Pemaquid Peninsula:: A Midcoast Maine History

by Josh Hanna

Overview

Offshore fishermen and skillful shipbuilders transformed the quiet shores of the Pemaquid Peninsula beginning in 1815. The maritime economy drove local commerce until enterprising locals turned to ice harvesting, granite quarrying, brick making, lobster canning and pogy oil processing before summer tourism grew and thrived. The descendants of revolutionaries became the faces of a more prosperous generation—men like Albert Thorpe, who ran a popular summer hotel on the grounds where his grandfather had salted and dried his catch decades earlier. Today, summer rusticators discover the enduring natural beauty at the heart of the Pemaquid Peninsula. Journey to the past with Pemaquid native and historian Josh Hanna as he discovers these timeless shores.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467118071
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	07/13/2015
Series:	Brief History
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Josh Hanna is a Pemaquid native who was born in Damariscotta, lived in Round Pond, went to school in Pemaquid Falls, played baseball in New Harbor and always had a sense of the rich history surrounding him as a boy. His family was the last to live in the keeper's house at Pemaquid Point Lighthouse before the building became today's Fishermen's Museum. He graduated magna cum laude with high honors in history from Dartmouth College and received his MBA at Harvard Business School before serving as a longtime executive at Ancestry.com. He has a real passion for all things local and family history. He lives in Mill Valley, California, with his wife and two daughters.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 9

Preface 11

Prologue 13

Part I The Pemaquid Peninsula in 1815

1 The Peninsula 17

2 Communities 22

Families, Parishes, the Town of Bristol and Villages

3 The Local Economy 33

Farming, Fishing, Lumbering, Shipbuilding and Commerce

4 Last of the Local Battles 42

Part II A Prosperous Maritime Community, 1815-1860

5 Agriculture: Secondary but Necessary 47

6 The Maritime Economy 52

Cod and Mackerel Fishing, Inshore Fisheries, Commerce and Shipbuilding

7 Community Development 75

Family, Parish and Town, Growth of Villages, Small Village Development, Bristol Mills and Round Pond

Part III Making Do: Booms, Busts and Diversification, 1850-1890

8 The Old Traditions 97

End of the Golden Age, Shipbuilding and Fishing

9 Resources for an Industrializing Nation: A Half Century of Boom and Bust 109

Canning, Pogies, Granite, Bricks, Ice and Women in the Workforce

10 Villages 136

New Harbor and Round Pond

Part IV Decline and Renewal, 1880-1915

11 The Decline of Local Industry 149

Farming, Quarrying, Brick Making, Ice Harvesting, Shipbuilding, Seafaring and Fishing

12 The Summer Resort Business 158

Boardinghouses and Hotels

13 The Luxury Economy 176

Lobsters, Steamboats and Recreation

14 Summer Colonies 188

South Bristol and Christmas Cove

15 The "Local" versus Those "From Away" Dynamic: A Dual Social Structure 195

Epilogue 199

Notes 203

Bibliography 215

Index 225

About the Author 237