By W. Patrick Lang
Comment: I thought of this story yesterday while I was waiting for my lobster role order. Whenever the Cousins Maine Lobster food truck comes to our area I pick up a couple for SWMBO and myself. They’re expensive, but good. We opt for the Connecticut style, warm lobster meat on a top split split bun lightly drizzled with melted butter.
I remember the age that Pat was in this story, about to graduate high school and embark on the next great adventure. It was a grand time. Enjoy the story.
“Idle Hour” was a “backyard class” lobster boat. She was clinker built by two carpenters for the exacting work of pulling lobsters from the cold depths of coastal waters. An old Willys jeep engine ran the screw that drove her through the waves as well and powered the drum winch that hauled water soaked traps from the seabed far below. She was a handsome craft and attracted tourist photography swinging at her mooring. She was painted white with a green stripe around the hull. The wheel house had a red roof,
The boat was strongly built so that she could “swim” in the choppy seas off Kennebunkport, Maine. There were always wind waves there, always. The ever present gales and coastal currents whipped the sea to four and five foot waves even on what the weather forecasters might think a calm day. To live in those waters, the little work boat was built with a high freeboard and a bluff, upturned forepeak.
She was owned by a French-Canadian named Albert Morin who was also the proprietor of a small “super-market” in an inland town. The boat put down forty lobster “pots” in a string half a mile long. These were hauled twice a day to be emptied, re-baited, and sent down again into the depths. The traps were the traditional wooden boxes fitted with netting. These were baited with rotten fish hooked to the side of the inner chamber, the one the fisher folk called “the chamber of death.” The bait was bought from the Shackford & Gootch fishing company on the town wharf at Kennebunkport on the Kennebunk River. Most of the lobsters went to Morin’s grocery store. If there was a surplus the extras were traded for bait or sold to Shackford & Gootch for the wholesale market price. That was usually about 40 cents a pound. The price varied, but not by much.
Morin had appointed his teenaged son, Raymond, to command the boat. The young man had a hired seaman to assist him most days, but his high school friend Walt Laine came aboard as well at times to help and for the sheer joy of being at sea and free of the land.
One fine day in May, 1958, the friends took the boat to sea for a special harvest of the ocean’s produce. They had graduated from high school the week before, and this trip would be one of the last together in “Idle Hour.” Raymond would soon leave for college in Boston and Laine looked forward to a year spent far to the south in a place unknown to him from anything but books.
The sky was bright; the sun warmed the air as it shone on the dark blue water. Clouds sailed to the land on the breeze.
The 40 foot boat began to pitch fore and aft as she crossed the bar and exited the river for the open water of the Gulf of Maine. Walker Point was on the port bow. The big frame house there was a pretty landmark. Returning fishermen were happy to see it ahead after a long day. To starboard on the other headland was a jumble of dark and foreboding buildings that were said to be a monastery of some sort.
Laine sat on the deck in the cockpit, his back braced against the transom. The sea was too rough for a seat on a gunwale bench to be comfortable.
His friend was at the wheel with the drum of the winch pressed against his knees. There was a davit and block pulley at his right elbow.
They wore wet weather gear from the boat’s cabin storage forward.
Spray whipped the cockpit and wet the dark red of the painted deck.
The ridges of their rubber boots kept them from sliding, but only just.
“You still want to be a dentist?” Laine asked his friend.
“Yeah, I don’t want the grocery store. My old man accepts that more or less. I want to do biology at “Northeastern” and then dentistry somewhere in Massachusetts. I just want to make money, be comfortable, and own a nice boat.”
“Maybe you could buy this one…”
Ray Morin laughed. You could just hear him above the sound of the sea and the cries of the gulls following them in hope of a handout. “No, he says he will sell her in a few months. He doesn’t want her if he doesn’t have me to run her. Cheap bastard, he doesn’t pay me. He says college will be payment enough.”
“Ah, that sounds familiar.”
“You still going to that place in Virginia that I never heard of?”
“Yup. I got a letter from Tulane last week offering me a full “ride” in English for four years, but I’m not going to take it.”
“Why?”
