GORGES, gorTez, Sit Ferdinando, colonial proprietor of Maine, "the father of •English colonization in America": b. Ashton, Somerset shire, about 1565; d. 1647. He served in the Low Countries and against the Spanish Armada, and in 1596 was appointed governor of the forts and islands of Plymouth. He was a partner in the conspiracy of the Earl of Essex, against whom he testified on his trial in 1601. When Waymouth returned in 1605 from his voyage to North America, and brought with him five In dian captives, Gorges took three of them into his house, caused them to be instructed in the English language, obtained information from them of the "stately islands and safe harbors' of their native country and determined to be come a proprietor of domains beyond the At lantic. He persuaded Sir John Popham, lord chief justice of England, to share his intentions, and in 1606 the king incorporated two com panies, the London colony, and the Plymouth colony, between which was divided the territory extending 50 miles inland from the 34th to the. 45th parallel north latitude. The Plymouth, colony had the northern portion, which was styled North Virginia. Three ships with 100 settlers sailed from Plymouth 31 May 1607, and i reached the mouth of the Kennebec in Maine,• where they began a settlement, abandoned the next spring. In 1616 Gorges sent out Richard. Vines with a party, which through the winter encamped on the river Saco. In 1620 Gorges and his associates obtained a new incorpora tion for "the governing of New England in America," which was empowered to hold terri tory extending westward from sea to sea be tween the 40th and 48th parallels north lati tude. Gorges himself united with John Mason in taking grants of the district called Laconia, bounded by the Merrimack, the Kennebec, the ocean and "the river of Canada," and under his auspices several settlements were attempted.
His son, Robert Gorges, was appointed in 1623 by the council for New England "general gov ernor of the country." This council resigned its charter to the king in 1635, and the elder Gorges now determined to establish a miniature sovereignty on his own domain. To this end he obtained from the king a charter constituting him lord proprietary of the province of Maine, with extraordinary governmental powers, to be transmissible with the property to his heirs and assigns. He sent his son Thomas to be deputy governor and the officers took an oath of al legiance to the lord proprietary. The province was divided into two countries, of which Aga menticus (now York) and Saco were respec tively the principal settlements; the former re ceived a city charter, as Gorgeana, in 1642. But the fatal want was a deficiency of subjects; probably two-thirds of the adult males were in places of authority; yet the little monarchy con tinued for nearly 10 years. When the four New England colonies formed a confederacy in 1643, the settlements of Gorges were excluded from, it. On the death of Gorges — who had adhered to the Royalist side in the civil war—his , colonists at length formed themselves into a body politic for the purpose of self-government and submitted to the jurisdiction pf Massa chusetts. Consult his 'Brief Narration of the Original Undertakings of the Advancement of Plantations into the Parts of America' (1658) in Maine Historical Society's Collections; and Baxter, 'Sir Ferdinando Gorges and His Province of Maine' in the Prince Society Pub lications (3 vols., Boston 1890).