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June, 2006
Roughing it, Garcelon style
By Tanya Mitchell
These days, many of the places in Maine that were once considered wild territory are now homes to campsites, complete with inroads, fire pits and trash barrels.
While it makes things more convenient for people from many walks of life to enjoy the outdoors, it also supports the theory that the term "roughing it" just doesn't mean what it used to anymore.
The "roughing it" of today: "Oh, bummer. The pilot light went out on the stove in my millon-dollar Recreational Vehicle, and the T.V antennae is getting blown over so now I'm going to miss Desperate Housewives."
"Roughing it" the way life used to be here in Maine, however, appears to be a completely different matter. The story of William R. Garcelon, a wealthy farmer, hunter and trapper who lived in the Burnham/Troy region of Maine during the mid to late 1800's, offers a compelling and descriptive illustration of this point.
The story that follows will include information from an article that ran in The Lewiston Sun Journal in the March 31, 1892 edition.
At the age of 59, William R. Garcelon of Burnham was a respected farmer in his community, but he spent the majority of his years hunting and trapping as part of the lucrative fur trade. Because of this, his farm had wildness to it, including what the LSJ reporter referred to as "a strange and decidedly savage-looking outhouse."
While the shed was likely a horrifying sight, the hanging pelts represented all of the wealth that William had gained over the years, all through his love of the woods.
Tales of William's capability in the outdoors were common in his community, with one of his first-known exploits being that he hunted and killed a wild cat as a youth in Troy.
On another occasion, when William was a young man, he was traveling on horseback through the woods when he heard the grunting of a black bear. Assuming that the bear was fighting off some other animal, William raced toward the sound in the hopes of killing both. As he drew closer to the commotion, William saw the bear, standing on its haunches in the center of a clearing.
An Indian with a single long knife in his hand was gliding around in front of the beast. A broken gun on the ground told of a fearful conflict. One lucky thrust with his long knife and the bear would roll over, dead; one unlucky stroke and the heavy paw of the animal might crush his skull like an eggshell at a blow.
The Indian was now between the bear and Garcelon. He lowered his knife a little, jumped quickly to one side and made a lunge at the creature's heart, beneath his shoulder. At the same moment the bear was uttering an awful howl, struck, as a man might have done, a right-hand swing at the Indian's head. It grazed the scalp of the redskin, one claw tearing through the skin.
It was not a heavy blow; the force of it was lost in the air. But the Indian's aim was altered by it and his knife only tore along the creature's ribs. A root caught the Indian's toe and he fell full into the arms of the bear.
Then the steady eye of Garcelon sighted along the barrel of his rifle and his steady forefinger pulled the trigger. The bear rolled over dead, to the great surprise of the Indian, who at first was not sure weather the report of the gun was really a rifle's noise or the crushing of his own ribs under the bear's embrace.
By 1870, William was trading and shipping furs for a Boston company, and he was using the proceeds from that endeavor to return to the Northern Maine woods to camp amongst the other hunters and Indian tribes.
As bold and daring as he was, there was nothing that would have prepared him for perhaps the most important use for his wilderness skills - when he was forced to recover the body of his own son from the seemingly endless shores of the Moosehead Lake during the late 1880s.
At that time, William's son Arthur went to work at a hotel that was located on the banks of the lake, where he spent his off time fishing. One day, however, he and a companion did not return from a trip and it was feared both men were missing or dead. As a result, a representative from the hotel was sent to the Garcelon home to inform the family.
It was the first blow of that kind that Garcelon had ever received. It was terrible, but his indomitable courage prompted him to go immediately to Moosehead and search the woods along the shore for the boy, or his body. He hoped that the two boys might have been washed ashore alive and lost in the woods while trying to make their way back to the hotel. With a guide to accompany him, he scoured the woody shore.
At last, in the dead of night, [William] stumbled upon an Indian's camp, the occupant of which told the horrified father that he had found the body of a young man on the shore and had buried it four days before in a shallow grave by the water's edge.
There the father found him. He had died with his arms folded like a hero.
The loving father resolved that his son should not rest in a forgotten grave in the woods and determined to take the body home to Burnham. From the grave the remains were carried on the shoulders of men to Greenville and from there by tote team to Dexter. From Dexter to Newport, they were carried in an open wagon and then taken to Burnham on the Maine Central [railroad]. Arthur now sleeps beneath the grasses in the little Rogers Cemetery in Troy.
The father rallied from his blow and carried on his life work, as a man should.
So, the next time you hear someone yammering on about the irregularity of the air conditioning in his or her "old" 2003 Winnebago, think about William Garcelon, who welcomed the adversity and adventure that the Maine woods offered.
Tanya Mitchell is the great-great granddaughter of William R. Garcelon.
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