The Aroostook War

The War with No Shots Fired

What if I told you that there was a war in Maine that never had a shot fired, would you know what war I was talking about? How about a war that had several blockhouses that were on rivers to stop boats from going up and down rivers, and had purposely created many forts to house the military, would you know then? What if this war determined the actual Canadian and American borders as they now are, would that help? Well, I am talking about the Aroostook War, which was a battle to determine the northern border of Maine. This conflict never had a shot fired, but was a true testament of clear determination by a resilient number of American people to remain being Americans.

After 1783, when the treaty of Paris, which was between the French and British, there was no great determination of the geographic boundary between, then the British colony of New Brunswick, New Brunswick Province and the District of Maine, which was a commonwealth of Massachusetts, at that time. This caused a boundary dispute, which intensified after 1820 when Maine became a state. Mainers started going to the Aroostook River valley, and encompassing regions and were granted homestead rights by the State of Maine. The major problem with this is that the Aroostook River ran into the Saint John River which is a major river running into the Bay of Fundy. Since this was the situation, the summer farmers from New Brunswick would go up the rivers while lumbering in the winter, then settle in on land that Maine said it owned.

In the February of 1839, the New Brunswick loggers seized an American Land agent that they claimed was trying to gain illegal jurisdiction over the designated area. This was the legitimate beginning of the conflict. The governor of Maine was Edward Kent, while New Brunswick's governor was Sir John Harvey. This is where the town of Fort Kent, Maine came from, as well as the name, Saint John River for the huge river that actually goes all the way to the Bay of Fundy. Both sides sent out their militiamen, and the U.S. Congress sent 50,000 men and approved $10,000,000.00.