Fort Andross

Fort Andross, also known as Fort George and Cabot Mill, was initially established as a trading post and later converted into a historic garrison by the colonial British Empire as a defensive measure against the Wabanaki Native Americans who were allied with France during King William's War. It was situated next to Brunswick Falls, on the Androscoggin River in Brunswick, Maine. During the war, the fortification was destroyed, rebuilt, and renamed Fort George in 1715. Once the Native American wars came to an end, the fort was abandoned.
In the 19th century, the site of the fort was repurposed as a location for several cotton mills, including the [|Cabot Manufacturing Company], and in the 20th century several industrial buildings occupied the locale. In 1986, the mills were revitalized and transformed into office and retail spaces and renamed back to Fort Andross to reflect the original name.

Trading post and forts

Trading post

In the year 1620, a charter was granted by King James I of England to forty noblemen, knights, and gentlemen, calling themselves the Plymouth Company. Their territory extended from the fourteenth to the forty-eighth parallel of latitude, and from sea to sea. The council, on June 16, 1632, granted a patent to Thomas Purchase and his brother-in-law George Way. Purchase had settled in the area, four years prior, in 1628, setting up a trading post to buy and sell goods, mainly salmon, sturgeon and furs along the Androscoggin River. The site was adjacent to a waterfall known then as Pejepscot Falls, in what is now Brunswick, Maine. The Wabanaki Native Americans referred to this area of Brunswick, Topsham and Harpswell Maine as Pejepscot which translates to "long, rocky rapids part".
In, the settlements in Pejepscot were burned by the French and their native allies during King Philip's War and Purchase fled to Boston.

Fort Andross

In 1688, Fort Andross was the first fortification on the banks of the Androscoggin River and controlled by the British Empire.
After King Philip's War and during King William's War, Governor Edmund Andros of the Dominion of New England, who desired the promotion of eastern settlements, came to Pejepscot in the midwinter of. Andros with an army of 1,000 men, built a new fort on the occasion that the Wabanaki Native Americans would attack the area, as it was a highly sought after location for fishing and hunting. The location of the fort is in the same location as the preceding trading post owned by Thomas Purchase. Fort Andross was under the command of Lieutenant Colonel McGregory and Major Thomas Savage; it was destroyed during King William's War by the French and their Wabanaki allies in.
Although Fort Andross was named after Governor Edmund Andros, it is not known as to why the spelling changed, adding an extra "S" at the end. In 1878, the Wheeler brothers wrote a book titled The History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, Maine. This book is, what the Pejepscot Historical Society states as, "the authoritative text on the three towns through." There are several notations of the fort where it is spelled both with one "S", and with two.

Fort George

After Queen Anne's War, a new fort was built in 1715 by Captain John Gyles on the ruins of Fort Andross. This fort was named Fort George, named after King George I of Great Britain. The fort was underground with a wall base, standing high above ground, laid with lime mortar. The barracks housed fifteen men. A large two story dwelling house, appearing above the walls and a cannon protecting the local settlers.
During the span of Fort George, many local proprietors of the lands in Brunswick and Topsham volunteered as soldiers to garrison the Fort.
During the many Native American wars that were fought in the area, the inhabitants of Brunswick and Topsham gathered within the walls of the fort whenever they felt unsafe. But there were also times when trade ran fluidly with the natives.
As the series of wars were beginning to end in the region, the government of Massachusetts deemed it unnecessary to retain the fort any longer, even though earlier in the year, Adam Hunter, of Topsham Maine, received a commission as Captain, with the authority to raise an independent company.
In 1736, the General Court of Massachusetts decided to dismantle Fort George. A petition was sent to the legislature, by the inhabitants of Brunswick and Topsham, asking for the fort to remain. The petition was denied. The property was reverted to the proprietors who leased it, together with all the buildings and land connected with it, to George Harwood. He occupied the premises until November 1, 1761.
At a meeting of the Pejepscot Proprietors, held in 1761, Belcher Noyes was instructed to execute a deed of the old fort, with the buildings and land belonging to it, and the privilege of the stream at the falls, half to Jeremiah Moulton, Esquire, the other half to Captain David Dunning, for the sum of one hundred thirty three pounds six shillings and eight pence. Noyes gave Harwood a written order to surrender the fort and buildings to either Moulton or Dunning.
The ruins of the fort, with some portions of the wall yet standing, were seen as late as 1802. The materials of the old fort were used in the construction of dwellings in Brunswick and Topsham. Some of the lime mortar from the fort was used for the foundations of these buildings.

