Christopher Levett's 1623 Settlement

Christopher Levett — Somersetshire gentleman, naval officer, one of the Council for New England — was granted 6,000 acres in Casco Bay and wintered here in 1623. He left ten men behind and sailed for England to raise support for a settlement he meant to call York. He was appointed Governor of New England by royal commission in 1628. He never came back.

The site usually pointed to is the cellar depression in the woods above Spicer's Cove, on the north shore below Cellar Point. The landscape argument for it is genuinely good: south-facing shelter, a quick rise to a defensible terrace with sight lines to the channel, freshwater within a short carry, and a beach gentle enough to careen a shallop. That is why the cove is a candidate. It is not why it is proven.

The counter-case is simple and unresolved: later fishing stations used the same kind of site for the same reasons, and a stone cellar is not self-dating. The finds that would settle it — hand-forged nails, redware, pipe stems with measurable bore diameters, and above all a midden downslope — have not been recovered and recorded here.