Maine is a state of the United States. It is probably named
after the French province of Maine. Another possibility for
the name "Maine" is that the people living on islands along
the coast of Maine used to speak of going to the mainland as
"going over to the Main."
Originally settled in 1607 by the Plymouth Company, the
coastal areas of western Maine first became the Province of
Maine in a 1622 land patent. Eastern Maine north of the
Kennebec River was more sparsely settled and was known in the
17th century as the Territory of Sagadahock. The province
within its current boundaries became part of Massachusetts Bay
Colony in 1652. After the defeat of the French in the 1740s,
the territory from the Penobscot River east fell under the
nominal authority of the Province of Nova Scotia, and together
with present day New Brunswick formed the Nova Scotia county
of Sunbury with its court of general sessions at Campobello.
The whole of the territory of Maine was confirmed as part of
Massachusetts when the United States was formed. Because it
was physically separated from the rest of Massachusetts and
was growing in population at a rapid rate, it became the 23rd
state along with Missouri on March 15, 1820. This has become
known as the Missouri Compromise because admitting both states
into the union kept the balance between slave and free states.
Maine's original capital was Portland until 1832, when it was
moved to the more geographically central city of Augusta.
