OK, I probably should have known this one, but I didn’t. This is the latest from DownEast.com’s collection of trivia questions.
What city was Maine’s first capital?
Answer:
Portland. In 1832 the capital was moved to the centrally located site of Augusta.
Here’s today’s DownEast.com trivia question. Educators might find it interesting.
What is Maine’s only public charter school?
Answer:
The Maine School of Math and Science in Limestone, established in 1995, was recently declared the twelfth best public high school in the United States.
Went to the DownEast.com trivia question and was not terribly surprised by the answer to the question:
“How did the city of Belfast get its name?”
Answer:
“Many of the community’s founding fathers wanted to name their new settlement Londonderry, but a strong-willed settler, John Miller of Belfast, Ireland, made a protest and a coin was flipped. Belfast won.”
It doesn’t surprise me because Mainers – whether their families originated in Londonderry or Belfast or wherever – tend to be independent-minded. Stubborn even.
Maine’s history is full of cool little stories like this.
Once again, I find myself going to the DownEast.com trivia section for a bit of entertainment. Today’s entry was a no-brainer.
What’s the best oceanfront drive in Maine?
Answer The Loop Road in Acadia National Park.
Here is a brief description from the National Park Service website:
“The 27-mile Park Loop Road system offers outstanding views of the park’s ocean shoreline, coastal forests, and mountain silhouettes. This historic road system is open from April 15 through November 30, weather permitting (small portions remain open all year).”
However, there are quite a few other options to scenic oceanfront drives in Maine and it just may be an enjoyable life-long task to seek out a suitable alternative. Please leave a comment with your favorite oceanfront drive.
Or, just for fun, don’t limit yourself to the oceanfront. Break it down to regions and give me your favorite rides in Maine.
It is amazing sometimes how things just sort of fit together in a weird cosmic sort of way. Today, I am able to connect the dots between Maine’s first-ever school, a leading pre-Civil War politician, and some wily northern Mainers who wanted to avoid British rule.
I am a Facebook fan of DownEast magazine, the Maine-base monthly publication that carries stories, commentary, Maine humor and more. The magazine today posted a trivia question about Fryeburg Academy, the first school built in Maine and the school where my sister and brother-in-law intend to send my niece and nephew. The history is rich. John Hancock – yeah, the “place your John Hancock on the dotted line” John Hancock – signed the charter for the school in Fryeburg, Maine, in 1792. Yeah, 1792. There are some pretty old things in Maine and the rest of New England.
Anyway, the trivia question was about the academy’s most famous headmaster. Turns out it was Daniel Webster, a leading American politician before the Civil War.
OK, I know that might not impress anyone other than people into pre-Civil War U.S. history, but I found it interesting. The answer that DownEast gave was: “Daniel Webster, politician, pundit, and hard-drinking diplomat who settled the northern border of Maine over a bottle of brandy with a British negotiator.”
The last part of the answer caught my eye, too, since I was born on that northern border and lived my entire childhood about an hour’s drive south of it. It also reminded me of a story my Ashland Community High School history teacher, Ron Stevens, told class one day. If I recall correctly, surveyors were sent to establish the boundary after the agreement between Daniel Webster and the British negotiators. The surveyors reached the confluence of two rivers and the locals – my Mother has relatives there – invited the surveyors to partake in “adult beverages.” The locals then sent the surveyors on a northern tributary of a river rather than the southern route agreed upon by Webster and the British negotiator over that bottle of brandy.
Anyway, once the surveyors sobered up and realized they had been sent down the wrong river, instead of backtracking, they simply put down two straight surveyors lines to reconnect with the route set in the agreement. If you look at the northwest portion of the state of Maine on a map you can pretty much see where the surveyors were steered down the wrong river and where they decided it was best to make it back to the established route. It also means several thousands of acres of land more for Maine.
See, weird cosmic sort of way to connect some dots between the oldest school in Maine, a leading politician and the state’s northern most boundary.
Posted in Maine, Uncategorized
Tagged Ashland Community High School, Daniel Webster, DownEast Magazine, Maine
Letters From Away 