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Casco Bay is an inlet of the Gulf of Maine on the coast of Maine in the United States. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's chart for Casco Bay marks the dividing line between the bay and the Gulf of Maine as running from Bald Head on Cape Small in Phippsburg west-southwest to Dyer Point in Cape Elizabeth. The city of Portland and the Port of Portland are on Casco Bay's western edge.^[1]

Casco Bay spans about 229 square miles, with the shore rimming the bay stretching 578 miles.^[2] The Presumpscot River is the largest single source of non-saline water emptying directly into Casco Bay,^[3] flowing south from its headwaters at Sebago Lake, Maine's second-largest lake.^[4] According NOAA's soundings, the bay's deepest point is about 204 feet, southwest of Halfway Rock. A Phippsburg hill called Fuller Mountain has the bay's highest elevation along the immediate shoreline, estimated at 269 feet above sea level by the U.S. Geological Survey in 1980, and 277 feet on more recent topographical maps.^[5] Chebeague Island has the highest elevation of any Casco Bay island, at 176 feet.^[6]

In addition to Portland, Cape Elizabeth, and Phippsburg, municipalities with shorelines fronting Casco Bay include Brunswick, Cumberland,^[7] Falmouth, Freeport, Harpswell, South Portland, West Bath, Yarmouth,^[8] and the island municipalities of Chebeague Island and Long Island.

In Casco Bay's western reaches, a line of islands west extends from Chebeague to Cushing Island to create protected anchorages for vessels, as do the narrow peninsulas that jut into the bay's eastern section. A number of deep-water channels lead into the bay's inner sections, including Cushing Island Reach, Hussey Sound,^[9] Luckse Sound, Broad Sound,^[10] and Merriconeag Sound.^[11]

Casco Bay's shoreline creates a number of smaller bays and tidal embayments, including Harpswell Sound, Maquoit Bay, Middle Bay, New Meadows River, and Quahog Bay.^[12]

Casco Bay's topography produces a tidal range of about nine feet on average. Seawater circulates counter-clockwise into Casco Bay via the Gulf of Maine Gyre, which is formed from cold water that passes over the Scotian Shelf off Nova Scotia, then in and out of the Bay of Fundy.^[13] Within Casco Bay, currents are stronger between island channels and weaker in smaller bays in the eastern section. In addition to freshwater entering Casco Bay from the Presumpscot River and smaller streams along its length, freshwater that enters Penobscot Bay from the Kennebec River circulates west into Casco Bay.^[14]

There are multiple theories about the origin of the name "Casco Bay". Aucocisco, an Anglicisation of the Abenaki name for the bay, means "place of herons", "marshy place", or "place of slimy mud". The explorer Estêvão Gomes mapped Maine's coast in 1525 and named the bay "Bahía de Cascos", translated as "Bay of Helmets", based on its shape.^[15]

Colonel Wolfgang William Römer, an English military engineer, reported in 1700 that the bay had "as many islands as there are days in the year",^[16] leading to the bay's islands being called the Calendar Islands, based on the popular myth there are 365 of them. The United States Coast Pilot lists 136 islands;^[16] former Maine state historian Robert M. York said there are "little more than two hundred".^[17]

At the time of European contact in the 16th century, Abenaki peoples inhabited the region of present-day Casco Bay, including members of the Almouchiquois or Aucocisco group in the vicinity of the Presumpscot River.^[18]

Some Casco Bay islands have archaeological evidence of Native American visits and camps extending back 4,000 years, including shell middens and harpoon points.^[19]

We have no definitive evidence that early European explorers Giovanni da Verrazzano,^[20] John Cabot, Estêvão Gomes, or Bartholomew Gosnold entered Casco Bay.^[21] It is believed that Martin Pring made landfall in Casco Bay as part of a 1603 expedition,^[22] with Samuel de Champlain and Pierre Dugua de Mons exploring it in 1605 from a base in Nova Scotia.^[23] In establishing the Popham Colony settlement near the mouth of the Kennebec River, George Popham landed in Casco Bay in 1607 while exploring the wider region.^[24] After Henry Hudson's ship Half Moon was damaged in 1608 while attempting to discover a northwest passage to India, Hudson landed in Casco Bay for repairs.^[25]

In 1616, John Smith published a map of New England that included a depiction of Casco Bay based on his exploration of the region two years earlier.^[26]

