December 22
December 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 1864 Governor (1844, 1847-1850) John W. Dana, a Democrat who later moved to South America to become a sheep farmer, dies near Buenos…
December 6
December 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 1915 Shipwreck of the three masted schooner William L. Elkins off Cape Elizabeth during a northeast gale. 1931 Kate Furbush, noted botanist and…
Dempsey, Deborah Doane
Dempset was the first female to graduate from Maine Maritime Academy. Born and raised in Connecticut, she went to the University of Vermont where she worked for a yacht delivery company. Later she decided to further her education at the Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, where she was at the top of her class. After…
Dix, Dorothea
was born on April 4, 1802 in Hampden. A park in her honor was created in that town. She was the first child of three born to Joseph Dix and Mary Bigelow Dix. Her grandfather, Elijah Dix, owned land in Dixmont and Dixfield and lent those towns his name. While a young girl, her family…
Dow, Neal
(1804-1897) was born in Portland on March 20, 1804. He was educated by his Quaker parents in the principles of temperance, industry, and thrift and attended the Friends Academy in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Instead of college, he entered his father’s tanning business and became a partner. He was successful in business and was called “one…
Eckstorm, Fannie Hardy
(1865-1946), a historian of the Penobscot Indians, was born in Brewer. She also wrote historical articles about the lumber and fur industries in the Penobscot Valley. She was respected for her exact research on the history of the Penobscot Indians, scientifically accurate children’s books, and her collection of ballads and how they related to social…
Eliott, Maxine
Motion pictures . . . The Eternal Magdalene (1919) The Fighting Odds (1917) When the West Was Young (1913) A Doll for the Baby (1913) Samaritan (1913) (1873-1940) was born as Jessie C. Dermott in Rockland on February 5, 1873. The daughter of sea Captain Thomas Dermott and his wife Adelaide, she had a younger…
Emmons, Chansonetta Stanley
(1858-1937) was a gifted early 20th century photographer. She was born on December 30, 1858 in Kingfield, the only daughter of Apphia and Solomon Stanley Emmons’s seven children. Chansonetta was nicknamed Netta, because her French-inspired name meaning, “little song” was too difficult for Mainers to pronounce. Apphia died when Netta was only sixteen. Being the…
Fisher, Jonathan
(1768-1847) was, according to The Art of Jonathan Fisher, 1768-1847, “an uncommon common man, the nineteenth century pastor of a little Maine town. More than his occupation or the locale may suggest, Fisher was a universal man–inventor, farmer, architect and builder, surveyor, linguist, naturalist. Above all he was an artist, translating his vision of the…
Folklore
The Maine Folklife Center collected interviews (recorded on paper and audio and moving image media) from the 1960’s until early in the 21st Century. Founded by University of Maine professor Edward “Sandy” Ives and located at the university, the Center had its support severely limited in recent years. The collection and access to it was…
Ford, John
(1894-1973) an Academy Award winning motion picture director, was born in Portland in an area now part of Cape Elizabeth. His family moved back to Portland where he grew up on Munjoy Hill. Ford was born John Martin Feeney to a poor Irish family, changing his name to Ford in 1923 when he was in…
French, George
George French (1882-1970) was the recipient of numerous American and foreign awards for his distinguished photography. His work was selected by such firms as American Bell Telephone Company for use in posters, and for many years his photographs were familiar to Americans, as they were reproduced on calendars, postcards and various forms of commercial advertising.…
Furbish, Catherine “Kate”
(1834-1931) made her mark in history by being the first botanic artist in the “Garden of Maine.” The “Posey-Woman,” as she was called by the French Canadians in upper Maine, was determined to collect, classify, and draw all the plants of Maine. Her self-appointed life task resulted in over 4000 sheets of dried plants and…
Gannett, Guy
Guy P. Gannett (1881-1954) was born in Augusta and was a successful entrepreneur. He assisted his father, William H. Gannett, in publishing Comfort magazine. William H. Gannett was a major force in the mail-order and publishing business during the late 19th and early 20th century. Based in Augusta, his Comfort was the first magazine in…
Gorges, Sir Fernando
(1565 1647) along with Captain John Mason, was granted ownership of land, to be called The Province of Maine, in 1622 by the Great Council of New England. Earlier, he had taken care of three Indians who had been kidnapped by George Waymouth (Weymouth) in 1605, returning them to America in 1607. In 1629, Mason…
Gould, John
Selected works . . . Pre-Natal Care for Fathers(1941) The House That Jacob Built(1947), in which Gould rebuilds the house his grandfather built and tells about the family that’s lived there And One to Grow on: Recollections of a Maine Boyhood (1949): About his boyhood in Lisbon Falls, where his family has lived for generations…
Grant, Abbie Burgess
(1839-1892), an early female lighthouse keeper in Maine, was born in Rockland, the fourth of nine children born to Samuel and Thankful Burgess. She lived and went to school in Rockland until she was fourteen years old when she and her family moved to Matinicus Rock, where her father became a lighthouse keeper. Life on…
Greenlaw, Linda
Linda Greenlaw (1962 – ) has written several bestselling books about her life as a commercial fisherman and the culture of fishing. Before Linda became a best selling author she was a commercial fisherman for seventeen years. As the Barnes & Noble biography puts it, Growing up on coastal Maine, Linda Greenlaw was entranced by…
Greenleaf, Moses
(1777-1834) was a geographer and one who believed that Maine’s economic and civil success would be best supported by a clear understanding of its geographic, economic, and demographic resources. He became know as “Maine’s First Mapmaker.” [Click each map to see more detailed images from the Osher Map Library.] Born in 1777 in Newburyport, Massachusetts,…
Greenwood, Chester
Chester Greenwood (1858 – 1937) was a Farmington entrepreneur who became famous as the inventor of ear muffs. An inventor for the ordinary man, he could look at a labor intensive job and then figure out how to get it done more simply and comfortably. “Born in 1858, Greenwood was a tall rangy human dynamo…