Portland Maine Walking Tours

08/08/2024

The Prince Project walking tour of Portland's Eastern Cemetery uncovers the City's Black history we were never taught.

08/07/2024

A few fun minutes in Maine, some here in Portland.

01/07/2024

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/sZ3xqFTtGasWSVzK/

26/06/2024

05/06/2024

Who's that guide?
Featured in Portland Old Port's Weekend Guide this week.

One of Yankee Magazine’s top five cemetery tours in New England! Walk Portland’s Old Burying Ground with a trained guide. Hallowed? Not officially. Historic? Absolutely. Haunted? You decide. Visit the cemetery’s unique field of underground tombs, the oldest gravemarker from 1717, t

03/06/2024

https://www.walktheworkingwaterfront.com/?utm_source=Eat+Drink+Lucky+-+Portland&utm_campaign=a3172caf68-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_05_31_07_12&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1ffd1297c4-a3172caf68-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D&mc_cid=a3172caf68&mc_eid=5856e56443

Walk the Working Waterfront is a community event focused on supporting the ocean economy, the fishermen, businesses, entities, and people that make Portland, Maine an authentic seaside city.

22/05/2024

Portland Head Light and the wreck of the Annie C. Maquire on Christmas Eve in 1886, Cape Elizabeth, Maine.

17/05/2024

Working to ensure that South Portland is a place where all have equal opportunity to earn, learn, and

09/05/2024

05/05/2024

Frederick A. Tompson (1857-1919) was the architect for Evergreen Cemetery’s Wilde Memorial Chapel. He began his draftsmen’s training immediately after his 1876 graduation from Portland High School. He, like John Calvin Stevens three years earlier, joined the practice of Francis H. Fassett, the city’s most prominent architect. He remained with the firm until 1891 when he opened his own office. In addition to Wilde Chapel, he designed numerous public and private buildings during his 28 year career. A selective list of Tompson’s designs include:
Walker Memorial Library in Westbrook (1892)
Castle-in-the-Park in Deering Oaks (1894)
Armory on Milk Street (1895)
Emerson School on Munjoy Hill (1897-98)
Charles O. Haskell house at 52 Neal St. (1897)
Henry P. Cox house at 231 Western Promenade (1898)
West Mansion on the Western Promenade (1911)
Masonic Temple on Congress Street (1912)
Exposition Building on Park Avenue (1914).

His design skills were not restricted to architecture. He was also a talented landscape painter, a sculptor, and a photographer.

20/04/2024

09/04/2024

Maine State Pier. Old Port, Portland Harbor. Portland, Maine. 1949.

The Aircraft Carrier USS Sicily CVE-118 docked at the U.S. Navy dock. Seeing an aircraft carrier in Portland Harbor is a rare sight.

Image courtesy of the Portland Press Herald Archive.

07/04/2024

Always happy to talk history, especially about Portland and the Civil War.

Discover the incredible story of Colonel Sabine Emery, who was wounded in the attack on Fort Wagner and later succumbed to his injuries, and how his gravesit...

25/03/2024

We often speak of Portland as a mini Boston. Our landfill area pales in comparison

Boston land reclamation between 1630 and 1995

21/03/2024

📣📣 Well friends, the news we’ve all be waiting for: Anderson Street Beer Garden will be returning for the Summer of 2024.😎
After a torturously long hiatus, we’ll soon be ready to welcome guests back to the top tiers of the Anderson Street property, overlooking East Bayside and with views of Back Bay. Construction is underway on a new bathroom and bar setup that will allow us to accommodate far more craft beer fans for outside service right here in East Bayside.
The timeline for reopening is unconfirmed for now, as we’ve just broken ground, but we’re hoping to have doors wide open as soon as inspections are done and the sun is shining.
👀Keep your eyes here for updates.👀

20/03/2024

Illustrates why we recommend a tour of the Victoria Mansion.

28/02/2024

This Black History Month, we wanted to share a story of one of the individuals we've been researching through our Unwilling Architects Initiative: Mary Ann Jones.

Free people of color had more opportunities for employment in 19th century New Orleans than in other Southern cities, many becoming entrepreneurs. Of the Black property owners surveyed in New Orleans from the early half of the century to 1866, over half were women, many of whom owned and operated boarding houses.

Mary Ann Jones was a Black woman of possible mixed Indigenous heritage who ran a boarding house on Customhouse (today Iberville) Street. Located near both the river and the train stations, Mary Ann’s boarding house would have offered business travelers a simpler, more affordable alternative to the city’s luxury hotels, which catered to wealthier clientele who would stay for weeks or months at a time. Boarding houses operated by Black women also played a crucial role in the Colored Conventions movement in both the pre- and postwar years. Black citizens traveled to these Conventions, often staying at boarding houses, to discuss abolition in the years leading up to the Civil War, and the rights promised in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments after the war.

Mary Ann was born in Virginia, and was likely forcibly removed from her home state. By 1849 she had been enslaved in New Orleans, and labored without pay for several years in Ruggles and Olive Morse's New Orleans household or hotel until her emancipation in 1855. Accounts differ as to how she was emancipated: possibly by Olive herself, or possibly as part of a court case with her sister Maria Martin suing for Mary Ann’s freedom. We hope to discover more about Mary Ann’s life as we continue our research.

