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(10) Castine
Lobster Boat in the Fog Castine is one of the oldest communities in North America. It has been occupied continuously since the early 1600s as the site of numerous trading posts, forts, missions and permanent settlements of France, Holland, England and colonial America. Before 1613, and during the course of its long history, Castine has also been home to several nations of Native Americans. By the 1870s, its quaint old houses were becoming attractive to "rusticators" -- well-to-do urban families in search of summer rest and recreation. The town attracted a number of notables, among them Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose writings helped to romanticize its past. By the 1890s, wealthy families from Boston, Hartford, and Chicago, were buying up old farms and sea captains' houses and establishing a flourishing summer colony. Castine also became the location of the Eastern State Normal School.
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Searsport Charters, LLC (1) Stockton Harbor
(2) Fort Point
(3) The River
(4) Narrows Bridge (5) Fort Knox (6) Bucksport
(7) Verona |
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Castine is located on a peninsula in the East Penobscot Bay Region of Maine, 1 hour from Bangor, and 1.25 hours from Camden and from Bar Harbor. The town, on the National Register of Historic Places, consists of two distinct geographic areas referred to as the Village and "off neck," a narrow strip of land that separates the Bagaduce River on one side from the Penobscot River on the other.
More than 100 historic markers can be found in this town characterized by its 18th century architecture. Major landmarks include Fort George, built by the British in 1779 and partially restored as a state memorial, and Fort Madison, earthwork remnants built by the Americans in 1811, occupied by the British during the War of 1812 and reconstructed during the American Civil War. 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, boasts an excellent library (which is open to the general public) and extensive athletic facilities.
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Four years after his famous "midnight ride," Paul Revere was commander of land artillery in the Penobscot Expedition, the worst naval disaster in American history until Pearl Harbor. The American plan was to eliminate British occupation in the area of Castine. It should have been an easy job. The British had a half-built fort and about three guns. Nine hundred Americans sailed to Castine on 21 armed, and 24 unarmed, transport vessels. It was July 25, 1779. The British were desperate - they could see they were out-manned, out-gunned, and in trouble. But - the Americans did not attack. Their commander of the fleet, Dudley Saltonstall, didn't believe his intelligence reports and argued continuously with the commander of the land forces over who was in charge. Enamored over the recent exploits of John Paul Jones and the Ranger, Abigail Adams was not mistaken when she wrote on 13 December 1779, “Unhappy for us that we had not such a commander at the Penobscot expedition.” |
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