The First English Settlers in New England

U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing. 1957. US postage stamp, 1957 issue, shipbuilding, violet-blue, 3c. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Until recently, if you had asked me what colony was established by the English in North America in 1607, I would have said Jamestown, and I would have been right, but only partially.  In fact, there were two colonies established by the English in North America in 1607. Jamestown, established in May 1607 on the James River in Virginia, was one; the other was the Popham Colony, established in August 1607 at the mouth of the Kennebec River, north of what is now Portland, Maine.

Jamestown went on to be the first lasting English colony in North America, albeit after suffering terrible losses during its first few years. The Popham Colony, on the other hand, was a failure, disbanding in 1608 and rarely appearing in discussions of early English settlement in North America.

My own connection to the Popham Colony comes through my 10th great-grandfather John Parker, brother of the privateer William Parker, a member of the Plymouth Company, which sponsored the Popham Colony. John had served on his brother’s ships during various privateering ventures and continued to go to sea even after William settled down to live the life of a wealthy merchant. In the summer of 1607, John was serving aboard one of the ships that carried colonists to the Popham Colony.

Although he returned to England with his ship, rather than remaining with the colonists, John seems to have liked what he saw of the coast of Maine. In 1636, his only son, also named John, brought his family to Maine (Chandler 1998). In 1650, the younger John purchased Erascohegan Island, between the mouths of the Sheepscot and Kennebec Rivers, from the Abenaki sachem Mowhotiwormet, alias Chief Robinhood, allegedly for a hogshead of rum and some pumpkins. John renamed the island Parker’s Island, and his descendants lived there until 1676 when the Kennebec Valley was evacuated by English settlers during King Philip’s War (Noyes et al 2001).

The origins of the Popham Colony can be found in the colonial aspirations of England in the early 17th century. In 1606, King James I of England issued a charter for the Virginia Company, granting its members—noblemen and wealthy merchants—access to land claimed by England on the North American coast. After ending the long-ongoing war against Spain in 1604, James saw an opportunity to exploit the economic potential of North America, despite the failure of Sir Walter Raleigh’s Roanoke Colony in 1584. By turning the process of colonization over to a group of wealthy and eager “adventurers,” James could promote England’s claims to North America without risk to a royal treasury depleted by the war with Spain.

Charter of the Virginia Company, 1606. Image from the Library of Congress.

The Virginia Company’s charter subdivided the recipients into the London Company, which would settle a colony on the mid-Atlantic seaboard, and the Plymouth Company, whose colony would be on the coast of New England. From the time the charter was issued, a fierce competition developed between the London and Plymouth Companies with each trying to be the first to establish its colony. The London Company won, landing in Virginia before the Plymouth Company’s ships had even sailed and perhaps presaging the ultimate future of the two colonies (Higgins 2000).

The Popham Colony settlers, a group of some 120 men and boys, set sail aboard the ships Gift of God and Mary and John on May 31, 1607. Their leader was George Popham, nephew of England’s Chief Justice Sir John Popham, one of the principal members of the Plymouth Company. Arriving too late in the summer to grow many crops, the colonists were plagued by food shortages, and half of them returned to England in December 1607. The remaining settlers worked hard to maintain the colony, building a small fort as well as houses, a storehouse, and a church.

In February 1608, George Popham became the only casualty of the colony, dying of unknown causes, and leadership fell to the much younger Raleigh Gilbert, nephew of Sir Walter Raleigh. The colony persisted until September 1608, during which time the settlers build a 50-foot pinnace, the Virginia, the first ship built by the English in North America. The final blow to the Popham Colony was the arrival of news that Raleigh Gilbert was now the heir to his family’s estate. He chose to return to England to claim his fortune, and most of the remaining colonists went with him, some of them aboard the Virginia, which was able to make the Atlantic crossing safely (Chandler 1998; Higgins 2000; Thayer 1892).

Hunt, John. 1607. Detail of pinnace from plan of Fort St George. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Jamestown and the Popham Colony had many similarities. Both were the result of grants of land given by King James I to the Virginia Company. Both were colonies intended to make money—to grow cash crops, build new industries, and provide wealth and vocations for the younger sons of company members—and so both were settled by single men rather than by families. Both were built on the Atlantic coast near the mouths of large rivers, and both were on land that was already inhabited by Native Americans, the Powhatan in the case of Jamestown and the Wabanaki in the case of the Popham Colony. While Virginia had a more temperate climate than Maine and was better suited to agriculture, it was also hot, humid, and subject to various diseases in the summer. The Popham Colony actually had far fewer deaths during its first year than Jamestown, despite weather cold enough to freeze the Kennebec River.

So why did the Popham Colony fail? Early reports of the colony’s demise focused on problems with its leadership. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, a leading member of the Plymouth Company, criticized George Popham for his timidity and Raleigh Gilbert for his excessive ambition and poor judgment (Thayer 1892). What was less often mentioned in these discussions is the fact that the colonists were unable to establish any sort of positive relationship with local Native Americans. There doesn’t seem to have been much violence between the two groups, but there was also little cooperation and trade. The colonists alleged that the Native Americans made promises of friendship but could rarely be found to fulfill them. The Native Americans, it appears, had already encountered English explorers and, with good reason, were highly suspicious of their motives and goodwill. Without the support of their Native American neighbors, the Popham colonists were unable to establish any sort of endeavor, such as trading for furs, that might have served, as tobacco did for Jamestown, to provide economic stability to the colony (Bilodeau 2014; Cave 1995).

The fame of Jamestown in American history compared to the virtual erasure of the Popham Colony can be explained by American tendencies to simplify and mythologize our origin stories. Jamestown has been continuously inhabited by the descendants of European settlers since 1607, while the Kennebec Valley in Maine has not. That said, the Popham colony was the first English colony established in New England, and the lessons learned from it had significant impacts on future plans for English settlement in the area. Moreover, members of the Plymouth Company, most notably Sir Ferdinando Gorges, continued to promote the settlement of New England, establishing multiple seasonal and year-round fishing stations along the southern coast of Maine in the years following 1608. So when the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts in 1620, they were not the first English settlers in New England, no matter what our history books may tell us.

Hunt, John. 1607. The draught of St. George’s Fort erected by Captayne George Popham Esquire. Image from Wikimedia Commons. While this plan was drawn only a few months after the colony was founded, archaeologists have confirmed its general accuracy.

Works Cited

Bilodeau, Christopher J. 2014. “The Paradox of Sagadahoc: The Popham Colony, 1607–1608.” Early American Studies 12 (1): 1-35.

Cave, Alfred A.1995.  “Why Was the Sagadahoc Colony Abandoned? An Evaluation of the Evidence.”  The New England Quarterly 68 (4): 625-640.

Chandler, E.J. 2000. Ancient Sagadahoc. Rev Ed. New York: Authors Choice Press.

Higgins, Pat. 2000. “Popham Colony.” The Maine Story.

Noyes, Sybil, Charles Thornton Libby, and Walter Goodwin Davis. 2011. Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire. Boston, MA: New England Historical and Genealogical Society.

Thayer, Henry O. 1892. The Sagadahoc Colony Comprising The Relation of a Voyage into New England (Lambeth MS) with an Introduction and Notes. Portland, ME: The Gorges Society.