After the division in 1635, by which his title between the Piscataqua and the Kennebec was affirmed, Sir Ferdinando Gorges erected the coast from Cape Elizabeth, a few miles north of Saco, as far as Kennebec, into a district called New Somersetshire.[23] Two years later Gorges obtained from King Charles a royal charter constituting him proprietor of the “province or county of Maine,” with all the rights of a count palatine.[24] The provisions of this charter are more curious than important.  The territory granted, which included Agamenticus, was embraced between the Piscataqua and Kennebec, and extended inland one hundred and twenty miles.  The lord proprietor had the right to divide his province into counties, appoint all officers, and to execute martial law.  But while his rights were thus extensive, the liberties of the people were preserved by a provision for a popular assembly to join with him in making laws.

The charter certainly was out of keeping with the conditions of a distant empire inhabited only by red savages and a few white fishermen; but Gorges’ elaborate plan for regulating the government seemed even more far-fetched.  He proposed to have not only a lieutenant-governor, but a chancellor, a marshal, a treasurer, an admiral, a master of ordnance, and a secretary, and they were to act as a council of state.[25]

To this wild realm in Norumbega, Thomas Gorges, “a sober and well-disposed young man,” nephew of the lord proprietor, was commissioned in 1640 to be the first governor, and stayed three years in the colony.[26] Agamenticus (now York) was only a small hamlet, but the lord proprietor honored it in March, 1652, by naming it Gorgeana, after himself, and incorporating it as a city.  The charter of this first city of the United States is a historical curiosity, since for a population of about two hundred and fifty inhabitants it provided a territory covering twenty-one square miles and a body of nearly forty officials.[27]

The second of the three important patents led to the absorption of Maine by the government of Massachusetts.  The claim of Massachusetts to jurisdiction over the settlements in New Hampshire as readily applied to Maine; and, in addition, the patent granted in June, 1632, by the Council for New England, to George Way and Thomas Purchas, gave a tract of land along the river “Bishopscot” or “Pejepscot,” better known as the Androscoggin.[28] In 1639 Massachusetts, by buying this property, secured her first hold on the land within Gorges’ patent.[29] The revival in 1643 of another patent, believed to have been abandoned, but with rights conflicting with the patent of Gorges, both prompted and excused the interference of Massachusetts.