was born in 1792 at Buckfield in western Maine. He graduated in Bowdoin College’s class of 1818 and went on to establish Maine’s first daily newspaper, the Portland Courier. Smith created Major Jack Downing, a character he used in his quest to satirize the American political class. He was an advocate for Maine statehood, using…
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…
Edgar Wilson Nye, a descendent of Benjamin Nye who came from England in 1635, was an American humorist born in the town of Shirley. He moved to Wisconsin with his family when he was two. Nye was a satirist and comic lecturer, who founded the Laramie, Wyoming Boomerang newspaper in 1881. He became famous writing…
Publications Up in Maine: Stories of Yankee Life Told in Verse (1900; his first book of poems)* The Legend of Frenche’s Isle (1900) An Edict in Modern Acadia (1901) Pine Tree Ballads: Rhymed Stories of Unplaned Human Natur’ Up in Maine (1902) * Kin o’ Ktaadn: Verse Stories of the Plain Folk… (1904) * Squire…
Charles Farrar Browne born in Waterford on April 26, 1836. His father operated a store in Waterford, engaged in farming and did some surveying. Browne attended local schools and, though he did well, he was more likely to be a prankster and a doodler than a serious student. When he was thirteen his father died…
September 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 1852 Birth date in Buckfield of Seba Smith, considered the father of Downeast humor writing, whose Portland Courier was Maine’s first daily newspaper. 1918 …
September 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 1846 Henry David Thoreau leaves Bangor heading north to Mount Katahdin. 1857 Maine State Seminary, now Bates College, opens. 1906 The schooner Annie L.…
March 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 1787 Incorporation of the towns of Limerick and Waterborough 1792 Incorporation of the town of Hebron 1802 Incorporation of…