USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Portland > Portland city guide > Part 28
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97. The Mclellan-Oxnard House, 94-96 Danforth St., now headquarters of the Baby Hygiene and Child Welfare Association, is believed to have been built in the early 1800's. Later it was the residence of Portland's Civil War mayor, Jacob Mclellan (1807-88), who aided in the fitting out of the Chesapeake and Forest City to recapture the cutter Caleb Cushing which was stolen by the rebels from the harbor June 27, 1863 (see History) . The right portion of the house (no. 96) has been occupied by the Catherine Morrill Day Nursery since 1922 and is known as the Margaret Ella Cham- berlain Memorial House, in honor of its benefactress. This portion of the house belonged to the family of Edward Oxnard (1792-1873), an early Portland shipbuilder.
98. Park Street Church, NE cor. Park and Pleasant Sts., is now occupied by the Holy Trinity Hellenic Orthodox Church. Erected in 1828 for a Methodist society, it was used by several religious organizations until sold
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to its present owners in 1926. Of yellow brick and designed in the Roman- esque style, the church contains a bell weighing over two tons, which was one of four bells cast at the same time by the Paul Revere Company of Boston. It was taken down after the fire in 1935 and is now in an ante- room. The 12 large religious portraits on each side of the altar are the work of the monks of Mount Athos in Greece; the 27 small portraits above the altar were painted by Xen Gamras, of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. The altar equipment, including a Bible with hand-wrought gold covers, and three elaborate candleholders weighing 250 pounds each, came from Greece. The chandelier contains 3,500 pieces of glass.
99. The Park Street Block, on the west side of Park St., is a group of 20 four-story brick houses built in the Greek Revival style in 1835; the bal- conies and rails are original. This was considered one of the greatest real estate projects of its time and was developed on the property known as Billy Gray's ropewalk.
100. The Morse-Libby House, 109 Danforth St., is a brownstone mansion that typifies the elegance of mid-Victorian architecture at its best. The pillared portico, corniced windows, paneled doors, carved marble fireplace, and elaborately wrought ceilings are in the grand manner. It was built for Ruggles S. Morse (1816-93) who came to this city in 1856, after having made a substantial fortune in New Orleans, and constructed his mansion in the fashionable quarter of the city as visible evidence of his great success. Designed by Henry Austin and Giovanni Guidirini, the house was com- pleted in 1859. Architects, antiquarians, and decorators agree that it is possibly the finest specimen of the era now standing in New England.
Morse was financially ruined as a result of the Civil War and had to leave his pretentious home. For many years the mansion remained without a tenant until purchased in 1895 by J. R. Libby (1845-1917), a local mer- chant, who kept house and furnishings unchanged.
101. The State Street Hospital, 62 State St., formerly the Female Orphan Asylum, was erected in 1834. For many years the original three-story brick structure was regarded as Portland's finest home. In 1922 after a fourth story had been added and extensive improvements had been made on the structure, the present hospital was opened; today, containing 50 beds, the hospital has modern equipment and a competent staff.
Originally the mansion belonged to Captain John Dunlap, shipmaster and shipowner, who suffered so heavily in the general financial slump of 1837- 38 that he was forced to sell the property to Judge Joseph Howard (1800-
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77). As Mayor of Portland, Howard entertained the Prince of Wales (King Edward VII) on his Portland tour in 1860. Concerning this gala event the local historian Nathan Goold wrote: "I have a vivid recollection of his [Howard's ] appearance as he sat by the Prince of Wales in the car- riage when the Prince embarked from our city for England that year. We all recollect that terribly bad tall hat that the Prince wore." (see Munjoy Hill Section: No. 14).
102. The William Pitt Preble House, 51 State St., is one of the master- pieces of the architect Alexander Parris. Now an apartment house, the classic lines, with applied pilasters and ornamental cornices, are noteworthy. Erected in 1801, the house was built for Joseph Ingraham, one of early Portland's wealthiest and most enterprising residents. In 1816 the house was purchased by William Pitt Preble (1783-1857), jurist, diplomat, and railway president. Preble was U. S. Ambassador to the Netherlands under Andrew Jackson. On retirement from Government service in later life he became president of the new Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad (see Transportation), and was largely responsible for making Portland the terminus of the line.
