Raymondtown, one of the dozen local “Canada Towns” has its origin in the 1690 Expedition to Canada under the leadership of Sir William Phips, a poor boy of Harpswell who rose to the heights of power, to free coastal towns from the ravages of bands of French and Indian raiders originating at their stronghold at Quebec.
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| Captain William Raymond led a contingent of 60 militia members from Massachusetts for a raid on Quebec in 1690. His heirs later received a land grant for their service that became the Town of Raymond, named after the captain. COURTESY PHOTO |
Among those leading militia contingents for Phips was Captain William Raymond of Beverly, Massachusetts. He arrived in New England about 1652 and had served in the colonial militia in 1675 and 1676 during war against the hostile Narragansetts Tribe. In 1690, Raymond commanded 60 men from Beverly and Salem, Massachusetts in the Quebec venture.
Over 2,000 men departed Boston Harbor in a fleet of small vessels in the summer of 1690, but it was late fall before they arrived at Quebec via the St. Lawrence River, a poor time in view of their primitive equipment and approaching winter. The citadel was attacked, and they enjoyed brief success in breaching the outer defenses but were soon devastated by an illness epidemic in the personnel in ships frozen in the ice.
Abandoning the campaign, they started for home but many of the ships were wrecked in storms in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Atlantic Ocean with great loss of lives. About half the men survived to reach home and the raids from Quebec continued unabated.
Though the colonial government was insensitive to the safety of the settlements, expansion continued through the French and Indian Wars under difficult and deadly conditions. In the 1730s, a solution appeared for the colonial government, short of cash but abundantly endowed with wilderness land, to make grants of townships to any groups to whom they were indebted.
There were, besides the “Canada” veterans, others who had served in the Narragansett War, Monadnock conflicts and other actions that qualified for grants as Defense Towns which spread outward in a 50- to 100-mile radius from Boston to act as buffers to the encroachment of the raiders from Quebec via the Connecticut River or Lake Champlain and over cross-country trails to their vulnerable destinations.
Captain Raymond’s company of volunteers, reduced to a few living survivors but under the leadership of younger heirs, was an early claimant of a township based on the 1690 effort although equally entitled to a grant based on the conflict of 1675 and was granted permission to select a site as Canada #1 or Beverly-Canada.
A location was found on the Piscataquog River, now in the town of Weare, New Hampshire, in 1735 and roads, bridges and buildings started but soon aborted when a boundary dispute discovered that Massachusetts had given away land belonging to revived New Hampshire claims. Many of settlements were also negated, and these pioneers had to return home and bide their time for a better opportunity, which did not come until 1765.
In 1766, a second grant, in lieu of that lost in 1741, was obtained in other lands governed by Massachusetts along with many others of those evicted 25 years earlier. After looking at and rejecting a site of the Royall River above North Yarmouth, the choice was made to located in what is present-day Raymond, Casco and part of Naples, and it was the largest township in Maine at the time due to deducting the large percentage of the area in lakes and ponds as being useless for farming cultivation. <
This article was written by the late Ernest H. Knight, one of the founders of the Raymond-Casco Historical Society and contained in his book “Historical Gems of Raymond and Casco.” It was submitted by the Raymond-Casco Historical Society and articles about Raymond history from the historical society will appear regularly in The Windham Eagle newspaper. To find out more about the Raymond-Casco Historical Society, call Frank McDermott at 207-310-0340.
Abandoning the campaign, they started for home but many of the ships were wrecked in storms in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Atlantic Ocean with great loss of lives. About half the men survived to reach home and the raids from Quebec continued unabated.
Though the colonial government was insensitive to the safety of the settlements, expansion continued through the French and Indian Wars under difficult and deadly conditions. In the 1730s, a solution appeared for the colonial government, short of cash but abundantly endowed with wilderness land, to make grants of townships to any groups to whom they were indebted.
There were, besides the “Canada” veterans, others who had served in the Narragansett War, Monadnock conflicts and other actions that qualified for grants as Defense Towns which spread outward in a 50- to 100-mile radius from Boston to act as buffers to the encroachment of the raiders from Quebec via the Connecticut River or Lake Champlain and over cross-country trails to their vulnerable destinations.
Captain Raymond’s company of volunteers, reduced to a few living survivors but under the leadership of younger heirs, was an early claimant of a township based on the 1690 effort although equally entitled to a grant based on the conflict of 1675 and was granted permission to select a site as Canada #1 or Beverly-Canada.
A location was found on the Piscataquog River, now in the town of Weare, New Hampshire, in 1735 and roads, bridges and buildings started but soon aborted when a boundary dispute discovered that Massachusetts had given away land belonging to revived New Hampshire claims. Many of settlements were also negated, and these pioneers had to return home and bide their time for a better opportunity, which did not come until 1765.
In 1766, a second grant, in lieu of that lost in 1741, was obtained in other lands governed by Massachusetts along with many others of those evicted 25 years earlier. After looking at and rejecting a site of the Royall River above North Yarmouth, the choice was made to located in what is present-day Raymond, Casco and part of Naples, and it was the largest township in Maine at the time due to deducting the large percentage of the area in lakes and ponds as being useless for farming cultivation. <
This article was written by the late Ernest H. Knight, one of the founders of the Raymond-Casco Historical Society and contained in his book “Historical Gems of Raymond and Casco.” It was submitted by the Raymond-Casco Historical Society and articles about Raymond history from the historical society will appear regularly in The Windham Eagle newspaper. To find out more about the Raymond-Casco Historical Society, call Frank McDermott at 207-310-0340.
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