140 Fun Facts About Maine

What is the capital of Maine?

Portland was the original capital until 1832, and the state's Supreme Judicial Court still keeps its principal office there.

Maine is the only U.S. state that borders exactly how many other states?

New Hampshire is its only neighbour by land; the rest of its border is Canada and the Gulf of Maine.

Which two Canadian provinces border Maine?

It also shares a maritime border with Nova Scotia across the Gulf of Maine.

Maine became a state in 1820 as part of which famous political bargain?

Maine entered as a free state to balance Missouri's admission as a slave state the following year.

Before statehood, Maine was part of which state?

Mainers voted to secede from the Commonwealth and were admitted as a new state in 1820.

Maine was admitted to the Union as which number state?

The date was March 15, 1820; the state flag and seal adopted that year are its oldest official symbols.

What is Maine's nickname, a nod to its endless forests?

More than 80% of Maine is forested, the highest share of any U.S. state.

Roughly what share of Maine's total area is forested or unclaimed?

The Northwest Aroostook unorganized territory covers 2,668 square miles and had a population of ten.

The Old Town Canoe Company entered the market building wooden canoes covered in what material?

The historic maker is still based in the town of Old Town on the Penobscot River.

Which Maine town is the easternmost organized settlement in the United States?

Its West Quoddy Head lighthouse is the closest spot in the U.S. to Africa and Europe.

What is the highest mountain in Maine?

It rises to 5,269 feet in Baxter State Park and is the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail.

The Appalachian Trail, which ends in Maine, passes through how many states in total?

It runs almost 2,200 miles from Springer Mountain in Georgia; the newer International Appalachian Trail continues north from Maine.

What is Maine's largest lake, and the largest lying wholly inside the six-state region?

Lake Champlain is bigger but is shared among Vermont, New York and Quebec.

Acadia National Park is the only national park in which region?

It draws more than four million visitors a year, mostly to Mount Desert Island near Bar Harbor.

Acadia was the first national park created from what?

Wealthy summer residents including John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated the land and financed its carriage roads.

Before it took the name Acadia in 1929, what was the site called from 1919?

It began as Sieur de Monts National Monument in 1916 and was the first national park east of the Mississippi.

Which Acadia summit is famed as the first place in the continental U.S. to see sunrise for part of the year?

It was called Green Mountain until 1918, when it was renamed for the French explorer Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac.

Portland Head Light, completed in 1791, holds what distinction?

George Washington directed the construction with a fund of $1,500; it stands in Cape Elizabeth.

What colour pattern makes the West Quoddy Head lighthouse instantly recognisable?

The current tower dates from 1858 and marks the easternmost point of the contiguous United States.

Which horror author, born in Portland in 1947, has long made Bangor his home?

His fictional Maine towns of Derry and Castle Rock recur across dozens of novels; for years he also owned Bangor radio stations.

Which fictional Maine town is terrorised by the shape-shifting entity in the novel 'It'?

Joyce Carol Oates called small-town life in fictitious Derry his 'characteristic subject'.

Which poet, author of 'Paul Revere's Ride', was born in Portland in 1807?

Portland was then still a district of Massachusetts; Longfellow graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825.

In which Maine town is L.L.Bean headquartered?

The flagship store there is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and draws more than three million visitors annually.

L.L.Bean began in 1912 as a one-room operation selling a single product. What was it?

Also known as the duck boot and later the Bean Boot, it was sold by mail to nonresident hunting-licence holders.

Colonel Joshua Chamberlain of the 20th Maine won fame for holding which position at Gettysburg?

His bayonet charge earned him the Medal of Honor; he later served four terms as governor and as president of Bowdoin College.

Which Mainer served as Abraham Lincoln's first vice president?

He served from 1861 to 1865 before being replaced on the ticket by Andrew Johnson of Tennessee.

Which Maine senator delivered the 1950 'Declaration of Conscience' speech criticising Joseph McCarthy?

Born in Skowhegan, she was the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress and the first placed in nomination for president by a major party.

Maine's Edmund Muskie, later Secretary of State, championed which landmark environmental laws?

Born in Rumford, he ran for vice president with Hubert Humphrey in 1968.

Which USS Maine's sinking in 1898 precipitated the Spanish-American War?

Four U.S. Navy ships have carried the state's name; the 1898 explosion in Havana harbour is by far the most famous.