103. St. Dominic's Catholic Church, 34 Gray St., was dedicated August 5, 1893, by the Rt. Reverend Bishop Bradley, of Manchester, New Hamp- shire. The structure is of red brick and was designed by the architect E. W. Ford of Boston. On the site stood old St. Dominics, the first Catholic Church to be built in the city (see Religion) .
104. The Kinsman House, 122 State St., a two-story frame house of Early Colonial architecture, with fluted pilasters and plain columns supporting the porch and leaded fanlight over the door, was built in 1813 by Nathan Kinsman, an outstanding lawyer of the early 1800's.
105. The Cathedral Church of St. Luke (Episcopal), 137 State St., built in 1868 from designs by Charles C. Haight, of New York City, was the first Protestant cathedral erected in New England. Of early Gothic style, the church is built of dark blue limestone, laid horizontally but not in courses, and not faced, except on the front. It is finished in Nova Scotia freestone alternated in red and gray. In 1925 a memorial marble altar, the work of the noted architect Ralph Adams Cram, was presented to the church; at the same time they received a reredos of oak carved by the sculptor Ernest Pellegrini. One of the outstanding works of art in the State is the Emmanuel Chapel built at the end of the Cathedral in 1899 as a memorial to Bishop Robert Codman. The church owns a painting called
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the 'American Madonna,' done especially for the chapel by the noted artist John La Farge.
106. The Portland Club, 156-162 State St., occupies the old Shepley house, onetime home of Ether Shepley (1789-1877), Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court (1848-55). Prior to 1924 the club occupied quarters at Cape Elizabeth and Great Diamond Island. The present building, de- signed by Alexander Parris, is of Early Colonial architecture with English Georgian influence. The house was built in 1805 for Colonel Richard Hun- newell (1757 -? ) who was the first sheriff of Hancock County (1798), and later high sheriff of Portland (1811 and 1812-21). Three stories in height, the building is of brick with front and rear walls wood-covered and has a flat roof with the usual four chimneys of its period. Particularly striking is the entrance doorway with leaded side lights and fan window above, and the Palladian window on the second floor. One of the original panes of glass in a window of a second floor room is etched, presumably with a dia- mond, with the following names and date: "Annie," "Lucy," "Nellie," and "Gen. George Shepley, July 19, 1816."
107. State Street Congregational Church, 157 State St., is greatly changed in appearance from the original building erected in 1852; this had a lofty wooden spire which was struck by lightning in 1866, necessitating its re- moval five years later. In 1893 a small top tower was added and, as the building was found to be in bad condition, a red freestone front was laid over the original, including the tower, with the result that the edifice is now almost Gothic in style.
108. The Monastery of the Precious Blood, 166 State St., was built in 1807 for Chief Justice Prentiss Mellen (1764-1840), and was later the home of William Pitt Fessenden (1806-69). In subsequent years the house was sold to the Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland and became a religious center, first as King's Academy, and since 1934 as the Monastery of the Sisters of the Precious Blood. In October of that year the Most Reverend Joseph E. McCarthy formally sealed the cloister of the monastery on the seven sis- ters who will not emerge until death.
Prentiss Mellen was born in Massachusetts, where he first practiced law. Acting on the advice of a friend in York County, Mellen came to Bidde- ford, and, when his law practice spread into Cumberland County, he moved to Portland in 1806. Twelve years later he was chosen U. S. Senator from Massachusetts, leaving the Senate when Maine became a State to accept a position as chief justice of its newly created supreme court.
William Pitt Fessenden, although born in New Hampshire, lived most of
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his life in Portland. He was graduated from Bowdoin in 1823 after a hectic collegiate career in which he was scored with being chronically delin- quent; it was charged that he had been "repeatedly guilty of profane swear- ing." However, he received an honorary degree of doctor of laws from Bow- doin in 1858. Eight years after his graduation from the college he was elected to the Maine Legislature and in 1855 became United States Senator. Lincoln appointed him Secretary of the Treasury in 1864, calling him "a radical without the petulant and vicious fretfulness of most radicals."
109. The John Neal Houses, 173-175 State St., are four-story granite build- ings erected in 1836 in Greek Revival style, having recessed doorways, and balconies and railings of cast iron. The granite is all in long pieces, and there are no mouldings on the entire front of the building except the Doric mouldings at the entrance. It has the original stairways, and the interior is done in the Federal Period style.
