^ni/h chj POKTLAND ILLUSTKATED. BY JOHI^ PORTLAND: \ ^ W. S. JONES, PUBLISH] 1874. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by W. S. JONES, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. PORTLAND : EusTis & Castell, Pkinteks. PORTLAND : PAST-PRESENT AND FUTURE, That Portland has never had justice, nor indeed, anything like justice done her, begins to be felt and acknowledged by pleasure-seekers and the great business-world. Her capabilities, advantages and resources are found to be absolutely surpris- ing, when carefully investigated ; so that, in giving an account of them, one can hardly avoid the appearance of great exaggeration. Whole generations have passed away since our ship-building, our fisheries, our lumbering operations, our adventurous temper, and the beauty of our women ; our commercial enterprize, and our readiness to take the field with "a fire in our bones," whenever called upon by our country, or threatened by interlopers, red men or white, have been talked about over sea, and everywhere among our- selves, more as if we were not only "a peculiar people zealous of good works," but numerous, warlike and powerful, with slumbering energies of a somewhat dangerous character, than as a small, sober, christianized community, self-pos- sessed, industrious and thrifty, and at home everywhere, on land or sea. Beginning with a liberal contribution of men to our first Indian war, of 167.5, and furnishing four companies in 174.5, finishing off with five thousand alto- gether in the Great Rebellion, to say nothing of intermediate periods, nothing of the second Indian war in 1688, when Portland, then Falmouth, was utterly destroyed for the second time, and the whole population, amounting to six or seven hundred, were obliged to flee for their lives, followed by the French and their savage alies, until Church, who had been so greatly distinguished in the war with Philip of Mount-Hope, came to their relief with six or eight compan- ies ; nothing of Louisburg and the French war ; nothing of the Revolutionary war in 1770, when the town was laid in ashes by Mo watt; nothing of the Mexican war, and the war with Great Britian from 1812 to 1815, Portland never shrank, nor faltered, in the discharge of her duty to herself and her country. But notwithstanding these wars, and the terrible embargo which desolated our wharves, and the non-importation acts, and non-intercourse laws, Portland continued her flourishing career. And yet, until we were burnt over in 1866, and our Board of Trade sprang up of itself, somewhat like the new growth, after a great fire through an aboriginal wilderness, followed by the Board of Manufacturers, and after a while, by the 4 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. late Industrial Exhibition, which we are but just through with, so that we have hardly yet recovered from our surprise, we had no true knowledge of ourselves, and of our capabilities. And now, after seeing our future foreshadowed with the distinctness of Hebrew prophecy, and our inevitable growth revealed to us, with all our hidden capabilities, advantages and resources, and our silent, unostentatious achieve- ments within the last few years, hitherto but imperfectly understood, or wholly overlooked, by the wisest among us, what is there to stay our progress hereafter, as a manufacturing population? or to hinder the growth of our commerce and 'business character? since in 1870 our manufactxiring products amounted to no less than $9,000,000, though we never knew it, until the report of the Board of Manufacturers appeared. Having been tried by fire, and in a measure purged, purified, and set a-think- ing, we have begun to question ourselves, and to ask in all seriousness, whether we have not been shamefully blind to some of our peculiar advantages, strange- ly neglectful of our greatest privileges, and correspondingly unthankful. To have been so long unacquainted with ourselves, and only to have waked up, within the last few months, would appear unaccountable; but then, we are now in earnest, and by calling upon our business-men to bestir themselves, and rousing our whole community, as by a thunder-peal at dead of night, we have succeeded in astonishing not only outsiders, travelers and strangers in seai'ch of the picturesque and beautiful, but our largest property-holders, and the most far-seeing and sagacious of our business-men, however well acquainted with our past doings and history, they had supposed themselves to be. For a long time, agriculture throughout our whole neighborhood was neglected, and the best energies of our population were employed in lumbering, then, in the West-India trade, then, partly in freighting, and partly in the llussian trade, so that we were known only as a commercial association, regardless alike of manufacturers and agricultvire. But times have changed. Our railroads, with sixty-five trains, entering and leaving daily. Our dry docks, one of which is four hundred and twenty-five feet long by one hundred feet in width, and of a depth greater than that of any other in the United States, being twenty-three feet, while even the smaller is one hundred and seventy-five by eighty feet with a draught of twelve feet ; our water supply the purest we know of anywhere, as proved by careful and patient analysis, from a lake seventeen miles off, and measuring two hundred square miles, at an elevation of two hundred and forty-seven feet above tide water, with a reservoir containing twelve millions of gallons, upon a hill which of itself stands 175 1-2 feet above tide water, for the supply of our largest wants ; our horse railroads, our gas-company, and our manufacturers, of which some- thing is to be said hereafter, all these have had their awakening influences ; and co-operating as they do, all at once, are we not fully justified in our largest expectations ? Consider for a moment what our people have gone through with from the first. Three times utterly "scattered and peeled," wasted and ravaged, since PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 5 our forefathers first took possession of tlie peninsula on wliicli our city is built, first known as Macliigonne, from Matchi, bad, and gon, clay, and then, as tlie Neck, or Casco-Neck ; twice by tlie red men of the wilderness, and tlie wliite savages of Canada, and once by our brotliers of England, wlien the bombard- ment over, and the torclies tlirown aside, tliere were left standing of tlie four hundred and fourteen buildings which constituted our picturesque, thrifty and beautiful village, only here and there the sliattered skeletons of about a liuudred, no less than thirteen of whicli, however, managed to outlive all the chances and clianges of tempest and fire, from 1770 to ISGG, wlien tliey disappeared forever, along witli tlie goodliest part of our new Portland, in tlie flasli and roar of that bewildering conflagration, wliicli overswejit all our chief treasure-houses and buried most of our houseliold gods in a storm of white ashes — of which a word or two just here. Within about sixteen hours, the wliole business part of Portland was utterly destroyed. Eiglit miles of tlioroughfare closely built, out of the forty-seven miles of streets we measure, not including courts and ways, with fifteen hundred buildings, covering at tlie lowest computation one liundred and thirty acres, out of tlie sixteen hundred and sixty-six acres, comprised within the city boundar- ies, of which hardly a fourth part was built over, were laid in ashes. Arranged in a line, tliese fifteen hundred buildings would extend sixteen miles. Among them were tlie Custom-House, tlie Post-OflUce and U. S. Law Courts, all under one roof, built from the celebrated granite of Kennebunk- port, said by the geologist and architect sent to us by the Czar of Russia, to be the best building material known, and believed to be fire-proof, with its brick floors, iron girders and arclies, and costing over $500,000 ; the New City Hall of Albert-stone, with ends of pressed brick, a magnificent and stately pile which cost us $648,000; our Museum of Natural History, our Athemeum, all our public and many of our private libraries, eight churclies, together with no less than thirteen large blocks of stores and warehouses. Wood's marble hotel six stories high, and Brown's sugar-house, with its outlying warehouses and appendages covering whole acres of ground, to say nothing of our law offices, not one of wliicli escajied, our newspaper establishments, insurance offices and banks, all of wliicli passed away like shadows, in that hurricane of unquench- able fire. Our loss at the time of the fire, was estimated, or rather under-estimated at $10,000,000 Insurance paid, 3,159,450 Cash contributions, 600,000 $3,759,4.50 Net loss therefore, $6,240,.5.50 being about oae-fifth of our valuation, and quite of a piece with what has just happened to Chicago, for the second time witliin three years, though I find the loss estimated to-day, from four to six millions. Seventeen hundred buildings were destroyed and one hundred and fifty-seven acres burned. 6 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. But tlien, it must be remembered that for one hundred and fifty years, or so, we had little to brag of except our beautiful women, always ranked with the women of Philadelphia, Providence and Baltimore, our fine ships, our lumber- ing and our fisheries. We had no manufactories, no cultivated farms worth mentioning, to supply our wants, no public buildings to be compared with what We have now, no statesmen, no artists, no painters, no poets, no authors, no capitalists and no idlers, from the time that Falmouth was "setoff"' or rather ''•cast off," from old Massachusetts in 1639, up to 1820, when the District of Maine, as it was then called, sloughed off altogether in somewhat of a hurry, and by a single effort, with a magnanimous disregard of consequences on her part, as well as on that of our mother State, and became forthwith one of this great Commonwealth of !N"ations, with a territory about as large as all the rest of New England ; Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Hamp- shire; containing 31,365 square miles to their 32,316, with water accessible from every point along our sea coast, and a frontage on the Atlantic of more than four hundred miles. And now for Portland — a brief outline sketch of our strange history may not be out of place here. Originally what is now Portland was called Machigonne by the Indians, then Casco-Bay, then the Neck, and then Falmouth by the first settlers, after a village standing at the mouth of Fal, a river in Cornwall, England. At this time, the territory of Falmouth contained about eighty square miles, and included Cape-Elizabeth, Westbrook, the peninsula on which Portland is built, then called the Neck, Deering, and some other towns incorporated at long intervals. In Hubbard's narrative between 1607 and 1677, speaking of Casco-Bay, he says "On the south side of it is a small village called Falmouth, all or most of it lately destroyed by fire." Although the neck, or peninsula on which the city is built, contains but 1,666 acres, the islands within her jurisdiction furnish 2,931 acres more, pre-eminently vai'ied, beautiful and picturesque, with fine, though not very large farms, abundant forest growth, capital fishing, and the best of sea-bathing and boating. And negotiations are now under way, which are likely to eventuate in the annexation of Cape-Elizabeth, or a large part thereof, and much, if not the whole of Deering, formerly a part of Westbrook. Occupying but portions of territory about three miles in length, and averag- ing about a mile in width, although some parts are much wider, all open to the sea, with two elevations, Bramhall on the west, one hundred and seventy-five and a-half feet, and Munjoy, one hundred and sixty-one feet above tide-water on the east, with a high ridge running between them the whole length of the city, and covered with handsome bviildings, pul)lic and private, and a magnificent growth of trees, over three thousand now, opening like forest avenues into the wilderness, and sloping both ways to the water, so that the city drains itself, Portland may now be regarded as not only one of the most beautiful, and attractive, but as one of the healthiest cities in the world. PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 7 With the Atlantic ocean, on one side, crowded with the islands of Casco Bay; and the White Mountains of New Hampshire — the Switzerland of America — on the other, so that the air is winnowed all the year through ; with a bound- less horizon — a magnificent panorama — visible from every part of the town and from almost every house, we may venture to challenge comparison with any city, either at home or abroad. And then, we have our Marginal-way, nearly five miles in length, and one hundred feet in width, running all round the city, one-half in the front, full of substantial wharves, where vessels of the largest class may lie in thirty feet of water, and the other half on the back side, where forty steamers of four hundred feet in length may lie in safety, without interference, Avhile receiving or discharging their cargoes ; with one of the largest, deepest and safest harbors in the world, never frozen over, and easy of access at all seasons without a pilot ; so that a new steamer of the National line, the Canada, of 4276 tons, and draw- ing twenty-three feet of water, has just verified the fact, and left us, to return hereafter once a month, while the other British steamers are continuing their regular weekly and fortnightly trips for six months of the year. With all these advantages, what have we to fear? Let it be remembered moreover, that we are lying half a day's sail nearer to Europe than any other port in the United States, and on the shortest possible line through to the Pacific, ready to take toll both ways, when the National thoroughfare is opened to Japan, China, and the great Eastern world. And here, in addition to what has already been gathered from Parson Smith's Diary, beginning in 1719, and ending in 1787; from Willis, our indefatigable, minute and conscientious annalist; from the report of Walter Wells, Secretary of the Board of Manvifacturers ; from our Portland Directoiy, so faithfully issued, year after year, by Mr. Beckett, and the last report from our Board of Trade, so comprehensive and satisfactory, compiled by Mr. Eich, the Secretary, some of the following items may not be without value. A settlement was made at Phipsburg in 1G07 — thirteen years before the Ply- mouth Fathers appeared. The first meeting house was built in 1740, at the corner of Middle and India streets. It was of one story, without seats and uuglazed. After a while, it was used for a town-house, and then for a school-house up to 1774, when it was carted off. The Neck, then called Machigonne, was first occupied in 1032 — when the first tree of the dark forest then covering the whole territory of what is now Portland, was felled. Falmouth, in 1679, had a population of six or seven hundred, while the whole of New England contained only 200,000. In 1753, the population of the Neck was 720 — of Falmouth 2712, including thirty-one slaves, one of which, by the way, was held by Parson Sniith himself. Portland was incorporated in 1786, with a population of 2000. In 1870, the population had increased to 31,418, and is now nearly 35,000 at least. In 1087 one "store" was licensed, the first, and was built on Bay, below Broad 8 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. street, afterward King, and now India-street. The first brick building was put up in 1785, by General Wadsworth, and is now owned and occupied by the Long- fellow heirs. The first brick store was built by Capt. N. Deering at the foot of Exchange-street in 1795. In 1802, the first brick school-house appeared, when thirty-three houses were added to the others. In 1750 there wei'e 136 dwelling houses on the Neck and four warehouses ; and now, within the last six months we have built seventy dwelling-houses of a superior class in general, and several large and substantial warehouses. Yet more — We furnished altogether about 5000 men for the last war, paid bounties amounting to 428,970 dollars, with interest on a much larger amount aftfer the State "equalization." In 1783, after the peace, we had only two religious societies, the First Parish and the Episcopal ; we have now thirty-five. In 1787, the Second Congregational church was built, and then, followed the Friends, with their brick meeting-house in 1795, at the corner of Federal and School, now Pearl-street. Our tonnage is over 100,000; imports for '72, 23,000,000, exports 22,000,000 — an increase of four millions both on the imports and exports of '71. The Treas- ury Report for ' 73 has not been made up. We have six National, and two Savings banks, in full operation and exceed- ingly prosperous. There were 10,447 entries of merchandise in '72; and our sales amounted to over $40,000,000. To our last valuation of 29,821,012 we may safely add 33 1-3 per cent. — per- haps 50 per cent. No less than one hundred and nineteen towns, with a population of 278,437, are tributary to, and have their business-centre in Portland, with which no other market may interfere. Yet more — We have, it is said, nearly six hundred and fifty lakes within our territory, and some very large and beautiful, such as Moosehead, Chesumcook, Umbagog and Sebago, many large, navigable rivers, the Penobscot and Kennebec, from 200 to 300 miles in length, and the Saco and the Androscoggin traversing large districts, and all emptying into the sea, along our coast. We have large hotels, and watering-places without number, at our very doors, and among our Islands, for sea-bathing, boating and fishing, and moun- tain-houses in plenty along the White Mountain regions. Sixty-five railroad trains enter and leave the city daily ; and we have daily steamers to Boston, half- weekly steamers to New York, weekly and half-weekly ocean steamers for six months of the year, with lines touching at many ports eastward along the coast of Maine and the Maratime British Provinces. We have three daily papers and thirteen weeklies, monthlies and quarterlies. The monthly report for Februrary of the Chief of the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury Department, has just been issued. From it we learn that the summary statement of the intransitu and trans-shipment trade of the United PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 9 States for that month amounted to $6,851,768, of which Portland furnished $5,044,800, or about five-sixths of the entire sum. New York was the second port, furnishing $955,045, and Boston third with $379,872. Tlie aggregate number of vessels owned in this District on the 30th of June, 1874, as appears by the official report just made to the Bureau of Statistics by the Collector at this port is, 392, with a tonnage of 101,832,69. Of these vessels 371 are sail and 21 steam ; the tonnage of the former is 93,526,40, and the latter 8,306,29. Tlie return of seamen for these vessels, as reported in these lists, shows an aggregate of 737 officers and 1837 crew, or a total of 2574. The Maine-Central railroad received and delivered at Farmington, last year, 4,644 tons of Portland freight, and 3,535 tons of Boston freight. The Portland freight was chiefly imports from Portland. Since the foregoing Avas written, a new line of steamers between Portland and New York, has been established, to be called the Cromwell-line, and run semi-weekly. But enough. With a population such as we have, busy, active, industrious, enterprizing, thrifty and liberal, again, I ask. What have we to fear? To be sure, we blossom with granite and ice; but tlieu — our fruitage is gold. J.N. 10 POBTLAND ILLUSTEATED. (i '^ LlbHA.^^ EXCHANGE STREET BEFORE AXD SIN"CE THE GREAT FIRE. Originally, and up to about 1815, we had three principal thoroughfare?, running through the city length-wise from one end to the other. These were DOWN EXCHANGE STREET, FROM FEDERAL, BEFORE THE GREAT FIKE OF =06. then called Fore-street, Middle-street and Back-street, now Congress, and Com- mercial. Cumberland, Oxford, Lincoln and Portland-streets have since been 12 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. opened ; all but Commercial and Cumberland stopping short, or diverging on their way through. These original thoroughfares were intersected by streets running across the city, from avemie to avenue, and sometimes from shore to shore, that is, from Fore-street to Back-street and the Cove, with here and there a break. Fish-street, now called Exchange-street, and lately extended to Congress, originally Back-street, ran from the water-side, where all the wharves are built, up to Middle-street, beyond which the spectator is now supposed to be standing ; and looking down Exchange-street toward Fore-street, where the first brick store was built, in 1795, by Capt. N. Deering. All the Insurance-offices, all the Banks, with two or three exceptions, and all the auction-business of the city were always confined to Exchange-street — the Wall-street of Portland — and from the first, when it was called Fish-street, it was not only our chief business mart for the heaviest transactions, but a prin- cipal cross thoroughfare. Most of the buildings on both sides were of common brick — the commonest indeed — never more than three stories high, with here and there stone pilasters and lintels, after the Quincy syenite had brought stone-fronts into fashion all over the country, vip to the time of the great lire ; unpretending, moderate in size, and never more than twenty-eight or thii% feet up to the eaves, with steep shingle roofs, and when flat, occasionally covered with tarred paper and gravel or sand, but never slated nor tinned, and useless garrets, barely enough to allow play for a hoisting-wheel. The cellars were shoal, dark, and veiy damp, without drainage and without floors, and in short, all of one type and character, plain to ugliness, and with- out ornamentation or embelishnient of any kind. On the right — before the fire — looking toward the water, may be seen the largest frame building to be found in the whole neighborhood, originally, the mansion of our late Judge Widgery, it had been greatly enlarged, about forty years ago, and converted into a vast furniture warehouse and manufactoiy, for "Walter Corey, who occvipied it up to the time of the fire, which swejjt away, not only this large, four-story building, but a brick-mill, six stories high in the rear, and an adjoining warehouse occupied for the storage of seasoned lumber. But after the fire, and while the ruins were still smoking and steaming, a new spirit took sudden possession of our property-holders, along this beautiful street, and elsewhere in the neighborhood; most of whom had been waiting all their lives for the large business-men and bankers, to move first — or at any rate, for something to happen ; and straightway they began building for the future, so that Portland is now, as all may see by comparing these two views, before and after the terrible visitation, at least, fifty years ahead of what she would have been otherwise — in all probability. We have now along both sides of this attractive and busy thoroughfare, large, handsome blocks and warehouses, of granite, iron, Albert-stone, pressed brick and common brick, three and four stories high, with mansard roofs, and large halls and chambers, adapted to the wants of a manufacturing region. PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 13 These buildings are all, ujion the average, fifty or sixty feet to the eaves, well- slated roofs, large, dry and well-lighted cellars, deeiJ drainage, and generally water-closets, sinks and Sebago water; and also — a fact worth recording — with a reasonable amount of architectural embelishment, heavy cornices, rich windows, and pilasters to correspond. Instead of being only thirty-five or forty feet in depth, most of these are from eighty to one hundred and twenty, or even ^^^xaz.-j^oMii'setiSf DOWN EXCHANGE STREET, FKOM MIDDLE. here and there, one hundred and fifty feet in depth, and they are generally finished within, after a superior style, with our richest native woods, black and yellow ash, maple and walnut, oiled and varnished. The floors are laid with southern pine, the cellars with heavy plank or cemented, and all are now occupied for banking-houses, brokers' offices, insurance-offices, auction-rooms, book-stores, warehouses and manufactories. The ground floor is almost always stuccoed, the ceilings frescoed, with hand- some cornices, and the windows of lai'ge plate-glass. 14 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. But enough may be seen at a glance, to satisfy all that a wonderful improve- ment in the style of architecture, and in all the ornamentation, has taken place, to say nothing of the great additional conveniences, the greater safety — not a single wooden building is there now on the street, nor in the neighborhood — and nothing of the widened streets, the park, the fire-alarm, our admirable fire- department, an-d the Sebago water, which goes up almost of itself to the man- zard roofs and attics of our highest buildings. MIDDLE STREET, BEFORE THE FIRE — RUINS AFTER THE FIRE, Before the fire, Middle-street was the principal avenue and thoroughfare. Forty-nine fiftieths of the jobbing and retail business, and about all of the dry-goods and hardware business, after we began to have importers and whole- sale dealers — that is about ISOG — were done along this handsome street. Many of the retailers were jobbers, but we had no importers imtil 1805 or 6, when two or three houses were opened — or rather two or three large chambers, for they were all in the second story of our low brick buildings. First, we had Gordon and Lewis, and then Atherton, Poor and Cram, both between Plum and Union-streets, where that large, handsome, and quite cele- brated hotel, seven stories high, the Falmouth, now stands. These were fol- lowed after a year or two, by Tappan and Sewall, whose chambers were in Haymarket-Row, and soon after by Smith and Oxnard, in Mussey's-Row. By this time the hardware dealers began to import for themselves, and job- bing became a part of almost every large retail establishment. Earlier than this however, by two or three years, McLellan and Bi'own had tried importation for awhile on Excliange-street, where Bailey & Noyes' very large, handsome book-store, now appears. At this period of our town's history, all our brick stores, and they constituted perhaps, not more than a fifth part of the whole, were of the type already des- cribed, very low-studded, seldom over eight or nine feet on the ground floor, dark, narrow, and never more than twenty-eight or perhaps thirty feet up to the eaves, when Haymarket-Row was built, by the father of our late annalist, Wil- liam Willis, and two or three associates. The piers were always of brick, and to this day are the safest — and the ugliest — we have to rely upon, after all our improvements, in case of fire, how- ever desolating or terrible. And it was not until 1820, or thereabouts, that granite pillars, and stone fronts for the lower story, as you see them in the plate, were introduced. From that day, bricks were abandoned for the piers and pilasters, and as iron had not come into use, the style was uniform throughout our business-quarters, pillars, lintels, architraves, cornices, caps, and sills being all of a stone we had agreed to call granite, on the authority of architects, builders and quarry- men, though most of it was gneiss, like the Hallowell, Noi'th Yarmoiith and Rockland yield, and much of the remainder, Quiucy stone or syenite, abounding in feldspar over-charged with alkali, and undergoing rapid disintegration with PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 15 changes of weather, till it gets honey-combed like the Tremont-house, of Boston. Of this material — valued the more for being so dark that no shadows could be seen under the ornaments and projections, we had stores built, — a block on Fore-street, by Mr. Joseph Harrod — and all our store fronts for awhile. Then we had a Custom-House, built of the Sandy-Bay or Gloucester stone — a true granite ; then a block of stores on Middle-street, from the boulders found MIDDLE STREET, BEFORE THE GREAT FIRE OF '6C, WITH WOOD'S MARBLE HOTEL AND SECONB PARISH CHURCH IN THE FOREGROUND. in Concord, N. H., then the Sheepscot stone, a dark syenite, loose and friable, much darker indeed than the Quincy, and for that reason still more esteemed, till we began our first Exchange with it, and built up to the second story, when it was discovered that no dependence could be placed upon the quarry for large pillars and architraves, and the work stopped, until the United-States quarry was opened, and Kennebunk stone — a true granite — was introduced, after 16 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. which it was finished and taken off our hands by the general government, for a a Post-Office and U. S. Court-House. From tliis time, all our store fronts were from tlie U. S. quarry at Kenne- bunkport, or