Maine Memory Network

Weapons depot, Brunswick Naval Air Station, ca. 1943

Contributed by: Pejepscot History Center Date: circa 1943 Location: Brunswick Media: Photographic print

Naval Air Station Operations Office, Brunswick, ca. 1945

Contributed by: Pejepscot History Center Date: circa 1945 Location: Brunswick Media: Photographic print

Office, Portland Pier, Portland, 1924

Owner in 1924: Proprietors of Portland Pier Use: Office

US Naval Receiving Station additions and alterations, Portland, 1940-1944

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1940–1944 Location: Portland Client: Public Works Office Architect: United States Navy Bureau of Yards and Docks

Big Timber: the Mast Trade

Britain was especially interested in occupying Maine during the Colonial era to take advantage of the timber resources. The tall, straight, old growth white pines were perfect for ships' masts to help supply the growing Royal Navy.

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.

Thomaston: The Town that Went to Sea - Greenleaf Cilley

"… York in October 1846, and he was ordered to the Naval academy in Annapolis, Maryland. While stationed aboard the Battleship “Ohio”, he participated…"

Architecture & Landscape database - John P. Thomas

"As a naval reserve officer, Thomas served in naval intelligence in Portland during World War II. In this capacity, he died in 1944 at the age of…"

Florence Ahlquist Link's WWII service in the WAVES
by Earlene Ahlquist Chadbourne

Florence Ahlquist, age 20, was trained to repair the new aeronautical cameras by the US Navy in WWII

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

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?