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t0 De Monts Is]and, and is within the limits of the
parish of the Immaculate Conception, which includes
the citv of Calais. Here, in a small chapel, quickly
erectecf, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was offered for
the first time on the soil of New England by Rev.
Nicholas Aubry of Paris in July, 1604. From this
little colony the Gospel spread amon^ the Indians, the
Abenakis being the first on the continent to embrace
the Faith; this they did in a body, and they have
ttood steadfast in the Faith to this aay. The colony
was transferred near the close of the following year to
a new location at Port Royal on Annapolis Bay. In
July, 1605, Captain George Weymouth landed on the
ooaist of Maine within the limits of the town of St.
George.
On 10 April, 1606, James I of England grated a charter, called the Charter of Virginia, providing for two colonies, one between the thirty-fourth and thirty-eighth and the other between the forty-first and forty-fifth degrees of latitude, the latter including flubstantiallv the whole of the Maine coast, and extend- ing a considerable distance into the interior. Under this charter a small colony was established in 1607 on the peninsula of Sagadahoc on the spot now com- memorated by Fort Popham. This settlement ap- pears to have been broken up. It was renewed, how- ever, after a few years andf has continued down to the present time. These settlements, the one made by De Monts on St. Croix Island, and that made at lort Popham, have formed respectivelv the basis of the claim made by the French and the English to tiie territory of Maine — a controversy long, and bit- ter, and bloody, in which the religious element was ever present. The French king claimed as far west as the Kennebec; the English claimed as far east as the present line of the state. The English oc- cupancy spread from the mouth of the Sagadahoc in ooth directions, so that in 1614, when Captain John Smith visited the coast, he found a few settlers on the island of Monhegan and around Pemaquid Bay. The history of the English settlement from 1616 until 1677 consists of the doings of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, his son Robert, and his nephew. Ferdinando Gorges in 1622 received from the English kin^ a patent of the land between the Merrimac and the Kennebec, and in ^e next year sent his son Robert as governor and lieutenant-general of the Province of Maone. He was accompanied by a minister of the Church of England and several councillors. The first court was con- vened tst Saco on 21 March, 1636. In 1639 he received a charter which made of the Province of Maine a pal- atinate of which Sir Ferdinando Gorges was lord pala- tine. This is the only instance of a purely feudal possession on the American continent. In 1641 the first chartered city in the United States, Gorgiana, now York, was established. In that period (1630-2) settlements were begun in Saco, Biddeford, Scarboro, Gape Elizabeth, and Portland, which progressed fairly well until the Indian war in 1675, during which they were almost destroyed.
In 1677 Massachusetts purchased the interest of the Gorges in the Province of Maine, and in 1691 it be- came definitively part of "The Royal Province of Massachusetts Bay, and so continued until 1820. The Maine men in the Revolutionary War were reck- oned as Massachusetts troops, and a r^^ent of Maine men fought at Bunker WU. The first naval battle was that at Machias, in which Jeremiah O'Brien and his five sons captured the British ship, Marga- retta (11 July, 1775). The French occupancy con- sisted of a few missions, the principal being the one at Pentagoet (Castine) on the Penobscot and another at Narantsouac (Norridgewock) on the Kennebec. Hie history of the Frencn occupancy is accordingly the history of the Catholic missions. In 1611 Jean de Biencourt, Sieur de Poutrincourt, having succeeded to the title of De Monts, landed on an idand at the
mouth of the Kennebec. He was accompanied
among others by Father Biard. This is believed to
have oeen the second nlace in Maine in which the
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was celebrated. In 1613
another attempt was made at founding a Catholic
colony on the coast. Antoinette de Pons, Aiarchioness
de Guercheville, sent out imder the command of
Sieur de la Saussaye an expedition which sailed from
France on 12 March, 1613, and landed on the south-
eastern shore of Mount Desert. Here the missionaries
planted a cross, celebrated Mass, and gave the place
the name of St. Sau veur. This settlement was destined
to be short-lived. Captain Samuel Argall from Vir-
ginia, in a small man-of-war, attacked the colony,
took, and destroyed it. Father Masse, with fourteen
Frenchmen, was set adrift in a small boat, and the
others were carried prisoners to Virginia. Soon after,
the governor of Virginia sent Argall to destroy the
remnant of the St. Croix and Port Royal colonies,
which he did, burning such buildings as had been
erected.
In 1619 the Recollects of the Franciscan Order were given charge of the territory, which included Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Maine. They ministered to the spiritual wants of Indians and whites alike, and so continued in charge imtil the year 1630. The Capu- chins, another branch of the Franciscan Order, suc- ceeded them three years later. .From Port RoyaJ as a centre, they had missions as far as the Penobscot and the Kennebec, the principal one in Maine being that at Pentagoet on the Penobscot. In 1646, at the request of the Indians of the Kennebec, the superior ot the Jesuit mission in Canada sent Father Gabriel Druil- lettes, who founded the mission of the Assumption. He returned to Quebec the following year, but in 1650 was back at his post, being stationed at Norridgewock. He appears to have liv^ alternately there and at Quebec until 1657, when he returned finally to Que- bec. The Capuchin mission at Pentagoet was broken up about this time by an expedition sent by Cromwell, and the missionary. Very Rev. Bemadine de Crespy, was carried off to England. In 1667, Pentagoet hav- ing been restored to France by the Treaty of Breda, Catholic worship was restored. Rev. Lawrence Molin, a Franciscan, was placed in charge, and from this point visited all the stations in the state. The Baron ae Castine, from whom Castine (Pentagoet) derives its name, was a strong supporter of this mission at this period. After Famer Molin came Father Morain in 1677 to minister to the Penobscots and Passama- quoddies. In 1684 Rev. Louis P. Thury was sent by Bishop Laval, and settled at Castine. In 1688 he built the church of St. Ann at Panawaniski (Indian for Oldtown), which exists to this day and is the old- est parish in New England. Baron de Castine appears to have been the chief promoter of this church, and also offered to maintain the missionary at his own ex-
E3. The baron had married the daughter of the more Modockewando. About 1701 he returned ■ance; but his half-breed son, Anselme, Baron de Castine, was long a prominent figure in the wars which were continually waged between the French and their Indian allies and the New Englanders, representing British interests. In the same year (1668) Father James Bigot built a chapel at Norridgewock. His tMX)ther, Rev. Vincent Bigot, also served the mission for some little tiire, leaving it in 1699. Besides these, and during the same pericd, the Jesuit fathers, Peter Joseph de la Chasse, Julien Binnetau, and Joseph Au- bery, served the missions in Maine. Rev. Jacques Alexis de Fleury d'Eschambault succeeded Father Thury, who had oeen called elsewhere. Father d'Es- chambault died in 1698, and was succeeded by Rev. Philip Rageot and Rev. Father Guay until 1701, and by Rev. Anthonv Gaulin until 1703. Rev. Sebastian Kale was also located at Norridgewock during the same period, and continued there for thirty yeans.
