X. Clapp Memorial Building

The Clapp Memorial Building was constructed in 1923 and contained offices and retail spaces inside. The building was dedicated to three people. Asa Clapp, 1762-1848, Asa William Henry Clapp, 1805-1851, and Mary Jane Emerson Clapp, 1835-1922. There isn't a lot of information on the Clapp family but I did gather some information on Asa Clapp through the Maine Memory Network and the plaque on the building. According to the plaque, Asa was a "seaman of the American Revolution, merchant, an upbuilder of Portland." It says that his son, Asa William Henry Clapp, was a "citizen of portland, a conservator of its interests, member of the Congress of the United States, colonel in the militia of Maine." Finally, Mary Jane Emerson Clapp was an "upholder of the traditions of her forefathers, a doer of good works."

From the Maine Memory Network, I gathered that Asa Clapp "was a prominent Portland businessman and founder of the Maine Bank, and also had been a Revolutionary War soldier, a mariner and ship builder, legislator and philanthropist." Under the picture of an engraving of Asa Clapp done by Thomas Donney it states that Asa was "a prominent and wealthy businessman in Portland, had been a mariner and soldier. He was prominent in shipbuilding, banking, and other businesses. He also served in the Maine Legislature."

Though I couldn't gather much more than that basic information about the Clapp family, their prominence must have been great to the city of Portland at the time they were alive in order to have this building dedicated to them on Congress street.

When I visited the building, there was no one there to admire it. It was just another building of offices in the area. It was by mistake that I actually happened to look up and see the plaque and become interested in its history.

IX. The First Parish Meeting House

The First Parish Meeting House was the first church in Portland (then Falmouth) and was built in 1720. It is a Unitarian church. According to the First Parish's website, "The poverty of the citizens prevented them from building a house of worship until February 1720, when they voted to build a meeting house. Due to lack of funds, nothing was done until the next year when a tax was imposed for the purpose of purchasing building materials. In July 1721, a site was chosen on the north corner of Middle and India Streets, and in February 1724, the rustic structure was clapboarded. Finally in 1726 the windows were set and glazed, the glass a gift from Governor Benning Wentworth of New Hampshire; The interior was completed in the spring of 1728." Although the house worked for the most part, it began to get too small for Falmouth's growing population. "In 1740, the new meeting-house, Old Jerusalem, was built on the site where First Parish now stands, a 2-story, plain, rectangular shaped meeting house was constructed." In 1759 they errected the steeple and in 1794 the clock tower was put into place. Due to a growing parish, though, "In 1825, construction began on the second granite church in Maine. The completed church was dedicated in February 1826."

The Meeting House was more than a church though. The building was also where official documents of the time were signed and put into action. "In 1749, the “Treaty with the Eastern Indians,” which secured a tenuous peace with the Norridgewock Indians, was signed in First Parish’s Meeting House." It was also the site of the drafting of Maine's constitution in 1819. The Meeting House was also a site for the anti-slavery movement in Maine. In 1882, William Lloyd Garrison spoke at the church against slavery. His words birthed the Maine Anti-Slavery Society when Prentiss Mellon heard him speak and decided to found the society of which he was the first president.

The meeting house/church is still used today for regular church services as well as other community service and rally type events. Last spring I attended the Take Back the Night rally at the church in order to march for the victims of sexual assult. The First Parish Meeting House holds a lot of history for the city of Portland.

When I visited the site around 3:30 in the afternoon, there were a couple of people talking outside the church and using the little gated garden to walk their dog. On other occasions I have seen the church be a site of many posters and projects from locals to help protect the rights of others. I did not go inside but have been into the meeting house portion of the bulding. Inside, there is a cannon ball that hangs from a chain that hit the church in 1775 when the British attacked and burned Falmouth.

