Ferdinando Gorges

Sir Ferdinando Gorges (1565–1647) was an early English colonial entrepreneur in North America and founder of the Province of Maine in 1622, although Gorges himself never set foot in the New World.

Gorges was born in Ashton Phillips, Somerset, England. In 1601, he became involved in the Essex Conspiracy and later testified against its leader, Robert Devereux.

In 1605, he helped sponsor the expedition of George Weymouth to the mouth of the Kennebec River along the coast of the present day state of Maine in the United States. In 1607, as a shareholder in the Plymouth Company, he helped fund the failed Popham Colony, near present-day Phippsburg, Maine.

In 1622, Gorges received a land patent, along with John Mason, from the Plymouth Council for New England for the Province of Maine, the original boundaries of which were between the Merrimack and Kennebec rivers. In 1629, he and Mason divided the colony, with Mason's portion south of the Piscataqua River becoming the Province of New Hampshire. Gorges and his nephew established Maine's first court system.

Capt. Christopher Levett, early English explorer of the New England Coast, was an agent for Gorges, as well as a member for the crown's Plymouth Council for New England. Levett's attempt to establish a colony in Maine ultimately failed, and he died aboard ship returning to England after meeting with Governor John Winthrop in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630.

Ferdinando Gorges's son was Robert Gorges and was Governor-General of New England from 1623–1624.

Gorges died a destitute man in 1647. Maine later fell under the control of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and 173 years later achieved statehood in 1820.

See also

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