nd. Published in 1616 along with a map of the region, its success was almost instantaneous. Smith filled his account with glowing stories of the riches to be recovered from the Gulf of Maine--the "strangest Fish pond I ever saw," as he called it. Fishermen began sailing to the region, and in less than a decade they had established small fishing stations from the Piscataqua to Damariscove Island. Justly, Smith has been called the father of New England.
Smith's voyage of 1614 once again galvanized Sir Ferdinando Gorges to action; the old knight sent repeated expeditions to the New England area, demonstrating that settlers could survive the cold season in the northern territories and that the Gulf of Maine could yield profitable cargoes of fish. In 1620, a group of English separatists known as the Pilgrims established the first New England settlement at Plymouth.
Smith's voyage and the subsequent publication of Description of New-England capped a long period during which Europeans yielded their old myths and unrealistic assumptions and came to understand the Gulf of Maine region in its own right. Transcribing explorers' reports into lists of profitable commodities, Old World merchants launched the first attempts at settlement based on a firmer understanding of what the land and sea had to offer. These halting early endeavors brought discouragements as colonizers encountered a harsh and unfamiliar environment and were sometimes subject to the uncertainties of European enthusiasm for New World intercourse. But this growing appreciation for the potential value of the Maine landscape was the basis for subsequent colonial development. A second important precedent for colonial Maine emerged during these years. The conflicts that prevailed throughout Maine's colonial history were already evident when Smith arrived in the Gulf of Maine: English explorers and colonizers had clashed periodically with Indians since the days of Verrazano, and the guns of imperial rivalry that first echoed off the steep cliffs of Somes Sound would not be stilled for another century and a half. By 1615 the shadow of European events had fallen across the coast of Maine.Go to the top.