By J.W. Oliver
Monhegan will mark the 400th anniversary of John Smith’s 1614 visit to the island with a quadricentennial celebration this summer.
A bronze tablet outside the Monhegan School commemorates Capt. John Smith’s 1614 voyage to the island. Monhegan will mark the 400th anniversary of the explorer’s arrival with a quadricentennial celebration this summer. (J.W. Oliver photo)
The festivities will include a parade, speeches, a formal ball and fireworks.
The mission of the quadricentennial is to raise awareness about Smith’s visit to the island and “the important role of Monhegan in American history,” according to the Monhegan Quadricentennial Facebook.
Smith was the leader of the Jamestown colony, which, in 1607, became England’s first permanent settlement in North America.
The famed adventurer and ship captain voyaged to New England in 1614. He described his visit to Monhegan in “A Description of New England,” a publication intended to attract investors and settlers to the region.
“A Description of New England” opens as Smith arrives at Monhegan.
“In the month of April 1614, with two ships from London … I chanced to arrive in New-England, a part of Ameryca, at the island of Monahiggan … our plot was there to take whales and make trials of a mine of gold and copper,” Smith wrote.
Smith, despite persistent efforts, did not catch any whales or find any precious metals.
“We found this whale-fishing a costly conclusion: we saw many, and spent much time in chasing them, but could not kill any,” Smith said.
The legacy of his voyage to Monhegan, however, and his establishment of the first European settlement on the island, extends well beyond his fruitless whale hunt.
Edward Deci is the director of the Monhegan Historical & Cultural Museum and a member of the Monhegan Quadricentennial General Committee.
“Monhegan has always been a refuge, a place for revitalization and peace,” Deci said in an email to The Lincoln County News.
The island and Smith’s settlement there, which predates the Plymouth colony by six years, were “of great help” to mainland colonies as a source of supplies and, in at least one case, English-language lessons.
Samoset, a Native American who befriended the Plymouth colony, learned how to speak English from the fishermen on Monhegan, Deci said.
Because of Samoset’s ability to speak the language, he was able to facilitate trading between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans in the area, an exchange that led to the first Thanksgiving.
The quadricentennial will continue a tradition begun with the 300-year anniversary on Aug. 6, 1914. A program from the 1914 event advertises it as the “Tercentenary Celebration of the Voyage of Captain John Smith and of his Landing at the Island of Monhegan.”
“It was a gala day upon the island,” according to historian Charles F. Jenney.
The quadricentennial website reprints an excerpt about the celebration from Jenney’s “The Fortunate Island of Monhegan.”
George E. Smith, of Monhegan, and the author Gerald Stanley Lee, of Northampton, Mass., were, along with Jenney, the speakers for the occasion.
The historian also wrote of the “most acceptable” music by the Monhegan Band and a local chorus and “an industrial exhibition of high order in the hall of George R. Brackett.”
There was a ball in the Island Inn the evening of Aug. 5. “Fireworks were set off from the crest of Manana the next evening,” Jenney wrote.
The program also included the ceremonial unveiling of a tablet commemorating Smith’s visit to the island. The bronze tablet is affixed to a boulder outside Monhegan School.
The inscription reads, “Captain John Smith, adventurer in many old world countries, a pioneer in the new world, governor of Virginia, came here with two vessels in 1614, anchored in this island harbor, and explored the coast from Penobscot Bay to Cape Cod, discovering a large opportunity for adding to England’s glory by colonization.
“He returned home and spent his remaining years in advancing American enterprises. Because of his great interest in the future of America and to commemorate his connection with this island, this tercentenary tablet is placed by Monhegan residents.”
Despite his accomplishments, some members of the community question why Monhegan should celebrate a man who, in “A Description of New England,” referred to Native Americans as “savages” and declared his willingness to “bring them all in subjection” to obtain enough corn to feed his men.
The Monhegan Quadricentennial 2014 Facebook has become a forum for a couple of exchanges on the subject.
The quadricentennial committee is aware of the concerns.
“There are certainly negative, as well as positive, aspects of Smith (the primary negative one being that he was somewhat hostile toward Native Americans), but he was an important explorer,” Deci said.
While there were Native American settlements on Monhegan in the 12th and 13th centuries, hundreds of years before Smith, Monhegan celebrates the 1614 date for a couple of reasons.
“We chose to celebrate this one because it was the first European settlement on Monhegan (and) since then the Monhegan community has been of European heritage,” Deci said. “Further, we have specific information about it and about Monhegan’s role in America’s history, so this has focused us on this date and settlement.”
John Bear Mitchell, a member of the Penobscot Nation and associate director of the Wabanaki Center at the University of Maine, will speak at the quadricentennial.
The quadricentennial event will follow the example of the tercentenary closely.
The festivities will begin July 1 with the opening of an exhibit at the Monhegan Museum. “The Famous and the Forgotten: Revisiting Monhegan’s Tercentenary Art Exhibition” will re-create the art show from the tercentenary. Other exhibits will focus on Smith’s visit and its impact on the history of the island.
The quadricentennial will culminate with a two-day celebration, Tuesday and Wednesday, Aug. 5 and 6. The two-day event will feature the parade and speeches, as well as a contemporary art show and live music. Children’s activities will take place, and organizers plan to bury a time capsule. The evening of Aug. 6 will feature the formal ball and fireworks display.
For more information, like Monhegan Quadricentennial 2014 on or visit http://www.monhegan2014.org.
