Many Americans believe that the Pilgrims’ colony at Plymouth, Massachusetts, which began in 1620, was the first settlement in New England. But 17 years earlier, in 1603, a French settlement was briefly established in Maine.
Then in 1607, a group of English settlers, led by George Popham, established a settlement in Maine, at the mouth of the Kennebec River. Bad weather and a lack of supplies forced the settlers to return to England within a year.
However, the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock did set up the first permanent settlement in New England. (The first permanent English settlement in all of America, at Jamestown, Virginia, was established in 1607.)
And the first permanent settlement in America was set up by the Spanish at St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565!
