Joseph Frye

Who was Joseph Frye?

Joseph Frye was a renowned military leader from colonial Maine.

Born in Andover, Massachusetts, he obtained the rank of general in the Massachusetts militia after serving in King George's War and the French and Indian War. For services during that conflict, the Massachusetts General Court in 1762 granted him a township on the Saco River which had once been the Sokokis Abenaki village of Pequawket. In 1777, the plantation was incorporated as Fryeburg, Maine, named in his honor. Frye is best known for the role he played expanding the colonial frontier into lands formerly held by both the French and Abenakis. He is regarded as the successor of John Lovewell, and also an enemy of Molly Ockett, leader and sage among dispossessed Algonquian peoples.

Frye served in the early stages of the American Revolutionary War, first as a major general of Massachusetts militia, and then briefly as a brigadier general in the Continental Army. He resigned on April 23, 1776, because his age made him ill-suited for active duty.