went on to become as a popular music star. He never forgot his Maine roots, and maintained an estate at Kezar Lake. Jews Jews have been living in Maine for 200 years with significant Jewish communities in Bangor as early as the 1840s and in Portland since the 1880s. The arrival of Susman Abrams in 1785 was followed by a history of immigration and settlement that parallels the history of Jewish immigration to the United States. What initially brought people to these various towns around Maine was the promise of work, often linked with opportunities that supported Maine’s shipbuilding, lumber and mill industries. English and Scottish A large number of immigrants of English and Scottish-Canadian stock relocated from the Maritime Provinces. Scandinavians The first Europeans on North American soil were vikings from Norway led by Leif Eriksson. These Norwegians traded with the native Penobscot. In 1797, the town of Norway, Maine was incorporated and attracted a small group of Norwegians. A Swedish colony in Maine was started in Aristook by William W. Thomas Jr. to recruit Swedish Loggers. This came to be known as the town of New Sweden. Other towns with big Swedish populations were Stockholm and Westmanland. The towns of Denmark and South Portland attracted Danish immigrants to Maine, also as loggers and dockworkers. Somalis In the 2000s, Somalis began a secondary migration to Maine from other states on account of the area's low crime rate, good schools and cheap housing. Mainly concentrated in Lewiston, Somalis have opened up community centers to cater to their community. In 2001, the non-profit organization United Somali Women of Maine (USWM) was founded in Lewiston, seeking to promote the empowerment of Somali women and girls across the state. In August 2010, the Lewiston Sun Journal reported that Somali entrepreneurs had helped reinvigorate downtown Lewiston by opening dozens of shops in previously closed storefronts. Amicable relations were also reported by the local merchants of French-Canadian descent and the Somali storekeepers. Bantus Due to the civil war in Somalia, the United States government classified the Somali Bantu (an ethnic minority group in the country) as a priority, and began preparations to resettle an estimated 12,000 Bantu refugees in select cities throughout the U.S. Most of the early arrivals in the United States settled in Clarkston, Georgia, a city adjacent to Atlanta. However, they were mostly assigned to low rent, poverty-stricken inner city areas, so