Agamenticus

The Mount Agamenticus region covers nearly 30,000 acres (121 km²) in the southern Maine towns of Eliot, Ogunquit, South Berwick, Wells and York. It is now a park reservation which provides both habitat for wildlife and venue for recreation.

Mount Agamenticus is also affectionately known as "Big A," the former ski slope's nickname. Not high as mountains go at 692 feet (211 m) above sea level, but from its peak on a clear day one can see the skyscrapers of Boston to the south, Cape Elizabeth and the entrance to Casco Bay to the north and the Presidential Range, including Mount Washington, to the west. Looking out to sea, the Isles of Shoals - about 10 miles (16 km) off York and Boon Island - about 6 miles (10 km) from the coast are also clearly visible.

In 1614, Captain John Smith explored and charted the Gulf of Maine. Upon returning to London, he presented his record of the New World, complete with aboriginal place names, to Prince Charles, "...humbly entreating his Highnesse hee would please to change their barbarous names for such English, as posteritie might say Prince Charles was their God-father..." He complied, and his choices were featured on the map published in 1616 that accompanied Smith's "A Description of New England". On paper, the mountain's Indian name, "Sassanows," became "Snadoun Hill." But many royal recommendations didn't stick. Instead, the mountain would assume the general name of the York settlement of 1630, the "Plantation of Agamenticus," which itself took the Abenaki name for the York River.

According to legend, Saint Aspinquid (sometimes "Aspenquid"), an Indian chief, was buried atop Mount Agamenticus in May of 1682. He was born in May of 1588, and after converting to Christianity, spread the gospel to tribes across the continent. His funeral, at which 6,712 animals were sacrificed, was attended by hundreds, even thousands, of Native Americans. A cairn on the summit stands as memorial to the sachem, and whoever pays tribute to his soul by adding a rock is assured of luck. But whether Saint Aspinquid was fiction, fact or somewhere in between -- perhaps a fanciful version of real Chief Passaconaway -- is debated. In the 1881 essay "A Winter Drive", Sarah Orne Jewett remarks that "...I could never trace this legend beyond a story in one of the county newspapers, and I have never heard any tradition among the people that bears the least likeness to it." But the pile of stones, with its promise of good fortune, grows nevertheless.

Nowadays there is a large array of radio masts, a fire tower at the top, and one of the best places for viewing hawks in New England.

External links

* [http://parksandrec.yorkmaine.org/mtagamenticus.html Mount Agamenticus Park]