Memorials

1810

To mark the location of both forts, in, three surveyors from the town of Brunswick, John Abbot, John Perry Jr. and Jacob Abbot, while surveying Maine Street, drilled a hole into a rock in the ground and drove an iron bolt in diameter and in length. Technically not a memorial, as it was used for surveying purposes, the iron bolt was removed during the Cabot Manufacturing Company expansion of 1891.

1930

Adjoining the stone fort built by Governor Andros in 1689, a cemetery was used until the town was incorporated in 1739. There were headstones marking the burial place of Benjamin Larrabee, agent of the Pejepscot proprietors, one of the commanders of Fort George, and the ancestor of the Larrabees living in this vicinity. There were also the gravestones of Robert and Andrew Dunning, who were killed by Native Americans at Mason's rock in Brunswick. The site of this cemetery was covered with mill buildings in the early 1800s.
In 1930, the Daughters of the American Revolution, a nonprofit organization that promotes education and patriotism, erected a monument in honor of Fort Andross and Fort George, as well as respecting the place of burial of Larrabee and the Dunnings.

Mill factories

After Fort George was abandoned in 1736, seventy-three years passed before the site was once again occupied. There were several mills built on the site from 1809 to the 1950s, manufacturing cotton and wool products.

Mill	Start Date	End Date	Years Active
[\|Brunswick Cotton Manufacturing Company]	1809	1812	3
[\|Maine Cotton and Woolen Factory Company]	1812	1825	13
Eagle Factory	1825	1834	9
[\|The Brunswick Company]	1834	1843	9
Whitwell, Seaver, & Co.	1843	1847	4
Warumbo Manufacturing Company	1847	1853	6
The Cabot Company	1853	1857	4
The Cabot Manufacturing Company	1857	1942	85
Verney Brunswick Mills Inc.	1942	1955	13

Brunswick Cotton Manufacturing Company

The first factory built on the site of Fort Andross was established by the Brunswick Cotton Manufacturing Company, harnessing power from the Androscoggin River at Brunswick Falls. This was the first cotton mill to be built in Maine and only the sixth in the USA. The company was incorporated March 4, 1809. Ezra Smith, Governor William King, and Doctor Porter were among the proprietors. The company was formed for the manufacture of cotton yarn, which was shipped to other mills to be made into cloth. The mill did not prove a success, and the shareholders lost all their capital. The mill was a three-story, gambrel roofed, wooden building, and stood next to Brunswick Falls on the ruins of Fort Andross and Fort George.

Maine Cotton and Woolen Factory Company

The second mill was that of the Maine Cotton and Woolen Factory Company, which was incorporated in October 1812. The mill was made from wood and Deacon John Perry was the first agent.
In 1820 there were 1,248 cotton spindles in full operation, and 240 woollen spindles, nine woollen looms, nine carding machines and nine fulling machines. of cotton cloth were made per season. About one hundred people were employed at that time but the mill was destroyed by a fire in 1825.
Soon after the fire, a mill for carding wool and dressing cloth was established by John Dyer. It was called the Eagle Factory and it stood at the end of the previous mill. It was removed in 1834.

The Brunswick Company

In 1834, The Brunswick Company was incorporated and bought the land. Among the corporators was the 11th governor of Maine, Governor Robert P Dunlap as well as members of the Dunning and McKean families. The new mill consisted of granite, four stories high, long, capable of containing 5,120 spindles of cotton.
In total, aside from the Fort Andross site, the company had four additional mills of equal size, two dwelling houses, three stories high, one store, a counting room, stone picker-house, cotton store, and a forging-shop, all completely finished, with all but four situated in Brunswick. They also occupied the whole breadth of the Androscoggin River with islands and dams, thirteen and a half acres of land in Brunswick and Topsham, and Hydropower sufficient to have as many saws and spindles of cotton machinery as there was space.
The Brunswick Company ran this factory until 1840, when they leased it to Mr. Allen Colby, who managed it until March 1843, when it was sold at auction in Boston, Massachusetts to Whitwell, Seaver, & Co., for $34,400. The original cost was about $190,000. Whitwell, Seaver, & Co. entrusted the management of it to Messrs A.P. Kimball and John Dunning Coburn, of Boston, who soon afterwards purchased it. The company, after carrying on with business for a few years, failed.
On July 3, 1847, the Warumbo Manufacturing Company was incorporated and the stock of the Brunswick Company, consisting of mortgages from the previous owners, was bought for $40,000. The company was organized in the summer of 1848, but a few years later, it also failed.