Micum Mcintire worked off his indenture between 1651 and 1659, and then settled and lived in a region of southern and coastal New Hampshire and Maine that included what is now Durham and Dover, NH, and Berwick and York, Maine.  The original inhabitants of this region were Eastern Algonkian-speaking peoples that, by the time the Scottish prisoners of war arrived in 1650 and 1651, these indigenous peoples belonged to two larger confederations of tribes whose territories met and overlapped in this area.

In southeastern New Hampshire, around the Merrimac River, the Piscataqua River, and their tributaries, lived the member tribes of the Pennacook confederation, which also included some tribal groups in northeastern Massachusetts.  The Pennacook confederation included the Cocheco, who lived in and around the Dover/Durham area, and the Newichawannock, who lived in and around what is now Berwick, Maine.

In the early 1600s, the coastal areas of Maine and New Hampshire had been occupied by a different confederation of native peoples identified by explorer Samuel Chaplain as the Etchemins, who traded with the Abenaki, who occupied the western interior.  It was with the Etchemins that early Europeans explorers and fishermen had their first contacts.  By the mid-1600s, however, the Etchemins had been replaced by groups belonging to the Abenaki confederation, who occupied the coast of Maine, including southern Maine and parts of the interior, into the White Mountains.  It is likely that European disease to which Native Americans had no immunity played a large part in this change.

Abenaki meant “people of the dawn lands”—those who saw the sun rise first every morning.  The Abenaki confederation was large and extended all the way to Canada, where it had on-again/off-again alliances with the Maliseet and the Mic Mac.  In southern Maine, the Abenaki confederation included the Saco nation (which included the Saco, the Ossipee and the Pequaket) that lived in and north of the York River drainage, and the Casco tribe, which lived immediately north of the Saco.  At times, the Abenaki and the Pennacook confederations were regional adversaries, which made life difficult for the Newichanwannock and Cocheco tribes of the Pennacook confederation, and for the Saco nation, each of which tried to ‘belong’ to both larger confederations, even in times of open conflict.

The Pennacook’s and Sacos’ coastal location and association with significant local rivers meant that they bridged the food-gathering traditions of tribal groups to the north and south.  They were primarily seasonal subsistence hunters and fishers, but they also practiced basic agriculture on cleared river bottom lands.  During times of not infrequent conflict, however, agricultural activities for these groups often had to be abandoned and reliance placed on hunting and fishing for food.

The Algonkian-speaking confederations in the Northeast were often in territorial conflict with one another and with other adjacent confederations, which in addition to the Pennacook and Abenaki also included the Massachusetts of eastern and coastal Massachusetts north of Cape Cod, the Sokoki in interior New Hampshire and Vermont in the Connecticut River Valley, the Nipmuck in central Massachusetts, the Pocumtuck in the Connecticut River Valley in western Massachusetts, and the Mahican in southwestern Vermont and the Berkshire mountains of western Massachusetts.  The Pennacook, for instance, were often raided by the Mic Mac and Maliseet from the north.  Between adjacent groups, these conflicts were sometimes about controlling access to favorable territories for hunting and fishing.  But they were also often about social dominance.  Dominant groups could exact annual tribute from subordinate tribal groups, and during raids they could kidnap others to supplement losses in their own groups or to acquire slaves to perform labor or to sell.

All Algonkian-speaking groups in the Northeast were in frequent conflict with the five nation confederation of Iroquoian-speaking peoples who lived further west, including especially the Mohawk nation, which lived in what is now western Vermont and upper New York State.  The Mohawk engaged in raids and abductions against the Northeastern tribes with perennial regularity.  This conflict often bloomed into more prolonged open warfare.

Early Contact, Settlement & Conflict

The Etchemins and the Abenaki were predominantly (though not exclusively) coastal peoples, so they had the earliest contact with Europeans.  Initial contacts with Europeans—initially fishermen out of Portugal drawn to the incredibly abundant marine fisheries of the coast and the Georges Bank—had begun in the 1500s.  In July 1596, for instance, the Scottish ship the “William” left from Aberdeen for a four year voyage to Newfoundland in July 1596, after picking up a load of salt in the Portuguese port of Aveiro in which to store and preserve an anticipated cargo of fish.

