Sept. 19, 1775: With the Revolutionary War having begun the previous spring, Col. Benedict Arnold sets sail from Newburyport, Massachusetts, with his expeditionary force bound for Quebec City. The Arnold Expedition has been waiting for three days, delayed by unfavorable wind and then the accidental grounding of one of Arnold’s ships in the channel to […]
John Richardson
Posted inBicentennial, Local & State, News
On this date in Maine history: Sept. 18
Sept. 18, 1918: U.S. Army Flight Cmdr. Sumner Sewall of Bath, serving with the 95th Aero Squadron, shoots down the last of five enemy fighter planes over which he achieved victory in less than four months in World War I, earning the status of fighter ace. Writing home to his mother in July from France, […]
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Posted inBicentennial
On this date in Maine history: Sept. 17
Sept. 17, 1604: French royal cartographer Samuel de Champlain (1567-1635), traveling by sea from the French colony on nearby St. Croix Island and using Native American guides, sails up the Penobscot River to Kenduskeag Stream at what is now Bangor. Sept. 17, 1785: The Falmouth Gazette, a newspaper established at the beginning of the year […]
Posted inBicentennial, News
On this date in Maine history: Sept. 16
Sept. 16, 2019: An explosion at the Farmington offices of LEAP, an agency that helps people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, kills Capt. Michael Bell of the Farmington Fire Rescue Department. Six other firefighters and a building maintenance worker who were investigating reports of a propane smell are injured. The explosion is so powerful it […]
Posted inBicentennial, News
On this date in Maine history: Sept. 15
Sept. 15, 1908: A fire that starts in a pile of wood shavings at George A. Crossman & Sons lumberyard in Saco consumes 15 acres of lumberyards, more than 20 tenement buildings, several factories and some railroad property in Saco and Biddeford. The flames spread from the Crossman site to the roofs of nearby homes. […]
Posted inLocal & State, Maine Crime, News
Spruce Head man, 84, charged with threatening couple for not wearing masks
George D. Kibitz, who police say displayed a gun and told the couple that he might shoot people not wearing face coverings, is charged with criminal threatening.
Posted inBicentennial, Local & State, News, Uncategorized
On this date in Maine history: Sept. 14
Sept. 14, 1908: Voters approve by a more than 2-to-1 margin an amendment to the Maine Constitution that establishes the right to a “people’s veto” by referendum and an initiative by petition at general and special elections. The amendment becomes effective Jan. 6, 1909. Maine becomes the first Eastern state to embed into law the […]
Posted inBicentennial, Local & State, News, Uncategorized
On this date in Maine history: Sept. 13
Sept. 13, 1921: Future President Franklin D. Roosevelt, stricken with a paralytic illness believed to be polio while at his family’s vacation home on the New Brunswick island of Campobello, is taken across the water in excruciating pain by motor launch to Eastport, Maine. There he is loaded into a train from a special baggage […]
Posted inBicentennial, Local & State, News
On this date in Maine history: Sept. 12
Sept. 12, 1910: Making their first use of a recently enacted authority to overturn laws passed by the Legislature, Maine voters stop a plan to split the town of York in two dead in its tracks. The statewide vote is 31,772 against the plan and 19,692 for it. In York, the proposal loses even more […]
Posted inBicentennial, Local & State, News
On this date in Maine history: Sept. 11
Sept. 11, 1922: Dora Pinkham, a Republican schoolteacher and bookkeeper from Fort Kent, becomes the first woman elected to the Maine House of Representatives. Her election takes place a scant two years after the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted women the right to vote. The Protestant candidate’s victory seems all the more remarkable […]