from a North- Yarmouth quarry, of wliich two four-storied houses on State-street were built ; a rough stone cottage on Congress, of the Kenne- bunkport quarry, still standing on Congress-street, and a store on Exchange street, of undressed ashler, with trimmed edges, by the writer — and these were RUINS OF THE GREAT FIRE — DOWN MIDDLE STREET FROM FREE. all the stone buildings we had, or have to this day; and then the Biddeford and Blue-IIlU quarries were opened with a lighter colored, but very jmre granite, which is now received with great favor in all parts of our country. How strange ! Here had we been importing this material from New Hamp- shire and Massachusetts, when the foundations of our whole neighborhood were granite, gneiss and syenite, marble and talco-slate, and we are now fur- nishing public buildings in every part of our country — literally quarrying Post Offices, Custom-Houses, Temples, Churches and City-Halls out of these neglected foundations, and have enough left along our coast and among our islands, to furnish with ease blocks enough for one large city a year, and never miss the material from our great subterranean treasuries. POBTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 17 And so we labored with all these hindrances in our way, until after the fire, when we betook ourselves to iron for pillars, arches, lintels, caps and sills, with here and there a building, or block of Albert-stone from Nova-Scotia, like the City-Hall, the Fal mouth-Hotel, the Hopkins-block, which you may see on your right, or of marble, from Vermont, such as the new Post-OfBce, one of the handsomest public-buildings to be found anywhere, and the Casco-Bank, of Blue-Hill granite, both in full view. The stores along Middle-street however, are generally built of pressed-brick, with Albert-stone trimmings, or of common brick saved from the fire and covered with mastic, with iron caps and sills, iron for the ground floor, and iron for the ornamentation. The church seen beyond Wood's Hotel — in the illustration of Middle-street before the fire — was that where Dr. Payson used to preach, from the beginning to the end of his remarkable career. THE FIRE OF '66— RUINS OF EXCHANGE ST. 2 OUR NEW PORTLAND OUB POETS, PAINTERS, &C, A total stranger on approaching Portland by sea, woiild be likely to over-esti- mate the population by thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands, for he would see about as much of it as he would of New- York, or Boston, or any other large city, approaching it by sea, and he would be sure to imagine a vast amount of building far away beyond his view, occupying the lower parts of the territory, as in other cities. Every pinnacle, every dome, every spire, every tall roof, with a lantern or cupola, would be a suggestion of something far beyond, whatever he might fancy or see in the foreground. Yet, as a matter of fact, he would see about all there is of Portland, so that if unacquainted with our history, or the census, he would be not a little aston- ished to find, that, instead of being a city of one or two hundred thousand in- habitants, we have at the most, not over thirty-five thousand. "Not more than thirty-five thousand?" he would be likely to say, "with all these churches, domes and spires, and all these magnificent public edifices, huge warehouses, massive blocks, and private dwellings of a size almost princely, and all these large gardens." Nor would he be likely to forego his first imiiressions, on seeing our harbor, our dry-docks, and the crowded shipping at our wharves, our mar- ginal-way and our railroad system ; our eastern and western promenades, and the Deering-woods, which, if he Avere not well acquainted with us, he would be sure to regard as a magnificent park, and a part of our belongings. But suppose the stranger to be traveling in search of the sublime and pic- turesque, the beautiful and the romantic, having heard of Maine and the coast of Maine; of the wonders along our Down-East region, of our islands, not always three hundred and sixty-five in a group — no less and no more — never quite up to the "thousand islands of the St. Lawrence," yet altogether too nu- merous to mention. And, now for a change, let us suppose our traveler to be somewhat acquaint- ed with our history and our doings in the world of literature and art, of our authors, our landscape-painters, our poets, and our sculptors — of our celebri- ties in a word — for celebrities we have, and not a few who are known abroad, even better than they are at home. Of course he would have a thousand questions to ask, and of course he must be answered. With a view then to the gratification of travelers and visitors, having indi- vidual tastes and very different views, when they light upon such a community as ours, we propose, instead of cataloguing our churches, or grouping our chief PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 19 public-buildings, till the reader wearies of their sameness, or at least of the sameness that must predominate in describing them, to intermix here and there a brief sketch of some author, some poet, or some painter or sculptor, who has helped to make Portland famous, not only at home, but over sea. THE CITY HALL, This exceedingly handsome, well-proportioned and conveniently-arranged Government-House, was first built some years before the fire, and seemed to CITV-HALL. our tax-payers and large property-holders, altogether disproportioned to our wants. It was built of the Nova-Scotia Albert-stone, and pressed-brick with Albert-stone trimmings; and cost without the land, six hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It furnishes most desirable accommodations for the City-government M'ith all its offices, for all the State-courts, for the City and County Treasuries, for the 20 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. Public-Library, for tlie Municipal and Probate-Courts, for the Eegistry of Deeds, and for the Museum of Natural History, with reception-rooms, and one of the largest and best public halls in the country, with twenty-five hundred seats. But so great a change has taken place in public opinion, since it has been re- built and refurnished, and become so attractive and imposing, that the grum- blers have died out, and all our misgivings are forgotten, just as it happened years ago, when the Portland Exchange was got under way. OUK POETS — HENRY "W. LONGFELLOW. Suppose we begin with Longfellow. He was born here ; and you may see the house, where he first breathed what Shakespeare breathed, without being consumed — the atmosphere of poetry — the uplifting atmosphere of another world. It is now an old-fashioned, unpretending, three-story brick house, originally two stories, until a few years ago — standing on Congress-steeet, between a block of stores and the Preble-House, with a darkened front-yard, fifteen or twenty feet deep — no more — holding it back from the street, and over-shadowed by large trees. Hence it may be that the Washington-House, Cambridge, where he has now taken root, engaged his affections — there being a kind of resem- blance, both within and without, between the two. When Longfellow first began to dribble poetry — or verses rather — he was a student of Bowdoin-College, and then something else — a professor, perhaps — or tutor — till he went abroad to qualify himself thoroughly in some of our modern languages, which he succeeded in doing, till he became an admirable linguist; but little did he think, perhaps — and most assuredly little did we think, who knew him best, that he would ever become what he undoubtedly is at this mo- ment, one of our best prose-writers, and the author of some of the most beauti- ful poems in our language, or in any other. Gentle, affectionate and loving, Mr. Longfellow is never sublime, never start- ling, nor often picturesque; but if we take up "The Skeleton in Armor," — the best of all his poems — the "Psalm of Life," or any one of the shorter pieces, he is continiially throwing off, we shall hear the rippling of that inward power, so strange and yet so unpretending — and feel the breath of that illuminated atmospliere, which, when it bursts into song, men have agreed to call poetry. Poor fellow! he has been sorely tried through the whole of his earthly pilgrim- age; but then, he has gained what otherwise he might never have hoped for, the sympathy and commiseration of thousands and tens of thousands, who never knew why the sweet mournfulness they so much love, and the gentleness and tenderness they feel throbbing in their own hearts, while they read, became his leading characteristics. His Dante is a grand affair, harmonious, faithful and efficient ; but, having lost himself in the translation, the few readers of Dante through translations, will never do the translator justice, till they dip into his own sweet, warbling manifestations of organic power. PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 21 THE POST-OFFICE. Here we have another of the public-buildings which have begun to give us a reputation abroad, and our people higher notions of architecture. It is built of a Vermont marble, of a remarkable fine, clear grain, at a cost of $500,000. Our present post-master, is Ex-Judge Charles W. Goddard, formerly Consul to Constantinople — County Attorney — then Judge of our Superior POST-OFFICE. Court, a man of remarkable industry, perseverance and earnestness in whatever he undertakes. The ground-floor is occupied for the Post-Office, and the whole second story for U. S. Court-rooms and offices. Sixty years ago, our Post-Office was in a one-story frame-building, near the head of Exchange-street — or Fish-street, as it was then called. Then "growing with our growth," it migrated to a frame building on Union street, and then after a fire or two, the general government having been pur- suaded, through the influence of our townsman and zealous representative, A. W. H. Clapp, Esquire, to buy out our interest in that wretched abortion, the 22 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. Portland-ExcTianae, begun, but left uiifiiiislied in the midst of our land-fever; and having built it up from the basement with the Kennebunk granite, and at the cost mentioned above, made it one of our handsomest and safest buildings, and converted it into a Post-OfRce and Custom-House, with large, handsome U. S. Court-Rooms, and it so continued up to the time of a fire, which destroyed the building, and with it the Natural-History Collection. It was then re-built by the United States, and stood till the great fire, when it was so terribly shatter- ed that it had to be taken down and built over anew, as you see it now, and of mar- ble instead of granite — neither of the two being able to withstand fire, though cubes of the U. S. quarry, from Kennebunk-port, a foot square, have been heat- ed red-hot in a blacksmith's forge, thrown into the sea, at dead of winter, and when taken out, underwent no crumbling nor disintegration — so at least it was said by quarry-men and stone-cutters, employed in 1836, by the writer. OUR SCULPTORS — PAUL AKERS. The first person, man or woman, that ever tried to model anything in the shape of a head liere, was Paul Akers, of whom we all heard so much, and ex- pected so much, up to the time of his early death. Strangely enough, although we had begun to be talked about, both at home and abroad, for our landscapes, we never had a portrait-painter worth remem- bering. The elder Cole used to paint a good likeness, and the younger fol- lowed, but they were both only clever and patient mechanics, not artists. And as for sculptors — that was a department — a mystery — altogether be- yond our reach. To be sure, Brackett, now of Boston, had tried his hand away Down-East, upon some of the heads he was acquainted with, and then after a long while, upon the human figure, until he produced the Drowned Mother and Babe, life size, and sent them forth for exhibition — a beautiful idea, and full of glorious possibilities, but never tried in marble. And now for Akers — Paul inkers, with whose doings and personal history, I have been familiar from the time he first fell in my way. He was born in our immediate neighborhood, at Saccarappa, I believe, about six or eight miles from Portland, passed his earlier life in brick-yards and lumber-mills, and occasionally labored on his father's little homestead. One day, a brother lawyer, from that neighborhood, or perhaps from Saco, named Hayes, called on me to ask if I should have any objection to see a young man of his acquaintance, who had been trying his hand at a preparation for sculpture, by modeling in clay. Of course I should be glad to see the poor fel- low, having been accustomed to such applications for many years, until I could enumerate fifty or a hundred, perhaps, to whom I had foretold their destiny ; no one of the whole having disappointed me at last. Among these were authors, poets, painters, actors, preachers, inventors, &c., all of whom, without a single exception, having become more or less distinguished. Of course, therefore, my opinion was thought worth having, and my predictions prophecy. So at least Hackett, and Charlotte Cushman believed, Sully and Chester Harding, Codman and Tilton, Ann S. Stephens and Elizabeth Oaksmith, John G. Wliittier, Mrs. Sarah Austin, and a score of other writers in prose and poetry. PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 23 At tlie end of an hour the young man appeared, bringing with him a life size medallion. Pale, quiet, and rather anxious-looking, the first impression I received was quite favorable, and so, after setting the medallion — it was a head of the Saviour — in a good light, I began questioning him. "Was it a copy of anything he had ever seen, of any hea^l, painting, engrav- ing, medallion or cameo ? "No — he had never seen such a head anywhere. It was altogether his own idea of the Saviour," and either then, or at a subsequent interview, he intimat- ed a reverence for the mysteries of Catholicism. "Very well," said I — "such being the case, I am not unwilling nor afraid to say, persevere ! You have done something quite remarkable here ; and it being as you say, the first head you ever modeled, even in profile, and the expression being so serious and benign, so tender and thoughtful, you deserve great praise and warm encouragement, and have no time to lose. Come with me, and I will put you in the way of experimenting to advantage ; and I took him up into a large hall over my office, and said. There — I will cut a hole through the i-oof, and give you a sky-light worth having, and you may go to Avork at once, and we'll soon find something for you to do in the way of busts — did you ever try your hand on a bust, "big or little?" "Never." "Very well — you may begin with me," and he did, and the bust he then made is now in my libraiy. The first experiment was a failure ; full of exaggeration and heroic ideality. The fact is, the man was a poet — a born poet — and so he thought he must serve me up, not so much as he saw me, but as he would like to see me, and have me go down to posterity. The second was much more successful, though idealized and exaggerated, both in size and features. It was, however, ennobled, and on the whole, more satisfactory to some of my partial friends than it would have been, if truer. The fact is, that no man is the same under different aspects, and never the same to those who know him best and those who know him least. They who liave seen you under strong excitement, or under the inspiration of some great purpose, would never acknowledge a calm thougli faithful copy. Hence carrica- ture and exaggeration. The great fault of Akers, up to the last of his rather short life, was a de- ficiency in that which is indispensable for an artist, a knowledge of anatomy, and careful habits of drawing. But he never learned to draw, and for his life, could not have represented a hand in crayons. Like Chester Harding, lie modeled from life, and the wonders he wrought are only the more wonderful for his ignorance of drawing. After a few days, I happened up to his room, where lie was laboring over the mask of a dead man, with a miserable photograph to help him — one of Wash- ington Irving's "inveterate likenesses," and notwithstanding the difficulties, which, had he known more of the art, would have appeared insurmountable, lie succeeded in producing a very fair bust, and a very good likeness of Mr. Bradley, a member of the bar in his neighborhood. Upon my expressing no 24 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. little astonishment that he should have succeeded so well, under such disheart- ening circumstances, he said he knew Mr. Bradley well, and remembered his looks while he was arguing a troublesome case — a capital case perhaps — many years before. And this undoubtedly was the truth. He had a strong sense of individuality and a capital memory of featiures, which in his case were so many facts. The next move he made, took the shape of an alto relievo, representing the head of Charlotte Coudray, after decapitation. It is of cabinet-size, and we have christened it anew at his desire, "Lady Jane Grey," and in good sooth, it gives her character, mournful, touching and very gentle, as if he had known her personally, or had been a witness of the dreadful catastrophe. After this he was kept employed on busts, always good likenesses, and gener- ally of an elevated character, without being extravagantly idealized. Then came his "Benjamin," — life size — the only cast of which is in the possession of Ex-Chief-Justice Shepley. The conception was beautiful, and the graceful bending of the poor boy over the discovered cup, natural enough to be almost captivating, though with the sorrow and amazement indicated in his countenance, we could not help sympa- thizing. Soon after this, he went abroad, and set to work in Rome, with quite a num- ber of orders, but still, not enough to satisfy the longings and aspirations of his nature ; and so he modeled the "Pearl Diver," a work of uncommon merit and remarkable beauty, representing a youth lying at the bottom of the sea, lan- guid, graceful, undisturbed, and full of the significant signs of blossoming adolesence. About this time, it was, that he married a young widow, since well-known throughout the land, as Florence Percy, a true poet, of whom, though not a native of Portland, as it was in Portland that she first appeared, I shall have something to say hereafter. After the "Pearl Diver," we heard nothing of Mr. Akers, until the story of his last illness, and early death, fell upon the hearts of those who knew and loved him here, like a church-yard dew. Had he lived a few years longer, he would have built up a reputation for him- self and his beloved country, well worth coveting. He had that in him — a far- seeing and far-reaching spirit, a lofty, hallowed imagination, and such a solemn sense of what man is made for, that he must have been lastingly distinguished. He has left a younger brother, Charles — who chooses to be called Karl, from whom good portraitures and good busts may be expected, if nothing better and loftier. Some of his last are very promising, to say the least of them, and are quite equal to the earlier efforts of his gifted brother. THE CUSTOM-nOUSE. One of the most beautiful buildings to be seen anywhere, either at home or abroad. The material is a very light-colored granite, from Concord, N. H., — resembling the finest marble. It cost about $500,000 and has been thoroughly PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 25 finished, and furnished within and without. It is believed to he fire-proof, and is enriched with bronze and marble stair-ways and fire-places, and magnificent chandeliers, and stuccoed ceilings, and our costliest native woods. Our present collector is Ex-Governor Israel Washburn, jr., one of the most energetic and indefatigable of all our public servants. Our first Custom-House was a pine-shed ; the next but a little better, though used for a store-house. The next, a Doric-Temple, very much after the fashion of a Pierpont-stove, and built of that ugliest of all known material, the Sandy- ^^^ft*y//-le that indeed, and in truth, it deserves all that has been said in its favor; fuliilling our highest expectations, and saving in society hundreds of youth, wlio, but for this home, and the home-discipline they are su1)jected to, might- have become and would have probably become, the scourge of our neighbor- hood, or tenants of our State-Prison. The building itself, as you see it, is something of the Elizabeth style, substan- BEFORM SCUOOL. tial, convenient, and picturesque, without being obtrusive or showy. The grounds are extensive and well-managed, and their productiveness, under the judicious labor of the boys, quite encouraging and satisfactory. It stands about two miles in a direct line, from the heart of our city, and nuiy be regarded as one of the most attractive features of the landscape — or pano- rama — that spreads from horizon to horizon, with the White-Mountains and the open-sea in full view, and numberless farms and small villages clustering along toward the North and Wes:,, while Cape-Elizabeth, Ligonia, Ferry-Vil- 09 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. lage, Kniglitville, Turner's Island, the Rolling-Mills, the Gas-Works, and some of our largest Railways lie Avithin a half cannon-shot. OUR POETS — N. P. WILLIS. One of our most beautiful prose-writers, beyond all question, gi-aceful, sprightly and captivating, especially to the newspaper-world, hut after all, more distinguished for his poetical contributions to our periodical literature. Never a good story-teller, in print, and often running into extravagances, where, venturing largely, and most anxious to satisfy our expectations, he may be reckoned among the very best of our periodical contributors and essayists. For example — in one of his stories, purporting to be seasoned with personal adven- tures, he hides the hero, or at least, one of the characters, in the long gi-ass of some river-side, stark-naked, while certain ladies are Avandering and chatting a little way off, and along the opposite bank. At another time, and in another story, he rigs out his hero in the dress of a chamber-maid, and actually employs him in the service of two traveling ladies, who, it seems, were well known, and who, of course, were furiously indignant. But after all, these are but trifles, and only go to show that, however charm- ing he might be as a letter-writer, and newspaper-gossip, he was not the man for a lengthened story, with plot, character and incidents. Though born here, it is not known that he ever tried his hand at poetry — or prose — until long after his father, Nathaniel Willis, removed to Boston, and he himself, had entered Yale College, where he wrote some of his very best poems, and the beautiful illustrations of Scripture, with which the religious Avorld are so familiar. My knowledge of Mr. Willis and our acquaintance, which continued many years, began in this way. While in charge of the Yankee, about 1828, my attention was attracted day after day, by flashes of uncommon significance and beauty, in some Boston papers. Seldom longer than a dozen lines or so, the verses I saw were always delicate, original and peculiar. Upon enquiry, after having said my say about them in tlie Yankee, I learned from the author himself, that his name was Willis — but Willis of where? Willis of what family? Nobody could tell me, and nobody seemed to know. After awhile, we met in Boston, and he opened up to me a plan he had of going abroad, and working his passage through half Europe, on foot. Not being acquainted with any but his native language, I advised him to get familiar with at least, one other, French, before he ventured among people whom he could not understand, and who could not understand him, under any emergency ; urging that, otherwise, he would have to associate with his own countrymen, or with some other English-speaking travelers, and that, after all, he was about entering upon a system of exchange, or barter, where the more he took with him, the more he would bring back. Soon after this, instead of going abroad, he entered upon a literary life, conducting first a Souvenir, and then a Monthly, at Boston, which he made PORTLAND ILLUSTBATED. 39 sufficiently attractive, though it was far from being profitable, either to the proprietors or to himself. His next move was toward the New- York Mirror, with which he was after- ward connected, and of which, after a change of title, he became co-editor, with Morris. And here began that career, which has made him quite famous. He was first sent on a trip along our North-western frontier, by General Morris, with only fifty dollars in his pocket, furnished by Mon-is, on trial. Then, after a time, and his letters came to be generally copied throughout the land, he went abroad, where his acquaintance with Miss Porter, Lady Blessington — and Captain Marryatt — made him specially notorious, both over sea and at home. Then came a volume of spirited sketches, with a large correspondence, and then he returned a married man, having secured a beautiful English girl, and settled down to his work with Morris, on the Mirror. From this time, up to the day of his untimely death, he occupied a position, which nobody thought of questioning. The Home-Journal became a leading authority on all questions of social interest, of etiquette and fashionable life, and so continues to this day. Meanwhile he brought forth his best prose writings, and two or three volumes of poetry — lost his English wife, and re-married to a second lovely and most attractive woman — a neice of the Hon. Moses Grinnell. Wliile abroad, Mr. Willis had for a traveling companion, Brantz Mayer, of Baltimore, and they were so much alike in stature, personal appearance, and general bearing, that they were supposed to be brothers — at least, both being full six feet, Avell-proportioued, with brown hair, large, handsome eyes, and the best of manners — though Willis, between ourselves, was rather more of a coxcomb than Mayer; both being high-bred and gentlemanly, but Willis having a touch of daintiness and fastidiousness, on most occasions, and sometimes a kind of supercilioiisness, rather cockneyish, so that after his return from England, he would answer your questions with a sort of drawling intonation, and offer his oldest friends a finger to shake — in a word, he was for showing off all that he had learned of Lady Blessington's associates, and of their lordling manners. But nevertheless, it cannot be denied that Mr. N. P. Willis was one of our best writers, both in prose and poetry, and taken "by and large," a man for his brethren and his country to be proud of. SARAH PAYSOX WILLIS. Better known all over our country, and elsewhere, as Fanny Fern. She was a sister of N. P. Willis, and born here about 1811. Her father was Nathaniel Willis, who, after establishing the Eastern Argus, a capital paper from th(> first, began to have his misgivings and forebodings under the earnest and faithful expostulations of Dr. Payson, and tried, but in vain, to change the Argus into a religious paper, leaving the great Democratic party without a leader. This 40 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. would never do. The Democrats and Federalists — or Kepublicans and Fed- eralists — were battling for life, like men overboard, after a shipwreck. And so Mr. Willis left Portland forever, went to Boston, and there estab- lished the first religious pajier in our country. This was in 1816. Fanny Fern's first book, "Fern Leaves," appeared in 1853, and had a sale of ninety thousand copies, according to Mr. Griffin. Her next volume, entitled Little Ferns for Fanny's Little Friends, was published in 1853, and had a very large sale. In May, 1854, the second series of Fern Leaves a!i>peared, and then Euth Hall and Eose Clark — after which, up to her death, in 1872, she was a regular contributor to the New- York Ledger. Sprightly, sarcastic, playful, and quite unlike all other writers in our lan- guage, she held on her way to the last, with an ever-growing reputation, altogether equal to that of her brother, and more captivating, with more originality and more archness, mingled with a larger share of downright com- mon sense. OUK MUSICIANS. Our people have always had a strong relish for music, but no performers, until within the last thirty or forty years. Never without one or more good vocalists, like John or Jack Woodman, as he was called, of the Old, or First Parish, we were always looking out for some- thing better, and for genuine co-operation. At last, we have begun to to get up associations, and have persevered until the following are firmly established, and the musical taste and aptitude of our peoi^le are no longer questioned as to what we are. We have oratorios, operas, concerts, attractive church-choirs, glee-clubs, &c., &c., all the year I'ound. We have the "Haydn Association," with Herman Kotzschmar, a highly gifted and thoroughly educated artist, for conductor; the "Eossini Club," an association of women — ladies if you wish — thirty-five in number, who have regular meetings at Eossini Hall, in the City-Building; the "Kreutzer Club," W. H. Dennett, conductor, a fine musician, a capital teacher, and a real enthu- siast, having been thoroughly trained in Italy. The "Arion Club," another association of thirty-seven, all men, who are specially given to choruses from the C4erman ; Samuel Thurston, conductor, whose rich voice and feeling intonations are not likely to be forgotten or undervalued in this generation ; the "Portland Band," J. Cole, conductor, another enthusiast in his way, and well qualified for the sitution he fills, and the "Musical Club," newly organized, and made up altogether of young Avomen, so that on the whole, Portland would seem to be doing her part in establishing a musical reputation for this part of our country. And then we have Chandler's Band, conducted by Chandler himself, an association of singular merit, and thoroughly trained. Nor must we forget our young townsman, Paine, whose Oratorio of St. Peter, the first and only Oratorio ever jaroduced in America, has received such universal commendation. Not having heard it, nor seen the score, we have to depend upon others for the opinion expressed. PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 41 And then, there is Miss Carey, not a native of Portland, to be sure, but of the immediate neighborhood, since notwitlistanding her long absence in Italy, she continues to identify herself with our finest musical celebrities. And just now, while engaged upon this paragraph relating to music and to our musical achievements, my attention has been attracted by a published letter from quite a number of our Portland leaders in society, to Mr. Will H. Stockbridge, a Portland boy, now in London, urging him to accept a complimentary concert, on his return to us. Of him too, we have high expectations. V. S. MARINE HOSPITAL,. The grounds upon which this beautiful building stands, cost fifteen thousand dollars, but how much the building itself may have cost, cannot be ascertained U. S. MARINE IIOSl'ITAL. without application to head-quarters at Washington. It was undertaken about twenty years ago, and successive appropriations have been made from time to time, until its final completion, as it now stands. Beyond all question, it is one of the best proportioned, and most beautiful of our public buildings; and occupying as it does a conspicuous elevation, over- looking our whole city, and Casco-Bay, with the islands for which we are so celebrated, and the open sea, along the whole sweep of the horizon. 