by Jonathan Tucker

The most definitive and comprehensive current source for information on MacIntyres in general is the “Clan MacIntyre: A Journey Into the Past,” Martin L. MacIntyre, Regent Press, Berkeley, CA, 2018, second edition.  Copies may be purchased by contacting the author at martin.macintyre@juno.com .

The definitive genealogy is “Descendants of Micum McIntire,” Robert Harry McIntire, revised edition, 1983, Bookcrafters, Chelsea, MI.  This is often referred to as the “Red Book” among Micum descendants because of its bright red cover.  New copies may be obtained through the Gift Shop on this website:  https://micummcintireclanassociation.org/shop/?product-page=2.  Used copies can still be obtained from time to time through online booksellers. There is an earlier version published in 1940–it is less complete but still useful.

Those interested in pursuing their own genealogical connections to Micum McIntire may submit question through this website at:  https://micummcintireclanassociation.org/micum-mcintire-genealogy-questions/

RUFUS McINTIRE & THE ‘AROOSTOOK WAR’

Rufus McIntire was born on Dec. 19, 1784 in York, Maine to Micum McIntire (3rd) and Rhoda Allen, daughter of Joseph Allen and Eleanor Young. The original Micum McIntire was Rufus’s great-great-grandfather. The paternal line went from Micum (1st) to Micum Jr. (2nd) to Alexander to Micum (3rd) to Rufus. Rufus attended South Berwick Academy under Josiah W. Seaver and then to Dartmouth College, graduating in 1809, after which he read law with the Honorable John Holmes until he was admitted to the York County bar in 1812. In his father Micum’s will, Rufus received $300 to pay for his tutoring with John Holmes. As we shall see, it was a more generous inheritance than the land and household goods received by his siblings.

At the beginning of the War of 1812, Rufus was commissioned as a captain in the U.S. Third Artillery. He raised a company of over 100 men and served throughout the war on the New York frontier and in Canada. The Third Artillery were involved in battles at Sacket’s Harbor and Crysler’s Farm. Rufus served for 18 months. His letters from the front to attorney John Holmes back in York are held by the New York State Library. Those letters, related materials, and a photograph of Rufus in his later years can be accessed via this link:

http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/mssc/rufusmcintire/.

In 1817, Rufus moved to Parsonsfield, Maine to begin his own private practice as a lawyer. He may have meant it to be temporary, but Parsonsfield became his home for the rest of his life. In 1819, in Parsonsfield, Rufus married Nancy Rolfe Hannaford, the daughter of Josiah Hannaford and Nancy Doe. Rufus advanced quickly, and 1820 was a watershed year for him. He was elected a member of the Maine state legislature. He began serving as prosecuting attorney for the County of York that same year—a position he held until 1843. Rufus was appointed as a member of Maine Boundary Commission, a position that presaged later events.

Rufus was a Jacksonian Democrat. In 1827, he was elected to the 20th U.S. Congress to fill the seat of the Honorable William Burleigh, who had died in office. Rufus was subsequently re-elected to the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd sessions of Congress, serving from September 1827 to March 1835. 

On February 2, 1830, wife Nancy Rolfe Hannaford died in Parsonsfield. They had had eight children, three of whom died in infancy. In 1832, Rufus married Mary B. Hannaford, Nancy’s older sister. Rufus and Mary subsequently had two children.

In 1837, Rufus McIntire ran for Governor of Maine but was defeated. On November 18, 1838, his second wife, Mary Hannaford, died.

In 1839, Rufus was serving as Penobscot County sheriff and was appointed land agent for the state of Maine, and that was when things got interesting.

The ‘Aroostook War’ – BY 1839, ongoing unresolved disputes over the boundary between Maine and Canada had reached a peak. Although the War of 1812 had finally settled the issue of American independence, numerous issues regarding the location of the shared border between the United States and Canada had yet to be resolved. The boundary between Maine and Canada established by a 1783 treaty was unsatisfactory to everyone.

