Frenchman Bay is a

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

in Hancock County,

Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

, named for

Samuel de Champlain Samuel de Champlain (; 13 August 1574#Fichier]For a detailed analysis of his baptismal record, see #Ritch, RitchThe baptism act does not contain information about the age of Samuel, neither his birth date nor his place of birth. – 25 December ...

, the France, French explorer who visited the area in 1604. Frenchman Bay may have been the location of the

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

St. Sauveur mission, established in 1613. In a 1960 book titled ''The Story of Mount Desert Island'', Samuel Eliot Morison wrote, "Frenchmans Bay was so called because it became a staging point for French warships preparing to fight the English." The bay is bounded on the east by the

Schoodic Peninsula The Schoodic Peninsula is a peninsula in Down East Maine. It is located four miles (6 km) east of Bar Harbor, Maine, as the crow flies. The Schoodic Peninsula contains , or approximately 5% of Acadia National Park. It includes the towns ...

and on the west by

Mount Desert Island Mount Desert Island (MDI; ) in Hancock County, Maine, is the largest island off the coast of Maine. With an area of it is the List of islands of the United States by area, 52nd-largest island in the United States, the sixth-largest island in th ...

; parts of both are in

Acadia National Park Acadia National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States located along the mid-section of the Maine coast, southwest of Bar Harbor, Maine, Bar Harbor. The park includes about half of Mount Desert ...

. It contains numerous islands, the largest of which is

Ironbound Island The Ironbound is a neighborhood in the city of Newark in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is a large working-class multi-ethnic community, covering about . Historically, the area was called "Dutch Neck," "Down Neck," or simp ...

. The highest elevation of the islands in the bay is found on Jordan Island. The largest town on the bay is

Bar Harbor Bar Harbor () is a resort town on Mount Desert Island in Hancock County, Maine, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population is 5,089. The town is home to the College of the Atlantic, Jackson Laboratory, and MDI Biological Laboratory. ...

, on

. The bay extends for roughly and spans at its widest.

References

External links

coastguides.com: Frenchman Bay
Bays of Hancock County, Maine Bar Harbor, Maine Mount Desert Island Bays of Maine {{Maine-geo-stub