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Primer

By Clif Garboden - The Boston Globe Magazine, July 2, 1989

Calais/St. Stephen

   What if they had a war and nobody cared? The details of this story are a
bit thin, but along the Maine/New Brunswick border the incident is
legendary. During the War of 1812, the people of the British-controlled St.
Stephen, New Brunswick, helped the citizens of Calais, Maine celebrate the
Fourth of July.
   Calais (as in France but, in Maine, pronounced "Cal-liss") is your
typical sleepy little Yankee border town, undistinguished among a hundred
other Maine hamlets except for its strategic location on Route 1 at the US
side of the international bridge across the St. Croix River. St. Stephen,
population 1,800, is Calais' Canadian counterpart. It was named not for the
first Christian martyr but for a notorious early Canadian surveyor and
troublemaker. Except for the border traffic, not much happens at either
town. But during the James Madison administration, the people of Calais and
the people of St. Stephen woke up and made a statement.
   For context, one has to understand the War of 1812, which is more than
most people did while it was going on. In Europe, Napoleon was warring with
England. US businessmen, especially Yankee shippers, were profiteering by
selling goods to both sides. England demanded that US ships bound for France
first stop in England to pay duty. France said it would impound any ship
that complied with that order. The British navy began waylaying US ships and
reclaiming AWOL English sailors from their crews. Sometimes they impressed
American sailors by mistake. Meanwhile, back in the States, a bunch of
Western and Southern Congressman, led by Kentucky's Henry Clay and South
Carolina's John C. Calhoun, were agitating for a war of expansion to drive
the British out of Canada. The above-mentioned shipping tiffs gave them
their excuse. New England objected because a war would destroy the lucrative
international trade.
   The War of 1812 was a truly stupid war. No one even knows who won. It
began with a three-pronged US land invasion of Canada that failed in part
because the New York militia refused to cross the Canadian border. Its final
engagement, the Battle of New Orleans, was fought two weeks after the war
was officially over. Neither England nor the United States could afford to
fight the other; the spat was an unwelcome distraction for France; and the
sea war's blockade tactics disrupted trade world-wide. It was just plain
dumb.
   What could such an obtuse conflict mean to the people of Calais and St.
Stephen? St. Stephen had been sent a goodly stash of gunpowder to deploy in
its defense should the Yanks attempt to take New Brunswick. The citizens of
Calais were, of course, bound to defend the United States' impractical
international posturing. By the book, the United States and Canada were
enemies. But along the St. Croix the War of 1812 was treated with disdain or
disinterest. The St. Stephenites and the Calaisians had been good neighbors
since the Revolution. No incomprehensible war was going to stop that. So
when July 4 rolled around and the people of Calais wanted to celebrate
Independence Day with fireworks, St. Stephen lent them its powder supply.
The story goes that Calais even promised to pay the Canadians back if
Washington ever sent the town any powder.
   And so, with one quaint pyrotechnic display in the middle of nowhere, the
War of 1812 was declared unimportant. An appropriate declaration of
independence.

Clif Garboden is a free-lance writer.


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