Castine, Maine
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| Castine, Maine | |
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  Castine, Maine
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| Coordinates: | |
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| Country | United States |
| State | Maine |
| County | Hancock |
| Incorporated | 1796 |
| Area | |
| - Total | 20.0 sq mi (51.8 km²) |
| - Land | 7.8 sq mi (20.2 km²) |
| - Water | 12.2 sq mi (31.6 km²) |
| Elevation | 30 ft (9 m) |
| Population (2000) | |
| - Total | 1,343 |
| - Density | 172.2/sq mi (66.5/km²) |
| Time zone | Eastern (EST) (UTC-5) |
| - Summer (DST) | EDT (UTC-4) |
| ZIP codes | 04420-04421 |
| Area code(s) | 207 |
| FIPS code | 23-11265 |
| GNIS feature ID | 0582396 |
Castine is a town in Hancock County, Maine, United States. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total year-round population of 1,343. Castine is the home of Maine Maritime Academy, a four-year institution that graduates officers and engineers for the United States Merchant Marine and marine related industries. Approximately 850 students are enrolled.
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[edit] History
[edit] 1600s-1790s
Called Majabigwaduce by Tarrantine Abenaki Indians, Castine is one of the oldest towns in New England, predating the Plymouth Colony by seven years. Situated on Penobscot Bay, it is near the site of Fort Pentagouet, which many consider to be the oldest permanent settlement in New England. Few places in New England have had a more tumultuous history than Castine -- which proclaims itself the "battle line of four nations."
Its commanding position at the mouth of the Penobscot River, a lucrative source of furs and timber, as well as a major transportation route into the interior, made the peninsula occupied by the present-day town of Castine of particular interest to European powers in the 17th-century. Majabagaduce (as the Indian name would be corrupted) changed hands numerous times with shifting imperial politics. At one time or another, it was occupied by the French, Dutch and England's Plymouth Colony.
The Castine peninsula appears on a 1612 chart submitted to King Henry IV of France by Samuel de Champlain, who called it the Pentagoët Peninsula. As part of Henry's program to defend Acadia, Castine was founded in the winter of 1613, when Claude de Saint-Etienne de la Tour established a small trading post to conduct business with the Tarrantine Indians (now called the Penobscots). Captain John Smith charted it in 1614 and refers to French traders in the vicinity. At some point, crude defences were erected nearby called Fort Penagoët.[1]
After the English seized the post in 1628, it was made an administrative outpost of the Plymouth Colony. William Bradford personally traveled there to claim it. In 1635, it was retaken by the French and again incorporated into Acadia; apparently a more substantial fort armed with cannon was built at this time. In 1667, French authorities dispatched the Baron Jean-Vincent de St. Castin to take command of Pentagoët. The baron married Abenaki, the daughter of the sachem Modockawando. She adopted the French name Mathilde and bore him 10 children. [2] Castine soon became a force in colonial trade and diplomacy.
Pentagoët was in 1674 and 1676 attacked and briefly held by the Dutch, who turned the fort's cannon on its own walls and destroyed most of it after the second siege. Castin himself retook it in 1676 and renamed the town Bagaduce, a shortened version of Majabagaduce. During King William's War, in 1692 the village was again seized by the English, who destroyed the fort and looted the settlement. With the return of Baron Castine and his sons to France, the settlement became sparsely occupied -- and peaceful -- until the eve of the American Revolution.
At the end of the French and Indian War, which secured English title to North America, the unoccupied lands along the Maine coast were opened to settlement by Massachusetts colonists. By the late 1760s, farmers, artisans, and small traders were beginning to take title to properties in and around "Major Baggadoose." Though the fur trade was long dead, the region's abundant fisheries and timber attracted not only entrepreneurs, but also the attention of the British government, which was always on the lookout for store to supply its growing navy. Bagaduce was especially valuable for supplying timber suitable for masts on British warships.
In early July of 1779, nearly three years after the Americans had declared independence from Britain, a naval and military force under the command of General Francis McLean sailed into the settlement's commodious harbor, landed troops, and took control of the village. They began erecting Fort George on one of the highest points of the peninsula. Alarmed by this incursion, the Massachusetts legislature dispatched a military expedition consisting of a fleet of 19 armed vessels and 24 transports, carrying 344 guns, under Dudley Saltonstall, and a land force of about 1,200 men, under Gen. Solomon Lovell, seconded by Gen. Peleg Wadsworth. Col. Paul Revere was given charge of the ordnance.
