What is "norumbega"

Norumbega or Nurembega is a legendary settlement in northeastern North America which appeared on many early maps from the 1500s until American colonization.

Jean Allefonsce in 1542 reported that he had coasted south from Newfoundland and had discovered a great river. It often appeared on subsequent European maps of North America, lying south of Acadia in what is now New England. Bangor embraced the legend in the nineteenth century, naming their municipal hall "Norumbega Hall". In 1886 inventor Joseph Barker Stearns built a mansion named "Norumbega Castle", which still stands on US Route 1 in Camden, Maine, overlooking Penobscot Bay.

In the late 19th century, Eben Norton Horsford linked the name and legend of Norumbega to supposed Norse settlements on the Charles River, and built the Norumbega Tower at the confluence of Stony Brook and the Charles in Weston, Massachusetts, where he believed Fort Norumbega was located. In honor of Horsford's generous donations to Wellesley College, a building named Norumbega Hall was dedicated in 1886 and celebrated by a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier.

The word "Norumbega" was originally spelled Oranbega in Giovanni da Verrazzano's 1529 map of America, and the word is believed to derive from one of the Algonquian languages spoken in New England. It may mean "quiet place between the rapids" or "quiet stretch of water".