[7] There is evidence that the English attempts to colonise North America caught Levett's interest even while a York merchant.

Alexander Whitaker, an early Anglican minister and English immigrant to the Virginia Colony made note in his will of 1610 that he owed a debt of some £5 to "Christopher Levite, a linen draper of the city of York."

He served as His Majesty's Woodward of Somersetshire to King James I, and wrote a tract on timber harvesting that became the standard for selection of trees for the Royal Navy.

[8] Later, operating from his adopted home in Sherborne, Dorset, in the shadow of Sir Walter Raleigh and other adventurers, Levett became interested in the colonisation of New England.

[10] He was granted 6,000 acres (24 km2) of land by King James I of England for a settlement in present-day Maine, which Levett proposed to call "York" after his birth city.

The next month, on 26 June 1623, the records note "the King judges well of the undertaking in New England, and more particularly of a design of Christopher Levett, one of the Council for settling that plantation, to build a city and call it York.

[13] Levett was helped with his settlement ambitions, according to some historians, thanks to a deepening friendship with George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, the favoured courtier who acted as advocate for the young Yorkshireman.

Noted the historian Charles Herbert Levermore: "So the first New York that was planned for America was to be located in Portland harbor.

"[15] Oblivious to the high-flying spiritual message of early Puritan founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, his partner John Mason and other merchant adventurers zeroed in on profit.

[16] From what we know of Levett, he seems more nuanced: his dealings with Native Americans seem solicitous, especially given the era, and his first wife was the daughter of a prominent Puritan rector.

The expedition, mounted by King Charles I who pressured his subjects to fund it, was an abject failure, and the fleet returned to England in disgrace.

[23] Levett later complained bitterly of the experience, claiming that even as a Royal Navy captain, he'd been treated "no better than a meare slave" by those in charge.

[28][29] The body of the early adventurer was buried at sea, and his wife was forced to appear at a Bristol court the following year to recover his effects.