Battle of Falmouth (1690)

The Battle of Falmouth (also known as the Battle of Fort Loyal) (May 16–20, 1690) involved Joseph-François Hertel de la Fresnière and Baron de St Castin leading troops as well as the Wabanaki Confederacy (Mi'kmaq and Maliseet from Fort Meductic) in New Brunswick to capture and destroy Fort Loyal and the English settlement on the Falmouth neck (site of present-day Portland, Maine), then part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The commander of the fort was Captain Sylvanus Davis. After two days of siege, the settlement's fort, called Fort Loyal (sometimes spelled "Loyall"), surrendered. The community's buildings were burned, including the wooden stockade fort, and its people were either killed or taken prisoner. The fall of Fort Loyal (Casco) led to the near depopulation of Europeans in Maine. Native forces were then able to attack the New Hampshire frontier without reprisal.