Editing Falmouth, Maine (section)

==History==
{{see also|Portland, Maine#History}}

=== Native Americans ===

Native Americans followed receding glaciers into Maine around 11,000 [[Common Era|BCE]]. At the time of European contact in the sixteenth century, people speaking a western dialect of the [[Abenaki|Wabanaki]] language inhabited present-day Falmouth. Captain [[John Smith (explorer)|John Smith]] observed a semi-autonomous [[Band society|band]]  known as the Aucocisco living in [[Casco Bay]]. English explorer [[Christopher Levett]] met with the Aucocisco [[Sachem|Sagamore]] Skittery Gusset at his summer village at the [[Presumpscot River|Presumpscot Falls]] in 1623.

A combination of warfare and disease decimated Native peoples in the years before English colonization, creating a shatter zone of devastation and political instability in what would become southern Maine. The introduction of European wares in the 1500s reoriented long-standing Native trade relationships in the [[Gulf of Maine]]. Warfare soon broke out among groups such as the [[Mi'kmaq]] and [[Penobscot]] who sought to subjugate their neighbors by monopolizing access to European goods. The arrival of foreign pathogens only served to compound the upheaval in the region. A particularly notorious epidemic between 1614 and 1620 ravaged the population of coastal [[New England]] with mortality rates at upwards of 90 percent. Native peoples were not totally destroyed however, maintaining a visible presence in the Casco Bay area until [[King George's War]] in the 1740s. French military defeats and increasing settler migration to the area from the southern [[New England Colonies]] impelled most Native Americans to assimilate into British colonial society, migrate toward the protection of [[French Canada|New France]] or further up the coast where they remain today.<ref>Bruce J. Borque, Twelve Thousand Years: American Indians in Maine (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002), 16; Emerson W. Baker, “Finding the Almouchiquois: Native American Families, Territories, and Land Sales in Southern Maine,” Ethnohistory 51, no. 1 (Winter 2004): 73-100; Christopher Levett, A Voyage into New England: Begun in 1623, and Ended in 1624 (London: 1628); David L. Ghere, "The 'Disappearance of the Abenaki in Western Maine: Political Organization and Ethnocentric Assumptions," American Indian Quarterly 17, no. 2 (Spring 1993): 193–207.</ref>

=== New Casco (1630–1765) ===

Falmouth's original bounds encompassed the present day cities of Portland, South Portland, Westbrook and Cape Elizabeth. Today’s town was known as New Casco, and was only a neighborhood within the larger collection of communities around Casco Bay centered in what is downtown Portland. Falmouth’s early years were marked by extreme violence as it lay on a borderland zone between Europeans and Native Americans. Casco Bay represented the northernmost point of British colonial settlement on the east coast until 1713. Numerous wars between 1675–1763 among the British, French, and Native Americans rarely left Falmouth unscathed from the violence. English colonists twice abandoned Casco Bay altogether under pressure from French and Indian attacks in 1676 and 1690.

[[File:Fort New Casco.jpg|rendering of Fort Casco in 1705|thumb|left|250px]]

The first European resident was Arthur Mackworth, who lived on the east bank of the Presumpscot River as early as 1630. When the [[Massachusetts Bay Colony]] took political control of Maine in 1658 from the heirs of [[Ferdinando Gorges|Sir Ferdinando Gorges]], they renamed the area Falmouth after an important [[Pendennis Castle|Parliamentarian victory]] in the [[English Civil War]]. Colloquially known as "Falmouth in Casco Bay" to distinguish it from [[Falmouth, MA|Falmouth, Massachusetts]] on Cape Cod, it was the 7th town in the recently formed [[Province of Maine]], later being formally incorporated on November 12, 1718.<ref name=Coolidge>{{Cite book  | last = Coolidge  | first = Austin J.|author2=John B. Mansfield  | title = A History and Description of New England| publisher = A.J. Coolidge  | year = 1859| location = Boston, Massachusetts| pages = [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_OcoMAAAAYAAJ/page/n157 123]–124| url = https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_OcoMAAAAYAAJ| quote = coolidge mansfield history description new england 1859.  }} [https://books.google.com/books?id=4WjGkuhZyaoC&dq=portland+maine+pendennis&pg=PA10 Joseph Conforti, "Creating Portland: History and Place in Northern New England;" Lebanon, New Hampshire 2005, 9-12].</ref>

