Captain Christopher Levett
First recorded English owner; would-be founder of 'York'
Somersetshire gentleman, Royal Navy officer, and 'one of the Council of New England.' Granted 6,000 acres in Casco Bay, wintered on Cushing in 1623, and left a ten-man garrison behind when he sailed for England.
Levett was appointed by royal commission Governor of New England in 1628 and authorized to raise contributions in the City of York to found an episcopal capital on his Casco Bay grant. He died before he could return, and his garrison — Thomas Alger of Newton Ferrers, Edmond Baker and Nicholas Rouse of Wembery, and seven others whose names are not recorded — eventually scattered to Black Point and the Old Colony. Sargent argues that had Levett returned, Portland 'might have become the metropolis of all that region round about long before Boston was settled.'
- [1] Levett, C. (1628). A Voyage into New England.
- [2] Sargent (1886), pp. 10–22.
- [3] Sainsbury's Calendar of State Papers.