On October 17 1897, the San Francisco Call published a sensational story about the northern Maine town of Fort Kent, some 3,500 miles distant: “Two hundred and fifty cases of diphtheria and twenty five deaths are the appalling record up to the latest reports from Fort Kent…the disease has grown beyond control, and the strictest […]
You can’t always believe everything you read. That adage is equally applicable in our modern internet age and when reading 19th century newspapers. So the following story, which appeared in the Ellsworth American, January 18, 1899, is offered with the caution that it hasn’t been corroborated with any other sources. Whether or not it’s inspired […]
Rural Maine was in a bad way. Young people were leaving in droves, headed to the cities, or to other states to seek their fortune. Farms sat empty, while the farmers that remained couldn’t find enough help. It’s a story that has resonance today, when economists are warning that Maine, especially its rural areas, are […]
A political realignment. Promises to drain the swamp and put Americans first. Attacks, both verbal and physical, on immigrants and minorities. In 1854 and 1855, Maine, like much of the country, was shaken by the rise of the Know-Nothing movement. Its anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic rhetoric overturned state politics and spilled over into mob violence. For […]
In 1616, one of the most famous conflicts between science and faith occurred in Rome. The Italian scientist Galileo, who had built on the work of Dutch astronomer Nicholas Copernicus, was being challenged by the Inquisition of the Catholic Church. An inquisitorial commission found unanimously that the theory of heliocentrism was not only “foolish and […]
In 1886, the school board of the city of Augusta noted that as more French Canadians were coming to the city, they were increasingly bringing their families with them, or starting families in their new homeland. As a result, the committee recommended that these young “French scholars” be educated in the city’s public school system. […]
American thanksgivings are characterized by slabs of roasted meat, free-flowing liquor and good cheer. This tradition is usually traced to the Pilgrim Fathers, and a feast they shared with the local Indians at Plymouth (Massachusetts) in 1621. However, it’s now widely accepted that there are many other possible origins for the tradition of Thanksgiving, including Spanish celebrations […]
It is the early hours of a March day in 1812, and the pre-dawn light is just beginning to clear the fog on Passamaquoddy Bay. Two Jonesboro fishermen, Charles and Edgar Wass, are heading out for a day’s work; only the sound of their oars pulling against the ocean breaks the morning stillness. Until, out of the […]
A threat to security; a liability on the public purse; unwanted and unwelcome. Those sentiments have been applied to today’s refugees, especially this election cycle – but they were also the feelings of many New Englanders to the thousands of Acadians who found themselves placed in towns across Massachusetts (including the District of Maine) in […]
