From: Michael S. Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Thu Dec 21 2000 - 14:21:04 MST
I have a book written by a local, Daniel Doan, called 'Indian Stream
Republic' which I think you can get at amazon.com that covers the whole
history of the area. Its rather interesting. For example, the land was
originally deeded by the indian chief, King Phillip of the St. Francis
indians to a land development company in the late 1700's in exchange for
a kind of retirement pension for him and his wives. Several years later
a group of 9 indians from his tribe granted the same land to another
company, claiming that King Phillip had been expelled from the tribe at
Lake St. Francis and had no right to the land. At the same time, the
British governnor in Quebec had had a preliminary survey done of the
land for a border township, after the land had already been surveyed by
the first land company. After 15-20 years of wrangling between the two
companies, with competing and overlapping land grants to different
people, the two companies merged and all land claims were settled
(except so far as the British government was concerned). Sheriffs on
both sides of the border would pursue warrants for payments of debts
against people living in Indian Stream, with both sides claiming
jurisdiction of the territory. Finally the people got fed up and formed
an assembly, drafted and adopted a Constitution, and elected leaders
through several election cycles until one day a British judge issued a
warrant against a resident of Indian Stream for 'aiding and abetting'
the 'illegal' arrest of an Indian Stream resident who insisted he was
Canadian by a New Hampshire Sheriff. The canadians mounted a posse to
arrest the individual at his home, and brought him into Canada. The
residents then mounted a recovery posse that invaded canada, engaged a
firefight with the canadians, recovered their friend, and shot several
canadians. This sparked a calling up of militias on both sides of the
border and almost led to war between Britain and the US, but the British
finally caved in on the ongoing border dispute that stretched from the
coast of Maine, through Aroostook County, and across New Hampshire to
the point of latitude that defined the Vermont border on Hall's Stream,
which became the northwesternmost border of New Hampshire.
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> Michael Lorrey wrote,
> >Actually, half of Coos County, NH was an independent nation called the
> >Indian Stream Republic in the early 1800's because both the US and
> >Britain claimed the territory and could not agree on things, and the
> >residents were sick of being forced to pay taxes to both country. They
> >told both countries to get out until they figured out who really owned
> >that land.
>
> This is cool, Mike! I love learning new things that are generally
> overlooked by others. Why does history leave out these interesting
> details? Too small? Too short-lived? Not important enough in the
> big picture? Except for pre-existing native american tribes, I had
> no idea that there were any nations in the history of North America
> of which I was not aware. I wonder if there are more.
> --
> Harvey Newstrom <HarveyNewstrom.com>
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