New Gloucester

By Thomas P. Blake and New Gloucester Historical Society

Named by the proprietors from Gloucester, Massachusetts, New Gloucester began as a frontier town, as it was the most inland settlement in Maine at the time. Incorporated in 1774, the town has been called home by such notables as mapmaker and author Moses Greenleaf, artist D. D. Coombs, original proprietor of the town of Foxcroft Joseph E. Foxcroft, traveling minister Ephraim Stinchfield, Abraham Lincoln's secretary of treasury William Pitt Fessenden, and abolitionist Samuel Fessenden. Shaker societies were set up in nine states, but the Sabbathday Lake Society, founded in 1783, is now the only active Shaker community remaining. With a long history of lumber mills and farms, New Gloucester is also home to Pineland Farms, the former site of the Maine Home for the Feeble-Minded, established in 1908, and now a renovated 19-building campus and 5,000-acre working farm.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Sep 21, 2009
• ISBN: 9781439637616

Thomas P. Blake

Thomas P. Blake serves as curator for the New Gloucester Historical Society. He is the ninth consecutive generation of the Blake family to reside on Penney Road in New Gloucester. The historical society is very active in the New Gloucester community, hosting many annual events, and will celebrate its 75th anniversary in September 2009.

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