Ferdinando Gorges

Sir Ferdinando Gorges (* around 1568 in Ashton Phillips, Somerset ; † May 24, 1647 in Long Ashton , Somerset), the "father of English colonization in North America ", was an early English colonialist and founder of the province of Maine in 1622, without ever himself to have been in the New World.

Life

Sir Ferdinando Gorges was the son of Edward Gorges, Esquire and Lady Cicely Lygon. His father died shortly after he was born. He was named after his mother's brother, Ferdinando Lygon. Little is known about his youth and education. He was raised on Nailsea Court in Somerset. He came from a branch line of the Russells of Kingston Russell , Dorset , who had changed their name to the metronymic "Gorges" and had died out in the male line with the death of Ralph de Gorges in 1331.

He went to the military early and became captain in the siege of Sluys in 1587, was in 1588, was wounded in the siege of Paris in 1590 and knighted in the siege of Rouen in 1591 . He was then appointed governor of Fort Plymouth . In 1601 he was involved in the Essex conspiracy and later testified against its leader, Robert Devereux , the Earl of Essex.

His interest in colonization was sparked when George Weymouth gave him three captured Indians. In 1605 he helped Weymouth's expedition to the Kennebec estuary on the coast of what is now Maine . In 1607, as a shareholder in the Plymouth Company , he helped finance the failed Popham Colony , near present-day Phippsburg in Maine.

On August 10, 1622, under King James I , Gorges received together with John Mason from the Plymouth Council for New England a land patent for the province of Maine , whose original area was between the Merrimack and the Kennebec . In 1629 he and Mason divided the colony, with Mason getting the part south of Piscataquas , the future province of New Hampshire . In 1639 King Charles I confirmed Gorges 'ownership and the name "Maine", Gorges' powers were increased. Gorges and his nephew created Maine's first court system. Christopher Levett , an early English explorer of the New England coast, was a deputy from Gorges and a member of the Plymouth Council for New England. Levett's attempt to establish a colony in Maine ultimately failed, and he died on the ship voyage back to England after meeting John Winthrop in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630 .

America Painted to the Life , in London by Ferdinando Gorges Esq., Grandson of Ferdinando Gorges depicted here in the article, published book from 1659

Ferdinando Gorges 'son, Robert Gorges , was Governor General of New England from 1623 to 1624. But he was viewed with some suspicion by American colonists, who were skeptical of Gorges' almost feudal notion of control and settlement, and he soon returned to England. He probably died in the late 1620s.

In the 1630s, Gorges tried to revive the Plymouth Company's fallow claims. Together with from the Massachusetts Bay Colony settlers displaced he doubted 1632 formally granting royal foundation charter and forwarded complaints and accusations of disgruntled settlers to the Privy Council of Charles I on. In 1639 the province of Maine was re-confirmed to him royally, but in the end his efforts were unsuccessful.

Death and inheritance

After being imprisoned as a supporter of the king in the English Civil War , Ferdinando Gorges died in May 1647 at home in Long Ashton (then called Ashton-Phillips) and was buried there in the crypt of the Smith family, the family of his fourth wife. His elder son, John, inherited the province of Maine, which gradually passed into the power of the Massachusetts Bay Colony before that of the grandson, also named Ferdinando, eventually sold it to them. In the meantime, Ferdinando Gorges' younger son was governor of the province of Maine.

Even if his grandson had accepted a small sum after years of trying to maintain his grandfather's good name, he was preparing to validate his grandfather's claims with the Puritans. With this sale the participation of the Gorges family in the colonization in the American lands ended. It was not until 1820 that Maine, separated from Massachusetts , became a separate state.

Private

Gorges married four times. His first wife was Ann, daughter of Edward Bell of Writtle , Essex, whom he married in St Margaret's Church in 1589 and died in 1620: they had two sons, John and Robert , and two daughters, Ellen and Honoria, who died young. In 1621 he married Mary, daughter of Thomas Fulford of Devon , widow of Thomas Achims of Hall, Cornwall, for the second time . He married for the third time in 1627 in Ladock , Cornwall , Elizabeth, daughter of Tristam Gorges from St. Budeaux , widow of Edward Courteney and William Bligh, she died after only a few weeks of marriage. For the fourth time he married in Wraxall in 1629 , Elizabeth, Lady Smyth, widow of Sir Hugh Smyth of Ashton Court and daughter of Sir Thomas Gorges and Helena, Marchioness of Northampton .

