Measured from the source of the Munsungan in Piscataquis County, the Aroostook is 138 miles long, falling 250 feet from the source to its confluence with the St. John in New Brunswick. The river’s tributaries total 1,632 miles, the distance from Caribou to Miami — as the crow flies.
The upper Aroostook flows through unorganized and forested townships. In the eastern part of the basin, 14 organized townships measure 504 square miles.
Geologically, the basin is underlain by folded and faulted Ordovician, Silurian, and Devonian slates, calcareous and other shales, sandstones, argillites, and limestones formed several hundred million years ago.
In 1806, the Aroostook River was “discovered” by Park Holland, a State surveyor (and veteran of the Revolution), as he surveyed the Plymouth Grant in County of Washington, District of Maine of Massachusetts. The grant was to aid Plymouth (the Pilgrim Town) in building a breakwater to protect their harbor from “the surging waves of Old Ocean.” Plymouth Grant later became part of Fort Fairfield.
By 1823, Moses Greenleaf, Maine’s first map-maker, had assembled a list of Indian names of lakes and rivers. He noted the English name Aroostook was “radically the same [Indian] word as Wal loos took, i.e. Good River or Fine River; the description of the stream and surrounding land, agree with this.”
The first settlers in the Aroostook Valley were Lewis and Charles Johnson from New Brunswick. In 1821, they made clearings in Letter G Range 2 (the northern half of Presque Isle). In 1822, their neighbor William Pyle arrived by canoe.
In 1825, Governor Albion Paris received reports “great depredations were underway on the Aroostook River by British subjects, under British permits, with at least one hundred teams of six oxen each.”
By 1827, the settlers in the Aroostook River Valley numbered about 40, nine of whom were American. None had a grant of land from either government.
In 1828, it was again reported “trespasses were being committed with impunity on this unguarded territory by persons belonging to the province [often descendents of Loyalists] in cutting timber.”
In 1831, the Aroostook Valley held about 70 clearings. Census taker Moses Burley affirmed they “averaged 19 acres each with meager harvests of hay, wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, beans and peas.” One of the clearings was that of Dennis Fairbanks who had settled in Letter F (south half of Presque Isle) in 1828.
In 1838, Dr. Ezekiel Holmes and his crew conducted a State-sponsored “Exploration and Survey of the Territory on the Aroostook River.” Among his observations, one concerned St. Croix Stream, a tributary that joins the Aroostook at Masardis. “Lumbering will probably be the order of the day upon it for many years.”
In 1839, tensions were high in the Disputed Territory surrounding the Aroostook. Here’s an incident that illustrates that. When Maine’s Deputy Land Agent George W. Buckmore found Wilder Stratton, James Sutter, David Sutter, Michael Keeley, John Coffee, and John Smiley, all from New Brunswick, at work felling white pines on Salmon Stream (a tributary at Washburn), he was told they did not intend to quit, would defend themselves, and resist all authority from Maine.
The half-century (and bloodless) border dispute between Maine and New Brunswick was finally settled by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, signed on Aug. 9, 1842. Although the Provinces received 7,098 square miles north of the St. John River, Maine retained the fertile Aroostook River valley and the valuable pines of the Fish and Allagash rivers.
On April 12, 1854, the Legislature resolved to verify land claims of Aroostook land holders. Among successful claimants, the Commissioners’ report included Wilder Stratton and James Sutter.
Steve Sutter is a retired agricultural and resource economist living on a Presque Isle riverfront property that has been in his family since April 12, 1854.
