Early Explorers of Maine

Giovanni Caboto

Europeans began exploring Maine over one hundred years before George Popham settled and died in what is today Phippsburg. Many of the leaders of these expeditions were men from wealthy families of high standing. It's likely many or all of them were armigerous.

Below is a list of gentlemen who are either soundly confirmed to have explored Maine or may have based on cursory references to the area in contemporary documents.

John Cabot, or rather Giovanni Caboto, was a Venetian and is believed to have explored Maine during his second voyage to the new world in 1497 - though this is not confirmed. Like Columbus, he sailed for a sponsor nation, in this case England.

Giovanni da Verrazzano is considered to be the first European explorer of North America since the Norse expeditions, though his trip was in 1524, 27 years after John Cabots alleged visit. Verrazzano sailed on behalf of the French crown.

Don Estaban Gomez, was a Portugese cartographer. In 1524 or 1525, he explored Nova Scotia and the Maine coast and mistook the Penobscot river for the fabled Northwest Passage. According to one theory, Gomez is also responsible for naming Saco and Casco Bay.

David Ingram, an English explorer has an interesting story I'm going to have to read into more. In 1568 he was found on the coast of Nova Scotia by a French fishing vessel. Before that, his last known location was near what is today the Mexican and Texas border. According to his own accounts, he traversed the interior of North America over an 11 month period.

John Walker from England bombarded a native village in Penobscot in the year 1580.

Samuel de Champlain of France, is second to only John Smith on this list in terms of fame. He was an incredibly accomplished explorer, considered the "Father of New France" or more importantly to this blog, "The Father of Acadia." He is responsible for naming Mount Desert Island (Isles des Monts Desert) and Isle au Haut in Maine.

George Weymouth of England can partially be blamed for the lack of success at Popham Colony. In 1604 he explored the area of Monhegan and Sagadahoc and kidnapped several natives which tarnished future settler-indian relations.

Henry Hudson of England, who has all sorts of places named after him is believed to have passed through Maine in 1609 while captaining the  Dutch Half Moon.

Source

John Smith, of Pocahontas fame explored Maine in 1614 and was responsible for renaming the whole region New England. According to wikipedia (which I will of course verify), before he explored the new world he defeated and beheaded three Ottoman commanders in duels and was awarded a coat of arms by a Transylvanian prince featuring three severed Turks' heads. Preliminary Googling yielded an image of a Gules chevron between the three heads on an Argent field. Another illustration features a Vert field.

Source

I invite readers to share with me any leads you may have regarding these explorers and their potential use of arms. I'm going to start chronologically with the two Giovannis. I'm unaware of any contemporary records of Italian arms, especially any that have been digitized, but I'm in this for the long haul.

The Arms of George Popham

Possible arms of George 
Popham.
Argent on a chief gules,
two bucks' heads
caboshed or

I began researching Maine Heraldry twenty minutes down the road from my home town in the small village of Phippsburg, a heavily forested coastal hamlet which hasn’t changed much in the past two hundred years. There stands Fort Popham. It’s a stone fort built during the Civil War which is really fun to play on as a child who loves medieval themes of knights and castles. Just up a goat-path of a road is a small grass field overlooking the same body of water. There isn’t much there, just a plaque describing the field’s brief story. This is where the English built their first New England colony, Popham, also known as Sagadahoc Colony after the native name for the southern end of the Kennebec River on which it sits. It is also known as Fort St. George. It was settled in 1607, just months after Jamestown and more than a decade before Plymouth.

The leaders of the expedition that founded Popham colony were George Popham (elected President) and Raleigh Gilbert (Admiral) who sailed to Maine and captained the Gift of God and Mary and John, respectively. Both gentlemen came from prestigious families. Popham’s uncle was Sir John Popham, an important lawyer who presided during the trials of Sir Walter Raleigh and Guy Fawkes. Gilbert’s father was Sir Humphrey Gilbert, another explorer of the Americas and half brother to Sir Walter Raleigh.

Despite being an important experience for English colonists, Popham colony is not very well known because it didn’t thrive and was abandoned. The colonists were unable to establish trade relations with the native Abenaki tribe. Aboriginals of the area had grown suspicious of Europeans who had, in the past, kidnapped natives to show at home. A late summer arrival meant no time for planting food. Winter was brutally cold. Diaries claimed that the Kennebec (salt water) River froze, which is a major feat. I grew up on the Kennebec and the coldest winter in my life didn’t come close to freezing that beast. Fires destroyed the storehouse. Popham died at the colony in 1608. It’s entirely possibly that he was the only person to die, unlike the Jamestown expedition which lost half its population at the same time.

The rest of the colonists returned to England shortly after. Gilbert himself rushed back to claim an inheritance which included a title and estate after his brother John died. The colony only lasted just over a year. Diaries described the land as barren, and ill-suited for colonization. But more importantly it lacked gold. The colonists also built a ship which would be the first English vessel constructed on American soil, the Virginia. It was a very sturdy pinnace and continued to sail between the colonies for about twenty years.

The Complete American Armoury and Blue Book by John Matthews has the following on arms attributed to the name Popham.

This is of course a different George Popham, but the George in question is from the Huntworth branch of Pophams in Somersetshire and was also John's nephew. It's possible these were the arms born by our President of Popham Colony and the first English arms born in Maine.