Popham Flare Night

For about forty years on the third Friday night in August, a red glow lights up the sky at Phippsburg Maine’s Popham Beach, where people gather to commemorate something that happened about four hundred years ago. This year will be very special. It’s the 400th anniversary of the settling of Popham by the English.

In August of 1607 a group of Englishmen came to this part of Maine’s coast. They were part of the Virginia Company, a group of investors and get-richer hopefuls who organized a two-part enterprise to settle the wild east coast of North America between North Carolina and New Brunswick. One section of the corporation, funded mostly by men with ties to London, sent an expedition to what is now Jamestown that hung on and became the first permanent English settlement in America. The other, whose support came mostly from the western part of England, set up shop right here at the mouth of Maine’s Kennebec River. Without asking permission from the indigenous population, they built a fort, called it Fort St. George and settled in for the winter. Unlike Jamestown, they lasted only fourteen months, but before leaving they’d built the pinnace Virginia, North America’s first ocean-going English ship beginning Maine’s great shipbuilding heritage.

It’s this second colonizing effort that lights the evening skies at Popham Beach every year. The celebration starts about 6:30 as people gather at the State parking lot that lies within the boundaries of the original Fort St. George. The town’s police car is there as is one of its fire engines. Noisemakers are handed out to the kids. Adults holding unlit railroad flares stand around welcoming each other and the lucky people who have been tapped this year to re-enact the roles of leaders of the 1607/8 event, George Popham (who died 6 months after arriving here) and Raleigh Gilbert (who had to go home to take over the family estate). This year, 400 years after the main event, Popham and Gilbert descendants form England will take the roles of their ancestors. In the past, Mrs. Popham and even her children have sometimes joined the re-creation, though there were never any women or kids at the colony.

When the signal is given, the fire truck, red lights flashing, heads off slowly down the hill toward Popham Village, immediately followed by George and Raleigh, leading the now noisy celebrants. Before leaving the sacred ground of Fort St. George, they pass the house of Jane Stevens, whose sister Ellen Staley conceived this event more than forty years ago. Somewhere in upper New York State, she’d seen a local lakeside celebration using flares as a fundraiser and figured that the small Popham Library could benefit from selling flares. So one summer she and some local kids peddled railroad flares at Popham and over in Bay Point Village across the mouth of the river. The Library benefited and Flare Night was born.

As the parade begins to pass the Library, the bell in Popham Chapel next door, begins to toll. The line of marchers grows, observers falling into step and swelling the throng as it passes. Evening visitors to the beach, fishermen and summer cottagers crowd the road now; it looks like a horde of lemmings heading toward the beach. The parade turns right onto Sea Street and across the parking lot of Percy’s Store, where some folks are feverishly buying the last few available railroad flares. Up the narrow path it winds over the sand dune toward the beach and the river where a looming pile of driftwood waits, old pallets and assorted scraps of lumber carefully stacked by the lads of the fire department. By town or State regulation, it’s the only night of the year that a fire is allowed on the beach.

Some years the Popham Beach Improvement Association, responsible for the Library, even passes out soft drinks and popcorn as people step out onto the beach. For a few minutes, people mill around anticipating the big event.

Then it begins. First one, then another person walks right down to the edge of the beach, where small waves lap at the sand. Soon there’s a long line of flares stretching a quarter of a mile from the old Lifesaving Station on the right to Fort Popham on the left (a granite edifice of the Civil War period, named for the colony’s key man). Then every window of that massive edifice begins to glow from flares placed there by state park personnel. Some of the boats riding back and forth just offshore begin to show flares, and from here and there across the river, more flares shine out from Bay Point and Indian Pont and out on Gilbert Head, named for Raleigh G. himself.

By now, the bonfire’s been lit and is crackling mightily, its flames rising high into the night sky. The scene assumes a basic, elemental flavor, especially on foggy nights – almost Druidic - as people stand back as if in awe to admire what the community has created. Here and there people begin to sing simple songs that fit the moment. A favorite is always “Raleigh row your boat ashore, Hal-le-LOO-jah!” Eventually the flames die down, families gather in their younger children and head off for home. Teens and 20’s stay around, clustering here and there, happily singing, talking, and enjoying the moment.

In the darkness, old-timers find this year’s George Popham or Raleigh Gilbert, and with a handshake offer the best blessing of all: “Good job, George”; “Well done, Raleigh.” Though the colony didn't make it, another successful Flare Night enters the corporate memory of Popham Village reminding them of what happened here 400 years ago.