As a result of their early conflict, the Abenaki were among the first to suffer from epidemics caused by European diseases against which they had no immunity.  Known English and Scottish exploration and ‘test’ settlements had begun between 1603-1607.  There may have been earlier attempts.  In 1607, fourteen year old David Thompson, his tutor Dr. Richard Vines (an apothecary and master mariner), and others were operating a trading post on Monhegan Island off the Maine Coast, under the patronage of Sir Ferdinando Gorges.  Thompson will receive repeated mention because of his central role in exploration and colonial settlement of the region.  Beginning in 1607, over the next 30 years, much of the region of coastal New Hampshire and southern Maine was explored and small trial settlements were attempted.

What Happened When

Two major factors affected the survival of Native American groups in this area and in coastal New England in general—disease and armed conflict.  What follows is a rough timeline of exploration, settlement, and Native American conflicts, with the life of Micum McIntire interwoven:

1603 – Exploration of the Piscataqua River drainage.

1607 – A preliminary over-wintering experiment by David Thompson and his group at “Fort St. Georges” along the Kennebec River in more northern Maine fails.

1614 – Captain John Smith ‘discovers’ the various Isles of Shoals, which had been used for temporary fishing camps by Native Americans for millennia and by European fishermen for generations.

1616 – Explorer David Thompson and others fish and establish extensive trade with Native American groups along the New England coast, including southern Maine.

1617 – Because of their early contacts, the coastal member tribes of the Etchemin and Abenaki confederations were among the first to suffer from pandemic European bacterial and viral diseases against which they had no immunity.  Because of this and the persistent attempts by English colonists in particular to kidnap Native peoples, it was not a surprise that neither group had a warm and fuzzy feeling for the English, except as allies of convenience.

In 1617, a widespread and severe epidemic decimated the villages of coastal Algonkian-speaking tribal groups up and down the New England coast.  Many thousands of lives were lost, with entire villages wiped out.  Surviving Etchemin and Abenaki retreated inland into the White Mountains (from which their origin tales said they had originally come), and only the Abenaki slowly drifted back to coastal territories over a period of years.  This post-epidemic period of absence encouraged raids by Mic Mac and Maliseet groups in Canada into northern New England, including into Saco and Pennacook territory, reaching as far south as Saugus near Boston and as far west as Agawam in the Connecticut River Valley.  It also encouraged further exploration into Abenaki territory for settlement by European colonists.

1619 – David Thompson and others, including Squanto as a guide, further explore the Piscataqua River drainage for viable fishing, trade, and settlement sites.

1620 – The Separatist Pilgrims explore Cape Cod and begin settlement of the Plymouth Colony on land previously occupied by Wampanoag groups wiped out by the 1617 epidemic. 

1620 – David Thompson and others explore the viability of the Isles of Shoals, and then land at the mouth of the Piscataqua River at Odiorne’s Point (Rye, NH), where they build “Fort Pannaway.”  They over-winter there successfully and establish it as a trading post and preliminary settlement.  Thompson in particular established amicable trading relationships with remaining local Native American groups and was a successful fisherman.  

1623 – William and Edward Hilton of an English fishing guild establish rudimentary trading settlements at Durham (Oyster River), Dover (Cocheco plantation), and Berwick (Newichawannock) in the upper Piscataqua River drainage.  That fall, David Thompson provides the Plymouth Colony with much-needed fish as winter stores.

1624 – Preliminary settlement begins at Agamenticus (York, Maine)—what the Saco called the York River—under a royal charter granted to Sir Ferdinando Gorges.

1625 – Micum McIntire was born in Glenoe, Argyll, Scotland.

1628 – The first settlements of the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony are begun in the areas around Salem and Boston.

1631 – Ambrose Gibbons, Roger Knight, and others build a fortified “great house” at Newichawannock (South Berwick, Maine) as a trading post and a focus for new settlement.

1633 – Title to the Cocheco Plantation (Dover, NH) is purchased by a group of Bay Colony Puritans as a community for settlement.

1635 – The Oyster River settlement (Durham, NH) expands beyond a trading post.

1637-38 – Pequod War – Although no Pennacook, Saco, or other Abenaki are involved, the brutal conduct and conclusion of the Pequod War in southern New England (mostly in CT) ripples throughout New England and strains Native-European relationships.

1638 – Agamenticus (York, Maine) is renamed Bristol, after the English community from which many of its initial settlers had emigrated.

1642 – Bristol (York, Maine) is once again renamed, this time as Gorgeana—for its proprietor Sir Ferdinando Gorges—and is incorporated under charter by King Charles I.

1647 – Early settlement along the lower Piscataqua River is formalized with the incorporation of Kittery as part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

1648-49 – King Charles I is captured and tried for treason by the Puritan Parliament under the influence of Oliver Cromwell.  Charles is beheaded on January 30, 1649.  This kicks off the next (third) round of the English Civil Wars.

