Fort Pentagouet
Fort Pentagouet was a French fort in the former colony of Acadia near the present village Castine in Maine. It was built around 1613 and was located on a peninsula in the Penobscot Bay which was first visited in 1604 by the French explorer Samuel de Champlain. Champlain named the peninsula Pentagoet. In the Penobscot, a tribe of the Eastern Abenaki, the place was called Majabigwaduce and was the residence of the upper Sagamore.
Builder of the fort, which served as a fortified trading post and fishing station, Claude de Saint- Étienne de la Tour was. The place is regarded as the first permanent settlement in New England and was seven years before Plymouth in Massachusetts. Located at the mouth of the Penobscot River, Penta Guet was an ideal place for the fur trade, starting point for trips into the interior and for the European powers of particular interest. He moved in the 17th and 18th centuries several owners and was temporarily in French, in British, Dutch and most recently in American hands.
After the British had captured the fort in 1628, it was an outpost of the Plymouth Colony. William Bradford personally traveled there to make the British claim. The governor of Acadia, Isaac de Razilly, Charles de Menou d' Aulnay sent in 1635 by Pentagouet to take the fort and the region again for France in possession. Apparently, after the fortifications were expanded and equipped with cannons. Some events of this period are well documented. On September 2, 1654, British troops under Robert Sedgwick reached the fort, the inhabitants driven out and took control again. In the Treaty of Breda in 1667 Acadia was returned to France, the affected area and the settlements were not indicated precisely.
Governor Grand Fontaine of Acadie and the French Baron Jean -Vincent de Saint- Castin settled at this time in Pentagouet, which was roughly in the center of France's young colony. The actual owner of this disputed territory but were the Penobscot. The 18 -year-old Saint- Castin was therefore entrusted with various missions to study the country and its people. He developed good relations with the natives, later married a daughter of the upper Sagamore Madockawando and became chief of the tribe.
In the Franco- Dutch War Fort and Fort Pentagouet Jemseg were conquered by the Dutch in New Brunswick captain Jurriaen Aernoutsz 1674, the then explained to the new Dutch colony of Acadia. After Aernoutsz Acadia had left to recruit Dutch settlers, Acadia immediately returned back under the sovereignty of France. 1676 Pentagouet was completely destroyed by the Dutch. On paper, the Dutch declared their tenure and appointed Cornelius Steenwyk 1676 Governor, however, renounced in 1778 in the Treaty of Nijmegen in Acadia. In fact, however Arcadia and Pentagouet remained under French control, and the fort was rebuilt in 1679. In King William 's War (1689-1697), the British conquered the fort, which they destroyed it, while the place was looted and then sparsely populated.
Today the site of the fort is the village of Castine, which was named after the French Baron.