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The English established a colony on the coast near today’s Phippsburg, Maine in 1607, only a couple of months after the founding of Jamestown. It would survive just over a year. The Popham or Sagadahoc Colony was the culmination of several exploratory missions along the New England coast from approximately Cape Cod to Maine between 1602 and 1605. In 1602, Bartholomew Gosnold, who would eventually die at Jamestown, led the first of those missions to the New England coast and gave several famous places names that we use today, including Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard. His expedition would stay in the Elizabeth Islands, which shelter Buzzard’s Bay in Massachusetts, for more than three weeks, and have extensive encounters with local indigenous peoples. The Gosnold narrative of those encounters has all sorts of interesting stuff!
Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2
Selected references for this episode
Henry Otis Thayer, The Sagadahoc Colony: Comprising the Relation of a Voyage Into New England
Warner F. Gookin, “Who was Bartholomew Gosnold?”, The William and Mary Quarterly, July 1949.
