Maine Memory Network

Starting in 1845, Jeremiah Hacker of Brunswick and Portland, who grew up in a Quaker family, published the pro-vegetarian newspaper, the Portland Pleasure Boat.

Hacker's journalism often connected eating meat to women’s rights concerns. U.S. vegetarians in the 19th and 20th centuries regularly discussed the link between social justice topics and animal welfare.

The Rev. Jotham Sewall had his daguerreotype made in 1847. Noted for his size and strength, Jotham Sewall "ate principally, bread, fruits and milk; and drank sage tea and water," according to an 1851 report in the American Vegetarian and Health Journal. Dr. William Alcott mentioned Sewall in his book Vegetable Diet, indicating Sewall became a vegetarian in 1810.

Ordained by the Protestant Congregational Church in 1800, Sewall worked for the Massachusetts and Maine Missionary Societies and lived to ninety years and nine months old.