Like Jamestown--only in Maine
PHIPPSBURG, Maine --Three months ago, President Bush and Queen Elizabeth II traveled to Virginia's Tidewater region to highlight the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America.
Compared to Jamestown, the Popham Colony gets short shrift in the history books and its anniversary celebration that begins this week will be a low-key affair.
But the 120 settlers who struggled through a cruel Maine winter before abandoning the site 14 months later can claim credit for something that Jamestown can't.
"This was the first colony to build a ship -- an oceangoing vessel," said Jane Stevens, whose home is within the boundary of the colony's Fort St. George.
Marking the Popham Colony's 400th anniversary, there's an effort afoot to build a reproduction of the 30-ton pinnace Virginia, a vessel that the colonists set about building within days of their arrival on the coast of what's now Maine.
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Compared to Jamestown, the Popham Colony gets short shrift in the history books and its anniversary celebration that begins this week will be a low-key affair.
But the 120 settlers who struggled through a cruel Maine winter before abandoning the site 14 months later can claim credit for something that Jamestown can't.
"This was the first colony to build a ship -- an oceangoing vessel," said Jane Stevens, whose home is within the boundary of the colony's Fort St. George.
Marking the Popham Colony's 400th anniversary, there's an effort afoot to build a reproduction of the 30-ton pinnace Virginia, a vessel that the colonists set about building within days of their arrival on the coast of what's now Maine.