Jump to content
Main menu
Main menu
move to sidebar
hide
Navigation
Main page
Recent changes
Random page
Help about MediaWiki
Special pages
Niidae Wiki
Search
Search
Appearance
Create account
Log in
Personal tools
Create account
Log in
Pages for logged out editors
learn more
Contributions
Talk
Editing
Bangor, Maine
(section)
Page
Discussion
English
Read
Edit
View history
Tools
Tools
move to sidebar
hide
Actions
Read
Edit
View history
General
What links here
Related changes
Page information
Appearance
move to sidebar
hide
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
==History== ===Beginnings=== The [[Penobscot people]] have inhabited the area around present-day Bangor for at least 11,000 years<ref>''The Wabanakis of Maine and the Maritimes''. American Friends Service Committee, 1989.</ref> and still occupy tribal land on the nearby [[Penobscot Indian Island Reservation]]. The Penobscot traditionally call the Bangor area ''kkάtaskkik'', meaning "at/on the [[Sium suave|water parsnip]] ground," which was rendered in English as Kenduskeag.<ref>{{cite web |title=kkάtaskki |url=https://penobscot-dictionary.appspot.com/entry/6123033420890112/ |website=Penobscot Dictionary |publisher=Penobscot Nation Cultural & Historic Preservation Department}}</ref> They practised some agriculture, but less than peoples in southern New England where the climate is milder,<ref>James Francis. "Burnt Harvest: Penobscot People and Fire", ''Maine History'' 44, 1 (2008) 4-18.</ref> and subsisted on what they could hunt and gather.<ref>''Wabanakis of Maine and the Maritimes''</ref> Contact with Europeans was not uncommon during the 1500s because the [[fur trade]] was lucrative and the Penobscot were willing to trade pelts for European goods. The first European known to have explored the area in 1524 was [[Estêvão Gomes]], a Portuguese navigator who sailed in the service of Spain in the 1520s. The Spaniards, led by Gómez, were the first Europeans to make landfall in what is now Maine, followed by the Frenchman [[Samuel de Champlain]] in 1605.<ref>{{cite book|title=Champlain's Dream|first=David Hackett|last=Fischer|pages=180–181|year=2009|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=978-1-4165-9333-1}}</ref> The [[Jesuit]]s established a mission on [[Penobscot Bay]] in 1609, which was then part of the French colony of [[Acadia]], and the valley remained contested between France and [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Britain]] into the 1750s, making it one of the last regions to become part of [[New England]]. In 1769, Jacob Buswell founded a settlement at the site. By 1772, there were 12 families, along with a [[sawmill]], store, and school. By 1787, the population was 567. It was known as Sunbury or Kenduskeag Plantation until incorporation as Bangor in 1791.<ref>{{cite web |title=The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/535 |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:The_New_International_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_1st_ed._v._02.djvu/535 |website=Wikisource |access-date=July 2, 2019}}</ref> ===Wars of Independence, 1812, and Civil War=== In 1779, the rebel [[Penobscot Expedition]] fled up the Penobscot River and ten of its ships were scuttled by the British fleet at Bangor. The ships remained there until the late 1950s, when construction of the Joshua Chamberlain Bridge disturbed the site. Six cannons were removed from the riverbed, five of which are on display throughout the region (one was thrown back into the river by area residents angered that the archeological site was destroyed for the bridge's construction).<ref name="cvb-heritage">{{cite web |date=February 8, 2017 |title=History |url=https://www.visitbangormaine.com/about-the-region/history/ |access-date=May 11, 2019 |website=Greater Bangor CVB}}</ref> During the [[War of 1812]], Bangor was briefly occupied in 1814 by [[British Empire|British]] forces under [[Robert Barrie]] after the [[Battle of Hampden]].