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Maine’s History Magazine Volume 30 | Issue 8 | 2021
15,000 Circulation
Southern & Coastal Maine
Portland’s Owen Gould Davis A most prolific playwright
Biddeford Pool Wars
Saco’s early struggles
Governor Shirley’s War
Maine’s midcoast besieged
www.DiscoverMaineMagazine.com
Southern & Coastal Maine
Inside This Edition
2
Maine’s History Magazine 3 It Makes No Never Mind James Nalley 4 George “Piano Legs” Gore Westbrook’s baseball phenom James Nalley 9 Explorer Admiral Peary A Fryeburg childhood Brian Swartz
Southern & Coastal Maine
Publisher Jim Burch
Editor
Dennis Burch
Design & Layout Liana Merdan
16 Biddeford Pool Wars Saco’s early struggles Andy Hill
Advertising & Sales
22 Portland’s Owen Gould Davis A most prolific playwright James Nalley
Advertising & Sales Manager
26 A Falmouth Fisherman Kidnapped By Confederates A Maine at War exclusive Brian Swartz 31 Remembering Freeport’s Archie Ross Master mariner and friend Charles Francis 36 Brunswick’s Great Snow Of 1717 Fifteen-foot drifts were common Charles Francis 44 Bath Nurse Cared For The Gettysburg Wounded Adapted from Maine at War Brian Swartz 46 Governor Shirley’s War Maine’s midcoast besieged Charles Francis 49 Bristol’s William North Revolutionary War officer and federalist James Nalley
Dennis Burch Ryan Fish Tim Maxfield Tim Maxfield
Field Representative Don Plante
Office Manager / Billing Liana Merdan
Contributing Writers Charles Francis
James Nalley
Andy Hill
Brian Swartz
Published by Cremark, Inc.
10 Exchange Street, Suite 208 Portland, Maine 04101 Ph (207) 874-7720 info@discovermainemagazine.com www.discovermainemagazine.com Discover Maine Magazine is distributed to town offices, chambers of commerce, financial institutions, fraternal organizations, barber shops, beauty salons, hospitals and medical offices, newsstands, grocery and convenience stores, hardware stores, lumber companies, motels, restaurants and other locations throughout this part of Maine. NO PART of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from Cremark, Inc. | Copyright © 2021, Cremark, Inc.
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Front Cover Photo:
Lobster boat owned by Capt. Albert Hutchins of Kennebunk tied up at a lobster pound, ca. 1953. Item # LB1992.301.191 from the Atlantic Fisherman Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
All photos in Discover Maine’s Southern & Coastal Maine edition show Maine as it used to be, and many are from local citizens who love this part of Maine. Photos are also provided from our collaboration with the Maine Historical Society and the Penobscot Marine Museum.
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com
It Makes No Never Mind by James Nalley
A
t the time of this publication, Mainers will have pushed through yet another mosquito season, which, in theory, stretches from June to October. Humorously, due to the number of these pests, the running joke is that they are officially the “state bird” and that the fifth season is mosquito season. On a more serious note, according to the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry, “There are 40 species of mosquitos in Maine alone, half of which feed on human blood.” Thus, it is important to distinguish the myths from the facts regarding these seasonal visitors. First, it is a fact that a single mosquito can lay up to 100 eggs at a time, and up to four times as much over the course of its life. Meanwhile, a mosquito can lay her eggs in containers as small as a bottlecap. However, it is myth that both males and females bite. Specifically, females use the protein from the blood to develop her eggs, while males simply feed on nectar and plants. Second, it is a fact that people with Type O blood are twice as attractive to mosquitos than those with Type A blood. In addition, roughly 85% of people produce a secretion that signals
their blood type. In other words, if you have Type O blood and secrete, then you are a prime target. However, it is a myth that eating certain types of foods can repel mosquitos. Only certain fragrances can, such as lavender, lemon, and peppermint essential oils. Third, according to Statista, “Mosquitos are the deadliest creatures in the world when it comes to annual human deaths, causing around 750,000 deaths per year, compared to only six from sharks.” This is because they carry a host of deadly diseases such as malaria, West Nile virus, etc. However, it is a myth that bug zappers are effective, since mosquitos are attracted to carbon dioxide and water vapor in the breath of mammals and humans, not ultraviolet light. Moreover, The New York Times (August 2019) stated, “Bug zappers are ineffective against mosquitos, since they actually kill the insects that eat them.” Finally, there are various ways to get rid of mosquitos, without resorting to dousing yourself with chemicals. For example, aside from the aforementioned essential oils, burning citronella candles, coffee grounds, sage, and rosemary can all repel mosquitos. Strange as it sounds, oscillating fans can be
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surprisingly effective. According to Thisholdhouse.com, “Mosquitos cannot fly well against the wind. So, turn your fan on and watch them struggle and ultimately give up.” On this note, allow me to close with the following: There was an emperor who needed a new chief Samurai. After two months of waiting, only three men showed up: a Japanese, a Chinese, and a blind American. The emperor asked the Japanese to demonstrate his worth. The man opened a silver box and out flew a fly. Whoosh went his sword and the fly dropped into two pieces. The emperor was impressed. The emperor then asked the Chinese to demonstrate his worth. The man opened a pearl box and out flew a smaller fly. Whoosh, whoosh went his sword, and the fly dropped into four pieces. The emperor was very impressed. Then, the emperor asked the American to demonstrate his worth. The blind man opened a gold box and out flew a mosquito. Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, went his sword, but the mosquito was still flying around. The emperor was disappointed and asked, “Why is the mosquito not dead?” The man replied, “Sure he still flies, but he will never breed again!”
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George “Piano Legs” Gore by James Nalley
Westbrook’s baseball phenom
I
n 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings (now the Cincinnati Reds) became baseball’s first openly all-professional team, with a total of 10 salaried players. This spawned the formation of other professional teams, including the Chicago White Stockings (now the Chicago Cubs), the New York Giants (now the San Francisco Giants), the St. Louis Browns (now the St. Louis Cardinals), and the New York Giants of the short-lived Players’ League. At that time, there was a star centerfielder from Westbrook who won batting titles and league-leading awards for on-base and slugging percentage, stolen bases, runs scored, and games played. However, his unpleasant relations with a competitive team captain, and his interest in women and wine brought a premature end to his illustrious career. George Gore was born on May 3, 1854 in Westbrook (formerly Saccarappa) where he learned to love the game of baseball and frequently practiced in the nearby fields. According to the article George Gore by Will Anderson, “He eventually found an opportunity to play games (and play well) for the S.D. Warren Paper Mill team. In one
George Gore game, he blasted a ball 450 feet. Word quickly spread, and soon Gore was persuaded to leave Maine and give pro baseball a try.” In 1877, after catching the attention of pro scouts, Gore signed a contract with a team in Fall River, Massachusetts. As stated in the article The Colorful Career of One of the State’s Best Baseball Players by Harry Gratwick, “Gore showed up to his first professional baseball tryout with-
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out shoes. He went on to hit .319 in 33 games.” In the following season, he played for the New Bedford Whalers, where he hit .324. According to Gore himself, “They paid me $55 a month and expenses. That was good money for a youngster in 1878!” In 1879, as stated by Anderson, “A.G. Spalding, the owner of the Chicago White Stockings, was impressed. He offered Gore (who batted left and threw right) $1,200 to play in Chicago, which he immediately turned down and asked for $2,500. Many credit him with being baseball’s first holdout. The two eventually compromised on $1,900 and Gore started his 14-year major league career.” Although his rookie year was disappointing, since he hit .263 and the White Stockings finished fourth, his second year was more successful. For example, according to Anderson, “the Mainer led all National League batters, with a .360 average and 116 hits in 322 at-bats. This was well ahead of teammate and captain Adrien Anson, who hit .337. Gore also led the league in slugging percentage, with a .463 average.” He went on to finish in the
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com top five among league players in runs scored, hits, doubles, runs batted in (RBIs), bases on balls, and singles. In 1881 and 1882, Gore finished in the top 10 in multiple offensive categories and led the league in runs scored. As stated in BaseballLibrary.com, “On June 25, 1881, Gore became the first known player to record at least seven stolen bases in one game. It is considered the all-time record, even though stolen bases at that time were not recorded as an official statistic. This feat has only been equaled by Billy Hamilton in August 1894.” In 1883 and 1884, Gore’s performance did not decline, even though the White Stockings had failed to finish in first place after capturing league titles for three consecutive years. However, in 1885 and 1886, the team returned to the top of the National League, with Gore as the league leader in several offensive categories. For instance, on July 9, 1885, Gore had five extra-base hits (three doubles, and two triples) making him the first player to accomplish such a feat. To date, this achievement has only been equaled, but never surpassed. After the 1885 season, the White Stockings played the St. Louis Browns in a best-of-seven exhibition series, eventually known as the “World Series.” This series ended with both teams winning three games and one game ending in a tie. After the tie game, Gore was suspended for “drunkenness and indifference,” and was replaced for the