42 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. OUR SCULPTORS — FRANKLIX SIMMOXDS. This young man, already so widely known and so highly appreciated, was born but the other day at Auburn, a village about thirty miles from Portland, if I do not mistake. Of his early life I know little or nothing, and as the man himself is a long way off, at Eome, Italy, we must confine ourselves to what we personally know of him until we meet again. My first acquaintance with young Simmonds occurred about 1860, and greatly resembled, in many particulars, my first meeting with Akers. One day, the Eev. Mr. Boswortli, one of our ablest and best men, called on me, and asked my company to visit a young friend of his, who had taken to modelling in clay, and seemed bewitched with the charms of sculpture. On arriving at his room, we found one bust, and one only, under-way. Not having seen the original, I could not of course judge of the resemblance; but so stamped with individuality, and so strongly indicated were all the features and characteristics of somebody, that I felt sure, and said as much, absolutely sure of the likeness. I saw that the artist had experience in drawing, and was evidently favored l)y nature in that department ; but his drawing was hard and obtrusive — and the head a sort of clay photograph, without a line or feature out of place, or exaggerated or diminished. For a first essay in portraiture, as I understood it, lie had been quite successful ; but then there Avere faults to be corrected, and propensities to be overcome, and I told him what they were, according to my notions. In the first place, the lines were more like those of an engraver, with a rigid material — they wanted softness and generalizing. In the next place, the hair, that most difficult of all things to represent in marble, where it cannot be massed, but requires to be lightened and loosened, was curled and twisted like so much molasses-candy. He bore my criticisms like a christian — a christian martyr, I might saj^ — and lost no time in changing what he acknowledged to be amiss, though I cautioned him against any change of style that his own deliberate connections did not encourage and justify. "You must depend altogether upon yourself," said I—" altogether. Take what hints you may from others, or what suggestions, but only so far as they correspond with your individual convictions. You are to answer — and only you — to yourself, and to the world, for your ultimate conclusious, whoever may counsel or approve, or disapprove. In other words, if you are ever to be any- body, you must be yourself, and not another. Admire as you may, and rever- ence as you may, the counsellors of large experience who beset your path. Hear them patiently, treat them well, by listening, and then do your best ac- cording to your own perceptions ; and after awhile, what there is in you will manifest itself, and you will have your reward," etc., &c. After this, he labored on busts for a long while — among others upon one of PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 43 myself now in the Portland-Institute and Public-Library — and it cannot be de- nied that he rapidly improved and grew into a habit of generalization, much to be desired in portraiture, if one would not photograph his finest faces. And tlien he got married, and visited Italy, with several orders, to encourage him, and there, by himself, and for the first time, ventured upon full lengths, portraitures and allegorical figures and statuary. The first of his achievements which indicated the out-fiOW of his native pow- ers, ripened and strengthened by severe study and great enthusiasm, was an ideal statue of Roger Williams, for the city of Providence — an admirable embodiment of the Puritan character, and in every way remarkable for simplicity, strength and naturalness, without parade, or flourish, or pretention. The next, was a remarkably fine subject and the conception was worthy of the subject. It was the Mother of Moses with a child in her lap, life-size. The atti- tude, the sweet mournful expression of that Hebrew face, the drapery and all the accompanying appendages are of such a character, so decidedly original, so charged with deep-seated, unappeasable sorrow, that, if he should never do any- thing more, it would fix the reputation of Simmonds iorever, as a poet and sculptor. Meanwhile, he turned off a number of busts, which, if they are equal to one of Story, the sculptor, musL be more than satisfying to the originals and their friends. And now we find him busy on Soldiers' Monuments, one for Providence, and another for Portland — which last is a very fine, spirited composition, although he proposes to furnish another at his leisure. Meanwhile, having lost his wife in Italy, he has returned to Rome, and will there abide until the orders already under way are accomplished to his satisfac- tion. A bust of the Hon. John B. Brown, which he completed just before his late return to Italy, is very fine and very just. But happen what may, this young man has already done enough to show that he belongs in the foremost rank of sculptors, living or dead. OUR MEDICAL, ASSOCIATIOXS. Aboiit all the medical systems now recognized, except the Thompsonian, or screw-auger system, with its lobelia for every ailment, like the blue-pills of Abernethy, and the yellow mustard-seed of the school that appeared — and dis- appeared — about 1823 — are represented here. We have the Allopathic, the Homeopathic, the Eclectic, the hydropathic and the vegetarian, all under way, and the two first-mentioned occupying a bound- less field, very jealous of each other, very uncharitable, but always in full blast. So far is the antipathy carried, that the Homeopathics, who count among their brethren some of the ablest, best-educated, and clearest-headed men among us, many of the foremost having been Allopaths of large practice, until their convictions and experience obliged them to go through a second course of experiments in homeopathy — so far is this antipathy carried — that they arc excluded from the Cumberland Medical-Association, the members of which being forbidden to associate with them in practice, to hold consultations with 44 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. them ; and they are not even allowed to intermeddle with the management of the Maine General-Hospital, nor to have so much as a ward assigned them, though many homeopathists are among the liberal contributors to this enter- prize. And this, while the Allopaths, following the Homeopaths, have about given up their bleeding, purging, blistering and emetics, and dimiiushed their princi- pal medicines almost infinitesimally. Nevertheless — and notwithstanding this much to be lamented jealousj', we have reason to be proud of our medical men as a body ; our surgeons are distin- guished, our physicians of acknowledged skill and worth, and even our surgeon- dentists, as they have begun to be called, are distinguished, and deservedly so; for we have some of the best now living. Of our "Cumberland County Medical Society," Dr. Thomas A. Foster is President, Dr. Charles O. Files, Secretary, and Dr. H. N. Small, Treasurer — all of Portland. Of our "Maine Medical Association," Dr. A. P. Snow, of Winthrop, is Presi- dent, Dr. Charles O. Hunt, of Portland, Secretary. OUB PORTLAND DISPENSARY, seems to be misistering most efficiently to the w^ants of the poor. The officers and physicians receive no pay. Medicines and medical attendance are furnished gratuitiously. Dr. N. A. Hersom, F. A. Stanley, and C. O. Files, are the attending physi- cians, and Drs. I. T. Dana and S. H. Weeks, consulting physicians. BOARD OF TRADE. Never was a more timely, never a more effectual organization, than that of our leading business-men, out of which issued the "Board of Trade." Already it has brought us acquainted with ourselves, and sent our representa- tives, East, West, North and South, for consultation with all the business- centers of our country. And the result is just what we hoped for, but even the most sanguine hardly expected, till years had gone by. Of this admirable Institution, T. C. Hersey, is President, A. K. Shurtleff, Israel Washburn, jr., (our Collector and late Governor), and H. I. Libby, Vice- Presidents, with a board of Directors, who would be a credit to any commercial metropolis. Connected with this, we have the merchants' exchange. The nucleus of what we shall have, and must have, by-and-by, so that our active business-men, our lawyers, merchants and shippers, will have a place to go to, in all weathers, for bargaining and consultation. Of this organization, the Directors are A. K. Shurtleff, Chas. H. Milliken, Wm. W. Thomas, H. M. Payson, and M. N. Kich — all substantial men of large and varied experience, who may be depended upon to carry out the enterprize they have in contemplation, as soon as they are allowed to get their breath, after 46 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. the pressure of last September, when the whole country seemed struck with paralysis for a time, but is now steadily recovering. Such periodical attacks are always to be expected in the business-world — but they are never lasting. The tide ebbs and flows. MAINE GENERAL-HOSPITAI.. This institution, one of many, of which some account will be found in this little book, established in love to that small part of the great human family of sufferers, in whom we have a special interest, occupies what were known as the "Arsenal-Grounds," on Bramhall's Hill, of two and a-half acres. More than fifty thousand dollars have been raised by private subscription among ourselves in tbe city, while the State has contributed twenty thousand dollars, conditionally, together with these "Arsenal-Grounds." These conditions having been more than fulfilled, the buildings are now, so near completion as to make it sure that, before long, we shall have a magnifiaent charity in full opera- tion to be thankful for. Hon. John B. Brown, President, Hon. J. T. McCobb, Treasurer, and F. H. Gerrish, Esquire, Secretary. The central-building is five stories with a mansard-roof; and there are, as you see, four pavillions, with an amphitheatre, a boiler-house and kitchen. From every window there is a wide, rich and beautiful prospect of the whole surrounding country; and from every part, either a view of tlie sea and the Cove, or a view of the White-Mountains, of Xew-Hampshire, sixty miles away^ with all the intervening villages and elevations, woods and waters, and being always open to the sea-breezes on one side, and to the winnowed atmosphere of our Switzerland, upon the other, a store-house of health and vitality, the sick and languishing, may be sure of nature's best and surest help at all seasons. OUR KOLI.ING-MILLS. This large and flourishing establishment, is situated on the Cape Elizabeth side of Vaughan's bridge, accessible by Fore-river, and connected with the railways of the city by a bridge. In 1872, they turned out fourteen thousand tons of rails, and in 1873, fourteen thousand, seven hundred and fort5'-four tons, and employed two hundred men. Francis McDonald, President, Geo. E. B. Jackson, Treasurer. THE FOKEST-CITY SUGAR-REFINERY. This building, arranged for the manufacture of crushed, powdered and granulated sugars, which have a high character in all our markets, is two hundred and seventy-five feet long by fifty feet wide, and five stories high, with a superficial area therefore of sixty-eight thousand, seven hundred and fifty feet. H. I. Libby, President, T. C. Hersey, Treasurer and Business-Manager. OUR SAFE DEPOSIT-VAULTS, may well be regarded with admiration. Uniting all improvements up to this hour, it is beyond all question, absolutely fire and burgular-proof, with watch- PQRTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 47 men and all other arrangments to secure depositors, and a pleasant room, at 97 Exchange-street. OUB DKY-DOCK. This company incorporated in ISGS, has two fine docks, on the plan of Simp- son's patent. The larger is four hundred and twenty-five feet long, and one hundred feet wide, with a superficial area therefore of forty- two thousand, four hundred square feet, while the depth of water on the gate-sill, at ordinary high tide, is twenty-three feet, the largest draught of all the dry-docks in our country. I)l>.\ DOCK It will probably accommodate anything afloat, under the tonnage or draught of the Great Eastern. The smaller is one hundred and seventy-five feet long by eighty feet wide, having a superficial area of fourteen thousand feet, with a depth of twelve feet on the gate-sill, at ordinary high tide. The company hold twenty-five acres of land fronting the harbor on the Cape Elizabeth side. OUK LAWYERS — THE CUMBERLAND-BAK ASSOCIATION. For the last fifty or sixty j'ears, the Portland-Bar has been greatly distin. guished. From the days of Stephen W. Longfellow, father of the poet ; Prentice Mellen, father of Grenville, another poet, Daniel Davis, Nicholas Emery, Ezekiel "Whitman, Simon Greenleaf, Charles S. Davie, William Pitt Preble, our judges from the Cumberland Bar, and our lawyers left in practice, have stood high for legal attainments and liberal practice. Nor have they fallen ofE to this day, the older members bearing aloft the un-smirched banner of their earlier predecessors, and the younger, standing in their stirups, with lance in rest, and eye on the opening future. 48 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. Of this association, the Hon. Joseph Howard, late a judge, of our Superior- Court, is President, and Nathan Webb, Esquire (U. S. District Attorney), Vice-President, Thomas McGiven, Secretary and Treasurer. OF THE GREENLEAF LAW-LIBKARY, Judge Howard is also President, and Byron D. Verrill, Clerk and Treasurer. Of its two thousand five hundred volumes, one thousand two hundred and sixty-nine were the gift of Mrs. Simon Greenleaf, whose husband, one of the foremost lawyers of his day, was for many long years a leading member of the Cumberland-Bar, residing in Portland, from about 1814, until he took the chair in Harvard-College, as Royal Professor, where he continued up to the time of his death. GRAXD ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC, Is made up of the honorably discharged soldiers and sailors of the United- States, army and navy. The members aggregate over half a million. Post Boswoth, No, 2, whose head-quarters are at Mechanics'-Hall, has been, it is said, "of essential service in carrying out the objects of the order in our midst." We can readily believe this, for the members are tried men, whole- hearted men, and they know what help means, and what charity means, for the widow and the fatherless, who have the strongest hold upon their country ; God prosper them ! H. P. lugalls. Commander, Caleb N. Lang, Senior Vice Commander, Chas. A. Robinson, Junior Vice Commander, Nahum A. Hersom. Surgeon, George W. Bicknell, Chaplain. And tlioi we have in addition to all these charities — THE PORTLAND ARMY AJTD NAVY UNIOX, organized in 1866. Head-quarters corner of Congress and Brown-streets. A. W. Bradbury, President, William E. Dennison, John O. Pace, Geo. E. Brown, Vice-Presidents, Thomas J, Little, Treasurer, A large military library and reading-room is connected with the head-quar- ters, and as they are in the habit of raising funds by lectures and concerts, eminently sviccessf ul thus far, there is good reason to hope for a large charitable fund for the helpless and the needy in due time. They have done much hitherto, but will do more of course, hereafter. OUR PROSE-WRITERS — REV. DR. CIIICKERIXG. Pastor of the High-street church for some twenty years, and now general agent for the National Temperance League, wrote and published while here, The Hill-side-Church, a series of essays for young men, a sermon before the Maine Missionary Society, in 1846, a Temperance Address, in 1854, a tract, "What is it to believe in Christ," and sundry funeral discourses — all eminently character- istic of the man himself, hearty, earnest, solemn and appreciative — in short, the every day preaching of a good man, thoroughly convinced, and therefore thor- PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 49 oiighly convincing, both in the pulpit and out. N"o man ever labored more faithfully, and few have been more successful in the ministry, and we may hope that he has not wholly thrown aside the pen, while engaged in what he and others may regard as a higher duty. NATHANIEL DEERING. Wlien Mr. Deering first chipped the shell, he was the acknowledged humorist of Portland; being full of pleasantry and playfulness, and never sarcastic, never malicious nor spiteful, as wits are always inclined to be. Mr. Deering published Carabasset, a play, in 1830, embodying and verifying LOOKING DOWN MIDDLE STREET, FROM MARKET SQUARE. certain traditions of our early predecessors, the red-men of our Xorthern wilderness. Also, Bozzaris, a tragedy of considerable merit. And lots of ballads and verses, which have heretofore appeared only in the newspapers, but well deserve to be collected. His early prose-writings, though but occasional, were very pleasant reading, and greatly enjoyed by his contemporaries, forty or fifty years ago. DOWN MIDDLE-STEEET FROM MARKET-SQUARE. On casting your eye over this plate, you will observe in the left a lin- 50 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. gering specimen of the style our stores — even the handsomest and best — were built in before the fire. The first in the left-hand block survived the fire. Beyond this there is a succession of larger and much higher warehouses, some of brick, some covered with mastic, and some of the Nova-Scotia Albert-stone, some of Connecticut free-stone, as far along Middle-street as the eye can sweep. And now if we turn our attention to the right, we shall see first another low- studded memento of the fire, and then a block of high, four-story warehouses, built within a few years, with here and there one of less attractiveness, i-unning down to Union-street. And then comes the Falmouth-House, built by J. B. Brown, our wealthiest, and upon the whole perhaps most enterprising of all our business-men, and we have scores who would be the life of any place worth living in. The Falmouth is six stories high, the front of Albert-stone, the sides of pressed-brick, occupying a whole square, at the corner of Union and Middle- streets, with two hundred and forty rooms, a long row of stores underneath, elevator and all that the most exacting and fastidious would require, whether journeying for business or pleasure. Beyond this magnificient pile comes the St. Julian, another four-storied hotel, of large and justifiable pretensions, occupying the ground of another block — or row of stores, rather above the average before the fire, and running away down Plum-street. OUR EDITORS — J.\:ME.S BROOKS, PHINEAS BARXES, WM. PITT FESSEXDEN, OURSELF, AC., &C., &C. One day, in the year 1827 or 8, while I was not only editing, but actually writing upon the average, nine-tenths of the Yankee, a young man entered my ofiice — a law-oflice by the way, where I Avrote ray books, and earned on — that's the very phrase needed here — carried on the Yankee, and gave lessons in small- sword and boxing, the sabre-exercise and cut and thrust — and signified a wish to enter with me as a student. He was fresh from Waterville-College, and pro- posed to take a school and study law at the same time. He was tall, with a dark, foreign look, large eyes, and a shy, though gentlemanly bearing, and not much over twenty, I should say. This was James Brooks. I consented, and he began with me at once, and I must say, studied with uncommon diligence, though with no such steadfast, passionate enthusiasm, as a great lawyer must have had, to begin with. He soon became exceedingly popular, was wheedled into politics, and became a red-hot whig, with abolition proclivities, of the most unspairing and unrelent- ing type. At best, though opposed to slavery, as it was not, I was only a colonizationist, and heartily opposed to the Cxarisonian creed, universal and immediate emancipation. Here Brooks and I parted company for life. He was soon provided with a school, and lived with me while going through his law studies, much like a younger brother, so that I had the best opportun- ites for understanding his real character. I found him earnest, manly, but so silent, so given to mystery and concealment, that his best friends knew nothing PORTLAND ILLUSTBATED. 51 of his past life or history, until a sister appeared among us, and a younger brother Erastus, now carrying on the Express, at New York ; nor even then were we — his best friends — who were laboring for him night and day, permitted to know anything about his family, though his father was a sea-captain here, and he himself, a native-born Portlander. One day on opening my letter-box, I found a well-written communication for the Yankee — well-written, according to Blair and Allison, and the Soph- omores of our day, but altogether too classical, too highly finished, for every- day use, and I told him so, on discovering as I soon did, that he was the author. "Wliereupon he underwent a striking and immediate change, and began, like his prototype — ourself — to talk on paper. This saved him, for after reading a few paragraphs — no essays — no speeches, he was offered a position, that of editor, from the first, I should say, of the Portland Advertiser ; and as I now find, in consequence of my personal solicitation — according to Mr. Griffin. Being ambitious and enterprizing, with a burning desire to distinguish him- self in some new way, he persuaded the proprietors to send him to Washington, as a correspondent and reporter — a reporter though — not of speeches, but of incidents and facts, with characteristic illustrations. He was the first Wash- ington correspondent ever heard of. The letters he wrote while so acting, had a wonderful run through all the newspapers of our county, worth mentioning, excepting those of the other parish. "You see we are all in teai's,V said a pewholder to a man setting a little way off; "why don't we see tears in your eyes?" "O, I belong to another parish," said the man. Just so, is it ever in high political or religious excitement, we all belong to another parish, when called upon to give judgment upon the doings of one, who, not agreeing with ourself, is therefore heterodox. The next movement of Mr. Brooks toward notoriety, was in the character of a special correspondent of the Advertiser from over sea, whither he went in 1835, and it must be acknowledged, added greatly to his reputation, as a news- paper correspondent, quick to see, and quick to delineate such peculiarites, and characteristics, as he gathered on his long tramp, afoot and alone, while work- ing his passage through a small portion of Europe. Then, after laboring from 1830 to 1841 without effect, to obtain a seat in our National Congress, he left Portland for New York, where meanwhile, the Express had been triumphantly launched, as a penny paper, the first that ever appeared on this side of the water. Not long after this, he married a neice of President Harrison — a very supe- rior woman, a widow with one child and quite a large plantation ; after which, he changed his views about slavery, then got into Congress, and at last — poor fellow — undertaking a trip round the world, which cost him his life at the time of the Credit-Mobilier scandal. And here a little incident occurs to my recollection, which may not be wholly out of place, though intended only for illustration of character. Not long after the earliest issue of the Express, a series of Yankee papers appeared in it, something after the manner and style of Capt. Jack Downing. These 52 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. were writen by Mrs. Ann S. Stephens— or most of them, at any rate, appearing under the name of Samuel Slick— if I remember aright, and altogether superior to Judge Halliburton's blundering carricatures of the Native Yankee, with its provincial and stage-English. These were attributed to Mr. Brooks, and the name of Mrs. Stephens was never mentioned in connection with them, to my knowledge. One day, being at a dinner given by Col. Webb, of the Courier and Enquirer, at Delmonico's, where Mr. Verplanck and some other notables were gathered together, about 1834 — a toast was offered to the author of the Sleigh-ride, a funny affair, which had appeared in the Yankee long before. All eyes were turned upon me, and I found myself obliged to say something in self-defence. To be sure, I had written a story under that very title, which was published in the octavo edition of the translated Yankee ; but I soon found they were talking about quite another affair. It was Johnny Beadle's Courtship. "O," said somebody at my elbow, "that was written by Brooks" — and I found that he had the credit of all our best Yankee stories, not a line of which he had ever written, to my knowledge. The fact was that "Johnny Beadle's Courtship" was written by Capt. McClintock, of Fort-Preble. At the time, when I found it in my letter-box, and had run my eye over it, I gave a young portrait-painter, named Appleton, then occupying my back-office, credit for the story — and he assented — and then I published it in the Yankee, with lots of emendations, and in my judg- ment then and now — of improvements, with considerable additions. All this. Captain McClintock, a most worthy gentleman, long afterward complained, and threatened to re-publish the story, as it was originally written — but never did ; so that Johnny Beadle's Courtship stands now as it first appeared in the Yankee. So much for newspaper-reputation, and so much for Mr. James Brooks, a martyr to disaijpointed ambition, a craving for political power, and a thirst for the for- bidden fruit our tallest men are always reaching for, hit or miss. To Mr. Brooks, Mr. Phineas Barnes succeeded in 1841. A graduate of Bowdoin-College, formerly a Professor of Greek and Latin at Waterville, and a lawyer of large promise and fine talent, and a writer of great precision, strength and clearness ; qualities of which he gave unquestionable evidence after his return to the bar, and dying but the other day in full practice. After Mr. Barnes, came Mr. Henry Carter, also a lawyer, smart, sharp and laborious, and then Mr. Blaine, Speaker of the House, and candidate for the Presidential chair — a very able man, a shrewd politician, and a good writer, of large editorial experience — and then other changes followed, until Mr. God- frey, and then Mr. Pullen, who is now in charge, both lawyers, took hold of the same paper and helped it forward and