July 31, 1779: William D. Williamson, Maine’s second governor and a scholar who laid much of the foundation for Maine historical research, is born in Canterbury, Connecticut. Williamson’s “The History of the State of Maine; from Discovery, A.D. 1602, to the Separation, A.D. 1820, Inclusive” is a standard reference work for modern researchers. A Brown […]

July 30, 1898: Authorities in Boston issue an arrest warrant for the Rev. Prescott Jernegan in connection with a factory in Lubec, Maine, that Jernegan’s investors were told was extracting gold from seawater. Jernegan, a Bowdoin College graduate and Baptist minister, and fellow Martha’s Vineyard native Charles Fisher convinced two gullible investors that the process […]

July 29, 1931: The monoplane Sirius lands on the island of North Haven. Charles Lindbergh, famous after having flown across the Atlantic four years earlier, steps out with his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. They visit Anne Lindbergh’s parents – New Jersey’s U.S. Sen Dwight Morrow and poet and future Smith College administrator Anne Cutler Morrow […]

July 28, 1759: Britain’s construction of Fort Pownall, in what now is the town of Stockton Springs, is completed. It is named for Massachusetts Bay provincial Gov. Thomas Pownall, who oversaw construction. The fort is intended to make the area safe for European settlement and to drive off Norridgewock and Penobscot tribes. It is later […]

July 26, 1819: Maine residents vote overwhelmingly for separation from Massachusetts, 17,091 to 7,132, in contrast to the two much closer referendums held in 1816. The pro-separation result is strongest in Kennebec County, where the “yes” tally exceeds 75 percent in all but six towns. A majority of voters in each other county opts for […]

July 25, 1722: Massachusetts Bay Colony Gov. Samuel Shute declares war on the Wabanaki Confederacy. This begins what is referred to variously as Lovewell’s or Dummer’s War among other names as well. It is during this three-year conflict that English raiders in 1724 destroy the Native American settlement at Norridgewock, killing and scalping The Rev. […]

July 24, 1927: Two months after his pioneering solo trans-Atlantic flight in the Spirit of St. Louis, aviator Charles Lindbergh lands the same plane in Old Orchard Beach while on a goodwill tour. His original landing site – Portland’s new airfield in Scarborough – is fogbound, so he uses Old Orchard Beach instead. “You see, […]

July 23, 1849: Gov. John Dana signs a bill permitting the incorporation of Augusta, Maine’s capital, as a city. At a special meeting held the following Dec. 31, voters approve the incorporation, 586-196. City government and its departments are organized in 1850. In the first mayoral election, candidates run on a partisan basis, unlike the […]

July 22, 2010: The only financial backer of a proposed $1 billion liquefied natural gas terminal in the small Canadian-border city of Calais withdraws from the project. The pullout of investment bank Goldman Sachs and its subsidiary, GS Power Holdings, LLC, was one of many problems that doomed the project. A group called Calais LNG […]