Colonial County of York, Province of Maine, British Colonial America (North America)

First settled by Europeans in 1624, the plantation was originally called Agamenticus, the Abenaki term for the York River In 1638, settlers changed the name to Bristol after Bristol, England, from which they had immigrated. Envisioning a great city arising from the wilderness, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, lord proprietor of Maine under the Plymouth patent, named the capital of his province Gorgeana. In 1642, by charter of King Charles I, Gorgeana became the first incorporated city in America Following Gorges' death, the Massachusetts Bay Company claimed his dominion and in 1652, York, Massachusetts, was incorporated from a portion of Gorgeana, making it the second oldest town in Maine after Kittery, incorporated two years earlier