up, week by week. Intermediately however, and for a short time only, Mr. William Willis, our Portland annalist and historian, took charge of the Editorial department, and of course — being also a lawyer, and who is not, among our editorial fraternity? — added much to the reputation of the paper. Nor must we forget our friend, William Pitt Fessenden — a lawyer of course — PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 53 then a Senator of the United States, then Secretary of the Treasury, and then a case of untimely death, in the very meridian of his strength. How long he had charge of the Advertiser, I am not able to say. I only know that he was never a sprightly, babbling, newspaper-gossip, though a conscientious and sub- stantial writer on the great questions of the day, and that, even to the last, though he greatly improved, as a ready writei-, while occupying the editorial chair, the business of writing, day after day, grew more and more irksome and wearing, till he threw it aside forever, and returned to his profession, where he WHITE HEAD. SEE PAGE 55. stood in the very foremost rank for years, as you will find by our Maine Eeports, until his translation to the U. S. Senate. And here a little anecdote may be introduced, for further illustration. Mr. F. had been in the habit of consulting me from the time of entering upon the profession, upon every contemplated movement of importance, up to the day of his undertaking this editorship. Once, for example, he came to say that he was not earning the salt for his porridge, though married, and to one of our finest women, with large and wealthy associations. A lawyer had just died in 54 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. Bridgton, and he was unable to decide about going up there and taking his place. "Take it by all means," said I, " and lose no time. There you will be sure to enter into a small practice, at least, and in time work your way into what will bring you back here. And there you will have time for study without feeling disheartened. Study withoitt practice I look upon as rather worse than practice without study." He went. After a long while, he came to see me again, saying that he had an idea of try- ing his luck at Bangor, where an opening ha 1 just been made by the death of somebody else. " Go, by all means," said I; and he Avent forthwith, and of course prospered. So, when he came to consult me about the editorship. He had no taste for the business — he never could write with facility, he said. Whereupon I laughed at him, and then told him why, not only why he could not write with facility, but why the laugh had come in just there. The truth was that Fes- senden was never given to trifling, to gossip, or to pleasantry. He was too much in earnest, too serious and weighty, and indulged too largely in sarcasm, and a sort of gentlemanly vituperation. Again, he labored too much on his articles — reviewing them as Codman went over his foliage with a pin. "Give yourself no time" for such things, said I "write hurriedly — learn to talk on paper, and you will soon find it easy enough." And he did. And now for Oukself, who must not be altogether overlooked. After editing the Yankee for five hundred dollars a year, i>ayable in books, I wrote for every paper in Portland, more or less, from 1829 or 30 to about 1874, and always without pay or reward, or the hope of reward. Nor did this quite satisfy me, fori turned off lots of magazine-stories, novels, essays, &c., &c., besides editing the New-England Galaxy, of Boston, and writing volumniously for the Brother Jonathan, of New Tork, the Courier and Enquirer, of New York, the New York Mirror, The Sun, the Ladies' Companion, and some othei papers, as a regular correspondent. Yesterday, August 25th, I was eighty-one — having reached my eighty-second birthday, though people persist in misunderstanding, or misrepresenting the fact, just as if a man's first birthday goes for nothing, or as Rip Van Winkle would say, "don't count" ; and I am quite sure that I have written and pub- lished in the course of my long life, abroad and at home, what would make at least eighty-one good sized volumes — such as they are. In addition to the foregoing, we have among our ablest editors, whom we are unable to characterize just now, as they deserve, on account of our limited allowance of elbow-room, Francis O. J. Smith, formerly of the Argus, Col. John M. Adams, originally associate editor with Mr. John A. Poor, of the State of Maine, but now sole editor of the Argus, Mr. Richardson, of the Ad- vertiser, an evening paper, U. S. District Attorney Talbot, his co-adjutor, Mr. Lord of the Christian Mirror, Mr, Colesworthy, and Mr. Eiwell, of the Tran- script, and twenty or thirty more whom we should like to honor, if it were possible, under the circumstances. PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 00 Now, all these gentlemen, it will be seen, with two exceptions, Mr. Lord of the Mirror, and Mr. Colesworthy, were lawyers, educated lawyers, and thoroughly trained, if they could only find customers. No other profession seems to have contributed so largely to the department of newspaper literature, as that of the bar. Of those mentioned here, only two or three have been guilty of a book. The truth is that lawyers govern the country. They make the laws ; they interpret the laws ; they administer the laws, and they hold about all the offices worth having, either at home or abroad, with here and there an exception. But ■why ? — why ? WmXE-UEAD. Among the wonders and strange, peculiar beauties which abound in our neighborhood, and along our coast, there is no one perhaps more generally talked about than Wliite-Head, a huge bluff towering up from the bottom of the sea, v/ith perpendicular walls, as you find them conscientiously repre- sented in the cut. On the outward verge, near the water, you may see — without much effort of the imagination — a right royal head, with what may well pass for the " likeness of a kingly crown," with something of the Assyrian, or Babylonian appen- dages. Compared with the "Old man of the Mountain," about which we have all been hearing for the last fifty years, our White-Head is really life-like, though it must be contemplated from a particular point, or it may be mistaken for the head of a lion, or perhaps for no head at all. Yet there it is, to speak for itself, and there it must remain till the " wreck of matter and the crush of worlds." 56 - PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. The rough tumbling sea, the boundless view from the elevated bluff, and the dark waves flashing in the moonlight or sunshine, or flinging their oceans of tumultuous, phosporescent fire along the base, make White- Head, or rather Cushing's Island, formerly Bangs's Island, one of the most attractive points along our whole eastern coast. Here we have the Ottawa-House, one of the finest establishments for sea- bathing, boating, fishing or junketing, to be found anywhere. It is about four miles from the city, and is in almost hourly communication with it by steamers, neat, handsome and trustworthy. THE OTTAWA-HOrSE had its origin we are told, and believe, among our brethren of the Canadas, At any rate, scores of Canadians and other jjrovincials of that huge empire which is vast spreading itself from sea to sea, and from shore to shore, may be found summering themselves, after the pleasantcst fashion at the Ottawa-House every year; and cottages are going up, and farms growing into shape and promise, at a most encouraging rate of progress. But come and see for your- self, and after having "done" the Island, the largest in Casco Bay, just push out into deep water, a few miles from shore, and "bob for whales," if your taste lies that way, or, if you are more easily satisfied, for halibut, sword-fish, haddock and cod. OUR LANDSCAPE PAINTERS — JOHX ROLLIN TILTOIf. This remarkable man, whose pictures are now commanding extravagant prices over sea, and obtaining the most extravagant praise from the British Art Journals, came to Portland about the year 1844, at the age of nineteen or there- abouts. He was introduced to me by the late John A. Poor, a man who has left no equal in our land for his knowledge of rail-ways and his rail-way possibilities ; a man moreover, to whom Portland owes a debt she can never pay, though she may at least acknowledge it hereafter, by raising a monument to his memory ; a man who sacrificed himself and twenty years of his life, in uplifting Portland to the position she now occupies. Mr. Poor had invited me down to the Grand-Trunk Depot, then called the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Kail way depot, where he called my attention to some car-panels in landscape, just finished. "How much a-piece ought we to pay for them? he asked. "Well," said I, substantially, though I cannot of course remember the words I employed, "well, Mr. Poor, these landscapes are exceedingly spirited and clever, and were evidently dashed off in the heat and hurry of inspiration, com- posed with the brush, and never thought of, till they began to appear, feature by featvii'e, as we see them now." "Yes, but you have not answered my questions. What are they worth — how much ought we to pay for them?" Mr. Poor was a director, and was PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 57 charged with all kinds of duty upon the Atlantic and St. Lawrence rail-way. "They are well worth," said I, "five dollars a-piece. May I ask what you are called upon to pay for them ?" According to my present recollection, his answer was to this effect. "Judge Prehle, our President, complains of my extravagance in buying pic- tures of acknowledged merit for these panels. Now the painter of these land- scapes we hire by the day," I think he said at two dollars a day, "and they cost us only thirty cents apiece." I cannot be perfectly sure of the language employed by Mr. Poor, but I know that I was beyond measure astonished at the actual cost mentioned, and at the wonderful spirit and facility of touch manifested. "Here he comes now, shall I introduce him to you?" said Mr. Poor. "Certainly," and forthwith we became acquainted. Tilton was tall and very thin, a mere boy, in appearance. After confirming the story told by Mr. Poor, he added in reply to a proposition made by me, that he had been earning his dollar and a half, or two dollars a day, enough to support himself and a mother he had left in New-Hampshire, and he was unwilling to venture upon the enterprize I suggested, which was this ; I wanted him to give up the panel- work, and betake himself to landscape-painting of a better style. I would furnish him with a large back-office, having a good northern light, or give him a studio in the hall overhead, through which I had opened a large sky-light for Akers, whom I had on my hands at the same time. Having persuaded him at last, with the help of Mr. Poor, to undertake legiti- mate landscape, I ordered a jjicture, and promised to obtain other ''patronage" as the blockheads call it, provided only that he would give me hurried sketches, instead of labored pictures. But anxious to give me a good penny-worth, he labored just as Codman had done, until he spoiled a finely imagined, and cleverly designed picture, which I threw aside at once, giving my reasons, which he certainly profited by; for, from that day forward, he was never guilty of laborious, over-doing, to my knowledge. Within six months after this, he had produced quite a number of beautiful, and eminently original pictures, compositions and studies, with a facility which was anything but "fatal" to him. And then, after this, he got up quite a gallery of large and small paintings, the largest, six feet by four, and the smaller of a more manageable cabinet and library-size, which were got rid of by raffle ; every subscriber being sure of one picture at least, got a good penny-worth, so that he was enabled to go abroad after awhile, and even to get married, luider circumstances exceedingly favor- able, to a highly-gifted and highly-cultivated woman, of New York, who under- stood him thoroughly, and foresaw from the first what he is now accomplishing. Some few years ago, Tilton was charged with imitating Claude. Now it must be acknowledged, that, in some of his paintings, which he turned out with aston- ishing rapidity, about 1860, there was a striking resemblance, a general, not a particular resemblance, to the style and treatment of Claude, in the atmosphere 58 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. and water, so that, if I had not been well acquainted with his doings from the first, I should not have scrupled to say, here is no imitation, but there is undoubtedly what all painters and poets and sculptors must have, no matter how great their originality, the elements of education, or what may be called the hints or suggestions of a kindred spirit. Now I happen to know just how he fell into the manner of Claude, without ever having seen a Claude, nor perhaps a good engraving from one of his land- scapes or water-views, with the sun setting through a mist. Wishing to turn his peculiarities to account, and to coax him out of the track he was running in, I engaged him to give me a picture of Cape-Cottage, a watering-place I had established on Cape-Elizabeth twenty years before, and re-built with stone, after a fire had swept away the original structure. It was now picturesque — I might say grotesque, if not absolutely fantastic; but then it was delightfully situated near the sea-shore, on a bluff, and over- looking tlie whole neighborhood of water and cove and villages, with Portland in full view. The picture he painted, and I have it now, and mean to keep it, not more for its intrinsic beauty, though Tilton himself was heartily ashamed of it, when he saw it last, about ten years ago, but because of its origin. When he called me up to his room, and I stood before this picture, I said something about the resemblance to Claude. "Claude, Claude" — murmured the artist, as if he wanted to say "who the plague is Claude?" ' "Claude de Loralne," said I, the most natural, poetical, and in my judgment, the most beautiful of landscape-painters." From what followed, no doubt was left on my mind, thatTilton was wholly un- acquainted with the doings and characteristics of Claude. Here tlien, just here, originated the style, which on further development, led people to cliarge our young friend with imitation at least, if not plagarism. I have now in iny possession, a large view of Rome, and the Castle of St. Angelo in the foreground — a narrow stream, with peasantry, and St. Pauls in the distance, towering to the heavens, and melting away in the summer atmosphere, which Claude used to revel in, and I must acknowledge that, if a stranger were to see it now, being himself a judge of paintings and familiar with Claude, I should not be surprised to hear him call it an imitation of Claude. Yet, noth- ing could be more unjust; for the very peculiarities, which seem to have been suggested by Claude, may be seen to-day, in the first picture he painted for me, after he had broken away from tlae sketchy, hap-hazardous panel-style — Cape-Cottage. After some years passed in Rome, Florence and Venice, he returned on a visit to Portland, only to reproach himself in a most unaffected way, for all he had done here, though some of his finest early pictures were in the possession of our townsmen, J. B. Brown, Dr. James M. Cummings and others, who had obtained them at the raffle, whereby be was enabled to go abroad, full of gener- ous hope, and holy confidence. PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 59 To prove that lie was heartily ashamed of what I regard even now, as the best picture he had ever painted at the time — a View of Rome, which was taken from the old Roman landing, at a point, suggested by Akers, and said to be entirely new in the history of art, I have only to mention what follows : This beautiful picture, he proposed to touch over, while with me in 1862 ; but I said no — decidedly no — Ihadalready suffered in that way, by allowing Charles Codman to '"touch up," as he called it, the sky of his first fine picture, painted after our acquaintance began. While "touching" it up — he touched in a terrible carmine sky, so that the very foliage he had gone over so carefully with a pin, lost all its vivacity. "No, no," said I, — "poets and painters are alike." They are never to be trusted with emendations. What is new, they mistake for what is better, and so POETLAXD HEAD LIGHT. SEE PAGE 61. they trample on what is old, because they have grown too familiar with it, and push forth all their new ideas, with unrelenting zeal and earnestness. Alexan- der Pope was a proof, and even Coleridge and Wordsworth ; and the only painter I ever knew who did not sjioil his work by going over it anew, after the origi- nal inspiration had died out, and the glow of composition had become a trouble, was Chester Harding, who went over a portrait of myself, which he had painted for the Somerset-House Exhibition, and threw aside in a fit of desperation; yet, after a twelve-month or so he took it up anew, and in two hours, just as I was about leaving London, produced not only a capital likeness, but, in my 60 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. judgment, the very best portrait he ever painted. It was a half-lengtli, and perished in our great fire, among the household gods of our eldest daughter who had returned to Portland, not long before. After his return to Italy, he launched forth into another style, at once new, beautiful, and astonishing. Now his atmosphere, if you turned the picture up made you dizzy; now too, the hues of sunset melted into the waters of the Ad- riatic — which seemed absolutely wet — like amathyst and rubies and fluid gold — a lake of molten jewelry, flushing up with a changeable sky. After this — after doin^ Rome and the neighborhood of Rome, and painting pictures of Baicse, a famous watering-place of old Rome, of the Campagna, the Torre degli Schiavi, the Adriatic Switzerland, Nemi, of which he sent me an admirable sketch in pen and ink, with all the groupings, figures, &c ; some of which have found their way to this country, and even to this town. Owing to the liberality of Mr. J. B. Brown, he disappeared for a season, and then brought forth his water-colored studies of Egypt, for which he has lately refused some thousands of dollars. But enough. The reputation of John RoUin Tilton is now established forever, beyond the reach of accident or peradventure, though he is far from being satisfied with himself, and refuses to take any more orders. P. S. Since the above was written, it has occurred to me that some of the following additional items may not come amiss to the general reader : Our friend, Mr. John B. Brown has, in his fine gallery, additional to many of Tilton' s earlier pictures, painted here, a superb painting of large size and ex- ecuted in Rome. The pen-and-ink sketch already mentioned of Nemi, a lake and village of central Italy, the centre of an extinguished volcano, about seventeen miles from Rome, appeared to indicate a sacrifice like that of Iphegenia. The com- position was beautiful, the fore-ground all occupied with groups and figures, full of life and character. I have also a sketch in oil of St. George, of the Seaweed-Isle, which he sent me in 1869 — a wonderful affair, and the work I dare say of two or three hours at the most, reminding you of his first panel-work, though altogether superior. On parting with Tilton and Akers, my last words were, " Be patient, my young friend" — addressing myself to Tilton — "and if you last a few years, you will stand in the very foremost rank of landscape-painters — but — and this, I would have you lay to heart, as the foundation you most need — you must give special attention to the human figure and to grouping." And to Akers I said — your busts are sometimes worthy of the highest com- mendation; but — you must give your attention to anatomy and drawing, and if you do, after a few years at furtherest, you will rank with the foremost of living sculptors in that department, and prepare yourself, in the best possible way, for a higher flight. About four years after this painting, and this advice, I received two letters by the same packet, one from Akers and the other from Tilton, each written, it appeared, without the knowledge of the other, and saying that Sir William Stewart had just given each of them an order, and confirmed all I had said to PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 61 both and almost in tlie same language. Hence the fine gi'ouping, and capital figures, full of spirit and busy life, in the View of Kome; and hence, un- doubtedly, the progress of Akers in marble portraiture, and the inspiration of his Pearl-Diver. This was in 1854 — twenty years ago. When we first met, Akers was about twenty-five, and Tilton about nineteen or twenty. Perhaps you have met with a volume entitled Art Hints, by Mr. James Jack- son Jarves, published at London in 185.5 — or rather I should say, ^'wporfmy to be the work of Mr. Jarves; for the book was not his, but Tilton's. All the criticisms, and every thought having relation to the art of painting must have proceeded from Tilton, for with all his pretensions, Mr. Jarves was no judge of painting or pictures, when I knew him — about 1855 — I should say. While wandering hither and thither about Rome, Tilton made two discov- eries which were decidedly impressive. One day, he found in the garret of a house where Claude had once lived, an old worthless picture, as the proprietor himself thought, which Tilton took a fancy to, and bought for a trifle. It proved to be what he supposed at the time, a veritable Claude, of singular beauty, so captivating to Ruskin who saw it on Tilton's way to America, as to throw him into raptures. It was left for a while in the Athenaeum at Boston, to be stared at and wondered over, by now and then a native artist, or connois- seur. The other discovery was that of a Titian — a real, undoubted and charming Titian, which was also exhibited in the Boston Athenjeum for a while, then left with me for a twelvemonth or so, together with the Claude, and then shipped for another world with the same Claude. The discovery happened in this way. Tilton was looking over a ragged and greatly discolored collection of old pictures in the rooms of a pawn-broker. He had Jarves for a companion. While running his eye over the collection, Tilton saw a small picture high up on the walls, and only to be reached by a long lad- der, which fastened his attention. On climbing up, he felt still more interested, and on bringing it down, he bargained for it, much to the surprise of Jarves, for he saw no merit, and no suggestion of merit, in the picture. Tilton felt satisfied, that, although sadly out of repair, it was beyond all doubt a Titian. Jarves only laughed at him. But Tilton persisted, and after cleansing, not ^'cleaaing," it, most carefully, sent it to Page, the best copier and translator of Titian that ever breathed, for authentication. It was a Danje — and is now an acknowledged gem, and of itself, enough to establish the instinct of Tilton, as an artist and a discoverer. poktla:^d he^vd-ligiit. Here, within a short distance of Cape-Cottage, a watering place of consider- able repiitation, heretofore, we have the picturesque light-house here represent- ed, with fog-bell, the keeper's lodge, a prodigious bluff, and piles of talco-slate and strange geological formations, interfused with trajJ-dykes, miles in length, hissing hot, and a boundless view of the great Ocean, separating Cape-Cottage from Great Britain. 62 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. This Cottage, by the way, was built by me — ourself — and occupies a very favorable position, about three and a half miles from our city. It is a sort of bastard gothic, built of the stone which constitutes the foundations of Cape- Elizabeth, and, on the whole, may be regarded as one of the most favored spots along our whole coast, for bathing, boating, fishing, climbing, loitering and romping. Many of the most beautiful among our three hundred and sixty-five islands, which are said — and believed by the old settlers and fishermen to cluster in Casco-Bay — are in sight from all the windows of this Cottage. And so too, is Portland, with most of our outlying neighborhood; so that, look where you will, if you but turn your head, a new picture opens to you, of land or water, mountain or village. It was here, and while getting up one of these pictures for me that Tilton, the bewitching landscape-painter, first fell into the manner of Claude de Lo- raine, without knowing it. POKTLAXD STONE-WARE COMPANY, North end of Deering's Bridge; manufacture every kind of pottery and stone- ware, with drain and sewer-pipe, of uncommon excellence. J. T. Winslow, Superintendent. All the furnaces have been rebuilt, and re-arranged on nevr principles in this fine establishment, within a few months, at a very large outlay, and they are now doing wonders. PORTLAND CEMENT DRAIN-PIPE COMPANY. Here is manufactured an Hydraulic cement pipe, which has a wide and growing reputation. True, Stockwell & Co., Agents, Danforth-street, Western Promenade. widow's avood-society, one of the most effective and admirable institutions in this part of our country. The contributions have amounted to over fifty thousand dollars, within the last thirty years. The Directors are from all the different churches. H. C. Barnes, President, Lewis B. Smith, Vice-President, Samuel Rolfe, Treasurer. FEMALE ORPIIAN-ASYLITM. Here is another of our noiseless unpretending charities, established in 1828, with a property valued at 50,000 dollars, fifteen lady managers, earnest, faithful and zealous— going about and doing good; and all, if not " by stealth," in such a way, that they would " blush to find it fame." The average of children fed, clothed and educated in this beautiful Home on State-street, is twenty-five. Mrs. J. T. McCobb, President, Mrs. J. B. Matthews, Vice-President, Abby S. Barrett, Secretary, and Mary E. Barrett, Treasurer. PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 63 OLD-OECUAKD BEACH. This new watering-place — new in comparison with half a hundred others along our coast, seems likely to secure for itself in perpetuity, a most alluring reputation. It is about fifteen miles from our city, three miles or so from Saco, and is right on the way of our Boston and Maine Railroad, one of the pleasantest and best in the country, and one of the most reasonable in its charges. They have there about ten miles — think of that — ten miles of hard smooth OLD OliCllAhU 1:1 beach, where chariot-races might be had, after the style of ancient Greece and Eome, and where the trampling of the ocean may be felt, a long way inland, when its blood is up. The sea and surf-bathing are wonderfully fine — multitudinous indeed, and almost uninterrupted ; and the three thousand strangers, who have lately found homes in no less than twelve large hotels at Old-Orchard, make the whole neighborhood exceedingly attractive. Among these, and all in good repute, are the St. Cloud, the Paissell-House, the Adams-House, Pine-Cottage, and the Moulton-IIouse. The beautiful, smooth beach is likened to that of Long-Branch in New York — 64 POBTLAND ILLUSTRATED. but, altliougli it may be for New England what Long Branch is for the Empire- State, still it is something more and better, on several accounts, being out of the way, strange and beautiful, and not so much vexed with shipping. Not far from the Old-Orchard House, you may find Fern-Park,, a beautiful and neatly arranged solitvide of forty or fifty acres, set thick — or thickly enough, with large trees — and provided with gateways and groves, and flirta- tion paths, and rustic seats, where whispering may be heard at all hours after sun-set. HOME FOR AGED WOMEX. Of this admirable Institution, calculated to meet the wants of a class, hereto- fore, and almost hitherto overlooked, aged women of worth and character, left helijless and alone, we could not say all we desire without appearing extravagant. Originally established, without parade or pretension, in 1865, and occupying a small frame-house, its growth has been so steady, though rather slow, that just now it occupies a lot 100 feet on Emery-street by 185 in depth, equal to 18,500 square feet, with all the grounds, trees, gardens, &c., of the late Gov- ernor Parris — and the Mansion-House with all the appendages, remodeled, by Mr. F. H. Fassett, with entire success, furnishing accommodation for thirty inmates. Upon these grounds and buildings, the Association have expended only 25,000 dollars, leaving a fund invested for future contingencies of 13,000 dollars. Mrs. John T. Oilman, President, Mrs. Neal Dow and Mrs. Samuel E. Spring, Vice Presidents, Miss Julia Greeley, Secretary, and Miss Elizabeth Mountfort, Treasurer. SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTOKY. Organized in a little one-story frame building — a school-house — in Dec. 1843; incorporated June 7, 1850 — and eminently prosperous up to the burning of our beautiful Exchange, in 