Although badly outnumbered, British soldiers of the 74th Regiment of Foot (Argyle Highlanders), managed to repel American attacks for nearly three weeks. In mid-August, British reinforcements appeared at the head of the bay. The Americans eventually abandoned the fight and retreated up the Penobscot River, destroying their entire fleet along the way to keep it out of British hands. The failed Penobscot Expedition, which cost the revolutionaries eight million dollars, proved to be the greatest American naval defeat until Pearl Harbor in 1941. The 74th Regiment held Majabagaduce until the end of the war, when it was ceded to the Americans as part of the peace settlement. Saltonstall and Revere were later court-martialed, charged with cowardice and insubordination; Saltonsall was found guilty, but Revere got acquitted.
At the end of the Revolutionary War, many loyal British subjects in the area migrated eastward to the Canadian Maritimes, some towing their houses behind their boats. Subsequently known as United Empire Loyalists, they crossed the newly established international boundary line of the St. Croix River and established St. Andrews, one of the oldest towns in New Brunswick. In addition, many soldiers of the 74th chose to be disbanded in St. Andrews (last muster May 24, 1784), and took up land grants there along with the Loyalists rather than return to Britain.
[edit] 1800s-1960s
With the growth of the postwar economy, the town became a prosperous place: the seat of Hancock County and a center for shipbuilding and coastal trading, although Castine was occupied by the British for eight months during the War of 1812. By the 1820s, it had become a major entrepot for American fishing fleets on their way to the Grand Banks. It also prospered from the lumber industry, in which eastern Maine dominated the rest of the country before the Civil War. During this period of growth and prosperity, many of the handsome Federal and Greek Revival style mansions that still grace the village's streets were constructed.
But Castine declined after the Civil War. Its fleet, which once sailed the globe, now carried coal, firewood, and lime to coastal ports, competing with railroads and steamships. Ambitious young people sought their fortunes elsewhere. The Hancock County seat moved to Ellsworth in 1838.
By the 1870s, however, Castine's quaint old architecture and cool summer air attracted "rusticators" -- well-to-do urban families seeking rest and recreation. Its charms also drew cultural luminaries, including Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose writings romanticized its past. By the 1890s, wealthy families from Boston, Hartford and Chicago were buying up old farms and sea captains' houses. Hotels and inns opened as Castine became a flourishing summer colony. Since 1867, it had been site of the Eastern State Normal School.
But in the 1930s, Castine reached its economic nadir. The Great Depression and the automobile had killed off the hotel trade, the steamship lines that had linked coastal towns and islands, and the local fishing industry. Its fortunes did not revive until the 1960s, with the rediscovery of the town's charms by a new generation of summer people.
[edit] 1980s-2000s
A key element in the town's revival has been the expansion of the Maine Maritime Academy. Established in 1941 to train merchant seamen, by the 1980s the Academy offered a range of courses in engineering, management, transportation, and nautical and ocean science. Its handsome campus, once the home of the Eastern State Normal School, features an excellent library (available to the public) and extensive athletic facilities.
By the 1980s, many of the old hotels previously in disuse had reopened, offering Victorian ambience with first-rate dining facilities. The harbor, almost entirely empty in the 1950s, filled with luxury yachts. Castine was discovered by wealthy retirees willing to brave the rigors of winter in Maine, prompting some cynics to dub the town: "New Canaan-by-the-Sea."
Castine has considerable tourist amenities: several historic sites and parks (including the ruins of British earthworks at Fort George), an excellent deep water harbor (with tie-ups for small boats beyond the current of the Penobscot and Bagaduce rivers), a non-exclusive club offering golf, tennis and yachting facilities, good restaurants, and four churches (Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Congregational and Unitarian Universalist). In addition, the town has a fine public library, an active historical society, and the Wilson Museum, a unique institution featuring exhibits of anthropological, natural and local artifacts. Castine's streets are lined with lovely Cape and other antique style houses, and shaded by large elms which are replaced with disease-resistant strains when they succumb. Opened in 1814, the Castine Post Office is the oldest in continuous operation in the United States.
