|
Portland, Augusta, Auburn, Freeport, Lewiston, Biddeford, Bangor, Castine, Limestone, Orono, Scarborough, South Portland, Waterville, Westbrook, Bingham, Biddeford Pool, Baileyville, Bailey Island, Aurora, Bethel, Bernard, Benedicta, Belgrade Lakes, Belgrade, Belfast, Beals, Bayville, Bath, Bass Harbor, Bar Mills
|
|
Maine is a
product of the Ice Age. The last glacier was responsible for
cutting what had been a relatively straight coastline into
the hundreds of bays, inlets and picturesque harbors we know
today. The receding ice sheet formed the 2,000 or so islands
found off the Maine coast.
The region's earliest inhabitants were descendants of Ice
Age hunters. Little is known of these "Red Paint" people -
so named because of the red clay with which they lined the
graves of their dead - except that they flourished and
hunted in Maine long before the coming of the Micmac and
Abnaki Indian nations.
Burial grounds for these earliest Maine dwellers are thought
to date back to 3000 B.C. Huge oyster shell heaps on the
Damariscotta estuary testify to the capacious appetites of
Maine's aborigines.
Of Maine's two earliest Indian nations, the Micmacs of
eastern Maine and New Brunswick were largely a warlike
people, while the more numerous Abnakis (or Wabanakis) were
a peaceful nation, given to farming and fishing as a way of
life.
Although dozens of tribes once inhabited the land, only four
tribes remain today. In addition to the Passamaquoddies and
Penoscots, the Micmacs (482) live in Aroostook County, with
headquarters in Presque Isle and the Maliseets (554) are
based near Houlton at their 800 acre tribal center.
March 8, 2000
Five hundred years before Columbus "discovered" America,
Leif Ericson and a crew of 30 Viking sailors are believed to
have explored the Maine coast in 1498 and may have landed
and tried to establish a settlement here. However, the first
permanent English settlements were not established until
more than a century later, in 1623.
In 1498, six years after Columbus landed in the West Indies,
John Cabot, an Italian sailor in the employ of King Henry
Vii of England, sailed into North American waters and may
well have explored the Maine coast, although there is no
concrete evidence of it. hey claimed the area of Canada and
Maine, calling it Acadia.
A century after Cabot's voyage a number of European ships
briefly visited the area, some of them putting ashore to
make repairs and process fish catches.
Two wealthy Englishmen, Ferdinando Gorges and John Popham,
sent men to explore the Maine coast for England in 1605. Two
years later, in 1607, the Plymouth Company from England
established Popham Colony near the mouth of the Kennebec
River, the same year of the settlement at Jamestown,
Virginia. Because the Popham colony didn't survive the harsh
Maine winters, Jamestown enjoys the distinction of being
regarded as America's first permanent settlement.
A number of English settlements were established along the
Maine coast in the 1620s, although the rugged climate,
deprivations and Indian attacks wiped out many of them over
the years.
As Maine entered the 18th century, only a half dozen
settlements still survived. By then, Massachusetts had
bought up most of the land claims in this wilderness
territory, an arrangement which lasted until 1820 when Maine
separated from Massachusetts to become a separate state.
The question of Maine's ownership was a matter of continuing
dispute between England and France throughout the first half
of the 18th century.
The period was also marked by a series of Indian raids on
white settlements, forays which had the active support of
the French interested in seeing the English settlers driven
from the land.
France and England fought for control of the New England
area during the French and Indian Wars. With English
victory, The Treaty of Paris ended all French claims to
Maine and most of North America in 1763. One of the
significant military developments of the French and Indian
Wars was the capture of the French fort at Louisburg, Nova
Scotia, in 1745 by a contingent of forces led by William
Pepperell of Kittery.
After the Indian threat lessened in the mid-1700s, the
population of Maine began to grow, encouraged by an open
offer by Massachusetts of 100-acre lots free to anyone who
would settle the northern province.
The population doubled from 12,000 to 24,000 between 1743
and 1763. By the end of the century, the number of Maine
settlers had grown to more than 150,000.
Resistance to the oppressive colonial tax policies of the
British Parliament began early in Maine.
In 1765 a mob seized a quantity of tax stamps at Falmouth
(now Portland), and attacks on customs agents in the
province became common. A year after the famous Boston Tea
Party of 1773, Maine staged its own version of that incident
when a group of men burned a shipment of tea stored at York.
When open warfare finally erupted at Lexington and Concord,
hundreds of Maine men actively joined the struggle for
independence. The province saw plenty of action during the
Revolution.