One of the earliest structures in the town of Falmouth was a [[palisade]]d fort and [[trading post]] named [[Fort Casco]] built in 1698 at the conclusion of [[King William's War]]. The location of the fort can be found today opposite Pine Grove Cemetery on Route 88. Massachusetts built the fort at the behest of local Abenaki desiring a convenient place to trade and repair tools and weapons. A 1701 meeting between the Wabanaki leaders and Massachusetts officials cemented an alliance between the two. A pair of stone cairns were then erected to symbolize the new partnership. The nearby Two Brothers Islands later received their name from this now long-forgotten monument.<ref>Emerson W. Baker, “Formerly Machegonne, Dartmouth, York, Stogummor, Casco, and Falmouth: Portland as a Contested Frontier in the Seventeenth Century,” in Creating Portland: History and Place in Northern New England, ed. Joseph A. Conforti (Lebanon, NH, 2005), 1–19; "Memorial of Propositions made with the Eastern Indians," Documentary History of the State of Maine (1907), 10:87–95.</ref>

Unfortunately, this peace would last less than three years, with the inauguration of [[Queen Anne's War]] in 1702. Governor [[Joseph Dudley]] held a [[Treaty of Casco (1703)|conference]] at New Casco with representatives of the [[Abenaki]] tribes on June 20, 1703, trying to convince them not to ally with the French. His efforts were unsuccessful, as the fort was besieged only two months later by Abenaki Sagamores Moxus, Wanungonet, [[Nescambious|Assacombuit]] and their [[Kingdom of France|French]] Allies during the [[Northeast Coast Campaign (1703)|Northeast Coast Campaign]].  The arrival of the Massachusetts ship ''Province Galley'' relieved the fort by dispersing the Wabanaki and the some 500 French with its guns. Peace returned in 1713 with the [[Treaty of Portsmouth (1713)|Treaty of Portsmouth]]. When the resettlement of present-day Portland began in 1716, the [[Province of Massachusetts Bay|Province of Massachusetts]] ordered that the fort at New Casco be demolished rather than maintain it.<ref>John G. Reid, “Notes and Comments: Unorthodox Warfare in the Northeast, 1703,” Canadian Historical Review 74, no. 3 (1992): 211–20.; Baker, “Formerly Machegonne," 1–19.</ref>

New Casco was not permanently settled by British colonists until the [[Battle of the Plains of Abraham|fall of Quebec]] in 1759 permanently removed the threat of French and Indian attacks. Living so far away from Portland was dangerous: only one family lived in the town in 1725. An Indian raid in 1745 and the murder of Job Burnal in 1751 represented the risks colonists undertook to live in the area.  The majority of the first permanent European inhabitants to the town came after 1740, quickly growing to "62 families" and forming their own parish in 1753 (currently the Falmouth Congregational Church). The population of Falmouth would hover between 1,000 and 2,000 residents for the next two centuries.  These residents engaged in farming, fishing, and harvesting [[Mast (sailing)|masts]]. Mills on the Presumpscot River, [[Piscataqua River (Presumpscot River)|Piscataqua River]] in West Falmouth, and Mussel Cove powered sawmills, processed agricultural products, and manufactured finished goods by the 1800s.<ref>W. M. Willis, Journals of the Rev. Thomas Smith and the Rev. Samuel Deane (Portland, ME: 1849),54, 59–60; http://falmouthcongregationalchurch.org/history/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150211185523/http://falmouthcongregationalchurch.org/history/ |date=February 11, 2015 }}; Charlotte Donald Wallace, E Pluribus Unum: a Story of Falmouth, Maine (Falmouth, ME: Falmouth Historical Society, 1976), 19.</ref>

