Ready for George Popham Day?

PHIPPSBURG

The zaniness and just plain fun that surrounds the annual George Popham Day celebration begins Friday just as the day is done — at dusk.

Alex Popham King, a descendant of the man credited with founding Popham Colony in 1607, will be among the hundreds on hand as the community celebrates the historic settlement. The mouth of the Kennebec River will be encircled in bright pink, children will blow on their noise-makers and for three-quarter of an hour, everyone will frolic at Popham Beach.

“We encourage the children to make as much noise as they wish,” said Bill Perkins, who helps organize the annual event. “It’s a really quaint, old-fashioned thing. People love it.”

Fire trucks, an ambulance and the town’s police cruiser will lead the procession from the Fort Baldwin parking lot to the Percy’s Store lot. King, who wrote a children’s book on Popham Colony entitled “Adventure at the Popham Colony,” will be there in period attire to greet people posing as George Popham, and his No. 2 man, Raleigh Gilbert.

King and his “ancestors” then join the procession. The Popham Chapel bell will toll — the signal for hundreds to light up their railroad flares.

“The mouth of the river is lighted up by these bright pink flares, and people will place them inside the cannon portals,” Perkins said. “It’s not part of the official celebration, but some people living in the area will set off fireworks.”

King, a genealogist and archaeologist, made his first visit to the colony site in 1968. He has worked on the excavation of the Popham Colony site and lectured on the colony for many years.

George Popham was named in the patent granted to the Plymouth Company in 1606. His company explored the Maine coast and settled at the mouth of the Kennebec on the present site of Phippsburg. A fort was erected, called Fort St. George, and Popham became president of the colony. He died that winter, and the colony was abandoned in the following summer.

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