Maine is the largest U.S. producer of which seafood?

In 2025 the state's commercial harvesters earned $619 million, with lobster still the main focus.

Maine is the top U.S. producer of which fruit?

The tiny wild berries grow on barrens Down East; blueberry pie is the official state dessert.

Which Maine county is famous for its potato crops?

Potatoes bring the state more than $166 million a year.

What is Maine's official state treat, recognised in 2011?

South Portland bakers made a record 1,062-pound example that year; blueberry pie is the separate official state dessert.

Which bitter soft drink, flavoured with gentian root, is Maine's official state soft drink?

Created around 1876 as 'Moxie Nerve Food', it gave American English the word for spunk and determination.

Which large, long-haired 'gentle giant' is the state's official cat?

One myth claims the breed descends from Marie Antoinette's cats, shipped ahead of an escape that never happened.

What is Maine's official state tree?

Balsam fir, the only fir native to Maine, makes up ninety percent of the state's Christmas trees.

What does Maine's Latin state motto 'Dirigo' mean?

The North Star on the coat of arms alludes to it; the arms show a moose resting under a pine tree.

Which two animals or plants appear in the centre of Maine's coat of arms?

A farmer with a scythe and a sailor with an anchor flank the shield, representing agriculture and the sea.

Maine has the largest populations of which two large mammals in the contiguous United States?

The state's rivers also hold the last wild Atlantic salmon runs in the U.S.

What was Maine's record high temperature, set at North Bridgton in July 1911?

At the other extreme, Big Black River hit minus 50 °F in January 2009, tying the New England record.

The Old Sow, off Eastport, is the largest what in the Western Hemisphere?

It sits on the international boundary between Eastport and Canada's Deer Island in the Bay of Fundy.

What was the short-lived 1607 English settlement in Maine, founded the same year as Jamestown?

Its colonists went home after 14 months, but first built the Virginia of Sagadahoc, a pinnace that later crossed the Atlantic again.

Who led the first confirmed European settlement in Maine, on Saint Croix Island in 1604?

Samuel de Champlain was part of his party, and the French named the whole region Acadia.

The 'Maine Penny', found at a Native American dig site in 1954, is a coin from which country?

The 11th-century coin is the strongest evidence that Norse traders reached what is now Maine.

What food-related nickname does the 1838-39 US-British border confrontation over northern Maine have?

It ended without direct combat; the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 finally set the boundary.

In 1851 Maine led the nation by becoming the first state to do what?

Exceptions were allowed only for 'medicinal, mechanical or manufacturing purposes'.

The Great Fire that destroyed most of Portland's commercial buildings broke out on which date in 1866?

It ignited during Independence Day celebrations and levelled half the city's churches and hundreds of homes.

Bar Harbor was known by what name until 1918?

It was renamed for the sand bar that appears at low tide leading across to Bar Island.

Which presidential family's summer estate, Walker's Point, is in Kennebunkport?

The town also hosts the Christmas Prelude festival each December.

Bangor's 31-foot fiberglass statue depicts which legendary figure?

It celebrates the city's lumber-boom past; sculptor Normand Martin made it in 1959.

Which Farmington teenager invented earmuffs in 1873?

He was 15, allergic to wool and frustrated while ice skating; his grandmother sewed the fur onto his wire loops.

Board-game pioneer Milton Bradley was born in which tiny Maine town?

Maine really does have towns named Paris, Norway and Mexico too; Bradley's company was bought by Hasbro in 1984.

Which Maine schoolgirl became a 'Goodwill Ambassador' after writing to Yuri Andropov in 1982?

Andropov invited her to visit the USSR; she died in a plane crash in 1985 aged 13.

Which painter moved to Prouts Neck, Maine, in 1883 and painted the sea from a carriage house?

His Maine seascapes are among the most famous American marine paintings.

Which Maine shipbuilder builds Arleigh Burke-class destroyers for the U.S. Navy?

The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, on Seavey's Island in Kittery, is Maine's other major naval yard.

In 2003, the Portland Sea Dogs became the Double-A affiliate of which MLB team?

They started in 1994 as a Florida Marlins affiliate and switched to the Red Sox system in 2003.

Bowdoin College in Brunswick counts which two literary giants among its 1825 graduates?

President Franklin Pierce was a Bowdoin man too; the college was chartered in 1794.

