John Cabot, who discovered North America in 1497, sailed
from Bristol. Richard Ameryk, the man after whom America was named, was a
Bristol politician and merchant. His daughter is buried in St Mary Redcliffe
church.
In 1497, John Cabot, on the ship “Matthew” landed at a
beach on North America, probably in Maine. He mapped 900 miles of coastline in
Nova Scotia on his way back to and past Newfoundland.
Bristol seafarers had actually been there before. They had
been sailing to Iceland since the 1440s and to the New Found Land fishing banks
since about 1480, catching or even purchasing fish, perhaps from Basque
fishermen.
John Cabot and Christopher Columbus were both trying to
reach China. Both knew about the voyages that Bristol fishermen were making to
Newfoundland in the 1480s and both Italians thought that the Bristol ships had
in fact already reached China.
Cabot went to Bristol in 1494 and asked to be taken there
on a Bristol ship. The merchants took him on the “Matthew” and on 24 June
1497 they landed at a beach on North America, probably in Maine. Cabot was an
explorer who wrote about his voyage and it is he who gets the credit for being
the first European to stand on North American soil.
Richard Ameryk was the King's customs officer for the port
of Bristol who paid Cabot’s yearly pension of £10, and he was probably
financially involved in the venture. He almost certainly gave his name to some
geographical feature on Cabot’s map, which within ten years was used
prominently on Waldseemuller’s famous “World Map” to describe part of the
continent. The name “America” would soon be used for the entire landmass.
Just as Italians, Columbus and Cabot, got credit for
discovering America, instead of the Bristol merchant fishermen who got there
first, another Italian, Amerigo Vespucci is supposed to have given his name to
the continent, and not the Bristolian Richard Ameryk.
“C’est la vie”.
Martin Pring, who mapped and opened up New England is
buried in St. Stephen’s Church, Bristol.
Martin Pring (approx 1580-1626) is credited with exploring,
mapping and opening up New England to settlement. He was placed in command of a
voyage to New England, or northern Virginia as it was then known, by a group of
Bristol merchants in 1603. Captain Gosnold had made a similar cursory
unauthorised voyage in 1602. This group of Bristol merchants underwrote this
voyage to discover and exploit commercial opportunities along the coast.
Pring’s backers focused primarily on the valuable sassafras Gosnold had
discovered, but unlike Gosnold, they first secured Sir Walter Raleigh’s
permission prior to undertaking their venture.
They left Bristol on April 10, 1603 in two ships, and
reached Maine and New Hampshire in the late spring. Pring on the flagship Speedwell,
and the bark, Discoverer, explored the islands, rivers, and harbors
of New England, including the Piscataqua, Saco, Kennebunk, and York Rivers. They
sailed south to present-day Plymouth Harbor and to the Elizabeth Islands south
of Cape Cod. The Discoverer sailed home first with a boatload of
sassafras. Pring and his men had an encounter with the local Indians who tried
to attack their ship. The Speedwell departed in August and reached
Bristol seven weeks later, on October 2, 1603.
In 1606 Pring returned to New England as master of Captain
Hanham’s ship and mapped the coast. From 1613 to 1621 he was employed by the
Dutch East India Company and rose to commander of naval forces for the entire
Company. He returned to England in 1621, was made a freeman of the Virginia
Company and given two hundred acres.
Martin Pring died in 1626 and is buried in St. Stephen’s Church, Bristol.
Popham, Maine
In 1606 King James I granted a charter to the Virginia
Company to colonize the North American eastern seaboard.
This was very soon after
sub-divided into the London Company, which would colonise the southern coast,
and the Plymouth Co the northern portion.
Sir John Popham was
born at Huntworth, in Somerset, about 1531. He attended Balliol College, Oxford,
and became a judge and a member of Parliament. He was the Recorder of Bristol,
and its M.P. from 1571 to 1583. He became attorney-general and later Lord Chief
Justice in 1592. He presided at the trials of Sir Walter Raleigh and Guy Fawkes.
Late in life he
took an interest in colonization, and with others procured patents for the
London and Plymouth Companies for the colonization of Virginia. Popham saw it as
an opportunity to transport abroad convicts.
He sent out an
expedition in 1607 under the leadership of his brother and his nephew on board
and to set up the Popham colony, in
Maine, on the Kennebec River, about ten miles south of Bath. One hundred and
twenty colonists and sailors established the first English colony in New England.
The London Co set up Jamestown, Virginia in the same year.
However, Popham
failed. Before the end of December both ships returned to England leaving
45 colonists behind. Nobody was prepared for a winter that was so early and
severe. After a year they built a ship themselves and sailed back to England.
Popham died in June 1607, and is buried at Wellington, Somerset.
The actual founding of a permanent New England colony was in 1620 when the Pilgrims established a settlement in Massachusetts Bay.
Maine once belonged to a man from Bristol.
In 1622, the Council for New England, an agency of the
English government, gave Ferdinando Gorges, (who was from Bristol) and John
Mason a large tract of land in present-day Maine and New Hampshire. The land was
divided between the two men in 1629, and Gorges received the Maine section. He
established Maine's first government in 1636. In 1641, he made the community of
Gorgeana (now York) a city. It was the first chartered English city in what is
now the United States.
Sir Ferdinando GORGES, proprietor of Maine, was born just outside Bristol, in Ashton Phillips, Somerset, about 1565, and he died in England in 1647. He was a friend of Sir Walter Raleigh and he became interested in his plans for colonization in the New World. He ultimately formed a company to settle and exploit business opportunities in the area.
After Gorges died in 1647, Maine became a part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. However, in 1660, the heirs of Gorges disputed Massachusetts' ownership of Maine, and claimed Maine for themselves and in 1664, an English board of commissioners ordered Maine restored to the Gorges family. Massachusetts finally gained clear title to Maine in 1677, when it bought the area from Sir Ferdinando's grandson, Ferdinando, for £1,250.
BRISTOL Maine
Is located on the Pemaquid Peninsula. The land was settled in 1625 and was part of the Pemaquid Patent granted in 1631 to Aldworth and Elbridge of Bristol, England. Bristol was incorporated in 1765.