Fort Richmond was a Massachusetts colonial fort near present-day Richmond Village, Maine.
Fort Richmond was a Massachusetts colonial fort near present-day Richmond Village, Maine.
The Pejepscot Proprietors and the Massachusetts Bay Colony built the fort in around 1720 on the western bank of the Kennebec River in response to Indian raids which eventually led to Dummer's War. [1] Named for Ludovic Stewart, 1st Duke of Richmond, the fort included a blockhouse, trading post, chapel, officers' and soldiers' quarters, all surrounded by a palisade. [2]
Captain Joseph Heath (military officer), Edward Shove, John Oulton, Captain Jabez Bradbury, [3] Captain John Minot and Captain Joseph Bane (Bean) [4] [5] were the commanders of the fort. [6] [7] William Lithgow (judge) and Arthur Noble were also commanders of the fort by 1746. (Lithgow married Noble's daughter.) [8] [9]
During Father Rale's War, following the battle at Fort Menaskoux, Arrowsic, Maine, Fort Richmond was attacked in a 3-hour siege by warriors from Norridgewock (1722). Houses were burned and cattle slain, but the fort held. Brunswick and other settlements near the mouth of the Kennebec were destroyed. The defense was enlarged in 1723 during Father Rale's War. On August 19, 1724, a militia of 208 soldiers departed Fort Richmond under command of captains Jeremiah Moulton and Johnson Harmon, traveled up the Kennebec in 17 whaleboats, and sacked Norridgewock, killing Sébastien Rale.
Fort Richmond would be rebuilt in 1740.
William Lithgow (judge) was put in command from 1746 to 1754. [10] In 1748, natives took Frances Noble captive close to Fort Richmond. Frances Noble wrote her captivity narrative. [11] [12]
The fort was attacked by another tribe at Swan Island in 1750. [13] [14]
The fort was dismantled in 1755 when forts Shirley (also called Fort Frankfort located close to Richmond at present-day Dresden, Maine), [15] Western and Halifax were built upriver. [2] [16]
Augusta is the capital of the U.S. state of Maine and the county seat of and most populous city in Kennebec County. Augusta is included in the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine metropolitan New England city and town area. The city's population was 18,899 at the 2020 census, making it the 12th most populous city in Maine, and 3rd least populous state capital in the United States after Montpelier, Vermont, and Pierre, South Dakota.
Richmond is a town in Sagadahoc County, Maine, United States. The population was 3,522 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Portland–South Portland–Biddeford, Maine metropolitan statistical area, situated at the head of Merrymeeting Bay.
Norridgewock was the name of both an Indigenous village and a band of the Abenaki Native Americans/First Nations, an Eastern Algonquian tribe of the United States and Canada. The French of New France called the village Kennebec. The tribe occupied an area in the interior of Maine. During colonial times, this area was territory disputed between British and French colonists, and was set along the claimed western border of Acadia, the western bank of the Kennebec River.
Dummer's War (1722–1725) was a series of battles between the New England Colonies and the Wabanaki Confederacy, who were allied with New France. The eastern theater of the war was located primarily along the border between New England and Acadia in Maine, as well as in Nova Scotia; the western theater was located in northern Massachusetts and Vermont in the frontier areas between Canada and New England.
Fort Halifax is a former British colonial outpost on the banks of the Sebasticook River, just above its mouth at the Kennebec River, in Winslow, Maine. Originally built as a wooden palisaded fort in 1754, during the French and Indian War, only a single blockhouse survives. The oldest blockhouse in the United States, it is preserved as Fort Halifax State Historic Site, and is open to the public in the warmer months. The fort guarded Wabanaki canoe routes that reached to the St. Lawrence and Penobscot Valleys via the Chaudière-Kennebec and Sebasticook-Souadabscook rivers. The blockhouse was declared a National Historic Landmark and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1968.
Sébastien Rale (also Racle, Râle, Rasle, Rasles, and Sebastian Rale was a French Jesuit missionary and lexicographer who preached amongst the Abenaki and encouraged their resistance to British colonization during the early 18th century. This encouragement culminated in Dummer's War, where Rale was killed by a group of New England militiamen. Rale also worked on an Abenaki-French dictionary during his time in North America.
