By degrees he learned something of his father, the William Owen of Pondicherry fame, who had died while he was a baby. When about fourteen he went to a mathematical academy, where his "progress was as remarkable as it had before been in classics." Here religious instruction consisted in going to church "to talk with our fingers to the girls of a school who used the adjoining pew." As a boy, he "had no other distinct idea of our Lord Jesus Christ than that he was a good man."
His Dreams. His belief in the direct interposition of the Creator on his behalf frequently solaced him in these youthful days of loneliness and misdemeanor. The literal and instant fulfillment of two dreams on special and unthought-of subjects were convincing proof, to quote his own words, that "they were sent by God Almighty himself, as a simple way of assuring me that as I was under his eye he would himself take care of me."
Man-of-War Garden. So he grew up to be presumptuous, adventurous, resolute, and strong. In 1788 he became a midshipman in a line-of-battle ship, in due course of time cruising in the Bay of Fundy. For three years his man-of-war was stationed at Campobello. The crew often went ashore in summer, tending a little garden at Havre de Lutre (Harbor of the Otter), called Man-of-War Garden, which in turn gave its name to the headland. The garden was brilliant with dahlias and marigolds, which were presented in overweighted bouquets to the few Island belles, who, in return for such unexpected courtesies, consented in winter to dance on the ship's deck, regardless of their frozen ear-tips. Two of the midshipmen were as dauntless in pedestrianism as in love, and for a wager started on a perilous walk around icy cliffs which threw them headlong. Their comrades buried them under the gay flowers, and sailed away from the henceforth ill-omened garden. And the little store near by, kept by one Butler, lost its customers and passed into tradition.
The Boy as Midshipman. With Owen's entrance into the naval service as boy officer "commenced," he wrote in later years, "a public life which may be said to have had no sensible intermission until the close of 1831, or forty-three years, during which I have served under every naval man of renown, and was honored by the friendship of Nelson. From the year 1797 I have held commands and been entrusted with some important service, for the most part in remote parts of the world. My character, if I may be allowed to draw it myself, contained much of good and bad. The latter, perhaps, I contrived to veil sufficiently not to mar my reputation; but, by the grace of God, he has not left me without his spirit of self-conviction.... At forty-four I married [a Miss Evans, of Welsh extraction]. I thought myself a tolerably religious man, but knew myself to be as Reuben, unstable as water. At fifty-seven my worldly ambition was barred by corruption in high places. At sixty-one I became the 'Hermit.'"
His Settlement at Campobello. "The Quoddy Hermit,"—this was the name he chose when, with the rank of admiral, he came back to Campobello to live. He brought with him building material and the frame of a house taken from Rice's Island, and erected his habitation where is now the Owen. In the grove at the northern end of the present hotel he planted two or three English oaks. He placed the sun dial of his vessel in the garden fronting his house, and put a section of his beloved quarter deck close to the shore, not far from the seedling oaks. There, pacing up and down in uniform, he lived over again the days of his attack upon the Spanish pirate. Proud as he was of the two cannon he then captured, there is no one living to tell who bled or who swore, or whether the Spanish galleon sank or paid ransom. He placed the cannon on the Point, where they bid defiance to American fishing boats. In later years one was taken to Flagstaff Hill whenever a salute was to be given in honor of the Queen's birthday, or a fish fair, for such fairs were famous.
Weddings. The population of the Island increased, and the old man married the boys and girls at church or at home, slowly or hastily, as his humor bade him, always claiming the first kiss of the bride. A certain sailor who had wooed a Campobello maiden was determined that this privilege should not be allowed by her, and therefore tried to salute his bride before the service was ended. "You are not married yet. Back!" shouted the Admiral. Frightened, the sailor-groom turned his face and his feet toward the minister-magistrate, who more and more slowly repeated the words of the service, as he approached nearer to the lady, till, with the last word, he snatched the first kiss. His most princely gift as a wedding present is said to have been the Island of Pope's Folly, a present conditioned on his performance of the marriage service, which was gladly granted by the bride.
He widened the narrow roads along the bay, which David had broken out, and in his heavy, lumbering coach of state went through snow and mud from one tenant to another. The coach is still to be seen, and the tenants' grandchildren bear the Owen surname as the universal Christian cognomen. The Admiral would often stroll down to Whale-Boat Cove,—so called from a large kind of row-boat used in the herring fisheries,—which he persuaded the men to call Welsh Pool. Many a little maiden counted her pennies by the Admiral's kisses, and many a poor fisherman blessed him for allowing the house rent to run on from year to year, though the Admiral invariably insisted on the rental from the weirs; he well knew which was the more profitable.