~ George Gore baseball card from 1888 ~
(cont. on page 6)
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(cont. from page 5) rest the series by another player. In the following season, the two teams met again in the World Series, after which St. Louis won, four games to two. Again, a scandal ensued. In this case, there were not only charges of drunkenness among many of the players, including Gore, but there were also allegations that some players intentionally lost games for money. Meanwhile, although Michael “King” Kelly had the reputation for being the hardest drinker, the management tolerated his habit, due to his amazing performances. However, to send a message, they chose to discipline other players. For example, in November 1886, Gore was the first to go. He was sold to the New York Giants for approximately $3,500. According to Gratwick, “Gore could not play in harmony with captain and manager Anson, and Mr. Spalding wisely released this discontented player whose skills as a fielder, batter, and base runner were offset by his unpleasant relations with
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the team captain.” What made it more difficult for Gore was going from a team in which he led the statistics in many categories to the Giants, which had a roster that contained no less than six future Baseball Hall of Famers, including John Montgomery Ward, Roger Conner, Buck Ewing, Tim Keefe, Mickey Welch, and Jim O’Rourke. Although Gore played well, initially batting .290 and scoring 95 runs, his popularity waned. In fact, by the 1888 season, Gore played in only 64 out of 138 games. As stated in BaseballLibrary.com, “Gore’s popularity had waned so much that on May 3, New York fans screamed at on-field captain Ewing to play Mike Slattery instead. Although Gore had already taken the field, Ewing made the change to Slattery before the game started.” The Giants went on to win the National League Championship and the World Series. Meanwhile, Gore contributed five hits in 11 at-bats, for a batting aver-
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com age of .455. In the following season, the Giants repeated their National League and World Series victories. As for his drinking, in 1888, after seeing Gore in street clothes during a home game, the New York Star newspaper unofficially changed his nickname from “Piano Legs” to “Budweiser Gore.” Following the 1889 season, John Montgomery Ward organized a new league, called the “Players’ League,” in which Gore agreed to join the new version of the New York Giants. He appeared in 93 of the team’s 132 games, batting .318 and scoring 132 runs. However, the league folded after one season and many of the star players returned to their previous teams. In 1892, Gore started the season as a centerfielder for the Giants. However, after an unknown transaction, he was promptly transferred to the St. Louis Browns, where he became a player-manager. According to Gratwick, “Gore began his tenure on August 1, and it abruptly ended on August 18, due
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to a win-loss record of 6-9.” Moreover, his batting average sunk to .205. He subsequently left the team and never played major league baseball again. As for his legacy, Gore had a lifetime batting average of .301 over 14 seasons, with 1,327 runs, 262 doubles, 94 triples, 46 home runs, 618 RBIs, and 170 stolen bases. In this regard, Adrian Anson, in his book titled A Ball Player’s Career, stated the following: “Gore was a good baseball player. However, women and wine brought his downfall, and the last time that I saw him in New York, he was broken down, both in heart and pocket, and willing to work at anything that would yield him the bare necessities of life.” Yet, not one to give in to his circumstances, Gore moved to Nutley, New Jersey, where he spent the last 13 years of his life as a successful businessman. He also made frequent trips to watch ballgames at the Polo Grounds or Yankee Stadium. He died in Utica, New York, on September 16, 1933. He was 79 years of age.
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Explorer Admiral Peary by Brian Swartz
T
A Fryeburg childhood
he explorer who went down into history as “Admiral Peary” spent two years living in Fryeburg, his mother’s hometown, and during that time befriended a local boy who always viewed Robert Edwin Peary as larger than life. Although born in Pennsylvania on May 6, 1856, Peary had solid roots in Maine. His father, Charles Nutter Peary, was born in Porter in 1828, and his mother, Mary Webster Wiley, was born in Fryeburg in 1827. Charles died in Pennsylvania in late January 1859. Mary soon moved Robert to Portland, where he grew up exposed to “hundred-islanded Casco Bay,” wrote John S. Barrows. “There” Peary “grew to youth and attended to his studies,” climaxed by his June 1877 graduation with a civil-engineering degree from Bowdoin College. That summer the Pearys relocated to Fryeburg, where Mary’s relatives still lived. They settled “on a side street … in a newly constructed cottage of graceful design.” The 21-year-old Robert took care of Mary, “a woman of frail physique,” and often arranged his daily schedule around “her conveniences and
needs,” Barrows noted. Peary showed “much filial devotion” to Mary, and “the bond between them was very close.” Possessing “a splendid transit instrument” and “qualified” as a surveyor, Peary “was occasionally employed in ‘running lines,’” usually to determine “the boundaries between two timber lots.” He was called upon especially when one landowner wanted to cut timber, and the adjacent landowner disputed exactly where the cutting must stop. Barrows, a local youth, explained that “at times the location of a single pine tree of large dimensions was a matter of dollars and cents, and the danger of ‘cutting-over’ was a mild form of terror to the lumbermen.” Clients discovered that Peary, “strictly honest,” eschewed financial “inducement … to make the needle of his transit point at any but the proper second of the compass,” Barrows recalled. “The lines he ran were carefully followed” by the professional standards mandated for surveyors. To fill his idle hours, Peary and some “friendly fellows” made “a topographical plan” of Fryeburg village,
“With strict accuracy every building was measured and located, and the diverging streets properly and accurately plotted,” according to Barrows. Unknowingly preparing for his future as an Arctic explorer, Peary often ventured out on clear autumn nights to take ‘many observations of Polaris” — the North Star — to keep his transit accurate. Sometimes even on a clear and cold winter’s night, Barrows might see Peary “striding” across the countryside while “bearing a transit on his shoulder and accompanied by a helper.” Venturing into “a large, open area” offering “an unhindered view” of the night sky, Peary repeatedly read the stars and “correctly established” the meridian. That winter he built in that field “two stone monuments, one squared and hammered, the other rough … to show the meridian” and give “other surveyors” a way “to correct their instruments,” wrote Barrows, who may have accompanied Peary on those nocturnal excursions. At home with Mary, Peary became “a skilled and finished taxidermist, especially of small birds.” Venturing out (cont. on page 10)
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(cont. from page 9) to hunt, “he kept his quarry, mounting them in lifelike attitudes” and displaying the birds in the house. Peary also sold his mounted birds to earn money. A frequent visitor at the Peary home, Barrows remembered Robert having “his own particular ‘den,’” a section of “the eastern wall, between and around … two windows.” There Peary displayed “a number of stuffed hawks.” The den featured “barred owls, partridges, loons,” blue jays, and once even “a group of yellow-hammers,” the variety of species suggesting that Peary was thinning the avian flocks around Fryeburg. Almost 40 years later, at least a few Fryeburg houses still displayed “some sample of Robert Peary’s taxidermy,” Barrows wrote. One year he and Peary worked together “preparing signs for a church festival.” Peary showed Barrows how to determine “the correct scale” of letters needed to design the original sign. Peary “drew in black ink,” and “every line was distinct and without a shake
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or variation,” the awe-struck Barrows noticed. While living in Fryeburg, Peary showed little interest in organized athletics and preferred activity suiting his “individual tastes. Base-ball did not much interest him, not enough for him” to join “the local club.” The nearby Lovewell Pond and Saco River “attracted him much more,” Barrows remembered. Peary participated in “pleasure boating, and boat-parties of the young men and maidens of the village” and “was always a desired member of the party.” Peary most enjoyed horse riding, Barrows believed. “A local stable provided a fair mount, and the obliging livery-man purchased a stock-saddle for Peary’s especial use.” Besides riding the local highways and byways, Peary would urge “his mount into the forest” and through the trees and brush to reach a hilltop “where no bridle-path existed.” Not exactly a bon vivant during his
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com Fryeburg sojourn, Peary nonetheless “became identified with the social circles in the villages,” Barrows noted. Peary “was always ready for skating parties, and his manly grace made him a desirable figure in the dancing events … and a welcome partner for her whom he sought.” Although Peary was not native to Fryeburg, “the young men of the place respected him, and he respected them and associated with them in every way,” wrote Barrows. With “his tall frame and erect carriage,” Peary “was always a good companion and found good companions.” Peary lived in Fryeburg until 1879. He soon joined the Navy and made his first expedition into the Arctic cold with an 1886 Greenland trek with a Danish official. The rest, as they say, “is history.” And John S. Barrows never forgot the tall, fascinating Peary who befriended a Fryeburg boy.
