With 300-year-old clay pipe stems, glass beads and charred timbers, archaeologist Tim Dinsmore is slowly and painstakingly putting together a portrait of the lives of the first Anglo-American settlers in the Damariscotta River region.

Living in homes with wattle-and-daub walls and thatched roofs, those first settlers had a difficult and tenuous existence, far from population centers. In 1676, when the first Indian war reached the Damariscotta River (then the frontier of Maine) many of the settlers fled for their lives one step ahead of Native American bands that had massacred settlers to the south.

Walter Phillips, who owned a massive tract of land stretching from Newcastle to Nobleboro and north to Jefferson and Whitefield, was one of the most prominent citizens in the area. By piecing together historical information and painstakingly excavating the most likely sites, Dinsmore has located the Phillips homestead in Newcastle.

Dinsmore will speak on archeology October 19 at 2 p.m. at St. Andrews Village in celebration of National Archeology Day.

A native of Damariscotta, Dinsmore has more than 25 years of experience in Maine Colonial history and historic archeology and has focused much of his research on Midcoast Maine where he specializes in the 17thand 18th centuries.

Over the decades, he has collected hundreds of thousands of artifacts, from pins, nails and pottery fragments to glass beads and clay pipe stems. Copious notes describe the artifacts, where they were found as well as the soil depth and color.

It is slow painstaking work but each artifact adds another detail to the story of the first settlers of the Damariscotta region, and for Dinsmore it is a labor of love.

“This region has a very rich and diverse history that is worthy of protecting,” said Dinsmore. A lot of that history is being inadvertently destroyed though development. “Hopefully by doing these professional archaeological digs, we can paint back a better picture of what transpired before us and share that with future generations,” he said.

The story of the Phillips family, for example, links the Indian Wars with the Salem Witch Trials.

When the Wabanaki Native American tribes, enraged by efforts to disarm them began to attack settlements in Southern Maine, the more isolated settlements in the Midcoast were under great threat.

In August of 1676, the Clarke and Lake Fort in Arrowsic was destroyed by Native Americans who killed or captured 30 settlers. A survivor warned settlers in the Damariscotta region, including Phillips and his wife and children, allowing them to escape to the Boston area where he became a tavern keeper on the eastern limit of Salem. There his neighbor was Rebecca Nurse, a 70-year-old woman known for her piety who became one of the last victims of the Salem witch trials.

Phillips, his wife Margaret and daughter Tabitha signed a petition in support of Nurse, a dangerous thing to do in a time of mass hysteria.

For more information on the talk or on St. Andrews Village, please call 207-633-0920.