Fryeburg

Fryeburg is a town in Oxford County, Maine, United States. The population was 3,449 at the 2010 census. Fryeburg is home to Fryeburg Academy, a semi-private preparatory school, and the International Musical Arts Institute. The town is also site of the Fryeburg Fair, which each October attracts approximately 300,000 visitors.

The area was once a major Abenaki Indian village known as Pequawket, meaning "crooked place," a reference to the large bend in the Saco River. It was inhabited by the Sokokis tribe, whose territory along the stream extended from what is now Saco on the coast, to Conway, New Hampshire in the White Mountains. In 1706, Chief Nescambious would be the only Indian knighted by the French. For a while the tribe was not hostile to English settlements, even hiring British carpenters to build at Pequawket a 14-foot high palisade fort as protection against their traditional enemy, the Mohawks. In 1713, Sokokis sachems signed the Treaty of Portsmouth to ensure peace with English colonists. Eventually, relations with the English soured. During Father Rale's War, Pequawket was attacked in the Battle at Pequawket on May 8, 1725, by John Lovewell and his militia. Lovewell was killed, as were Chief Paugus and others. The tribe subsequently abandoned the village and moved to Canada.

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