George Cleeve was an early settler and "founder of Portland, Maine

Portland, Maine

Portland is the largest city in Maine and is the county seat of Cumberland County. The 2010 city population was 66,194, growing 3 percent since the census of 2000...

"; Deputy President of the Province of Lygonia

Lygonia

Lygonia was a proprietary province in pre-colonial Maine, created through a grant from the Plymouth Council for New England in 1630 to lands then under control of Sir Ferdinando Gorges. The grant was named for his mother, Cicely Gorges...

from 1643 until the final submission of its Maine towns to Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 authority in 1658.

Born about 1586 in Stogursey

Stogursey

Stogursey is the name of a small village and civil parish in the Quantock Hills in Somerset, England. It is situated from Nether Stowey, and west of Bridgwater...

, Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

shire, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, he came to New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

 in 1630, settling first at Spurwink (near today's Cape Elizabeth), and at today's Portland in 1633. In 1637, Sir Ferdinando Gorges

Ferdinando Gorges

Sir Ferdinando Gorges , the "Father of English Colonization in North America", was an early English colonial entrepreneur and founder of the Province of Maine in 1622, although Gorges himself never set foot in the New World.-Biography:...

granted Cleeve and associate Richard Tucker 1500 acres (6.1 km²) at Machegonne (Portland Neck) that included the area of today's downtown Portland.

His career was both contentious and litigious, engaged in frequent land disputes and vying with Gorges' Province of Maine

Province of Maine

The Province of Maine refers to several English colonies of that name that existed in the 17th century along the northeast coast of North America, at times roughly encompassing portions of the present-day U.S. states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, as well as the Canadian provinces of Quebec...

 for jurisdiction over the area north of Cape Porpoise. He is known to have convened provincial courts at Casco in 1644 and Black Point in 1648.

Under Massachusetts governance of the area, he was Commissioner for Falmouth (from 1658)and Representative to the General Court, 1663-1664.

He died sometime after November 1666, last known record of his life.

He married Joan Price 7 September 1618; daughter Elizabeth (born 1619) married in 1637 Michael Mitton, from whom there are numerous descendants.