. 16 
It may be proper to state that the entrance of this river presented a safe harbor for the many fish- 
ermen who were on this coast from Europe as early as 1602, (see Neddock,) and with great frequency 
afterward. There is great probability that settlements were made here and in its neighborhood 
before 1620. The late author of the history of Portland considered that the patent granted to John 
Peirce, in June, 1621, had reference to a settlement made hereabouts, and not to that at Plymouth, 
for which it has been claimed.' 
The earliest occupation here, of which no known record exists, appears to have been made on 
the west side of the inner harbor, on Lewis’ Point, where cellars, a paved street, a well, the 
remains of a tan-yard, and the scoria of a blacksmith’s shop have been found; as also the indications 
of a small fortification and terraced grounds about it. When the place grew in importance and 
demanded greater protection, the inhabitants appear to have removed to the other side of the bay, 
nearer the ocean, and placed their habitations and defenses on the high part of the peninsula, now 
known as Fort Hill; having a commanding position on all sides. Here are found beneath the sur- 
face, and at one place on the surface, paved strects, in good preservation, and cellars sufficiently 
numerous to warrant the tradition of a population at one time amounting to five hundred persons. 
Articles of various kinds of household implements, and those of the artisan, as well as some for mili- 
tary use, have been here exhumed. The well-protected cemetery has preserved some ancient and 
quaint inscriptions on the grave-stones, wlile it is said that many of the most ancient have been 
thrown over the bank to make room for cultivation. 
The wars of the French and Indians against the English required the erection of forts for the 
security of the residents. which, when one after another was captured and destroyed, were probably 
placed on the spot where the foundation and part of the wall of the last still remain. The date of 
the building of the first was in 1630. This was destroyed a few years after by a noted pirate, Dixie 
Bull, who was in 1631, before he had reyealed his character, of so good esteem in England as to 
be a partner with Ferdinando Gorges, 2d, and several others, in a grant of 12,000 aeres.of land and 
more at Agamenticus, (York.’) The second fort was erected in 1677, under Governor Andros, 
and called Fort Charles, and was under the control of the government of New York. It was 
taken and destroyed, with the neighboring dwellings, by a large body of Penobscot Indians, 
coming from Castine, in 1689. The next fort, called William Henry, was built in 1692, by Sir Wil- 
liam Phips, governor of Massachusetts, to whose authority the right of soil here had previously 
been ceded. This was captured by the French under Iberville, who planted his mortars on the 
high grounds on the opposite side of the harbor, and thus compelled a surrender. The last fort 
was erected by Governor Dunbar, in 1729, called Fort Frederick, and remained till the war of the 
American Revolution, when it was taken down by a vote of the town, lest it should be occupied by 
the British to the injury of the cause of liberty. A single farm-house is all the dwelling now remain- 
ing, and probably built since the construction of the last fort. 
The importance of this place, which bore the name of the ‘city of Jamestown,” may be seen in 
this extract from an old document in the archives of New York, in which the residents here peti- 
tion “that Pemaquid may still remain the metropolitan of these parts, because it ever have been so 
before Boston was settled.” 
PEMETIQ’ the name of a place on Mount Desert. 
PENoBScoT.—The particular locality bearing this name originally has been thought to have 
denoted the rocky bluff on which the light-house stands at the entrance of Castine Bay, northeast 
of which is the present township of that name. The meaning is easy to be ascertained, from 
penops, rock, and cot, one of the locative terminations. The name “ Rockland” is a perfect repre- 
sentation of the word, which has been extended by usage to denote a river, bay, county, and town. 
But a better origin may be found in the word Pdandwampskik, or, as more closely pronounced by the 
present Indians, Panedpskik, long used to denote the ‘ Rocky Falls” and the island near by, on 
which their village is placed, at Oldtown. The change to the now common name of the river is 
easily accounted for by the usage of the English visitors on the coast. As early as 1607 the narra- 
tive of Popham’s colony calls it Penobscot, and in 1614 Smith wrote it much in the present form. 
Penobskot, as the name of a place changed by Prince Charles to Aborden, which, as placed on his 
map, appears to be about the position of Castine. The Indians cling to the ancient name and eon- 
fine its application to the place of the tribal home. ‘They designate the river, not by one name, 
1 Willis’ Hist. Portland, Ed. 1865, pp. 22-23. 
?Records of the Council in New England, March 2, 1631, compared with December 2, 1631, 