Laine struggled within himself for an answer. Morin was his friend. They had been “running” in tandem in grades and class office through the last four years. “Oh, just to torment my “old bastard.”
“Do you still want to go in the army?”
Laine pulled the bill of his old baseball cap lower. “I think so.”
“Why didn’t you go to West Point?”
“My eyes aren’t quite good enough. I would need a waiver that they seldom give. My eyes are good enough to be an army officer, but I would need a waiver for West Point. I think that’s funny. And, I don’t want to study math and engineering. The place is all about that. So, I will go to this other school. I can’t say I know much about the place except it has a good reputation and Marshall went there… Maybe I should go in the navy. I like boats.”
“I’ve noticed. Are you still dating Madeleine Lajoie?”
Laine had not expected that question and felt defenseless. “No, she sent me on my way some time ago…”
“Why?”
“She said she was either going to take a job she was offered with the corps de ballet of some dance company in New York or study math in Boston. In either case she didn’t see any place for me in the picture. Besides that, her widowed mother doesn’t like me.”
“That’s a shame. She’s a beauty, a real beauty… Does that mean you are finished with her?”
Laine smiled. “Ah, I see. You are going to be in Boston as well…”
“But are you finished with her?”
“Don’t try to be noble. It doesn’t seem natural for you. I am going to be busy for a couple of years, but I will look for her eventually.”
“Ah,” Morin said shaking his head a little. “Here comes our string of floats.”
Laine steadied himself against the boat’s motion and went to his place next to the helmsman. He leaned outboard to starboard to see the float approaching in the “chop.” There was an iron handhold in the bulwark by the davit. Grasping that in his left hand, he leaned out over the side and reached down for the float. He had canvas work gloves on but the water was cold even in May. He gripped the float just below its bulbous base. There was a multi colored stick above that but for this operation it was just in the way. With the strength of his 18 years he lifted the float and the 80 pound weight of line, lobster pot, brick weights and lobsters off the bottom and high enough so that he could loop the line over the block on the davit and then pull in enough slack to wrap it around the drum of the winch.
Ray had the engine idling. When he saw the line around the winch he put the hoist in gear. The old jeep engine roared in seeming joy at its task and up came the pot from the bottom.
When it broke the surface and sailed into the sunlight, Walt swung it in so that it could rest on the gunwale.
There was a large metal tank on the cockpit deck. It was half full of sea water. A smaller bait tank stood next to it and a galvanized bucket as well.
Laine opened the domed, hinged top of the trap. Sea water was still running down on the deck and over the side. The boat continued to jump up and down and to roll as well in the trough of the waves. There were three lobsters and a crab. They were beautifully colored in dark greens and brown with orange edges on the shells. He extracted them one at a time. He tossed the crab over the side as well as one of the lobsters that was clearly too small. He had a pocket full of little wooden pegs, and pegged the mandible of each claw behind the joint so that it could not open. Without that precaution the lobsters would clip each other’s’ claws off. One-clawed lobsters were worth less. The pegged lobsters went into the sea water tank. He reached in the bait tank for a piece of slimy, stinking fish. The eyes of the dead fish were particularly ghastly looking. The filthier the bait the more the lobsters loved it. He closed the lid of the baited trap, glanced at Ray and then swung the “pot” out over the water. He heard the winch change gears and let go. The trap plunged back into the deep. When the line went slack, he un-wrapped the float from the drum and tossed it back into the heaving water.
Ray put the propeller in gear and “Idle Hour” ran away to the next float. The color bands on them identified the owner. Other color patterns cold be seen in the distance near the boats that were servicing “strings” of pots.
40 traps later, the harvest tank was three quarters full, the “pots” were all back on the sea floor, baited and oozing lovely repulsive smells for the catch to come. Ray would be back the next day with his hired man.
They turned to a southwesterly course. They were about four miles offshore with no “Fish and Game” boats in sight.