1854, where rooms had been assigned to it, and lectures, with occasional demonstrations, were given. A very valuable collection had been gathered, and a large museum for a town the size of Portland, had got together, when the great fire of 1866 over-swept the whole — nothing was saved. The Society now occupy rooms in the upper story of our City-Government building, where they have gathered, for the third time, quite a handsome, though not a very large collection of specimens. Dr. William Wood, President, Wm. K Gould, Secretary, Edward Gould, Treasurer. MERCANTILE LIBRABY. Established in 1851. In the great fire of '66 they lost a4ibrary of nearly 4,000 volumes, but have since got together nearly 5,000. Any citizen may have books by paying two dollars a year. In addition to this Library they have an invested fund of $10,000. PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 65 Their rooms are in tlie Congress-Hall block, corner of Congress and Temple Streets. C. H. Fling, President, John C. Proctor, Treasurer, Sam'l B. Grey, Recording Secretary, Chas. S. Fobes, Corresponding Secretary, Miss D. P. Coombs, Li- brarian. The lectures delivered before this Association every year have been among the best in our country. No expense seems to have been spared : and they have been not only attractive, but profitable. PORTLAND INSTITUTE AND PUBLIC, OR PEOPLES' LIBRARY. This very creditable association was incorporated January 22d, 1867, with a view to the establishment and maintenance of a public library, or rather of a peoples' library, which title would much better indicate the liberal character of this institution. It was intended to set up and encourage, after a worthy manner, a special Institute of Natural-History, perhaps by adapting, or absorbing, the Society of Natural-History, already established here, in the upper hall of our City-govern- ment building, in the confident hope moreover, that, in time, and at no very distant day, there would be a gallery of art, with scientific and other lectures — which might hereafter, be developed into something of a University. And all this, we believe must happen hereafter, judging by the progress we see. Two very large, handsome rooms, and three smaller, have been furnished to the society, in the city-government building, on the ground-floor, as you enter from Congress-street. By private contributions, and by the liberal action of our city, we have already gathered, nearly 15,000 bound volumes, cart-loads of pamphlets, &c., &c., and a number of busts and paintings well worthy of consideration. Life membership is fifty dollars ; and citizens pay two dollars a year, with right to take two volumes at a time, while the rooms are open to the people, without charge, at all regular hours — that is, from 10 to 1 P. M. ; from 2 to 6., and from 7 to 9 P. M. Wm. L. Putnam, President, Israel Washburn, Vice- President, Edward A. Noyes, Clerk, Treasurer and Librarian, S. M. Watson, Miss L. L. Braizer, Miss. M. E. Barbour, Assistant Librarians. OUR LANDSCAPE PAINTERS — HARRY BROWN. The career of this fine artist is but another illustration of that American characteristic, which stops at nothing, when thoroughly roused, though unac- quainted perhaps with the very elements of success. Wliether, like General Scott, conquering an empire with forces which, in comparison with what would seem to be indispensable, were little more than a corporal's guard, or undertaking huge enterprises in sculpture, like Paul Akers, without a knowledge of drawing or anatomy, or magnificent landscapes, like Tilton or Codman, without having studied a day, we are always achieving im- possibilities, working head-first, and without shrinking or quailing, against the 66 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. established principles of government, of political economy and finance, and even of war, whether on land or sea ; and what is yet stranger, always triumph- ing at last, and astonishing, not only ourselves, but all the rest of the world. About fifteen, or perhaps eighteen years ago, according to my present recollec- tion, I was invited into a painter's work-shop, on Exchange-street, opposite my ofiice, to look at a head just turned off by Harry Brown, a young man, who at best, only claimed to be a painter of signs, banners, &c., &c., in full practice. The head was a wretched affair, and I lost no time in advising him to give up the idea of portraiture ; but while talking with him, my attention happened to be attracted by a rough landscape sketch, hung in the shadow. It was really rich, clever, and full of promise. When I found that this was his work, thrown off in the heat and hurry of sudden inspiration, while wandering by himself along the sea-shore, and among the out-works of the wilderness, I urged him, with all earnestness, to try his hand at landscape — sea-views, &c., — to begin at once, and to lose no time. All this, he undertook, and at once, and within two or three years, he began to "astonish the natives," and has kept on and on, growing bravely, until just now, his marine paintings are universally acknowledged for master-pieces, and he has orders from a distance which are, to say the least of them, very encourag- ing and flattering. Within the last year, having lost a beloved son of great promise, he went abroad for relief, and after seeing the finest galleries and studying the best pictures, returned only to show a large improvement, with a wholesome trans- fusion of what he had garnered up in his travels. Not long since, he undertook, "at the special instance and request" of ex-gov- ernor Washburn, to better a somewhat questionable portrait of that gentleman, and succeded so Avell, that I should be inclined to qualify what I said to him at our first interview, aboiit dabbling with portraiture. Strangely enough, his experience in landscape had given him such decided notions of color, and even of drawing, that the portrait surjirised and gratified me. But, after all, his marine-views are what he must depend upon for a great reputation. Some are quite wonderful — and so much out of the common- way, that you can detect no resemblance to any other painter. Eich, exuberant, and overflowing with sunshine and truthfulness, what should hinder him, with his industrious habits and glowing ambition, from taking a place in the foremost rank of marine painters ? ' THE OBSERVATORY, standing on the top of Munjoy, and commanding all the approaches by sea, was built by subscription, and furnished with a large telescope, about 1807. Once it came near being christened — or stigmatized — as "The Brown Tower." This was very soon after Salmagundi appeared, when some of our young wits took the contagion, and we had a series of pleasant papers by Charles Ather- ton, William Crabtree, Charles S. Daveis and William B. Sewall, according to my present recollection, after the Salmagundi type, in which the observatory PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 67 became a "Brown Tower," suggested perhaps by Mrs. Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, or Walpole's Castle of Ottrauto, then in their glory. Since the above was written we have received the following information. '*0n the first day of April, 1807, the lot on which the observatory now stands, was purchased by Lemuel Moody, of Mr. Enoch Jones, of Bath. The pur- chase embraced about a half acre of land, for which five hundred dollars were paid. A company was organized, called the "Portland Monument Association," and was composed of the following named individuals, not one of whom is now living. Hugh McLellan, Lemuel Weeks, jr., Thomas Roach, Smith Cobb, Jonathan Stuart, Wm. Cross, Joseph Moulton, John McLellan, Joel Prince, ■"^AiAxucs^^ THE OBSERVATORY. Samuel Freeman, Jonathan Tucker, Moses Brown, Stephen Foster, Thomas Merrill, jr., Parker Ilsley, jr., John Ilobart, John Watson, Apollus R. Gushing. Stephen Stephenson, John Woodman, Walter Keating, Wm. Lowell, Jacob Noyes, Robert Motley, James C. Jewett, Wm. Merrill, Joseph McLellan, jr., Rush worth Jordan, Wm. Baker, Lemuel Moody, John Collin 5, 2d, Robert 68 POBTLAND ILLUSTRATED. Ilsley, Ilsley & Eobinson, Zachariah Martin, Charles Kittridge and Joseph Steele. The stock was divided into one hundred shares at fifty dollars each, of which Mr Lemuel Moody took twenty-four shares. The monument was built under the direction of Mr. Moody, and was in his care up to the time of his death, in 1845. The building was erected immediately after the purchase of the land, in which timber of the largest dimensions and the most durable kind was used, and which was obtained within one mile of the spot. The posts are to-day, apparently as sound as when the building was first erected. The elevation above the level of the sea is two hundred and twenty- seven feet. It is eighty-two feet from the foundation to the' upper deck. It is thirty-two feet wide at the base, and one hundred and twenty-two tons of stone are deposited in the lower part to secure its safety in a gale of wind. The ascent to the cupola in which is the telescope, is by winding stairs, so arranged as to relieve the ordinary fatigue of ascending that distance. A charge of fifteen cents is made for the privilege of viewing the harbor and siirrounding country, and no person M'ho has made the investment has reason to regret it. There is no point in Maine where the view of sea or land is more delightful. The keeper is on duty from sunrise to sunset, to signal vessels when off the coast ; by the aid of the telescope, he can identify a vessel twenty miles from the shore. Many of our merchants interested in shipping, have private signals which are set at the observatory when a vessel is seen approaching the harbor, with her signal flying, so that every owner is forewarned of the arrival of his vessel several hours before she reaches the harbor. The signal for foreign vessels is the national flag of the vessel signaled. On the appearance of a man-of-war, the national flag with a black ball under it is seen upon the observatory. The telescope now in use is one of Dolland's inake, in London, and was- pur- chased in 1807, by Capt. Andrew Scott. It was placed in the cupola of the Observatory at that time, where it has remained until the present day, having aided thousands now in their graves, in obtaining a view of our harbor and the surrounding country. In clear weather, a vessel can be seen thirty miles from shore, with a delightful view of the White-Mountains, and the intermediate country. There is no place to which strangers who visit us, can be invited to obtain so good a view of our city, our harbor with its islands, the ocean and its surrounding hills and valleys ; indeed no more delightful view, either of land or sea, can be found, than is obtained from the cupola of the Portland Observatory, in clear weather." OUR AVKITEES — GEENVILLE MELLEN. One of our earliest and best writers, both in prose and poetry, though chiefly distinguished for poetry. The eldest-born of our late admirable chief -justice PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 69 Mellen, lie lived and died, after all, rather as a lawyer, than as an author. Yet he had many of the highest qualifications for perpetuating himself in poetry; sensitive, with an exceedingly delicate perception of pictorial beauty, and a sort of instinct, amounting to another sense, in all that related to the self-arranging power of language, he contented him with writing letters, occasional news- paper paragraphs, a number of short, and oftentimes very beautiful poems, and at most, one volume of prose, by "Reginald Reverie." He began a correspondence with me, soon after the appearance of my first novel, in 1818, and continued it until after my return from abroad in 1827. In 1828, he published a volume entitled Sad Tales and Glad Tales, if I do not mistake, for my copy was burned in the fire, and I cannot find another. It was very clever and very pleasant reading, and met with considerable favor. A poem, entitled "Chronicles" of '26," was delivered before the Phi Betta Kappa, of Cambridge, and published in Boston, in 1830. And in 1836, he delivered another poem, "The Passions," on the anniversary of Spurheim's death — of course, our friend must have been a phrenologist, though I had forgotten the fact, until reminded of it by the title of this poem. Some of his shorter pieces, like the Lines to an Eagle Soaring, were exceed- ingly picturesque and vigorous, almost sublime indeed, but of these I have no copy, and am not even sure of the title. At this time he was newly married to one of the most beaiitiful of our young women, Mary Southgate, and was, or appeared to be, settled for life, at North Yarmouth, as a lawyer. Had he lived, he would have been among the fore- most, being industrious, acute, and given to analysis, and to the "comisetition of opposite analogies." He had a brother Frederick, who turned off not a few verses of real merit, although unpretending, and a little newspaperish. OUR AUTHORS — MRS. A]S]sr S. STEPHENS. This remarkable woman, whose novels and romances, amounting perhaps to forty or fifty volumes, are to be found everywhere, began her career in Port- land under the most painful and disheartening circumstances. She was English, by descent, and I rather think, by immediate parentage, and may have been, by possibility, a provincial — a New Brunswick or Nova Scotia provincial. Her husband was a journeyman-printer, who worked at his trade for several years in Portland. About 1828 or '30 — a young, pleasant and attractive woman called on me, at my office, to ask my opinion of a story she had just written — a short story — and as I understood her, the first she had ever attempted. I ran it over, made a few suggestions, and then urged her, by all means, to cultivate her powers in that line of work. The story appeared in some paper, I forget where, but her improvement was exceedingly rapid. She wrote with great ease, and gi-eat earnestness, and from the heart. At another time, having succeeded in prose, she brought me her "Polish 70 PORTLAND ILLUSTBATED. Boy," a poem, -vvliich, though very beautiful and eminently dramatic, I took the liberty of changing a little, here and there, in the phraseology, leaving the versification and general drift of the story untouched. This poem attracted no little attention, and appeared in not a few of our leading newspapers. Thus encouraged — after having written a number of short stories for the magazines, the titles of which have passed from my recollection, she took a flying leap over all hindrances in her way, and plunged headlong into the deep waters, the veiy whirlpool of authorship, and ajipeared as the editor of the Portland Magazine. This was in 1830. For this journal, which ended with the first volume, I wrote occasionally, and then she went with her husband to New- York, where she enlisted as a regular contributor for the Ladies' Companion, the Brother Jonathan and Express, becoming in fact the editor of the first mentioned journal, which appeared very successful for a time, but was finally abandoned. After this, she began writing two-volume stories, published by Peterson, of Philadeli^hia, until she had completed a series, well known throughout the length and breadth of our land. On a late occasion, she received, I am told, by one who has known her well for many years, and has the highest opinion of her, both as a woman and as a writer, no less than five thousand dollars for a single story. But then, it was for a prize, and if I remember aright, Mr. Peterson or Mr. Child was the party "who paid this large sum for a magazine-story. But however this may be, Mrs. Stephens is a women of great original genius, with poeti-y in her blood, patient, industrious, and full of impas'sioned enthusi- asm, A friend of the friendless, a helper of the helpless, we are told that she has great influence at Washington, and elsewhere, among the executive authorities of our land, which she employs for the help of prisoners and others, who want help, and know not where to find it this side of the Mercy-seat, wherefore let us wish her God speed ! and an abundant entrance into the joys that are promised to them that persevere in well-doing — whatever may be the judgment of the world for a season. Let me add, that notwithstanding her great — her almost astonishing facility, she is not easily satisfied with her own doings, nor ever ready to throw aside unfinished, what she may have once undertaken seriously, or set her heart upon. For example — in a letter of July 23, 1843, she writes to me as follows in consequence of my unsparing criticism. "There is one paragraph which you found fault with, which I wrote over thirty- two times.'''' There's for you, if you are feeling your way into authorship. The following are only a part of her works. Mabel's Mistake, Fashion and Famine, The Gold Brick, The heiress of Greenland, Mary Dervvent, The Old Homestead, The Rejected Wife, Silent Struggles, The Golden Apples, The Wife's Secret. UP CONGRESS STREET FROM THE PREBLE-UOUSE. Here we have one of our characteristic views, which must go far to justify the extravagant admiration of strangers, who may "happen" at the Preble House, of which some account will be found on page 77. PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 71 The first building on your right is the rebuilt and greatly-enlarged mansion of the late Commodore Preble, who, with the generous indignation of a patriot and warm-hearted sailor, having early adopted for his motto "millions for de- fence and not a cent for tribute," went into Tripoli and all her gunboats, and batteries, with a thunder-burst, and brought the Dey to terms, liberating the American prisoners and abolishing the shameful tribute we had so long sub- mitted to, as did the other great maratime powers of the world, without remon- strance. And all this, be it remembered, without co-operation or help from any quarter. No page in our dazzling history of naval warfare shines with a steadier, or more enduring splendor, than this, recording the negotiation of Com. Preble, at the cannon's mouth, with the insolent, haughty Barbarian of Tripoli. Lord Exmouth followed after a long interval, when our brethren of the UP COKGKESS STKEET, FBOM THE PBEBLE HOUSE. British Isles had come to their senses, and not liking the idea of our Yankee " fir built frigates " Avith their "striped bunting," out-manouvering, and out- witting them on the high seas, in vindication of their national honor, Avent at the same batteries, fortifications and gun-boats, with a corresijondent result. But why not before ? Next to the Preble-House, you have a glimpse, or hint, of the Longfellow mansion, where Longfellow, the Poet, was born ; that is, you can see the rail- ings of that front-yard, already mentioned, and the shadow at least of a three- story brick house, to which hereafter travelling pilgrims will go, as to a shrine. 72 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. Further along, you have a view of the large blocks and warehouses, 'which have superseded the old tumble-down shanties, frame-dwellings, and empty spaces which disfigured that whole region but the other day. Most of these fine buildings were up and in full blast, many years before the great fire, which took another direction, and left this part of our city unvisited. The street-car you see, is another intimation of what our i^eople are doing. We have two lines through the city, and another running far away into the neighborhood, and these cars are among the best we know of, and the manage- ment is admirable. It may not be amiss to add, that we are beginning to lay wooden pavements along our widest thoroughfares, and have them now on Middle, Congress and Spring-streets. YOITNG men's christian- association. This admirable Institution, which appears to be doing much good and sup- plying a place long vacant among us, embodies about two hundred and fifty members — Universalists and Unitarians being excluded — not being Christians, of course, according to the Constitution of the Society. Meeting second week of the month. " Othodoxy is my doxy — heterodoxy yours," according to Professor Person. We have also a woman's CHRISTIAN-ASSOCIATION, Of which we hear, by accident, now and then, that they are borh earnest and faithful, and of late, prosperous. Not having any report, I am obliged to forego a great pleasure in referring to the works of these Christian women, whether young — or old. OUR POETS — MRS. ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN — alias FLORENCE PERCY. Although, not a Portland woman, this charming writer, both in prose and poetry, began authorship here, and soon became a decided favorite. Her newspaper correspondence, of which we are constantly meeting with specimens, being sprightly and original — original in the best sense of the word — without extravagance, and full of pleasantry, has been found attractive to the general newspaper-reader, in all directions. Her "Rock me to Sleep Mother," has set half the editors of our country by the ears, and forced out of the field no less than three different claimants, who persisted, till met by overwhelming contradiction. Her letter answering the silly stories about her being a factory-girl, and writing these very verses in a garrett, dripping with rain, or something of the sort, was truly refreshing, and all the more, that she kept her temper, and fore- bore to retaliate, when the gossips and slanderers were utterly defenceless. Much of her poetry is really exquisite, and she is constantly improving. Her natural touches too are indeed natural; and we could not well say more — un- PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 73 affected, sincere and sweet, as where she flushes up with the clumps of wild violets, and the singing-birds. A volume of her fugitive pieces appeared in Portland, just before she winged her way to a larger market, and before she married Akers the sculptor — Paul Akers — with whom she went abroad, buiying him at last in the heart of Italy. Twice widowed therefore, she has had a large allowance of that tramp- ling, which brings out the perfume from the lowliest and sweetest flowers. OUR PUBLIC HOUSES AND HOTELS are among the best in our country, and- therefore, among the best in the world ; for, notwithstanding the magnificence, and costliness, and magnitude of some hotels in Paris, London, Dresden, and Vienna, they have nothing over FALMOUTH HOTEL. sea to be compared with some of our American establishments, for quiet luxury, convenience, and adaptation to the wants of a people. Among those we have here, of which a further notice may be taken hereafter, are the following : THE FALMOUTH — OR BKOWN S HOTEL, having been built for Mr. J. B. Brown, at a prodigious outlay, when, after the destruction of Wood's marble palace, in the great fire, the business-men and large property-holders among us, appeared utterly discouraged, and no individ- ual could be found — nor even a company, to furnish what all were ready enough to acknowledge we most needed, in our endeavours to get up out of the ashes, and begin the world anew. At this time — and most timely was the movement — Mr. Brown stej^ped for- ward and without hesitation or flinching, undertook of himself and without help or co-operation, to build what is now called the "Falmouth," and to furnish it, with an outlay of nearly half a million. 74 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. And all this, lie has clone, and is already, we trust, begining to reap his returns. The hotel completed has a frontage on Middle-street of one hundred and fifty-three feet, by one hundred and seventy-four on Union — giving a super- ficial area of twenty-six thousand, six hundred and twenty-two feet. It is six stories on Middle and seven on Union-street, resting on a granite foundation, and built of Albert-stone, on Middle-street, and of pressed-brick with Albert-stone trimmings, iron columns and pilasters, on Union. It contains two hundred and forty rooms, and ten large, handsomely finished stores, or shops — we call them stores. The office is thirty by sixty feet, and sixteen feet high; the dining-room fifty-eight by seventy-two feet, and twenty-seven feet high, and believed to be the largest in New-England. Under the dining-hall is a large billiard-room, with eight tables. Two tubular boilers, built by the Portland Company, furnish the steam required for every purpose — for heating, washing and bathing. They have just introduced an elevator — and bathing-rooms are arranged on all the ijrincipal floors. More than eight hundred tons of the Albert-stone, quarried in Dorchester, N. B., brought here in the rough, prepared by C. M. Brainard, on West Commercial-street, and costing thirty thousand dollars, were used. The building was designed by Mr. Alexander, now of New- York, an architect of whom we have had occasion to speak before; the frescoing which is worthy of Pompeii or Herculanajum, was done by our townsman, C. J. Schumacher. The lessee is P. E Wheeler, of Boston. OUR PAIXTEKS — BECKETT. Mr. Beckett — Charles E. — as I have had occasion to say before, was among the earliest, if not absolutely the earliest of all our landscape painters. While yet a shop-boy with Dr. Coe, the druggist and apothecary. Exchange street, he was constantly trying his hand — and the patience of his employer — on all sorts of drawing, and grew very exact and precise. And then, after awhile, he came out with landscapes, which, not having a good eye for color, had the look of engravings ; the outlines and figures and composition being often worthy of high praise, while, for want of harmonious coloring, the pictures themselves, when completed, Avere unsatisfactory. Being very industrious and patient, however, Mr. Beckett managed to throw off quite a large number of paintings, which found favor among his not very particular friends. He has left a daughter, by the way, with some of the properties he lacked ; for she is really a fine colorist, and her drawings and paintings are full of promise. And sooth to say, we have quite a number of beginners and graduates, who will be sure of public favor, after awhile. Among these are Hudson, who has turned out a number of rich landscapes, PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 75 cabiuet-size, and several others, who are now waking np and hxboring with a l>urpose. Nor must we overlook our neighbor Cloudnian ; a very industrious, patient laborer, whose landscapes are altogether too hard and precise — too crude — from a want of the color-sense, though otherwise creditable enough. Mr. C. was in Paris a long while ago, and made some clever copies from the Louvre. THE UNITED-STATES HOTEL, standing at the junction of no less than four of our principal streets, with its 176 rooms, and large and costly additions and improvements, now in progress, the whole establishment being newly furnished, and comjjletely renovated UNITED STATES HOTEL. throughout, by the present lessee, Mr. T. "Walcott, who has acquired so high a reputation at the Mountains, has undergone many revolutions. Perhaps, a brief sketch of what this renowned Hotel has had to put up with, may not come in amiss here. Originally, it was a block of old fashioned three-story warehouses, fronting on Federal-street, and having but one store on Middle-street, fronting what is now called our Town-House, or the old City-Hall, and built in 1805, or thereabouts, I should say, by Dr. Coffin, father of the celebrated Mrs. Eichard Derby, who created such a sensation abroad, when presented to her majesty. Queen Char- lotte, of England. Long after this, having undergone all sorts of changes for the worse, it came into the hands of Mr. Charles Q. Clapp, at the time of our great land fever; and he, being a man of taste, with large means at his command, lost no time 76 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. in preparing it for a hotel — not for a tavern — a respectable and rather attrac- tive establishment; adding the portico as you see it now, enlarging the rooms, and converting the ground floor into small shops. After this, it was further enlarged, carried up another story, and became known far and wide as the "States" — or United States Hotel. Then it came into the hands of Mr. John W. Lane, who has uplifted it another story, by building a mansard roof, and added a large four-story brick building in the rear on Con- gress-street, so that now it is not only one of the largest, but one of the hand- somest ijublic houses in the city. OUB WRITERS — MR. BECKETT. Mr. Beckett — Sylvester B. — who has published no less than ten successive Directories for Portland, the last of which contains about four hundred pages, is the author of Hester, a narrative and descriptive poem of decided merit, which without being either sublime, or startling, is brimful and running over with touches of nature and truthfulness, OUR MANUFACTXJRERS — THE C. P. KIMBALL COMPANY. The carriages turned out by this company have a national reputation, so that we hear of them, abroad. The sleighs are marvels for strength, beauty and lightness, and what are called the "jump-seat carriages," a contrivance of the head manufacturer, Mr. Charles P. Kimball, late our democratic gubernatorial candidate, are enough to make you catch your breath, when you see them well under way. C. P. Kimball, President and general manager, John M. Gould, Treasurer. THE AGED BROTHERHOOD. This truly charitable association was incorporated Oct. 20, 1869. The qualification which probably distinguishes it from every other charity known among men, is that a member must be at least sixty-live — originally it was seventy — but as our elderly friends were growing impatient, and did not like the idea of waiting and ripening for three score and ten, the five years were flung aside, and the more youthful are welcomed with open arms. There were two hundred and thirty-six members in 1872 — and of these, thirty-two have died since the organization. Now the living amount to 250. The members pay one dollar a year only, and there has accumulated quite a promising, though not a large fund. So that, notwithstanding the charities, funeral expenses and other charges, on account of the poor brethren, we may look forward with a confident hope that the Institution will be assuredly blessed for our children, if not for our children's children. Dr. Charles Morse, President, with seven Vice-Presidents, one for each ward in the city; H. C. Barnes, Secretary, Elisha Trowbridge, Treasurer. PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 77 THE PREBLE HOUSE. Fronting on Congress-street, just where half-a-dozen thoroughfares come together in the very heart of the town, with its one hundred and seventy-six rooms ; just re-fitted from attic to cellar, and manned witli colored waiters. The transformation of Commodore Preble's private dwelling-house into a superb hotel, was the work of General Shepley, and Mr. H. N. Jose, another of our active business-men, who means to be, and well deserves to be, a million- iare. It is now in the hands of Mr. M. S. Gibson and George Waterhouse, with a reputation worth having. Originally planned by an Italian architect, and built for the late Commodore Edward Preble, about the year 1800, but never occupied by him, nor by his family, until after his death, it was properly considered at one time as among PKEBLE HOUSE. the stateliest of all our private habitations, and we had even then, not a few that made strangers open their eyes, when they passed through Portland. It stood alone, fronting on Preble-street, with a large yard on Congress-street, and a garden, full of magnificent trees — after they had got their growth, — run- ing aAvaydown to Cumberland-street. While occupied by Mrs. Preble, the front was only about one-third of what we have now, additions being built on each side, as well as on the rear. In the height of our land fever, if I do not mistake, or soon after, the house and grounds were leased by Mr. Jose and General Shepley, our present United States Judge — another of our sagacious, clear-headed, long-sighted men, who seem specially gifted for such purposes, and converted into the hotel, as it now stands, flourishing and well-known everywhere. 