Contact with Europeans exposed Wabanaki peoples to new diseases, with epidemics striking starting in 1616 that produced high mortality rates. By one estimate, just 5,500 of the 20,000 Wabanaki in Maine and part of present-day New Brunswick survived epidemics that broke out through 1619.^[27]

On August 10, 1622, King James I of England awarded a land patent to Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason for coastal lands and interiors extending from the Merrimack River to the Kennebec. Gorges and Mason eventually split the patent, with Gorges getting land patent rights north of the Piscataqua River.^[28]

The first colonial settlement in Casco Bay was that of Captain Christopher Levett, an English explorer and agent of Gorges, who built a house on House Island in 1623–24. His initial settlement, called Machigonne^[29] and made up of veterans of the Wessagusset Colony on Massachusetts Bay, failed.^[30]

At the time, the sachem of the Almouchiquois along the Presumscot was Scitterygusset.^[31] Scitterygusset's sister Warrabitta also had a leadership role.^[32]

In 1626, John Cousins established a homestead in Casco. In 1635, he moved several miles east to a waterway that became known as the Cousins River. Cousins Island and Littlejohn Island are also named for him.^[33]

Walter Bagnall settled in 1628 on Richmond Island, south of Cape Elizabeth and Casco Bay, and initiated trade with the Wabanaki. Bagnall was deemed an unscrupulous trader, and in 1631 Scitterygusset led a small band to the island to kill him and torch the island homestead.^[34]

In 1630, George Cleeve obtained a patent from the Council for New England on Richmond Island, and established a homestead there alongside his business partner Richard Tucker. After other British investors challenged the patent, Cleeve and Tucker relocated in 1633 to the mainland and began farming land on Casco Neck. Within four years, Cleeve and Tucker had obtained 1,500 acres of land on Casco Neck and established a fur-trading business.^[35]

In 1632, Gorges awarded Arthur Mackworth the island that became known as Mackworth Island, just off the mouth of the Presumpscot River,^[36] in what came to be called Casco, renamed Falmouth in 1658 under the governance of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Historic Falmouth was split into two municipalities in 1786, creating Portland.^[37]

In 1636, William Royall and his wife, Phoebe, moved from Salem, Massachusetts, to present-day Yarmouth, building a homestead and farm along what came to be known as the Royal River.^[38] That year, George Jewell purchased the Casco Bay island that became known as Jewell Island.^[39]

In 1632, Thomas Purchase and George Way received a grant for Harpswell Neck,^[40] a few years after Purchase had established a farm, trading post, and fish salting operation on the Androscoggin River north of Casco Bay.^[41]

As settlers built out farms in the Casco Bay region, more commercial fishermen who were familiar with Casco Bay began making it their home port in the second half of the 1630s. Artisan craftsmen also moved to Casco and other towns on Casco Bay in the following decade, as a growing population supported commerce along with existing trade opportunities with indigenous peoples in the region.^[42] In 1659, George Munjoy moved to Casco and built a fortified house on today's Munjoy Hill, which overlooks Casco Bay.^[43]

Islands continued to come under individual ownership during the 17th century. In 1658, Hugh Moshier purchased what became Moshier and Little Moshier Islands near the mouths of the Harraseeket and Royal Rivers, while James Lane acquired nearby Lanes Island. By 1660, John Bustion had obtained a deed on today's Bustins Island.^[44]

Spurred by the Wampanoag chief Metacom in what came to be known as King Philip's War, Native American warriors attacked colonial farms and settlements along the New England coast and inland areas beginning in June 1675, including in the Casco Bay region. If prodded into action by Metacom's militant contemporaries drumming up support in northern New England, many local tribes followed their own counsel in planning attacks in the regional conflict that some historians dub the First Abenaki War,^[45] or chose not to initiate hostilities.

The first attack in the Casco Bay area occurred on September 10, 1675, at a farm north of Falmouth. Native American warriors killed six people and three more went missing. After another attack at Falmouth in October, heavy snow discouraged further action by either side for the rest of the year.

