Abbott, Jacob

Jacob Abbott

(1803-1879) was born in Hallowell, graduated from Bowdoin College in 1820 and from Andover Theological Seminary in 1825. He was professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Amherst College from 1825-1829. He was ordained in 1834 at Elliot Church, Boston Highlands. An author, he wrote extensively for juveniles, including his first success, The Young Christian…

African Americans

Rock Rest, a former travel inn in Kittery that served Black Americans in a manner similar to "Green Book" travel guide (2018)

were in Maine at least as early as 1736 when a church in York purchased a slave for its minister. John Brown Russwurm was Bowdoin College‘s first black graduate, in 1826. The third black to graduate from an American college, he went on to become the co-founder and co-editor of the country’s first black newspaper,…

Amish

Amish Baskets for Sale, Golden Ridge Road, Sherman (2014) People of the Old Order Amish community have moved to the town of Smyrna in substantial numbers.     Arriving in 1996, the Amish community had grown from just a few settlers to approximately 80 people in 12 families by 2002. Their shed-building business, Sturdi-Built, has…

Anson

09122910-Copy.jpg (800×590)

Anson was the home of Francis B. Henderson, who moved there from from New York City in 1940 where he had been Captain of a barge moving critical material, equipment and supplies in New York Harbor for the military during World War II. Soon after moving to Anson, he was appointed Chief Deputy Sheriff and…

Bass, George H.

(1843- c. 1926) In 1911 Wilton was a thriving community whose merchants and factories supplied a wide variety of goods and services from automobiles to granite and steel. Like many of its contemporaries, Wilton had a free public library, an electric light and power company and a private academy. The town’s development was greatly facilitated…

Baxter, James Phinney

James Phinney Baxter, courtesy Maine State Museum

(1831-1921) moved to Portland from Massachusetts with his family when he was nine years old. He had a varied education in academies around Portland and Lynn, Massachusetts, including classical and legal training. Baxter, in partnership with William G. Davis, established dry goods and wholesale businesses which prospered and led to their founding the Portland Packaging…

Books About Maine

The Maine Reader: The Down East Experience 1614 to the Present Day. Houghton Mifflin Company. Boston 1991. Edited by Charles and Samuella Shain. 524 pp. Maine: A Literary Chronicle. New York 1968. W. Storrs Lee. Funk and Wagnalls. 487 pp. The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators, and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier. Colin Woodard. Viking. New…