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Concept
Biddeford, Maine
Summary
Biddeford is a city in York County, Maine, United States. It is the principal commercial center of York County. Its population was 22,552 at the 2020 census. The twin cities of Saco and Biddeford include the resort communities of Biddeford Pool and Fortunes Rocks. The town is the site of the University of New England and the annual La Kermesse Franco-Americaine Festival. First visited by Europeans in 1616, it is the site of one of the earliest European settlements in the United States. It is home to Saint Joseph's Church, the tallest building in Maine.
Biddeford is a principal population center of the Portland-South Portland-Biddeford metropolitan statistical area.
The first European to settle at Biddeford was physician Richard Vines in the winter of 1616–1617 at Winter Harbor, as he called Biddeford Pool. This 1616 landing by a European antedates the Mayflower landing in Plymouth, Massachusetts, (located 100 miles to the south) by about four years, a fact overlooked in much of New England lore. In 1630, the Plymouth Company granted the land south of the River Swanckadocke to Dr. Vines and John Oldham. In 1653, the town included both sides of the river, and was incorporated by the Massachusetts General Court as Saco.
Biddeford was first incorporated as the Town of Saco in 1653. Roger Spencer was granted the right in 1653 to build the first sawmill. Lumber and fish became the community's chief exports. In 1659, Major William Phillips of Boston became a proprietor, and constructed a garrison and mill at the falls. Settlers withdrew to Winter Harbor for safety, and their homes and mills upriver at the falls were burned. In 1693, a stone fort was built a short distance below the falls, but it was captured by the Indians in 1703, when 11 colonists were killed and 24 taken captive to Canada. In 1688, Fort Mary was built near the entrance to Biddeford Pool. The town was reorganized in 1718 as Biddeford, after Bideford, a town in Devon, England, from which some settlers had emigrated. After the Fall of Quebec in 1759, hostilities with the natives ceased.
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