Which is the oldest incorporated town in Maine, dating to 1647?

It sits at the state's southern tip and is home to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.

Which former governor donated the land for the state park around Maine's highest peak?

The park now covers more than 200,000 acres of permanently preserved wilderness.

Which writer climbed Maine's highest mountain in 1846 and later published 'The Maine Woods'?

The book came out in 1864 and describes lakes such as South Twin Lake.

Which bottled-water brand draws from western Maine's aquifers and springs?

L.L.Bean, IDEXX and Hannaford are among the few big companies still headquartered in the state.

What does the local expression 'from away' mean?

'Ayuh' means yes and 'upta camp' means heading to a rustic getaway.

Which factory canned baked beans on the Portland waterfront from 1913 to 2021?

Maine baked beans use native varieties like soldier and yellow-eye beans, sometimes cooked underground in a bean hole.

Roughly what share of American seaweed comes from Maine?

Farmers harvested more than a million pounds in 2022, and the industry keeps growing.

Which electoral system did Maine adopt by referendum in 2016 for its primaries and federal elections?

Maine is also one of only seven states with no lieutenant governor.

How many members sit in the Maine House of Representatives?

The Maine Senate has 35 seats; a two-thirds vote of both chambers can override the governor's veto.

From about 1880, Portland was the principal winter port for which country?

Its rail link and ice-free harbour did the job until Halifax was developed as a rival.

Which glacial erratic in Acadia was carried by ice from near Lucerne, 30 miles away?

Geologists worked out its origin by analysing the granite; it perches on the edge of Bubble Mountain.

What is Maine's northernmost point?

Roughly half of Maine's area lies on each side of the 45th parallel.

The FDR Bridge links Lubec to which New Brunswick spot, home of FDR's summer cottage?

Roosevelt Campobello International Park is jointly operated by the U.S. and Canada.

Maine's capital city ranks where among U.S. state capitals by population?

Its 2020 census count was 18,899, only the 12th-largest city in Maine.

At least how many Hallmark Christmas movies have been set in Maine?

Ogunquit and Camden both host Christmas by the Sea festivals, and Portland runs a Polar Express train.

What did the Eastern Abenaki call the peninsula of Maine's largest city, meaning 'great neck'?

Machigonne described the long finger of land jutting into Casco Bay. The peninsula shape still defines the modern street grid, which runs the length of the neck rather than across it.

Portland's city seal shows which mythical creature rising from ashes?

The bird commemorates recovery from four devastating fires. Few American cities have burned to the ground as often, and the seal turns that record into a boast.

Portland's Latin motto 'Resurgam' translates into English as what?

It is a defiant answer to the city's history of fires and sackings. Maine's state motto, by contrast, is a single word about leading.

In what year did Maine move its capital from Portland to Augusta?

Portland had held the title for only twelve years after statehood. Legislators wanted a capital closer to the geographic centre of the new state.

What did English colonists call the peninsula when they settled it as a fishing village in 1632?

The name survives in the bay the city still fishes. It lasted only a generation before the settlement was renamed again.

In 1658 the Massachusetts Bay Colony renamed the settlement after which English town?

The name stuck for well over a century, and a neighbouring town still carries it today. The modern city broke away from it in 1786.

The village on the peninsula was destroyed by the Abenaki in 1676 during which conflict?

The 1676 raid emptied the settlement entirely for several years. It was the second of the four destructions the city's seal celebrates surviving.

On 18 October 1775, which force bombarded and burned the town in reprisal during the American Revolution?

News of the shelling helped push the Continental Congress toward building a navy of its own. The town rebuilt and took its modern name eleven years later.

Portland, Maine draws its unfiltered drinking water from which lake?

The water is disinfected but never filtered, which is why the watershed is guarded so tightly. Only around fifty of roughly 13,000 US surface supplies qualify.

By act of the Maine Legislature in 1899, Portland absorbed which neighbouring city outright?

The annexation roughly doubled the city's land area and gave it the neighbourhoods north of Back Cove. The name survives on schools, streets and an oaks-lined avenue.

The Portland Company on Maine's waterfront manufactured more than six hundred of what in the 19th century?

The works supplied railroads across New England and Canada from a site now redeveloped for housing and shops. Its brick buildings still stand on Fore Street.

