FYEBURG, Maine — Selectmen Thursday rejected a proposal to have the Lovewell monument replaced with a monument to the Abenaki Native Americans, but left the door open for the proponent of the idea to name another site to memorialize the Abenaki.

Local historian Tom McLaughlin in a 2020 Sun feature “The story of the Saco River Canal” said Capt. John Lovewell arrived in Fryeburg in 1725 from Dunstable, Mass., to fight Pequawkets, a sub group of the Abenaki, at the pond now named for him. Lovewell ended up dying in the process but the Pequawkets ended up retreating into Canada. McLaughlin says accounts of Lovewell’s motivation differ. Some say he was there take scalps other say he was there to take revenge for previous Pequawket raids.

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