Tag: Norridgewock
Norridgewock was the name of both an Indian village and a band of the Abenaki (“People of the Dawn”) Native Americans/First Nations, an Eastern Algonquian tribe of the United States and Canada. The tribe occupied an area in Maine along the border of Acadia, which was located on the western bank of the Kennebec River. Once part of the town of Norridgewock, the Indian village site today is called Old Point in Madison.
Norridgewock is a corruption of the word Nanrantsouak, meaning “people of the still water between the rapids.” Their principal encampment, also called Norridgewock, was located near 44°46′01″N 69°53′00″W / 44.767°N 69.8833°W / 44.767; -69.8833 on a plateau within a broad bend of the Kennebec River, opposite its confluence with the Sandy River. A 1716 account by soldier/surveyor Joseph Heath describes the Indian village as a square fort surrounded by a 9-foot (2.7 m) palisade fence, each side 160 feet (49 m) long with a gate at its center. The fort’s walls faced the…