I got all of my information from this website. http://www.firstparishportland.org/history3.html

VIII. Our Lady of Victories

The Our Lady of Victories monument sits in monument square in Portland. It was erected in 1891 to commemorate the men lost in the Civil War which ended in 1865. It is also known as the Soldier's and Sailor's monument. On the base of the statue is inscribed, "Portland To Her sons Who Died For the Union." It wasn't very easy to find information on this monument but I did find out that it was designed in Rome by Franklin Simmons in the form of the Goddess Minerva and that it's made from bronze.

When I visited the monument on December 10th around 3:30 in the afternoon, there were a few people around it. Some were looking at it and others were using it as a seat to eat. Whenever I have driven by the site in the afternoons though, it's always bustling with people eating their lunches and using the square. I think that the statue has become such a big part of the area that people may use it every day without really knowing what it is. The square does get a lot of use for events such as walks for Breast Cancer and other community events as it is one of those landmarks that people from out of town as well as inhabitants of Portland can locate easily and know well.

This is a photo of the monument and the square in 1902.

This is the mold used in 1890 to create the statue.

VII. Wadsworth-Longfellow House

The Wadsworth-Longfellow House was built by Peleg Wadsworth in 1785-1786. Peleg was a veteran of the Revolutionary War looking for a new life in Maine. After the house was finished, Peleg and Elizabeth moved their family of 6 children into the home where they would have four more sons. Eventually Peleg and Elizabeth would move to Wadsworth Hall which Peleg also built (in Hiram) in 1795. Here, their son Charles oversaw farming and lumbering operations. Elizabeth passed away in 1825, Peleg in 1829. Zilpah, the Wadsworth's oldest daughter had married Stephen Longfellow of Gorham in 1804 in the parlor of her family home. It was in this home that the famous poet Henry Wadsworth-Longfellow grew up.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in 1807, the second of eight children. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825. He taught French, Italian, and Spanish at Bowdoin in 1829, married Mary Potter of Portland, started teaching at Harvard in 1834, and lost his wife in 1835. When he returned to Harvard in 1836, he really began his literary career. He married Frances Appleton in 1843 and raised their children in Cambridge. According to the Maine Historical Society, "Longfellow also influenced America's artistic and popular culture. His works inspired artists and composers, and his poems were read and recited not only in parlors and schoolrooms, but also at civic ceremonies. Schools, geographic locations, and ordinary products, even cigars, were named for him and for characters from his poems. In the 1870s, schoolchildren celebrated his birthday as if it were a national holiday." His childhood home would go to his sister, Anne Longfellow Pierce who was widowed at a young age and therefore willed the house to the Maine Historical Society after her death in 1901. The house is still open to the public today with almost all of the same artifacts that were present in the house when the family lived there.

The house is the oldest standing structure on the Portland peninsula.

The last photo was taken in 1904.

When I visited the house on December 10th around 3 in the afternoon, there weren't many people around. People would walk by without really looking at the house which I found remarkable. The house is squeezed between two very modern buildings and looks strange and very out of place among one of Portland's busiest streets. I didn't get the chance to go inside and look but I have been inside before on school trip's. It's like walking straight into the past when you get to explore the inside of the home and it really is an insight into history. I didn't know much about Longfellow before I wrote this blog (Thanks Maine Memory for all the great info!) but I could still appreciate how cool it was to be able to see something so old and know it was a part of his history.

VI. Oakhurst Dairy

This is me at the Oakhurst Dairy on Forest Ave in Portland. When I went over from school on December 10th, there were people walkibng by but it seemed that no one really noticed the building. There were a lot of cars parked there and a truck coming out carrying the milk but otherwise, it didn't seem that anyone really noticed it. I hadn't noticed it for the longest time either. I knew it existed but I'd never really looked at it.

The Oakhurst Dairy has been on Forest Ave in Portland since 1921 when Stanley Bennett moved his newly bough Dairy from Woodfords street in Portland. Though the Dairy only started with two horse drawn wagons, it quickly started to grow into a prominent dairy in the area. In 1973, the plant extended into the building next door that used to be an auto-dealership. In this photo from 1951 on Maine Memory Network, you can see where the dealership used to be and where Oakhurst has expanded.

