My new webpage, Maine Street Views, drops you in the middle of a road somewhere in Maine. Click the "Jump" button to be transported to another random locati...
Monday, 13 September 2010
Sunday, 13 June 2010
Cumberland and Lincoln Counties celebrate their 250th anniversaries this month. Both were carved off from Maine's original county, York, on June 19, 1760. Cumberland lost land with the formation of Kennebec (1799), Oxford (1805) and Androscoggin (1854) Counties, but it was Lincoln that had most to lose. It originally embraced 60% of the land of Maine—from Casco Bay to that part of Nova Scotia now known as New Brunswick, and north to the limits of...
Friday, 11 June 2010
Macon Bolling Allen of Portland was the first African American admitted to the bar in the United States. This item appeared in the Portland American of Sept. 4, 1844:A Coloured Lawyer.—Macon B. Allen, of Portland, and formerly of Boston, Massachusetts, a coloured gentleman, whose application for admission to the bar in April last, under the new act, was, as we stated in our paper at the time, refused on the ground that the applicant was not a citizen of Maine, in the contemplation of said act, subsequently applied under the old law to be admitted...
Thursday, 10 June 2010
In his 1899 book Ancient Pavings of Pemaquid, J. Henry Cartland described a stretch of cobblestone pavement discovered decades past in the town of Bristol. Cartland had excavated a portion of the site and gathered evidence from area residents, including Capt. Lorenzo D. McLain:"When I was a small boy, about 1855 I think it was, I helped your uncle Jim plough this field. He had got a new No. 8 plough and was going to plough his land deeper than he...
Monday, 19 April 2010
The Lewiston Evening Journal of Jan. 21, 1870, reported on the proceedings at the Fat Men's Convention held at Auburn Hall.The Committee announced that they would proceed to weigh the fattest men and conduct the contest for the prize. It was agreed that the prize lay between Mr. Brackett of North Hermon, and Mr. Haven of Chelsea. Those gentlemen were escorted from the rostrum which trembled under their tread, amid uproars of applause, and the Committee...
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Monday, 12 April 2010
Sunday, 4 April 2010
On April 18, America's last sardine cannery, located in Prospect Harbor, will close.Maine was once a frenetic hub of the sardine business, starting in the 1870s. The industry reached its peak in the early 1950s, when it employed thousands of workers at more than 50 canneries. Ben Fuller, curator of the Penobscot Marine Museum, was working with a film crew on Monday, gathering material for a historical record intended for the Library of Congress.“You’re...
Sunday, 21 March 2010
The World Type Writer Company of Portland—incorporated in Maine Aug. 19, 1886—patented the World Typewriter two months later.Two models of this delightful machine were produced with small variations. The World 1 wrote capital letters only. The World 2 wrote capitals and small letters.The machine worked as simple as the other index writers. The user would point at a letter with the swinging index pointer and then stamp the letter onto the paper, using...
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Elwyn W. Lancaster, who died Sunday in Lee, had a peculiar talent.Elwyn had a remarkable memory for dates and numbers and was known in the community as the "Birthday Man." He loved to greet people by their birth dates as he sat at McDonald's. Often times, he would receive birthday cards signed only with birth dates. He could recite hundreds of birthdays, anniversaries and social security numbers. He was even interviewed by the local news station for this tremendous tale...
Thursday, 18 February 2010
A program on "Intrepid Traveler" Bruce McToose's visit to the exotic land of Norway will air on MPBN this Sunday at 11pm and again Saturday February 27 at 11am.[Producer Steve] Hrehovcik said "The Norway Show" was the inspiration for their continued work on the series."In future shows we will be traveling around the state to various cities with foreign connections. In Paris, Maine Bruce will hope to climb the Eiffel Tower; in China he'll want to...
Monday, 8 February 2010
Old News from Southern Maine offers interesting episodes in York County history. Such as when Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh's honeymoon cruise was interrupted by gawkers.They were spotted off Isle of Shoals on June 6th by two New York press planes. The next day the Mouette tied up for gas and provisions at Hartley Philbrick’s fish wharf in York, Maine. Try as he might, Hartley could not engage Mr. Lindbergh in meaningful conversation. While they were loading supplies in relative silence, a 13 year old girl recognized Lindy and ran off to spread...
