BANGOR DAILY NEWS • March 14, 2020
The woods and waters of what is now Piscataquis and Aroostook counties were largely uncharted territory for the people of European descent in Maine in the years prior to statehood in 1820. But for the Wabanaki people, who had lived along Maine’s rivers and streams for countless generations, the land was a family member. So when Maine became a state in March 1820, one of the first things decreed by Gov. William King was the need to more accurately map Maine’s vast interior wilderness — untouched in the eyes of the state, but home for the Wabanaki. King asked Maj. Joseph Treat, a Bangor-based surveyor and son of a wealthy merchant family, to lead an expedition up the Penobscot and Allagash rivers and down the St. John River.