Was Maine once a French Canadian territory?

Maine was never formally a French Canadian territory and was largely under English claims by the early 17th century, though control was fiercely contested by France.

The French colony of Acadia included territory in parts of coastal Maine — roughly to the Kennebec River — and even established a short-lived settlement on Mount Desert Island in 1613.

A key French stronghold was Fort Pentagoet in present-day Castine, which served briefly as Acadia’s capital in the 1670s.

After the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 and the British expulsion of the Acadians starting in 1755, French influence receded, and Maine remained under British — and later U.S. — control.

Still, French Canadian migration in the 19th and early 20th centuries helped to create lasting francophone communities across northern Maine and in mill towns such as Lewiston and Biddeford.