Bible Point State Historic Site
From History of Island Falls (Maine),
p. 29
It was in September, 1878, that Theodore Roosevelt first
visited Island Falls. He came with a cousin and two friends
who previously had vacationed in the Mattawamkeag Lake region
with W.W. "Bill" Sewall as guide. The party came
by train to Mattawamkeag Station, the nearest point reached
by the railroad, and traveled the remaining thirty-six miles
by buckboard. They slept that night in a field-bed in the
third floor of the William Sewall residence.
There early developed a strong kinship between TR, the youth
with wealth and social background, and "Bill" Sewall,
the northern woodsman, who, as a matter of principle never
drank or smoked, and who read the" Bible daily. Mr. Sewall
wrote later, "Theodore was a different fellow to guide
from what I had ever seen before. I had never seen anybody
that was like him, and I have held that opinion ever since."
 "I
engaged another guide to help with the party - Wilmot Dow,
a nephew of mine," said Mr. Sewall, "a better guide
than I was, better fisherman, and the best shot of any man
in the country." They camped at the foot of Mattawamkeag
Lake, and did their hunting and fishing in the area. Mr. Sewall
often told his family that Mr. Roosevelt would take his Bible
each day and go alone to a certain spot in the woods - and
since that time, the beautiful point of land at the confluence
of West Branch Mattawamkeag and First Brook has been known
as "Bible Point".
A plaque was placed at this spot in 1921 by the Roosevelt
Memorial Association, and in 1970 Bible Point was named to
the State Register or Historic Places. This 27.4 acre point
was donated to the State of Maine in December 1971, to be
preserved as a natural area.
Theodore Roosevelt made another trip to Island Falls in March
of 1879, when Mr. Sewall met him at Mattawamkeag Station and
drove him to Island Falls in a sleigh over rough and drifted
roads. This trip included time spent in a lumber camp in the
Ox Bow region, hunting and fishing with Sewall and Dow as
guides. Mr. Roosevelt came again in August of 1879,made an
eight-day excursion to Mt. Katahdin, and then he and Mr. Sewall
took a trip to Munsungun Lakes. They rode forty-six miles
in a wagon to the Ox Bow, then waded, poled, and paddled fifty
miles in a pirogue (dugout) up the Aroostook River to Munsungun.
When Mr. Roosevelt was ready to return to his studies at
Harvard, Sewall and Dow guided him to the railroad by a different
route. They took him in a birch-bark canoe down through Mattawamkeag
Lake and Mattawamkeag River to Kingman, where TR took the
train to Boston.
 Theodore
Roosevelt did not return to Island Falls again. In 1884 the
Sewalls and Dows, with their families, joined him on his cattle
ranch in the Bad Lands of Dakota Territory, and worked as
foremen on his cattle ranch "The Elkhorn" (Fred
Sewall's birthplace) near Medora, until 1886. William Sewall's
buckskin suit, leather chaps, saddle and quirt are now displayed
in the museum at the Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial
Park near Medora, North Dakota. (The book Bill Sewall's
Story of TR tells of these ranch days in detail.)
Although they corresponded often in the intervening years,
the next time Mr. Sewall saw Theodore Roosevelt was in Washington,
D.C., when the Sewall family were special guests of Mr. Roosevelt
at his inauguration as President of the United States. Their
deep friendship continued throughout their lifetime.
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