John Polereczky

From The New England magazine: an illustrated monthly, Volume 36, 1907

THE LIGHT-KEEPER OF OLD SEGUIN

A FOOTNOTE TO HISTORY

By CHARLES E. ALLEN

OFF the mouth of Kennebec River, and some two miles from the mainland, lies a rocky island, its area a little more than forty acres in extent. This island, called Sutquin on the old French charts, is now well known to sailors along that rugged, rockbound, and picturesque coast as the island of Seguin. Passengers by the Eastern Steamship Company's steamers to and from the Kennebec usually look upon it, with its light, which surmounts a gray granite tower, and rises 180 feet above high tide, with interest. The light, which is fixed, white, and of the first order, flashes faroutover a stormy sea, as a beacon for the mariner, visible at a distance of some twenty miles. At the time of its establishment, in 1795, there were but two lighthouses east of Boston,— one at Portsmouth and one at Portland,— and these were built only a few years earlier. Before 1789 a skipper sailing to the eastward found no lights, and Seguin was a wooded island, known to the fishermen who had for years frequented this coast. The act of Congress providing for the erection of a lighthouse on Seguin Island was approved by President Washington May 19, 1793, and in June, 1795, The Columbian Centinel, a paper printed in Boston, advertised for proposals to build a tower of wood upon a stone foundation, and also a dwelling for the keeper. March 29, 1796, Major John Polereczky was appointed "keeper of the new lighthouse on Seguin, to take charge as soon as it is ready for occupancy." And he took charge in that year. The lighthouse cost $6,300, and the keeper's compensation was $300 per year. He petitioned for special compensation, and Congress gave him $150 with which to clear the island of trees and brush, so that the keeper might have some land to cultivate. The appointment had been obtained through the influence of General Henry Dearborn, who was Captain in Arnold's expedition up Kennebec River in 1775, and who settled in Gardiner, Maine, after the Revolution. Washington appointed him Marshal of Maine in 1789, and Major Polereczky was a Deputy under Dearborn, who was a frequent visitor to the old Pownalborough Court-house, which still stands in the town of Dresden, Maine. Later, Dearborn was Jefferson's Secretary of War.

Who was this Major John Polereczky? Americans know that the Marquis de Lafayette came to America during the struggle of the colonists for independence; and that he returned to France and induced Louis XVI. to send a French army here to assist the revolutionists. Lafayette came to America the second time in 1780, and with him was a considerable force under the command of Lieutenant-General Jean Baptiste Rochambeau. Under Rochambeau came Armand Louis de Gontaut Biron, Duke de Lauzun. And the old-time Maine lighthouse-keeper describes himself as "John Ladislas, Count Polereczky de Polerecka, formerly Major of the foreign volunteers of Lauzun, lieutenant for the king, of the town of Rosheim, in Alsatia, born 4th Sept. 1748, resides now in Pownalborough." It should be remarked that the town of Pownalborough, Massachusetts, was made the shire town of Lincoln County in 1760, the names of both town and county being complimentary to Governor Thomas Pownall, whom other Americans besides John Adams and Charles Sumner might admire. Town and county were of course in what is now the State of Maine.

Polereczky was a native of a little town in Alsatia, near Strasbourg. The "family tree," which is still in existence, indicates Hungarian or Polish origin, and dates back to 1262, or the time of Bela IV., king of Hungary. Although he does not mention it, he was without doubt with that "splendid French army" which entered Boston in December, 1782, "from the southward," under command of Baron de Viomenil, Rochambeau having embarked at Providence for France. Polereczky says of himself that he resigned his commission and chose to remain in America. He was naturalized a citizen of Massachusetts, Nov. 21,1788, when he was described as John de Polereczky. He came to the Kennebec as early as 1785, in which year he was married. No doubt he was attracted by the advantages which this eastern country was then thought to possess, and by the fact that a colony of his countrymen was settled on what is now called Dresden Neck. Here he came in possession of some lots of land, part of which had been granted by the Plymouth Company to one Louis Cavalier, a Frenchman with a famous name, who was then deceased. In 1789, a brother of the Major came to Pownalborough, who described himself as "Andrie Frederick, Count de Polereczky, of Strasbourg, in the county of Alsace, Brigadier-General in the service of his Majesty, the king of France." No doubt he was of the noblesse of France, where tradition places him, and says that he fled to America at the beginning of the French Revolution. He returned to France, and when he died Major John inherited his title and estates.

The Major served three years in America, having a horse shot under him for which he claimed that he paid $250. He was at Yorktown at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis; and it is said that his picture appears in Trumbull's painting of that event, in the rotunda of the Capitol at Washington. For years he tried to get Congress to pay him for that horse, and to grant him a pension. The latter came after his death in 1830, at the age of 83. His widow survived until 1850. She was a Nancy Pochard, daughter of one of the Huguenot settlers of 1752, and her brother Peter, who was a shoemaker, has charges on his old account-book for repairing boots, shoes, and dancing-pumps, for both the Major and his brother, the Count.

American history, as usually written, may be said to run in ruts, or grooves. Outside these, the average American knows very little concerning our past. There appears to be some reason why we have neglected the story of the Loyalists, of the poor Hessians, and of Arnold's unfortunate expedition against Quebec; but it is singular that so little is known concerning those soldiers whose assistance for nearly three years made the success of the colonists possible.

