Oct. 16, 2012: A magnitude-4.5 earthquake in the York County town of Waterboro is felt across New England. It is detected even in central New York state and northern New Jersey. The epicenter originally is reported to be 4 miles northeast of East Waterboro and 3 miles west of Hollis Center, but a review of […]

Oct. 15, 1952: Harper & Bros. publishes the children’s novel “Charlotte’s Web,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning essayist and novelist E.B. White (1899-1985), who, with his author and editor wife, Katharine (1892-1977), lived for many years in a farmhouse in the Hancock County town of Brooklin. Elwyn Brooks White, a New York state native, wrote for six […]

Oct. 14, 1794: When delegates gather in Portland to consider again the question of whether the District of Maine should separate from Massachusetts, it becomes clear that this second phase of efforts to achieve that goal are making no more progress than the first, in the late 1780s. Nonetheless, the convention concludes that Maine’s prosperity […]

  Oct. 13, 1950: Twentieth Century Fox releases the drama film “All About Eve,” starring Bette Davis (1908-1989) and a cast including Gary Merrill (1915-1990), both actors with strong Maine connections. The movie wins six Academy Awards. Davis and Merrill married each other while the film was in production; they divorced 10 years later after […]

Oct. 11, 1819: Representatives of nearly all of Maine’s 236 incorporated towns attend the first day of a convention that will draft a constitution for Maine, which will become a state the following March. The convention opens at the Cumberland County Courthouse in Portland. The next day, it moves to the First Parish Church, which […]

Oct. 10, 1980: President Jimmy Carter signs the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act, ending 1976 lawsuits by the Maliseet, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes, in which they claimed about 12.5 million acres of Maine, or two-thirds of the state’s territory. Under the new law, the tribes will receive a total of $81.5 million as compensation for […]

Oct. 9, 1866: A fire that began about 3 a.m. burns until noon in Wiscasset, destroying more than 50 buildings, including the customs house, a hotel, a marble works and hay warehouses, as well as two yachts at the wharf. A strong northeast wind makes it impossible to stop the fire, and it races to […]

Oct. 8, 1829: Gov. Enoch Lincoln, Maine’s sixth governor, dies in Augusta at 40, becoming the state’s first governor to die while in office. Lincoln’s chief claim to fame might be his role in determining that Augusta would become Maine’s capital and that the State House would be built there on Weston’s Hill, but he […]