Merrymeeting Bay has played a role in human history for thousands of years. Here is a time line of some important dates and periods.

Merrymeeting Bay's Historic Time Line

• +-3500BC
• +-3000BC Archaic Period, Small Stem Point Culture,'Maritime Archaic' or Red Paint People (200 years)
• +-1400-1000BC Susquehanna Culture
• +-1000BC-1600AD Woodland or Ceramic Period (techniques to manufacture clay vessels) corn, squash and bean agriculture established in MM Bay region. Eastern Abenaki peoples occupied at least 7 villages along tributaries of Androscoggin and Kennebec Rivers (nearly 1200 people in one lower Androscoggin village 1620
• Kennebec Indians

• 1600 European Culture beginning to arrive
• 1605 Capt. George Weymouth sails up Kennebec
• 1625 Pilgrims sailed up Kennebec to trade a boatload of corn for 700 pounds of beaver skins
• 1630's First European settlers from England
• 1637 Merrymeeting Bay called 'Lake of New Somerset' (B'ham Adv. Vol I. #1)
• 1638 Woolwich settled by John Brown & Edward Bateman
• <1656 Alexander Thwait bought land in B'ham of Indians & lived there
• 1650-1760 5 periods of Indian 'war' 1st Indian War - Nine families on north shore of MM Bay killed or made captive by Indians. Epidemics of European disease deplete Native American population
• 1684 Worumbo & 5 other chiefs deeded land to Richard Wharton land in Brunswick, Topsham, Bowdoinham. British, Hugonout settlers. Farming, Lumber
• 1669 Thomas Gyles family settles on Merrymeeting Bay (shore of Lilly Farm)
• 1689 Gyles Family raided by Maliseet Indians. 9 year old John Gyles, brother James, mother and sister Margaret carried off to New Brunswick.

• 1700's Native Americans (B'ham Adv 2/76)
• 1717 Indians drove moulting ducks into muddy creeks where" without either powder or shot they killed at one time four thousand six hundred" which they sold to the English for a penny a dozen. Judge Penhallow says this was an annual custom. History of the Indian Wars in New England
• 1719 Ft Richmond +- .5 mi north of village (decommissioned 1754)
• 1720 Capt John Gyles, Mr Watkins resettled Cathance Neck B'ham
• 1725 Bowdoinham settled
• 1725 Lovewell's War - all settlers killed or driven off by Indians
• 1730 resettled permanently
• 1759 Woolwich incorporated
• 1762 Bowdoinham incorporated
• 1760's End of French and Indian War. Development increases, Mills- saw, grist
• 1797 Residents of Bowdoin built road to Cathance Landing, B'ham at no cost to B'ham

• 1810 Dams
• 1820 Maine Statehood
• 1823 Richmond incorporated
• 1835 Merrymeeting Bay Bridge
• 1837 Edwards Dam, Augusta (Bham Advertiser Feb 1977)(B'ham Adv 7/78)
• 1850 Railroad to Bowdoinham
• 1858 C.W. Dexter, steam schooner, built in B'ham. First vessel to carry auxiliary power
• 1866 Bank Robbery in Bowdoinham
• 1880's Coal and chemical fuels
• 1896
• 1898 Merrymeeting Park (B'ham Adv. 8/85)

• 1900's Tidal reaches of Kennebec closed to harvest of shellfish
• 1902 Bowdoinham Burns
• 1920 Merrymeeting Bay little more than a common sewer (local newspaper)
• 1960's Merrymeeting Bay called "badly polluted", "lifeless"
• 1970's Eagles at all time low (DDT Thin egg shells) (1974- only 1 breeding pair
• 1970's Water quality begins to improve due to chemical abatement