The use of the Maine Woods by lumbermen and sportsmen in the twentieth century was much more intense than it had been before 1900 (see III and IV). The railroad and steamship companies not only gave ease of access, they also actively promoted the reg...
Before the Civil War, a few travelers -- notably Henry David Thoreau and James Russell Lowell -- sought the "wilderness experience" of northern Maine. The trickle became a flood after 1870 as entrepreneurs began to promote the Moosehead Lake region f...
Before the American Revolution, Moosehead Lake was passed through by Europeans who followed Native American routes between the St. Lawrence and the Gulf of Maine. After the War of 1812-14, land speculators from Boston began to assess and divide up th...
Arriving at Moosehead Lake shortly after the retreat of the glaciers, approximately 11,000 years ago, Native Americans found Mt. Kineo. The mountain became a spiritual center for Native American life. Its distinctive volcanic rhyolite proved to be a ...
Curated and text written by Prof. Matthew H. Edney, Osher Map Library Faculty Scholar, with much help from Prof. Nathan D. Hamilton. Valuable assistance was provided by William H. Browder, Jr., Sandy Dowling, Dr. Harold L. Osher, and especially Yolan...
The entire process of the European exploring, settling, and naming of the New England coast and coastal regions was played out repeatedly, although with significant variations, when the English pushed into the interior of northern New England (32-33)...
Colonial settlement after 1600 progressively replaced the supposedly indigenous district of Norumbega with the European imposition of new regions: New France, New England, and the New Netherlands. First along the coast, and then along the major river...
European charts of the North American coasts were initially produced in very small numbers. They were drawn by hand, one at a time. This reflected the small market for such charts. Not only were there few ships sailing the Atlantic, but charts usuall...
The French Crown paid little attention to the St. Lawrence and northeast North America after the failure of Jacques Cartier's settlement at Kébec/Québec (1535-41). The fishermen and fur trappers continued on their annual migrations to the St. Lawre...
There was much debate in Europe during the sixteenth century as geographers tried to incorporate the Americas within their existing world-view. Were they the islands off eastern Asia as Christopher Columbus had presumed (1) ? Or did they constitute a...
