One of my favorite Simpsons episodes is one in which Lisa decides to research Springfield’s history, only to find that Jebediah Springfield, her hometown’s namesake, was a scoundrel. Only Lisa chokes in the end, in my opinion, concealing her discovery from her fellow townspeople on the theory that ignorance is, in fact, bliss.
Lisa may be right about the ignorance part, but something in the Puritan sixteenth of my genome insists on digging up nasty truths and placing them in a stock in the town square for all to see. So here I am, emerging from two years spent rooting about in the dusty tomes of our state’s history, with some unpleasant facts.
Many of our towns, counties, and, yes, geographical features were named for people who made the lives of ordinary 18th and 19th century Mainers a good deal more unpleasant than they already were. How did this come about? Because, more often than not, these places were named while these folks were still alive, usually by their friends, business associates or themselves.
Here is a list of my favorites, each with a thumbnail sketch boiling their undoubtedly varied, complex and beautiful lives down to a pithy statement of their cruelest failings. My apologies in advance to any of their distant descendants; I’m sure it’s not a reflection on you. (My 11th great grandfather begat Thomas Hooker, cruel Puritan zealot, and yet I turned out OK, I guess.)
So here goes:
1. Samuel Waldo (Waldo County, Waldoboro, Brigadier’s Island). Early 18th century merchant prince who enjoyed suing employees and family members, and was described by the late Maine State Historian Thomas Griffiths as “greedy of wealth and ambitious power … without a single generous impulse toward benevolence.” In the 1740s and 1750s Waldo lured 470 Germans to his million-acre land holdings in midcoast Maine with promises of “exceedingly fruitful” land and at least six months of “necessary support.” Instead, Waldo left the Germans to winter over in a crude shed wherein many froze or starved to death.
2. Henry Knox (Knox County, Fort Knox). Revolutionary war hero who acquired much of Waldo’s estate through a combination of patronage and wedlock. Knox, who wished his new country to be ruled a hereditary aristocracy of former army officers, lived a life of conspicuous consumption and built Montpelier, an opulent 12,000-square-foot Thomaston mansion that served as the model for Nathaniel Hawthorne’s House of Seven Gables. He vowed to “civilize” Maine’s settlers, but instead found himself the target of a decades-long armed insurrection centered in the backcountry towns of the upper Sheepscot valley.
3. William Bingham (Bingham). The richest American of his era, Bingham was a Philadelphia capitalist who acquired 3.5 million acres of Hancock and Washington counties from Henry Knox. When starving farmers in this glacially-scoured region were unable to make rent, he chastised them for their “idleness and dissipation” which he insisted was “the true cause” of their misery.
4. William Vassall (Vassalboro). Owner of slave-powered Jamaican sugar plantations in the colonial period. A major land speculator in the Kennebec Valley, Vassall sided with the British in the Revolution, and his family was pelted by an angry mob as they fled Boston.
5. Benjamin Hallowell (Hallowell). Kennebec Valley land speculator. Defected to Britain during the Revolution.
6. Sylvester Gardiner (Gardiner). Kennebec Valley land speculator. Defected to Britain during the Revolution.
7. Thomas Cushing (Cushing). Son of a wealthy Boston merchant, Cushing entered politics before the American Revolution. Unfortunately, Cushing “was not fitted for leadership, and, on several occasions showed himself weak-kneed,” in the words of a 19th century biographer. Cushing’s career in national politics suffered a permanent setback when, as a delegate to the Continental Congress, he voted against the Declaration of Independence
8. Caleb Strong (Strong). Governor of Massachusetts during the War of 1812, which he opposed. During the war, British troops invaded and occupied all of Eastern Maine, burned Bangor and Belfast, and staged raids on Boothbay and other midcoast towns. President Madison drew up plans to liberate Maine and turned to Governor Strong for help. Strong not only refused to contribute troops or money, he leaked the plans for the U.S. invasion to a Boston paper, which published them in their entirety, forcing Madison to call off the attack. To top it off, Strong then dispatched a secret emissary to Halifax to meet the British commander and ask if Great Britain would “afford military assistance” to Massachusetts were it to secede from the United States! His name now graces my hometown of Strong, incorporated, not coincidentally, while Governor Strong was in office.
There’s certainly no sense in changing names now; they’ve been with us for far too long and, in any case, most of their namesakes’ transgressions were forgotten more than a century ago. But in future, if T5 R11 WELS or T42 MD BPP ever decide to incorporate, I hope their residents screen their potential namesakes carefully, perhaps favoring those who’ve been gone from the world long enough for history to have given them a good looking-over.
Colin Woodard is finishing a cultural history of coastal Maine. He lives in Portland and maintains a website at www.colinwoodard.com