How cold did it get in Portland on 16 February 1943, the lowest temperature ever recorded in the city?

The same weather record book tops out at 103 °F. That is a swing of more than 140 degrees in a city that sits on the ocean.

What is Portland, Maine's long-standing nickname, earned from the trees once planted along its streets?

Elms once shaded almost every downtown block before Dutch elm disease thinned them. Bangor, upriver, is the one Mainers call the Queen City.

Maine has the highest percentage of which ancestry group of any US state?

Over a quarter of Lewiston, Waterville and Biddeford is Franco-American, and 3.93% of households speak French at home, more than Louisiana.

Which 1842 agreement fixed the frontier of the upper Saint John valley, once the 'Republic of Madawaska'?

The Acadian population of the valley still gives northern Maine a distinct French-speaking character.

Machias Seal Island, off the Downeast coast, is disputed between the United States and which country?

It is the only one of four disputed US-Canada maritime zones that actually contains dry land, claimed by the town of Cutler.

Which Amtrak service links Brunswick, Maine, to Boston's North Station?

It stops in Freeport and Portland along the way, feeding the coast's tourist towns.

Which Icelandic shipping company opened its US headquarters in Portland in 2013?

The move reflected Portland's revival as a working port, long after its era as Canada's winter outlet.

Which boxer floored Sonny Liston with the so-called 'phantom punch' in Lewiston, Maine, in 1965?

Muhammad Ali won by a first-round knockout that many in the arena never saw land, and Lewiston was the smallest city to host a heavyweight title bout since 1923.

Which appliance did Howland, Maine native Percy Spencer invent after a candy bar reportedly melted in his pocket?

The microwave oven came out of radar work: Spencer was standing by an active radar set at the time, and the first commercial model of 1947 stood about six feet tall.

The town of Strong, Maine, was once nicknamed the world capital of which small wooden item?

Toothpicks left Strong at a rate of 20 million a day, all from the Strong Wood Products plant.

Which TV mystery series starring Angela Lansbury is set in the fictional coastal town of Cabot Cove, Maine?

Murder, She Wrote set only 54 of its 264 episodes in Cabot Cove, yet the term 'Cabot Cove syndrome' was coined for the constant appearance of dead bodies in remote places.

Which 1994 film starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman is set inside a fictional Maine state prison?

The Shawshank Redemption never filmed in Maine: the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield stood in for the prison, and a Caribbean island played the Mexican beach of the final scene.

Which author wrote 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' while living in Brunswick, Maine, where her husband taught at Bowdoin College?

Harriet Beecher Stowe said the story came to her as a vision of a dying slave during a communion service at Brunswick's First Parish Church.

Which author's farm in North Brooklin, Maine, was the inspiration for his children's classic 'Charlotte's Web'?

E. B. White, a New Yorker essayist, died at the farm in 1985; he also wrote 'Stuart Little' and updated the writer's guide 'The Elements of Style'.

Which seabird did an Audubon project begin restoring to Eastern Egg Rock off the Maine coast in 1973?

The puffin came back after 954 chicks were moved in from Great Island and wooden decoys were set on the boulders to lure the returning birds ashore.

Quoddy Head in Maine, rather than any point in Florida, is the closest place in the 50 states to which continent?

Africa is nearer to this headland than to anywhere else in the 50 states, since the park stands on the easternmost point of land in the continental United States.

Which 'Pitch Perfect' star, born in Portland, Maine, earned a Tony nomination for a Broadway role at 12?

Anna Kendrick's nod came for the 1998 musical 'High Society', and she later added an Oscar nomination for 'Up in the Air'.

Which 'Grey's Anatomy' actor, born in Lewiston, Maine, helped start a cancer centre there after his mother's illness?

Patrick Dempsey grew up in the nearby towns of Turner and Buckfield, and away from acting he has raced sports cars at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Which Cape Elizabeth, Maine runner won the first women's Olympic marathon at the 1984 Los Angeles Games?

Joan Benoit took up distance running to recover from a broken leg suffered while slalom skiing, and later founded Cape Elizabeth's Beach to Beacon 10K road race.

Which artist painted 'Christina's World' at the Olson farm in Cushing, Maine, where he kept a summer home?

Andrew Wyeth sold the 1948 picture to the Museum of Modern Art for $1,800, and although Christina Olson inspired it, his wife Betsy posed for the figure's torso.

