2014 Visitor's Guide

Living TESTIMONY By careful preservation and active stewardship, Portland’s past is vibrantly on display for its residents and visitors to engage with—step back in time today. Photo: Corey Templeton

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authorities signifies ‘a resting place’, though others give it the interpretation of crane or heron.” The city of Portland has gone by many names including New Casco, Falmouth Neck, and finally Portland in 1786 when the town separated from Falmouth as a whole. Until 1899, Portland included only the peninsula, running east to west until it annexed what was then the city of Deering, a location with its own long, rich history. Since the 1880s, the history of Portland has grown to include a booming tourism industry, a world-class sea port, an impor- tant role in civil defense, as well as periods of urban development and revitalization. A long history is not without its strife. The city has suffered three great devastations during her tenure: in 1690 at the hands of the French and Native populations; destruction at the hands of the British, led by Capt. Mowatt, during the Revolution, and again during the Great Fire of 1866. The city rose like a phoenix and rebuilt

In 1876, Edward H. Elwell published the first edition of his work Portland And Vicinity , highlighting the many attractions popular during the formative years of Maine’s great age of tourism. Elwell begins the history with a quote taken from Captain John Smith’s The True Travels, Adventures and Observa- tions of Captaine John Smith first published in London in 1629, which personifies the historical relevance of Portland, and the context of the Maine coast within the larger history of early New England. “Captain John Smith, the first of Maine’s tourists, in his account of his famous summer trip along our shores, in 1614, thus describes it: ‘Westward of Kennebec is the Country of Aucocisco, in the bottom of a deep bay full of many great isles, which divided it into many great harbors’ This was Casco Bay, the present name of which is a corruption of the Indian word Aucocisco, which according to some

after the fire in 1866, spurring the first of much rejuvenation, a great deal of which can still be seen thanks to modern efforts by organizations such as Greater Portland Landmarks. Portland is also home to the state’s historical society. Founded in 1822, the Maine Historical Society moved to Portland in the 1880s, finding its permanent home at the site of the Wadsworth-Longfellow House, boyhood home to Portland’s native literary celebrity, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The city of Portland, the state’s largest city, represents Maine’s resilience, revitalizing and re-inventing herself over nearly four centuries to remain one of New England’s premier destinations. Elwell’s book Portland And Vicinity , as well as a later edition of Capt. John Smith’s work, are both available in the Brown Research Library at the Maine Historical Society, which along with the Society’s museum, is open to the public. Please visit mainehistory.org for more information.

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