Friday, 5 February 2010
Following up on this list of Maine towns proposed but never incorporated, here are some Maine counties that never came to be:Waterford County (1796) — Proposed nine years before the incorporation of Oxford County, it would have comprised the "northerly part of the county of York and the northwesterly part of the county of Cumberland."Casco County (1835) — No details are available, but the name suggests a bifurcation of Cumberland County.Mattanawcook County (1841) — To be taken from the northern part of Penobscot County (several towns in this section...
Thursday, 4 February 2010
Oscar nominee Anna Kendrick is a Portland native and Deering High graduate.At Deering High, Kendrick's former drama teacher, Kathleen Harris, wasn't surprised by the Oscar nomination."Maybe I should be, but when she came to my drama class as a freshman or sophomore, she had already been on Broadway. And she has truly worked for everything she's gotten," Harris said. "She always did well at memorizing, improvisation, and she was always just one of the kids. Just a delightful kid. She never talked about things she had done unless someone asked her."When...
Monday, 1 February 2010
Among the introduced legislation found in the Maine Legislative Index are the petitions of Mainers seeking to create new towns. Here are a few proposed towns that ended up in the legislative graveyard:Brutus (1822) — To be set off from part of Chesterville.Truxton (1822) — The town now known as Hudson would be incorporated as Kirkland in 1825, and adopt its current name in 1855.New York (1829) — To be made from a piece of Old York.Maineport (1830) — To be created from part of Prospect.London (1832) — To be composed of parts of Carthage, Wilton...
Monday, 25 January 2010
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Google News Archive now has digitized copies of Lewiston newspapers going back to 1861. Here are the links to search the Lewiston Daily Sun (1890-1989), the Lewiston Evening Journal (later the Lewiston Journal) (1861-1989), the Lewiston Saturday Journal (1870-1929), and the Lewiston Sun-Journal (2005-2006). Or just use this link to search all the Lewiston papers.Update: I have found that copies of the Sun Journal from 1989 to 2008 are available by adding [source:"Sun Journal" source:"Google"] to the query.Search other Lewiston papers by adding...
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Seth Sturtevant of Sumner and Hartford served at Valley Forge, and for more than two years as a member of General George Washington's Life Guard. He sat down in about 1847 to write about his experiences:Gen. Washington divided his men into parties of twelve, and ordered each party to build a hut for its own accommodation. These rude structures, sixteen feet long and fourteen feet wide, with walls six and a half feet high, were built of logs and lined with clay with rough chimneys. The officers' quarters were like these but a little larger. The...
YouTube user iomene has uploaded a great collection of 16mm films made by Chester Chase of Whitefield around 1950. Chase even attempted some aerial photography.On a hazy summer day in the 1950's Chet Chase found a new opportunity to use his 16mm movie camera. Hank Markow offered to take Chet, Mike McCormick and Hack Olsen up for a spin around the skies of Whitefield. The little, 4 place, single engine plane must have found some "bumpy air" on that summer day, for it seems the camera is somewhat less than steady. Nevertheless, these remarkable images...
Sunday, 3 January 2010
I totally missed the fifth annual Sardine and Maple Leaf Drop in Eastport on New Year's Eve.The first drop will be the Canadian maple leaf, to honor Eastport’s Canadian neighbors. The giant sardine will be dropped at midnight — a nod to the area’s historic sardine fishing and canning past. [Link]Fortunately, there's YouTube. The good stuff starts at 1:...
In 1973-1974, Alex MacPhail walked across the country, from Maine to Oregon, taking photographs along the way. The book he planned—"an intimate portrait of America that would coincide with the Bicentennial"—was never published, but he did publish his photographs on a blog in 2008.I started my walk in Brunswick, ME, towards the end of August and spent a lot of time in and around Lewiston, ME, fascinated by the mills and the city. I was graciously...
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