Jan. 15, 1877: Ether Shepley, who served from 1848 to 1855 as the fourth chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, dies in Portland at age 87. Shepley also was a delegate to Maine’s constitutional convention, a U.S. attorney for the District of Maine, and a U.S. senator for three years. His most enduring […]

Jan. 14, 1943: Author Laura E. Richards dies in Gardiner, where she spent most of her adult life. Richards won, with her sisters, a Pulitzer Prize in 1917 for “Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910,” a biography of their mother, who wrote the words to the song “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Richards, a Boston native, […]

Jan. 13, 1629: Pilgrims obtain a land patent along the Kennebec River, authorizing them to trade with local indigenous people. According to historian William D. Williamson, the patent, later called the Kennebec Patent or Plymouth Patent, “was intended as an express favor to her trade and fishery, and the propagation of religion.” The land grant […]

Jan. 12, 1858: Nathan Clifford (1803-1881), a New Hampshire native who began his career as a lawyer in Newfield, is sworn in as a U.S. Supreme Court associate justice. His prior experience includes serving as both a Maine and a U.S. attorney general, a member of both the Maine House of Representatives and the U.S. […]

Jan. 11, 1839: Sculptor Franklin Simmons, whose public artworks include the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow statue and the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Portland and the Soldiers’ Monument in Lewiston, is born in a part of Lisbon that later becomes the town of Sabattus. Simmons, who is raised in Bath and Lewiston, starts out making sculpture models […]

Jan. 10, 1791: After more than three years of construction, Maine’s iconic Portland Head Light, located in Cape Elizabeth, goes into service. The lighthouse includes a 72-foot tower and 16 whale oil lamps. A renovation in 1865 increases the tower height 20 feet. A duplex home for the head lighthouse keeper, the assistant lighthouse keeper […]

Jan. 9, 1897: Former Republican Gov. Daniel F. Davis dies in the Penobscot County town of Corinth. He became governor in 1880 at the age of 36 at the end of a weekslong armed standoff between competing political factions, featuring threats of kidnapping and assassination. Davis ran for governor in the election of September 1879. […]

Jan. 7, 1925: Ralph Owen Brewster, a Republican supported openly by the Ku Klux Klan, takes office as Maine’s governor. The election campaign put the division in Brewster’s party on full display. His predecessor, Gov. Percival Baxter, accused Brewster of being a sympathizer of the Klan, which had gained traction in Maine because of its […]