THE PLACE CALLED POPHAM
The year was 1606.
Men in Europe, people we now call "adventurers", began to have some serious ideas about forming a settlement along the Eastern coast Amerca.
A group of like-minded men in England petitioned King James I that same year were granted a royal charter authorizing them to form a settlement project as part of the London and Plymouth Companies already in existence in London.
These were not religious refugees seeking a new homeland of freedom for their faith.These were men of commerce and it was their intent to found a colony from which trading posts which would delve into the riches of the New World to their business advantage. The French tried a company in the same year, setting up a small colony on island in the St. Croix River between what is now Maine and New Brunswick. It lasted less than a year.
The English expedition traveled across the Atlantic in two vessels: the "Gift of God" and the "Mary & John". and set up a small settlement called " Fort St. George" at the mouth of what was then called Sagadahoc River - now charted as the Kennebec. They selected the location carefully in line with their plan to infilter the area, upriver, with trading post establishmen as a key to the wealth of the new land.
The town came to be called Popham after the name of the man they elected to be their President - one George Popham who happend to be a nephew of the Lord Chief Justice of England. It has been surmised many of the men who made up the group were of a social elite not too responsive to the demands of hard labor, but that seems unlikely when your find that this small company accomplished one thing never before done by any colonists. In their short stay in the area, they were the only ones who ever actually built a sea-going vessel and thus founded the shipbuilding industry or the eventual State of Maine.
That original ship, made as the New World's first non-profit organization product - was named the "Virginia" which was the official name of the entire eastern coastal area at the time. The new ship weighed thirty-tons and sowed a high degree of good workmanship.One does not just throw such a ship together and the canva, iron and other fittings needed would seem to be an insurmountable obstacle..Yet, they succeeded and the "Virginia" made, at least, two known crossings of the Atlantic.Exactly what its intent mady have been is in question but it is assumed the new vessel was built to make their coastal probes into bays and rivers easier had their trading post plan worked out.
So, while the Popham Colony did not endure English adveturers learned a great deal which must have helped in establishing the Pilgirm's company at Plymouth a bit to the south a bit, thirteen years later. The failure of Popham, of the French attempt on the St Croix River, must have helped the Pilgrim in formulating their plans some thirteen years later. The haunting presence of failures...Popham, St. Croix, Roanoke Island back in 1588 and others must have weighed heavily on their minds.
Those times demanded a great deal of human intent on improving their lot and that of Mankind..
Additional archeological digs are now in progress which may reveal more artifats of the period, but it has been largely ignored for 400 years.
I wonder what other groups of adventrous men, yes, and and women, as well, might have set forth at one time or another into such realms of betterment who have been recognized for having done so.
A.L.M. February 4, 2003 [c627wds]
