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Ferdinando Gorges




Gorges was born in Ashton Phillips , Somerset , England . In 1601 , he became involved in the Essex Conspiracy and later testified against its leader, Robert Devereux .

In 1605 , he helped sponsor the expedition of George Weymouth to the mouth of the Kennebec River along the coast of the present day State of Maine in the United States. In 1607 , as a shareholder in the Plymouth Company , he helped fund the failed Popham Colony , near present-day Phippsburg, Maine . Gorges never set foot in the New World himself.

In 1622 , Gorges received a land patent, along with John Mason , from the Plymouth Council For New England for the Province of Maine, the original boundaries of which were between the Merrimack and Kennebec rivers. In 1629 , he and Mason divided the colony, with Mason's portion south of the Piscataqua River becoming the Province Of New Hampshire . Gorges and his nephew established Maine's first court system.

He died a destitute man in 1647 . Maine later fell under the control of the Massachusetts Bay Colony .


SEE ALSO

Fort Gorges