Aug. 13, 1607: Colonists led by George Popham and traveling on the ship Gift of God arrive at the mouth of the Kennebec River after an 11-week voyage from Plymouth, England. An accompanying ship, the Mary and John, arrives a few days later. The colonists, who number about 120, build Fort St. George in what […]

Aug. 12, 1873: President Ulysses S. Grant arrives in Augusta for a multi-day visit at U.S. House Speaker James G. Blaine’s Augusta residence, the future Maine governors’ mansion. It is Grant’s third trip to Augusta. The first occurred in August 1865, four months after the conclusion of the Civil War, in which Grant was the […]

Aug. 11, 1978: Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson and Larry Newman, riding in the helium-filled balloon Double Eagle II, launch at 8:42 p.m. from Presque Isle. After 137 hours and six minutes, they land in a barley field in Miserey, France, about 60 miles northwest of Paris, completing the first successful manned transatlantic balloon flight. Their […]

Aug. 10, 1674: A Dutch force commanded by naval Capt. Jurriaen Aernouts, aboard the frigate Flying Horse, overruns the 30 lightly armed French soldiers at Fort Pentagouet during the Franco-Dutch war of 1672-78. The Dutch also seize the French military headquarters there. Pentagouet, located on the Bagaduce River at the current site of the town […]

Aug. 9, 1842: The U.S. signs the Treaty of Washington, or Webster-Ashburton Treaty, with the United Kingdom, establishing what is now the boundary between the United States and Canada, including the boundary in northern and eastern Maine. The treaty resolves a dispute known as the “Aroostook War,” a disagreement that led to deployment of militia […]

Aug. 8, 1901: Chansonetta Stanley Emmons (1858-1937) opens a two-day exhibit of her photography in Farmington. Emmons is the sister of the Stanley brothers, who invented and marketed the Stanley Steamer car. The brothers turned to transportation technology after becoming wealthy through pioneering work in manufacturing and marketing dry-plate photography equipment, but their sister stuck […]

Aug. 7, 1823: Maine’s first recorded meteorite falls between 4 and 5 p.m. in Nobleboro, startling a nearby flock of sheep when it hits the ground. Mr. A. Dinsmore, who looks for the rock after hearing what he later says sounded like musket fire, digs down about 6 inches and recovers 5 or 6 pounds […]

Aug. 5, 1789: Congress passes the Coasting Act, which requires that ships trading along the Atlantic coast enter and clear at a custom house both coming and going in every state except the ones contiguous to the ship’s state of departure. This provides a disincentive for Maine to separate from Massachusetts, because Massachusetts is contiguous […]

Aug. 3, 1924: A fire caused by a carelessly discarded cigarette butt consumes the Hillcrest, a summer hotel on Chebeague Island, and nearby buildings, killing three guests and injuring others. The fire also burns up a neighboring dance hall and two residences, one of which was being used as a hotel annex, as well as […]