Pejepscot, Maine is a historical settlement first occupied by a subset of the Androscoggin Native Americans (Formerly known as the ''Anasagunticooks'') known as the Wabanaki. The region encompasses the current towns of Brunswick, Topsham and

Harpswell, Maine Harpswell is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States, within Casco Bay in the Gulf of Maine. The population was 5,031 at the 2020 census. Harpswell is composed of land contiguous with the rest of Cumberland County, called Harpswell ...

in Sagadahoc and Cumberland counties and was first settled by

English settlers The English people are an ethnic group and nation native to England, who speak the English language, a West Germanic language, and share a common history and culture. The English identity is of Anglo-Saxon origin, when they were known in ...

in .

History

Native Americans

Before the

European colonization of the Americas During the Age of Discovery, a large scale European colonization of the Americas took place between about 1492 and 1800. Although the Norse had explored and colonized areas of the North Atlantic, colonizing Greenland and creating a short t ...

, Pejepscot was inhabited by the Wabanaki Native Americans. The word Pejepscot has its roots in the Wabanaki language and has different translations (long, rocky rapids part and crooked like a diving snake). This area refers to a specific section of the

Androscoggin River The Androscoggin River ( Abenaki: ''Aləssíkαntekʷ'') is a river in the U.S. states of Maine and New Hampshire, in northern New England. It is U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, ...

, the major waterway and lifeblood for all that inhabited the region. Pejepscot is the current towns of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, Maine, in Sagadahoc and Cumberland counties.

Colonization

in the year 1620, a charter was granted by

King James II James VII and II (14 October 1633 16 September 1701) was King of England and King of Ireland as James II, and King of Scotland as James VII from the death of his elder brother, Charles II, on 6 February 1685. He was deposed in the Glorious Re ...

of England to forty

noblemen Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. The characterist ...

knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...

s, and gentlemen, calling themselves the

Plymouth Company The Plymouth Company, officially known as the Virginia Company of Plymouth, was a Division (business), division of the Virginia Company with responsibility for British colonization of the Americas, colonizing the east coast of America between 38 ...

. Their territory extended from the fourteenth to the forty-eighth parallel of latitude, and from sea to sea. Arriving in 1628, the first permanent European settler in Pejepscot was

Thomas Purchase Thomas Purchase (1577–1678), also known as Thomas Purchis and Thomas Purchas, was the first English settler to occupy the region of Pejepscot, Maine in what is now Brunswick, Topsham and Harpswell. In 1628 he set up a trading post at th ...

from Dorchester, Dorset England. On June 16, 1632, the Plymouth Company granted a patent to Purchase and his brother in-law George Way for the lands at Pejepscot, in the current towns of Brunswick, Topsham and Harpswell Maine. Purchase settled at Pejepscot Falls adjacent to the Site of Fort Andross. In the proceedings of the Plymouth Council in England, the following minutes were entered: On August 22, 1639, purchase made a legal agreement with

John Winthrop John Winthrop (January 12, 1587/88 – March 26, 1649) was an English Puritan lawyer and one of the leading figures in founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the second major settlement in New England following Plymouth Colony. Winthrop led t ...

, Governor of Massachusetts, placing his land under the

jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, and federal levels. J ...

of that colony. This was a right to the jurisdiction only and not the soil. On July 7, 1684, and after Purchase fled to Boston 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 ...

, the land was next settled and purchased through Native Americans by ''Richard Wharton'', a Boston merchant, except for a few islands. In 1714. in the

Massachusetts General Court The Massachusetts General Court (formally styled the General Court of Massachusetts) is the State legislature (United States), state legislature of the Massachusetts, Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name "General Court" is a hold-over from th ...

, the land was sold to a group of Boston merchants. organized as the

Pejepscot Proprietors The Pejepscot Proprietors was a company of land investors who colonized the current towns of Brunswick, Topsham and Harpswell, Maine, between 1715 and 1814. The area known as Pejepscot, Maine, was first inhabited by the Wabanaki Native Ame ...

. They sold land in small lots as a commercial enterprise to establish a settlement. By 1715, in the Brunswick portion of Pejepscot, there were only thirty to forty residents. The region of Pejepscot kept that name and location until the Massachusetts General Court constituted the three towns.

Archaeological sites

Pejepscot Site

The Pejepscot Site is a prehistoric archaeological site on the banks of the

Topsham, Maine Topsham () is a town in Sagadahoc County, Maine, United States. The population was 9,560 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Portland– South Portland–Biddeford, Maine metropolitan statistical area. The town is home to the annual Topsh ...

. The site is a small Native American habitation site dating to the Late

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (se ...

or early

classic stage In archaeological cultures of North America, the classic stage is the theoretical North and Meso-American societies that existed between AD 500 and 1200. This stage is the fourth of five stages posited by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips' 1958 ...

. It was discovered in the 1980s during planning for a water power project on the river above

Brunswick Falls Brunswick Falls, also known as Pejepscot Falls, is an ancient section of the Androscoggin River, bordering the towns of Brunswick and Topsham, Maine. First occupied by Paleoindians and the Wabanaki Native Americans, the falls were a plentif ...

Merrymeeting Bay Pioneers Project

In 2020 the ''Merrymeeting Bay Pioneers Project'' found a 17th-century dwelling in a field at the Hunter Farm on Foreside Road in Topsham. The home, found in a field, was built with wood, clay, and stone. Stones were placed below the timbers to keep them from rotting.