Fort
Charles at Pemaquid
When
Fort Charles was built here in 1677, it protected an English
settlement that had already been destroyed once during the
first of the French and Indian Wars. With its seven cannons
and walls made of wooden pickets, Fort Charles appeared to
be a strong defensive work in this rough and tumble frontier
claimed by both England and France. Despite its appearance
of strength, Fort Charles fell in 1689 when Native Americans,
encouraged by their French allies, attacked the settlement.
As "England's Glorious Revolution" continued, Protestant
leaders had seized the colonial government in Boston and arrested
the fort's commander, taking him to Boston to be tried as
a Papist.
As
a result, the fort's garrison was plagued by desertions and
numbered as few as 16 men, far too small a group to properly
defend it. Still worse, the fort had been built near the large
rock that now sits beneath the stone tower here, giving the
attackers an ideal place to safely fire at men inside the
fort. Early on the second day of the siege, Lieutenant Weems,
the senior officer in the fort, negotiated a surrender whereby
the remaining English people could safely leave Pemaquid by
ship. The defeat of Fort Charles and the Pemaquid settlement
was a major victory for the French and their Native American
allies. As a result, England abandoned mid-coast Maine for
the next three years.
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