[edit] Notable residents
- Philip Booth, poet & educator
- Noah Brooks, journalist & biographer
- Carl Ferdinand Cori, biochemist
- Mary Dewson, activist
- Germain Doucet, military officer
- David Hall, sound archivist
- Elizabeth Hardwick, critic
- Robert Lowell, poet
- Mary McCarthy, novelist
- Don McLean, singer-songwriter
- Bernard-Anselme d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin, military officer
- Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin, military officer
- Joseph d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin, military officer
- Claude de Saint-Etienne de la Tour, trader
- Hezekiah Williams, congressman
[edit] Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 20.0 square miles (51.8 km²), of which, 7.8 square miles (20.2 km²) of it is land and 12.2 square miles (31.6 km²) of it (60.98%) is water. Castine is drained by the Bagaduce River estuary.
The town is crossed by state routes 166 and 166A. Situated on a penisula in Penobscot Bay, Castine is bordered by the town of Penobscot to the northeast, Brooksville across the Bagaduce River to the southeast, and near Islesboro to the southwest.
[edit] Demographics
As of the census[3] of 2000, there were 1,343 people, 372 households, and 222 families residing in the town. The population density was 172.2 people per square mile (66.5/km²). There were 649 housing units at an average density of 83.2/sq mi (32.1/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 97.10% White, 0.67% African American, 0.60% Native American, 0.74% Asian, 0.22% from other races, and 0.67% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.60% of the population.
There were 372 households out of which 18.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 49.2% were married couples living together, 7.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 40.3% were non-families. 30.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.16 and the average family size was 2.69.
In the town the population was spread out with 10.3% under the age of 18, 41.9% from 18 to 24, 15.0% from 25 to 44, 18.4% from 45 to 64, and 14.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 24 years. For every 100 females there were 186.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 196.8 males.
The median income for a household in the town was $46,250, and the median income for a family was $65,500. Males had a median income of $36,250 versus $30,893 for females. The per capita income for the town was $20,078. About 3.2% of families and 12.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 10.9% of those under age 18 and 4.7% of those age 65 or over.
[edit] Sites of interest
- Castine Historical Society & Museum
- Cold Comfort Summer Theatre
- Wilson Museum -- Castine Scientific Society
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.castine.me.us/display.phtml?tid=9
- ^ http://www.acadiansingray.com/Appendices-Acadian%20Marriages.htm White,Dictionnaire Acadiennes
- ^ American FactFinder. United States Census Bureau. Retrieved on 2008-01-31.
[edit] Sources
- History of Castine, Penobscot, and Brooksville, Maine including the ancient settlement of Pentagoet. By George Augustus Wheeler. Published 1875.
- Buker, George E. 2002. "The Penobscot Expedition: Commodore Saltonstall and the Massachusetts Conspiracy of 1779." Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press.
- Bourne, Russell. 1989. "The View from Front Street: Travels through New England’s Historic Fishing Communities." New York : W.W. Norton.
- Bourne, Russell. 1990. 'The Red King’s Rebellion: Racial politics in New England, 1675-1678." New York, NY: Atheneum, 1990.
- Doudiet, Ellenore. 1978. "Majabigwaduce: Castine, Penobscot, and Brooksville." Castine, ME: Castine Scientific Society.
- Faulkner, Alaric, 1987. "The French at Pentagoet, 1635-1674: An Archaeological Portrait of the Acadian Frontier." Augusta, ME: Maine Historic Preservation Commission.
- Maine League of Historical Societies and Museums (1970). in Doris A. Isaacson: Maine: A Guide 'Down East'. Rockland, Me: Courier-Gazette, Inc., 349-351.
- Wasson, George Savary. 1932. Sailing Days on the Penobscot: The River and Bay as They Were in the Old Days; with a Record of Vessels Built There, Compiled by Lincoln Colcord. Salem, MA: Marine Research society, 1932.
- Wheeler, George A. 1923. "History of Castine: Battle Line of Four Nations." Cornwell, NY: privately printed.
[edit] External links
- Town of Castine, Maine
- Witherle Memorial Library
- Castine Golf Club
- Castine Yacht Club
- Maine Maritime Academy
- Castine Patriot newspaper
- Maine.gov -- Castine, Maine
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