Christopher Levett
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Capt. Christopher Levett (1586 - 1630) was an English writer and explorer, born in York. He explored the coast of New England and secured a grant from the King to settle present-day Portland, Maine, the first European to do so.
Levett was the son of Percival Levett, a York merchant and innkeeper, and was admitted a freeman of York as a merchant himself.[1] But Levett was apparently restless, and instead turned his sights towards a career as an explorer. He served as His Majesty's Woodward of Somersetshire to King James I, and wrote a tract on timber harvesting that became the standard for selection of trees for the Royal Navy.[2]
Later, operating from his adopted home in Sherborne, Dorset, in the shadow of Sir Walter Ralegh and other adventurers, Levett became interested in the colonization of New England.[3] Levett became associated with Sir Ferdinando Gorges and was appointed to the Council for New England.[4] He was granted 6,000 acres (24 km²) of land by the King for a settlement in present-day Maine, which he proposed to call "York" after his birth city. On May 5, 1623, records for the Council on New England say, "Christopher Levett to be a principal patentee; and to have a grant of 6,000 acres (24 km²) of land." The next month, on June 26, 1623, the records note "the King judges well of the undertaking in New England, and more particularly of a design of Christopher Levett, one of the Council for settling that plantation, to build a city and call it York."[5]
To further his plans, Levett embarked from England on a trip to explore the coast of New England, paying particular attention to present-day Maine and New Hampshire.[6] When he returned to England, he wrote a book called "A Voyage into New England, Begun in 1623, and Ended in 1624, Performed by Christopher Levett, His Majesty's Woodward of Somersetshire, and One of the Council of New England."[7][8] It was Levett's hope to stir settlement in the New World, and he hoped as the principal patentee (and first settler) of present-day Portland, Maine, to benefit financially from the arrangement. But Levett's salesmanship fell short. The public's interest waned, as new settlements in Virginia and elsewhere took center stage, and as King Charles I's problems ate away at interest in colonization.[9] The King's appeal for money to be raised in local parish churches to support the Levett scheme never yielded much.
Levett never returned to Maine, and a small group of men he left behind in a stone house were never heard from again. Levett's patented lands were passed to a group of Plymouth (England) merchants, and his attention was diverted to more pressing Naval matters.[10] Eventually Levett returned to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where he met with Governor John Winthrop in 1630, and he died aboard the return voyage home.[11][12] Fort Levett on Cushing Island, Maine in Portland Harbor is named for this early explorer.
[edit] References
- ^ Xpoferus Levett, marcer, fil. Percivalli Levett, gent., Admissions to the freedom of York, Temp. James I (1603-1625), British History Online
- ^ Collections of the Maine Historical Society, Second Series, Vol. IV, Published by the Society, Portland, 1893
- ^ Historical Addresses, James Baxter Phinney, 1831-1921, Portland, Maine
- ^ Provincial and State Papers, New Hampshire Colony Probate Court, 1895
- ^ History of Boothbay, Southport and Boothbay Harbor, Maine, 1623-1905, Francis Byron Greene, 1906
- ^ The Isles of Shoals, John Scribner Jenness, 1873
- ^ New England Ancestors, New England Historic Genealogical Society
- ^ Christopher Levett of York: The Pioneer Colonist in Casco Bay, James Phinney Baxter, 1893
- ^ Collections of the Maine Historical Society, Published by the Society, Portland, 1904
- ^ Maine Pioneer Settlements, Herbert Milton Sylvester, W.B. Clarke Co., Boston, 1909
- ^ History of Plymouth Plantation, William Bradford, Massachusetts Historical Society, 1912
- ^ Portland in the Past, William Goold, 1886
[edit] External links
- Grant to Levett, A Bibliography of the State of Maine from the Earliest Period to 1891, Joseph Williamson, Maine Historical Society, 1891
- The Beginnings of Colonial Maine: 1602-1658, Henry Sweetser Burrage, 1914
- A Voyage into New England, Christopher Levett, reprinted by James Phinney Baxter, 1893
- History of the Town of Rye, New Hampshire: From Its Discovery and Settlement, Langdon Brown Parsons, 1905
- A Documentary History of Chelsea: Including the Boston Precincts, Mellen Chamberlain, Massachusetts Historical Society, 1908
- Christopher Levett of York, the Pioneer Colonist of Casco Bay, NewEnglandAncestors.org, New England Historic and Genealogical Society
- Sale of Capt. Christopher Levett "Voyage into New England," Sotheby's, The New York Times, July 23, 1916
- Christopher Levett, The First Owner of the Soil of Portland, James Phinney Baxter, Maine Historical Society, 1877
- Christopher Levyt, York, Frances Lottisham, Farrington, Somerset, Pedigree, The Visitation of the County of Somerset in the Year 1623, Samson Lennard, 1876
- The King Judges Well, Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, Great Britain Public Record Office, William Noel Sainsbury, 1860
- Colonization in Maine, 1623, Original Documents (State Paper Office, London), The Historical Magazine and Notes Concerning the Antiquities, History and Biography of America, John Gilmary Shea, New York, London, 1860
