Sept. 22, 1942: Two Army B-25C Mitchell medium bombers crash in separate incidents in Aroostook County, killing a total of 14 crew members. Visibility was poor for both planes, according to air base headquarters in Presque Isle. One plane crashes in Perham, about 15 miles west of Caribou; the other, about six miles northeast of […]
This Day in Maine History
Posted inBicentennial, Local & State, News
On this date in Maine history: Sept. 21
Sept. 21, 1749: Nine members of the Kennebeck Proprietors, the legal heirs of Pilgrims who had obtained rights to land in the Kennebec River valley, meet at the Royal Exchange Tavern in Boston. The meeting results in the commissioning of land surveys and authorizes the initiation of lawsuits against squatters and competitors. Friction between landowners […]
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On this date in Maine history: Sept. 20
Sept. 20, 1883: John Appleton (1804-1891) of Bangor, chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, retires after serving 20 years and 11 months in that role, longer than any other chief justice in Maine history. A New Hampshire native, the Bowdoin College graduate was admitted to the bar in that state, then moved back […]
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On this date in Maine history: Sept. 19
Sept. 19, 1775: With the Revolutionary War having begun the previous spring, Col. Benedict Arnold sets sail from Newburyport, Massachusetts, with his expeditionary force bound for Quebec City. The Arnold Expedition has been waiting for three days, delayed by unfavorable wind and then the accidental grounding of one of Arnold’s ships in the channel to […]
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On this date in Maine history: Sept. 18
Sept. 18, 1918: U.S. Army Flight Cmdr. Sumner Sewall of Bath, serving with the 95th Aero Squadron, shoots down the last of five enemy fighter planes over which he achieved victory in less than four months in World War I, earning the status of fighter ace. Writing home to his mother in July from France, […]
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On this date in Maine history: Sept. 17
Sept. 17, 1604: French royal cartographer Samuel de Champlain (1567-1635), traveling by sea from the French colony on nearby St. Croix Island and using Native American guides, sails up the Penobscot River to Kenduskeag Stream at what is now Bangor. Sept. 17, 1785: The Falmouth Gazette, a newspaper established at the beginning of the year […]
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On this date in Maine history: Sept. 16
Sept. 16, 2019: An explosion at the Farmington offices of LEAP, an agency that helps people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, kills Capt. Michael Bell of the Farmington Fire Rescue Department. Six other firefighters and a building maintenance worker who were investigating reports of a propane smell are injured. The explosion is so powerful it […]
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On this date in Maine history: Sept. 15
Sept. 15, 1908: A fire that starts in a pile of wood shavings at George A. Crossman & Sons lumberyard in Saco consumes 15 acres of lumberyards, more than 20 tenement buildings, several factories and some railroad property in Saco and Biddeford. The flames spread from the Crossman site to the roofs of nearby homes. […]
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On this date in Maine history: Sept. 14
Sept. 14, 1908: Voters approve by a more than 2-to-1 margin an amendment to the Maine Constitution that establishes the right to a “people’s veto” by referendum and an initiative by petition at general and special elections. The amendment becomes effective Jan. 6, 1909. Maine becomes the first Eastern state to embed into law the […]
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On this date in Maine history: Sept. 13
Sept. 13, 1921: Future President Franklin D. Roosevelt, stricken with a paralytic illness believed to be polio while at his family’s vacation home on the New Brunswick island of Campobello, is taken across the water in excruciating pain by motor launch to Eastport, Maine. There he is loaded into a train from a special baggage […]