Merton Lane (1910-2004) was a fixture in the lore of Maine’s gallery of interesting characters, typifying the State’s culture. In 1905 he became the first fire tower lookout warden in the State located atop Squaw Mountain [now Big Moose Mountain] in Greenville. It was a special breed of men who manned the lookout towers,…
(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…
was born in Brunswick on September 18, 1805. He was a brother of Jacob Abbott. Having graduated Bowdoin College in 1825, with Longfellow and Hawthorne. He later attended Andover Theological Seminary, serving as a minister between 1830 and 1844 when he retired. John Abbot was a historian and author of fifty-four books, including a partisan…
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 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 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…
April 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 1775 Battle of Lexington and Concord begins the Revolutionary War, now celebrated in Maine and Massachusetts as Patriots Day 1800 …
Tireless worker to complete the Appalachian Trail, Myron Avery (1899-1952), born in Lubec, was a navy veteran of two world wars, and was awarded The Legion of Merit. Avery Peak on Bigelow Mountain was named in his honor.
Ephraim was born May 17, 1725 in Billerica, Massachusetts, then moved with his parents to Oxford the following year. In 1754 he married Martha Moore, better known today as Martha Ballard, who kept a diary of her life as a midwife and citizen in Hallowell. He journeyed from Massachusetts up the Kennebec River and leased…
Born Martha Moore in 1735 Oxford, Massachusetts, she married Ephraim Ballard in 1754. In 1777 she joined her husband in Hallowell, to which he had traveled seeking land and work. The following year Ballard began her practice as a midwife. It was not until 1785 that she started her now famous diary, which chronicled daily…
(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…
(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…
Leon Leonwood Bean (1872-1967) was born and raised in Greenwood in rural Maine. Orphaned at an early age, he worked at odd jobs, including a stint on a farm in Hebron, and did as much hunting and fishing that he could. It was not until he was 39 years old in 1911 that his business…
Charles Best (1899-1978) was born to Canadian parents who were living in West Pembroke, at the time. [Frank A. Beard photo] He grew up there, graduated from the local high school, then attended the University of Toronto where he received his M.D. degree in 1925. In 1921 he, along with his colleague Frederick Banting, discovered…
(1752-1804) was a wealthy and influential Philadelphia banker and a financier during the Revolutionary War, a United States Senator, and an owner of great tracts of land in Maine, once totaling two million acres. He was also the founder of the country’s first Bank in 1781. In 1786 he secured the Bingham Purchase, in two…
(1845-1915) was born and raised in Waldo County and rose to become a media baron in the early years of the 20th century. His grandfather, Joseph Blethen, settled in what is now Thorndike and built his homestead in the 1810’s after moving from Durham. He became moderator of the town meeting in 1814, and later…
A sagamore of the Norridgewock Indians, killed in the English colonials’ raid on Norridgewock in August of 1724. He was shot fleeing the attackers in an attempt to warn others. Also, a Boy Scout camp by that name in the town of Belgrade, Camp Bomazeen, Pine Tree Council B.S.A., Horse Point Road. It is named…
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…
(1726-1790) was an investor in the Kennebec Purchase Company, which owned substantial property in Maine. His son, James III, arranged for the establishment of Bowdoin College, naming it for his father, James II. He owned several thousand acres in Bowdoinham at his death. Born in Boston on August 7, 1726, he was well placed in…
Home of long time resident and author E. B. White, the Hancock County coastal town hosts a general store and library at the intersection of Route 175 and the road to Naskeag Point and Naskeag Harbor. It lies across Eggemoggin Reach from Little Deer Isle.