Northeast Coast campaign (1747)

In 1747, over the course of July through September, the Wabanaki Confederacy of Acadia launched a series of strikes against New England settlements strung along what is now the Maine coastline, south of the Kennebec River, which had once marked Acadia's boundary. This effort, known as the Northeast Coast campaign, unfolded as one thread within the broader conflict of King George's War. Eleven separate raids struck English towns stretching from Berwick down to St. Georges, leaving no frontier settlement untouched by the assaults. Among these targets, Casco, also called Falmouth or Portland, stood out as the most significant.

Background

The 1747 raids along the northeast coast came after similar operations in 1745 and 1746, forming a continuing pattern of conflict. Governor William Shirley had already responded to a pair of assaults on Annapolis Royal in 1744 by offering a bounty against the Passamaquoddy, Mi'kmaq and Maliseet, a measure he ordered on October 20. The following year, on August 23, 1745, he extended hostilities further, formally declaring war on the remaining members of the Wabanaki Confederacy, namely the Penobscot and Kennebec peoples.

This escalation grew out of events tied to Louisbourg. Once New England's expedition against that fortress concluded in June 1745, the Wabanaki struck back by raiding settlements along New England's frontier. Anticipating such reprisals, New England had already organized a temporary defensive force numbering 450 men to guard its borderlands. When the raids actually began, colonial authorities responded by adding another 175 soldiers to that garrison.

To further secure the frontier, Massachusetts had constructed a series of forts facing Acadia well before these conflicts intensified: Fort George in Brunswick, dating to 1715; St. George's Fort in Thomaston, built in 1720; and Fort Richmond, raised in 1721. In addition, Fort Frederick stood at Pemaquid, in what is now Bristol, Maine.

The campaign

Violence opened the campaign on April 13, when Wabanaki Confederacy warriors struck Scarborough, leaving two dead and carrying off four captives.

Eight days later, on April 21, fifty Wabanaki fighters descended on Falmouth. Cattle were slaughtered, and the family of Charles Frost bore the brunt of the assault: his wife and six children were seized. Captain IIsley led twenty six men in pursuit, but the effort proved futile, and both the raiders and their prisoners slipped away.

Falmouth's defenses grew thin after Captain Jordan marched his company of thirty men off toward Topsham, leaving the settlement exposed. In the raid that followed, two women and a man lost their lives. The Wabanaki did not stop there; paddling canoes across the Androscoggin River, they killed two more men, wounded a third, and let one woman flee.

Fort Frederick at Pemaquid came under siege on May 26, when a force of one hundred Wabanaki descended upon it. Five soldiers and five recruits were killed, while the remaining inhabitants were carried off as prisoners.

Damariscotta suffered its own tragedy soon after, as a man was taken captive while his wife and child were killed before him.

In Wiscasset, Captain Jonathan Williamson found himself once more a prisoner of the Wabanaki.

Early September brought renewed violence to Fort Frederick, where sixty Wabanaki fighters attacked and killed five guards before retreating. Meanwhile, at Fort Georges, an attempt to tunnel beneath the fort's walls ended in failure.

Aftermath

Near Fort Richmond in 1748, the Wabanaki seized Frances Noble and held her captive. She later put her experience into writing, producing an account of what she endured.

That same year, in the fall, the Wabanaki struck again, this time taking the lives of several British soldiers at Fort St. Georges.