Because of this neglect, and because the story is an interesting one, it is well that the record of one of the humbler soldiers from France should be rescued from oblivion. At Pownalborough's annual town meeting in 1789, John Polereczky was chosen Hogreeve—such petty offices then being regarded as important. After this, he was chosen to several town offices until 1794, in which year the west parish of Pownalborough was incorporated as Dresden, Governor Sam Adams signing the parchment June 25, one day after he signed the charter of Bowdoin College. Why the new town was named Dresden is a mystery; John Adams expressed his regret at the change. The voters had met at the house of Major Polereczky, and the name Fayette was their selection. Jonathan Bowman, a cousin to John Hancock, and resident in the new town, was chosen their agent to get the act passed. Polereczky was chosen Town Clerk, which office he held until 1796, when, as already indicated, he became lightkeeper. He lived on Seguin Island six years, and in conveyances of land during that period described himself as of the island of Seguin.

He also purchased a pew in Freeman Parker's Congregational church of Dresden in 1801. Returning to Dresden in 1802, he was again chosen Town Clerk, an office which he held continuously for twenty-three years — making twenty-five years in all. At the annual town meeting in 1828, his successor was chosen, and he was voted $50 compensation "for past services," from which we may infer that his only remuneration had been fees for marriage licenses, for recording "strays," sheep-marks, and other similar matters. His record-book, still preserved by the town, is oftentimes eminently Frenchy in style. Aside from his military training, his education was limited, and his written record is a continual struggle with the mysteries of the English language. Tradition says that he was a man of a dignified and soldierly bearing, genial, but nervous and somewhat irritable — quick to take offense and quick to become reconciled. At seventy years of age he was struggling to aid his wife's family, which had been unfortunate. His letters to Abiel Wood, of Wiscasset, and to others, wherein he mentions his straitened circumstances, and complains of neglect by Congress, are sometimes pathetic. In one such letter he writes: "You all know, gentlemen, that without the french arme, the french navy, and the french money, you could not without great difficulty, have your independence."

The change from lieutenant in the army of the king of France to a farm carved from the Maine wilderness must have been great. As already remarked, he died in 1830, and besides his widow, a family of nine children survived him. The house where he lived still stands upon the bank of the beautiful Eastern River, a marble headstone marks his grave in Pine Grove Cemetery, Dresden Mills, and his sword is in possession of the Bridge family, in Maiden, Massachusetts.

His career might have ended differently. After the French Revolution, Napoleon (Bonaparte, as the Major called him) ordered Frenchmen in America to return to France, to their titles and estates, on pain of confiscation. As the Major's brother had died, our Dresden Town Clerk would have succeeded to the title and estates. But he had a wife and child here, and he said he thought it would be perfidious for him to renounce the United States after he had " taken the oats of allegiance." Under the circumstances, one cannot help wishing that Congress had treated him with liberality.

His assistant on Seguin was Christopher Pochard, brother of his wife, and son of the emigrant from Franche-Comte in 1752. There are some amusing stories about these light-keepers. One is that Christopher would persist in making frequent excursions to the mainland in a boat which the Major regarded as unseaworthy, and finally he destroyed the boat. But the assistant soon set out to paddle ashore on a rude raft which he had succeeded in constructing. He reached the land in safety, but the Major watched him nervously from the island, exclaiming as he would rise on the crest of a wave, and sink from sight in the hollow of the sea: "Now he goes up — now he goes down."

It is interesting to note what was the fate of those who were connected with that French army of assistance. Our old Major died in obscurity, after appealing to General Dearborn as knowing that his statements were "the truts, and nothing but the truts." And most — probably all—of his more humble compatriots in arms were forgotten after their marching and feasting in Boston. Louis XVI. died at the hands of a revolutionary party which had been encouraged by the success of a revolution in America which he had countenanced and aided, with men and money. Lafayette escaped the same fate by flight, but lingered long in an Austrian prison. Rochambeau escaped the guillotine by an accident; and Lauzun was actually guillotined by the revolutionists. Liberty, indeed. Or was it "the irony of fate"? And as our old Major's complaints were most bitter about the time when Lafayette made his last visit to America, and was feasted everywhere, we may fancy that a knowledge of the consideration shown his former leader made his own condition seem the more deplorable. He wrote, "I served three years, same as Lafayette."

Seguin lighthouse was partially rebuilt in 1819, and entirely rebuilt of gray granite in 1857, as it now appears to the navigator who enters Kennebec River. Many a vessel has been cast upon this stormy shore, very near to the spot where was launched in 1607 the first vessel ever built by white men in North America. This vessel, called the ship Virginia, of thirty tons burthen, was built by the men of George Popham's colony, for use in exploring the Kennebec and adjacent waters. But the death of Popham, added to other disasters which befell the colony, led to the abandonment of the settlement the following year, and the colonists returned to England in their diminutive craft. It is said that the Virginia afterwards took supplies to the colonists at Jamestown.

The people of the city of Bath, twelve miles up Kennebec River, propose celebrating in August of this year the three-hundredth anniversary of the building of this vessel. This is appropriate, for this beacon on old Seguin, first lighted by our Franco American soldier of the Revolution, has seen the departure of many Bath ships, which have borne the flag of the United States, for which Polereczky fought, and of which he became a citizen, into every ocean and every port of importance in the world.