Maine History Timeline
Selected Events in Maine History: 1600s

 

1602–1603

  • English expeditions by Bartholomew Gosnold (1572–1607) and Martin Pring (1580–1646) to Maine coast

1604–1605

  • Samuel de Champlain (1567–1635) charts Maine coast; Sieur de Monts tries to establish permanent settlement on St. Croix Island

1605

  • George Waymouth (ca. 1585–ca. 1612) explores mouth of Kennebec River, captures five Indians, takes them to England

1607

  • George Popham (ca. 1550–1608) and Raleigh Gilbert (ca. 1583–1634) establish English settlement, Fort Saint George (the Popham Colony), at the mouth of the Kennebec River (Colony, now Phippsburg, abandoned 1608)
  • Popham colonists build Maine's first ocean–going ship, a 30-ton pinnace, The Virginia, which crosses the Atlantic at least twice and sails along the Maine coast in 1608 and 1609.

1611

  • Father Pierre Baird (1565–1622), a French Jesuit, establishes Indian mission at Indian Island on Penobscot River.

1614

  • John Smith (1580–1631) visits Maine, publishes Description of New England in 1616, which encourages English settlement in Maine

1616-1619

  • "The Great Dying." More than 75 percent of Maine's Indians die of European diseases

1620s

  • Trading posts and settlements established in southern coastal Maine

1622

  • Sir Ferdinando Gorges (c.1565–1647) and John Mason granted rights to Maine and New Hampshire. Gorges gives his area the name "Maine"

1634

  • One of earliest known sawmills in America built on Piscataqua River in Berwick

1636

  • Maine's first court convenes at Saco (a Massachusetts Bay Colony court)

1652

  • Massachusetts Bay Colony annexes southwestern Maine for strategic importance as first line of defense against French and Indians for control of North America. Locals dub it "Submission to Massachusetts"

1667

  • Area of Eastern Maine known as Pentagoet granted to French; British reclaim it in 1779

1677

  • Massachusetts buys the deed to Maine from Gorges heirs; "submission" of Maine creates resentment toward Massachusetts

1675-1678

  • Western Maine Indians raid English settlements in Maine during King Philip's War; eastern tribes join in later