March 12, 1888: The two-day, Great Blizzard of 1888, also known as the “Great White Hurricane,” locks up the East Coast from Chesapeake Bay to Maine, resulting in more than 400 deaths, including about 100 sailors. The storm drops 22 inches of snow in New York City, but heavy wind forms snowdrifts that are dozens […]

March 11, 1936: Rain begins falling on the first day of a three-day rainstorm that causes flooding that results in major destruction and damage across New England. In Maine, the Kennebec River bridge linking Richmond and Dresden is washed away, and the Androscoggin River in Auburn reaches its highest level on record. More than 150 […]

March 10, 1996: Portland entrepreneur James Finley announces a plan to set up an ocean trading route between Portland and Iceland, exporting hardwood to Iceland and importing frozen cod and lamb. Finley, who operates three Portland-based fishing boats, says his first trading vessel, a 198-foot steel freighter, would arrive within the week at the Custom […]

March 9, 1921: The British tramp steamer Wandby becomes shipwrecked when it runs aground on rocks at Walker’s Point ledge in Kennebunkport in dense fog. The accident happens that morning because the ship’s captain, David Simpson, mistakes a whistling buoy off Cape Porpoise for a buoy on Cashes Ledge, southeast of the Portland Lightship, which […]

March 8, 1957: Four days before beginning a two-year prison sentence, Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957), an Austrian psychoanalyst and medical doctor who lives and works at his estate, Orgonon, in Rangeley, signs his last will and testament, creating an agency now known as the Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust. Reich’s many books and other writings influenced other […]

March 7, 2019: The Skowhegan-based School Administrative District 54 board votes 14-9 to discontinue the use of “Indians” in reference to the district’s sports teams. The decision follows five years of bitter, high-profile debate about the name. The district consists of Canaan, Cornville, Mercer, Norridgewock, Skowhegan and Smithfield. Many Skowhegan-area residents oppose dropping the name, […]

March 6, 2014: The Harold Alfond Foundation announces that all Maine resident babies automatically will be awarded a $500 college grant. The Portland-based foundation, which its namesake established in 1950, supports health care, education, youth development and other causes in Maine. By 2003 it had donated more than $100 million to charity. Alfond (1914-2007), a […]

March 4, 1805: Oxford County, Maine’s seventh county and the second without a seacoast, is formed from parts of York and Cumberland counties. The home of many summer camps, the rural county is the most populous in Maine to lack a portion of the interstate highway system. March 4, 1861: Hannibal Hamlin (1809-1891), a Hampden […]