Family Life. On other days he stayed at home and amused himself with his books. At four o'clock the husband and wife dined with the family and the frequent guests. The dinner of four courses was served in silver and gold lined dishes, with wines from Jersey and game from the Provinces. Silver candelabras shone upon the table; damask and India muslin curtains shaded the many paned windows; heavy mahogany and rosewood chairs, sofas, and tables furnished the apartments; great logs on tall andirons burned in monster fireplaces; sacred maps hung around the evening parlor; and the dining-room carpet was said to have been a gift from the King of Prussia. The long curved mahogany sofa, the carved chairs, and other pieces of furniture are now owned by the Islanders. The library table and arm chair, with sockets in its arms for candles, the Admiral's hat, pistols, and picture are carefully treasured by "The Company" as relics.
After the dinner of an hour came tea at seven and a family rubber till nine; then Scripture reading and worship, when the ladies and servants retired, leaving the Admiral and his gentlemen friends, fortified with cigars, whiskey, and water, to relate naval stories and discuss religious themes till two or three o'clock in the morning.
Theology. Owen's three chosen intimates were designated Academicus, Rusticus, and Theophilus. His library, which they frequently consulted, was a sad medley of dictionaries and the theology of Oxford divines. Methodism and Romanism were alike hateful to the hermit Admiral, who, in quoting from Holy Writ, always rendered "the wiles" as "the methodisms" of the devil. Every week he read to his neighbors two lectures "from unexceptionable sources, yet so modified as to contain all that was expedient to explain of his peculiar opinions." Often he held church service in what was almost a shanty, omitting from the liturgy whatsoever he might chance to dislike on any special Sunday.
Family Prayers. The day began and ended with prayers, which all the household servants attended, the "maids," as the Admiral called them,—"for we are all servants of God,"—bringing their work and sewing throughout the service, except when the prayer itself was said. If some one occasionally was disinclined to such steady improvement of the devotional hour, the Admiral, with a benevolent smile, inquired, "My dear, do you feel lazy to-night?"
Breakfast was served at nine. After that, the Lady Owen, clad in an enormous apron, entered the kitchen and taught the mysteries of salads and jellies.
Lady Owen. Lady Owen was queen as he was king; and never did a lady rule more gently over store-room and parlor, over Sunday-School and sewing-school, fitting the dresses of her domestics or of the Island children. She was a handsome woman, with silver hair and pink and white complexion, who, like her daughters, wore long trains and low corsages. Sometimes the mother wrapped herself in a certain gold and black scarf with such a courtly grace that its remembrance has never faded. Great was the jubilee among the domestics when a box arrived from England, with fabulous dresses ready made.
Once a year the maids and men of the great house had a ball, the ladies playing for them even all night. Twice in the twelve months occurred house-cleaning, when a dress was given each busy worker. The servants were often reminded to take no more than was necessary on their plates; for economy, though not parsimony, was the rule of the house. Guests came from the mainland and from every vessel of war. Admiral Owen and his house were the fashion for many long years.
Nowhere on the coast of Maine has there been a more curious mingling of rank, with its investiture of ceremony, and of simple folk-life, of loyalty to the Queen and her representatives and of the American spirit of personal independence.
Theatricals. All the people were familiar with the great family, while the better part of them were bidden to theatrical performances, for which the Admiral composed songs. It is doubtful whether he chose as early hours for his amateur shows as did the theatre manager of New Brunswick; for on the first occasion of a dramatic performance in that Province, March 28, 1789, the doors were opened at half-past five and the play began at half-past six o'clock.
Other merry-makings occurred on the Island, justified, perhaps, by the occasional homage of gifts sent to the mother country; for the Admiral's diary bears record that "three large, eleven middle, and fourteen small, masts were hoisted on board a vessel, and sent as a tribute to England." Then, whenever a roof-raising occurred, he knew how to send the children home to look after the chores, that their elders might join in the merriment.
Smugglers' Cave. The inhabitants themselves were rather enterprising in business; for rum and lumber were exchangeable quantities with the venturesome Campobello captains, who traded with the southern ports and West Indies, and carried Nova Scotia grindstones to the States. Bolder, but the quieter in action, were the smugglers, who, deep amid the woods, near the only fresh-water pond of the Island, alternately came and vanished. Much of their spare time was spent in digging for an iron chest of Spanish doubloons, buried by ancient buccaneers. The Admiral and his family often rode through the woods to watch the men in their hopeless work, and to obtain their share of treasure-trove if ever it were found. One bright morning every digger had fled, leaving a deep excavation in the ground; but far down on its side, marked out by the iron rust which had clung to the earth, the outlines of a chest were visible. A cart track and the ruins of four or five huts are all that now remain of the site of this mysterious activity. With the departure of these smugglers disappeared the steady excitement of years, the perpetual topic of conversation. Thereafter the people could only question each other about the strange wreck whose rotting timbers were old a century before. Its last remnants have now been carved into love tokens.
