This version is taken from George A. Wheeler's History of Castine, Penobscot and Brooksville, Maine, published in 1875.
William Hutching's Narrative of the Siege, and other reminiscences.
(The following account was narrated to Mr. Joseph L. Stevens, Jr., in August, 1855, by Mr. William Hutchings of Penobscot.)
The British landed in front of Joseph L. Perkins' house, June 17, 1779, which stood on what is now the south eastern corner of Main and Water Streets. They seemed as frightened as a flock of sheep, and kept looking around them as if they expected to be fired on by an enemy hid behind the trees. This day they did not stop, but returned to their vessels. The next day they came on shore, and encamped on the open land east of where the fort now stands. They immediately began to fortify the place. In a short time the American expedition came, and orders were sent out for the inhabitants to come in and work. I helped to haul the first log into the south bastion. It was on the Sunday before the Americans arrived, and was the only Sunday on which I had to work in my life. The peninsula was then covered with a heavy growth of trees. When the fort was built it was mostly spruce, and the trees were rather small, but farther to the westward there was a good deal of maple, beech, birch, etc.
General Lovell built his works mostly of logs and brush. He had to cut away a great many trees to make a passage for his cannon balls to the fort. General McLean expected to be taken, and when his troops were driven back into the fort, the morning the American troops landed - July 28, 1779 - he stood with the pennant halliards in his own hands all ready to strike the colors himself. He said he had been in nineteen battles without getting beaten, but he expected he should be beaten in the twentieth one. The walls of the fort were so low at that time that I heard a soldier say he could jump over with a musket in each hand. McLean considered that every day the Americans delayed the attack was as good to him as another thousand men. My father was among the patriots who joined the Americans. He was stationed part of the time at Hainey's point, and always thought he killed an English soldier there. A party of English came to drive the Americans away, and most of them speedily retreated; but my father and a few others stopped to give them a parting shot, when the boat should come in good range. One of the guard afterward said to him at Mrs. Hainey's house that when my father fired he saw a soldier in one of the boats fall, and heard him cry out. Mrs. Hainey was along and she subsequently reported this at head quarters, and we supposed it the reason of our family being driven away. I worked on the battery at Wescott's in all, eight days.
We kept up a hot fire on the ships, and drove the men ashore and below. There were three frigates - the Albany, North and Nautilus. We could hear our shots go - thud - into them. We cut away an anchor hanging at the bows of one of them. I marked where it fell, as I thought sometime or other I might want to get it up. When the siege was raised the guns were carried across to Matthew's point to be put on board the transports. In the hurry of getting them on board a brass four-pounder was lost overboard. One night the Americans undertook to surprise the English but they fell in with the British guard at Bank's battery, and had a sharp fight. Quite a number were killed on both sides. I afterwards saw, up by the narrows, some bloody uniforms, tied up in a blanket, that had been stripped from the English soldiers killed that night. Major Sawyer was killed, or drowned, in a boat that was sunk by a cannon ball fired from the fort, while it was passing from the fleet to Nautilus Island. A cannon shot from the battery on Nautilus Island came in the fort gate and passing between General McLean and one of his officers, killed an ox belonging to my father - which he had raised himself. Hatch's barn was used as a hospital. I was there after the siege was raised, and the floor was then covered with beds so thick that there was scarcely room to pass between them. The poor fellows groaned a good deal when the doctors dressed their wounds. I believe most of those who died there were buried on the lower side of the road. Being so young I was allowed to go off and on the peninsula, but the soldiers sometimes used to call me "a damned little rebel." It was reported that there was to be a combined attack on the fort and frigates, at a set time, by the Americans. I went with a number of others to the high land in Brooksville, opposite Negro Island, but it did not take place. At that, or another time, I recollect seeing some of the American fleet drop in behind Nautilus Island and fire across the bar at the English ships. Their last shot ploughed up the dry sod near Hatch's house, and set considerable of it on fire. A drummer was killed, the night of the skirmish, at the battery near Bank's house, and, for a good many years after, people used to say that they could hear his ghost drumming there at midnight. I saw both Lovell and Wadsworth. I did not like the appearance of Lovell very well, but Wadsworth was a beautiful man. There was no canal dug across the neck at that time.
A good many years ago, I used to know a man named Conolly, who told me that he once found near the second Narrows, on or near the shore, a kind of chest pretty much covered over with moss or grass, as if it had been exposed to the weather many years. On opening it he found French goods, such as handkerchiefs, etc. As long ago as I can remember there was what called the "Old French Fort," down by the shore below Banks' house. There were a great many spruce poles around it and posts in the shore, when I was a boy. There used to be a considerable growth of oak there. I do not remember ever hearing that there were in old times any Mills about here belonging to Frenchmen - what used to be called the "Winslow" farm, at the head of Northern Bay, was a great while ago called "Frenchman's" farm, and the pond at the head of a stream that runs through it, was called "Frenchman's" pond, when I was a boy, and there was an old cellar there they used to call the old Frenchman's cellar. It may be all gone now. If not, you will find it between Perkins' store and the shore.
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