Biddeford, Maine

, Welcome to Biddeford , An early Industrial Revolution site, Biddeford was settledin 1630 by proprietors John Oldham and Richard Vines. They received their land grant as payment for services to the Plymouth Company in 1629. John Oldham was killed on a trading voyage leaving Richard Vines principally connected with the early development of the town. He had spent a winter here in 1616-1617 as a physician investigating a plague among the Natives. English settlers named the area Saco, a contraction of the river name thought to be Sawcotuk. Saco was destroyed in 1688 by Indians and was renamed Biddeford in 1917. In the 18th century, Biddeford was a small village. The land was agriculturally poor; shipbuilding, lumbering, and fishing became the major industries. A few merchant mills utilized tributaries of the Saco but not the river itself. Seth Spring and Moses Bradbury were the Revolutionary War veterans who first utilized the river for power around 1775. They built mills on Spring's Island and dams in the river. The Saco River falls 47 feet at Biddeford and has a dependable flow from large wetlands in the White Mountains. The 19th century brought vast changes in size and wealth. In 1830, Samuel Batchelder was brought tot he area as a consultant on mills being build on Factory Island. He realized that the river valley land in Biddeford could potentially be a huge industrial site and built the Saco Water Power Company in 1837. Capital poured into Biddeford from investors enraptured by "New England Mill Fever" and the village was dramatically changed into a city.,