Maine Memory Network

Launching of the schooner Charles B. Wiggin, Kennebunk, 1917

Contributed by: Brick Store Museum Date: 1917 Location: Kennebunk Media: Photographic print

Schooner Golden Ball at the bridge, Kennebunkport, 1890

Contributed by: Brick Store Museum Date: 1890 Location: Kennebunkport Media: Photographic print

Launch of the 'Doris Hamlin'

The Doris Hamlin, a four-masted schooner built at the Frye-Flynn Shipyard in Harrington, was one of the last vessels launched there, marking the decline of a once vigorous shipbuilding industry in Washington County.

The Schooner Bowdoin: Ninety Years of Seagoing History

After traveling to the Arctic with Robert E. Peary, Donald B. MacMillan (1874-1970), an explorer, researcher, and lecturer, helped design his own vessel for Arctic exploration, the schooner <em>Bowdoin,</em> which he named after his alma mater. The schooner remains on the seas.

Historic Hallowell - Transportation Challenge

"The site is now used for launching pleasure craft and recreation. The Hallowell Granite works had two large schooners named the Jeremiah T."

Thomaston: The Town that Went to Sea - The "Edward O'Brien", the "Washington B. Thomas", & "Edna Hoyt"

"Enormous crowds gathered to witness the launch of the 275’ ship. The vessel headed to the river prematurely and, dragging a 4200-pound anchor through…"

From Naturalists to Environmentalists
by Andy Beahm

The beginnings of Maine Audubon in the Portland Society of Natural History

30 years of business in Maine
by Raj & Bina Sharma

30 years of business, raising a family, & showcasing our culture in Maine

Longfellow Studies: Longfellow Amongst His Contemporaries - The Ship of State DBQ

Grade Level: 9-12 Content Area: English Language Arts, Social Studies
Preparation Required/Preliminary Discussion: Lesson plans should be done in the context of a course of study on American literature and/or history from the Revolution to the Civil War. The ship of state is an ancient metaphor in the western world, especially among seafaring people, but this figure of speech assumed a more widespread and literal significance in the English colonies of the New World. From the middle of the 17th century, after all, until revolution broke out in 1775, the dominant system of governance in the colonies was the Navigation Acts. The primary responsibility of colonial governors, according to both Parliament and the Crown, was the enforcement of the laws of trade, and the governors themselves appointed naval officers to ensure that the various provisions and regulations of the Navigation Acts were executed. England, in other words, governed her American colonies as if they were merchant ships. This metaphorical conception of the colonies as a naval enterprise not only survived the Revolution but also took on a deeper relevance following the construction of the Union. The United States of America had now become the ship of state, launched on July 4th 1776 and dedicated to the radical proposition that all men are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights. This proposition is examined and tested in any number of ways during the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War. Novelists and poets, as well as politicians and statesmen, questioned its viability: Whither goes the ship of state? Is there a safe harbor somewhere up ahead or is the vessel doomed to ruin and wreckage? Is she well built and sturdy or is there some essential flaw in her structural frame?