78 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. OUR AUTHORS — D. C. COLESWORTHY, one of the most amiable, persevering, and, on several accounts, decidedly successful of our writers, who are counted among the poets. But much, everything perhaps, will depend upon the definition of poetry. No two persons ever agree upon the subject. Poetry, of course, may be serious or playful — with the playfulness of old age or youth — sublime or tender, and therefore questions will constantly arise, and a difference of opinion prevail among the well-educated, as to what constitutes poetry. Tried by one of these towering standards, Colesworthy is not a poet — at best, only a versifier. But, if tried by another and somewhat lower standard, like that which settles the rank of Dr. Watts, Wesley, Mrs. Barbauld, or Hannah Moore, Colesworthy deserves the reputation of a poet. Some of his little i^ieces are tender, touching and beautiful — and of a char- acter to be remembered, and many of them have been republished abroad, with evident favor. To him, I have always understood, until within a few days, we owed our Transcript, a family newspaper of uncommon merit, now in the hands of Mr. El well — but of late, we are told that the Transcript originated with Mr. Charles P. Ilsley, one of our Portland editors and story-tellers, and one of our best. Soon after the Transcript appeared, we had occasional fugitive pieces, and after awhile, " Opening Buds," and then, year after year, other collections of what may be called his harvesting, many of which have appeared in our lead- ing religious and secular papers and magazines ; and just now, since the death of his wife, with whom he had lived forty years or so — one of the most amiable women of her day — he has begun, we hear, another series which will soon be issued. To Mr. GriflSn we are indebted for the following list of Colesworthy's works: 1. Address to the People of Color in Portland, 1838. 2. Happy Deaths, 1840. 3. Touch at the Times, 1840. 4. Chronicles of Casco Bay, 1850. ,5. Old Bureau, 18(31. 0. Group of Children, 18G5. 7. Hints on Common Politeness, 1867. 8. All the Year, 1871. 9. Opening Buds — omitted by Mr. Griffin. 10. Common Incidents, also omitted. And he has now in preparation. Master Chase's Scholars, which they say will soon be put to press. The modesty of the man, his exceeding conscientiousness and gentleness of temper, which endear him to all who are personally acquainted with him, will render his contributions to our literature acceptable, come how and when they may, and we may hope that his life may be lengthened to a ripe old age, and his great usefulness greatly augmented. PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 79 OUB MUSICIAXS — KOTZSCHMAR, AGAIN. Since the very brief notice of tliis exceedingly modest and highly-gifted artist, which the reader has already passed through, we have been able to gather quite a large number of isolated facts, which deserve to be iinown and remem- bered, concerning, as they do, a man so popular, and so highly esteemed, not only here, but in our larger cities, and in fact, wherever his works are known. Being almost the only musical comjioser among us, who, if not American by birth, has been here from his youth, or early manhood, we take, and have a right to take, especial pride in his manifestations. And now, a word or two of his doings and history: Mr. Kotzschmar was born in Finterwalde, Prussia, July 4th, 1829. Hence, probably, his American predilections, and general independence of character and thought. He studied composition, it appears, with that greatly celebrated master, Julius Otto, of Dresden, and came to this country in November, 1848, at the age of only nineteen, therefore, and to Portland, July 1, 1840, — so that he opened upon us in all the glory and the flush of early manhood, and from the first, has been well understood and warmly encouraged here. The following are among the best known of his Portland compositions : 1. Te Deum, in F. 2. Te Deum, in B flat. ANTHEMS. 1. Kejoice in the Lord ! 2. Deus Misereatur. 3. Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! 4. Benedictus in E flat. PIANO PIECES. 1. Aurora Borealis. 2. Arcturus. 3. Romance, in A flat. 4. Magic Top Galop. 5. Trois Mazurkas. He has also had charge of the First-Parish organ, ever since April, 1851, and has had uninterrupted practice meanwhile, as conductor of our well-known and somewhat celebrated Haydn Association, ever since it sprang into life, five years ago. Such being a part of the labors, and such the result of what has been effected by this amiable enthusiast, and the musical reputation of our people being so largely dependent upon what Mr. Kotzschmar has already achieved, and will, if lie lives long, as we trust and believe he may, hereafter achieve, in the musi- cal world, we are sorry that we cannot give him a page or two more in this, our little Register of Illustrations. As a teacher of music, let us add, that we have seldom encountered one so 80 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. faithful, zealous and patient, and very few to be compared with him as a teacher. Full of quiet, conscientious enthusiasm, and overflowing with inward music, where music is wanted, whether solemn or playful, whether for dance or prayer, he never disappoints you, and never troubles the ear, or the heart. P. S. In addition to the foregoing, we have among what the author himself may regard as trifles — mere ebullitions of the hour — the following: 1. Barcarole Quintette. 2. Benedictus, Sacred Quartette, 3. When Death is Coming Near. 4. Merry Christmas Bells. 5. List, my Heart. 6. Come forth and bring your Garlands. 7. Fairy's Evening Song. 8. Chocolate-Drop Polka Eedowa. 9. A Song for Easter-Day. Judge by these of what the man is capable. " From grave to gay, from lively to severe," you find him always at home, and always prepared. OUB AUTHORS — MRS. ELIZABETH OAKSMITH, decidedly one of the most engaging and attractive of all our American writers. Widow of the late Seba Smith, originator of the Major Downing letters, which were so gloated over in the days of Andrew Jackson, and so shamefully imitated and plagarized all over the country, she, herself, took to quite another style of composition. After some prose writings, which appeared in her husband's paper, the Courier, of Portland, and others which were issued in New York, while her husband was a colaborateur in the Express, this gifted woman gave birth to the Sagamore of Saco and to her Sinless Child — a poem of singular merit, and from that day to this, we find her constantly writing for the magazines and newspapers, and occasionally lecturing upon such questions as Woman' s-Eights, and Woman-Suffrage. What she may be doing just now, it were hard to conjecture ; but this we know, that she cannot be idle, and whether it be "the night-mare moanings of Ambition's breast," anxiety for independence, or a desire to do the greatest possible good to the greatest number of her sex — who are in bondage without knowing it — in bondage, not only to their corsets and millinery and dress- makers, and to the fashions of the day, but to their husbands, and sweet-hearts and children, -we may be sure that she will do honor to her sex, and go far to " vindicate the ways of God to man." OUR OPERA-HOUSE. Since all the foregoing was in type, our old Music-Hall has been taken pos- PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 81 session of by Mr. Ward, with a fine company, and w^liat may be considered a large company for such a population as Ave have, and converted into an Opera-House, which opens this week, and promises all we can desire in the way of musical demonstration, for the multitude. P. S. It was opened last night, Sept. 7th, and triumphantly, with a crowded house, and a general outcry of admiration. STATE-STREET. Beautiful and picturesque as the engraved representation of State-street is, it can give the stranger no just idea of the large, stately buildings, and princely LOOKING DOWN STATE STREET. gardens, the Protestant, Catholic, and the State-street churches — all of them being hidden by the trees, a double row of our native elms, with here and there a horse-chestnut or maple, running along on both sides. The street is one hundred feet wide, and the mansions, with here and there an exception, large and showy, with deep gardens in the rear. The house you see on the right, stands at the junction of Pine-street, State- street, New State-street, and Congress-street, and has but lately assumed the appearance it now wears, having fallen into the hand of a liberal and spirited merchant, Mr. Frederick Storer — who tore out the whole inside of what was considered a very handsome house, when first built, forty years ago, having a 82 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. granite basement, of ashlar, with trimmed edges, pressed-brick and balconies; and re-constructed another, and very tasteful building, of which yovi get only a glimpse, though enough, perhaps, to justify what has been said of it. On the whole, therefore. State-street may be regarded as one of the hand- somest to be seen anywhere, either in this country or over-sea. A double row of large trees running nearly the whole length of it, on both sides, are of themselves unlike anything we meet with elsewhere. And then, if you stand just where the pictured-street opens, you have a view of the White- Mountains on your right, and a glimpse or suggestion of the sea, a fringe of the Atlantic on the left, hardly a rifle-shot away, to encourage and cheer you in your path — in short, look where you will, you are sure of a good penny-worth. From all the upper, and not a few of the lower windows of all the houses, you have a view of the sea, of Cape-Elizabeth, and the numberless islets of Casco-Bay, with steamers, large ships, and fishing-craft, coming and going by scores, and often by hundreds, when the skies are darkened with a coming storm ; and everywhere, on every side, a magnificent panorama, from tlie house- tops, unobstructed along the whole sweep of the horizon. OUR PRIVATE MANSIONS OR DWELLING-HOUSES. A large number of these are of such a character, almost princely in their size and appendages, with extensive grounds, large gardens and out-buildings, that, if we desire to do Portland justice, they must not be overlooked. About the year 1806, our wealthiest men — merchants, mechanics and lawyers — began to build mansions for themselves out of all proportion to the size of the town — mansions which have been divided within a few years, and are still both large and showy. Among these were the Arthur McLellan-house, on High-street, now called the Wingate-house, though occupied by the widow of Mr. Charles Q. Clapp, a daughter of Mrs. Wingate, who was a daughter of Maj. General Dearborn, of revolutionary renown. And then Ave had the Stephen McLellan-house, nearly opposite on High-street, and High-Sheriff Hunnewell's house, on State street, which, after awhile, came into the possession of our late Chief-justice Mellen, and then of another greatly distinguished fellow-citizen, William Pitt Fessenden, and now belongs to his son William. And then, there was the James D. Hopkins-house, on Danforth, now in possession of Mr. H. P. Storer, and greatly improved, and the Joseph Cross-mansion, also on State-street, with its large and beautiful garden, which underwent a variety of transforma- tions for the better, while belonging to the late Stover Little, Esquire, and is now owned by Mr. Cyrus S. Clark ; and the two large, square, frame-houses, built by the two Washburns, house-cai-penters and brothers, one on York-street, and another on Cumberland-street, which was found large enough for two, while the late Judge Whitman lived there, and the Preble-house and the Matthew Cobb-house, at the head of High-street, and some others we have no room for. But these, after all, were but old-fashioned, roomy houses, without archi- tectural pretensions, though some had porticos, and heavy entablatures after a PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 83 time, as they changed ownership, and not to be compared with scores of private mansions which have sprung up, as of themselves, along the approaches to Bramhall's-hill. There is not, I verily believe, so many separate, large, handsome and beauti- ful houses, to be found anywhere, in a city five times the size of Portland, as you may find just here, and along the crown of Bramhall. In fact, one gets puzzled and bewildered, who ventures up into that neighborhood, in the even- ing, or by a dim light, so strange, and so unlike the Portland he used to be ac- quainted with, fifteen or twenty years ago. And to whom are we indebted — mainly indebted — for these improvements? It is but simple justice to acknowledge that, but for Mr. J. B. Brown, whose grounds, buildings, hedges, gardens, trees, and shrubbery, are but the growth of a few years, where all was barrenness and hopeless desolation — but for this remarkable man, we never should have had this accumulation of noble — we might say — of almost princely habitations, clustered along the brow, and en- circling the whole neighborhood of that elevation, being set in the very centre of a magnificent panorama, stretching from horizon to horizon, and seciu'ed from all encroachment and obstruction forever, and ever. But for him, looking to what the land was — a deep, sandy soil, covered with low juniper-bushes, or savin, and swampy for the most part, with not a tree to be seen, except a few elms, in what was called the Vauglian Burial-Ground, we should have had either no buildings at all, or only here and there a one-stoiy house — a cucum- ber lodge, or a make-shift. And why do I say this ? Be patient with me for a few minutes, and I will give you my reasons. About five and twenty, or perhaps thirty years ago, Mr. Brown called on me to enter with him ui^on the purchase of the land knoM'n as that belonging to the Paine heirs, and lying all about the top of Bramhall's Hill. I had bargained for a large jjortion of it once, in the height of the land fever, but owing to a law we had at the time, which enabled creditors to enter a secret attachment, I asked for a guaranty, and was offered that of Mr. Ma- son Greenwood, a man of large proi)erty at the time, it was generally believed, but I had my misgivings, and the negotiation fell through, just in time to save me from great loss — for I had planned a cluster of cottages for that region — ow- ing to the sudden and hopeless failure of Greenwood, when, after a thorough enquiry, I ascertained that the land was all under secret attachments from the first, as I had feared. I told Mr. Brown my experience, but felt obliged to decline his proposition; having in fact, too many irons in the fire just then, Cape-Cottage, and three or four granite, syenite and gneiss-quarries, among the number, though advising him to go into it forthwith. Wliereupon, Mr. Brown, who was never disheartened, after having made up his mind to a great undertaking, adventured alone, and has already realized a large fortune by it, for which he deserves our most hearty thanks and ac- knowledgments, since he has wholly changed that part of the town, and made it impossible for the neighborhood to be dishonored, or belittled, by cheap trump 84 PORTLAND ILLUSTBATED. ery dwelling-houses, or market-garden lodges, or tumble-down shanties. About this time, it was, while we were talking over the cost of living and our household expenses, and about my own carriage and horses, I asked him why he did not set up a carriage, instead of whisking about in "a one boss shay," to which he replied, showing it was not so much the expense that deterred him, though I had found it cost me about as much as it would to support a small family, as that he didn't like to set people talking. And yet, within a few years, this very man, established a vast sugar-house, which cost him, as I think he told me himself, over ten thousand dollars of dead loss the first year, owing to the stupidity or ignorance of the principal overseer, who had been warmly recommended to him, though he prospered greatly afterward, up to the time of the fire ; became the President of our largest savings-bank, and of at least half a dozen wealthy or charitable corporations, the largest property holder among us, I dare say, a large stockholder in our best railways, not a few of them having originated with him and some other full-blooded associates, having blocks and stores in all our business centres, and a banking-liouse now in full op- eration, with his two sons, Pbilip and John, for partners, both business-men, and both sure to be distinguished hereafter in the business-world, as John, the gen- eral, was, in our late war, where he was shot through the body, or both legs, while in the trenches or I'econnoitering, and taken off the field to die a most painful death, as they feared. Biit he disappointed them. And now, the father pays a tax of twenty thousand dollars on his individual account, and wholly apart from his co-partnership, as a banker. So much for indomitable jjerseverance, and what other men call rashness, or wilfulness. But all these large houses, though much admired at the time — Avhat were they in comparison Avith what we now see covering the top, and all the hand- somest approaches to Bramhall's-Hill? Anybody familiar with Portland but a few years ago, would be likely to get bewildered, after passing up Pine-street, or through the Arsenal-grounds — a per- fect labyrinth — on his way to Mr. Brown's charming villa, with its liberal out- lyings, broad carriage and foot-paths, large trees and beautiful shrubbery, gar- dens and out-buildings, with cast-iron statuary about the entrance; and a collec- tion of capital pictures within, he having the only gallery in our part of the world. And here we may as well mention, that among his largest and best pic- tures is one by Mr. Ropes, who published a fine little affair on perspective, and went from Portland as a taker of daguereotypes, which were altogether superior to the common average of the day, and is now well established in Italy as a landscape-painter ; and another by Tilton, about eight-and-a-half feet by four, giving us a view of the Lago di Garda, with a castle, fortress, a small encampment of soldiers, a group of well-arranged figui'es, and a fine view of the beautiful lake itself. Since then, Deering-street has been opened, and is now lined on both sides for a long way, three-quarters of a mile perhaps, with handsome houses of a moderate size and moderate elevation ; and we have also, in different parts of the town, a hundred or two of larger pretensions, like the following : PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 85 The Morse-House on Danfortli and Park-streets, built of brown free-stone, and somewhat of the Italian type, but very handsome, very, and a building that would be a credit to any city ; and others we have no room for. And liere, it may be but fair to mention a very agreeable fact in the history of this gentleman. Years ago, Avhen he was but a young man, just entering upon life, and living in North-Yarmouth, the story goes, that, happening to see a low, unpretending cottage, with large trees, belonging to the Paine heirs, just where the beautiful mansion referred to now stands, he announced his intention of owning that property at some future day ; since then, he went to New Orleans, got possession of a magnificent-hotel there, made quite a for- LOOKING UP MIDDLE-STREET FROM THE POST-OFFICE. tune, bought the property he had set his heart upon, tore away the cottage, and built up the chateau at a cost of nearly one hundred thousand dollars — more or less. UP MIDDLE-STREET, FEOM THE POST-OFFICE. Here we have one of the most effective and satisfying views. Just compare it with Middle-street, befoi*e the fire, and you will see at a glance, how much we have to be thankful for, and how much to justify our conscientious bragging. Instead of our low, brick and frame stores of the ugliest type, irregular and slouching, with here and there a granite-front for the basement-story, we have what you see in the plate, large, high, and very handsome blocks, with hotels and boarding-houses of Albert-stone, marble, and gneiss, of the finest texture and choicest color. 86 FOBTLANB ILLUSTRATED. OUK WEITERS — "WILLIAM WILLIS, One of the most patient, conscientious and itnfatigiiable of our Portland Literati. The following list from Griffin's "Press of Maine," a -work of great value, will give an idea of what Mr. Willis had but begun to do. 1. Extract from Rev. Thomas Smith's Journal, from 1720, to 1788— appeared in 1821, and again in 1849. 2. Journals of Thos. Smith and S. Deane, with a brief outline of Portland histoiy, 1849. 3. Introductory Address before the Maine Historical Society, 1855-57. 4. History of Portland from 1832, to 1864 — 928 pp., second edition 1865 — Bailey & Noyes. 5. History of the Law, the Courts and the Lawyers of Maine, 712 pp. 1863. 6. Language of the Abnaki Indians. Maine Historical collection, IV. 7. Editor of the first six volumes of Maine Historical-Society Reports. 8. Memoir of Stephen Longfellow. 9. Scotch-Irish Immigration to Maine. Pami^hlet. 10. Memoir of Henry Jenks. Regarded not so much as an historian, but simply as a trustworthy annalist, wholly destitute of imagination, with not a few strong prejudices, which he could not always forget, or smother, Mr. Willis deserves our heartiest com- mendation not only for what he has done, but for what he has failed to do. OUK AUTHOES — EEV. ASA CUMJIINGS, D. D. One of the very best among our old-fixshioned theologians, preachers and writers. To him, we are indebted, after the Rev. Asa Rand, and Rev. John L. Parkhurst, that is from 1826 to 1855, after which it passed into the hands of Mr. C. A. Lord, and then into those of the i:)resent editor, Mr. Snow, for the larger part of the forty years which have distinguished the career of our Cliristian Mirror. Conscientious and fearless, bold and generous, the Rev. Asa Cum- mings fought the battles of temperance — of "temperance in all things," — and of general reform through the whole of a long, laborious life. One little fact within my personal knowledge may give a better idea of the man's inward character, than whole pages of newspaper eulogy. We had, many years ago, a teacher of our young ladies' High-school, Solomon Adams. Having run ashore, he sold his house, a handsome, four-story, brick house, on Spring street, to Dr. Cummings, at what was then felt and acknowledged to be a liberal price, and removed to Boston. Getting rather embarassed tliere, he was looking round one day to raise quite a sum for immediate relief. He succeeded so far, that all he had to do was to step into the lender's office and take the money. Failing to do so, the gentleman called on Mr. Adams to ask why he had not called for the money. "Well," said Mr. A. — "I have been able to do without it, providentially," and then "he up and told him" how it hap- pened. He said that Dr. Cummings had dropped in just when he, Mr. A., was about going for the money promised him, and after saying that he had just got PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 87 througli witli the examination of his books for the last year, and had found himself better off than he expected, and therefore proposed to pay Mr. Adams quite a sum above what they had bargained for, to the satisfaction of both at the time of the purchase ; to this Mr. Adams demurred, but Dr. Cummings persisted, and the money was actually paid over, to the unspeakable relief of Mr. Adams, upon the ground that the original cost of the house had been much more than the price agreed upon between them, and agreed upon without haggling or chaffing; but then it had fallen upon his hands, and was now coming up again. "Wliat say you to that, Christian brethren ? While editing the Christian Mirror, most faithfully and successfully, so that it found its way all over the country, Dr. Cummings found time to prepare a memoir of Dr. Payson, with a selection of his sermons, in three volumes, octavo, six hundred pages each, which appeared in 1849. Also, a memoir of Marion L. Hurd, of Fryeburg — 18 mo., and a sermon de- livered before the Maine Missionary Society, June, 1828. He died in 1856, aged 65, on his way from California, whither he had been ^0 visit a daughter, and was buried in the deep seas, two days out of Aspinwall. OUK "WKITERS — CHARLES S. DAVIES. Without being professional authors, or volumnious writers, we have had among us — and have now — not a few men of decided character in literature, who, like our friend Davies, wrote just enough to make you wish he had been somewhat less devoted to the law, and somewhat more given to literature. With a large store of scholarship, and a severe classical taste, Mr. Davies might have left something behind him worth treasuring as a book, instead of two or three pamphlets. But he gave an address at Fryeburg, on the first cen- tennial celebration of Lovell's Fight, published in 1825. And a discourse on the death of Adams and Jefferson, 1826, and an address before the Alumni of Bowdoin-collcge, 1835. OUK WRITERS — REV. SAMUEL DEANE, D. D. This old-fashioned, square-trotting theologian of other days, to whom we are indebted for the Diary of Rev. Thomas Smith, his immediate predecessor, known as "Smith's Journal," gave being to the New-England Farmer, in 1T90, 332 pages, 8 vo., and to a sermon at the funeral of that predecessor, in 1795, 8vo. OUR WRITERS — MRS. CLARA BAENES MARTIIS', daughter of the late Phineas Barnes, a distinguished lawyer and well-known editor, of whom a brief notice will be found in another part of this record, has given to the people a charming little book, about Mount Desert and its pictur- esque surroundings, published by Loring, Short & Harmon. Also, the Little Nortons, a very clever child's book. 88 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. Also, the History of a Cat, unhoused by our great fire ; full of spriglitliness and playfulness. Mrs. Martin is an exceedingly pleasant writer, and must not be satisfied with these outlays : We have a right to ask more of