New Somersetshire

The Province of Maine is any of several English colonies of that name that existed in the 17th century along the northeast coast of North America, at times roughly encompassing portions of the present-day U.S. states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick. The province existed through a series of land patents in several incarnations, including one known as New Somersetshire. The final incarnation of the Province of Maine, encompassing the western portions of present-day Maine, was absorbed into the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1650s.

The first patent establishing the Province of Maine was granted on August 10, 1622 to Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason by the Plymouth Council for New England, which itself had been granted a royal patent by James I to the coast of North America between the 40th to the 48th parallel "from sea to sea". This first patent encompassed the coast between the Merrimack and Kennebec rivers, and an irregular parcel of land between the headwaters of the two rivers. In 1629, Gorges and Mason agreed to split the patent at the Piscataqua River, with Mason retaining the land south of the river as the Province of New Hampshire.

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