=== Modern Falmouth ===

In 1765 Cape Elizabeth (then including South Portland) seceded from Falmouth. In 1786, Portland broke away, followed in 1814 by Westbrook, although boundaries between it and Falmouth were readjusted throughout the nineteenth century. Logistics were the reason these separations. Population had grown by the 1760s to the extent that separate church parishes had formed, creating rival communities more attuned to local concerns.  People also complained about the distance between outer areas and the center of the town in present-day Portland.  By 1859, [[fishing]] and [[farming]] were principal trades. Other industries included three [[shipbuilding|shipbuilders]], three [[brickmaking|brickmakers]], a [[sawmill]], [[gristmill]] and [[Tanning (leather)|tannery]]. In 1886, the town also produced [[boot]]s, [[shoemaking|shoes]], [[tinware]] and [[carriage]] stock.<ref>W. W. Clayton, History of Cumberland Co., Maine (Philadelphia: Everts & Peck, 1880), 269–77.</ref>

[[File:Underwood Casino, Falmouth Foreside, ME.jpg|Underwood Spring Park in 1906|thumb|190px]]
The extension of trolley service from Portland to the Falmouth Foreside in 1898 initiated the town's transformation from a rural community to an urban consumer society. Trolleys cemented Falmouth’s economic connection to Portland and transformed the Foreside neighborhood into a relaxation spot for nearby city dwellers. Portland’s Yankee elites relocated the Portland Yacht Club and Portland Country Club to Falmouth in 1885 and 1913 respectively, where they have remained ever since. To promote its line, the [[Portland and Yarmouth Electric Railway Company]] opened [[Underwood Spring Park]] north of Town Landing in 1899. The park’s attractions included a casino, hotel, and outdoor theater. Fire destroyed Underwood Spring Park in 1907 and was not rebuilt. The [[Portland–Lewiston Interurban]] also ran up today’s Route 100 in West Falmouth. People’s growing preference for the automobile spelled the end for trolleys, which ended service in 1933.<ref>Edwin B. Robertson, Remember the Portland Maine Trolleys (1982)</ref>

In 1943, [[Percival Proctor Baxter]] donated [[Mackworth Island]] to the state as a [[wildlife refuge]]; today it is site of the state school for the deaf and hard of hearing.<ref>Soares, Liz. ''All for Maine: The Story of Governor Percival P. Baxter''. Windswept House Publishers (1996). {{ISBN|1-883650-17-8}}</ref>

The advent of the automobile accelerated Falmouth's transition toward becoming a residential suburb of [[Portland, Maine|Portland]]. Military personnel who moved to the town while Casco Bay was base Sail for America’s destroyer fleet from 1941 to 1944 bolstered much of this growth. Like many urban areas in the United States during the mid-twentieth century, the automobile, cheaper residential taxes, and the desire for open space channeled an urban exodus away from cities like Portland into neighboring towns such as Falmouth. In the span of fifty years the town’s population has skyrocketed from five thousand to over ten thousand residents today. Falmouth’s location on the ocean, along with its respected public school system, has made it one of the more attractive communities in Greater Portland. This demand consequently led developers to construct two additional country clubs in 1986 and 1988. The nature of such enclosed neighborhoods and other high-scale subdivisions like it has only recently turned the town into one of the most affluent in Maine.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.falmouthmemoriallibrary.org/listsandlinks/facts/populatio |title=Falmouth Maine Population Statistics {{!}} Falmouth Memorial Library |website=www.falmouthmemoriallibrary.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121220075555/http://www.falmouthmemoriallibrary.org/listsandlinks/facts/populatio |archive-date=December 20, 2012}}</ref>

<gallery>
File:West Falmouth Manufacturing Company.png|West Falmouth Manufacturing Company, 1880.
File:West Falmouth 1880.png|Downtown West Falmouth, 1880.
File:Portland Yacht Club House c 1894.JPG|Portland Yacht Club House {{circa|1894}}
File:Covered Bridge on Presumpscot River, Falmouth, ME.jpg|Presumpscot River {{circa|1910}}
File:View of West Falmouth, ME.jpg|West Falmouth in 1917
</gallery>