Maine Memory Network

The 'Harriet' rescuing passengers of the 'Unicorn', Newfoundland, ca. 1851

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: circa 1851 Location: North Yarmouth; St. John Media: Oil on canvas

View of Parker Head, Phippsburg, ca. 1910

Contributed by: Penobscot Marine Museum Date: circa 1910 Location: Phippsburg Media: Glass Plate Negative

Enemies at Sea, Companions in Death

Lt. William Burrows and Commander Samuel Blyth, commanders of the USS Enterprise and the HMS Boxer, led their ships and crews in Battle in Muscongus Bay on Sept. 5, 1813. The American ship was victorious, but both captains were killed. Portland staged a large and regal joint burial.

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.

Historic Hallowell - Hallowell Ship Captains

"… was only eighteen, he was the master of his own vessel. For more that forty years, Agry sailed from Boston to England, France, and Mediterranean…"

Swan's Island: Six miles east of ordinary - II. Pinkies, wherries, skiffs and chebaccos: Early Settlement

"Coasting vessels transported the island’s lumber, and the fishing business began to expand. A view of the original Henry Knox mansion, Montpelier…"

Saga of a Sub Chaser S.C. 268 along Maine Coast
by DANIEL R CHRISTOPHER

A look back at a Sub Chaser Crew on duty along the Maine coastline near the end of World War I

A Note from a Maine-American
by William Dow Turner

With 7 generations before statehood, and 5 generations since, Maine DNA carries on.

Primary Sources: The Maine Shipyard

Grade Level: 9-12 Content Area: Social Studies
This lesson plan will give students a close-up look at historical operations behind Maine's famed shipbuilding and shipping industries. Students will examine primary sources including letters, bills of lading, images, and objects, and draw informed hypotheses about the evolution of the seafaring industry and its impact on Maine’s communities over time.

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?