Maine Minutiae: A Thumbnail Sketch of Maine History, Part 2

We continue our series of posts on Maine history. Last time we talked about the very early days of Maine from the time of Leif Ericson to Statehood. Today we are going to take a brief look at what was going on in Maine during the time just before and during the Revolutionary War. Just a we did yesterday, a big thanks to the state of Maine's website, maine.gov, for the material.

If you see parallels between then and now, you ain't too far off the mark. Maine.gov notes, "Resistance to the oppressive colonial tax policies of the British Parliament began early in Maine. In 1765 a mob seized a quantity of tax stamps at Falmouth (now Portland), and attacks on customs agents in the province became common."  If that sounds familiar, think ObamaCare. The similarities between the arrogance of the British Throne in 1765 and the assholes, meaning Liberals, who know "what's best for you" today, your judgement be damned, are striking. Without further editorial opinion, I'll just quote the rest of the text of our lesson for today. Again, from maine.gov: "A year after the famous Boston Tea Party of 1773, Maine staged its own version of that incident when a group of men burned a shipment of tea stored at York.

When open warfare finally erupted at Lexington and Concord, hundreds of Maine men actively joined the struggle for independence. The province saw plenty of action during the Revolution.

In 1775, British warships under the command of the notorious Capt. Henry Mowatt shelled and burned Falmouth, an act intended to punish residents for their opposition to the Crown, but which only served to stiffen Maine's ardor for independence.

The first naval battle of the Revolution occurred in June 1775 when a group of Maine patriots captured the armed British cutter "Margaretta" off Machias.

Later that year many Maine men accompanied Col. Benedict Arnold on his long march through the north woods in a valiant but fruitless effort to capture Quebec.

An ill-planned expedition by the American naval fleet to regain the British-held fortification at Castine in 1779 led to the most disastrous naval encounter of the war.

The Revolution cost Maine dearly. About 1,000 men lost their lives in the war, the district's sea trade was all but destroyed, the principal city had been leveled by British bombardment, and Maine's overall share of the war debt amounted to more than would later be imposed upon it by the Civil War."

 As you can see, Mainers were an independent bunch back then and I can assure you that today Mainers are just as resilient. We'll be back tomorrow with more history of the Pine Tree State! I hope to see you then!

Texas Tidbits: A Texas Primer

Thanks to you, the reader, Three States Plus One is growing in leaps and bounds. We are barely three months old and we now have friends in forty-five of the fifty states in the USA and twenty nine countries around the world. Our overseas readers are from a diverse group of nations, including, our newest country, Serbia. Other readers hail from Italy, Spain, Israel, Russia, Australia, Taiwan, Mexico, the Philippines, India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, our neighbors to the north, Canada, the Mother Country, Great Britain and so many more. Thank you to you all for being a part of our Global Community of Readers and showing an interest in my home state of Texas. I was thinking that since we have so many new readers, it might be a good time to familiarize them with some facts about Texas, including a brief look at its history. So, I located a primer about Texas that has some basic information that the newer readers might find useful. It's good stuff and I believe that many of you from around the globe who have struggled and fought in order to live in a country free of tyranny and governmental control over your daily lives, will find the story of Texas an inspirational one, not unlike your own.

Texas is one of the most recognizable places on Earth, if not for the sheer size of the place, then definitely for its unique profile. Almost anyone can look at a map and find Texas once they know what it looks like and the Lone Star flag is equally recognizable as a symbol of Texas by people from around the world. Many people unfamiliar with modern Texas still think of oil wells and cowboys as the mainstays of Texan culture. And they would be right. Oil and cowboys are as much a part of Texas as the Alamo. But the Texas of today is much more than that. Many Fortune 500 and high tech companies call today's Texas home making Texas a new kind of frontier for the 21st Century.

I am not going to excerpt the Texas Primer for you here as I can't do it justice, so please take a few minutes to read it and you'll have a basic understanding of what is so special about this place called Texas.