Durham Friends Letter to the Brunswick Town Council (same text below)
Durham Friends Meeting (Quaker)
532 Quaker Meeting House Road, Durham, MAINE 04222
May 27, 2022
To the Town Councilors of Brunswick,
We write to urge the Town of Brunswick to change the name of its 250th Anniversary Park to Pejepscot Park, and to use the occasion of the renaming to begin telling a truer, more inclusive history of human habitation along the lower Androscoggin River.
Those signing this letter are residents of Brunswick (11 of us) and residents of adjoining towns (another 22). We are all members of Durham Friends Meeting, the Quaker Meeting just over the border from Brunswick in Durham.
We believe that it is important to remember that Indigenous people have lived in this region for thousands of years. They have fished, hunted, and grew food throughout the Androscoggin watershed. At the site of today’s park, they came seasonally to catch salmon and alewives and others as these fish moved upriver to spawn. Likely they had an encampment where the park is now sited. European settlers wanted to make the same use of the fishery, and so they constructed a fort overlooking the lower falls of the Androscoggin, and they built a road from the fort to Maquoit Bay – along a pathway that the Abenaki people portaged their canoes – the same road that is today’s Maine Street and Maquoit Road.
Because of the importance of this site for both the Abenaki and the European settlers, it is simply not right to call this park by a name suggesting that its history began in 1739. There are important stories about this human settlement well before that date, and the precise location of this park is especially important in these stories for both the Abenaki and the European settlers.
There is a plaque in the park today that reads “Historic Site: When the Abenaki were the sole inhabitants of this land, the water here was called Ammoscoggin. The word means ‘Fish coming in Spring.’” This is one form of recognition, but we urge additional recognition by renaming the park. Pejepscot is what the Abenaki called the Androscoggin River below the last falls, the stretch of river for which the park provides a splendid view. Early maps by Europeans also call this stretch of the river the Pejepscot.
For these reasons, and in recognition of the complexity of our mutual history with the Abenaki, we respectfully urge you to consider the name Pejepscot Park, a name that honors and raises up the first inhabitants of this area.
Approved by Durham Friends Meeting,
At its Business Meeting, April 24, 2022
Contact person: Ingrid Chalufour,
clerk of Durham Friends Meeting’s Peace & Social Concerns Committee
ichalufour@gmail.com, 207-483-2620
Some of the individual members of Durham Friends Meeting are the following, who asked that their signatures be included:
Residents of Brunswick:
Kim Bolshaw
Ingrid Chalufour
Charlotte Anne Curtis
Craig Freshley
Theresa Hartford
Mey Hasbrook
Linda Muller
Ann Ruthsdottir
Kathy Jo Williams
Cindy Wood
Paul Wood
Residents of Topsham:
Douglas Bennett
Ellen Bennett
Residents of Auburn
Reneé Coté
Wendy Schlotterbeck
Residents of Bath
Margaret Leitch Copeland
Leslie Manning
Residents of Bowdoinham
M. Jo-an Jacobus
Residents of Durham
Laurie Caton-Lemos
Ezra Smith
Residents of Freeport
Helen Clarkson
Sarah Sprogell
Residents of Harpswell
Wendy Batson
Robert Eaton
Nancy Marstaller
Residents of Norway
Patti-Ann Douglas
James R. Douglas
Residents of Portland
Lyn Clarke
Residents of Richmond
Liana Thompson-Knight
Residents of South Portland
Barbara Simon
Residents of Sumner
Dorothy Hinshaw
Edward Hinshaw
Residents of Yarmouth
Cushing Anthony
Currently residing Out-of-State
Joyce Gibson (Massachusetts)
Brown Lethem (California)
