Working Waterfront

The complicated case of Melvin Fuller

In February 2022, a statue of Melville Fuller, the Augusta native who served as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1888-1910, was quietly removed from its spot on the grounds of the Kennebec County Courthouse where it had stood for nearly nine years. SEE MORE

A sign warns visitors away from the shore in Roque Bluffs. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

Do ‘fishing, fowling, and navigation’ ring a ‘Bell’?

But what if “fishing, fowling, and navigation” was never intended to be so restrictive? What if the long-abandoned Colonial Ordinance was only ever intended to preserve the public’s right to use the intertidal land in a way that balances the upland owners’ interests in accessing the sea with those same interests shared by the public? SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

For our towns, when are the ‘good old days’?

Do communities have their “good old days?” Do they peak? And if so, how do we measure the qualities that contribute to that status? SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Learning from one town’s pioneering spirit

Down the Pemaquid Peninsula and bordering Muscongus Bay sits the small coastal town of Bremen. According to the town’s website, Bremen was “founded in 1828 by pioneers and fishermen.” I can’t fully picture what those early pioneers encountered along the coast or what they imagined their futures to be. I… SEE MORE

Landmesser at the easel in his Stockton Springs studio. Photo courtesy the artist.

Working Waterfront

On public access: William Landmesser’s ‘The Harvester’

At the time he painted “The Harvester” in 2012, William Landmesser of Stockton Springs remembers that concern about diminishing access to shorefront in Maine was growing. “The boom in waterfront real estate meant potentially much less access by both commercial fishermen and the recreating public,” he recalled. He welcomed legislation… SEE MORE

The Portland Steam Packet Company’s coastal passenger steamers Forest City, operating for the 1882 season. PHOTO: MAINE MARITIME MUSEUM

Working Waterfront

Coastal steamers were gateway to Maine woods

The crossing of the Piscataqua River Bridge on I-95 or the aerial descent over Portland Harbor to the jetport signify arrival in Maine for most present-day visitors to Vacationland. Before the development of automobiles, highway systems, and commercial airlines, coastal steamers were the primary mode of travel for visitors from… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

How to shop at a farmers market

If you enjoy frustration, grab a recipe card for a dish you can’t wait to try, and then prowl among vendors at a farmers market. Likely you won’t find everything you need for your recipe at one time. That’s a kind of top-down market experience that you just can’t get… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Blue Butterfield’s paean to Maine

Maine, A Love Story Self-published, hardback, 192 pages Standing in line at a community lunch at the Neighborhood House in Northeast Harbor back in February, I overheard two neighbors talking excitedly about Blue Butterfield’s book Maine, A Love Story. They spoke of the personal quality of the narrative and the… SEE MORE

“Clarence Hilyard” by David Estey, 1988 oil on canvas, 10” x 8.”

Working Waterfront

James Fitzgerald at Katahdin

One of Clarence’s predecessors, William Wingate Sewall, took on a sickly young Teddy Roosevelt at the camps and built him up to be a vigorous young man... SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Remembering an island icon

Delly—whose full name was Dallas Levi Anthony—was a pianist, a wonderful baritone, a terrific cook and baker, precipitously mischievous, and a help to all. A friend recalls that Delly let him and his brother, nine- and ten-year-olds, tag along up into the bell tower of the Union Church to take… SEE MORE