Laine inspected the lobsters in the tank, measured them with the state government issued brass tool that identified lobsters legal for harvest. Lobsters could be kept if they fit a certain “bracket” in the length of the main shell from eye socket to the end of the main segment. There were cut outs on either side of the tool. When applied to the animal they indicated whether or not it was the correct size. He found some that were too large and tossed them back into the ocean after removing the claw pegs. One big male reached around and grabbed his sleeve as soon as the peg came out. He was about a ten pounder. He could “father” a lot of baby “lobstahs.”
Ray laughed as he watched Laine lean outboard to hold the lobster in the water.
Feeling its escape to be possible the “cock” lobster let go and fell away into the dark blueness. Several more went back into the deep. All of these were too small. There were about 30 lobsters left in the tank.
Laine had kept four “hens” that were just a little too small. They had gone into the metal pail. He searched under a cockpit gunwale seat and found a small propane camping stove and a length of board that would just cover the mouth of the pail.
“Idle Hour” “steamed” along the coast with a following wind on a course that would bring them to shore in a couple of miles.
Laine seated himself on a locker top and braced the stove between his boots. He lit the tiny cooker with a match. He then put the bucket with the four lobsters and three inches of Atlantic Ocean on top. The old board topped the whole thing. He held it with one gloved hand to keep everything in place as the boat rose and fell in the following waves. After a bit the lobsters stopped thrashing around. When they were a nice red color he put them on the deck and went forward to take the wheel.
Ray came aft with a hammer and a screwdriver. They had a clean car hubcap on board and soon it was covered with lovely lobster meat. They ate in silence. Every single piece of shell went over the side. There were heavy fines for what they had just done, but they could see five miles in every direction to seaward. The “Fish and Game” knew that fishermen fed themselves aboard the boats but with the common sense often displayed by “Down-Easters” ignored that simple truth.
They rounded a headland into the mouth of a small river. The stream was only 70 feet wide but they knew it was cut deep for a few hundred feet up the river. Ray throttled back while Laine filled a burlap “gunnysack” with lobsters. They crept up the little river with Laine calling depths from the bow in the clear water. There were sedge covered mud banks to other side. The little fishing boat finally came gently to rest against one.
A car door closed somewhere close ahead. There was an invisible state highway and a bridge there.
Two young people appeared as they “waded” through the tall grass.
Laine carried the sack of lobsters to the bow and handed it across. “Don’t go into Kennebunkport with these” he told one of his classmates. “Ray’s dad would skin us if he knew.”
“Nancy Richards asked if you would be there today for the clam bake,” one of the boys said to Walt.
“Your cousin?”
‘Yes, we’ll be on the beach at my parents’ place at Wells.”
“Tell her we’ll be there as soon as we can…”
The two boys on shore pushed the bow away as Ray reversed the engine. They backed slowly downstream until they could turn the boat.
As he brought the engine to a full throated roar, Ray looked at his friend. “I thought you didn’t like her.”
“Hey man, any storm in a port.”
“Yeah, you should go to sea.”
TTG
My closest friend is a retired trawlerman, a regular Hemingway character. I’ve been potting with him a few times and the details of this story are familiar. There is much to be said for the sheer joy of being at sea and free of the land and all its troubles.
I’m glad it worked out for Laine and Madeleine Lajoie the beautiful ballet dancer.
I would love to get a look at the stern of that boat. Just what I see is similar to what the fishing vessels built on Harkers Island, NC throughout the mid 20th century looked like. Some sterns were square and some round but all were made with tough laminated wood design. My grandfather had one that was built there in the early 1940s and at 40 ft, she was designed for near off shore and inshore work. Mostly commercial fishing with large wire baskets. I worked with him at times when I could. These were work trips in the first sense of the word. Good memories.
Whitewall,
I’ve never seen anything other than square sterns on these lobster boats, but I know about those round sterns you mention. I think I first saw them in the New Haven sharpies in Long Island Sound. Now I see those round sterns a lot among the Chesapeake deadrise workboats. The working crab boats I see on the lower Potomac and Bay have that deadrise, but almost always have square sterns. I see them stacked high with those wire cage crab traps at the beginning and end of the crabbing season. When I was young, I only saw those wooden, half rounded lobster pots. Later I saw more trapezoidal shaped wooden pots without those bent branch frames of the older pots. Now those are all antiques replaced by the certainly more efficient and durable wire baskets.