1650 – The Scottish Kirk (church leaders) and Charles II sign the Treaty of Breda, binding Charles II to protect Scotland’s sovereignty and religious (Presbyterian) freedom.  Oliver Cromwell and the Parliamentarian army move north to suppress this new threat.  The Battle of Dunbar takes place on September 3, 1650, resulting in the capture of thousands of Scottish prisoners and the transportation of about 150 prisoners to the New England colonies, who arrive in Charlestown, MA in December 1650.  Another 250 Scottish prisoners from the battle of Worcester arrive in 1652.  Some remain in New England, others have their indentures sold or resold further south.

1651-1659 – Micum McIntire serves out his indenture with several other former prisoners, working for frontier entrepreneur and Oyster River/Cocheco proprietor Valentine Hill.  After being freed, Micum continued to work for Hill as a wage employee until about 1661.

1662 – Micum McIntire joins other former Scottish prisoners of war at the mills in Newichawannock (Berwick, Maine) and probably continues to accumulate and save his wages.  This year, he acquires his first land grant in Newwichawannock.

1664 – The Mohawk War – Following the murder of Mohawk emissaries by Pocumtuck and Sokoki tribesfolk in western Massachusetts, the Mohawk War begins, an extended conflict between the Mohawk and numerous Algonkian-speaking tribal groups in New England that began with punishing pre-emptive raids by the Sokoki into Mohawk territory.  It included several pitched battles between the Mohawk and the Pennacook, which either ended in draws or in the Pennacook losing.

This further weakens the Pennacook, and Algonkian-speaking tribes in general.  Although the Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, and others were well aware of this conflict, there was little direct European involvement in the struggle, colonists preferring to watch and wait upon the outcome.

1668 – Following other fellow former prisoners, Micum McIntire acquires his first land grant in York, on the south side of the York River.

1670 – Micum moves to York and acquires a land grant north of the river in the Scotland Parish section of York.  By this time, the Pennacook are said to have consisted of only about 250 men and their families centered at two tribal seats further south and west in the Merrimac River valley.

1671 – The Mohawk War ends.  By early September, Micum McIntire and Dorothy Pierce are married.  Alexander Maxwell gifts them the lot and cabin in which Dorothy and Alexander Mechanere (McNair) had lived.  Until the 1670s, there had still been trading and relatively few tensions between the sparse but growing European settlements and the dwindling groups of resident Pennacook and Saco tribesfolk in this area of southern New Hampshire and Maine.  That was about to change.   In more densely settled southern New England, territorial tensions and cultural incompatibility were coming to a head, with region-wide impacts.

1675-1677 – King Philip’s War – “King Philip” was the English name for Metacomet, an Algonkian sachem in southern New England (RI and CT).  His attempts to drive out the English settlers pressing in on his ancestral homeland precipitated a region-wide war, possibly the bloodiest ever fought in North America in terms of the percentage of the opposing populations who were killed.  York and nearby Wells and Kittery were attacked several times, mostly in hit-and-run skirmishes and raids.

1677 – On April 7, 1677, John Carmichael, former Worcester prisoner and husband of Dorothy’s sister Ann Pierce, was one of seven York men killed by a raiding party while the men were preparing their fields for planting.  Former Dunbar prisoner Andrew Rankin was also killed there.  That fall, Micum served as the administrator for John Carmichael’s estate.

Micum and Dorothy’s first known child, John, was born about 1677.  The resident Pennacook and Saco tribesfolk were largely displaced by the conflicts of King Philip’s War, with many migrating north and being absorbed into other Abenaki tribal groups.

1678-1689 – Micum and Dorothy’s sons Daniel and Micum Jr. are born during this period.  English settlement of this region expands in response to the relative absence of resident Pennacook and Saco tribesfolk.

1689-1697 – King William’s War – The first of the French and Indian Wars on the North American continent, conflicts in the colonies serving as proxy warfare between England and France.  The French in Canada had longstanding alliances with Native American groups, and sought to include members of the Pennacook and Saco tribes that had been displaced from their lands during King Philip’s War.

The conflict began in 1689 with several concentrated attacks on settlements in Maine by the French and their Indian allies.  On March 18, 1689, Newichawannock/Salmon Falls (South Berwick), where Micum had lived and worked before coming to York, was overrun and destroyed.  During the summer of 1690, there were several raids in which York settlers were killed. 

By 1691, only the settlements of Wells, York, Appledore, and Kittery remained under British colonial control.  Life on the frontier was tense.

