Nov. 23, 2018: The Portland Press Herald reports that although nearly 50,200 people used the direct high-speed ferry service between Portland and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, during the year – the busiest season ever – the ferry probably will not be returning. Bay Ferries, the vessel’s operator, plans to move its service to Bar Harbor. The […]

Nov. 22, 1963: President John F. Kennedy, who gave a foreign policy speech at the University of Maine only a month earlier, is assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Kennedy originally is buried in a 30-by-20-foot plot surrounded by a white picket fence at Arlington National Cemetery. About 16 million people visit it during the first three […]

Nov. 21, 1921: The first edition of the Portland Press Herald is published. It is a merger of the former Portland Herald and the Portland Daily Press, which was founded in 1862. Guy Gannett, an Augusta businessman, after being approached by owners of several papers in a cutthroat environment of declining revenue, eventually bought the […]

Nov. 20, 1652: Stamping out a 3-year-old effort to form an independent English province of Maine, Massachusetts Bay Colony authorities convince 41 residents of Kittery to submit unconditionally to Massachusetts. A few days later, they exact a similar pledge of loyalty from residents of nearby Agamenticus – now the town of York. In doing so, […]

Nov. 19, 1819: Former President Thomas Jefferson writes a letter to William King, a leading Maine statehood advocate and future Maine governor, thanking him for sending Jefferson a draft of the proposed Maine Constitution, being prepared in conjunction with Maine’s anticipated admission to statehood in 1820. While praising most of the document, Jefferson faults its […]

Nov. 18, 1833: Ebenezer Dole, his brother Daniel Dole and others meet in Hallowell to form Maine’s first anti-slavery group, called the Hallowell Anti-slavery Society. The society’s debut occurs about a year after William Lloyd Garrison, one of the more prominent American orators calling for the abolition of slavery, conducted a speaking tour across the […]

Nov. 17, 2018: Thornton Academy’s football team completes its first unbeaten season since 1986 with a lopsided 49-14 win against Portland High School in Maine’s Class A state championship game. The 11-0 string of Trojans’ victories is all the more impressive because opposing teams never even held a temporary lead over Thornton in any game […]

Nov. 16, 1975: Television crews and reporters converge on the Kennebec River to record the last major log drive in the contiguous 48 U.S. states. The Maine Legislature passed a law in 1971 banning log drives after Oct. 1, 1976, but in 1975 the practice already is dying out for economic reasons, given that it […]

Nov. 15, 1888: The Maine Steamship Co. accepts a $160,000 bid from Bath Iron Works for the construction of the steamship Cottage City. It is the 4-year-old Bath shipyard’s first shipbuilding project. The vessel is delivered to the owners in May 1890. It carries passengers between Portland and New York for more than seven years […]

Nov. 14, 1899: Walter Wyman, who studied engineering, and Harvey Eaton, a lawyer, begin operating the Oakland Electric Light Co., which they had bought for $4,500 seven days earlier. The company eventually buys up other electric companies and becomes the Central Maine Power Co., Maine’s largest electric utility. Construction of dams began in Oakland in […]