Pat would have made a helluva fine sailor. Another Nimitz or Halsey?
“You never enjoy the world as a whole until the sea itself flows in your veins.” Forgot who said that. I probably got the exact quote wrong but not the intended meaning.
I pass on commenting on this fine bit of writing by Col Lang other than to wonder if he wasn’t trying to draw attention somehow to Dubya and Pere Dubya by mentioning Kennebunkport. Or that TTG was indicating long distance strategic bombing campaigns because the B-52s sang ‘Rock Lobster’ many years ago. (Isn’t it a rocky place – Maine? Heaven forbid our host was meditating on the reputed false flag of the eponymous Battleship).
Let me leave this here in continuation of the previous BRICS thread, but I hesitate that it not trigger nativist instincts and rants about evil socialism (or communism) by people who don’t realize that China (and Russia) are capitalist or that they learned all this social media app technology from Us.
TikTok is worse than you thought – Moon. (32 min).
https://youtu.be/t7STD2ESmWg
F&L,
You’re working too hard to find a deeper, darker meaning in this story. It’s a simple tale of a simpler time with only slight eddies of teenage boyhood along the channel.
TTG,
Advice taken.
Purely in the spirit of boyhood and especially fishing then let me recommend two further videos. (And Because they’re relevant to things we discuss here.)
Discord: The Most Evil Business in the World
https://youtu.be/uvNkdAggUGU
Why I Hate Bill Gates
https://youtu.be/QgA1wyjaP0o
In the interest of fairness, note:
-1-I personally don’t necessarily endorse the viewpoints presented
-2- The narrator’s accent is British
-3- They are far too slick to have been done by “a 400 pound 22 yr old living in his or her mother’s basement
-4- Discord was the server mentioned in certain very sensitive leaks attributed to an airman of the USAF national guard.
-5- These were released about a yr ago
-6- Competitors of TikTok, Discord & Bill Gates, each either a social media company or intimately involved with them, might easily want to compose and distribute the 3 videos linked to for purposes of discrediting. As might various stock market manipulators.
That said, curse me though you may, I think you all here will find them very interesting.
Wagner kaput but not Valkyrie.
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A.I. Brings the Robot Wingman to Aerial Combat.
An Air Force program shows how the Pentagon is starting to embrace the potential of a rapidly emerging technology, with far-reaching implications for war-fighting tactics, military culture and the defense industry.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/27/us/politics/ai-air-force.html
It is powered into flight by a rocket engine. It can fly a distance equal to the width of China. It has a stealthy design and is capable of carrying missiles that can hit enemy targets far beyond its visual range.
But what really distinguishes the Air Force’s pilotless XQ-58A Valkyrie experimental aircraft is that it is run by artificial intelligence, putting it at the forefront of efforts by the U.S. military to harness the capacities of an emerging technology whose vast potential benefits are tempered by deep concerns about how much autonomy to grant to a lethal weapon.
Essentially a next-generation drone, the Valkyrie is a prototype for what the Air Force hopes can become a potent supplement to its fleet of traditional fighter jets, giving human pilots a swarm of highly capable robot wingmen to deploy in battle. Its mission is to marry artificial intelligence and its sensors to identify and evaluate enemy threats and then, after getting human sign-off, to move in for the kill.
I Have been Doing about two hours on some of the Data provided in Pats Story…I Could Find No Photo of “Idle Hour”…For History of Maine Lobster Boats…I Did Find a
Family…Albert Bert Morin…Beatrice Morin and Amy Morin living in
“OLD TOWN…MAINE…on FRENCH ISLAND… And I Recommend that You Search
“Old Town.”..History…Images and Maps of the Areas and Water Ways..Lobster
Boats..Marinas..
