Pannaway Plantation
 |
Pannaway Plantation | |
|---|---|
| Country | British America |
| State | Massachusetts Bay Colony |
| Settled | 1622 |
| Abandoned | 1630 |
| Time zone | UTC-5 (Eastern) |
| • Summer (DST) | Eastern |
Pannaway Plantation was the first European settlement in what is now currently the state of New Hampshire. By 1630, the Plantation was abandoned and the settelers moved to Strawberry Banke in what is now known as Portsmouth. The land in where the settlement is now is in the town of Rye and it is currently where Odiorne Point State Park is located in.
History
Pannaway is an Abenaki word likely to mean "place where the water spreads out". When John Mason was granted a colony to start in British America, he was granted the land from south on up to where the Piscataqua River flows into the Atlantic Ocean, while Ferdinando Gorges claimed the land north of the river, that colony ended up becoming Maine. The first settler to go into Pannaway Plantation was David Thompson. He had his family come to the plantation. He was granted six thousand acres of land in the new world when he arrived. 10 other men went with him to settle the land and he himself gave the name to the plantation after hearing it from a Indian who guided him. In his first year here, he was greeted by Captain Myles Standish of the Plymouth Colony who was looking for aid at the time.
Christopher Levett in his 1623 "Voyage to New England" states that he spent a month here. In July of 1623, Thomas Weston of the Weymouth Colony was shipwrecked off of todays North Hampton. He was tortured by the Natives who stripped him of his clothing and he ran away barely escaping death. He ended up making it to Pannaway to shelter. In 1626, Thomson left Pannaway and left for an island in the Boston Harbor. Tomson later died within the next couple years as his wife later marries Samuel Maverick, one of the first slave traders in the colony. By 1630, Strawberry Banke was proven to be more secure of a location from the Indians and the settler Walter Neale invited them to come in. The Plantation was later abandoned. Today the location of the Plantation is in today's Odiorne Point State Park.