To learn more about the role of boarding houses during the Colored Conventions movement, check out coloredconventions.org/boardinghouses. To learn more about our ongoing research into the lives of the Black individuals enslaved by the Morses in New Orleans between 1848-1860, check out victoriamansion.org/learn/the-unwilling-architects.

Image: Map of New Orleans, 1864 by S.A. Mitchell.

28/02/2024

27/02/2024

Happy birthday, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow!
“A Psalm of Life” (1839)
What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
__Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
__And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
__And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
__Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
__Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
__Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
__And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
__Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
__In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
__Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
__Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,—act in the living Present!
__Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
__We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
__Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
__Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
__Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
__With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
__Learn to labor and to wait.

21/02/2024

There's much more to Alden's story than this one event. He's buried in Portland's Eastern Cemetery.

One of the most famous quotes in American history came from the Civil War and was spoken directly to Captain James Alden from Searsport, Maine. It was a stat...

11/02/2024

Black Composers Matter : Daniel Bernard Roumain

Today we are celebrating the accomplishments of Daniel Bernard Roumain, a Haitian-American composer, violinist, educator, and activist.

Known for his signature violin techniques that fuse electronic and African Americaprolific composer of solo, chamber, orchestral, operatic, film, theater, and dance scores, Roumain's works have premiered at Carnegie Hall, New World Symphony, Opera Philadelphia, New Jersey Symphony, and more. In the film industry, he has composed for both feature and short films, including the acclaimed Sundance film Ailey; Requiem for the Living, In Color; and Color of Reality. Roumain also clinched an Emmy for Outstanding Musical Composition for ESPN.

Roumain has collaborated with the likes of J'Nai Bridges, Lady Gaga, Philip Glass, Bill T. Jones, Marin Alsop, and Anna Deavere Smith. Daniel is currently collaborating with Portland Ovations, Indigo, The Prince Project and The Abyssinian on The Echos Project. To learn more about this please continue to look here where we will post more information.

26/01/2024

The North Point is one place we recommend to walking tour guests as an under-the-radar spot. Great to see them get some love.

Whether it's to break the ice or rekindle the flame, a small Portland, Maine, restaurant has been named one of the very best 'date night' spots in the country.

14/01/2024

January 15, 1851: Henry Thoreau lectured on "An Excursion to Cape Cod" at the Temple Street Chapel in Portland, Maine.

This was Thoreau's second appearance in Portland; he lectured there in March 1849, reading on "Economy" from what would become the first chapter of "Walden". In October 1850 he received a letter from the Portland Lyceum askingif he would come back to lecture again. It read, in part:

"The Managers have been used to offer gentlemen who come here to lecture from a distance equivalent to your own, only the sum of twenty-five dollars, not under the name of pecuniary compensation for the lectures but for traveling expenses—"

Thoreau agreed to the arrangement, and he also agreed to read his "Cape Cod" lecture. Thoreau was the eighth lecture that season; among the other speakers that appeared at the Portland Lyceum that winter were Horace Greeley, the Reverend William Ware (“author of Zenobia”), and Richard Henry Dana, Sr.

His appearance this time seemed a success, but, as usual, Thoreau himself said almost nothing about the lecture. However, there was a wonderful review of his appearance in the Portland "Transcript: An Independent Family Journal of Literature, News, Etc." two weeks later:

"The performance of this gentleman, before the Lyceum, was unique. All who heard him lecture here two years ago were doubtless prepared for something eccentric and original, and we are quite sure they were not disappointed!..."

"...Mr. Thoreau is a most acute observer, and he has a singularly graphic style of describing what he has seen. He is an observer of nature, animate and inanimate, but he sees everything from a peculiar point of view, all is bathed in the light of a strong imagination. He takes all things by the angles and sets them before you in the most quaint phrase. He reaches out into the immensity of nature, and startles you by bringing dissimilarities together in which for the first time you perceive resemblances. Again he bewilders you in the mists of transcendentalism, delights you with brilliant imagery, shocks you by his apparent irreverence, and sets you in a roar by his sallies of wit, which springs from ambush upon you..."

"...His voice and manner, which are more than half of what he says, we cannot transfer to paper. He must be heard to be enjoyed. In short he is an original, who follows no beaten path, but has struck out one for himself, full of winding bouts and odd corners; perplexing labyrinths, and commanding prospects..."

"...We were amused at the various comments made. One worthy man, who has more of the practical than the imaginative in his composition, was demanding with a smile forced from him by the tickling fancies of the lecturer, that the committee should 'pay him for the time lost in listening to such trash!' A fair philosopher of sixteen thought he possessed 'a vein of satire, but spoke of the clergy with too much levity.' A sober young man declared it the 'greatest piece of nonsense he ever listened to,' while another thought it trivial, and even prophane! But then, again, there were others who were infinitely amused with his quaint
humor, delighted with his graphic descriptions, and his far-reaching flights of imagination. To them it was 'a rich treat'..."

IMAGE: Portland, Maine in 1850.

24/12/2023

Here’s some previously suppressed history (gift article, no paywall):

The Alabama men who fought for the Union in the Civil War were expunged from history.

03/11/2023

Maine’s coastal capital is the perfect long weekend hideout. Here’s how to experience it in three delicious days.

29/10/2023

We’ve added 2 more nights to Walk Among the Shadows! Thursday, November 2 & Sunday, November 5. Get your tickets now or at the gate! Website page with Ticket link in bio.