Despite concurrent peace talks by tribes to the east, in August 1676 Wabanaki Confederacy warriors raided several farms in Falmouth, killing or capturing 34 people. On Peaks Island that year, seven were killed in a Wabanaki attack after landing on the island in a search for food.^[46]

After colonial militia leader Richard Waldron laid a trap under the guise of peace talks to capture several Wabanaki warriors who were then executed or enslaved, tribes intensified attacks on settlements throughout Maine, causing most settlers to flee south. After talks failed at Maquoit Bay in February 1677, Waldron again ambushed Native Americans under the guise of parley.

In 1677, Gorges's grandson sold his land rights in Maine to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.^[47]

As Wabanaki peoples got word of colonial authorities reaching out to leaders of the Mohawk people for assistance in Maine, they became more amenable to a truce, though significant attacks continued on Maine coastal settlements west of Casco Bay. ^[48] Leaders of the Penobscot people signed the Treaty of Casco at Fort Loyal, in present-day Portland, on April 12, 1678, binding the Wabanaki Confederacy to ending King Philip's War.

After the Treaty of Casco, settlers began returning to Maine, in some instances setting up farms and homesteads near protective stockades as a fallback option in case of any renewed tensions.^[49] In 1700, a stockade that also served as a trading post was built in Falmouth east of the Presumpscot River and called New Casco, with two cairns built to commemorate friendship between the Abenaki people and settlers. The Brothers Islands just off present-day Falmouth are thought to have been named for the cairns.^[50]

The 1678 treaty did little to address simmering disagreements and discord throughout the region between local tribes and settlers, laying the foundation for a renewal of hostilities in 1688.^[51] Historians came to consider the new conflict in Maine part of the larger King William's War, which in turn marked the first installment of an extended proxy war between England and France that came to be known as the French and Indian Wars, with sporadic raids^[52] and atrocities on both sides.

In August 1688, in response to an English colonial raid of Penobscot Bay settlements, French officer Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin led counter-raids by Acadian militia and Wabanaki Confederacy warriors, including at Yarmouth. In September 1689, English colonial officer Benjamin Church arrived in Falmouth to defend settlers there, fending off a Wabanaki attack.^[53]

Louis de Buade de Frontenac, the Governor General of New France, launched a campaign to drive the English from the settlements east of Falmouth.^[54] On May 16, 1690, the fortified settlement on Casco Bay was attacked by a war party of 50 French-Canadian soldiers led by Castin, about 50 Abenaki warriors from Canada, a contingent of French militia led by Joseph-François Hertel de la Fresnière, and 300 to 400 additional natives from Maine, including some Penobscots under the leadership of Madockawando. Fort Loyal was attacked at the same time. About 75 men in the Casco settlement fought for four days before surrendering on May 20 on condition of safe passage. Instead, most of the men, including John Swarton, were killed, and the survivors, including Hannah Swarton and her children, were captured. Swarton was ransomed in 1695. Cotton Matherpublished her story.^{[55]: 196–99}

Church returned to Casco Bay in September 1690 with a contingent of about 300 volunteer militia and indigenous warriors, launching attacks up the Androscoggin River and overseeing the brutal killings of Native Americans who had been left behind in a village, then pulling back to Cape Elizabeth. There, Church's force beat off a Wabanaki attack in what was the last significant clash of King William's War on Casco Bay.

An uneasy armistice did not hold in North America or Europe, with Queen Anne's War, which many historians classify as the second phase of the French and Indian Wars, breaking out in 1701. In 1722 came the regional conflict in Maine and Acadia called Dummer's War,^[56] named for William Dummer, lieutenant governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay.

In Falmouth on June 20, 1703, Massachusetts Governor Joseph Dudley sought assurances from local Wabanaki chiefs that they would not initiate hostilities against English colonial settlers. The pact came to be known as the Treaty of Casco of 1703, which recognized the Kennebec River as the dividing line between New England and Acadia and New France to the east.

Fort George, on the Androscoggin River west of the Kennebec and about five miles north of Middle Bay, saw multiple fights during Queen Anne's War. There was little fighting on Casco Bay, with one man killed in a Native American raid in May 1724 at Cape Elizabeth.

After initial treaties in 1725 and 1726, a larger ratification conference was held in August 1727 that came to be called the Treaty of Casco Bay, binding the two sides to terms for peace.