Hon. William Lithgow was a judge for the Court of Common Pleas of Lincoln County, when Maine was under the jurisdiction of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Lithgow also served in the Massachusetts Bay Colonial Militia for twenty years before and during the French and Indian War.
The Raid on Wells occurred during King William's War when French and Wabanaki Confederacy forces from New France attacked the English settlement at Wells, Maine, a frontier town on the coast below Acadia. The principal attack (1692) was led by La Brognerie, who was killed. Commander of the garrison, Captain James Converse, successfully repelled the raid despite being greatly outnumbered.
The Battle of Norridgewock was a raid on the Abenaki settlement of Norridgewock by a group of colonial militiamen from the New England Colonies. Occurring in contested lands on the edge of the American frontier, the raid resulted in a massacre of the Abenaki inhabitants of Norridgewock by the militiamen.
The Northeast Coast campaign was the first major campaign by the French of Queen Anne's War in New England. Alexandre Leneuf de La Vallière de Beaubassin led 500 troops made up of French colonial forces and the Wabanaki Confederacy of Acadia. They attacked English settlements on the coast of present-day Maine between Wells and Casco Bay, burning more than 15 leagues of New England country and killing or capturing more than 150 people. The English colonists protected some of their settlements, but a number of others were destroyed and abandoned. Historian Samuel Drake reported that, "Maine had nearly received her death-blow" as a result of the campaign.
The Northeast Coast campaign (1745) occurred during King George's War from 19 July until 5 September 1745. Three weeks after the British Siege of Louisbourg (1745), the Wabanaki Confederacy of Acadia retaliated by attacking New England settlements along the coast of present-day Maine below the Kennebec River, the former border of Acadia. They attacked English settlements on the coast of present-day Maine between Berwick and St. Georges, within two months there were 11 raids - every town on the frontier had been attacked. Casco was the principal settlement.
The Northeast Coast campaign (1723) occurred during Father Rale's War from April 19, 1723 – January 28, 1724. In response to the previous year, in which New England attacked the Wabanaki Confederacy at Norridgewock and Penobscot, the Wabanaki Confederacy retaliated by attacking the coast of present-day Maine that was below the Kennebec River, the border of Acadia. They attacked English settlements on the coast of present-day Maine between Berwick and Mount Desert Island. Casco was the principal settlement. The 1723 campaign was so successful along the Maine frontier that Dummer ordered its evacuation to the blockhouses in the spring of 1724.
Fort St. George was a British colonial fort built at present-day Thomaston, Maine during the lead up to Father Rale's War.
Fort Menaskoux was a British colonial fort in present-day Arrowsic, Maine.
Madison is a town in Somerset County, Maine, United States. The population was 4,726 at the 2020 census.
Norridgewock is a town in Somerset County, Maine, United States. The population was 3,278 at the 2020 census.
The Northeast Coast campaign (1724) occurred during Father Rale's War from March 1724 – September 1724. The Wabanaki Confederacy of Acadia attacked the coast of present-day Maine that was below the Kennebec River, the border of Acadia and New England. They attacked English settlements on the coast of present-day Maine between Berwick and Mount Desert Island. Casco was the principal settlement. The 1723 campaign was so successful along the Maine frontier that William Dummer ordered its evacuation to the blockhouses in the spring of 1724.
The Northeast Coast campaign of 1750 occurred during Father Le Loutre's War from 11 September to December 1750. The Norridgewock as well as the Abenaki from St. Francois and Trois-Rivières, Quebec raided British settlements along the Acadia/ New England border in present-day Maine.
Skowhegan is the county seat of Somerset County, Maine, United States. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 8,620. Every August, Skowhegan hosts the annual Skowhegan State Fair, the oldest continuously held state fair in the United States. Skowhegan was originally inhabited by the indigenous Abenaki people who named the area Skowhegan, meaning "watching place [for fish]," and were mostly dispersed by the end of the 4th Anglo-Abenaki War.
Capt Richard Jacques ; an American colonial officer who served during Father Rale's War. He was responsible for the death of Father Sébastien Rale in the Battle of Norridgewock.
Endnotes
coolidge mansfield history description new england 1859.
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44°05'30.3"N 69°47'07.8"W 44°05′30″N69°47′07″W / 44.09167°N 69.78528°W
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