Individual evidence

1. ^ John Franklin Jameson, Henry Eldridge Bourne, Robert Livingston Schuyler, The American historical review, Volume 4: P683
2. ^ University of Toronto Press, and the Royal Military College of Canada, 1953, Preston, Richard Arthur, GORGES OF PLYMOUTH FORT, The Life of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Captain of Plymouth Fort, Governor of New England, and Lord of the Province of Maine , P. 19f
3. ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 2, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 89.
4. ^ New England Historic Genealogical Society: The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Volume 29, 1875 . Heritage Books, Inc, 2000, ISBN 978-0788401954 , pp. 44-47.
5. ↑ Sir Ferdinando Gorges Facts. Encyclopedia of World Biography, accessed January 17, 2014 . 
6. ↑ GORGES, Sir Ferdinando (c.1568-1647), of Plymouth, Devon; later of Ashton Phillips, Som. In: History of Parliament. The History of Parliament Trust, accessed January 17, 2014 . 
7. ↑ ^{a b} Ferdinando Gorges. Son of the South, accessed January 17, 2014 . 
8. ↑ John Knox Laughton: Gorges, Ferdinando. Dictionary of National Biography, accessed January 17, 2014 . 
9. ↑ Sir Ferdinando Gorges. (No longer available online.) Carl Leonard, formerly in the original ; Retrieved January 17, 2014 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
10. ↑ Sir Ferdinando Gorges. (No longer available online.) Maine Public Broadcasting Network, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; Retrieved January 17, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
11. ^ Grant of His Interest in New Hampshire by Sir Ferdinando Gorges to Captain John Mason. Teaching American History, accessed January 17, 2014 . 
12. ^ A Grant of the Province of Maine to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason, esq., 10th of August, 1622. Yale Law School, accessed January 17, 2014 . 
13. ↑ ^{a b} Sir Fernando Gorges. Empire in your backyard. Retrieved January 17, 2014 . 
14. ^ Fisher, Carol B. Smith, "Who Really Named Maine," Bangor Daily News, Feb. 26, 2002, pg. A9; Burrage, Henry S., GORGES and The Grant of the Province of Maine 1622 A Tercentenary Memorial, pp. 167-173.
15. ^ York Deeds, Maine Historical Society, Maine Genealogical Society, John T. Hull, Portland, 1887
16. ^ History of Plymouth Plantation, William Bradford, Massachusetts Historical Society, 1912
17. ↑ Portland in the Past, William Goold, 1886
18. ^ The Massachusetts Bay Colony's annexation of Maine. (No longer available online.) Maine Public Broadcasting Network, archived from the original on September 28, 2013 ; Retrieved January 17, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
19. ↑ Univ. of Toronto Press, Royal Military College, Kingston, Ont., 1953, Preston, Richard Arthur, GORGES OF PLYMOUTH FORT .., PP. 344-345
20. Jump up ↑ Preston, Richard Arthur, GORGES OF PLYMOUTH FORT, The Life of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Captain of Plymouth Fort, Governor of New England, and Lord of the Province of Maine, Univ. of Toronto Press, and the Royal Military College of Canada, 1953, p. 345
21. ^ About the Maine Senate. (No longer available online.) Maine Senate, archived from the original December 7, 2013 ; Retrieved January 17, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
22. ↑ George Streynsham Master: Collections for a Parochial History of Wraxall . JW Arrowsmith, printer, 1900, p. 22 (Accessed February 21, 2015).

Web links

• Capt. Christopher Levett , mentioned in History of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647 by William Bradford, Massachusetts

Wikisource: The American Cyclopædia (1879): Ferdinando Gorges  - Ferdinando Gorges in the American Cyclopædia (English)