In the run-up to the outbreak of King George's War in 1744, French privateers were operating from Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia against New England fishing boats.^[57]

Under the leadership of Kittery shipping owner William Pepperrell, Massachusetts and other English colonies mustered a military expedition against the Fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton. Pepperrell's fleet commodore was Falmouth native Edward Tyng, who directed the siege and supporting operations from his flagship frigate Massachusetts.^[58]

In 1751, the British Royal Navy assigned George Tate to Maine to oversee the harvesting of timber for ship masts, having previously focused its mast timber operations along the Piscataqua River basin. Tate built a house on a tributary of the Fore River estuary that today is the Tate House Museum.^[59] At the head of the Harraseeket River in Freeport, Mast Landing was likewise a loading point for pine timber reserved as masts for the Royal Navy.^[60] Mast timber was a sufficiently valuable commodity for the Royal Navy to provide timber cargo ships with armed escorts, and to send them back across the North Atlantic with empty holds to shorten the times for fresh shipments to arrive at British shipyards. Maine pines were marked with the "broad arrow" symbol to indicate that they were for harvest in service of the navy. Anyone else caught felling those trees was fined.^[61]

Tate also pursued other mercantile interests, selling timber, clapboards, rum and other products, helping build the port as a growing center of commerce alongside merchants like Samuel Waldo, Jedidiah Preble, William Tyng,^[62] Enoch Freeman, Enoch Moody and Thomas Westbrook, who began harvesting mast timber in 1727. In 1768, Falmouth exported more than four million feet of lumber and 150,000 wood staves for barrels to British ports, and between 1768 and 1772 shipped more mast timber than the largest ports in Nova Scotia, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania combined. West Indies ports were also major export destinations for wood products loaded at Falmouth, for use in construction and barrels. Imported products were sold in Falmouth stores and distributed throughout the Casco Bay region and inland.^[63]

The booming wood trade helped create cottage industries, with exports bringing in money to fund extensive construction, including churches, inns and assembly halls.^[64]

But Falmouth and other coastal towns were still outposts in an otherwise remote region, as John Adams wrote in an account of a 1765 trip through Maine, part of his legal circuit at the time as an attorney. Adams wrote, "From Falmouth now Portland in Casco Bay, to Pownalborough there was an entire wilderness, except North Yarmouth, New Brunswick and Long Reach. At each of which places were a few Houses. In general it was a wilderness, encumbered with the greatest number of trees, of the largest size, the tallest height, I have ever seen."^[65]

According to Adams, he was strolling in 1774 on what he called "the great hill" of Munjoy Hill in Falmouth overlooking Casco Bay when he relayed to Jonathan Sewall his determination to lead the colonies into revolt against the British crown. "The die was now cast; I had passed the Rubicon", Adams recollected conveying to Sewall. "Swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish with my country, was my unalterable determination.”

Meeting in September and October 1774 in Philadelphia, the First Continental Congress issued a declaration of rights that included the formation of a Continental Association to coordinate a boycott of British goods starting in December.^[66]

On March 2, 1775, the Brunswick Continental Association leader Samuel Thompson invoked the boycott in attempting to block a ship from unloading rigging and other maritime supplies, with HMS Canceaux dispatched from Boston to Falmouth to provide protection. In the Thompson's War standoff that played out for weeks and overlapped with the Battles of Lexington and Concord, militia captured Henry Mowat, commander of HMS Canceaux, with another officer on the ship threatening to shell Falmouth unless Mowat was released. HMS Canceaux sailed out of port in May 1775.^[67]

Mowat returned in October with a squadron of ships and orders to bombard coastal Maine population centers, including Falmouth. After delivering an ultimatum for Falmouth denizens to surrender all arms and swear allegiance to King George III, Mowat allowed time for residents to flee parts of the town within cannon range before opening fire. Hundreds of structures and several vessels were destroyed in the bombardment. The Burning of Falmouth stiffened the resolve of those in favor of revolt, and prompted the Second Continental Congress to begin the process of underwriting the creation of the Continental Navy.^[68]

The Royal Navy frigate HMS Cerberus arrived at Falmouth in early November, but left after residents continued construction of shore fortifications on Munjoy Hill. Massachusetts assigned General Joseph Frye to oversee fort construction, which extended in 1776 beyond Falmouth Neck to Cape Elizabeth on Spring Point, the future site of Fort Preble.^[69]

Casco Bay is also home to abandoned military fortifications dating from the War of 1812 through World War II; during World War II, Casco Bay served as an anchorage for US Navy ships.

