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Berwick Begins: 1631-1713 |
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 Old Berwick’s story began over 4,000 years ago as home to Native American fishermen and hunters. For millennia, Indians migrated during the spring from the interior of southern Maine to the Salmon Falls River. Here, they established encampments adjacent to the river and today’s South Berwick’s Counting House, Quamphegan Falls, Rollinsford, and the Great Falls in Somersworth harvesting the salmon, shad, alewives, and eels that made their annual migratory runs up Maine’s coastal rivers. By the time English explorers such as Martin Pring (1602) and John Smith (1614) sailed along the coast of southern Maine, the Indians of Newichawannock and Quamphegan had established planting grounds of corn and beans along the Salmon Falls River.
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Berwick Begins: South Berwick Town Hall Exhibit |
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 Thanks to the hard work of archaeologists with the Old Berwick Historical Society, local residents can now glimpse early decades of settlement in this part of New England. South Berwick was settled about 14 years after Plimoth, and was part of a larger town designated as Berwick in 1713.
“Some things, like sharing camaraderie over pints of ale, haven’t changed in 300 years,” said Paula Bennett, a society board member. “A tavern stood where Brattle Street meets Oldfields Road, which was then the center of town, just as people enjoy the taverns now thriving downtown South Berwick.” |
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South Berwick's First People |
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 Who were the first people in South Berwick? Unfortunately, very few historical documents have survived to tell us about the native people who were living here at the time of settlement. Books have been written about the New England native culture; they likely applied to the people living in the South Berwick area (see Bibliography.)
Early visitors and settlers provide some eyewitness reports, but they came with a mission -- to take possession of the land occupied by these “savages.” |
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