Oct. 5, 1785: In response to a notice published in the Falmouth Gazette, about 30 men from Cumberland, Lincoln and York counties gather at the meeting house of ministers Thomas Smith and Samuel Deane in Falmouth to discuss, for the first time in a formal setting, a proposal that Maine separate from Massachusetts to become […]

Oct. 4, 1992: Portland is granted an Eastern League minor league baseball expansion team. The Portland Sea Dogs begin playing April 7, 1994, as a double-A affiliate of the Florida Marlins. They make the playoffs for the first time in 1995. In 2003 the team becomes a Boston Red Sox affiliate. The team wins the […]

Sept. 29, 1888: The city unveils a monument to poet and Portland native Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). A dedication ceremony is held beside the monument in State Street Square, which was later renamed Longfellow Square. The event features a band, a succession of speakers, and 100 schoolchildren singing Longfellow’s 1838 poem “Psalm of Life.” Several […]

Sept. 28, 2017: Bath Iron Works and Maine’s congressional delegation announce that the Maine shipyard has won a contract to build two more Arleigh Burke-class destroyers for the U.S. Navy. The Navy does not release the contract price, saying it plans to issue more such contracts, and it wants to keep bidding competitive. BIW, owned […]

Sept. 27, 1962: The publisher Houghton Mifflin releases aquatic biologist, nature writer and conservationist Rachel Carson’s seminal book “Silent Spring.” Carson (1907-1964) was a summer resident of Maine’s Southport Island, where she owned a cottage overlooking Sheepscot Bay. Born and raised in western Pennsylvania, she began writing as a child. Her academic career suffered because […]