Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
site through the Indians' elaborate trading network with tribes to the
north. Still, a Harvard researcher believes an inscription on a rock on
Crow Island, off Deer Isle, is a message written in Bronze-age Nordic
Tifinag script, advising fellow Vikings that the nearby waters make for a
good anchorage.
The first recorded look by Europeans at what would become the State of
Maine, came in 1524 when famed explorer Giovanni da Verrazano
labeled a point of land, near present day Penobscot Bay, as Oranbega.
Samuel de Champlain sailed along the Down East Coast in 1604, passing
by Mount Desert Island in September. Seeing the rocky mountain tops
from the sea he named the place “Isle de Monts Desert,” literally island of
barren mountains. A French attempt to establish a colony on St. Croix
island near present day Calais failed in that year.
The first attempt to establish a colony, made by the English, came four
years later in 1608. But, after only one winter the Popham colony, not far
from present day Bath at the mouth of the Kennebec River, failed. Star-
vation, pestilence and cold were not the culprits. The untimely deaths of
key leaders and the bungled efforts of financial backers caused its fail-
ure, according to historian Charles E. Clark. It was not until a year later,
in 1609, that the first permanent settlement in North America, James-
town, was established.
In 1613 a French party attempted to settled on Mount Desert Island not
far from what is now Southwest Harbor. The settlement of St. Savuer
was short-lived however. The settlers and priests were quickly driven off
by English raiding parties.
Throughout the early 1600s English fishermen used islands far off the
Maine coast as remote bases. After spending months at Monhegan and
Damariscove Islands and the Isles of Shoals they would return home,
holds brimming with salted and dried fish. Europeans also had presence
at Pemaquid and other points, where they traded with Indians.
Attempts to colonize Casco Bay, near present-day Portland, failed in
1623 and 1624. Before the decade was out, however, trading and fishing
settlements were successful along the entire coast from the Piscataqua
River (modern border with New Hampshire) to Pemaquid.
Modern History
Kittery
became Maine's first incorporated town in 1647. During the next
100 years coastal communities grew and settlers pushed inland following
major rivers.
During the Revolutionary War, Maine played a small and often over-
looked role, although the first naval battle of the conflict was fought off
