Richmond Island, or Richmond's Island, is an island off the coast of

Cape Elizabeth Cape Elizabeth is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. The town is part of the Portland– South Portland–Biddeford, Maine, metropolitan statistical area. As of the 2020 census, Cape Elizabeth had a population of 9,535. ...

Cumberland County, Maine Cumberland County is a county in the U.S. state of Maine. As of the 2020 census, the population was 303,069, making it the most populous county in Maine. Its county seat is Portland. Cumberland County was founded in 1760 from a portion of Yor ...

, in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The island is named for Ludovic Stewart, 2nd Duke of Lennox and 1st Duke of Richmond. Privately owned and unoccupied, it is notable as the site of a permanent fishing post in the 17th century, and was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1978 for the significance of that post's archaeological remains.

Geography

Richmond Island is part of Wabanakik, the ancestral land of the Wabanaki. It is located off the southern coast of what is now called

, near the northeastern end of

Saco Bay Saco Bay is a small curved embayment of the Gulf of Maine on the Atlantic coast of Maine in the United States. The name derives "from a map of the coastline made in 1525 by the Spanish explorer Esteban Gómez. He named the bay ''Bahio de Saco'' ...

in the

Gulf of Maine The Gulf of Maine is a large gulf of the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of North America. It is bounded by Cape Cod at the eastern tip of Massachusetts in the southwest and by Cape Sable Island at the southern tip of Nova Scotia in the northeast ...

. The island is in size. The island has no permanent occupants, and the only structures on it are the keeper's quarters, a cabin, a potato storage 'cellar', and a boat dock located on its northwestern shore. The island is privately owned by the Sprague Corporation, through which permission to camp on the island can be arranged.

History

Prior to

European colonization The historical phenomenon of colonization is one that stretches around the globe and across time. Ancient and medieval colonialism was practiced by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Turks, and the Arabs. Colonialism in the modern sense began ...

, the island was inhabited by the

indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

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 ...

; they were displaced from the region by European settlement and forced to move to the area around modern-day Northern

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

. The Abenaki spoke an Algonquian language,

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

. In 1614, the explorer John Smith charted the waters in the vicinity, taking note of the island and including it in his maps. In the summer of 1623,

Christopher Levett Capt. Christopher Levett (15 April 1586 – 1630) was an English writer, explorer and naval captain, born at York, England. He explored the coast of New England and secured a grant from the King to settle present-day Portland, Maine, the first ...

visited the island, finding no other Europeans there. Master John Burgess of the merchantman ''Annes'' also visited the island in April 1627. The island's first known permanent settler was

Walter Bagnall Walter Edward Bagnall (1903–1984) was a Canadian Anglican bishop Born in Birr, County Offaly, Ireland in 1903 and educated at the University of Western Ontario he was ordained in 1928. He was Curate of All Saints, Windsor and then held incum ...

, who operated a fishing station from 1627 to 1631, when Bagnall was killed in a skirmish with the Abenaki. The next European settlement on the island was established the same year, when

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...

merchant

Robert Trelawney Robert Trelawney (25 March 1598 – 1643) was an English merchant and colonist who settled lands in Maine USA and a politician who sat in the House of Commons of England from 1640 to 1642. The son of Robert Trelawney, who was three times mayor ...

was granted a patent for land in the area and sent the settler John Winter to establish a permanent fishing station on the island. From 1633 to 1643, Winter, with a crew of about 40 men, operated the station, constructing a house and establishing farms on the island. The station was also fortified against potential attacks both from the Abenaki and the

Acadia Acadia (french: link=no, Acadie) was a colony of New France in northeastern North America which included parts of what are now the Maritime provinces, the Gaspé Peninsula and Maine to the Kennebec River. During much of the 17th and early ...

n settlement at

Fort Pentagoet Fort Pentagouët (Fort Pentagoet, Fort Castine, Fort Penobscot, Fort Saint-Pierre) was a French fort established in present-day Castine, Maine, which was the capital of Acadia (1670–1674). It is the oldest permanent settlement in New England. I ...

Penobscot Bay Penobscot Bay (french: Baie de Penobscot) is an inlet of the Gulf of Maine and Atlantic Ocean in south central Maine. The bay originates from the mouth of Maine's Penobscot River, downriver from Belfast, Maine, Belfast. Penobscot Bay has many ...

References

{{authority control Islands of Cumberland County, Maine Cape Elizabeth, Maine Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine National Register of Historic Places in Cumberland County, Maine Islands of Maine Coastal islands of Maine Private islands of Maine

Geography

History

See also

References