In 1775, before he became the most famous traitor in American history, Benedict Arnold led a bold – and, ultimately, doomed – expedition up Maine’s Kennebec River to try capturing Quebec.
Leading 1,100 men, Arnold ventured up the 170-mile river into what was at the time a forbidding wilderness in northern Maine. They hit terrible weather, were ravaged by illness, ran out of food, and their invasion failed.
Still, that sense of history and adventure is appealing. At least it was to writer Glenn Adams, along with his son and a friend. They retraced Arnold’s expedition up the Kennebec piece by piece over four years. And Adams recently wrote about his adventure for CentralMaine.com.
Read about paddling Benedict Arnold’s route up the Kennebec River.