In 1775, British warships under the command of the notorious
Capt. Henry Mowatt shelled and burned Falmouth, an act
intended to punish residents for their opposition to the
Crown, but which only served to stiffen Maine's ardor for
independence. The first naval action of the Revolutionary
War occurred in 1775 when colonials captured the British
sloop Margaretta off Machias on the Maine coast. In that
same year, the British burned Falmouth (now Portland), and
many Maine men accompanied Col. Benedict Arnold on a long
march through the north woods in a valiant but fruitless
effort to capture Quebec. An ill-planned expedition by the
American naval fleet to regain the British-held
fortification at Castine in 1779 led to the most disastrous
naval encounter of the war.
The Revolution cost Maine dearly. About 1,000 men lost their
lives in the war, the district's sea trade was all but
destroyed, the principal city had been leveled by British
bombardment, and Maine's overall share of the war debt
amounted to more than would later be imposed upon it by the
Civil War.
After the War of 1812, Maine wanted to separate from
Massachusetts. Coastal merchants, who held the balance of
political power at the time, resisted the separation
movement until the War of 1812 showed that Massachusetts was
unable or unwilling to provide adequate protection for the
people of the district against British raids.
Delegates met for three weeks in October of 1819 in Portland
to hammer out a state constitution, a document strongly
rooted in political independence, religious freedom and
popular control of government. The president of the
convention was William King, a prominent Bath merchant and
shipbuilder who subsequently became Maine's first governor.
With popular sentiment unified behind statehood, the
separation movement went forward. Congress established Maine
as the 23rd state under the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and
Long its first governor.. This arrangement allowed Maine to
join the Union as a free state, with Missouri entering a
year later as a slave state, thereby preserving the
numerical balance between free and slave states in the
nation.
Between 1820 and 1860, Maine's population grew by 300,000.
Fishing, mining and logging industries grew as well. Wood
from Maine's pine forests was used to make ships and many
other products. Ice was also cut out of Maine's rivers and
shipped south. The new state had nine counties and 236
towns. Portland was selected as the state capital, but this
was only temporary. In 1832 the capital was moved to
Augusta, a more centrally located site.
The precise boundary line between Maine and New Brunswick
remained a matter of often-heated argument for years after
the close of the Revolutionary War. The dispute festered and
smoldered until 1839, when it threatened to erupt into open
warfare. The Maine Legislature that year raised funds to
support a military force of 10,000 to protect the state's
border claims at Madawaska. Several hundred British regulars
were dispatched to the scene from Quebec. At this point the
U.S. Congress entered the picture, approving $10 million for
military expenses should war break out. Nearly 50,000 troops
were readied for action, and Major General Winfield Scott
was dispatched to the scene. Scott managed to work out a
temporary agreement between the two parties before the
so-called "War of the Aroostook" reached the point of
bloodshed. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty, hammered out in
1842 by U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster and English
special minister Lord Ashburton, finally settled the
question of where Maine's northeast boundary lay.
In addition to lumbering, the traditional fishing and
shipbuilding pursuits entered a boom period. Ice harvesting,
granite and lime quarrying also developed as important
industries.
Water-powered factories began to spring up beside the
numerous sawmills already located along Maine's important
rivers. Textiles, paper and leather products all became
primary sources of manufacturing employment.
Fishing and farming were also important, but were subject to
greater economic fluctuations. The overall economic picture
- although periodically disturbed by such developments as
the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution - continued on a
relatively prosperous course throughout the remainder of the
19th century.
The world's first Total Abstinence Society was founded in
Portland in 1815. A state organization of temperance
societies was formed in 1834, and within a dozen years had
developed enough political clout to force the enactment of a
state law prohibiting the sale of alcoholic spirits except
for "medicinal and mechanical" purposes.
Under the fiery leadership of Portland's Neal Dow - known
internationally as the "Father of Prohibition" - In 1846,
Maine became the first state to pass a law making alcoholic
drinks illegal. Manufacturing and selling alcohol remained
illegal in Maine until 1856. This so-called "Maine Law"
remained in effect, in one form or another, until the repeal
of National Prohibition in 1934. Abolitionist societies were
active throughout the state 25 years before the outbreak of
the War Between the States.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, wife of a Bowdoin College professor,
wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin" at Brunswick, Maine.
Thus, Maine's commitment to the Union cause during the war
was considerable, both philosophically and materially. Some
73,000 Maine men served with the Union forces, and 10
percent of them lost their lives during the conflict.