Sabbathday Lake in New Gloucester, Maine, became the last active community of which religious group?

The Shakers are strict believers in celibacy, so the village has always depended on converts and adopted orphans instead of children born into the faith.

Which philanthropist financed and directed the network of car-free carriage roads in Maine's Acadia National Park?

John D. Rockefeller Jr. laid out about 57 miles of crushed-stone roads and paid for 16 of their 17 stone-faced bridges; motor vehicles are banned from them.

Which island, the largest in Maine and second-largest on the Eastern Seaboard, is home to Bar Harbor?

Mount Desert Island covers 108 square miles, trailing only Long Island on the East Coast and edging out Martha's Vineyard.

Which small songbird, long pictured on Maine's standard licence plate, is the official state bird?

The black-capped chickadee hides seeds for the winter and can remember its caches for up to 28 days; its hippocampus even grows during the caching season.

Maine is the least densely populated U.S. state lying east of which major river?

The Mississippi marks the line: with about 41 people per square mile, Maine is emptier than any other state on the river's eastern side.

Which personal-care brand, founded in Maine in 1984, made its first $200 at a Dover-Foxcroft school craft fair?

Burt's Bees grew out of Roxanne Quimby's idea to use Burt Shavitz's leftover beeswax, and recipes in one of his 19th-century beekeeping books steered them into personal care products.

Which 'Silent Spring' author, who spent summers in Maine, is honoured by a wildlife refuge on the state's coast?

Rachel Carson asked for her ashes to be scattered along the rocky shores of Sheepscot Bay, and the refuge created in 1966 protects estuaries used by migratory birds.

An attraction in Yarmouth, Maine, was measured for Guinness in 1999 as the world's largest rotating what?

Globe is the word: Eartha spans just over 41 feet, weighs about 5,600 pounds and turns through a simulated day every 18 minutes.

Maine began splitting its electoral votes by congressional district in 1972; which state followed suit in 1992?

Nebraska copied the Maine plan: two electoral votes go to the statewide winner and one to the winner of each congressional district.

Which highway, the longest north-south road in the United States, runs from Fort Kent, Maine, to Key West, Florida?

U.S. Route 1 covers about 2,370 miles; its far southern stretch joined the route only after the Overseas Highway to Key West was completed in 1938.

Which film director, raised in Portland, Maine, won a record four Academy Awards for Best Director?

John Ford, born John Martin Feeney, played fullback at Portland High School and won his Oscars for films including 'The Grapes of Wrath' and 'The Quiet Man'.

Which 1999 animated film directed by Brad Bird is set in the fictional town of Rockwell, Maine, in 1957?

The Iron Giant opens with its robot crash-landing off the Maine coast during the Cold War, and part of the animation team spent a week in the state photographing five small cities.

John B. Curtis's State of Maine gum of 1848, the first commercial chewing gum, was made from the resin of which tree?

Spruce resin had long been chewed by American Indians before settlers copied the habit, and within a few years a paraffin-wax gum had overtaken it in popularity.

Which gemstone did two college students discover on Mount Mica in Paris, Maine, in a first for the United States?

Tourmaline from Maine tends to come in raspberry pink-red and minty green, and one 69-carat stone from the state was bought by Tiffany & Co.

The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, ships more than 13,000 strains of which animal to researchers worldwide?

Mouse models from the lab reach more than 2,400 organisations in 68 countries; it was founded in 1929 by Clarence Cook Little, a former University of Maine president.

Which inventor born in Sangerville, Maine, created the first automatic machine gun after moving to Britain?

Hiram Maxim was knocked over by a rifle's recoil as a child, which inspired him to harness that force to work a gun; he also devised an automatic fire sprinkler that alerted the fire station.

Which early automobile, built by twin brothers born in Kingfield, Maine, set a land speed record in 1906?

The Stanley Steamer hit about 127 mph on the Florida sands in 1906 with Fred Marriott at the wheel, and its makers had earlier sold their photographic dry-plate business to Eastman Kodak.

Which former senator from Waterville, Maine, was a primary architect of Northern Ireland's 1998 Good Friday Agreement?

George Mitchell, whose father was a janitor at Colby College, later led the 2007 investigation into performance-enhancing drugs in baseball.

Which confederacy that includes Maine's Penobscot and Passamaquoddy nations has a name often translated as 'Dawnland'?

