Artist Abbott Graves purchased and renovated the old Kennebunk Customs House on Maine street in Kennebunkport to donate it to the town as a Public Library in 1920. Above one of the fireplaces, he painted a mural depicting explorer Martin Pring’s ships ‘Speedwell’ and ‘Discoverer’ sailing the vast Atlantic on their way to being the first Europeans to explore the Kennebunk River in 1603. But, to say Pring “discovered” the Kennebunks is to disregard the Indigenous people who had first populated it some 12,000 years earlier.

Pring wasn’t even the first white man to come to the Kennebunks. According to scholarly navigational interpretations, Explorer Bartholomew Gosnold of Jamestown fame, sailed into Cape Porpoise Harbor on May 14, 1602, aboard the small barque Concord of Plymouth, England. Two gentlemen that accompanied him, Gabriel Archer and John Brereton, recorded their experiences on that voyage. These firsthand accounts have informed researchers, including our own Charles Bradbury, for the past 400 years.

Gabriel Archer described an interaction with Indigenous people off Cape Neddick who had clearly encountered white men before. A Basque Shallop, with sails and oars, carrying 8 Indigenous people, approached the Concord.

“One that seemed to be their commander wore a waistcoat of a black wool, a pair of breeches, cloth stockings, shoes, hat and band, one or two more had also a few things made by some Christians; these with a piece of chalk described the coast thereabouts, and could name Placentia of Newfoundland; they spoke divers Christian words, and seemed to understand much more than we, for want of language could comprehend, ” wrote Archer.

My 1% Indigenous DNA does not qualify me to presume any expertise in the Indigenous experience here but at my slideshow lecture next Thursday evening I will respectfully present some of the historical documentation that does exist of the European perspective on the subject. I welcome the opportunity to hear your perspective, as well. Hope to see you at the Town House School.