BATH (AP) – A nonprofit group in Maine has suspended its campaign to raise $2.2 million to build a full-scale replica of a ship built in 1607 by English colonists in Phippsburg.

Maine’s First Ship says it will no longer solicit donations for the project and will instead look at less expensive ways to preserve the story of the failed Popham Colony and its 30-ton vessel, the Virginia.

Bud Warren, the organization’s president, said the state of the economy made it impossible to raise the funds needed to build the replica.

The Virginia was the first ship built by English colonists in what is now the U.S., and marked the start of Maine’s long shipbuilding tradition.

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