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Biddeford Pool Wars by Andy Hill
O
Saco’s early struggles
During this early Maine history, the n a high point of land, just opposite the old steamboat landing at Saco region inhabitants were defended Biddeford Pool, is Fort Hill, so by garrison houses and two forts. During the war, Ensign Hill distincalled because a fortification was erected here in the early part of King Wil- guished himself in an engagement with liam’s War which began in 1688 and the Indians, and as a reward for his heroic conduct was made lieutenant and lasted ten years. This fort was commanded by Cap- subsequently captain. At first he had tain John Hill, whose father Roger command of twenty soldiers quartered Hill was one of the early settlers near at Saco. There was not sufficient room in the mouth of the Saco River in 1653. This fort was the center of many thrill- the fort for entire families and it often ing scenes during the King William’s happened that for weeks at a time those (1688-1697) and Queen Anne’s (1702- who had gone from the fort were cut Jim Wilson all communications with those 1713) wars. A military company was off from Valley Crossing organized here and John Hill received left behind. Building Carrabassett Valley, ME During one of these separations, from Thomas Danforth, deputy gover207-235-2642 Capt. Hill’s motherME remained at the nor of Massachusetts, a commission as83 Main St., Kennebunk, fort207-985-3361 with her son. In the attic of an old ensign of the company.
house in South Berwick, many years ago, an old trunk was found which had been tucked away under the eaves and regarded as no value, until it happened to be opened and among its contents were found valuable letters and historical papers. From Old Times in Saco: A Brief Monograph on Local Events, by Danial Edward Owen, 1891 One letter, written by Capt. Hill’s father (Roger) to his wife, at Fort Mary, is as follows: “Wells, May 7, 1690 Dear and Loving Wife: These are to let you know that we are all well here, blessed be God for it; and all our children remember their duty to you. The Indians have killed Goodman Frost and James Littlefield and carried away Nathaniel Frost, and
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com burnt several houses here at Wells, and I would have our son, John Hill, hire a boat, if he can, to bring you and some of our things by water, for I fear it is not safe to come by land. Son John be as careful of your mother as possibly you can, for it is very dangerous times. The Lord only knows whether we shall ever see one another any more. Praying for your prosperity. Your loving husband until death, Roger Hill” Captain Hill met Major Charles Frost’s daughter, Mary Frost, whom he married in 1694. The name of the fort was then changed to Fort Mary in honor of his wife. In November 1699 Capt. Hill resigned his commission and retired to private life. Another Fort Hill, located by the Saco falls, was attacked in the summer of 1703 and forced to capitulate after heavy losses were incurred on both sides. The few remaining inhabitants of the settlement fled to Parker’s Neck at Winter Harbor, now Biddeford
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Pool, where on a bluff-like peninsula stood Fort Mary, so prominently featured in John G. Whitter’s poem “Mary Garvin”: “The evening gun had sounded from gray Fort Mary’s walls; Through the forest, like a wild beast, roared and plunged the Saco’s falls.” Fort Mary became the last stronghold for settlers in the vicinity, and as Queen Anne’s War progressed and conditions became more alarming, there seemed to be fear that the whole Saco region would have to be abandoned. “…..During the uneasy peace days of 1707, there occurred one of those strange happenings unique in the annals of Indian warfare, which might be termed a naval battle between white and red men. In the fall of the year two fishing vessels manned by Captain Austin were laying in the bay off the Pool. A watcher on Fort Hill noticed a long dark line of canoes creeping along the shoreline. From the fort a musket
was fired to warn the fishermen of the danger. Finding that their retreat to the shore was cut off, they abandoned one sloop and the crews joined forces on the stouter and faster vessel. In the scant time at their disposal they barricaded the bulwarks with barrels, meanwhile keeping up a heavy fire on the enemy. The Indians were staggered by the barrage as many of their frail craft were riddled and sank, but still they came on with exultant shouts. Fortunately a brisk wind blew up and the fishing boat began to beat her way seaward with the Indians attempting to give chase in the abandoned sloop. But the savages proved to be just as ineffectual seamen as they were marksmen, and after three hours of battling they gave up the pursuit, having sustained heavy losses. The fishing crew lost but one man.” From The King’s Highway from Portland to Kittery Stagecoach & Tavern Days on the Old Post Road, Herbert G. Jones, the Longfellow Press, Port(cont. on page 18)
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(cont. from page 17) land Maine. 1953 In 1710, one hundred pounds were granted by the court towards the completion of the fortification which was now called Fort Mary. In August of that year, about fifty French and Indians made an assault on Winter Harbor, killed a woman, and took two men, one of whom, Pendleton Fletcher, (who was married to Sarah Hill, eldest daughter of Roger Hill) was captured for the fourth time. The garrison redeemed him….. From History of Saco and Biddeford, George Folsom, Maine Historical Society, reprint of 1830 edition.
On the site of this old fort, the Rebecca Emery Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, erected a monument, built of stones gathered from the vicinity, set in cement, bearing on the front a bronze tablet suitably inscribed.” From Maine In History and Romance,
by Members of the Maine Federation of Women’s Clubs, Lewiston Journal Company, Publishers, Lewiston, Maine, Published 1915
The gut and Fort Hill from Biddeford Pool. Item # LB2010.9.118911 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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The Bridgton News, ca. 1940-50. Item # 5975 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com
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A farm located near Sabbathday Lake, ca. 1900. Item # 7934 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com
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Central Wharf Cold Storage Co. on the waterfront in Portland. Item # LB1995.72.123 from the Atlantic Fisherman Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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Portland’s Owen Gould Davis by James Nalley
B
A most prolific playwright
etween 1922 and 1945, a Portland-born man became a busy and popular playwright on Broadway in New York City. In fact, he wrote more than 200 scripts, with at least 75 produced on stage, making him the most prolific playwright in the pre-television era. Surprisingly, despite such accolades and even a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, his name has been overshadowed by many of his contemporaries, such as poet Robert Frost (1874-1963) and novelist Jack London (1876-1916), and somewhat forgotten in the field of theater. Owen Gould Davis was born in Portland on January 29, 1874. However, the family moved to Bangor, where
he lived until he was 15. His interest in writing plays came early and he often wrote them for his eight siblings, who performed them in the town. After graduating from high school, he attended the University of Tennessee for one year (1888-1889) and then transferred to Harvard University, where he graduated in three years. Interestingly, his time in Tennessee and Massachusetts was not as memorable to him as his success as a playwright. For example, in his autobiography titled I’d Like to Do It Again (1931), he stated the following: “When I was about 15, my father’s business took him to the Cumberland Mountains in southern Kentucky…and he took my mother and the
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younger children with him, sending my older brother to Massachusetts Tech [MIT] and me to Harvard. For some queer reason, the memory of the years I spent at Harvard is vague and shadowy.” However, he was active with the Harvard Society of Arts drama organization. For the first two decades of his playwriting career, Davis produced melodramas that followed a certain formula. For instance, according to the Encyclopedia of American Drama, his plays all contained “life-threatening, visually exciting predicaments out of which the good emerged at the ultimate expense of the villains who put them there.” Moreover, as stated in the article Fame,
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com Ice, and the Elusive Owen Davis (2020) by Jack Neely, “Most of his plays were crowd-pleasing potboilers, mysteries, silly comedies, and tearjerkers, hardly Pulitzer candidates.” However, his plays proved to be popular with the public. For example, in 1897, his first play titled, Through the Breakers, opened in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It ran for three straight years. In September 1900, his first Broadway play titled, Reaping the Whirlwind opened with great success. In 1901, he married actress Elizabeth Drury Breyer and remained in New York City, due to both of their careers. Over the next two decades, he wrote or was otherwise involved in 75 additional Broadway productions, either under his own name or under one of his many pen names. In this regard, before World War I, he wrote racy sketches about lowlifes in New York for the Police Gazette under the name Ike Swift. Davis also wrote under other pen
Owen Gould Davis
names such as Martin Hurley, Arthur J. Lamb, Walter Lawrence, John Oliver, and Robert Wayne. In other aspects, he became the first elected president of the
Dramatists Guild of America in 1919. His big break as a major playwright came in 1923, when he wrote Icebound, which opened on Broadway at (cont. on page 24)
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(cont. from page 23) the Sam H. Harris Theater on February 10, 1923, and closed on June 1, 1923, after 145 performances. However, the play also won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, beating Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie and Sidney Howard’s They Knew What They Wanted. This got him noticed in larger theatrical circles. According to Neely, “Unlike most Pulitzer-winning plays, Icebound became a household word, first a radio play broadcast from New York and then a Paramount silent feature in 1924 (directed by silent film director William DeMille, the elder brother of Cecil B. DeMille, the founding father of American cinema). The film featured at least one actor from the original Broadway play, earned a national release, and received critical praise for its extraordinary realism.” Sadly, the film is now considered “lost.” From 1927 to 1930, Davis served on the staff of Paramount Pictures as
a screenwriter. During that time, his work included the films They Had to See Paris (1929) and So This is London (1930), both of which starred humorist Will Rogers. By 1931, Davis had become so popular that he wrote the aforementioned autobiography, which was a lighthearted narrative of his early life and subsequent Broadway successes over 233 pages. However, like all genres, their pop-
O UR H ISTORY I S B U I LT I N B a r H a r b o r M E • 8 5 5 5 0 6 6 3 6 7 • w w w. b a r h a r b o r i n n . c o m
ularity comes and goes with time. As stated by Neely, “Davis lived to see his brand of melodrama and light comedy become old-fashioned…He saw his last production, The Insect Comedy, flop on Broadway in 1948. On October 13, 1956, Davis died in New York. He was 82 years old. He was survived by his wife and second son Donald. On a side note, his first son and actor Owen Davis Jr. drowned in a sailing accident off Long Island at the age of 41. Today, Davis’s name is rarely mentioned, and he has been overshadowed by more well-known writers of his generation. However, there have been some revivals of his play Icebound, with the most recent one being an off-Broadway production in 2014. In this regard, it is fitting to close with a line from the play that best sums up his writing style: “Sometimes somebody sort of laughs, and it scares you; seems like laughter needs the sun, same as flowers do.”
