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Fortunately there is ample documentary evidence to establish when and where and by whom the first house was built in the town and who has the honor of being the actual founder of York.
In 1619, Edward Godfrey was member of a group of merchants who loaned the Pilgrims on the Mayflower eighteen hundred pounds. He emigrated to America about 1628 and was an agent of Ferdinando Gorges.
In 1630, this date may truly be called the birth year of York. The first house was built that year. This first building has been called a “frame house,” but it was undoubtedly a rough log cabin, which cannot be glorified into an elaborately finished structure, with glazed windows, brick chimney and plastered walls and ceilings. Clay dug from the banks nearby, or from the tidal flats, was daubed
into the chinks between the logs to keep out the wind and rain, while oiled paper served as the translucent film in substitution for glass in the rough window frames. For a chimney and fireplace, it is likely that it was flat field stones held together,
perhaps, by cement, or more likely by smoked-baked clay. The founder of York built his house on the tongue of land bounded by the York river and Barrell’s Millpond, south of Lindsay Road. This area is inland from the Wiggly Bridge and on the south bank of Barrell’s Millpond not far from Lindsay Road. It is probable that Godfrey selected a place near a spring, which formerly existed
there, as one of the first considerations in the pioneer’s view was the convenience of access to potable drinking water in sufficient quantities, and this spot answered that prime requisite.
Godfrey had obtained only a squatter’s right to this land by first occupation, for this territory had not yet been allocated to patentees by the
Lord Proprietor (Ferdinando Gorges). It is a safe assumption to say that Godfrey had verbal permission to take up land anywhere in the Province, pending the establishment of definite patents by metes and bounds in the process of opening up this region to emigrants. At least that is exactly what followed. His priority of habitation was tacitly recognized when the first patent was issued a year later to the grantees of the Agamenticus charter, although he was not named as one
of them. He became an associate some time later, and in the division of the land, one of his shares covered the land where he had originally built his home.
With the Charter of Gorgeana, Edward Godfrey became Mayor. In July 1649, he became the first governor of Maine. By 1647, the Massachusetts Bay Colony sent out corrupt surveyors to redefine boundaries and claim sections of Maine. They then sent a group of commissioners to each town threatening them into submission. Kittery was the first town visited and after four days of debate, the residents agreed to submit. Kittery became the first incorporated town in Maine in 1647. In 1652, the Massachusetts Commissioners came to York and again pressured submission and the name of the town was changed to York when it was incorporated. Godfrey left for England in 1655 to argue against the unjustness of the Massachusetts takeover of Maine but his land was taken, he became 1,000 pounds in debt and in 1664, died in the debtors prison, Ludgate, in London.