John Neal (1793-1876) (see Literature) conceived the idea of building a block of eight granite houses in this locality and purchased a granite quarry at North Yarmouth for this purpose. Financial difficulties pre- vented his prospective co-builders from carrying through the ambitious scheme, and Neal built the double granite structure on State Street. He assisted many talented people in furthering their education in the arts, among whom was Paul Akers, the famous sculptor.
110. The Norton House, 172 State St., built about 1847 in the Greek temple style with Ionic columns, was the home of Thomas W. O'Brion, a Congress Street trader. It changed ownership several times until purchased in 1862 by Edwin A. Norton who lived there for almost a quarter-century.
111. Queen's Hospital, 206-18 State St., is a group of four red-brick build- ings, one facing Congress Street, the others State Street. It was opened as a hospital for women in 1918 in the former home of Dr. Stephen H. Weeks, and in 1920 was incorporated, enlarged, and opened to both sexes. It consists of St. Matthew's Pavilion, St. Mark's Pavilion, St. Luke's Pavi- lion, and St. John's Pavilion, and has accommodations for 58 patients.
112. Immanuel Lutheran Church, 14 Sherman St., an offshoot of the First Lutheran Church of Portland, was organized in 1897 by a group of Swed- ish-born people who had met for three years as the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Immanuel Church, a society that disbanded when the present con- gregation was founded. The cornerstone of this red-brick edifice was laid in 1898 and much of the construction was done by members of the church. The altar window was the gift of Portland-born William Widgery Thomas,
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Jr. (1839-1927), lawyer, politician, and diplomat. Of Thomas, the Dic- tionary of American Biography records:
"During his residence at Gothenburg, Thomas had acquired a deep at- tachment for Sweden and a great admiration for its people (he learned to speak fluent Swedish and translated into English Viktor Rydberg's master- piece The Last Athenian, 1869), and in 1870 he played an important part in the establishment of the Swedish settlement in Aroostook County, Me. As a member of the commission of immigration appointed to find means of attracting settlers to increase the declining population of Maine, he went to Gothenburg in May, 1870, embarked on an extensive advertising cam- paign in the newspapers, commissioned agents armed with circulars to visit the northern provinces, and himself visited many parishes. On July 23, 1870, with Thomas as their leader, a party of some fifty immigrants ar- rived at a spot in the woods destined to be known as New Sweden. The ad- vertising campaign in Sweden continued and from time to time new immi- grants came, until at the end of the decade Maine's Swedish colony boasted a population of almost eight hundred. In 1883, as a reward for his services to the Republican party, he received the appointment of minister to Sweden and Norway, and served under four presidents (1883-85, 1889-94, 1897- 1905)."
113. The Mosher Press, 45 Exchange St., is the name now applied to the publishing company formerly known as Thomas B. Mosher, publisher of the Mosher Books, and occupies the same quarters it had when that com- pany came into existence in 1895. Its founder, Thomas Bird Mosher (1852- 1923) (see Literature: Printers and Publishers), began his career as a clerk in a publishing house above which he later had his own office. His love of literature was stimulated when his father, a sea captain, took him on a voyage in the winter of 1866-67 and gave him a 34-volume set of Bell's British Theatre to while away the long hours at sea. Mosher later wrote of this period: "The books I shall not read again, No! I shall never again read books as once I read them in my early seafaring when all the world was young, when the days were of tropic splendor, and the long evenings were passed with my books in a lonely cabin dimly lighted by a primitive oil- lamp, while the ship was ploughing through the boundless ocean on its weary course around Cape Horn." Thomas B. Mosher was better known as a publisher in London than in Portland.
114. The Portland Junior Technical College, 40 Plum St., is a privately endowed non-profit institute of technology, founded by a son of Maine, Dean Everett W. Lord, Boston educator; it was chartered in 1937. Its three-
First Parish Church
School of Fine and Applied Art
The Portland Players
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Portland Yacht Club
Lighthouse Wharf
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L. D. M. Sweat Memorial Art Museum
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Portland Observatory
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St. Joseph's Catholic Church
Portland Chamber of Commerce
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
Immanuel Baptist Church
St. Luke's Episcopal Cathedral
Cassidy Hill
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story brick building, formerly occupied by the Portland Boys' Club has ex- cellent mechanical equipment and laboratories. The college has the most powerful amateur radio transmitter in New England W1FCE, designed and built for instruction purposes by Ralph M. Dennis, a member of the faculty. Among the 14 professional programs offered to students is a de- partment of pharmacy, the only one in the State; its civilian pilot training course is approved by the Civil Aeronautics Authority.