Popham Colony 400th Anniversary - Flare Night
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FLARE NIGHT: A Popham Colony Celebration
Contributed By Bud Warren
For about forty years on the third Friday night in August, a red glow lights up the sky at Phippsburg Maine’s Popham Beach, where people gather to commemorate something that happened about four hundred years ago. This year will be very special. It’s the 400th anniversary of the settling of Popham by the English. In August of 1607 a group of Englishmen came to this part of Maine’s coast. They were part of the Virginia Company, a group of investors and get-richer hopefuls who organized a two-part enterprise to settle the wild east coast of North America between North Carolina and New Brunswick. One section of the corporation, funded mostly by men with ties to London, sent an expedition to what is now Jamestown that hung on and became the first permanent English settlement in America. The other, whose support came mostly from the western part of England, set up shop right here at the mouth of Maine’s Kennebec River. Without asking permission from the indigenous population, they built a fort, called it Fort St. George and settled in for the winter. Unlike Jamestown, they lasted only fourteen months, but before leaving they’d built the pinnace Virginia, North America’s first ocean-going English ship beginning Maine’s great shipbuilding heritage. It’s this second colonizing effort that lights the evening skies at Popham Beach every year. The celebration starts about 6:30 as people gather at the State parking lot that lies within the boundaries of the original Fort St. George. The town’s police car is there as is one of its fire engines. Noisemakers are handed out to the kids. Adults holding unlit railroad flares stand around welcoming each other and the lucky people who have been tapped this year to re-enact the roles of leaders of the 1607/8 event, George Popham (who died 6 months after arriving here) and Raleigh Gilbert (who had to go home to take over the family estate). This year, 400 years after the main event, Popham and Gilbert descendants form England will take the roles of their ancestors. In the past, Mrs. Popham and even her children have sometimes joined the re-creation, though there were never any women or kids at the colony. When the signal is given, the fire truck, red lights flashing, heads off slowly down the hill toward Popham Village, immediately followed by George and Raleigh, leading the now noisy celebrants. Before leaving the sacred ground of Fort St. George, they pass the house of Jane Stevens, whose sister Ellen Staley conceived this event more than forty years ago. Somewhere in upper New York State, she’d seen a local lakeside celebration using flares as a fundraiser and figured that the small Popham Library could benefit from selling flares. So one summer she and some local kids peddled railroad flares at Popham and over in Bay Point Village across the mouth of the river. The Library benefited and Flare Night was born. As the parade begins to pass the Library, the bell in Popham Chapel next door, begins to toll. The line of marchers grows, observers falling into step and swelling the throng as it passes. Evening visitors to the beach, fishermen and summer cottagers crowd the road now; it looks like a horde of lemmings heading toward the beach. The parade turns right onto Sea Street and across the parking lot of Percy’s Store, where some folks are feverishly buying the last few available railroad flares. Up the narrow path it winds over the sand dune toward the beach and the river where a looming pile of driftwood waits, old pallets and assorted scraps of lumber carefully stacked by the lads of the fire department. By town or State regulation, it’s the only night of the year that a fire is allowed on the beach. Some years the Popham Beach Improvement Association, responsible for the Library, even passes out soft drinks and popcorn as people step out onto the beach. For a few minutes, people mill around anticipating the big event. Then it begins. First one, then another person walks right down to the edge of the beach, where small waves lap at the sand. Soon there’s a long line of flares stretching a quarter of a mile from the old Lifesaving Station on the right to Fort Popham on the left (a granite edifice of the Civil War period, named for the colony’s key man). Then every window of that massive edifice begins to glow from flares placed there by state park personnel. Some of the boats riding back and forth just offshore begin to show flares, and from here and there across the river, more flares shine out from Bay Point and Indian Pont and out on Gilbert Head, named for Raleigh G. himself. By now, the bonfire’s been lit and is crackling mightily, its flames rising high into the night sky. The scene assumes a basic, elemental flavor, especially on foggy nights – almost Druidic - as people stand back as if in awe to admire what the community has created. Here and there people begin to sing simple songs that fit the moment. A favorite is always “Raleigh row your boat ashore, Hal-le-LOO-jah!” Eventually the flames die down, families gather in their younger children and head off for home. Teens and 20’s stay around, clustering here and there, happily singing, talking, and enjoying the moment. In the darkness, old-timers find this year’s George Popham or Raleigh Gilbert, and with a handshake offer the best blessing of all: “Good job, George”; “Well done, Raleigh.” Though the colony didn't make it, another successful Flare Night enters the corporate memory of Popham Village reminding them of what happened here 400 years ago.