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An Americanization class at the Boys Club in Portland, ca. 1923. Various organizations, especially after World War I, sought to teach civic values and English to newcomers. Item # 122 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society/MaineToday Media and www.VintageMaineImages.com
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A Falmouth Fisherman Kidnapped By Confederates
by Brian Swartz
S
A Maine at War exclusive
ometime around dawn on Thursday, June 25, 1863, Falmouth fisherman Albert P. Bibber and his companion, Elbridge Titcomb, headed out fishing in Bibber’s rowboat. By 10 to 11 a.m. “I was about eight miles to the southeast of the Damariscove Island, hauling my trawl,” he figured. “The nearest land was Pumpkin Island, and that about five miles off,” Bibber noticed. Having set “all but two lines” among the approximately 25 in the trawl, the fishermen planned to wait and see what they caught. Then they saw “a fishing vessel running down to us about half a mile dis-
tant, bearing about southwest,” Bibber said. The fishing boat pulled nearer, and men shouted, “Boat ahoy! Come alongside!” “I cannot do it,” Bibber replied. The men “ordered me alongside again, and I told them that I could not come, that I was under my trawl,” Bibber responded. “Cut it,” someone snarled. When Bibber refused the third time, “the vessel then stood off a short distance and hove to, put out a boat with five men in it, and the boat soon came alongside my boat.” The senior sailor informed the Maine fishermen that they had been captured “by the Confederate Privateer
Alabama … as near as I can recollect,” Bibber recalled. A few sailors “had pistols and all had side knives.” Climbing into the rowboat, two sailors took up extra oars and told the fishermen to pull for the fishing boat. Bibber and Titcomb clambered aboard it and amazingly “were both left to go about as we chose.” His experienced eye told Bibber that “the vessel was a fishing schooner of about ninety tons, all fitted and found for the [Grand] Banks.” He noticed no “more than eight or nine men on board,” all clad “in fishermen’s clothes.” Titcomb was soon “ordered into the
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com cabin.” When he left, Bibber was summoned inside; “I took a seat, and the person I took for the captain asked me where I belonged,” he recalled. Bibber responded “nearby Portland,” and the skipper “asked about the war, the fishery, the steamboats [calling at Portland] and the cutter” Caleb Cushing, a 136-ton Revenue Service vessel based at Portland. Bibber talked willingly, revealing “all I knew about the steamboats and the hours they run” and mentioning that “while I could not tell where the cutter was … I saw a top-sail schooner go into Boothbay harbor that morning that I took for her.” Without identifying himself or his ship, the captain stood and started to leave the cabin. Pausing, he said, “All I want of you is to take this vessel in and out of Portland.” Bibber did not reply, then went on deck “and stayed there most of the time until we came to anchor in Portland harbor.”
The captain ultimately did not seek Bibber’s or Titcomb’s assistance in penetrating the harbor, where the ship anchored “to the eastward of Pomeroy’s rock off Fish Point” about 7:30 p.m. “or near sunset” on Friday, Bibber recalled. Bibber and Titcomb apparently did not realize they were dealing with Confederate Navy Lieutenant Charles W. Read, who with the brig CSS Clarence and a volunteer crew had wreaked havoc with East Coast shipping since June 6. On June 12, Read had captured the bark Tacony, to which he transferred his crew and cannons before burning the Clarence. In late June, he captured the Southport-based fishing schooner Archer. Transferring his crew and cannons to the Archer, Read burned the Tacony and sailed for Portland. Scooping up the two fishermen, he planned to cut out a Portland steamer and sail her into the Atlantic. Bibber
and Titcomb had unwittingly told him much of what he needed to know about the city, the steamers’ sailing schedules, and what Navy warships might be present in Portland harbor. Darkness descended. About 9 p.m., sailors passed “ten or twelve clothes bags” from the cabin, Bibber said. By now the sailors all carried “pistols, and cutlasses,” and the captain ordered the fishermen locked in the cabin, where they lay “down on the berths.” Unlocking the door, a sailor soon entered the cabin and said, “Men, don’t attempt to come upon deck tonight. Make no noise or resistance, and it will be all the better for you.” “Aye, aye, sir,” Bibber replied. Unable to nab a steamer, Read and crew captured the Caleb Cushing later that night. “About daybreak,” sailors herded Bibber and Titcomb into their rowboat and pulled for the Cushing, “near us with all sail on and two boats (cont. on page 28)
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(cont. from page 27) towing” her. The rowboat pulled alongside; Bibber “and I think one man got out with me.” With no wind to fill the cutter’s sails, Confederates in the two boats rowed to haul the vessel through “the passage between Cow Island and Hog Island,” Bibber noticed. The Cushing cleared “the Green Islands,” and Read planned to “heave to and wait” for the Archer. “Past Cod Ledge we saw two steamers coming and when they were within two miles I asked … to be let go,” Bibber said. Read told him “to take either of the little boats alongside,” so over the rail Bibber went to row to the nearest pursuing steamer, the Forest City. Read and his crew soon took to two longboats after setting the Cushing ablaze. The Forest City captured both boats and returned the Confederates and Bibber to Portland.