<ref>James H. Ellis, "A Ruinous and Unhappy War: New England and the War of 1812" (2009), p. 193</ref> Maine was part of the [[Commonwealth of Massachusetts]] until 1820 when it voted to secede from Massachusetts and was admitted to the Union as the 23rd state under the [[Missouri Compromise]]. In 1861, a mob ransacked the offices of the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] newspaper the ''Bangor Daily Union'', threw the presses and other materials into the street and burned them. Editor Marcellus Emery, who was sympathetic to the South, escaped unharmed but resumed publishing only after the war.<ref name='Godfrey'>{{Cite web|title=Ancestry® | Family Tree, Genealogy & Family History Records|url=https://www.ancestry.com/|access-date=December 30, 2022|website=ancestry.com}}</ref> During the [[American Civil War]] the locally mustered [[2nd Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment]] was the first to march out of Maine in 1861, and played a prominent part in the [[First Battle of Bull Run]]. The [[1st Maine Heavy Artillery Regiment]], mustered in Bangor and commanded by a local merchant, lost more men than any other Union regiment in the war (especially in the [[Second Battle of Petersburg]], 1864). The [[20th Maine Infantry Regiment]] held [[Little Round Top]] in the [[Battle of Gettysburg]]. A bridge connecting Bangor with Brewer is named for [[Joshua Chamberlain]], the regiment's leader and one of eight Civil War soldiers from [[Penobscot County]] towns to receive the [[Medal of Honor]].<ref>[http://www.ametro.net/~bouchard/civilwar/MaineMOH.html Medal of Honor Recipients Associated with the State of Maine] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080512035544/http://www.ametro.net/~bouchard/civilwar/MaineMOH.html |date=May 12, 2008 }}. According to this list, 4 Civil War MOH recipients were born in Bangor, and one each in Brewer (Chamberlain), Old Town, Edinburg, and LaGrange</ref> Bangor's [[Charles A. Boutelle]] accepted the surrender of the Confederate fleet after the [[Battle of Mobile Bay]]. A Bangor residential street is named for him. The [[Confederate States Navy]] captured several Bangor ships during the Civil War. Bangor was near the lands disputed during the [[Aroostook War]], a boundary dispute with Britain in 1838–1839. The passion of the Aroostook War signaled the increasing role lumbering and logging played in the Maine economy, particularly in the state's central and eastern sections. Bangor arose as a lumbering boom-town in the 1830s, and a potential demographic and political rival to Portland. Bangor became for a time the largest lumber port in the world, and the site of furious land speculation that extended up the Penobscot River valley and beyond.<ref>David C. Smith, ''A History of Lumbering in Maine, 1861–1960'' (University of Maine Press, 1972)</ref> ===Industrialization: lumbering, shipping, and manufacturing=== [[File:Sterns Sawmill, below Bangor, ME.jpg|thumb|Sterns Sawmill, below Bangor]] [[File:Maine - Bangor - NARA - 23940707 (cropped).jpg|thumb|right|Aerial view of Bangor, 1936]] The [[Penobscot River]] [[drainage basin]] above Bangor was unattractive to settlement for farming, but well suited to [[lumbering]]. Winter snow allowed logs to be dragged from the woods by horse-teams. Carried to the Penobscot or its tributaries, [[log driving]] in the [[snowmelt]] brought them to waterfall-powered [[sawmill]]s upriver from Bangor. The sawed lumber was then shipped from the city's docks, Bangor being at the head-of-tide (between the rapids and the ocean) to points anywhere in the world. [[Shipbuilding]] was also developed.<ref name='Wood'/> Bangor capitalists also owned most of the forests. The main markets for Bangor lumber were the East Coast cities. Much was also shipped to the [[Caribbean]] and to California during the [[Gold Rush]], via [[Cape Horn]], before sawmills could be established in the west. Bangorians later helped transplant the Maine culture of lumbering to the [[Pacific Northwest]], and participated directly in the Gold Rush. [[Bangor, Washington]]; [[Bangor, California]]; and Little Bangor, Nevada, are legacies of this contact.<ref name='Wood'>Richard George Wood, ''A History of Lumbering in Maine'', 1820–61 (Orono: University of Maine Press, 1971)</ref> By 1860, Bangor was the world's largest lumber port, with 150 sawmills operating along the river. The city shipped over 150 million boardfeet of lumber a year, much of it in Bangor-built and Bangor-owned ships. In the year 1860, 3,300 lumbering ships passed by the docks.<ref name=cvb-heritage/> Many of the [[lumber baron]]s built elaborate [[Greek Revival]] and [[Victorian architecture|Victorian]] houses that still stand in the [[Broadway Historic District (Bangor, Maine)|Broadway Historic District]]. Bangor has many substantial old churches, and shade trees. The city was so beautiful it was called "The Queen City of the East". The shorter ''Queen City'' appellation is still used by some local clubs, organizations, events and businesses.<ref name="City of Bangor Maine">{{cite web|url=http://www.bangormaine.gov|title=Maine's Queen City Since 1834|access-date=December 18, 2012}}</ref> In addition to shipping lumber, 19th-century Bangor was the leading producer of [[moccasins]], shipping over 100,000 pairs a year by the 1880s.<ref>''Barnstable Patriot'', October 21, 1884, p. 1</ref> Exports also included bricks, leather, and even ice (which was cut and stored in winter, then shipped to Boston, and even China, the West Indies and South America).<ref name=cvb-heritage/> Bangor had certain disadvantages compared to other East Coast ports, including its rival [[Portland, Maine]]. Being on a northern river, its port froze during the winter, and it could not take the largest ocean-going ships. The comparative lack of settlement in the forested hinterland also gave it a comparatively small home market.<ref>David Demeritt, "Boards, Barrels, and Boxshooks: The Economics of Downeast Lumber in 19th Century Cuba" ''Forest and Conservation History'', v. 35, no. 3 (July 1991), p. 112</ref> In 1844 the first ocean-going iron-hulled [[steamship]] in the U.S. was named ''The Bangor''. She was built by the [[Harlan and Hollingsworth]] firm of [[Wilmington, Delaware]] in 1844, and was intended to take passengers between Bangor and Boston. On her second voyage, however, in 1845, she burned to the waterline off [[Castine, Maine|Castine]]. She was rebuilt at [[Bath, Maine|Bath]], returned briefly to her earlier route, but was soon purchased by the U.S. government for use in the [[Mexican–American War]].<ref>Edward Mitchell Blanding, "Bangor, Maine", ''New England Magazine'', v. XVI, no. 1 (Mar. 1897), p. 235</ref> ===Modern era=== [[File:BangorME Downtown.jpg|thumb|Downtown Bangor]] Bangor continued to prosper as the [[pulp and paper industry in the United States|pulp and paper industry]] replaced lumbering, and railroads replaced shipping.<ref name='Smith'>David Clayton Smith, ''A History of Lumbering in Maine, 1861–1960'' (Orono: University of Maine Press, 1972)</ref> Local capitalists also invested in a train route to [[Aroostook County]] in northern Maine (the [[Bangor and Aroostook Railroad]]), opening that area to settlement. Bangor's Hinkley & Egery Ironworks (later Union Ironworks) was a local center for invention in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A new type of [[steam engine]] built there, named the "Endeavor", won a gold medal at the [[New York Crystal Palace]] Exhibition of the American Institute in 1856. The firm won a diploma for a shingle-making machine the following year.<ref>{{Cite book|last=York|first=American Institute of the City of New|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qeRIAAAAMAAJ&dq=Annual+Report+of+the+American+Institute+of+the+City+of+New+York+1856&pg=PA73|title=Transactions of the American Institute of the City of New York|date=1864|publisher=C. van Benthuysen.|language=en}}</ref> In the 1920s, Union Iron Works engineer Don A. Sargent invented the first automotive [[snow plow]]. Sargent patented the device and the firm manufactured it for a national market.<ref>''The American City Magazine'', v. 35 (July–Dec. 1926), p. 149</ref>
Summary:
Please note that all contributions to Niidae Wiki may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see
Encyclopedia:Copyrights
for details).
Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)
Search
Search
Editing
Bangor, Maine
(section)
Add topic