her. CARKIAGE-DKIVES ABOUND POKTLAND. Go where you will in this country, or over-sea, and you will not often meet with a greater variety of pleasant, romantic and picturesque carriage-drives, than about this greatly undervalued, greatly misunderstood, if not greatly mis- represented Portland. If you take the easterly sea-shore road, and keep along by the old Falmouth coast line, always in full view of Casco-Bay, with its numberless islands, you will find such pictures at every turn, as are not likely to be forgotten by a lover of landscape-scenery, associated with marine-views ; and along this road through Cumberland, running to Freeport, North Yarmouth, Brunswick and Bath, you may ramble for half a day, or a day, with a certainty of being abun- dantly rewarded — not that there are any mountains or cataracts, castles or vol- canoes to be met with, or anything indeed, but the calm, tranquil and sooth- ing associations of untroubled country life, with the open sea and the blue heavens to lure you along your way. Or, if you prefer it, you can take the bridge-road to Cape-Elizabeth and go "rioting in foam and spray," along the rugged cliffs tliat run from Cape-Cot- tage to the first, or head-light, and thence to the two-lights, and so on to Front's Neck, Old-Orchard and Orchard-Beach, where a swift succession of unfinished, rough pictures — or sketches — burst upon you at every stopping place, in decid- ed contrast to the scenery along Falmouth foreside. Or, you may launch away toward Saccarappa, Gorhani, or Deering, or Old Falmouth, abounding with huge trees, and pleasant water-courses, and sunny lakelets, with here and there a primeval wilderness, which might well be mis- taken for a park — a nobleman's i^ark perhaps — like that of the Deering- woods, out of which you emerge, all at once, into the city of Portland itself. In a word, go which way you will, out of town, or toward the country, or the islands, your horses' heads will be sure to lead you into something out of the common way, and well worth seeing, though they may not lead you into any outburst of extravagant enthusiasm. Eocks and woods, and tinkling rivulets, pretty good farms and farm-houses, and a rough landscaj^e, with here and there a magnificent elm, or huge oak, or a cluster of birches, sumachs, and black cherry-trees, and a great variety of ce- dars, pines, hemlocks, with stone-walls half-buried in roses, overrun with wild vines, and flanked with golden rods, which Salvator-Rosa himself would not disdain to deal with, even though he were mustering his banditti, and bringing out the masses of rock, as if they were about falling upon you. But a brief description is hardly worth remembering, and we have no time for more ; come and judge for yourself. And then, if you are not satisfied, and want something to startle and aston- PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 89 isli, just run up to tlie Notch of our White-Mountains, and see if that will not make you catch your breath ; or along the valley of the Saco, toward the Fran- conia treasure-house of rich minerals, and thence — anywhere — into New Hami^shire, Vermont, or the Canadas, and learn, perhaps for the first time, that you have lived to some purpose, and have no time to lose, if instead of go- ing abroad, you are disposed to get acquainted with the wonders and glories of your own great country. We have a plenty of Niagaras, natural bridges, and mountain-gorges waiting to be discovered and talked about. CONGKESS-SQUARE, LOOKING DOWN HIGH-STREET. Among the most beautiful and characteristic features of Portland, are the forest-avenues ; long, wide streets, with large trees on both sides, over-arching LOOKING DOWN HIGH-STREET FUOM CONGRESS-SQUARE. the distant perspective, and losing themselves at a vanishing point, where they seem to enter an aboriginal wilderness. Nothing can be more out of the com- mon way; nothing more likely to mislead a stranger into the l)elief that these are openings into our native woods, untroubled, unvisited and improfaned, although, M-ithin a bow-shot or two of the large, handsome buildings, churches, and houses, you may see on both sides of the street. RAPID GROWTH OF PORTLAND. Since this little book was got under way, the following items have come to my 90 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. knowledge, and tliey are introduced here, partly to justify our extravagant expectations, and partly to quiet the forebodings and misgivings of our Boston friends, who are but just beginning to find out where to look for Portland on the map, having left us off entirely from a late railroad chart, just as they took the liberty of closing our harbor with ice eveiyyear, while a delegation of their business-men were laboring to convince our Canadian brethren, that our Atlantic & St. Lawrence Railway could never be built, or, if built, would never pay, and that theirs — even theirs — which has since so miserably failed — was the only hoi^eful, or justifiable route of connection with the British prov- inces. The first of these items, it will be seen, refers to only one, out of the many railways now in operation here, coming and going at the rate of sixty-five trains a day ; and a marvelous change having taken place in the opinions entertained against us at the time mentioned, a large part of the Maine-Central stock is now held by Bostonians, these very Bostonians who stood so much in our way, and refused to co-operate with us in our day of trouble, though, we and our fathers had been tributary to Boston for many generations, and were always her best customers. "In the one hundred and thirty towns, off the line, that do business wholly or in part over the Maine-Central railroad, are thirty-six million dollars, nominal value of property, or fifty-three million dollars, real value. In the fifty-eight towns traversed by the road, there are, one hundred and one million dollars nominal, or one hundred and fifty millions real value of property; making the grand total two hundred and three million dollars. The estimated real value of the property of the entire State is three hundred and forty-eight millions." And then we have other most encouraging items, whereby our friends of the West will see what may be effected hereafter, from their business relations with Portland. It is borrowed from one of our city papers — I know not which, and was signed Ontario. PORTLAND AND THE WEST. "Messrs. Baring Brothers & Co., Glenns and other bankers of England, are buying the stock of the Atlantic & St. Lawrence-railroad. Holders of this stock can sell to net them one hundred and five dollars i^er share. The writer has received this ijrice. This is indeed a very great rise in this stock — many sales having been made as low as fifty dollars, and some at less. This important rise and the very large expenditures made here by the managers of the Grand Trunk-railroad, and the change of grade, are influencing nearly every port in England to share in the business growing out of the changes, and to estab- lish lines of steamers running to Portland, connecting with this great road. The managers are pressing these improvements with great vigor, so that there will be receiving and delivery docks for seven of the largest class of steamers this winter — cars delivering their freight directly on board the steamers. Some of the steamers coming will take three hundred car-loads of provisions PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 91 and grain — or thirty thousand barrels. Such large and increasing imports and exports will necessitate a very great increase of water-front in a few years, extending quite to Long-wharf. The managers here have any amount of English capital for whatever expenditures they may choose to make. The last steamer brought one thousand tons of English steel i-ails." EVERGKEEN CEMETEKY. The fashion, which has been growing upon our people, of honoring the dead, and making their resting-place an object of pilgrimage, devout and sincere, ''•^ ■^i^Moasaj'^ji^ 1 EMTEAXCE TO EVEKGKEEX-CEMETEEY. ever since Mount-Auburn, and Greenwood, began to flower into sorrowful attractions, we have followed here. While the buried, whose dust had been gathered from the beginning of their time with our forefathers, must far outnumber the living, even at tliis day, we have been satisfied with two narrow enclosures, one at each end of tlie city : The first and earliest, on Munjoy-Hill, having been over-crowded for a 92 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. whole generation, while the second has but begun to be a place of large and quiet repose, where the "wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest." Of late however, and within the last few years, we have begun to ask our- selves if such hiding-places were altogether creditable to us, or worthy of our progenitors and compatriots, and the result was inevitable. We have secured and enclosed over one hundred acres of land in Deering, formerly Westbrook, within two miles of the town, full of attractions, with trees, waters, plentiful shrubbery, and the varying undulations of surface, which render natural scenery so attractive. We have laid out winding paths and carriage-roads, with hedges and monuments, and beautiful enclosures, of such a character, that the grounds have become a great attraction to visitors, and are often crowded with strangers, hour after hour, toward night-fall ; and we have established a line of horse-cars which run thither regularly every half hour. The receiving-lodge is ample, and must continue to be so for fifty years. The moniunents are simple and striking — unostentatious and imiiressive. To Mr. Eamsey and Mr. Fox, we are largely indebted for the present aspect of these grounds ; the decorations, flowers, trees, by-paths and shrubbery, having been carefully and systematically planned and pressed forward, year after year, as they were at Mount- Auburn, twenty-five years ago, by the late Gen. A. S. Dear- born, who seemed to have a sort of intuition toward such work. In a word, Evergreen Cemetery is worthy of all that can be said of it, and our God's-acre is no longer a place to be ashamed of, or sorry for. OUR AUTHORS — MRS. MARGARET J. M. SWEAT. This very clever woman, who continually reminds one of Mrs. George Grote, a contributor to the Westminister-Review, as Mrs. Sweat is to our North American-Review, has written and published the following books. Ethel's Love-Life — a story of considerable merit, and supposed to be some- what auto-biographical. High-Ways and By-ways, a book of travels, or wanderings, written as people of good sense and good intentions talk in this world. And not long ago, Mrs. Sweat, who is by constitution, a great admirer of George Sands, wrote a somewhat "lengthy" critique on that modern chevalier, D'Eon, Avith a patient, general analysis of his character, for which in due time she had a written acknowledgement from the lady herself. THE PORTLAND COMPANY. This large and prosperous establishment sprang up at the time of our open- ing the Atlantic & St. Lawrence Railway — now getting to be international, and perhaps inter-oceanic. They turn out locomotive engines and tenders, marine engines, stationary en" gines, sugar-mills, cars, etc., etc. ; and their work enjoys the highest reputation PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 93 throughout the land — orders coming from a distance very often, and some- times for a large number of engines or cars. FIRST PAKISII CHURCH — UNITARIAN. So called from having been the first church — or meeting-house —planted here —for the earliest of our fore-fathers had a horror of churches, and by way of distinction, like the followers of George Fox, called their places of worship FIRST PARISH CHURCH. Meeting-Houses, just as they do to this day, while their brethren of the Epis- copal faith, persist in denying their right to have a church, without a bishop, anywhere, as something preposterous or inconguous. Up to IGGl, our people were without any established spiritual guide, and were only gathered from time to time, under a decree of the General-Court, "en- joiniiig them to meet together on the Lord's day for their mutual edification 94 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. and furtherance in the knowledge and fear of the Lord, by reading God's word, by the labors of known and orthodox divines, singing of psalms and praying together, or such other ways as the Lord shall enable them, till the fa- vor of God shall so far smile upon them, as to give them better and more pub- lic means for their edification." In the following May, these prayers were answered, and they had a preacher, "a6?e and orthodox," but he soon withdrew. And then followed two Episcopa- lians, Gibson and Jordan, and then there came another decree from the Gener- al Court of Massachusetts in July, 1860, commanding them to "seek out and provide themselves with an able and orthodox minister, by the 20th of Septem- ber following, under a penalty of fifty pounds," to be paid unto the ministry of the next town, yearly, "during their destitution." Notwithstanding all this, however, the first meeting-house had been set up in 1740, at the junction of Middle and India streets — one story — and without glass ; after awhile this building became the town-house, and then a school- house, up to 1774, when it disappeared. In 1783, after the war of Independence, we had only two religious societies, the First Parish and the Episcopal — now we have no less than thirty-five, and perhaps forty, if we count all associations for worship. From 1719 to 1787, we had for the minister of our First Parisli Church, the Rev. Thomas Smith, whose diary we have been so familiar with, being followed by that of Dr. Samuel Deane, his coadjutor and successor up to the time of Dr. Nichols. The church, as originally built, was of the long-established inflexible type, with a projecting tower and belfry, and a spire sufficiently consiiicuous to ren- der it an object of interest to our mariners for a long way out. The pews were high-backed, so that you could only see the top of your next neighbor's head and shoulders, uncushioned and unwarmed, but panelled, so that upon some of these panels, which came into the possession of Charles Codraan, when they broke up the old wooden-building and began the present stone-edifice, many of his most beautiful paintings are to be found, for Charles had a hankering for the antique and the mysterious, and was not only a desperate antiquarian, but a great enthusiast. I, myself, happen to have two of these landscapes, on the old First-Parish panels. It will be observed, that in all the extracts given from the records of the Gen- eral Court of Massachusetts, and from the proceedings of the council, the First Parish was emphatically and vehemently orthodox — whatever may then have been understood by that cabalistic word, as if to i^rovide against one at least, of the many inevitable changes that occiir in the history of churches. But Dr. Deane, it was said and believed at least, was no better than an Armenian — was that orthodox? — and Dr. Nichols, his co-adjutor, was, at best, only a liberal, conscientious Unitarian, and now we have Dr. Hill, one of the ablest of our theological corps, a downright, unqualified Unitarian, of a still more hopeful type. Are these orthodox ? And the church where they minis- tered before him, and where he now ministers — is uhat orthodox? and if not, pray what earthly use can there be in legislating about creeds, dogmas, and church governments ? PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 95 The present rough-stone edifice, though plain to iigliness, occupies the original site of the First-Parish Church, and on the whole, is a very respect- able affair. Built of a gneiss, quarried in the neighborhood, and according to the ancient type, with tower, belfry and spire, just in the middle of the frontage on Congress-street, what have we to complain of? Is it not most assuredly orthodox ? Thoroughly and beautifully finished within, stuccoed and frescoed, with comfortable pews, charmingly upholstered, and with the conveniences that drowsy hearers require, the First-Parish Church deserves to be spoken of with bated breath. It was here in the gallery of this church, that our Kotzsch- mar began a career as organist, which has continued, without interruption for years. The music of the old First-Parish, has been our boast from about the year 1808, At the time of Dr. Nichols' entry upon the stage here, out of which a long and bitter controversy grew up, such was the amiable temper of the man, and such the influence of his quiet example, that a sudden revolution took place in some of our daily habits — in horsemanship for example, for he sat in the sad- dle as nobody else did, in our part of the world, riding with straightened legs of portentous length, sticking out like a pair of compasses. I remember it well, and I remember the admiration he excited, being a scholar and a gentleman, just out of a theological school, and fresh from the riding-lessons of Eoleston. He had many imitators, even among those who had no patience with him as a preacher of unitarianism and brotherly love ; and so the controversy raged at our religous meetings, at our firesides, and by the street-corners. How strange ! Here we are, all of us, under sentence of death, and only waiting for execution, which is sure to come, and almost always unseasonably and unexpectedly — and yet, we are unforgiving, intolerant and bigoted, one toward another; for- geting that "in our Father's house there are mansions;" and that if so, there must be many paths leading to them. Let us be charitable therefore, and be hopeful to the last, believing and trusting in Him, whose mercy endureth forever. JOHN A. POOR. Among the foremost of our leading men, this gentleman deserves a more lengthened notice than we have room for. It is undoubtedly true, that, to no man — not even to our friend John B. Brown, does Portland owe so much of her growing prosperity, and hopefulness for all future time, as to John A. Poor ; a connection, by the way, of Mr. Brown himself, a brother of Mrs. Poor having married a sister of Mrs. Brown. Perhaps it may not be considered obtrusive or untimely, if we should give a slight, preliminary sketch of Mr. Poor, showing what he was before he became a rail-way magnate, and how he managed to break away in the maturity of his strength, while practicing law at Bangor, with great success, from the associ- ates of his early manhood. 96 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. I had never known Mr. Toor, personally, beyond what I gathered in a hurried interview, soon after I had opened a law-office in Portland, about 1828 or 30 ; but one morning, while I was on my way to one of our newspaper-offices, in 1836, or thereabouts, with an article in favor of opening Crooked-river, for the help of our lumbermen and farmers, I was accosted by a tall, handsome fellow, who called me by name, and reminded me of the interview referred to, and of some advice I had ventured to offer him, as a beginner in the world. He was on his way, he said to the U. S. District Court-room, where he pro- posed to demonstrate the practibility of communication with Montreal, by rail. I was not a little astonished for it seemed to me at first, that he had overlooked — or overtopped — the White-Hills to begin with. But I went with him, never- theless, and waited patiently for the demonstration. There were not more than a dozen or perhaps fifteen of our leading business-men and property holders present, among whom were the late Judge Preble, who became presi- dent of the road, Mr. John Mussey, clerk of the U. S. Courts, and one of our wealthiest and most sagacious land-holders, and I believe, though I am not altogether sure, Mr. J. B. Brown, himself, and perhaps Mr. St. John Smith, his old partner in business. After some brief questioning, I found that Mr. Poor was perfectly familiar with the whole topography of the route he had in view, that, in some way, he had been connected with Greenleaf, in preparing the map of Maine, a lasting monument of the author's perseverance and scrupulous accuracy. After Mr. Poor had finished his demonstration, remarks were made by Judge Preble, and others, but were not of a character to lift you off your feet, or fill you with turlnilent enthusiasm. Being then called upon to say a word, I contented myself with declaring it as my opinion, that, if Mr. Poor's calculations and statistics were trustworthy, the road was in fact, already built, for it certainly would burn its way through. The proper steps were taken without delay, public meetings were called, the newspapers were enlisted, a charter was obtained, a corporation organized, and such liberal subscriptions obtained, as made success absolutely certain, though hindrances did occur, and some disappointments. Nevertheless, the Atlantic & St. Lawrence rail-road, now the Grand-Trunk, with all its manifold con- nections, running through Upper Canada, was established. Of this corporation, Mr. Poor was a director, and ought to have been presi- dent. Then followed our Portland-Company, our Gas-works, and the Portland & Oxford rail-way, all inspired by the foresight and perseverance, of Mr. Poor. And at last, not long before his death, he planned, and if he had lived but another year, would have consumated one of the most magnificent and promis- ing rail-way enterprizes for inter-oceanic railway communication, whereby the shortest possible route between the Pacific and the Atlantic, would have been secured forever, without the possibility of interference. To this end the Port- land, Rutland Oswego & Chicago Railway was chartered, liberal subscrip- tions obtained all along the road, the co-operation of other railways and many large communities being secured, careful surveys and estimates were made and PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 97 then without warning or notice, the grandly organized projector of tliis mag- nificent enterprise was struck with sudden death — and all action was suspend- ed, though the organization is kept up, and will continue, we may be sure, till the great work is accomplished. OUR CHURCHES — THE PAYSON-MEMORIAL. This beautiful building, which has worked its way up out of the ashes, but slowly, it must be acknowledged, since the great fire, considering who Dr. Pay- PAYSON MliMORIAL CHL'ECH son was, and what he did for Portland and the inhabitants of Portland, year after year, as a preaclier of Christ crucified, and the ambassador of God, will soon be completed, with spire, turrets, and all becoming appendages, we hope and believe. It is built of what is called "the white Hallowell-granite," which, by the way, is no granite, but gneiss, the mica predominating, so that the quarry lies 7 98 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. in sheets instead of being amorphous, like all true granites. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful material, and the church itself a handsome and impressive affair — is it not? Chaste and simple, instead of being over-loaded with preposterous ornamentation. Mr. F. H. Fassett, one of the individuals mentioned before, was the architect. And here it may be worth our while to give a brief extract from a paper enti- tled "the Portland Churches," which appeared last April — but where, I do not know, though from the paging 2.59-264, I should suppose, in some of our monthlies or quarterlies, of a religious type. "Though settled in 1032," says the writers, "there were in 1718 but twenty families on the Neck, now Portland." Then appeared "the Eev. George Bur- roughs, a graduate of Harvard, who preached here awhile, but was not actual- ly settled, when the town was destroyed in 1676. He had a grant of seven acres, near the City-Hall, and in 1683 exchanged it for a lot near the fort," — on the top of Munjoy-Hill, probably, for no other fort is mentioned in our early history. "He was a clergyman of unexceptionable character," — and so they hung him up for witchcraft, in 1692, at Salem. After this, we had the Rev. Tliomas Smith, who labored in the ministry from 1727 to 1794 — a period of sixty-seven years. The little, unfurnished, unglazed building, heretofore mentioned, at the corner of Middle and India streets, was our only place of worship up to 1740, when another edition appeared with ■windows, and it is to be hoped with glass, but without tower or steeple, and of course without fire, outside of the pulpit — "just where the First Parish Church (Unitarian) now stands." In Parson Smith's diary of Dec. 15th, 1782, he says "more horrid cold and windy. I could not stand it, but dismissed the people after prayers and singing." "Probably," adds the writer, who seems to have a rich vein of humor, if not of priestly sarcasm in his make-up, "his prayer was shorter than iisual," for at another time he says "I had extraordinary assistance, was an hour-and-a-half in prayer A. M., and above an hour P. M." Really! the man must have quite forgotten that we are not heard for our much speaking — especially in such cold weather, when, as Dr. Deane testifies, "the water for baptism froze over." When Mr. Smith was first settled, the population of the Neck was but two hun- dred and fifty, and his salary but seventy pounds currency, or $233, board and fuel, with "contributions of strangers." In 1787, a new society was formed, and according to Parson Smith, "the sep- aratists voted themselves off," — Sept. 12th, 1787, — and then, October od, he adds, in the bitterness of his soul, "one Kellogg came to preach to the separat- ists;" and then we have the following lugubrious moaning: "Hard Times; no money ; no business, is the general cry !" And once more, in his eighty-sixth year, he adds, "poor Portland is plunged into ruinous confusion by the separa- tion." And yet "poor Portland" survived the wrench, and continued flourishing, more and more, as she did through the embargoes and non-importation and noD -intercourse laws, the failure of our United States-bank, and the wars of PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 99 1812, and 1861, and the great fire, — when she was utterly ruined, wrecked and destroyed ; hut then Portland can hear a great deal of ruining, as the girl said, when questioned about a third or fourth complaint for being ruined. "One Kellogg" was from South-IIadley, and served as a drum-major in the battles of the Eevolution, and afterward as a saw-mill laborer, while working his way up through Dartmouth-College. His boy Elijah, the au- thor, who has done so much for other boys — and we might hope for fathers, also, though not in the same way — happening to express a decided belief that Hercules had done more good, killing dragons and cleaning stables, than Dod- drige ever did, with his "old Rise and Progress," the father hurried off to church and requested prayers for the young reprobate. "The readers of the quarter- ly" — so then, it was the quarterly; but what quarterly ? — "are familiar with the sequel," continues the writer. "His fiery nature was changed, and he yet lives to preach and write books for the boys." The separatists, or second church, was first gathered, fifteen members all told, in the north school-house, near the burial ground, Munjoy, and then they removed to the court-house, which stood on Exchange-street, half-way up from Middle to Congress, and then, their church became a soap-factory, now stand- ing on Green-street, and fulfilling its mission better, it may be, than by using fuller's earth. The society was incorporated March 17th, 1788. On Sunday, Sept. 28th, 1788, the new building on Middle-street, represented by a distant view, as you see it on page 15, was opened, temporary seats being used, till the pews could be got ready. On the following Thursday, Mr. Kellogg was ordained. Mr. "Willis says — and Mr. Willis was a Unitarian — that "the ardent, earnest style of young Kellogg, so different from the tame and quiet preaching to w'hich they had been accustomed, aroused the whole coimnunity, and well nigh pros- trated the old society." "Mr. Kellogg owned a part of Munjoy, and about eighty years ago, gave the first impulse to that taste for planting trees, which made Portland the forest city." But where? Xot on Munjoy, most assuredly. In 1807, the Rev. Edward Payson, of whom we have all heard so much, and to whom the world is so much indebted, both abroad and at home, though he was always at open war with the world, the flesh, and the devil, giving no quarter, and asking none, was ordained as colleague of Mr. Kellogg, Dec. 16, 1807, and from Dec. 4, 1811, was sole pastor of the church, after the expulsion of Mr. Kellogg, up to Oct. 22, 1827, when he died at the age of 47, not having lived out half his days, though he had done the work of more than a long life- time, and left a name above every other name among us. Then we had the Rev. Bennett Tyler, late president of the East- Windsor Seminary, a very sound, able, and thoroughly orthodox theologian, of the Jonathan Edwards type, and then the Rev. Joseph Vaill, D. D.— another earnest, able, and reasonably zealous man ; and the Rev. Jonathan B. Condit, D. D., of Auburn Theological Seminary, N. Y.