Fort Loyal was a British settler refuge and

colonial Colonial or The Colonial may refer to: * Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology) Architecture * American colonial architecture * French Colonial * Spanish Colonial architecture Automobiles * Colonial (1920 au ...

outpost built in 1678 at Falmouth (present-day

Portland, Maine Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maine and the seat of Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 in April 2020. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, the 104th-largest metropol ...

) in

Casco Bay Casco Bay is an inlet of the Gulf of Maine on the southern coast of Maine, New England, United States. Its easternmost approach is Cape Small and its westernmost approach is Two Lights in Cape Elizabeth. The city of Portland sits along its south ...

. It was destroyed in 1690 by

Abenaki The Abenaki (Abenaki: ''Wαpánahki'') are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States. They are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was predom ...

and

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

forces at the

Battle of Fort Loyal The Battle of Falmouth (also known as the Battle of Fort Loyal) (May 16–20, 1690) involved Joseph-François Hertel de la Fresnière and Baron de St Castin leading troops as well as the Wabanaki Confederacy (Mi'kmaq and Maliseet from Fort Med ...

. The fort was rebuilt in 1742 and renamed Falmouth Fort before

King George's War King George's War (1744–1748) is the name given to the military operations in North America that formed part of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748). It was the third of the four French and Indian Wars. It took place primarily in t ...

and rearmed again in 1755 for the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...

. The fort was rebuilt a final time in 1775 for the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

. The peninsula was first colonized by the English in 1632 as a fishing and trading village named Casco. When the

Massachusetts Bay Colony The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as the ...

absorbed the

Province of Maine The Province of Maine refers to any of the various English colonies established in the 17th century along the northeast coast of North America, within portions of the present-day U.S. states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, and the Canadian ...

in 1658, the town's name changed to Falmouth. In 1676, the village was destroyed by the

during

King Philip's War King Philip's War (sometimes called the First Indian War, Metacom's War, Metacomet's War, Pometacomet's Rebellion, or Metacom's Rebellion) was an armed conflict in 1675–1676 between indigenous inhabitants of New England and New England coloni ...

. English colonists returned two years later when peace resumed. Fort Loyal was built in 1678 in the center of Portland at the foot of present-day India Street to protect the town from future attacks. In 1690 Fort Loyal consisted of four wooden blockhouses and eight guns. During

King William's War King William's War (also known as the Second Indian War, Father Baudoin's War, Castin's War, or the First Intercolonial War in French) was the North American theater of the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), also known as the War of the Grand All ...

, a raiding party of French and Native allies destroyed the English settlement and massacred its inhabitants in the

(1690). At the end of the conflict Massachusetts did not rebuilt the fort, instead building

Fort Casco Fort Casco was an English fort built in present-day Falmouth, Maine in 1698. It was the easternmost English fortification in New England and served as the boundary between English settlement and Wabanaki territory. English colonists fled Casco B ...

in Falmouth. The fort was rebuilt in 1742 and renamed "Falmouth Fort" before

and then rearmed during the

in 1755. Reverend Thomas Smith described the 1759 celebration at the fort in Falmouth upon the arrival of news that Quebec had fallen: "The cannon were fired at the fort yesterday and today. Mr. Mayhew's house was illuminated, and small arms fired in the evening, upon further and more authentic news of the victory at Quebec." Earthworks were constructed on the Fort Loyal site in 1775 as part of harbor defenses during the

and known as the "Lower Battery." Elements from earlier iterations of the fort, such as the guard house, were still in use. The bluff on which the fort had been located was leveled off during the construction of the

Grand Trunk Railway The Grand Trunk Railway (; french: Grand Tronc) was a railway system that operated in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario and in the American states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The rai ...

in the 1850s. Today the fort's location is memorialized by a plaque on the Grand Trunk Office Building at the corner of India and Thames Streets in Portland.Nathan Goold, "Falmouth Neck in the Revolution" in Collections and Proceedings of the Maine Historical Society, second series, vol. III (Portland, 1897), 85.

References

{{coord missing, Maine Military history of Acadia Loyal History of Portland, Maine