Description:
Salt Marsh Kittery Maine. Landscape photography by Bob Orsillo
Settled about 1623, Kittery was incorporated in 1647, and today bills itself as "the oldest incorporated town in Maine." It was named after the birthplace of a founder, Alexander Shapleigh, from his manor of Kittery Court at Kingswear in Devon, England. Shapleigh arrived in 1635 aboard the ship Benediction, which he co-owned with another prominent settler, Captain Francis Champernowne, a cousin of Sir Ferdinando Gorges. Together with the Pepperrell family, they established fisheries offshore at the Isles of Shoals, where fish were caught, salted and exported back to Europe. Other pioneers were hunters, trappers and workers of the region's abundant timber. The settlement at the mouth of the Piscataqua River was protected by Fort McClary.
