Jan. 18, 2012: In Augusta, Capitol Police Chief Russell Gauvin reports that a new security checkpoint at the west entrance of the State House is complete and operational. Workers at that entrance run scanning machines similar to those found in airports. The public no longer is able to enter the State House through any of the […]

Jan. 17, 2002: Fire severely damages buildings on Main Street in Lincoln. Three days later, a second fire breaks out. The two blazes combined wipe out a quarter of the Penobscot County town’s business district, including the three-story Lake Mall, and displace 10 businesses. Firefighters ultimately contain both fires and save other downtown businesses. The […]

Jan. 16, 2009: Realist painter Andrew Wyeth dies in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, his birthplace, at age 91 after a 70-year career. He later is buried near his summer home in South Cushing, Maine, where he once observed Christina Olson (1893-1968) shuffling slowly up a hill toward her home, using her hands to propel herself because […]

Jan. 15, 1877: Ether Shepley, who served from 1848 to 1855 as the fourth chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, dies in Portland at age 87. Shepley also was a delegate to Maine’s constitutional convention, a U.S. attorney for the District of Maine, and a U.S. senator for three years. His most enduring […]

Jan. 14, 1943: Author Laura E. Richards dies in Gardiner, where she spent most of her adult life. Richards won, with her sisters, a Pulitzer Prize in 1917 for “Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910,” a biography of their mother, who wrote the words to the song “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Richards, a Boston native, […]

Jan. 13, 1629: Pilgrims obtain a land patent along the Kennebec River, authorizing them to trade with local indigenous people. According to historian William D. Williamson, the patent, later called the Kennebec Patent or Plymouth Patent, “was intended as an express favor to her trade and fishery, and the propagation of religion.” The land grant […]

Jan. 12, 1858: Nathan Clifford (1803-1881), a New Hampshire native who began his career as a lawyer in Newfield, is sworn in as a U.S. Supreme Court associate justice. His prior experience includes serving as both a Maine and a U.S. attorney general, a member of both the Maine House of Representatives and the U.S. […]

Jan. 11, 1839: Sculptor Franklin Simmons, whose public artworks include the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow statue and the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Portland and the Soldiers’ Monument in Lewiston, is born in a part of Lisbon that later becomes the town of Sabattus. Simmons, who is raised in Bath and Lewiston, starts out making sculpture models […]

Jan. 10, 1791: After more than three years of construction, Maine’s iconic Portland Head Light, located in Cape Elizabeth, goes into service. The lighthouse includes a 72-foot tower and 16 whale oil lamps. A renovation in 1865 increases the tower height 20 feet. A duplex home for the head lighthouse keeper, the assistant lighthouse keeper […]