1692 – The Candlemas Massacre – On the evening of January 23, 1692, a raiding party of about 150 New England and Canadian Abenaki (Penobscot) warriors camped at the foot of Mount Agamenticus near the headwaters of the York River, about three miles north of Micum’s home.  At dawn on Candlemas, January 24, 1692, the warriors left their snowshoes stacked against a large rock and began a silent approach eastward down frozen stream beds toward York Village center.  The raiding party first encountered and captured three young York men out checking their trap lines.  After questioning the men, the warriors killed two and left the third bound, to pick up later as a hostage.  The Abenaki raiding party burst into the center of the village at about 10 o’clock in the morning, and began to burn and kill their way through York.

Many York settlers, including Micum, his wife Dorothy, and their children, took shelter in the fortified garrison houses in York and tried to fight off any Abenaki who attempted to take the buildings.  Accurate figures are hard to obtain, but by the end of the raid about 48 English and Scots settlers had been killed and about 80 taken captive to Canada as hostages to be ransomed.  Among the dead were Dorothy’s parents, John and Phoebe Pierce, and many other friends and relatives.  Of the several fortified garrison houses in York, only two had not been burned or taken.  One was Robert Junkins’ garrison in Scotland Parish, defended by Micum and his fellow Scots—most of whom were by then in their late 50s, 60s, and even early 70s.  Micum himself was 66-67 years old.

The deaths of John and Phoebe Pierce during the 1692 Candlemas raid created a need to resolve their estate between the husbands of John’s daughters, Dorothy and Ann.  Ann Pierce, widow of Worcester Scot John Carmichael (killed in 1677), had subsequently married John Bracey, a tailor and a “turbulent” fellow who was frequently in trouble with the law.   Between 1673 and 1698, Bracey was accused before Puritan authorities of, in order—stealing nails, shooting someone else’s hog, “casting several reflecting speeches on the Reverend Mr. Drummer,” being a “common liar,” and cursing in public.  For that last offense, Bracey spent three hours in the stocks in York Village center.  In April 1697—five years after the Candlemas Massacre and the deaths of John and Phoebe Pierce–Micum and John Bracey finally reached an agreement to divide the Pierces’ estate evenly.

1694 – On July 18, 1694, the settlement at Oyster River—Micum’s first ‘home’ in New England—was completely overrun and destroyed, with between 45 and 104 settlers killed and dozens of others taken away as captives to be ransomed (historic estimates vary).  A month later, on August 20, 1694, fellow Scot Daniel Livingston, who had moved to York around 1666 from Braintree, Massachusetts with his wife widow Joanna Downham Pray and her three youngest children, was killed by a small raiding party in Scotland Parish near Micum’s home and the garrison.

1700 – Dorothy Pierce preceded Micum in death, probably in early 1700.  Her death is thought to have prompted Micum to write his own will, dated April 17, 1700.  He divided his estate among his three sons, and named his “true and trusty friends” Samuel Donnell and James Plaisted as the “overseers” (executors) of his will. 

1702–13 – Queen Anne’s War – York suffered another raid in August 1703, sometimes named the Barrett Massacre for the family worst hit.  Most of the family of settler Arthur Bragdon were also killed.  On April 25, 1704, two men travelling in Wells were killed and another captured.  In the spring of 1705, five settlers were killed in Kittery.

1705 – Sometime just before October 5, 1705 when his will was probated, Micum McIntire passed on at about the age of 80, in his own bed, in his own home, on his own land, with his three sons by his side.  John was 23, Daniel was 16, and Micum Jr. was still a child.

Conflicts with Native Americans continued for decades, in the form of sporadic isolated local raids by displaced tribesfolk or the proxy struggles of the French and Indian Wars—those included King George’s War (1740-1748) and the fourth and final French and Indian War (1754-1763).  They continued right up to within a decade of the American Revolution.  By then the Pennacook and Saco were for the most part long gone, decimated in numbers and with survivors absorbed into other Abenaki groups further north or west.  However, they continued to return in small numbers seasonally, to fish and hunt as they always had.

It is instructive that for a long time after the Pennacook and Saco tribes effectively departed, the echo of their imprint on the land remained, and does so still to this day.  For generations, the European settlers of these areas named features of the home grounds of these tribes—rivers (Newichawannock River, Cocheco River), hills (Mount Agamenticus), and other places—for the tribes themselves.  In his April 17, 1700 will, Micum McIntire bequeathed to his eldest son John McIntire:

  “. . . twenty acres of wood land, which was granted to me by the town on this side the [York] River and lyeth by the way yt goeth to Newicchawonick . . . .”