115. The Harold T. Andrews Post, No. 17, 23 Deering St., was organized in 1919 and affiliated with the American Legion a short time later; it was named for Harold T. Andrews, a local boy who enlisted with the 11th N. Y. Engineers and lost his life at the Battle of Cambrai, November, 1917. The post home was acquired in 1926. The bas-relief of Andrews in the parlor was executed by Victor Kahill.
116. The Water Front. For over two hundred years the water front of Portland was along Fore Street. It was of this section Longfellow wrote:
I remember the black wharves and the slips And the sea-tides tossing free; And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
And the beauty and mystery of the ships, And the magic of the sea.
But during the poet's lifetime Portland grew rapidly; railroad terminals were at each end of the city, and expanding business demanded more ade- quate facilities. Sweating teams of four, six, or eight horses, and oxen cluttered the narrow water-front street with their loads of wood, lumber, barrels, shooks, masts, bark, hides, wool, butter, and cheese. Loud-voiced drivers blasphemously urged their straining beasts through this commercial jungle, and foreign-looking sailors in vivid costumes, negro stevedores sing- ing as they worked, and long-frocked Yankee traders added color and con- fusion. In 1842 the Portland, Saco, and Portsmouth Railroad came to the city with its terminal at the foot of State Street, and in another few years the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad was rapidly nearing its Canadian terminal in Montreal from its starting point at India Street in Portland. The officials of the latter company, realizing the necessity for efficient cross- town transportation, urged that the old water front be filled in and a wider street over the wharves take its place; they agreed to pay part of the cost. This proposal occasioned much adverse criticism because of the cost to the city, but in 1852 Commercial Street, 5,883 feet long, 100 feet wide with 26 feet reserved in the center for railroad tracks, was opened.
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The bustle and confusion of Fore Street was repeated all along the new street. Portland's greatest commercial activity came during the latter half of the 19th century.
The vast quantity of merchandise required hundreds of horses and teams, while molasses for the sugar house and breweries required three or more horses to draw the long, heavy drays. New wharves and piers were built, and ships waited their turn in the harbor for a chance to unload. It was a rough and tumble water front, and policemen toured the district in pairs. Commercial Street in 1875 was the center of flour and grain commerce and the wholesale trade of the West Indies. Long lines of freight cars, from which merchandise was rolled to the doors of the warehouses, partitioned the street. Until the World War Portland was a port of export. Today it is still a busy port, with spacious wharves equipped with modern appliances for efficient discharge of cargoes. Fish-laden boats, followed by screaming gulls, empty their hauls for the waiting canners and consumers. Boats with flags of foreign nations call for consignments of Solka or scrap iron, but Portland today has become a port for imports.
Jutting into Portland Harbor at the eastern end of the water front is the (a) State Pier, built by the State of Maine in 1923 at a cost of $1,500,000. This pier, constructed to facilitate and increase coastwise, intracoastal, and foreign commerce, is maintained by the Port of Portland Authority, a cor- porate body of five directors, four of whom are appointed by the Governor and one by the City of Portland. The pier is 1,000 feet long and varies in width from 140 to 320 feet. Exclusive of the large shed devoted to coastwise traffic, there are three sheds with a combined area of approximately 150,000 square feet available for transit cargoes. Usually docked at the State Pier is the (b) U. S. Coast Guard Cutter Algonquin, a 1,000 ton, 1,500 horsepower, gear-turbined ship built in 1934 at the Pussey-Jones Shipbuild- ing Works at Wilmington, Delaware. The range of operation for this cutter lies between the Bay of Fundy, or Canadian boundary, and the Rhode Island-Connecticut line, and as far seaward as is necessary to render assistance to disabled or distressed vessels. Docked at this pier is the (c) Portland Pilot Boat, a two-masted schooner-rigged vessel having a jib, fore- sail, and riding sail. Built in 1931 at the local Brown's Wharf by Frank Howard, the Portland Pilot is slightly more than sixty-nine feet overall in length. On the east side of the State Pier is the (d) Portland Public Boat Landing, a wooden landing-stage with runway to the wharf.