School children at the Chesnut Street School in Portland dressed in costumes representing Pilgrims and Indians as they observe the “first” Thanksgiving, ca. 1924. Item # 109 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society/MaineToday Media and www.VintageMaineImages.com
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Pratt’s Tobacco store on Fitch Street in Westbrook, ca. 1914, with the proprietor Winfield Scott Pratt, and a 1911 Metz automobile parked out front. Item # 1914 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com
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Phoenix Cottage at Pine Point in Scarborough. Item # LB2007.1.102063 from the Eastern Illustrating & Co.x Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org Discover MAine Mag Publishing 4.85 vertical 7.625 horizontal
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Remembering Freeport’s Archie Ross Master mariner and friend by Charles Francis
T
he first time I saw Archie Ross was the summer of 1952 when I was nine years old. We were going to spend several weeks on Bustin’s Island in the eastern part of Casco Bay. I had been excited about the idea of an island vacation because the thought of being in a place that was totally surrounded by water was a new experience for me. To get to Bustin’s at that time one drove to Freeport on Route One and then took the quiet Freeport Road to
South Freeport and the Harraseeket River. Little did I know at the time that this would be a trip that I would make several hundred times and that the wharf at South Freeport would become one of the most familiar and welcome sights of my early life. One of the chief reasons for this pleasant set of circumstances was a man by the name of Archie Ross, who ran the ferry from South Freeport to Bustin’s Island for some fifty years. On the day of my first trip to Bus-
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tin’s Island we unloaded our suitcases and bags at the wharf and parked the car at a rental space. About the time we finished doing that, a boat that looked like a cross between a lobster boat and a cabin cruiser pulled up to the float that was some fifteen feet below the level of the wharf as it was low tide. This was my first view of Archie Ross’ prized Marie L, the Bustin’s Island ferry. Much later I would learn that Archie had acquired the Marie L through the fundraising efforts of Bustin’s summer (cont. on page 32)
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(cont. from page 31) residents. In 1949 Archie, who was just three years into providing ferry service for Bustin’s, had lost his first boat, the Victory, in a storm while attempting to rescue another floundering craft. Archie, as was typical of most owners of working boats at the time, had not carried anywhere near enough insurance to cover the loss. My actual introduction to Archie came when a man dressed in a white t-shirt and khaki Dickies rolled up to the knee ran up the steep ramp from the float to the wharf in his bare feet and introduced himself. Then, in short order, he carried all our bags in a single trip to his boat and stowed them on board. At the time I didn’t think too much of this. After all, Archie was an adult and I was a child. As the years passed, however, and I grew to adolescence I came to realize that Archie was a small man. In fact, he was barely 5’5” and for most of
his life weighed less than one hundred and thirty pounds. For all of his lack of size, he was an incredibly strong man — of the sort that people say are possessed of a wiry strength. It was his size that made island children like me look upon Archie as someone special and as our own particular friend. For most of our growing up years, he was our size and, because he went barefoot most of the time as we did, he was one of us rather than one of those members of the adult world. Moreover, he almost invariably referred to our parents as Mr. and Mrs. while they simply called him Archie as we did. However, when we grew to adulthood, Archie still called us by our first names. In a way it was as if we grew up together. When I became an adult I came to believe that Archie referred to our parents as Mr. and Mrs. not because he particularly respected them, which, of course, he did, or out
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of subservience, but because it was his way of keeping his own sense of self. Archie Ross was a true old-time Maine master mariner. Born on Chebeague Island in 1924, Archie literally grew up on the water fishing and clamming. His first job was as a deckhand on the Nellie G, a ferry that served the cottage communities on Chebeague, Cousins, and other islands during the summer months. During World War II he worked for the boat pool which supplied various Casco Bay island military installations and helped train Navy personnel in handling small craft. After the war he became one of Casco Bay’s first passenger boat captains to earn his master’s license. He began his formal association with Bustin’s Island in 1946 when the island’s governing body offered him the ferry contract. It was an association that lasted until 1996. Throughout my growing up years
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on Bustin’s Island I was just one of the dozens of island children who looked upon Archie Ross as a friend. Though I and others like me did not think about it at the time, Archie had a special place in his heart not only just for us island kids but for all kids. Moreover, while we did not realize it, we also learned from him. This became clear to me in what I consider my second association with him. In 1966 I took a job teaching at North Yarmouth Academy in Yarmouth. North Yarmouth Academy’s headmaster at the time was Jack Needham. I had known Jack Needham long before he had hired me because he had a summer place on Bustin’s. In fact, a number of Bustin’s young people, as well as South Freeport youth, attended the academy, and several that had grown up on the island besides me like David Pease were to teach at the academy.
One of my responsibilities at North Yarmouth Academy was coaching sailing. Most afternoons in the spring and fall I drove a group of students, which included Tommy Ring, whose father owned Ring’s LP Gas, and Crawford Taisey, a Bustin’s boy, to South Freeport to sail in the old Lightenings that had been donated to North Yarmouth Academy. Of course, often when we were sailing around the Harraseeket River and out beyond Pound of Tea Island, which marked the entrance to the harbor, we saw Archie Ross. Archie would always take time to speak to the students and give them pointers on sailing, especially navigating around Pound of Tea, which could be challenging as well as treacherous depending on how the tide was running. It was at that point that I came to realize Archie Ross had a special place in his heart for all kids not just those from Bustin’s. It was
at that point, too, that I came to realize Archie was a natural teacher. This fact was made even clearer when I took some of my classes to his Even Keel Boatyard in Yarmouth. To watch and listen to Archie explain to a group of students what went into building a boat was to listen to a master teacher as well as a master mariner. I left North Yarmouth Academy in 1969. It was not the last time I saw Archie Ross, however. When my daughter was born, we took her to Bustin’s for a weekend. My mother went along on the trip. To Archie, she was still Mrs. Francis. I, however, was simply one of the Bustin’s kids. Just a little older. Archie Ross died on February 24, 2002. To me he will always be a friend of my childhood. Discover Maine
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Brunswick’s Great Snow Of 1717 Fifteen-foot drifts were common by Charles Francis
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he year 1717 was a momentous one in the history of coastal Maine, particularly along the midcoast. 1717 was the year the Massachusetts General Court constituted Brunswick a township. Going along with this, 1717 was the year the First Parish Church of Brunswick was established. In 1717 Governor Samuel Shute held a conference at Georgetown-on-Arrowsic with tribal delegates in an attempt to secure lasting peace in the region. Then there was the Great Snowstorm of 1717. In short, much of lasting importance happened in 1717, though there are those who might ques-
tion adding a snowstorm to the list. The creation and naming of Brunswick is of course important. It meant Massachusetts was taking a particular interest in the settlement. That was important for defensive reasons. Indians were a threat in 1717. Although the
community had been under Massachusetts protection as early as 1639, this, often as not, hadn’t meant much. The latter point aside for the moment, let’s consider the naming of the township. The naming of Brunswick changed its orientation. Prior to 1717 the settlement and surrounding area had been most often referred to as Pejepscot. Pejepscot is a Native American name. The name Brunswick was chosen in honor of King George I. The King was a member of the House of Brunswick. The name Brunswick looked to or emphasized ties with Britain. The First Parish Church of Bruns-
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com wick is one of Maine’s oldest congregations. The church structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It dates from 1846. It was built on land donated by Bowdoin College in 1804. Baccalaureate services are held there. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow delivered his famous poem We Who Are About to Die, Greet You from the pulpit. Harriet Beecher Stowe is said to have been inspired to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin while sitting in the church. Ralph Waldo Emerson preached here, so did Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Jane Addams, founder of Hull House, and Eleanor Roosevelt graced the pulpit as lecturers. Governor Shute’s meeting with local tribal leaders at Arrowsic really didn’t accomplish much. There was a great deal of excitement. A flotilla of canoes landed on Lee Island. An attempt was made to reach some agreement concerning colonial incursions in Native lands as well as the establishment of (cont. on page 38)
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(cont. from page 37) trading posts. The Indians didn’t want settlers on their lands and they didn’t want forts in the region. Shute’s response was that the land was British. He said, “We desire only what is our own, and that we will have.” It didn’t make the Indians happy. In 1722 there was another war, Governor Dummer’s War. This brings us to the great snowstorm of 1717. The dates for the great storm are, roughly speaking, February 27th to March 7th. It wasn’t one storm but four successive snowstorms. Two snowfalls were of a lesser sort and two were major. The last came through as a nor’easter. Of the accumulation, Puritan divine Cotton Mather wrote, “As mighty a snow, as perhaps has been known in the memory of man, is at this time lying on the ground.” It was so massive an accumulation that detailed accounts were sent to London for reading before the
Royal Philosophical Society. The great snowstorm is often cited as a benchmark storm for New England. Given this, it must be taken into consideration that all evidence as to the severity of the storm is anecdotal. There was no official meteorological record-keeping office in existence back then. The anecdotes are fascinating, though. There are stories of livestock buried in drifts and surviving. Cows and poultry deemed lost, miraculously reappeared, hungry but otherwise well. Again and again one finds accounts of people saying parents and grandparents were unable to recall anything equalling the storm. The oldest Indians said that even the ancestors never spoke of a storm of such magnitude. An early settler of what may now be Bowdoinham lost his cabin. He had been away when the storm hit. When he returned — one can only assume on
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snowshoes — the snow was so deep in the general area of his cabin he couldn’t identify a landmark. An Indian found the abode by traces of vapor from the chimney. The settler’s entombed family had run out of wood but survived by huddling together under a blanket. Their breath and body heat wafted up the chimney, keeping a hole in the snow open. Even before the great snow, the winter of 1716-17 had been particularly severe in terms of snow. There are recurring accounts of snow to a depth of five feet at the end of December. At the end of January, there were supposed to have been twenty-five-foot drifts in places. Were these exaggerations? Maybe. But there was certainly an excessive amount of snow on the ground even before the great snow. When the great storm hit it added to anything that had not already been cleared. One place that had been cleared was
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com the post road that connected Maine with Boston. Immediately after the worst of the great storm, snow to a depth of five feet was reported as routine. Drifts of fifteen feet were common. As to the total accumulation in the midcoast area for the winter of 171617, a good estimate would be eight to ten feet. The estimates are arrived at in the following manner. There were a few homes in Brunswick at the time with second floors. People got out of these houses through second-floor windows situated on the lee side of the house. A somewhat similar system of measure involves trees. Men were able to go out and cut firewood after the great snow. The woodcutters went out when they were able to walk on the surface of the snow. In the spring, when the snow melted, tree stumps were measured at eight to ten feet off the ground. Cotton Mather called the great snow
“an horrid storm.” Eliphalet Adams, another preacher of the time had more to say. He preached a sermon the last day of the storm. Adams was a Congregationalist. He could well have been delivering his sermon from the First Parish Church pulpit in Brunswick. The First Parish Church is Congregationalist. Adams’ sermon was titled A Discourse Occasioned by the Late Distressing Storm. He took his text from the first chapter of Nahum: “The Lord hath His way in the whirlwind, and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet.” For Adams, the storm was a result of God’s anger. Adams said, “He giveth ice like morsels.” In short, the Great Snow of 1717, may — whether it came as a result of God’s wrath or not — be as much a defining point in the early history of the midcoast and that of Brunswick as any other event.
