As part of the Missouri Compromise between the North and the South, Maine was admitted into the Union on March 15, 2016. Administered as a province of Massachusetts since 1647, the entrance of Maine as a free state was agreed to by Southern senators in exchange for the entrance of Missouri as a slave state. In 1604, French explorer Samuel de Champlain visited the coast of Maine and claimed it as part of the French province of Acadia. However, French attempts to settle Maine were foiled when British forces under Sir Samuel Argall wiped out a colony on Mount Desert Island in 1613. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, a prominent figure in the Plymouth Company, got the ball rolling on British settlement in Maine after procuring a grant and royal charter, and upon Gorges’ death in 1647 the Massachusetts Bay Colony claimed jurisdiction. Gorges’ heirs disputed this claim until 1677, when Massachusetts agreed to buy Gorges’ original proprietary rights. As part of Massachusetts, Maine developed early ...

On March 6, 1820, President James Monroe signed the Missouri Compromise (also called the Compromise Bill of 1820) into law. The bill sought to make even the number of slave-holding states and free states in the nascent nation. It allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state while Maine joined as a free state. What's more, the bill prohibited portions of the Louisiana Purchase territory north of the 36-degrees-30-minutes latitude line from engaging in slavery. Monroe, who was born into the Virginia slave-holding planter class, strongly supported states’ rights, but let Congress bicker over the issue of slavery in the new territories. He then closely examined any proposed legislation for its constitutionality. Although he realized that slavery ran contrary to the values written into the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, he, like fellow Virginians Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, feared abolition would rip apart the country they had fought so hard to crea...

As you know, I love sharing information on historic properties throughout the United States and, more broadly, the world. In this post, I'd like to shed light on a little-known Maine gem. The Bray House is a historic house located at 100 Pepperell Road in Kittery Point, Maine. It is one of the oldest surviving buildings in Maine. Long considered to be a 17th-century house, architectural evidence suggests that this house was likely built around 1720. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The Bray House is set on the south side of Pepperell Road, on a site overlooking the Piscataqua River. It is a 2-1/2 story wood frame structure whose main block is five bays wide, with a side gable roof, clapboard siding, large central chimney, and granite foundation. The entrance, centered on the river-facing south facade, is flanked by sidelight windows and pilasters, and is topped by an entablature. A two-story extension to the east adds two bays, and a narro...