The first local telephone was introduced in the office of (e) Randall and McAllister, 84 Commercial St., in 1878 when Frederick A. Gower con- nected these offices with another address for trial purposes. (f) Custom
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House Wharf, jutting from Commercial St. opposite the lower end of Pearl St., is usually teeming with activity; to and from this wharf arrive and depart the many island steamers that ply the channels of Casco Bay. (g) Portland Pier is still reminiscent of Portland's onetime shipping glory; the ancient buildings, with crooked roofs and nets strung from their win- dows to dry, are a fitting background for the clear-eyed sailors that pass along the pier's cobble-stoned roadway. At this pier is docked the (h) Portland Fire Boat, a 90-foot long vessel designed by the naval architect, John Alden, of Boston. The City of Portland, built of steel at the East Boothbay yards of Rice Brothers Corporation, was placed in operation in October, 1931. The vessel is the first full-Diesel powered craft of its type; the conventional bow is conspicuous by its absence, the deck at the bow being circular, not unlike that of a ferryboat, to avoid being caught be- tween piles while working close to a dock. Since being placed in operation other American cities and several foreign countries have placed orders for similar fire-fighting equipment (see Government) .
(i) Central Wharf is the principal fish pier of the city, and to it come hundreds of fishing craft to unload their catches. On Merchant's Wharf is the (j) Portland Yacht Club, an organization formed in 1869 by 21 local amateur sailors who had taken a coastal cruise the previous year. In 1872 this group rented a loft on Custom House Wharf as their first clubhouse and 13 years later they acquired a building on the present site. This latter clubhouse was destroyed by fire in 1926, and the present two-story structure, designed by John Calvin Stevens and John Howard Stevens, was erected the following year. According to the Portland Sunday Telegram the house flag of the local yacht club has been carried farther north than that of any other yacht club in the world. Commander Donald B. MacMillan, the Arctic explorer and honorary member of the club, carried it on two of his voyages to Labrador, Baffin Land, South and North Greenland, and within 12° of the North Pole.
(k) Brown's Wharf, built about 1845 by John B. Brown, is the second longest wharf on the water front; its 970-foot length was the center of much West Indies commerce when its builder headed the Portland Sugar House, one of the first and largest molasses and sugar refineries in Portland during the middle of the 19th century (see History). Berthed at the east side of Hobson's Wharf is the (1) Coronet, a small schooner which took the "Modern Elijah" and a group of Shilohites on a disastrous cruise in an attempt to spread the gospel in the Holy Land (see Religion) .
BRAMHALL HILL SECTION
The transition from a wilderness to a residential district was a prolonged one for the Bramhall section. The shoreline had been utilized for its ac- cessible transportation but its hilly summit was covered by a heavy forest growth until the first quarter of the 19th century. Traders from the in- terior with their produce plowed through the dust and turns of Congress Street on their way to the "village" as Portland was then called, but only a few hardy inhabitants attempted to build their homes so far from The Neck.' When the Western Promenade was laid out in 1836 it was con- sidered a waste of the taxpayers' money for no one would think of walking that distance for recreation. From this point may be had the finest view in the city, Portland's environs spread out kaleidoscopically. From the storage tank-dotted foreground on the western bank of Fore River, the panorama unfolds - church steeples of neighboring cities and towns are silhouetted against a backdrop of tall mountain ranges to the west, while eastward the "Bay of the Calendared Isles" emphasizes the wealth of beauty by which Portland is surrounded.
1. Williston Church (Congregational), 32-38 Thomas St. This church is a brick structure conforming to a modified English Gothic style of archi- tecture and is connected with a parish house of brick and cement. The church building was erected in 1878, and the parish house was built in 1905 from designs by John Calvin and John Howard Stevens. The latter struc- ture has an assembly hall on the main floor and a spacious library on the second; on the third floor is a gallery with rolling doors that separate the space into eight class rooms, or roll back as desired, creating one large as- sembly room. In February, 1931, the church was visited by a disastrous fire, but was rededicated the following September after being extensively ren- ovated.
During the pastorate of the Reverend Francis E. Clark (1851-1927) in 1881 the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor was organized; the young minister believed "that the young people of the world had not sufficient op- portunity for religious activities, and that the way to secure for them the privileges of satisfactory Christian growth was to organize them into a body which had definite personal and religious duties." In subsequent years
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