was abolished in 1876, restored in 1883, and abolished again in 1887, although attempts to restore it have continued to the present. (Michigan was the first state to do so, in 1847.) Nevertheless, Maine has one of the lowest murder rates in the United States, while large “death penalty states” such as Texas and California…
Her memoir, Growing Up Shaker, provides a glimpse into life in the Sabbathday Lake community in New Gloucester. Many orphans, or children whose parents could not afford to care for them, were brought to Shaker communities instead of to orphanages. Carr arrived at the Sabbathday Lake Shaker community in the 1930’s when she was ten…
(1907-1964) biologist, environmentalist, and nature writer was born in Springdale, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, on May 27, 1907. From the mid-1940s, she and her mother spent summers near West Southport, and in 1952 Carson built a summer cottage along the Sheepscot River. As a child, Carson was interested in nature and, after majoring in biology at…
For county Quick Facts, use the menu bar above, clicking on “Government,” then “Counties.” See also population. People QuickFacts Maine USA Population, 2010 1,328,361 308,745,538 Population, percent change, 2000 to 2010 4.2% 9.7% Population, 2000 1,274,923 281,421,906 Persons under 5 years, percent, 2010 5.2% 6.5% Persons under 18 years, percent, 2010 20.7% 24.0% Persons 65…
Frances (Fanny) Caroline Adams Chamberlain (1825-1905) was a musician and the wife of Civil War General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. She was adopted as a small child by her father’s nephew, Reverend George Adams and his wife. He was minister of the First Parish Congregational Church in Brunswick. Fanny, as she was called, was artistic and…
(1828-1914) was born September 8, 1828, in Brewer the eldest of five children. He worked on his father’s farm and, like many other promising young men, taught school for a time. Entering Bowdoin College in Brunswick in 1848, Chamberlain studied the traditional classical curriculum and showed particular skill at languages. At First Parish Church, he…
(1570?-1635) led an expedition to the Gulf of Maine and along the Maine coast in 1604 seeking a better location for the French colony at St. Croix. He named Mount Desert Island “the island of desert-like mountains,” writing that the island “is very high, notched in places, so that there is the appearance to one…
(1887-1993) produced a great many books in her career that secured her place in academic circles. Her books about her recollections of Maine provide readers with vivid images of life on the rural coast in the years before electricity and indoor bathrooms brought modernity to Maine. Because of her writing, modern readers can access a…
(1947?- ) (pronounced CHOOT) is a Maine author best known for her Beans of Egypt, Maine which conveys the hard life of the state’s rural poverty. She was born Carolyn Penny in Portland. She grew up in the rural Pond Cove section of Cape Elizabeth and left school before graduating, married and pregnant. After divorce…
McDonald Clarke 1798-1842 Alternate spellings: MacDonald Clarke; M’Donald Clarke McDonald Clarke 1798-1842. It is known he was born in Bath, Maine, the son (or grandson) of a wealthy ship builder. There is dispute over his legitimacy as there is over much of his early life. He was was associated with the Bohemian set in New York in the first half of…
Rebecca Sophia Clarke (February 22, 1833-August 10, 1906), daughter of Asa Clarke, was born in Norridgewock. After her education at the Female Academy in Norridgewock, she moved to Evansville, Illinois, living at the home of a married sister while she taught school. In 1858, progressive deafness forced her to give up teaching and she returned…
Parker Cleaveland House, National Historic Landmark [75 Federal Street in Brunswick] Parker Cleaveland, nationally known for his contributions to the study of mineralogy, lived here from 1806 to 1858. A professor at Bowdoin College, he conducted some of the earliest studies of mineralogy in the United States. In 1816 his Elementary Treatise on Mineralogy and Geology was the…
Selected works . . . Cricket and the Emperor’s Son (1962) The Giant Golden Book of Dogs, Cats, and Horses: 61 stories and poems. (1957) The House of the Swan (1959) Knock at the Door (1931) The Trunk (1941) The plaque on the stone reads: HENRY BESTON JUNE 1 1888 – APRIL 15, 1968 Creation…
Works by R. P. T. Coffin Christchurch (1924) Book Of Crowns And Cottages (1925) Dew And Bronze (1927) A Book Of Seventeenth-Century Prose (1929) An Attic Room (1929)Golden Falcon (1929) Laud, Storm Center Of Stuart England (1930) The Dukes Of Buckingham : Playboys Of The Stuart World (1931) Portrait Of An American (1931) The Yoke…
Colby is a liberal arts institution, known in its early days as Waterville College, located in Waterville on its 714-acre campus. Founded in 1813, Colby is one of the nation’s oldest independent colleges. A residential four-year college, more than two thirds of Colby’s undergraduates study abroad during their college career, and international representation in the…
Selected Works From the Ground Up (1976) Striper: The Story of Fish and Man (1978/1989) Amaranth, from the Past for the Future (1979) Cityside Countryside: A Journey to Two Places (1980): Sun Reflections: Images for the New Solar Age (1981) Breaking New Ground (1986) Fishing Came First: A Memoir (1989/1991/1997) Tarpon Quest (1991/1998) Claremont Hotel,…
Maine has about thirty universities, colleges, community colleges, two-year associate degree granting institutions, and the separate institutions of the University of Maine System. Each has its own identity, mission, and appeal to students from different areas of the state, with varying interests and levels of academic achievement. In 2003 the public technical colleges were renamed…
This inventory of the nearly 70 Medal recipients from Maine is a duplicate of that in a published congressional compilation. Likewise, some minor misspelling and other errors are duplicated from the official government volume. These likely were the result of the original transcriptions. See a similar inventory for post-Civil War recipients, and see a summary…
(1909-1993) was a trail blazing Maine woman and early political leader. First, Cormier was a woman in politics when that itself was an anomaly, serving six terms in the Maine House of Representatives between 1946 and 1960. She did not stop there though. Additionally, she was a Democrat in a time when Republicans ruled, and,…
The distribution of people by age varies among the sixteen counties. Census reports for 2009 show young people under 18 years of age form a greater portion of the populations in western and southern counties. Three mid-coast counties (Lincoln, Knox and Hancock) have the fewest young people, with the northern and eastern counties also having…