Old Town Is Home of the Famous “OLD CANOE COMPANY..Est 1890 ” Still
Existing..See Web Site…There Were 7 of its 16 Foot Canoes Used in the Film
“Deliverence..” With Pat Lang Being French..I Can understand This Being A
Beautiful Area for a Trip…
Thats all I Can Add For Now…Regards
jim,
Old Town is well north of Bangor and a world away from the Kennebunk River area on the coast. At the time of the story, the Langs lived just a few miles inland from Kennebunk. That area, although only a few miles from Walkers Point is also a world away. I spent a lot of time in the area (not Walkers Point) as one of my DIA alter egos through the 2000s. It’s mostly a picturesque working waterfront world that gets overrun with tourists during the Summer months. Away from the coast it’s working small towns, not at all affluent.
A professional of the US Army, multiple degree holder and intelligence consultant Ryan McBeth takes apart the most recent interview described below. He’s pretty impressive, to me at least. Refreshing. His bottom line prediction btw is – both sides lose this, nobody wins.
Fact Checking the Tucker Carlson – Col MacGregor Interview of Aug 21
https://youtu.be/E_NegaBRfRU
F&L,
That was pretty good, far easier than trying to endure a full interview/lecture by MacGregor. As McBeth said, I don’t think MacGregor has kept up with things in the last 30 years. Looking at him as a case officer assesses a lead, I would say that MacGregor feels he deserved a lot more recognition and accolades from the USG and military establishment than he feels he’s received. I sense a resentful bitterness in the man.
What you say plus a smidgen of messiah complex maybe “look ma I saved the world!” They’re both trying to get the Dumpster back in, especially Carlson. Possibly MacGregor thinks he’s a shoe-in for secdef or something if so.
Zeihan flexing again. This is your department. Sounds like much of nothing to me in that it seems like an obvious development not requiring any great wit or investment. “I dreamed I leveled St Mark’s cathedral of Venice to the ground with my truck launched Tomahawk Missiles while wearing my Maidenform bra ..” replaces Gondola version.
https://images.app.goo.gl/48Yc9qJaWYdPJfxQ6
The Marines Made Some New Toys: Tomahawks on Trucks || Peter Zeihan.
https://youtu.be/bUXiGNc-x4g
F&L,
Those Tomahawks on trucks are part of DoD’s implementation of the multi domain operations doctrine, a doctrine that’s been in development for at least five years. The Army has fielded three multi domain task forces with long range and medium range fires batteries. There’s already at least one battery of long range hypersonic weapons consisting of four HEMTTs and trailers each holding two missiles in the field. The Navy will put the same missiles on destroyers and subs.
In addition to the Marine Tomahawks on trucks, the Army has the Typhon, another HEMTT and trailer-based launcher to fire both SM-6 and Tomahawk missiles. All these systems were in the pipeline long before Russia invaded Ukraine.
TTG I need a little help pls. September 2nd wife and I and another couple are going to the Stony Point battle site. I think of Anthony Wayne and another guy in a suicide attack on the redoubt. It was as daring as the French and American assaults on redoubts at Yorktown. Authorized by Washington, it is another story of unheralded American bravery. Any info you or other correspondents have would be appreciated. Tks. Oh, it has nothing to do with lobsters which still have not returned to the Hudson but Blue Point Crabs are coming back.
Billy Roche,
I know this is where “Mad” Anthony Wayne and his new Corps of Light infantry staged a surprise night attack with unloaded rifles to take the British fortifications at Stony Point. It was well planned with only a diversionary attack firing their weapons. Wayne led one assault element wading in the river to attack from the south. That was a cast iron balls move. I’d love to see the exact route they took in this assault. Richard Butler, formerly of Morgan’s Riflemen, led the northern assault column, also by bayonet only. I found a good description of the battle with a great order of battle below. Light infantry. Bayonets. Night assault. My God, this is better than sex. Enjoy your visit.
https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/battle-of-stony-point/
It’s good to see a lot of our waters improving. Our Chesapeake is doing pretty good, but it’s taking a lot of concerted effort. The miracle I am most surprised at is the return of Connecticut’s Naugatuck River. We called it the Rainbow River when I was young. Depending what was going on at the upstream Naugatuck Chemical Plant and US Rubber Plant, the river could flow red, green, grey or several other colors. The rocks were uniformly black. Now you can fly fish for trout and salmon in the waters. I almost became a young eco-terrorist as a kid. I built a black powder howitzer that fired cement filled Narragansett Lager cans with embedded spikes as penetrators. My aim was to take out the chemical cars on the trains going to the chemical plant. Luckily I thought it through before I did anything too drastic. My beer can howitzer was great fun though.