Saddest were the days when the Admiral strode up and down his imaginary quarter-deck, his empire a fishing settlement, where boys' wages had once been three cents a day. Eastport still owned the islands around it. The people brought in their fish, and sold it for groceries and other articles at stores where it was credited to them. The little vessels crossing the bay made it gay for the Admiral's eyes. But his spirit sank, as he fancied that some boat might be drifting around an inlet, with its owner frozen to the mast amid the supplies he was bringing to his family, who were waiting in vain for the father to return; or as he thought of the burden of this ever-increasing debit and credit system, or of the perils of the smugglers.
Later, when the duties were taken off by the United States, smuggling disappeared, and Campobello business went down. Could it ever have been said to exist? A few persons possessed enough ready money to build the picturesque weirs which fringe the Island with their stakes, driven three or four feet apart, and ribboned together with small round poles. The dried foliage and the dripping seaweed clinging to them give a ghastly beauty to this living mausoleum of the herring.
The Bank. Remittances did not always come promptly from England, and money was needed in the Island; so the Admiral set up his own bank, and issued one-dollar certificates, surmounted by the crest and his motto, "Flecti non Frangi." But somehow the time never came when he was called upon "to pay one dollar on demand to the bearer at Welsh Pool," and the certificates remain, to be utilized, perhaps, under a new epoch of good will and foolish trust.
Titles. The Island must have had some law and order before the advent of the Admiral, for the town records for the parish of Campobello date from April 15, 1824, James M. Parker, town clerk. At the general session of the peace, holden at St. Andrews, the shire town of Charlotte County, New Brunswick, thirty-two officers were chosen for the small population of Campobello. As in the old German principalities, every Welsh Pooler must have craved a title. There were commissioners and surveyors of highways, overseers of poor and of fisheries, assessors, trustees of schools, inspectors of fish for home consumption and for exports, for smoked herring and boxes. There were cullers of staves, fence-viewers and hog-reeves, and surveyors of lumber and cordwood, lest that which should properly be used for purposes of building or export be consumed on andirons or in kitchen stoves.
Paupers. In those days there was no poorhouse; though town paupers existed, for one, Peter Lion by name, was boarded about for one hundred dollars, and furnished with suitable food, raiment, lodging, and medical aid. No one kept him long at a time, whether it was because others wanted the price paid for his support, or because he was an unwelcome inmate, is unknown. Prices depend on supply; therefore, it happened that the next pauper was boarded for fifty dollars. Again, a lower price for board brought about a lower tax rate for the householders; and, in course of time, another pauper was set up at public auction, and the lowest bidder was entrusted with his care and maintenance.
By 1829 the exports from the Island justified the creation of harbor masters and port wardens,—more titles to be coveted.
Ferryman. A ferry was established from Campobello to Indian Island and Eastport. The ferryman was "recognized in the sum of two pounds, and was conditioned to keep a good and sufficient boat, with sails and oars, to carry all persons who required between the appointed places, to ask, demand, and receive for each person so ferried one shilling and three pence, and no more." If any other than the appointee should have the hardihood to make a little money by transporting a weary traveller, such persons should be fined ten shillings, half of it to go to the informer and half to the ferryman, unless he had previously arranged with the licensee that he would afford him due and righteous satisfaction for each person so carried.
As the population grew, the swine began to abound, and soon it was decreed that "neither swine nor boar-pig should go at large, unless sufficiently ringed and yoked, sucking pigs excepted, on pain of five shillings for each beast."
Sheep. Then the sheep began to jump fences four feet high,—and their descendants have increased in agility. They ate the young cabbages, and standing at ease, defiantly and lazily nipped off the dahlia buds. The town bestirred itself. Angry housewives, roused from their sleep by waking dreams of depredations committed, drove the sheep away with stock and stone. The following night the fisher-husbands, back from their business, sallied forth in vain; they could not run as fast as the women. And week after week the sheep took all they wanted. It became necessary finally to establish the sublime order of hog-reeves, who were privileged to seize any swine or sheep going at large which were not marked with the proper and duly entered mark of the owner, and to prosecute as the law directs; all cattle being ordered to be at home by eight o'clock in the evening. But how could sheep be marked when their fleece forbade their being branded? As notable housekeepers vie with each other in receipts, so did each Islander try to invent striking deformities for his sheep; only the sucking lambs retained their birthrights till their later days. Because Mulholland made two slits in the right ear and took off its top, Parker cut off a piece from the left ear of his sheep, and Bowers made a crop under the left ear of his animal, close to its head. Yet the sheep ran loose until the people were directed to raise twelve pounds for building two cattle pounds, and William Fitz-William Owen, the Admiral, was appointed to erect the same.