Here is a photo of the new and old forms of milk transport. Other than being the premier Dairy in Maine since the 1920s, Oakhurst has also been a leader in the community. In 1997 "Oakhurst becomes the first major dairy company in the U.S. to provide a financial incentive to it's dairy farmers to abstain from using artificial growth hormone and the first to package its milk with a Farmers' Pledge (no growth hormone) seal." (Oakhurst website). They funded the boys and girls clubs of Maine and new Hampshire, helping to raise 100,000 dollars for 27 locations in the two states. By 2006, "90% of Oakhurst's truck fleet converts to bio-diesel fuel, reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 1,332 tons per year, making Oakhurst the nation's largest bio-diesel dairy fleet." (Oakhurst website) And, in 2008, "Oakhurst invests in energy future by placing 72 solar collectors on site, offsetting 4,400 gallons of #2 fuel oil annually." (Oakhurst website).

The Oakhurst Dairy in Portland is a huge part of our community history in Maine. Not only do we rely on them to give us the quality milk we look for but they also lead us in what Maine is known for: being first in environmental policies.

V. Civil War Monument

I went to the Civil War Monument on Gorham campus with my History of Maine class so when I went to the site, it was full of people looking at the names and learning about the monument's history. Generally though, I never see anyone there. In fact, I didn't even know it existed until this year when I heard Libby speaking about it. I'd walk by it and see it but I never really noticed it. What I did learn when I took the time to view it was that it was probably the first Civil War monument in the state and one of the earliest in the nation. Most Civil War monuments, and war monuments in general, were not built until five, ten, twenty years after the war had ended. This one though was built in 1866, less than a year after the fighting had stopped.

The monument on campus was constructed and set up in front of what was then Gorham Town Hall by Toppan Robie, father to Frederick Robie who commissioned Robie dormitory hall. It lists the names of all soldiers of Gorham who died in battle or of complications from battle in the Civil War. The gate around it was added later. Joshua Chamberlain spoke at it's opening as his company was one of many from Maine who lost men in the war. It was really hard to retrieve any information about the monument itself but I did find a photograph of Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine in Gettysburg from a reunion of soldiers in 1889.

Although this was only one group of soldiers from Maine involved in the fighting, I found two men on the statue that belonged to this group of soldiers who fought at Little Round Top in Gettysburg.

IV. The Augusta Arboretum

This is a photo of the piggery at the Hospital Farm which is now known as the Arboretum. When the park was first constructed in the early 1800s, it was used for farming and was owned by farms in the area. The State Hospital, now called the Augusta Mental Health Institute, purchased 224 acres of land for the use of their patients in 1835. Here, they raised crops and livestock as well as using the area as a recreational and exercise option for their patients. The land also gave the patients a chance to work which they believed would be good for their health. The park grew to 600 acres as the hospital grew, giving all the patients space to use. The piggery was closed and a new one built in 1896 and the farm land that was used for crops is now the park. All of this info and the photo were thanks to the dept. of conservation.


This photo, gathered off of the Maine Memory Network is a picture of a group of the Civilian Conservation Corps working in 1935. During the Depression, many groups of the CCC worked in parks. These men were from Jefferson and were WWI veterans who "built foot trails, foot bridges, hand rails, picnic tables, benches, and an artificial pond." This park has a long history in Augusta. Starting out with the Hospital and then as a work site for those who needed jobs during the Depression, it became a beautiful park neighboring a baseball field and well set from the road. It's a sort of quiet walk through park that is also a place of remembrance for a lot of families. Many plaques are placed on trees, bridges, benches, and wells throughout the park to commemorate all sorts of people. Some of those people are those who have made donations to the park but a lot of them are personal donations to put the name of loved ones there. The picture to the right I took with my mom and puppy when we were there last weekend. There were a few older couples there when I went and the people who visit the park are usually take their time examining signs and plants, looking at the bridges and little stone benches throughout the park. It's a very peaceful place. The park is significant to Augusta's history in particular as a place that has provided work, leisure, and a way to go and remember lost loved ones for families for more than 100 years.