I Now see Half of Maine is the Morin Family..But the Research was fun since I Knew Nothing About Maine…And Old Town was Interesting…I would want to see some of the
Coast Areas ,,,TY for Feedback TTG
A 28 page book from 1910 on how Maine got its name.
“Meyne Lande” or sumfin’.
Maine = I Name. One name or ..?
https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/public/gdcmassbookdig/originofnameofma00matt/originofnameofma00matt.pdf
ORIGIN OF THE NAME OF MAINE.
It is not a little singular that the origin of the names of some of our States, even the older ones, is still more or less in doubt. The State of Maine has a name whieh antedates the names of all other States except Virginia and Massachusetts.1 How Maine received its name has been a subjeet of controversy. But though much has been written on the subjeet, yet, as some of the points involved are obseure, as some historians still cling to a theory long ago exploded, as there appears even now to be a hesitaney on the part of many other his- torians in accepting what is without doubt the true origin, and as a thorough account of the matter has apparently never been written, an apology for a new presentation of the case is hardly needed. In the charter granted by Charles I to Sir Ferdinando Gorges on April 3, 1639, oceur these words: Know Ye therefore that of Our special Grace, certain Knowledge & mere Motion, We . . . by these Presents for Us, Our Heirs & Successors do give, grant & confirm unto the said Sir Ferdinando Gorges . . . all that Part, Purpart, & Portion of the Main Land of New England afore- said . . . as also all the Islands & Isletts lying within five Leagues of the
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(1)The name Virginia, as is of course well known, was, when given by Queen Elizabeth at the time she knighted Ralegh (January 6, 1584-85), applied to an indefinite tract of territory north of Florida. The name Massachnsetts occurs in Capt, John Smith’s Deseription of New England, published in 1616. The mame Connecticut (under the form Quonehtacut) is found in Winthrop’s Jour- nal under date of April 1, 1631. The Connecticut River was named the Fresh River by the Dutch, and continued to be so called by them long after the adoption by the Euglish of the name Connecticut.
(Continues at link)
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main (n.)
Old English mægen (Mercian megen) “power, bodily strength; force, violent effort; strength of mind or will; efficacy; supernatural power,” from Proto-Germanic *maginam “power” (source also of Old High German megin “strength, power, ability”), suffixed form of PIE root *magh- “to be able, have power.”
Original sense of “power” is preserved in phrase might and main. Also used in Middle English for “royal power or authority” (c. 1400), “military strength” (c. 1300), “application of force” (c. 1300). Meaning “chief or main part” (c. 1600) now is archaic or obsolete. Meaning “principal duct, pipe, or channel in a utility system” is first recorded 1727 in main drain.
Used since 1540s for “continuous stretch of land or water;” in nautical jargon used loosely for “the ocean,” but in Spanish Main the word is short for mainland and refers to the coast between Panama and Orinoco (as contrasted to the islands of the West Indies).
main (adj.)
early 13c., “notably large, bulky, or strong” (a sense now obsolete), from Old English mægen- “power, strength, force,” used in compounds (such as mægensibb “great love,” mægenbyrðen “heavy burden;” see main (n.)), probably also in part from or influenced by cognate Old Norse megenn (adj.) “strong, powerful, mighty.”
(From etymology online: https://www.etymonline.com/word/main)
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Note: Some pretty smart people think that Meghan Markle wife of the red haired Prince of Windsor is part of a scheme to reseat a British royal on the “throne” of the US Presidency through some future or present progeny.
The etymologists might have mentioned “magic” as related and Russian “Могу” “Magu” – “I can” or “I am able to.”
“Half of Maine is the Morin Family.”
There was a Father Morin at a church I attended. Came from a family of 20 children.
To another name from the story: There was Nap Lajoie, great pre-modern era baseball player.
