Fort Loyal

Fort Loyal was a British colonial outpost built during the King William's War at Falmouth (present-day Portland, Maine) in Casco Bay. It was later replaced by the New Casco Fort.

The peninsula was first permanently settled in 1633 as a fishing and trading village named Casco. When the Massachusetts Bay Colony took over Casco Bay in 1658, the town's name changed again to Falmouth. In 1676, the village was destroyed by the Wampanoag during King Philip's War. It was rebuilt.

Fort Loyal was built in 1678 in the center of Portland at the foot of present-day India Street. Colonel Edward Tyng was the commandant of Fort Loyal, Maine, 1681–82 and 1686–87 (He was later appointed to command Fort William Henry and then governor of Port-Royal 1691).^[1]

During King William's War, a raiding party of French and Native allies attacked and largely destroyed it again in the Battle of Fort Loyal (1690).

Fort New Casco

With the ruin of Fort Loyal, a palisaded fort was built in Falmouth, Maine on Casco Bay, built in 1698 after the conclusion of King William's War. This fort was the largest on the east coast.^[2] Fort New Casco's site today lies opposite Pine Grove Cemetery on Route 88. Fort New Casco lay at the boundary between Massachusetts and the Abenaki in 1700. Massachusetts built the fort at the behest of local Abenaki who desired a convenient place to trade and sharpen tools. A 1701 meeting between local Abenaki-Pigwackets and Massachusetts officials cemented an alliance between the two. A pair of stone cairns were then erected to symbolize the new partnership. The nearby Two Brothers Islands later received their name from this now long-forgotten monument.^[3]

Unfortunately this peace would last less than three years, with the inauguration of Queen Anne's War in 1702. Governor Joseph Dudley held a conference at New Casco with representatives of the Abenaki tribes on June 20, 1703, trying to convince them not to ally with the French.

His efforts were unsuccessful, as the fort was besieged only two months later by Abenaki chiefs Moxus, Wanungonet, Assacombuit and their French Allies in the Northeast Coast Campaign (1703). John March was the commander of the fort.^[4] vastly outnumbered English were relieved by the armed vessel "Province Galley", which dispersed the Abenaki and the some 500 French with its guns. The natives killed 25 English and took many others prisoner.^[5]

In January 1707, at Casco (specifically Black Point, Maine, near present-day Portland), Winthrop Hilton ambushed 18 natives as they slept and massacred all but one. Later that year, Hilton also participated in the Siege of Port Royal.

Major Samuel Moody became the commander of the fort in 1707.^[6]

Peace returned in 1713 with the Treaty of Portsmouth. When the resettlement of present-day Portland began in 1716, the Province of Massachusetts ordered that the fort at New Casco be demolished rather than maintain it. The vision that built Fort New Casco in 1700, that of a partnership between the English and Native Americans, was dead.^[7]

New Casco could not be safely settled by the English until the fall of Quebec in 1759 permanently removed the threat of French and Indian attack.

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