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The south shed and sail loft at Rice Shipyard in East Boothbay. Item # LB1990.49.202 from the Ruth Montgomery Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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Robert “Bob” Foster, who was an auctioneer in the midcoast region for over 20 years. Foster also boxed, trained race horses and ran various businesses. His son Robert Foster Jr. followed in his foot steps in the 1980s. Item # LB2005.24.6124 from the Boutilier Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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G.E. Haggett’s house and store in South Newcastle. Item # LB2007.1.1032527 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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Bath Nurse Cared For The Gettysburg Wounded by Brian Swartz
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Adapted from Maine at War
rior to the Civil War, Sarah Sampson lived quietly in Bath with her husband, Charles A.L. Sampson. He carved figureheads for wooden boats built in Bath and elsewhere. When Charles joined the 3rd Maine Infantry Regiment as a captain in spring 1861, Sarah tagged along as he took his company upriver to Augusta, where the regiment formed prior to mustering into the U.S. Army. Soon Charles became the 3rd Maine’s lieutenant colonel, and Sarah accompanied him as a nurse as the regiment shipped to Wash-
ington, D.C. Sarah cared for sick and wounded Maine soldiers after First Manassas, during the Peninsula Campaign, and after the December 1861 battle at Fredericksburg. Shortly after the fighting ended at Gettysburg, she headed to that Adams County town with nurse Ruth S. Mayhew, a Rockland widow temporarily living in Portland. Both volunteered as nurses to care for the wounded men — 20,995 according to the official count — created by the battle.
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Sampson and Mayhew represented the Maine Camp Hospital Association, based in Portland. The organization raised funds to keep nurses in the field and to buy and ship supplies to them. Donations — bandages, blankets, and anything else beneficial to hospitalized soldiers — were always welcome, and the MCHA often shipped dry goods to the nurses, too. Potatoes, dry beans, dried apples, and canned foods were particularly welcome. Sampson and Mayhew caught a train
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com to Baltimore and then to a Northern Central Railroad train. The Northern ran almost due north from Baltimore to the Susquehanna River, skirted its southern shore to Marysville (upstream from Harrisburg), and crossed the river there. The Northern connected with the Hanover Railroad at Hanover Junction, a wye-shaped interchange south of York, Pennsylvania. The three-story, wood-framed depot standing between the two railroad lines had wooden boarding platforms extending to the tracks. Sampson and Mayhew reached Hanover Junction at 1 a.m. on a mid-July day; neither nurse indicated the date. Darkness lay heavy over the depot, and the nurses crowded into its entryway and stairwell with 28 other men and women. A train ride being noisy and motion-filled in that era, passengers were tired and hungry. A Harrisburg-bound train removed waiting passengers at 4 a.m. Fired upon during the Peninsula Campaign, Sarah Sampson was usually prepared for times like this. Mayhew watched as Sampson, “who was the moving spirit of all present, proposed making tea. “So, opening her trunk which seems to contain an inexhaustible supply of good things,” Sampson took out and “lighted the spirit lamp, and using her trunk for a table, she
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made tea for some weary travelers,” Mayhew said. Sampson removed other items from her trunk, too. Eyes widened all around her as “she served out with crackers and cookies. “Part of our company were soldiers on guard,” and they partook of the repast, too, Mayhew noticed. The soldiers were there because Confederate troops had torn up the railroad tracks and burned the turntable at Hanover Junction prior to Gettysburg. “The tea somehow seemed to loosen our tongues, for we were more voluble after it,” Mayhew said. Sampson joined the conversation; fellow passengers would have certainly expressed their gratitude, and they might have heard tales of Sampson’s wartime adventures, including being aboard a James River hospital ship accurately shelled by Jeb Stuart’s artillery. Warmed by the hot tea and refreshments, the passengers stirred into activity. “Taking the dipper that we had used for a water pail, we filled it at the pump and poured it on each other’s heads,” Mayhew recalled. “We then seated ourselves on the floor and brushed our hair.” A Gettysburg-bound train clattered into the junction, which the passengers left at 9 a.m. Sampson and Mayhew sat on boxes and valises in a cattle car and reached Gettysburg later that day. Sampson stayed four weeks at Get-
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tysburg, mostly at the Third Corps’ hospital, which sheltered many badly wounded Maine soldiers. The army consolidated the various hospitals intothe much larger Camp Letterman, set up about one mile east of Gettysburg, by a grove of trees located near the York Pike and the railroad running east to Hanover Junction. Sampson definitely cared for soldiers at Camp Letterman, too. Sometime before mid-August, a photographer posed a group of people outside a U.S. Sanitary Commission tent at the hospital. Of the eleven people in the photograph, three are women. Two stood; the woman sitting beside the table while holding a ribbon-decorated hat on her lap has been identified as Sarah Sampson. While working at the Third Corps’ hospital, she collected “the effects of all who died from our State.” She also visited every hospital to get “the names of those [Mainers] who have died there,” she wrote Governor Abner Coburn. Sampson brought the dead soldiers’ effects with her upon returning to Washington, D.C. on Saturday, August 15. “I left our soldiers very reluctantly at Gettysburg; they needed my service much, and urged me to remain,” but she “had no instructions to remain,” she told Coburn. Discover Maine
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Governor Shirley’s War by Charles Francis
Maine’s midcoast besieged
I
n Europe it was called the War of Austrian Succession. For most of North America it was King George’s War. On the Maine frontier, where the greatest danger from the enemy lay, it was Governor Shirley’s War. In the first decades of the eighteenth century much of the Province of Maine, especially the area between the Kennebec and the Penobscot, which was its easternmost boundary, was viewed as a buffer zone between the colonies to the south and the French and their Indian allies. Fortunately for the people who lived in communities like Waldoboro or along the Sheepscot and Georges Rivers and on the western side of Penobscot Bay, Governor William Shirley was keenly aware of the danger the people living on this frontier were exposed to. Shirley was the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and his jurisdiction extended to the Province of Maine. This was a good thing because the long-term struggle between France and England to dominate the continent of North America would center here. The people living on the Maine frontier could have cared less when the
war began in Europe over the matter of who would sit on the Hapsburg throne of Austria. However, when France and England got involved on opposite sides of the conflict in 1744, the conflict ended up right on their doorstep. Fortunately for them, Governor Shirley had seen it coming. In 1743 Shirley had raised ten fifty-man companies of “snow-shoe men” in the Maine frontier. These men, who Shirley ordered equipped “with a good gun and ammunition, a hatchet, and an extra pair of shoes or moccasins” patrolled the backcountry ranging from Pownalborough on the Kennebec all the way to Fort Point at the mouth of the Penobscot on the lookout for any bands of marauding Indians. In addition, Shirley provided funds for stockades and garrison houses so that people had a refuge to flee to in case of attack. In particular, he ordered Samuel Waldo, who was in charge of the defense of the easternmost frontier, to build “a number of forts in order to prevent the incursions of the French and their Indians.” None of this was enough, however, although it did impress local Indians
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so that they remained peaceful. The real problem lay to the north in Nova Scotia, where the French and their Micmac allies where plotting havoc for the Maine frontier. In June of 1744 news of the declaration of war between France and England reached Boston. Shirley immediately called for raising five hundred militiamen as reinforcements. Three hundred of these were for the Maine frontier, especially for the chief settlements at Waldoboro and on the Georges River, in the general area of what is now Thomaston. In addition, he negotiated a treaty with the Penobscots and made a formal declaration of war on the St. John Indians (Malecites) and Cape Sable Indians (Micmacs) who had made formal alliances with the French. The declaration also included a bounty on scalps. The key figures in the defense of Maine at this time were William Pepperell and Samuel Waldo, the founder of Waldoboro. Pepperell, who lived in Kittery, had western Maine as his charge and Waldo eastern Maine. Two others who would emerge as military
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com leaders were John Gorham and Arthur Noble. Gorham and his father had major landholdings in the area of what would become Gorham. Noble and his brother had similar holdings in the township that would come to bear their name, Nobleboro. Throughout 1744 and into 1745 the Maine frontier remained relatively quiet. While there were some raids — in early 1745 Indians burned John Gorham’s sawmill in Gorham — the attention of the French was directed towards harassing New England fishermen from their great fortress at Louisburg. At this point Samuel Waldo came up with the idea of taking the fortress, and with the support of the Duke of Newcastle got British approval for the venture. Governor Shirley raised three thousand men for the expedition to Louisburg. Pepperell was the commander of the expedition and Waldo second in command. Noble was Waldo’s chief
