Maine’s Fort Richmond Excavated

RICHMOND, MAINE—Archaeologists are trying to learn as much as they can about Fort Richmond before the site is lost to the construction of a new bridge across the Kennebec River. A military garrison was first built on the site in 1721. Historical records indicate that that fort was soon attacked and then enlarged. By 1740, the final fort was in place. Walkways, walls, a cistern, chimney bases, and cellars have been uncovered, but most of the artifacts that have been found are from a nineteenth-century residence that used the fort’s cellars as garbage pits. “The structure of the fort itself is pretty amazing, and the way they built one fort on top of the other and move stuff around it’s quite a challenge to cypher it out and figure out what’s going on,” said Lee Cramner, retired head of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission.