Willard W. Glazier

The Coast of Maine.—Early Settlements in Portland.—Troubles with the Indians.—Destruction of the Town in 1690.—Destroyed Again in 1703.—Subsequent Settlement and Growth.—During the Revolution.—First Newspaper.—Portland Harbor.—Commercial Facilities and Progress.—During the Rebellion.—Great Fire of 1866.—Reconstruction.—Position of the city.—Streets.—Munjoy Hill.—Maine General Hospital.—Eastern and Western Promenades.—Longfellow's House.—Birthplace of the Poet.—Market Square and Hall.—First Unitarian Church.—Lincoln Park.—Eastern Cemetery.—Deering's Woods.—Commercial Street.—Old-time Mansion.—Case's Bay and Islands.—Cushing's Island.—Peak's Island.—Long Island.—Little Chebague Island.—Harpswell.

The hungry ocean has gnawed and ravaged the New England coast, until along almost its entire length it is worn into ragged edges, forming islands, capes, promontories, bold headlands, peninsulas, bays, inlets and coves. In this coast are united the grand, the picturesque and the beautiful. Soft masses of foliage are in close juxtaposition with rugged rocks and dashing surf. Violet turf sweeps down to meet the sands washed up by the sea. Bays cut deeply into the land, forming safe harbors, and emerald islands innumerable dot their surface.

In 1632 George Cleve and Richard Tucker landed on the beach of a peninsula, jutting out into a broad and deep bay, and sheltered from the ocean by a promontory at the south, now known as Cape Elizabeth, and by a guard of islands which clasped hands around it. Here Cleve built, of logs, the first house on the site of what is now the city of Portland. After a time other colonists came, devoting themselves to fishing and buying furs of the Indians. When the people of this distant colony wanted to go to Boston, they rode horseback along the beach, which formed the original highway. The settlement was first known as Casco, but its name was changed to Falmouth in 1668, though a portion of it, where Portland now stands, continued to be known as Casco Rock. In 1675 there were but forty families in the town, and the Rock was still almost covered by a dense forest. In that year the Indians, who had long borne grievous wrongs at the hands of the settlers with patient endurance, arose, under King Philip, to avenge them. The inhabitants of Falmouth were either killed or carried into captivity, and the little town was wiped out of existence.

Three years later Fort Royal, the largest fortification on the coast, was erected on a rocky eminence, near the present foot of India street, where the round-house of the Grand Trunk Railway now stands, and settlers began to return. A party of French Huguenots settled there, mills were set up, roads cut into the forest, and trade established between Falmouth and Massachusetts towns. The little settlement existed under varying fortunes until 1690, when the French and Indians, after a few days' siege, captured the fort, destroyed the town, and carried the commanding officer and his garrison captives to Quebec. The war continued until 1698, during which time the place was only known as "deserted Casco." In 1703 the war broke out again, and what few inhabitants had straggled back were killed, and the place remained desolate until 1715, when the re-settlement began. Three years later twenty families had banded themselves together for mutual defence, clustering about the foot of India street, and eastward along the beach. The second meeting-house of the town was erected at the corner of India and Middle streets, where Rev. Thomas Smith, in 1727, commenced his ministry, which extended over a period of sixty-eight years.

The town was incorporated in 1718, and at that time the Neck above Clay Cove was all forest and swamp. A brook flowed into the Cove, crossed by bridges at Fore and Middle streets. The old bridge at Middle street remained until early in the present century. The trails stretching out into the forest gradually grew into streets, and the three principal ones were named Fore, Middle and Back streets. The name of the latter was, late in the century, changed to Congress street.

After a period of sixty years of steady growth, the town had extended only as far westward as Centre street, and the upper portion of the Neck was still covered with woods. The Indians gave the town little trouble after 1725, having made peace in that year, and gradually dwindled away, and emigrated to Canada. In 1755 it was no longer a frontier post. Its population had increased to nearly 3,000 inhabitants, commerce had been established, and the town was a most peaceful and a prosperous one. At the commencement of the Revolution 2,555 tons of shipping were owned in Falmouth.

When the colonies began to resist the encroachments of England, Falmouth took a prominent and patriotic stand. In October, 1775, Captain Henry Mowatt, with a fleet of five vessels, opened his batteries on the town, and, firing the houses, laid it in ashes. Over four hundred buildings were destroyed, leaving only one hundred standing. The place was again deserted, the people seeking safety in the interior.

On January first, the Falmouth Gazette and Weekly Advertiser, the first newspaper of the town, was published by Benjamin Titcomb and Thomas B. Waite. In 1786 the town was divided, the Neck receiving the name of Portland, having at that time a population of about two thousand. In 1793 wharves were extended into the harbor. In 1806, its commercial business and general prosperity were unexampled in New England. The duties collected at the Custom House reached, in that year, $342,809, having increased from $8,109 in 1790. But in 1807, the embargo which followed the non-intercourse policy of 1806 resulted in the suspension of commerce and the temporary ruin of the shipping interests. Commercial houses were prostrated, and great distress prevailed. The harbor was empty, and grass grew upon the wharves. In the war of 1812 privateers were fitted out here, some of which damaged the enemy, while others were captured. After the peace of 1815 commerce revived but slowly, and the population as slowly increased.

In March, 1820, Maine was separated from Massachusetts, and admitted into the Union as a State; and Portland became its capital. In 1832 the capital was removed to Augusta. In 1828 the first steamboat anchored in the harbor of Portland, having arrived from New York to run as a passenger boat between Portland and Boston. The Portland Steam Packet Company was organized in 1844, and has continued in successful operation ever since.

Portland has one of the deepest and best harbors in the world, with a depth of forty feet at low tide. Its surroundings are exceptionally favorable for a commercial city, and were it not for its geographical location, it being so far north of the great areas of population, it would undoubtedly have gained a prominence over most of the Atlantic cities. But Boston and New York drew all but the provincial trade and commerce, and with a sparsely settled country at its back, there was little to build up Portland and give it great prosperity. In 1850 the Cumberland and Oxford Canal, connecting the waters of Sebago Lake with Portland Harbor, was completed. This was not a great enterprise, certainly, as compared with modern undertakings; but the Portlanders thought a good deal of it at the time. Between 1840 and 1846, the city endured another season of depression. Railroads had given to Boston much of the business that had formerly found a natural outlet through Portland; but in the latter year a railroad was planned to Canada, which, when completed, in 1853, brought it into connection with the cities of the British provinces, and with the vast grain-growing regions of the west. A winter line of steamers to Liverpool followed, and the rapidly increasing commerce of the city soon resulted in the construction of a wide business avenue, extending a mile in length, along the whole water front of the city. This new street was called Commercial, and became the locality of heavy wholesale trade. Closely following, came the opening up of railroads to all sections of the State, and the establishment of steamboat lines along the coast, as far as the Lower Provinces. Trade that had hitherto gone to Boston was thus reclaimed, new manufacturing establishments sprung up, and an era of prosperity seemed fairly inaugurated.

Portland manifested her patriotism during the war of the Rebellion, contributing 5,000 men to the army, of whom four hundred and twenty-one returned. In June, 1863, the United States Revenue cutter, Caleb Cushing, having been captured by Rebels, and pursued by the officials of the city, and becoming becalmed near the Green Islands, was blown up by her captors, the latter taking to the boats, only to be captured and sent to Fort Preble as prisoners of war.

On the fourth of July, 1866, a fire-cracker, carelessly thrown in a boat builder's shop, on Commercial, near the foot of High street, resulted in a fire which laid in ruins more than half the city of Portland. The fire commenced about five o'clock in the afternoon. The sparks soon communicated with Brown's Sugar House, and thence, spreading out like a fan, swept diagonally across the city, destroying everything in its track, until a space one and one-half miles long, by one and one-fourth miles broad, was so completely devastated that only a forest of tottering walls and blackened chimneys remained, and it was difficult to trace even the streets. The fire was fanned into such a fury by a gale which was blowing at the time, that the efforts of the firemen were without avail, and the work of destruction was only stayed when, as a last resort, buildings in its path were blown up before the flames had reached them. The entire business portion, embracing one-half the city, was destroyed. Every bank and newspaper office, every lawyer's office, many stores, churches, public buildings and private residences were swept away. Fireproof structures, which were hastily filled with valuables, in the belief that they would withstand the flames, crumbled to the earth, as though melted by the intense heat. Only one building on Middle street stood unscathed, though the flames swept around it in a fiery sea. The fire did not burn itself out until early in the morning of the following day, when it paused at the foot of Mountjoy Hill. When morning came, the inhabitants looked with terror and dismay upon fifteen hundred buildings in ashes, fifty-eight streets and courts desolated, ten thousand people homeless, and $10,000,000 worth of property destroyed.

The work of succor and reconstruction immediately began. The churches were thrown open to shelter the homeless; Mountjoy Hill was speedily transformed into a village of tents; barracks were built; contributions of food, clothing and money poured in from near and far; the old streets were widened and straightened, and new ones opened; and before the year had closed many substantial buildings and blocks had been completed, and others were in process of erection. The new Portland has arisen from the ruins of the old, more stately, more beautiful and more substantial than before; and after the lapse of so many years, the evil which the fire wrought is forgotten, and only the good is manifest. Railroads have since been built, and travel and commerce is each year increasing. The population of Portland in 1880 was 33,810.

The approach to Portland is more beautiful, even, than that to New York. The city is built upon a small peninsula rising out of Casco Bay, to a mean central elevation of more than one hundred feet. This peninsula projects from the main land in a northeast direction, and is about three miles long, by an average breadth of three-fourths of a mile. An arm of the Bay, called Fore River, divides it on the south from Cape Elizabeth, and forms an inner harbor of more than six hundred acres in extent, and with an average depth, at high water, of thirty feet. Vessels of the largest size can anchor in the main harbor, in forty feet of water at low tide. The waters of the Back Cove separate it on the north from the shores of Deering, and form another inner basin, of large extent and considerable depth.

At the northeasternmost extremity of the Neck, Munjoy Hill rises to a height of one hundred and sixty-one feet, and commands a beautiful view of the city, bay, adjacent islands and the ocean beyond. At the southwestern extremity is Bramhall's Hill, rising to one hundred and seventy-five feet and commanding city, bay, forests, fields, villages and mountains. The land sinks somewhat between these two elevations, but its lowest point still rises fifty-seven feet above high tide. The elevation of its site, and the beauty of its scenery and surroundings, are fast attracting the attention of tourists, and drawing to the city hosts of summer visitors.

The peninsula is covered with a network of streets and lanes, containing an aggregate length of fifty miles, while it has thirty wharves to accommodate the commerce of the port. Congress street, the main thoroughfare of the city, is three miles in length, and extends from Bramhall to Munjoy. Running parallel to it for a part of its length, on the southern slope, are Middle street, a business street, devoted principally to the wholesale and retail trade; Fore street, the ancient water street of the city, but now devoted to miscellaneous trade; and Commercial street, which commands the harbor, and is principally devoted to large wholesale business. At the west end there are other streets between Congress and Commercial, including Spring, Danforth and York. Cumberland, Oxford, supplemented on its western end by Portland, Lincoln, along the shore of Back Cove, also supplemented on its western end by Kennebec street, are on the northern slope of Congress street. The cross streets are numerous. India street, at the eastern end, was the early site of population and business; Franklin and Beal streets are the only ones running straight across the peninsula, from water to water; Exchange street, devoted to banks, brokers' offices and insurance agencies, and High and State streets, occupied by private residences, are the principal ones. There is partially completed around the entire city a Marginal Way, one hundred feet in width, and nearly five miles in length.

Munjoy Hill is a suburb, which is almost a distinct village, being occupied by residences of the middle class, who have their own schools, churches, and places of business. From its summit, at early morning, one may see the sun rising out of the ocean, in the midst of emerald islands. On this hill, in 1690, Lieutenant Thaddeus Clark, with thirteen men, was shot by Indians in ambush, the hill being then covered with forest. On the same hill, in 1717, Lieutenant-Governor Dammer made a treaty with the Indians, which secured a peace for many years; and in 1775 Colonel Thompson captured Captain Mowatt, in revenge for which the latter subsequently burned the city. In 1808 the third and last execution for murder took place here; and in 1866 here arose the village of tents after the great conflagration. The Observatory, built in 1807, is upon Munjoy, having been erected for the purpose of signaling shipping approaching the harbor. It is eighty-two feet high, and from it one can obtain the best view of the city and its surroundings. Casco Bay lies to the northeast, dotted with islands. To the eastward, four miles distant, beyond its barrier of islands, the Atlantic keeps up the never-ending music of its waves. To the southward is the city, with the harbor and the shipping beyond. Far away to the northeast is Mount Washington, faintly outlined upon the horizon, prominent in the distant range of mountains. Adjoining the Observatory is the Congress street Methodist Episcopal Church, a beautiful edifice, its slender, graceful spire being a most conspicuous object from the harbor and the sea, and rising to the greatest height of any in the city.

The western end, including Bramhall Hill, is the fashionable quarter; and having been spared in the conflagration of 1866, many ancient mansions remain, surrounded by newer and more elegant residences. The houses are in the midst of well-kept lawns and gardens, and the streets are shaded by stately elms, some of them of venerable age. The views through these avenues of trees, through some of the streets leading down to the water, are delightful beyond description, the overarching foliage framing in glimpses of water, fields, distant hills and blue sky. At evening, from Bramhall's Hill, one looks over a beautiful and varied landscape, brightened by the glow of sunset on the western sky. The Maine General Hospital stands on Bramhall Hill, an imposing edifice, and one of the most prominent features of the city.

The Western Promenade, a wide avenue planted with rows of trees, runs along the brow of Bramhall's Hill. The hill is named after George Bramhall, who in 1680 bought a tract of four hundred acres, and made himself a home in the wilderness. Nine years later he was killed at the foot of the hill, in a fight with the Indians. From the summit of the hill may be seen the waters of Fore River on the one hand, and of Back Cove on the other. Beyond is a wide stretch of field and forest, broken by villages and farmhouses, with the spires of Gorham in view, and far away, behind them, Ossipee Mountain, fifty-five miles distant, in New Hampshire. To the east is the church of Standish, Maine, and Chocorue Peak rising behind it; Mount Carrigain, sixty-three miles away, the line of the Saddleback in Sebago, and far beyond, the sun-capped summits of the White Mountains.

The Eastern Promenade is on Munjoy's Hill, and commands views equally beautiful.

The Preble House is in Congress street, shaded by four magnificent elms, which have survived from the days of the Preble Mansion. Next to it, sitting back from the street, and also shaded by elms, is the first brick house built in Portland. It was begun in 1785, by General Peleg Wadsworth, and finished the following year, by his son-in-law, Stephen Longfellow. It is known as the Longfellow House, but it is not the place where the poet was born. He lived here in his youth, and frequently visited the house in later days; and it is still in the possession of his family. But Henry Wadsworth Longfellow first saw the light on February twenty-seventh, 1807, in an old-fashioned wooden house, at the corner of Fore and Hancock streets. The sea at that period flowed up to the road opposite the house, which commanded a fine view of the harbor. New-made land crowds it further away, and the trains of the Grand Trunk Railway run where the tide once ebbed and flowed. Not far off is the site of the first house ever built in Portland, by George Cleves, in 1632.

Nathaniel P. Willis was also born in Portland, but a little more than a month earlier than Longfellow. Both his father and his grandfather had been publishers, the latter having been apprenticed in the same printing office with Benjamin Franklin. Sarah Payson Willis, subsequently Mrs. James Parton, still better known as Fanny Fern, a sister of the poet, was also a native of Portland. John Neal, born in Portland August twenty-fifth, 1793, was a man well known as a poet, novelist and journalist. Seba Smith, author of the Jack Downing Papers, Mrs. E. Oakes Smith, Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Allen, Nathaniel Deering, Rev. Elijah Kellogg, Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, Mrs. Margaret J. M. Sweat, and other well-known authors, have been either natives of or residents in Portland. General Neal Dow, who served in the late war, and so famous as an advocate of prohibition, finds his home in Portland, at the corner of Congress and Dow streets. William Pitt Fessenden, late Senator and Secretary of the Treasury, claimed Portland as his home.

Market Square is in the heart of the city, surrounded by stores, hotels, halls, and places of amusement. Military Hall stands almost in-the centre of the square, and was built in 1825, as a town hall and market place. The building contains a history in itself. Here, before the city charter was obtained, in 1832, town meetings were held, and subsequently it was the headquarters of the city government. Military companies had and still have their armories here; and it has been the place of many exciting political meetings. In it Garrison uttered his anathemas against slavery, and Stephen A. Foster was assaulted by a brutal pro-slavery mob. Sumner, Fessenden, and other great orators, have poured forth their eloquence within its hall, and parties have been made and unmade. On holidays Market Square is crowded with an animated throng, and at night, when peddlers and mountebanks take their stands and display their wares by the light of flaming torches, the scene is especially picturesque.

On Congress street, not far from Market Square, is the First Parish (Unitarian) Church, which was rebuilt in 1825, on the site which the old church had occupied since 1740. This church is remarkable for its long pastorates, there having been but four pastors from 1727 to 1864, a period of one hundred and thirty-seven years. The present pastor is the Rev. Dr. Thomas Hill, ex-President of Harvard College.

Lincoln Park is a public square, bounded by Congress, Franklin, Federal and Pearl streets. It contains a little less than two and one-half acres, in the middle of which is a fountain. This park is in the centre of the district swept by the conflagration of 1866, and looking on every side, not a building meets the eye which was erected previous to that year.

The largest and most costly church in Portland is the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, fronting on Cumberland street. It is one hundred and ninety-six feet in length, by one hundred in width, with a spire rising in the air two hundred and thirty-six feet. It is of brick, and is imposing only on account of its size. Its interior, however, is finished and decorated in a style surpassed by few churches in the country.

The Eastern Cemetery, on Congress street, is the oldest graveyard in Portland. For two hundred years it was the common burial ground of the settlement, and here, probably, all the early colonists sleep their last sleep, though their graves are forgotten. The oldest tombstone which the yard seems to contain is that of Mrs. Mary Green, who died in 1717. On the opposite side of the yard, near Mountford street, are the monuments erected to the memory of William Burroughs, of the United States Brig Enterprise, and Samuel Blythe, of His Majesty's Brig Boxer, who fought and died together, on September fifth, 1813, and were buried here. Lieut. Kerwin Waters, of the Enterprise, wounded in the same action, lies beside them. Of him Longfellow sung:—

There is a white marble monument to Commodore Preble, and the death of Lieutenant Henry Wadsworth, uncle of the poet Longfellow, who fell before Tripoli in 1804, is also commemorated here.

Congress Square, at the junction of Fore street, has an elevated position, and is surrounded by churches of various denominations. From Congress street, near its junction with Mellen street, the visitor can look off to Deering's Woods, which rise on the borders of a creek, running in from Back Cove. This tract of woodland has come into possession of the city, and will be preserved as a park. Longfellow sings of

Again:—

The reservoir of the Portland Water Works is at the junction of Bramhall and Brackett streets. It has an area of 100,000 square feet, with a capacity of 12,000,000 gallons, and is supplied with water from Lake Sebago, seventeen miles distant.

The extensive premises of the Grand Trunk Railway lie at the foot of India street, where are wharves for the great freight business between Canada and Europe, and whence the Dominion and Beaver Line of steamships, every fortnight, from November to May, send ships to Liverpool. The scene during the winter season is a busy one, and the amount of freight handled and shipped is immense. Then begins Commercial street, the modern business avenue of the city, which runs its whole water front, with a railroad track in the middle of it. On this street is the old family mansion of the widow of Brigadier Preble, built in 1786, on the site of his father's house, destroyed by fire in 1775. It then occupied a beautiful and retired locality, looking out upon the harbor, and surrounded by ample grounds. But now it is strangely out of keeping with its neighbors. Opposite it now stands the grain elevator of the Grand Trunk Railway, having been built in 1875, with a capacity of 200,000 bushels. All around are wholesale shipping and commission houses, and wharves for ocean steamships extend up and down the shore.

When Captain John Smith, famous in the early history of Virginia, and the first tourist who ever visited Maine, made his famous summer trip thither, in 1614, he described the place as follows:—"Westward of Kennebec is the country of Ancocisco, in the bottom of a deep bay full of many great isles, which divide it into many great harbors." Ancocisco was very soon abbreviated to Casco, and the bay is still filled with many great isles. Casco Bay, extending from Cape Elizabeth, on the west, to Cape Small Point, on the east, a distance of about eighteen miles, with a width of, perhaps, twelve miles, contains more islands than any other body of water of like extent in the whole United States. It is a popular belief that these islands number three hundred and sixty-five—one for every day in the year; but a regard for truth compels us to state, that of the named and unnamed islands and islets, there are only one hundred and twenty-two, while a few insignificant rocks and reefs would not swell the number to one hundred and forty. These islands are divided into three ranges, the Inner, Middle and Outer. The Inner range contains twenty islands; the Middle range, twenty-four; and the Outer range, seventy-eight. Besides these islands, the shore is very much broken, and extends out into the bay in picturesque points or fringes, the creeks, inlets and tidal rivers extending far inland. In this bay was discovered, by a mariner named Joselyn, in 1639, a triton or merman, and the first sea serpent of the coast. Seals breed and sport on a ledge in the inner bay, off the shore of Falmouth, and its waters abound with edible fish and sea-fowl.

Ferry boats convey an endless stream of pleasure-seekers to the different islands, during the summer season. Cushing's Island lies at the mouth of Portland Harbor, forming one shore of the ship channel. Its southern shore presents a rocky and precipitous front, culminating in a bold bluff nearly one hundred and fifty feet high, known as White Head. The island looks out upon the harbor from smiling fields and low, tree-bordered beaches. It furnishes good opportunities for fishing and bathing, and is fast becoming a popular summer resort. It is five miles in circumference, and commands magnificent sea views.

Peak's Island is separated from Cushing's Island by White Head Passage, and with the latter forms an effectual barrier to the ocean. Like it, it presents a bold front to the sea, and smiles upon the bay. It is about a mile and a half long, by a mile and a quarter wide, and rises gradually to a central elevation of, perhaps, one hundred feet, commanding extensive views of the ocean and harbor, and of the mountains, eighty miles away. It is one of the most beautiful of all the islands of Casco Bay, and has a resident population of three hundred and seventy persons, who are largely descendants of the first settlers.

Long Island lies northeast of Peak's Island, and is separated from it by Hussey's Sound. It has an area of three hundred and twelve acres, presenting a long, ragged line of shore to the sea. Its population was, in 1880, two hundred and fifty-two, the men being engaged in fishing and farming.

Little Chebague lies inside of Long Island, and is connected with Great Chebague by a sand bar, dry at low water. A hotel and several summer cottages stand upon the island, and it is an attractive place.

Harpswell is a long peninsula, about fourteen miles down the bay, and is much resorted to by picnic parties. To the eastward lies Bailey's Island, one of the most beautiful of the bay, and to the northward is Orr's Island, the scene of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, "The Pearl of Orr's Island." Rising between Bailey's Island and Small Point Harbor is the Elm Island of Rev. Elijah Kellogg's stories. Whittier has written a poem entitled "The Dead Ship of Harpswell," in which he describes a spectre ship which never reaches the land, and is a sure omen of death:—

CHAPTER XXVI.