Fort Gorges, on Hog Island Ledge in the middle of Portland Harbor, dates to the American Civil War.^[70]

Since Casco Bay was the nearest American anchorage to the Atlantic Lend-Lease convoy routes to Britain until the U.S. entered World War II, Admiral King ordered a large pool of destroyers to be stationed there for convoy escort duty in August 1941.^[71]

New England Shipbuilding Corporation in South Portland was one of 18 major shipyards that received contracts to build Liberty-class cargo and transport ships for transatlantic duty.^[72]

The State Historic Site of Eagle Island was the summer home of Arctic explorer Robert Peary.

• The Whales of August, one of Bette Davis's last films, was shot here in 1987.
• In 2008, composers Peter J. McLaughlin and Akiva G. Zamcheck wrote a piece in four movements paying homage to the wreck of the Don, lost near Ragged Island on June 29, 1941. The piece received critical acclaim from the Portland Press Herald and from fellow Maine composers.^[73]

Portland has a substantial fleet of deep-sea fishing vessels that offload their catch primarily at the Portland Fish Exchange. Numerous towns and islands serve as ports for lobster boats. Recreational fishing boats can also be chartered.

Marinas include:

• Chebeague Island Boat Yard on Great Chebeague Island;
• Diamond Marine Service Inc. on Great Diamond Island;
• Dolphin Marina and Great Island Boat Yard in Harpswell;
• Handy Boat Service Inc. in Falmouth;
• DiMillo's Old Port Marina, Maine Yacht Center and Portland Yacht Services in Portland;
• Paul's Marina on Mere Point in Brunswick;
• Peaks Island Marina on Peaks Island;
• Port Harbor Marina, South Port Marine, Spring Point Marina and Sunset Marina in South Portland;
• Brewer's and Strouts Point Wharf Co. in South Freeport;
• Royal River Boat Yard, Yankee Marina and Boatyard, and Yarmouth Boat Yard in Yarmouth Harbor.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Bath Iron Works operated a dry dock in Portland Harbor to repair U.S. Navy vessels.

Predominant fish in the bay include mackerel, striped bass, and bluefish. Shellfish include lobsters, crabs, mussels, clams, and snails. Harbor seals congregate on certain exposed ledges, and whales on occasion swim into the bay, and in a few instances into Portland Harbor. Seagulls, cormorants and varying species of duck are the most common birds; more rarely osprey, eagles and herons have been sighted. Casco Bay contains bay mud bottoms and banks in some locations, providing important substrates for biota.

The bay's major islands are served by the Casco Bay Lines ferry service at the Maine State Pier in Portland. Peaks Island is served by a car ferry and sees 16 ferries a day during the summer. The other islands see fewer ferries and no car transport. Great and Little Diamond islands and Long Island are primarily served by the Diamond Pass run, which is popular with tourists in the summer. Other services Casco Bay Lines offers include a daily mailboat run, a cruise to Bailey Island, and a sunset run.

Other services such as water taxis are popular alternatives to ferries, but are limited to six passengers per boat.

From south to north:

• Cape Elizabeth
• South Portland
• Portland
• Falmouth
• Cumberland
• Yarmouth
• Freeport
• Brunswick
• Harpswell
• West Bath
• Phippsburg

Major islands

Minor islands^[74]

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Casco Bay is home to 6 lighthouses:

• Cape Elizabeth Lights
• Portland Head Light
• Ram Island Ledge Light
• Spring Point Ledge Light
• Portland Breakwater (Bug) Light
• Halfway Rock Light

Forts in Casco Bay:

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The newspaper for Portland, the largest city in Casco Bay, is the Portland Press Herald (Maine Sunday Telegram on Sundays). The Island Institute publishes The Working Waterfront, a free monthly newspaper reporting "the news of Maine's coast and islands". For Southern Maine news, obituaries and sports, The Forecaster is published weekly. In the early 20th century, the Casco Bay Breeze published news of the islands from 1901 to 1917. Digitized copies of it from 1903 to 1917 appear for free on the Library of Congress website "Chronicling America".^[75]

• List of islands of Maine
• Casco, Wisconsin, named after Casco Bay^[76]

• Caldwell, Bill (1982). The Islands of Casco Bay.
• Bibliography of Casco Bay

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Casco Bay.