Maine contributed the services of two great generals, Oliver
Otis Howard, who performed brilliantly at Gettysburg and
Bull Run, and Joshua L. Chamberlain, the hero of Little
Round Top. Chamberlain commanded the Union troops to whom
Lee surrendered at Appomattox. After the war he was elected
governor of Maine.
Both generals were scholarly men. Howard was a principal
founder of Howard University and served as its first
president. Chamberlain became president of Bowdoin College.
Prohibition and the abolitionist movement gave the
Republican Party its start in Maine in 1854. Hannibal
Hamlin, a Democratic U.S. senator who broke with his party
over the slavery question, was instrumental in forming the
Republican Party in Maine, and served as the state's first
GOP governor. In 1860 Hamlin was elected the nation's first
Republican vice president under Abraham Lincoln.
Also during this period there emerged Maine's most
influential 19th century political figure, James G. Blaine.
From the mid-1860s to the end of the century Blaine
virtually dominated state and national Republican politics,
as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, a powerful
U.S. senator, and secretary of state in three Republican
administrations. He was the GOP presidential candidate in
1884, but lost narrowly to Grover Cleveland.
Thomas B. Reed served continuously in Congress through the
final quarter of the 19th century, and was its most powerful
political figure during much of that time. A three-term
House speaker, Reed was a masterful parliamentarian who used
his position so vigorously to bring about vital reforms in
House rules that he became known as "Czar Reed." He
literally rewrote the book on parliamentary procedure:
Reed's Rules of Order are still used in the Maine
Legislature.
Maine's textile and leather industries enjoyed a dramatic
upward surge following the Civil War, while farming activity
correspondingly decreased.
Responding to Thomas Edison's discoveries in the 1890s,
Maine began utilizing its vast river resources for the
development of hydroelectric power. Plants for the
production of electricity were built principally on the
Androscoggin, Kennebec, Penobscot and Saco Rivers.
Maine's industrial growth continued, although at a much
slower pace, into the 20th century. Expansion of the pulp
and paper industry offset the loss of textile mills to the
South. Large potato-growing, dairy and poultry farms
replaced the decreasing number of small family farms.
The Great Depression of the 1930s brought the state's
economy to a grinding halt along with the rest of the
nation.
During World War II (1939-1945), factories produced uniforms
and boots. Shipyards built destroyers and cargo ships. After
the war, the state government passed laws helping new
industries to come to Maine. Tax rates were reduced and
roads were improved. In 1969, Maine approved state personal
and corporate income taxes.
Throughout the second half of the 20th century, Maine has
struggled to find a proper balance between resource-based
industrial development and environmental protection. The
state has come to rely heavily on tourism, small
manufacturing enterprises and defense-related activities and
installations for much of its economic base.
In 1980, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot Indian tribes sued the
state of Maine to recover almost 12 million acres of land
taken by white settlers. These tribes dropped the lawsuit in
exchange for $81½ million from the federal government.
Perhaps the most important political phenomenon of modern
Maine is the emergence of independent voters as a dominating
force. Independents outnumber both enrolled Democrats and
Republicans and provide the swing vote in most elections
today.
Margaret Chase Smith of Skowhegan achieved fame as the first
American woman elected to both houses of Congress. She was
first elected to the Senate in 1949 after nearly a decade in
the House of Representatives. Noted for her political
courage, integrity and independence. Smith was the first
Republican senator to speak out openly against the excesses
of McCarthyism in the 1950s. In 1964, her name was placed in
nomination for president at the Republican National
Convention in San Francisco.
With only rare lapses, the Republican Party dominated Maine
politics for a full century, from the birth of the GOP in
1854 until the election of Edmund S. Muskie as governor in
1954. Muskie and a small band of young progressives
broadened the base of Democratic strength and began to
convert Maine into a genuine two-party state. Muskie was
elected to the U.S. Senate in 1958. He became an early
leader in the fight for a clean environment and also
distinguished himself as an expert in urban legislation and
budget control. In 1968 he was the Democratic nominee for
vice president on a ticket headed by Hubert Humphrey, and
four years later was a major contender for the presidential
nomination.
In 1974, they helped elect the nation's only independent
governor, James B. Longley of Lewiston. Longley was
succeeded first by a Democrat and then a Republican, but in
1994 Maine elected another independent governor, Angus S.
King, Jr. of Brunswick. Muskie was appointed secretary of
state by President Jimmy Carter in 1979. He was succeeded by
George J. Mitchell of Waterville, who went on to serve as
Senate majority leader from 1988 until his retirement from
Congress in 1994.
|