lieutenant and Gorham would become Pepperell’s. While there were contingents from Connecticut and New Hampshire as well as Massachusetts, the bulk of the force was raised by Pepperell and Waldo in Maine. Thanks in part to the naval support of Sir Peter Warren, Louisburg, “the Gibraltar of North America,” fell on June 16, 1745. Much to the dismay of the New Englanders, however, Britain was to hand it back to the French in the treaty ending the war. The Louisburg expedition had a more immediate effect on the Maine frontier, however. Samuel Waldo had effectively stripped eastern Maine of men capable of defending the frontier. During the summer of 1745 small roving bands of Indians, including the Penobscots who broke their treaty, harassed isolated settlers, killing some and burning others out. In the spring and summer of 1746 the eastern Indians, including bands
from Nova Scotia, increased their attacks so that the woods seemed alive with them. Towns such as Wiscasset, Damariscotta, and Waldoboro were literally besieged. Williamson in his A History of Maine describes the attack on Waldoboro. “The attack was made by a large body of Indians who reduced the habitations of the people to ashes, killing some and carrying others into captivity.” There are records of torture and captives wandering in the woods never to be heard from again. It was, without doubt, the darkest period in Maine history. Then came news of the disappearance of over one hundred and fifty New England fishermen, many from Maine. The same year that the Maine frontier was undergoing its darkest hour, France sent a fleet to reinforce Louisburg. On the way, it captured a number of New England fishing boats. The fleet was also bringing a priest by the name (cont. on page 48)
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(cont. from page 47) of Le Loute to minister to the Micmacs. Le Loute and the fishermen were put ashore on Chignecto isthmus in Nova Scotia, where Cupo, the most belligerent of the Micmac war chiefs, met him. None of the fishermen were ever heard from again. 1748 saw the end of Governor Shirley’s War. That year the last Indian raids, where residents were killed and buildings burned, occurred in Brunswick and Saco. Prior to that, however, troubles with the French and Indians had dropped off significantly. One reason was that Governor Shirley had taken the fighting to their home ground in Nova Scotia. Under Shirley’s direction, John Gorham organized his famous Gorham’s Rangers and used them to such effect in Nova Scotia that the Micmacs had come to loathe his name. Arthur Noble had commanded a militia regiment there also. Noble, in fact, lost his life at the Battle of Grand Pre, fighting a combined force of French and Indians. It was largely due to the efforts of these two men and the efforts of Governor Shirley that the Maine frontier finally saw an end to the threat of attack by French and Indian forces. It was only then that the inhabitants could go back to rebuilding their homes and lives. Discover Maine
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Bristol’s William North Revolutionary War officer and federalist by James Nalley
B
efore the American Revolutionary War broke out in April 1775, the Province of Massachusetts Bay (now the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) included a volunteer militia that was based in Boston. After the British evacuated the city in March 1776, the former volunteers created an independent company under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Jackson. Eventually recognized as part of the Continental Army, the 16th Massachusetts Regiment went on to fight in the Battle of Monmouth and the Battle of Rhode Island. Among its ranks was a Maine-born captain, who later met Major General Friedrich Wilhelm August von Steuben (also referred to as Baron von Steuben) and helped him introduce his system of discipline in the Continental Army. Interestingly, North not only became his aide-de-camp (personal assistant), but it was rumored that he, Steuben, and a fellow aide-de-camp were romantically involved, since Steuben formally adopted both men as his heirs, and each of the men maintained an intimate bond until their natural deaths. William North was born in Pemaquid (currently Bristol) in 1755. His father, Captain John North, was the Commander of Fort Frederick between 1744 and 1756, and Fort St. George from 1756 to 1763. After his father’s death in 1763, North moved to Boston, where he attended the Boston Latin School between 1764 and 1770. He remained in the city until the port was closed by the British in 1774. In 1775, North entered the Continental Army and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in May 1776. He was then
General William North
appointed as captain in the 16th Massachusetts Regiment, which, according to his son in a 1777 document (collected by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History), was a “commission that went with my father in his bosom through the War of the Revolution.” In 1778, North met Baron von Steuben, who served as Inspector General of the Continental Army. As stated earlier, North assisted Steuben in introducing his system of discipline in the Continental Army. Specifically, Steuben introduced progressive training, beginning with schooling the soldiers, with and without arms. In the book Life of Frederick William von Steuben (1859) by Friedrich Kapp, in the earlier part of the war, the Americans used the bayonet mostly as a cooking skewer or tool, rather than a fighting instrument. “Steuben’s introduction of attacking in formation and using effective bayonet charges became crucial. In the Battle of Stony Point, the Continental Army soldiers attacked with unloaded muskets and won the battle solely on Steu-
ben’s bayonet training.” This was a far cry from when Steuben first showed up to Valley Forge and faced 12,000 poorly fed, ill-equipped Continentals, of which 4,000 were listed as “unfit for duty.” In 1779, North was appointed as Steuben’s aide-de-camp, after which he accompanied him to Virginia for various events, including the surrender of General Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown. By 1784, North, based on Steuben’s recommendation, was appointed as Inspector of the Troops under General Henry Knox. Then, two years later, North was promoted to major in the 2nd U.S. Regiment. As for his personal association with Steuben, North and a fellow aide-decamp, Captain Benjamin Walker, had an intense emotional relationship with the general, in which he treated them as surrogate sons. However, some historians, such as Michael Quinn, in the book Same-Sex Dynamics Among 19th-century Americans (2001) wrote, “Given Steuben’s reported earlier behavior, it has been suggested that it would have been out-of-character for him if the relationships were not.” In this regard, Nicholas Sheppard, in his article “The Gay Man Who Saved the American Revolution” (2016) stated, “Later, Steuben legally adopted two young soldiers (one of them, William North). A third man, John Mulligan, considered himself a member of Steuben’s group, while Charles Adams, the son of thenVice President John Adams, even resided with Steuben for a while. Such emotional relationships were not as unusual in the 18th and 19th centuries as they would be today, but even by the (cont. on page 50)
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(cont. from page 49) standards of those chivalrous, chastely romantic times, Steuben’s correspondence and intimate relationships make for a very compelling picture.” However, due to limited historical records, historians can only speculate. Regarding the adoptions, it was common practice among gay men in the age before samesex marriage was legal. After the war, North settled in Duanesburg, New York, where he married. In July 1798, he was appointed as Adjutant General of the U.S. Army, with the rank of brigadier general. U.S. Congress then added the role of Assistant Inspector General and appointed Alexander Hamilton, who subsequently requested North to be his chief of staff. In this position, North began a major revision of the army’s regulations and continued to do so until Congress abolished his and other staff appointments after tensions with France diminished around the turn of the 19th century. Meanwhile, North served as a mem-
ber of the New York State Assembly in 1792, 1794, and 1795. He also served as Speaker in 1795, 1796, and 1810. In 1798, North was appointed as a Federalist to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of John Sloss Hobart. However, he only served from May 5 to August 17, 1798, when James Watson was elected to the position. As a staunch Federalist, North supported the Aliens and Sedition Acts, which were one of four laws passed by the Federalist-dominated 5th U.S. Congress and signed into law by President John Adams in 1798. This act made it more difficult for immigrants to become citizens and allowed the president to imprison and deport non-citizens who were deemed dangerous. North was also a commissioner and director of the Great Western Turnpike Company, which was established by the New York state legislature on March 15, 1799. North was a busy man in his re-
maining years. On January 3, 1836, North died in New York City. He was 81 years of age. He was subsequently buried in the crypt under the Christ Episcopal Church in Duanesburg. As for his legacy, North was not only instrumental in revising the regulations and guidelines for the U.S. Army, but George Washington even included North “among the most intelligent and active officers of the late American Army” in a letter suggesting men for military appointment. Interestingly, following Steuben’s death in 1794, North inherited his property and estate, and eventually named two of his children after him, including Frederic Steuben North and William Augustus Steuben North. Meanwhile, North remained clearly devoted to Steuben. In a letter, he wrote, “We (Walker and himself) love him, and he deserves it for he loves us tenderly.” Discover Maine