Continuing my reply to Jim directly above, on the 2nd page of the little book:
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The territory was then called the Province of Mayne, by way of a compliment to the queen of Charles I. who was a daughter of France, and owned as her private estate, a province there, called the Province of Meyne, now called the Province of Maine. But since the general govern- ment has made our territory a district, it has lost one of the letters which formerly was used, and is now called Main.3 In 1803 Abiel Holmes, copying Sullivan, said:
“The name of the Province of Maine
was given in compliment to the queen of Charles I, who owned, as her private estate in France, the Province of Meyne.” 4 In 1830 George Folsom, who later changed his opinion, said that
. “The name was bestowed in compliment to the queen of England, a daughter of Henry IV. of France, who was connected by title or estate with the province of Meyne in France.”
(Skipping a page …)
How the notion that a princess, who in 1639 was a youno-er sister of the King of France (Louis XIII), “owned as her private estate ” or “inherited ” a French province should have occurred to any one, it is not easy to see. Yet in spite of the pointing out of the error by Folsom as long ago as 1846 — reinforced by W. S. Southgate in 1853,^ by Palfrey in 1859,= by Bryant and Gay in 1876,’ and by Governor Joshua L. Chamberlain * in 1876 — Sullivan’s notion has been often
repeated and is still entertained. “When he,” wrote W. Willis in 1857, referring to Gorges, “obtained a confirmation of his title from Charles I, in 1639 with powers of government, he gave it the name of Maine, in compliment to the Queen, a daughter of France, who
held the Province of Mayne in that country as her dowry.” ^ “Maine,” said an anonymous writer in 1872, “derived its name it is said, from the province of Maine, in France, and was so called in compliment to the Queen of Charles the First, Henrietta of France, who owned that province.” «
“The queen of England,” declared John S. C. Abbott in 1875, “had inherited a province of that name in France.” ^ “The name of the territory,” remarked George J. Varney in 1890, alluding to Gorges’s charter of 1639, “under the new charter was changed to ‘Maine,’ in honor of the Queen, whose patrimonial estate
as Princess of France, was the French province of Mayne.” ^
In 1850 Susan Fenimore Cooper gave a somewhat different twist to Sulhvan’s theory, writing:
Maine, the former satellite of Massachusetts, was named by the French colonists after the fertile province on the banks of the Loire,
. . . The French have generally given respectable names, either repeti- tions of personal titles, or of local names, or else descriptive words : la Louisiane, les Carolines, le Maine, Montreal, Quebec, Canada ; for, as
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Charles I of England’s wife Henrietta Marie – who hailed from France owned a province called Meyne.
Province of France.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_(province)
Maine (pronounced [mɛːn]) is one of the traditional provinces of France. It corresponds to the former County of Maine, whose capital was also the city of Le Mans. The area, now divided into the departments of Sarthe and Mayenne, has about 857,000 inhabitants.
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This is going to be controversial in some quarters.
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8.7-Million-Year-Old Fossil Suggests Ancestors of Humans and African Apes Evolved in Europe.
Aug 24, 2023 by News Staff
The fossilized remains of the Miocene-period ape species Anadoluvius turkae have been unearthed at the paleotological site of Çorakyerler in central Anatolia, Türkiye.
https://www.sci.news/paleontology/anadoluvius-turkae-12210.html
While in HS I had a summer job washing dishes at a kid’s camp on Lake George (by Hague, NY). On days off the dishwashers would hitch a ride up to Ft Ticonderoga and for 2 bucks go horse back riding. We crossed the La Chute River near the mill. “Rainbow River” would have described it well. I would not stick my “finger” ahem, in it. Before you b/c too much of an enviro-terrorist consider; when mills had to put in pollution controls in the ’80’s, neighboring towns did not. They continued to send raw sewage downstream into the mill’s system. The mill had to clean the town’s water b/f they could use it. After the mid ’80’s you could fly fish below the mill but not above it. I saw (and fished) this personally at Mead’s mill in the Escanaba Peninsula. This remains a problem on the Hudson which many won’t acknowledge. Town sewage pollutes the HR just as much as the GE Plant did. River towns need to kick up more tax dollars for their municipal sewage. Its a hard sell. It always comes back to money. BTW, back to our conv about macro economics and private vs public sector responsibilities. This is clearly a job for the public sector. Back to our conversations about Libertarians. They don’t want dirty rivers. Always be careful of the people who reduce complicated issues to “cartoon” explanations.