A portion of northern Maine lay between the Canadian Maritime province of New Brunswick and the province of Quebec. Canadian authorities were encouraging Canadian citizens to homestead a strip of land connecting the two, to claim the land by simple numbers and the right of possession. Critically important were the extensive forests in the region and the lumber they contained, an essential resource for two growing nations. Both Maine and Massachusetts (which still retained claim to parts of Maine) were giving land grants in the disputed territory to U.S. settlers, as were Canadian authorities. There were increasingly open conflicts between Maine and Canadian lumbermen and settlers.

In response to growing incursions by New Brunswick lumbermen in particular, on January 24, 1839, the Maine legislature met in secret session. It authorized Rufus as state land agent “to employ a sufficient force to arrest, detain, and imprison all person found trespassing on the territory of the state as founded by the treaty of 1783.” Rufus raised what seemed to be a suitable posse for the arrest of illegal settlers and lumbermen, and headed north. He and his men reached the Aroostook region on February 12, 1839, and made camp near the confluence of the Little Madawaska and Aroostook Rivers (near current-day Grimes Mill, Maine).

Seeking a peaceful resolution before resorting to force, Rufus sought a meeting with the land agent for Canada. A meeting was arranged at the house of a Mr. Fitzherbert about 4 miles from the posse’s camp. A group of about 50 New Brunswick lumbermen learned of the posse’s presence and broke into the arsenal at Woodstock. During the evening meeting, these armed Canadians surrounded the house and took Rufus and his assistants into custody. Rufus and his men were taken by horse sleds to Woodstock, New Brunswick, where legal warrants were issued for their arrest and they were incarcerated in the jail at Fredericton.

News of the arrest of Rufus McIntire and his posse caused outrage and “an intense excitement” in Maine. Maine’s Governor Fairfield sent a letter demanding their release to Lieutenant-Governor John Harvey, the provincial authority in New Brunswick. Lieutenant-Governor Harvey replied that Rufus McIntire was a prisoner of the Canadian state, and his eventual fate depended on the workings of her Majesty’s government (i.e., orders from London). Harvey then sent his own military commander to the nearest Maine militia fort, to convey his own order to remove all Maine soldiers from the region. The commander of the fort, Captain Rines, refused, and took the New Brunswick military commander into custody in turn.

On February 20, 1839, the Maine Legislature appropriated $800,000 to be used to protect its citizens and territorial lands. The next day, Governor Fairfield ordered the mobilization of over 10,000 militia, officers and men. After some further back and forth, Lieutenant-Governor Harvey indicated that he would release Rufus McIntire and his men on parole, pending resolution of the charges against them, and he did so. But while this brought things back from the brink of hostilities, it did not resolve the underlying problems.

These matters quickly percolated down to Washington, D.C.—Lieutenant-Governor Harvey had sent a letter. In May 1839. Congress appropriated $10 million and authorized a force of 50,000 men at the disposal of the President should they be needed. However, neither nation wanted open war—it would be bad for trade, which for both nations was only then starting to recover from the dislocations of the War of 1812. U.S. President Martin Van Buren sent General Winfield Scott to Augusta, Maine with authority to negotiate for peace or war.

Prolonged negotiations between General Scott and New Brunswick Lieutenant-Governor John Harvey prevented an outbreak of hostilities, although 38 militia men died of non-combat causes and accidents, and several animals (livestock) were poached. By 1842, the Webster-Ashburnton treaty was signed between Daniel Webster for the U.S. and Alexander Baring (Lord Ashburnton) for Canada, resolving the boundary issue largely in favor of the U.S. and Maine.

In 1845, Rufus McIntire was appointed as Maine state marshall by President James K. Polk. He served as a Presidential elector in 1848 and 1852.

From 1853 to 1857, Rufus was appointed as U.S. Surveyor of Customs by President Franklin Pierce, a position Rufus oversaw from an office in Portland, Maine. 

Rufus McIntire died on April 28, 1866 at age 82, after a long and distinguished career of public service. He had served in real war, and had been at the pivot point for a ‘near war’ that had in the end helped to resolve an international boundary between the state of Maine and the nation of Canada. Rufus is buried in the Town House Cemetery in Parsonsfield, Maine along with wives Nancy and Mary.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7186558/rufus-mcintire.