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44 Degrees North Architects, LLC...............................41 Advanced Quality Water Solutions..............................10 Affordable Well Drilling Excavation & Forestry.............11 Annabella’s Bakery & Café.........................................46 Azul Tequila Mexican Restaurant & Bar......................29 Bar Harbor Inn............................................................24 Bargain Fuels................................................................7 Bark Avenue Boarding and Grooming LLC................16 Bart Flanagan Tree Service & Excavation.................44 Bay Haven Restaurant................................................18 Bean Maine Lobster....................................................13 Best Western Plus - Rumford Falls.........................11 Biddeford & Saco Chamber of Commerce.................16 Black Mountain of Maine............................................11 Brillant & Son’s Inc. Auto Repair & Restorations........44 Broadway Gardens Greenhouses & Garden Center..33 Brookside Food & Drink..............................................29 Bruno’s Restaurant & Tavern.....................................25 Busted Knuckle Tires & Repair...................................48 C&C Construction & Septic Services..........................37 C&J Chimney & Stove Service, LLC..........................5 Cahill Tire Inc. ............................................................37 Cameron’s Lobster House..........................................36 Cedar Mountain Cupolas............................................19 Central Tire Co. Inc. ...................................................17 Chase Farm Bakery....................................................38 Clark Auto Parts.........................................................41 Coastal Car Wash & Detail Center.............................39 Coastal Maintenance Painting....................................38 Coastal Motors............................................................42 Cole Harrison Insurance.............................................16 Comfort Inn - Brunswick.............................................36 Copy Kat’s Printing & Design.......................................7 Cornelia C. Viek, CPA.................................................45 Corsetti’s - Westbrook.................................................29 Creamer & Sons Landwork, Inc. ..................................38 D&T Hardwood Floors................................................27 Daigle & Houghton......................................................29 Dale Rand Printing.....................................................25 Den’s Automotive Services, Inc. ................................9 Design Architectural Heating......................................11 Dirigo Waste Oil..........................................................14 Doherty’s North Freeport Store..................................10 Dow’s Eastern White Shingles & Shakes....................6 EB Plumbling LLC......................................................20 Ed’s Grove Discount Warehouse...............................16 El Rodeo Mexican Restaurant - Brunswick & S.Portland......34 Fairground Café..........................................................34 Five Fields Farm...........................................................3 Flowers Etc. ...............................................................44 Flux Restaurant & Bar................................................35 Freeport Antiques and Heirlooms Showcase............13 G&G Cash Fuels........................................................35
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Ginza Town.................................................................28 Gray Family Vision Center..........................................20 Grimaldi Concrete Floors & Countertops...................14 Haggett Hill Kennels...................................................46 Hammond Lumber Company......................................25 Hampton Inn - Bath.....................................................37 Harbour Towne Inn.....................................................39 Harraseeket Inn..........................................................32 Hatch Well Drillers......................................................46 Heart & Hand Inc. ......................................................18 Hi-5 Maine Hemp and Cannabis.................................14 Hodgdon Well Drilling, Inc. ..........................................3 Hour Glass Company.................................................31 J. Edward Knight & Co. ..............................................6 JM Automotive............................................................38 Johnson Funeral Home & Cremation Services Inc. ....15 J’s Oyster....................................................................21 Kash for Kans Recycling, LLC.....................................7 Kon Asian Bistro.........................................................21 Lenny’s at Hawkes Plaza............................................28 Liberty Tree Arms.......................................................48 Linda Bean’s Maine Kitchen & Topside Tavern...........13 Linda Bean’s Maine Wyeth Gallery.............................13 Linda Bean’s Perfect Maine Vacation Rental.............13 Maine Dept. of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife..............33 Maine Historical Society................................................4 Maine Lobstermen’s Association...............................41 Maine Pellet Sales LLC................................................6 Maine Veterinary Medical Center................................30 Maine Warden Service..................................................9 Maine-ly Pawn Antiques, Furniture & More.................41 Maine’s Northwestern Mountains...............................26 Mekong Asian Bistro...................................................26 Mel’s Raspberry Patch................................................17 Metcalf’s Submarine Sandwiches...............................40 Mi Sen Thai Noodle Bar...............................................24 Morning Glory Natural Foods.....................................35 Morse’s Sauerkraut....................................................47 Nathan’s Wellness Pharmacy & Apothecary..............39 Northeast Laboratory Services....................................4 Occupational Health Associates.................................38 Occupational Health Associates of Maine, PA............37 Ogunquit Beach Lobster House................................13 Oxford Casino...............................................back cover Packard Appraisal, Inc. .............................................19 Palmer Spring Company.............................................27 Pat’s Meat Market and Groceria Café ........................22 Pat’s Pizza - Brunswick & Yarmouth..........................21 Pat’s Pizza - Scarborough..........................................31 Pawz & Clawz Petz......................................................8 Peck’s Family Acupuncture........................................17 Penobscot Marine Museum.......................................12 Percy’s Tire & Auto Repair LLC....................................8
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Petrillo’s Food & Drink................................................34 Pinkham’s Gourmet Market........................................40 Pizzaiolo.....................................................................26 Portland Plastic Pipe...................................................10 Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce................10 Profenno’s Restaurant & Pub....................................28 Quick Turn Auto Repair & Towing.............................40 R.W. Glidden Auto Paint & Body Specialists.............42 Regional Rubbish Removal, Inc. ..............................41 Reilly Well Drilling.......................................................40 Richard Wing & Son Logging Inc. ...............................19 Richard’s Restaurant..................................................37 Richardson Monument Co., Inc. ................................29 Risbara Bros. .............................................................31 Rising Tide Co-op.......................................................41 Riverview Eyewear and Optical..................................42 Robert W. Libby & Sons, Inc. ......................................6 Route 26 Antiques & Flea Market..............................14 S.A. McLean, Inc. ......................................................18 Samuel’s Bar & Grill...................................................26 Seacoast Concrete Pumping.....................................14 Seth McCoy’s Excavating.............................................7 Skip’s Lounge.............................................................17 St. Pierre Concrete Services.......................................35 Swags Window Decorating.........................................15 Taco Trio.....................................................................32 Tangeré Massage Therapy and Wellness.....................8 Thai Garden Restaurant.............................................31 The Chimney Doctor...................................................10 The Good Life Market.................................................19 The Great Impasta......................................................36 The Great Lost Bear....................................................28 The Harbor Room.......................................................40 The Harbor’s Choice Laundry & Dry Cleaning............39 The Lodge At Kennebunk...........................................15 The Park Danforth......................................................23 The Raven Collections................................................14 Tim’s Heating & Cooling..............................................38 Tony’s Donut Shop.....................................................21 Trash Guyz.................................................................20 Tully’s Beer and Wine..................................................15 Uncle Pete’s Community Market................................36 Vintage Maine Images..................................................4 V.I.P Eyes...................................................................28 Wadsworth Woodlands...............................................18 Walton Stump Grinding & More..................................17 Waterfront Flea Market...............................................45 Welch’s Hardware & Lumber........................................8 Wilson Funeral Home..................................................5 Wilson’s Drug Store....................................................45 Woodsome’s Feeds & Needs.......................................7 Yankee Yardworks......................................................32
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