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Richmond is a town in Sagadahoc County, Maine, United States. The population was 3,411 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Portland–South Portland–Biddeford, Maine metropolitan statistical area. Richmond is the departure point for state boat service to Swan Island, site of the Steve Powell Refuge and Wildlife Management Area. ==History== The tract of land which comprises Richmond and Gardiner was purchased in 1649 from the Abenaki Indians by Christopher Lawson. In 1719, Fort Richmond (Maine) was built by Massachusetts on the western bank of the Kennebec River at what is today Richmond village. Named for Ludovic Stewart, 1st Duke of Richmond, the fort included a blockhouse, trading post, chapel, officers' and soldiers' quarters, all surrounded by a palisade. During Dummer's War, following the battle at Arrowsic, Maine, Fort Richmond was attacked in a three-hour siege by warriors from Norridgewock (1722). Houses were burned and cattle slain, but the fort held. Brunswick and other settlements near the mouth of the Kennebec were destroyed. The defense was enlarged in 1723 during Dummer's War. On August 19, 1724, a militia of 208 soldiers departed Fort Richmond under command of captains Jeremiah Moulton and Johnson Harmon, traveled up the Kennebec in 17 whaleboats and sacked Norridgewock. Fort Richmond would be rebuilt in 1740, attacked by another tribe in 1750, then dismantled in 1755 when forts Shirley (also called Frankfort), Western and Halifax were built upriver.〔 Settled in 1725, the community was part of Bowdoinham when it was incorporated in 1762 by the Massachusetts General Court. In 1790, Revolutionary War veteran John Plummer was awarded a land grant on Plummer Road, where his son built the surviving house about 1810. President Thomas Jefferson's Embargo of 1807 crippled the port's economy, bankrupted merchants and created a recession which lingered through the War of 1812.〔 〕 The town was set off and incorporated on February 10, 1823, taking its name from the old fort. Farms produced hay and potatoes. With the arrival of steamboats in the 1830s, Richmond boomed as a shipbuilding and trade center on the navigable Kennebec River estuary. Among the more important shipbuilders were T. J. Southard, also considered one of the town's "founding fathers". A brass foundry was established. The community also produced shoes, sails and wood products. Its peak years were between 1835 and 1857, endowing the town with a wealth of fine Greek Revival architecture, which today makes the old river port popular with tourists.〔(Historical Sketch of Richmond, Maine )〕 Richmond was once the center of the largest Slavic-speaking settlement in the United States. People of Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish heritage emigrated to the United States during World War II to settle along the Kennebec Valley. In the 1950s and 1960s, there was also a large influx of White Russian emigres, who earlier fled the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and eventually came to Richmond both from Europe and from major US cities like New York. Many of these settlers were retirees, and their families often chose not to remain there. For this reason, the Richmond White Russian community has now largely disappeared. One of the churches that they built, however, the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Alexander Nevsky, continues to function to this day. Image:Main Street, Looking East, Richmond, ME.jpg|Main Street in 1908 Image:Front Street Looking North, Richmond, ME.jpg|Front Street c. 1910 Image:The Ferry, Richmond, ME.jpg|Swan Island ferry c. 1908 Image:Maxwell Residence, Richmond, ME.jpg|Maxwell residence in 1907 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Richmond, Maine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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