Bypassing the Shequaga Falls

Gilbert Stuart – Major-General Henry Dearborn – 1913.793 – Art Institute of Chicago

Dearborn, Henry. Journal of Captain Henry Dearborn in the Quebec expedition. Cambridge, J. Wilson and son, 1886.

Chadwick, Charles Wesley, Engraver. Carrying the bateaux at Skowhegan Falls / drawn by Sydney Adamson ; half-tone plate engraved by C.W. Chadwick. Maine United States, 1903. [Published] Photograph.

North of Fort Halifax, the Kennebec featured a series of rapids and falls that had to be bypassed via foot. These portages required Arnold’s soldiers to unload all of the supplies from the batteaux and then carry them as well as the boats to the next stretch of navigable water. A battalion commander from New Hamphire, Capt. Henry Dearborn, noted the difficulty in making each portage.

"Proceeeded up the River over very bad falls and Shoals such as seem’d almost Impossible to Cross, But after much fatigue, and a Bundance of difficulty we arrived at Schouhega-falls, where there is a Carrying place of 60 rods, here we hall’d up our Batteaus and Caulk’d them, as well as we could they being very leaky, by being knocked a Bout a Mong the Rocks, and not being well Built at first"

Capt. Henry Dearborn, 3 October 1775

Sources

Dearborn, Henry Journal of Captain Henry Dearborn in the Quebec expedition, 1775 (Cambridge: J. Wilson and son, 1886), p. 6.

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