I lay claim to being a Mainiac originally. That was long ago as a child. But our family was from up north in Houlton and Presque Isle, far from Kennebunkport and lobster boats. After returning from WW2 and stateside hospitalization, Dad had no wish to grow Aroostook County potatoes or put up with Maine winters so we moved to southern New England. I can still recall how beautiful my cousin Annie looked when she was crowned a potato blossom princess.
Mom did like those lobster rolls though. She and her sisters would slather them with mayonnaise.
leith; your a Maniac? No it all makes sense!!! Most folks think Maine is all about a rocky coast and lobsters but Kennebunkport, Bangor, and St Johns, have little in common. I used to buy magazine paper from Fraser Paper Company whose mill was on both sides of the St Johns River. The workers d/n seem to care which side of the river you lived on as they thought “Maniac” superceded nationality. I remember the place as cold, with mosquitoes as big as crows, noseums that you could see, and dreary. They probably drink too much but not to worry, the “progressives” are going to reintroduce prohibition. This time, like socialism, they say they’ll get it right! So lieth is a Maniac.
Bill –
I’ve kin on both sides. Great-granma eloped with an apple-picker and they wetbacked it across the border.
On the West Coast…I worked for Crown Zellerbach Paper Company…as a Young Man…
Where They made News Paper.. Sulfur Processing…Wood Grinders..Hand Feed then turned..into Pulp…Sprayed over large Screens..Run Through Giant Dryers…and Out the End in Giant Rolls of Papers..which went through cutters..and rolls sent to Shipping…
I Was a Lab Tech..Testing Paper Quality…Also Worked on Transferring The Rolls By Crane to the Cutters..Interesting Work…
I am a West Coast Mainer…Spent One whole Summer Commercial Fishing Salmon
on Dads High liner…”The STUBBY”..Running Out into the Pacific. South of BC…”Skipper” Dads
Cocker Spaniel..Sat in the Tire Bumper on top of the Wheel House…and would bark to let us know..”Fish On”…I Was 13 Years Old…The only White kid on the Reservation..
. One of the Best Summers of My Life…. Speaking of Stubbys…Yes The Alcohol Czar says The Limit will Be Two Beers a Week…Ok..I Grew up Putting the Caps on my
Step Dads Home Brew…And Have a Beautiful 100 Year Old Crock..Uncle Bens
He Made his Own Kraut……and Loved Baseball…Rasberries With Real Cream..
8th Generation..Old Virginia Family…Hanover County..North of Richmond..
Jim, thanks for writing about it. I bought paper from Crown. Small world. And you have the process right. I remember it too. And oh boy, when the mill was “cooking kraft” you smelled it. Since my interest was coated paper there was the clay coating, drying, and all the arguments which followed from the printer, mill, and publisher. Yeah, I was the guy in the middle. I fished for salmon off Campbell Island, courtesy of Crown and always thought the north west was the place to live life. But NYC was where the money was so…
To the question of booze I think its interesting that the same group who brought us prohibition, progressives or socialists if you will, are again clamoring for it 100 years later. The socialist gov’t will “let us” smoke rope but not drink suds. I wonder what they’ll take first, our guns or our beer? They know how everyone should live their life and give them half a chance and they will make you comply. B/C you cant step out of line in a socialist world. Then, well it w/n be social…ist would it. Socialist/Progressives are popular in the North. They always did have a tendency to tell whole regions how to live.
I Was 13 Years Old…The only White kid on the Reservation..
That’s interesting, overall but especially this: I had the pleasure of eating salmon caught the night before in that region. I’ve never eaten a closely comparable fresh salmon. The fisherman was Native American and a close friend of a friend. Thus, I am wondering about your reference above. As I recall, he had some type of strategic advantage concerning catch quotas. But did not live on the Reservation.