Wabanaki lands roughly matched the area that became Acadia, and the alliance joins five principal nations, among them the Abenaki, Mi'kmaq and Wolastoqiyik.

The University of Maine, whose men's ice hockey team won national titles in 1993 and 1999, is based in which town?

Orono even lent its name to the school: the legislature renamed it the University of Maine at Orono over the objections of the faculty, and the old name returned only in 1986.

Which 1962 satellite carried the first transatlantic television service through a giant antenna at Andover, Maine?

Telstar 1's solar cells produced only 14 watts, and the horn antenna that AT&T built at Andover in 1961 to follow it stood seven storeys tall.

Which astronaut born in Caribou, Maine, made the first all-female spacewalk alongside Christina Koch in 2019?

Jessica Meir and Koch stepped outside the International Space Station on October 18, 2019, to replace a faulty battery charging unit.

Which Pulitzer-winning book of linked stories follows an abrasive math teacher in the fictional town of Crosby, Maine?

Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout, is told in 13 stories and became a 2014 HBO miniseries with Frances McDormand in the title role.

Which Rodgers and Hammerstein musical moved a Hungarian play's Budapest setting to the Maine coastline?

Carousel reworked Ferenc Molnár's 'Liliom' in 1945, and the 1956 film version shot on location in Boothbay Harbor, Camden and Newcastle.

Which lighthouse did Maine residents choose by popular vote to appear on the state's commemorative quarter?

Pemaquid Point Light was commissioned in 1827 by President John Quincy Adams, and its keeper's house has become a fishermen's museum of local maritime history.

Which island 12 nautical miles off Maine became an artist colony that drew Edward Hopper and Rockwell Kent?

Monhegan has been inhabited for over 400 years, and George Bellows was among the other painters who found inspiration on its cliffs.

In which 1994 film does the hero's cross-country run first reach the Atlantic at Maine's Marshall Point Lighthouse?

Forrest Gump won six Academy Awards including Best Picture, and the light station he reaches was set up to guide boats in and out of Port Clyde Harbor.

Which fictional Maine town, the setting of the novels 'Cujo' and 'Needful Things', also named Rob Reiner's film company?

Castle Rock in turn took its name from the mountain fort in William Golding's novel 'Lord of the Flies'.

Maine's first state flag, adopted in 1901, set a green tree and which blue symbol on a buff-coloured background?

A North Star alludes to the state motto, and the simple 1901 design lasted only until 1909, when the legislature approved a new flag.

Which Maine politician won the Republican presidential nomination in 1884 but narrowly lost to Grover Cleveland?

James G. Blaine, a Pennsylvania native, moved to Maine after college to edit a newspaper, and went on to serve as Speaker of the House and twice as Secretary of State.

Which poet born in Rockland, Maine, won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry after early fame with 'Renascence'?

Edna St. Vincent Millay grew up in Camden, where the view from Mount Battie opens 'Renascence', the poem that launched her career when she was 20.

Which crooner raised in Westbrook, Maine, sang through a megaphone and recorded the University of Maine's 'Stein Song'?

Rudy Vallée reached for the megaphone because his voice failed to project in venues without microphones; he had briefly attended the University of Maine himself.

Which logging tool, a refinement of the cant hook, is named for the Maine blacksmith who invented it in the 1850s?

The peavey honours Joseph Peavey, and unlike the blunt-ended cant hook it has a spike in its working end that is rammed into the log.

Which poet raised in Gardiner, Maine, wrote 'Richard Cory' and won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry three times?

Edwin Arlington Robinson was born in the village of Head Tide and was also nominated four times for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Which gothic soap opera followed the wealthy Collins family of Collinsport, Maine, and their vampire relative Barnabas?

Dark Shadows began in 1966 as a family saga and gothic romance; Barnabas arrived only in April 1967 and quickly became the breakout character.

Which reformer born in Hampden in the District of Maine campaigned for America's first generation of mental asylums?

Dorothea Dix lobbied state legislatures and Congress on behalf of the poor mentally ill, then served as Superintendent of Army Nurses during the Civil War.

Which general, the first secretary of war in Washington's cabinet, retired to Thomaston in the District of Maine?

Henry Knox, a former bookseller, held the post from 1789 to 1794 and then filled his Thomaston retirement with business ventures built on borrowed money.