivan until the two towns separated in 1895.

There are much better histories of the Town of Sullivan and the history of those who lived here after the Native Americans.  Needless to say, despite the cold winter months, the land was popular for a succession of European traders and settlers, possibly dating as far back as Norsemen from Scandinavia.  Early French outposts were confirmed in the area including on Ash Point (today’s Schefflin Point) and near Waukeag Neck, with the discovery in 1841 of an earthen crock with French coins dated 1725.  After the French and English contested rights to the area, the final settlers were the men of Daniel Sullivan’s Revolutionary War battalion whose ancestors were given land grants by the colony of Massachusetts.

Among these histories, I would recommend the Sorrento-Sullivan Historical Society’s “Bicentennial History,” and the detailed articles it provides.  Catherine Herson also provides an excellent overview of the period surrounding the French colony of Acadia, pointing out that the area where the Sullivan River emptied into the bay was named Douaquet by the French, but which the British renamed Frenchman’s Bay.  As she writes “…the English, never happy with an Indian name if they could avoid it, gave the bay a name they could understand, even if they did not like what it implied.”

Cadillac described the bay as follows: CADILLAC LINK

I will share a few other early histories for you to look through.

A 1923 article in Spragues's Journal of Maine History tells a story of an Indian settlement in Sorrento:

Originally published in the Ellsworth American in 1876, the “Survey of Hancock County, Maine” from the 1870s provides a quick run-through of Sullivan’s history and description of the land and industries.  While he describes Waukeag Neck and East Sullivan as “good farming lands” he adds that “Every man who is not a stone-cutter should be a keeper of sheep, for the finger of Nature has here written ‘graze and not plow.’”

SURVEY OF HANCOCK COUNTY

Following the fall of Quebec in the French and Indian War, the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony made land grants in the former French colony.  There were originally twelve grants comprising six square miles on each side of what was then called the Donaqua River.  Because there were to be six townships on each side of the river, it was renamed the Union River.  In 1762 David Bean led a group of settlers who were provided land grant number 2 on the East side of the river which they called New Bristol.  The colony government imposed certain conditions on the grantees, including the requirement to settle at least 60 Protestant families, erect a meeting house, and build a parsonage for a minister.  There were also of course taxes that the colony also expected the settlers to pay.

This 1839 history of the State of Maine by William Durkee Williamson - HISTORY - provides two interesting points.  The first that the settlers eventually paid the Commonwealth £1,250.00 in 1785, there was a 700-foot toll bridge and an alternate theory that the town was named to honor not Daniel Sullivan, but instead for his brother James Sullivan, an eventual Governor of Massachusetts - James Sullivan

This Post-Revolutionary survey from May 18, 1786, likely conducted after the settlers made their final payment to Massachusetts, shows Plan No. 2 which included New Bristol, the name for the town between Tauton and Flanders Bays granted to David Bean in the 1860s.

See Hancock Co deeds – book 1A page 28

A good resource on the history of Maine maps during the colonial era can be found here - PROF. EDNEY'S MAP BLOG

The legend at the foot reads;

Plan of 25 townships in the 2^nd or middle division of Townships East of Penobscot River, in the County of Lincoln. Seven of which were surveys by Jones and Frie (sp?) 1763 and bound North on the Grand East and West Line.  The other Eighteen marked with Red Lines are delineated in order for Survey. May 18th 1786

A map of Maine in the Library of Congress dated 1776 also lists New Bristol as the name of the peninsula. 

As the 1878 Survey of Hancock County tells us, the town was named for Daniel Sullivan and includes other familiar names of the families that settled in New Bristol, including "...Simpson, Bean, Gordon, Blaisdell, and Card."  In addition to farming, these families began fishing and timber operations, building sawmills, and fishing weirs.  Many of today’s residents of Sullivan and Sorrento can trace their ancestors back to those original families of the 1762 settlement.

DANIEL SULLIVAN

As most probably know, during the American Revolutionary War, Daniel Sullivan raised a battalion of soldiers from these settlers to fight in the war.  Sullivan was one of four sons of John Owen Sullivan of Berwick, Maine who had immigrated from Limerick Ireland. Two of his brothers were lawyers and eventually served as Generals in the war.  Daniel was more of a frontiersman but also took an active role in the sorties he organized against the British around Frenchman''s Bay.  More background about his father and brothers can be found here -  James Sullivan's Writings & James Sullivan Military Services

Famously, Sullivan was attacked at his home on Waukeag Neck in February 1781, his house was burned and taken hostage by the British.  Below is one account of his ordeal from Christian McBurney’s book “Abductions in the American Revolution.”

When Sullivan refused to pledge allegiance to the crown, he was imprisoned on the infamous HMS Jersey in New York for 14 months - more on HMS JERSEY. The account above indicates Daniel was released by the British with the assistance of his brother James but died on Long Island, NY before he was able to return home.  A memorial stone can be found in the Sorrento cemetery for Captain Sullivan.

While Daniel's release may have been negotiated with the help of his brother James, it was his other brother General John Sullivan, a delegate to the Continental Congress from New Hampshire - JOHN SULLIVAN - who was more instrumental in his release.  The memorial stone in the cemetery credits his brother John's role.  

Major General John Sullivan was infamous for his scorched earth battles against the Six Nations of the Iroquois tribes in New York.  After his post at Valley Forge over the winter of 1776-77, General Washington Ordered  Sullivan to lead an expedition of 5,000 troops in 1779 to open a front in Western New York against the Indian nations aligned with the British.  Washington explicitly directed the "... total destruction and devastation of their settlements and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more." Through the Summer of 1779, Sullivan's Expedition burned 40 Iroquois settlements ruining food stocks and crops - SULLIVAN MEMOIR

General John Sullivan was a complicated character, who before the Revolution sided with the Britsh and was despised even in his own community in NH - see BLOG. The story of his brother Daniel's eventual release is, of course, a more complicated affair involving allegations of bribery, supplying information to the enemy, and loyalty pledge to the British, worthy of even more research.  The full tale of General Sullivan's defense of his honor in the affair is detailed in Henry Clinton's secret diaries; below are just the first two pages. CLINTON'S SECRET JOURNAL 

This 1903 Bar Harbor Record story about Daniel Sullivan’s kidnapping includes details that his father-in-law John Bean, who lived in the plot next door, also had his house on Doane's Point burned by the British in the same raid.

“The Bicentennial History of Sullivan and Sorrento” has several well-researched chapters on the early land grants as well as this one on Daniel Sullivan.

It also includes an extract from the log of the British ship from the night they kidnapped Sullivan in 1781.

An additional profile of Daniel Sullivan is found in the history of the Emery and Sullivan families of colonial Massachusetts -  EMERY & SULLIVAN

This article from the Maine Historical Society published in 1890-91 also provides a good account of Daniel Sullivan and his family. MAINE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The town of Sullivan was incorporated by Massachusetts before the end of the Revolution and most histories agree, likely named in honor of the sacrifice made by Captain Daniel Sullivan - SULLIVAN