Possible Right Whale Wintering Ground Found

North Atlantic right whales appear to be wintering off the coast of Maine.A large number of North Atlantic right whales have been seen in the Gulf of Maine in recent days, leading right whale researchers at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) to believe they have identified a wintering ground and potentially a breeding ground for this endangered species.The NEFSC’s aerial survey team saw 44 individual right whales on December 3 in the...

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Southern Maine Veterans' Memorial Cemetery

Work began in October on a new 88-acre veterans' cemetery in Springvale. The work should be completed by spring, 2010, with burials starting next fall. The Master Plan renderings may be viewed here.The state currently operates two veterans' cemeteries in Augusta, and a third in Carib...

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How Some Towns Got Their Names

1. MilbridgeThe name is thought to have been suggested by John Gardner of Boston, who built the first bridge across the Narraguagus River.The spelling of Milbridge has been a subject of much discussion. Some say that two "ls" should be used because the name is a blending of the two words, "mill and bridge." They further assert that the early incorporators meant it to be such. The one "l" supporters affirm that their spelling should prevail for if the town's namers did not mean it to be such, they would not have used the spelling with one "l" in...

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Rejected Town Names

Some proposed and rejected names for Maine towns:Sunbury (Bangor)Reach (Bath)North Wood (Corinna)Sharon (Durham)Sumner (Ellsworth)Russia (Greenwood)Fluvanna (Guilford)Columbia (Hebron)Winchester (Islesboro)China (Rumford)Independence (South Thomaston)Sparta (Woodstock)"Hertford, Woodstock or Lisbon," or Williamston (Hartford)New Hancock, or Gilman (Sumner)Knoxbury, or Knoxburgh (Prospe...

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Three Junks of Pork

There are at least three places in Maine called "Junk of Pork." One lies a few miles beyond Peaks Island, and was described by Samuel Drake Adams in 1891 as "a tough morsel even for old salts." A photograph taken last year confirms the following description from 1892:The rock is called the Junk of Pork, and is one of the most dangerous on the Maine coast. It rises precipitously to a height of nearly fifty feet from the surface of the sea, and is encompassed with countless bowlders and jagged reefs. [Link]A second Junk of Pork lies in Flanders Bay,...

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Pronouncing "Mount Desert"

A debate over the proper pronunciation of "Mount Desert" pitted 19th-century scholars against year-round residents of the island.The accentuation should not fall on the last, but on the first syllable of Desert, although the name is almost universally mispronounced in Maine, and notably so on the island itself. Usually it is Mount Desart, toned into Desert by the casual population, who thus give it a curious significance. [Nooks and corners of the...

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Maine Railroad Accident Reports

I've posted several hundred railroad accident reports from 1870-1889 on my Maine Genealogy website. Warning: some (including the one below) are quite gruesome.Sarah Ann Cunningham, a child eighteen months old, a daughter of Mr. Thomas Cunningham of Milford, was killed on the 25th of November, by the 5:15 down freight train, at the railroad crossing in Milford, near the bridge. The parents live within a few rods of the track; but the child had never before, as its mother says, strayed on to the road that she was aware of. It was a very dark evening,...

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Passamaquoddy-Maliseet Dictionary

A Passamaquoddy-Maliseet dictionary was released this week.The dictionary is being presented to the First Nations communities after three decades of work. The project began in the 1970s when organizers of an education program in Maine decided a dictionary was needed to keep the Maliseet language alive.Members of the First Nations communities on both side of the international border contributed words and definitions. [Link]You can get a taste of the language here, and pick up the print version at local bookstor...

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Google Launches Street View in Maine

I just received this press release from Google:Today Google Maps has expanded the coverage of its popular Street View feature to include imagery from across Maine. Street View is a free feature of Google Maps that lets internet users view and navigate 360-degree street-level imagery of cities, towns, and regions across the United States and internationally. Street View is integrated with driving directions on Google Maps to make it easier to see the view of the streets that accompany directions.Using Street View, people can check if a restaurant...

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