— another of that more than Macedonian phalanx, who held the field against all gainsayers, with vizors closed and lance in rest, up to the last day of his ministering. And then, the 100 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. Eev. J. J. Carruthers, who was installed Aug. 9, 1846 — a Scotchman, once a missionary in Russia — who must have drawn in with his mother's milk, the very quint-essence of that sublime, though terrible faith, which made John Knox what he was ; for though, neither a fanatic nor a bigot, nor even very in- tolerant, he never temporizes, nor qualifies what he has to say, but goes straight to the mark, like a thunderbolt — moving upon the enemy's works with a perpetual bayonet charge, at double-quick. In 1825, a colony was thrown off, to constitute our Third Church; in 1831, fifty-seven members were organized for the High-street church ; in 1835, the Abyssinian, or Fourth Congregational-church, Newbury-street, was formed by the colored members of the Second church. In 1852, the members from the three elder churches, were organized into the State-street church; in 1840, the Bethel-church was formed ; in 1858, the St. Lawrence-street church ; in 1869, the Plymouth, of the Third and Central, and in 1873, the Williston — so that Congregationalism here has yielded abundant fruitage, without having been watered with the blood of martyrs, or scorched by the fires of persecution — for which God be thanked. On the night of our dreadful fire of July 4, 1866, the Bethel, the Second, and the Third-Parishes, lost their houses of worship, and no Congregational place of assembly was left, in the central part of the city. On the 13th, following the fire, the Second-church and society, were offered, and forthwith accepted, a home in the State-street church, until they could set up another house for themselves. The pastor and more than sixty-five families of the parish, had lost their houses and homes, the pastor himself being dangeroiisly ill at the time. Then followed a sore trial. The insurance was almost entirely lost, by the failure of a local ofiice ; and the corner-stone of a new building was not laid until July 4, 1868, "By the sale of the old site," continues our authority, "now surrounded with warehouses and stores ; by local subscriptions and donations, and by generous contributions from abroad, and about $10,000 collected by the pastor, the socie- ty have been enabled to put up a substantial brick-building, with a gneiss front, secured at a smaller cost than one of pressed-brick, and free-stone facings. The name fixed upon at last, is that which it now bears. The Pay- son-Memorial Church." "Had the pastor's health permitted a continuance of his labors, in collecting funds for the completion of this undertaking, the whole amount might have been procured." So says the writer, of whom we borrow these details. "Bonds for $12,000 have been issued, to run twenty years. This cov- ers all arrearages ; and $10,000 more to be realized from the sale of pews, it is believed, will be sufficient for completing the house, making the whole cost $75,000. "There will be — indeed there are now — seats for 1200 in 134 pews and gal- leries, two walls and two side aisles ; the ceiling is 34 feet above the floor ; the house itself, 73x90 feet, from which two towers project, one eighty feet high, and the other terminating in a beautiful lancet spire, 175 feet high, with PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 101 gables surmounting the bell-tower. There are three entrances, one central, and one from each tower. The facade is very beautiful ; the two arcades of five arches, the tower, 17 feet high, and the upper, crowned with a moulded cor- nice, supported by a corbel course, are surmounted by a foliated cross, 77 feet from the ground. OUR CHXJRCUES — THE FIRST BAPTIST. This handsome building stands at the junction of Congress and Wilmot-streets, among a large chxster of public-buildings worthy of attentive consideration, and opposite Lincoln-Park — no great things to be sure — but still a Park, and the ^'*m!uciuseee&-tt FIRST BAPTIST-OHUBCH. only Park we have, or are likely to have, till we rope in the Deering-woods — with a handsome fountain, concrete walks, and a suggestion of trees, which, after a few years, will make it something to be proud of, "whether or no." Originally organized 1801 — re-organized, Dec. 12, 1866. It can seat over one thousand. Wm. II. Shailer, D. D., pastor, one of our foremost preachers and scholars, 29 Pearl-street. This growing, apostolic church, had its origin with not more than half-a dozen devout seceeders from the Congregational-churches in Portland, and the neighborhood, about 1798. They met socially at the house of Mr. Joseph Tit- comb, Federal-street, near the Friend's brick meeting-house — on the opposite corner indeed. Many were converted, and in 1799, the rooms becoming too 102 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. strait for tliem, tliey secured a scliool-house, on Union-street. After this, in 1801, Mr. Titcomb having been licensed to preach, they organized as the First Baptist-church, and removed to a third-story hall, on Middle-street, and Mr. Titcomb, having been ordained, they built for themselves, a one-story meeting house, on Federal-street — large enough to hold about 600 — and dedicated it in July, 1803; and at last, July 11, 1811, a larger house was built on Federal street, greatly improved in 1845, and at last, burned to ashes in the great fire. For pastors, they had the following, up to the days of Dr. Shailer, all of them devout men, fearing God, and preaching with earnestness and fervor, and some greatly distinguished. Rev. Thomas B. Ripley, following the Rev. Josiah Convers, and the Rev. Caleb Blood, Rev. Ebenezer Thrasher, Rev. George Leonard, Rev. John T. McGin- ness. Rev. James F. Chaplin, Rev. Luther F. Beecher, Rev. Jacob B. Scott, and then came Dr. Shailer, who entered upon his duties in March, 1854, more than twenty years ago, one of our ablest and best men, whose work in this portion of the Lord's vineyard, has been signally blessed. When he took upon himself the great trust, there were but 219 members. Dur- ing his pastorate, up to 1871 — we have no later report for reference — 335 were added; 155 by baptism and 163 by letter — the deaths, and changes by withdrawal, leave now a membership of 341. After the great fire, measures were taken for building a new church, worthy of their present organization, and in June, 1867, the corner-stone was laid, and after many delays and interruptions, the present substantial and beautiful building, was completed and dedicated, July 1, 1869, just four years from the date of the very last service in the old sanctuary. The whole cost of building, land, furniture, organ, &c., was over $62,000 — $6000 of which were obtained by the Burman circle, a society of earnest, faithful women, who insisted on the privilege ; Mrs. Wm. H. Shailer, president. Miss Emma S. Robinson, secretary, and Mrs. L. A. Chandler, treasurer. OUR AUTHORS — SIMON GREENLEAF. This learned and excellent man, who stood in the foremost rank of our first lawyers for a generation or two, and was then translated to Cambridge, where he became Royall-Prof essor on Law, compiled for us no less than nine volumes of Maine-Reports, 8 vo., which are in high estimation among all the lawyers of our land. Miss Morrill sent forth one book only, Blacklyn-Swamp ; J. O'Don- nell, the Juryman's Guide. Rev. Cyril Pearl contributed "Youths' Book," on the mind, 12 mo., and Spectral- Visitants, 12 mo. Rev. C. Soule, Questions on Upham's Mental-Philosophy. S. Putnam, Introduction to Analytical-Reader, 18 mo. Wm. D. D. Warren, School-Geography and Atlas, Household-Conse- cration and Baptism, Rev. C. C. Burr, Noel Ronello, 175 pp., and Discourse on Revivals, 8 vo. D. C. Colesworthy, My Minister, Sketches of the Character of Rev. Charles Jenkins, 1833, 18 mo., and many other works, of which an ac- count has already been given. Rev. George Quinby, Sermons and Prayers by fifteen Uuiversalist-clergymen, pp. 350, 12 mo. Daniel D. Smith, Lectures on PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 103 Domestic-Duties, 192 pp. 12 mo. Mrs. D. Reed, Wild Flowers, 9G pp. 12 mo. Kev. L. L. Sadler, Lectures on the prophecy of Daniel, Catechism on Matthew's Gospel, in two parts, 18 mo., and Sermon on Social Alliance. Rev. Jason Whit- man, Young Man's-Assistant, 394 pp. 18 mo., Young Ladies'-Aid, 304 pp. 18 mo., Helps for Young-Christians, 192 pp., H2 mo., The Sunday-School 82 pp. 18 mo., and Discourses on the Lord's-Prayer, 240 pp. 18 mo. E. B. Fletcher, Man-Immortal, The National-Book of the Sabbath, 1861, 144 pp. 18 mo. Benj. Kingsbury, Jr., Maine-Townsman and Probate-Manual, both admirably suited to a common want. William Smith, New Elementary-Algebra. Moses Saw- yer, Lieutenant Colburn — a novel. William Willis, Documentary-History of the State of Maine, History of Portland, Law and Lawyers of Maine, {with omissions.) Allen H. Weld, Progressive-Grammar, Progressive-Parsing-Book, New-Grammar, Latin-Lessons and Reader. E. P. AVeston, Northern-Monthly. Voices of Heart and Home. J. M. Gould, History of 1-10-29 Regiments, said to be a capital affair in its way. Rev. S. M. Putnam, Prayers from the Scrip- tures, Old-Divines and tlie Poets, 272 pp. 12 mo. P. W. Plummer, The Car- penter' s-Guide, with plates, 72 pp. 8 vo. Mrs. C. W. D. Strout, Slippery-Paths, illustrated. William Warren, D. D., These for Those, Our Indebtedness to Mis- sions, 420 pp. 12 mo., Twelve-Years with Children, 324 pp. 16 mo. William Wirt Virgin, Supplemental-Digest of Maine, (a model in its way,) 620 pp. 8 vo., Vol. 57 Maine-Reports, 660 pp. 8 vo., Vol. 58, ditto, 676 pp. 8 vo., Maine Civil Officer, 2d, 644 pp. 12 mo., a laborious, faithful and trustworthy guide. Of John Neal, we have nothing more to say just now, though a volumnious writer on many subjects. rOETLAND KEROSENE OIL-COMPANY. These works are in Cape-Elizabeth, at the soutlierly end of Vaughan's-bridge, and occupy over two acres. Capital $209,000. Kerosene, naptha and paraffine are manufactured. Four million gallons of kerosene are the yearly product, and of tlie other articles mentioned, enough to supply the market. Francis McDonald, president; H. N. Jose, treasurer. fuller's varnish-factor v. Varnishes of a siiperior quality are turned out by this company, and find their way lo all parts of the country. Depot 208 Fore-street. A. P. Fuller, proprietor. OUR CONSULS. Henry John Murray, Her Britannic-Majesty's Consul for Maine and New Hampshire. 30 Exchange street. George H. Starr, Her Majesty's Vice-Consul for Portland. 30 Exchange street. Tomas Lozano, Consul for Spain. Corner Middle and Union-streets. Andrew Spring, Consul for the Argentine-Republic. 15 1-2 Exchange-street. 104 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. OUR PAIXTEKS — MBS. ELIZABETH MURBAY. We have recorded this fine artist among our painters, not for having been born or bred here, but because here she painted her first pictures, after her arrival from the East, and long before she came out in Boston or New-York, where she seems to have been greatly valued, and well understood. Mrs. Murray is the wife of our British Consul, Henry John Murray, Esquire, and a daughter of the celebrated Thomas Heaphy, engraver, and painter also in water-colors, like his daughter, whose achievements are all — portraits and cabinet-pieces — all in water-colors, but harmonious, rich, and sometimes, gloriously treated, with all the depth and strength of oil. Her gatherings in the South of Europe, and the East, of costumes and characters, have enabled her to throw off with astonishing facility, a large number of pictures, including some that have gone abroad. Her father may be remembered, by collectors, at least, as the artist who painted Queen Caroline, the Princess Charlotte, Prince Leopold, the Duke of Wellington, and more than fifty field officers in one piece, the engraving of which, is well known among both amateurs and connoisseurs. OUR LUMBER TRADE. Heretofore, and from our earliest history, Portland has done a very large, and of late, until within a few years, when her West-India shipments began to fall off, a prodigious lumber-business. And now, notwithstanding the troubles in Cuba, and the vague misapprehensions that prevail concerning our reciproc- ity negotiations, it has begun to revive. It seems by official reports, that in the month of August, this year, we have exported to ports in the West Indies, five million six hundred and forty-five thousand feet of lumber — more than we ever before sent from this port in any one month, even when the Saccarappa and other mills, now extinct, were in full blast. And now we have the following new sources of supply: On Commercial street— the Bethel Steam Mills Co., 338; Milan Steam Mills Co., 230; Mowe, Cole & Benson, 332; Edwin Clement & Co., 272; Holyoke, Benson & Co., 336; R. Deering & Co., 292; Cummings, Leavitt & Widber, 220; C. H. Merrill, 244; C. E. Deering & Co., 250; C. S. Clark, 270; S. M. Smart, 268; Norton Mills Co., 30G; J. Hobson, 292; H. Bullard, 270; Richardson & Cross, 174; S. W. Larrabee & Son, 194; W. H. Walker & Co., 242; L. Taylor, 175; S. C. Dyer, 157; Winslow & Coombs, 219; E. T. Patten & Co., 270; Em- ery & Fox, 238. Berlin Mills Co., L. T. Brown, W. W. Brown, Berlin Mills Wharf; Perkins, Johnson & Co., Sturdivant's Wharf; A. Edmands, 18 Preble street; Doten Brothers, Cross street; C. K Delano & Co., Fore street. Most of these are large dealers, and many are shippers. Commercial-street, you see, is crowded Mith companies and firms wholly given to the lumber busi- ness, the history whereof, had we space, we should be glad to give somewhat in detail ; but one thing may be said, and we say it in all seriousness and with large experience, that in farming regions, where land is tolerably good, and PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 105 markets within reach, lumbering impoverishes, instead of enriching a people. Up to their middles in water half the year, and freezing the other half, and not always quite sober, their farms are neglected, their fences are allowed to tum- ble out of line, their school-houses are the merest rattle-traps, and their churches, habitations and highways a reproach to the neighborhood. But after the forests are thoroughly cleared, even to the saplings, then we have school-houses, and churches, roads, bridges and farms, cottages and gardens to be proud of. CO>GKESS SQUAKH, UN I\ KKS A LIST CUCKCII. Nevertheless, the lumber-trade has, on the whole, proved a mine of wealth for us. OUK CHURCHES — THE FIRST UNI VERS ALIST-SOCIETY. This thriving denomination, which seemed struck with paralysis for a time, after the final departure of the Rev. Ilosea Ballou, in 1814, began to flourish anew, with renewed vigor, within the last five-and-twenty years. 106 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. The first gathering of Universalists, after the coming of John Murray to the new world, according to the Rev. Mr. Gibbs, the present pastor, was early in the present century, in a cooper' s-shop, at the foot of Mountfort-street. After this, they tried to borrow a church — or the privilege, at least, of worship- ing their heavenly Father, according to their conscientious belief, in some one of the many churches already up. Application was made for the Rev. Hosea Ballou, from Portsmouth, to be allowed to appear in the pulpit, while he was on a missionary tour through this neighborhood. But no — one Baptist deacon declaring, he had rather see the devil walk up the aisle. Even school-houses ■yvei'e locked and barred against him. At last however, the late Judge Freeman, father of William Freeman, offered him a shelter in his large house, nearly opposite the Second-Parish church. The rooms were crowded, and the gathering outside, somewhat portentous. His subject was "The uncharitableness of Sectarianism," and the discourse itself was undoubtedly both sharp and scorching — if not altogether satisfactory to some of the outsiders. Then they had Rev. John Brooks, who held forth in the Episcopal-church — in School, now Pearl-street. After having tried in vain to purchase this church, in vain — because, by a condition of the original grant, the land could not be alienated from the Episcopalian denomination, they had their preaching in a school-house, nearly opposite the Third-Parish church, in Back, now Congress street. Here, early in 1821, the Rev. Russell Streeter, preached for the first time in Portland. Next an effort was made for the purchase of the Third-Parish church, but the negotiations were put a stop to, by some of the Second-Parish. Whereupon, the friends of Universalism took fire, banded themselves to- gether, published a "Statement of their faith," organized anew, and built a house for the Lord, which was ready for dedication on the 15th of August, 1821. It was of one-story, seventy-five feet by forty-four, with a superficial area of 3600 feet, containing eighty-two pews, with seats for 300 persons, and costing about $6000. Then came the war, of which we have had occasion to say a word heretofore. Dr. Payson, and Dr. Nichols, who agreed in little else, went hand and heart against brother Streeter, who, on his part, having established the Christian Intelligencer, went into the conflict, with all the ardor of early manhood, tooth and nail. In 1827, Mr. Streeter resigned, and was succeeded by Rev. John Bisbee, jr., of Hartford, Conn. — a truly pious, faithful and eloquent man, who died in 1829, having testified in a truly christian spirit, against the arrogant sectarian- ism of the day. Then followed Rev. W. I. Reese, who resigned in 18.30 ; and then Rev. Menyies Rayner, of Hartford, Conn., who published the Christian Pilot, with a beetle and wedge. Having left the Episcopalians, he seemed to enter a new campaign with something of the fiery zeal of a new convert. Obtaining leave of absence for six months, in September, 1834, lie never returned. The smoke of PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 107 the battle-field had cleared away, and probably this region was no longer desi- rable. In April, 1836, Kev. D. D, Smith became pastor; and in 1839 Kev. C. C. Burr, — of whom, as a preacher, the less we say, the better. He resigned in Decem- ber, 1841, and in March, 1842, Rev. L. L. Sadler, succeeded him, and in Janua- ry, 1854, Rev. C. R. Moore, of Watertown, Mass., accepted a call, and served till 1800, when he gave up, on account of his health ; and then they had Rev. E. 0. Bolles, of Boston, a remarkable man, with a wide range of scholarship and scientific acquirements ; and a new meeting-house on High-street, was secured January, 1805. Mr. Bolles was called to another field in 1809, and in October following. Rev. W. E. Gibbs became their pastor, .and on the "fiftieth anniversary of the First Universalist Church," gave a pamphlet history, from which most of the fore- going items have been gathered. From all that we hear and see of Mr. Gibbs, we feel sure that our brethren of the Universalist faith will have no occasion for regretting the services of his predecessors. PORTLAND GAS-LIGHT-COMPANY. Incorporated in 1849 ; organized Jan. 1st, 1820. Works on West Commer- cial, near foot of Clark street. Mains are laid for nearly twenty-five miles, through our principal streets. Capital $350,000, of which the city owns $85,000. E. H. Davies, president ; J. T. McCobb, treasurer. STAR MATCn-COMPANY. In 1809, the firm of Smith & Jordan, purchased all the patents of the Star Match-Company, and their property on Kennebec-street. In October, of the same year, their buildings and machinery, were destroyed by fire. In 1870, the company set up a new factory on Commercial street, wholly of brick and iron, with concrete floors, 110 by 00 feet, with a superficial area therefor, of 0000 feet for each floor. These matches are now shipped to our southern ports, to the West-Indies, to South-America, and the British-Provin- ces, beside supplying the whole region, and have the highest reputation. The fimi, now, is James C. Jordan, and A. & S. E. Spring. OUR SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL-HOUSES have long been a subject of justifiable pride with us, and, we may appeal with entire confidence to our past and present history, for evidence of our foresight and liberal provisions for those who are to take our places hereafter ; for what our children are now, that will our country be, after we have gone to our rest. THE PORTLAND HIGH-SCHOOL-HOUSE. Built of pressed-brick, with granite and free-stone trimmings, one-hundred- and-forty-feet by eighty, with wings on each side, which project eighteen by 108 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. twenty-seven feet additional, is, on the whole, one of the most imposing and beautiful of all our public buildings. The arcade is forty-five feet in length, and supported by well-dressed granite pillars. The style of architecture is what we have agreed to call Roman, but wherefore, does not appear. The class-rooms are separated, so that the boys and girls are not turned loose together, nor allowed to intermingle, without re- strictions. On the first story, are eight large class-rooms, thirteen feet high ; on the second, are two high-school rooms, fifty-one by sixty-two feet each, and sev- enteen feet high, with library-rooms, etc. ; on the third story are the grammar schools. In the attic is a large hall for exercising, play, and elaborate drilling in bad weather. The building is heated throughout, and wholly by steam. The finishing is of chestnut. Mr. Harding was the architect — omitted hereto- fore, while speaking of the Fassets, whom we called, by mistake, brothers, while, in fact, they are father and son. All the arrangements are of a charac- ter to command our approbation, and the building itself, worthy of high praise. REAL-ESTATE AND BUILDING-COMPANY. Incorporated Feb. '71, for building houses and stores. Capital $200,000. John E. Donnell, president; John T. Hull, clerk and treasurer. BURGESS, FOBES & CO.'S WHITE-LEAD FACTORY, on Munjoy street, run by steam, yields paints of a character that has already secured a large and growing business. Their agency is at 80 Commercial street. CAHOON MANUFACTURING-COMPANY manufacture kerosene-burners and chemicals of decided reputation. Capital $100,000. Chas. W. Cahoon, treasurer, Cahoon-block, corner Myrtle and Con- gress streets. OUR CHURCHES — CHESTNUT-STREET METHODIST. For the substance of what follows, we are indebted to another hand : The first Methodist-sermon preached in Maine, was by the apostle and founder of methodism, in New-England, Rev. Jesse Lee, in a private-house, in Saco, Sept. 10, 1793. From Saco, he came to Portland, and on the 12th, preached to a small com- pany, in the dwelling-house of Theophilus Boynton, on jSTewbury-street. From Portland, Mr. Lee extended his journey eastward, as far as the Penobscot, preaching in various places, returning to Massachusetts, in October. In 1794, he repeated his visit to Maine, and on Friday, Nov. 7th, preached in the "Court-House, in Portland, to a large and attentive congregation." It does not appear, however, that Mr. Lee attempted to form a society, at either of his visits to Portland. The formation of the Portland-Circuit, took place in 1795, with Rev. Philip PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 109 Wager as preacher, and this year, the first Methodist class in Portland, was formed. This class consisted of six persons, and this small band of heroic men and women, thus united in church-fellowship, entered upon their work, and in the midst of derision and persecution, without any house of worship, save such as their own dwellings afforded them, and without the means of bettering their condition, struggled on, with an occasional addition to their number, through nine years, until 1804, when their number had increased to eleven. This year, the prospect began to brighten. A friend of the society, Enoch Illsley, purchased and presented to them, the old church, formerly belonging to CHESTNUT- STREET, METHODIST, CHURCH. the Episcopalians, which was removed to Federal-street, and here, for the first time, the society had a home. This house occupied a site on Federal, between Exchange and Temple streets, and was used by the society, until the erection of their church on Chestnut-street. It was afterward used for various purposes, and finally as a stable, but, at length, gave way before the march of improvement, to make room for other buildings. The preacher, at this time, was Rev. Joshua Taylor, known everywhere, as Father Taylor, under whose labors, the society was greatly blessed. It increased, during the two years of his ministry, from the eleven above-named, to sixty-four, and the gathering had become so numerous as to require enlarged accommodations. 110 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. A board of trustees was appointed, and the society entered upon the work of erecting a larger and more attractive church-edifice. After many embarassments and long delay, their efforts were successful ; and the first Methodist-Episcopal church building, on Chestnut-street, was com- pleted, and dedicated Feb. 17, 1811, Eev. Epaphras Kilby, the stationed preach- er, ofliciating. Here the society prospered greatly, and continued to increase in influence and in numbers. In 1826-27, the churches of the city were favored with a gracious revival, and the Methodist-church, under the pastoral-labors of Kev. E. Willey, received large accessions to its membership, and the house was so crowded, that it be- came necessary to enlarge it. Accordingly a neat and commodious chapel was erected on Cumberland-street, near the church, and that part of the church formerly used as a vesLry, was added to its seating capacity. It soon became apparent, however, that still more room must be provided, and accordingly the church on the corner of Pleasant and Park-streets, was erected. It was dedi- cated in the fall of 1828, by Piev. Stephen Lovell. Here a flourishing society was soon gathered, made up in part from members of the old church, and was always, while it existed, strong and flourishing, though somewhat involved in debt. It continued, till 1835, when the church edifice was sold to the Second-Unitarian society. The church on Chestnut-street was again greatly enlarged in 1836, and was soon filled to over-flowing. In 1844, the Ward-room, on Brackett-street, was procured, and a mission and Sunday-school organized, under the pastoral charge of Eev. A. M. Blake, succeeded in 1845, by Eev. Stephen Allen, and as the result of this enterprise, the Pine-Street church was erected, and dedicated in the autumn of 1846. The dedicatory services were condvicted by Eev. G. F. Cox, the pastor. This society has always been strong and flourishing, and is now — 1874, — making arrangements for the erection of a larger and more creditable church-edifice. In the meantime, the mother-church continued to grow in numbers, notwith- standing the repeated drafts made upon her membership, until 1851, when it be- came necessary to strengthen its stakes, and lengthen its cords in another direc- tion ; and accordingly, a chapel was erected on a lot situated at the comer of Congress and St. Lawrence-streets, generously presented by Dr. E. Clark, for the purpose. The chapel had a seating capacity of 300. This was a free chap- el, and when completed, was free from debt. It was dedicated by Eev. Geo. Webber, D. D. Sixty members were transferred from Chestnut-street church, and a society and Sunday-school organized, under the charge of Eev. Eaton Shaw, until the next session of the annual-conference, when Eev. W. F. Far- rington became the stationed preacher. Under his labors, the house soon be- came too small for the people, and an addition was made, at an expense of about twelve hundred dollars, and pews took the place of settees. The house, thus enlarged, would seat about four hundred and fifty persons, and here the society continued to worship, until 1868, when the church they now occupy, was dedicated, Eev. Wm. McDonald, a former pastor, preaching the sermon on the occasion. PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. Ill In 1855 the old society purchased the lot they now occupy on Chestnut-street, and commenced the erection of their third house of worship. It was built at a cost of about sixty thousand dollars, and was dedicated July 8th, 1857. The old church was destroyed by fire April 2Gth, 1860. In addition to the above-named churches, a neat and commodious one has been erected on Peak's-Island, which has a small but flourishing membership. The tirst Sunday-school of the denomination was organized in 1822, in con- nection with the Chestnut-street church, and had for its first superintendent, the late Hon. James B. Cahoon. The following table will give the standing of the denomination in the city. May, 1874. Value of church property, - - $92,000 Church members, including probationers, . . _ 1192 Sunday-school officers and teachers, - - - - 146 Sunday-school scholars, ------ 1280 1426 Volumes in library, -------- OQOO Preachers for 1874 — Chestnut-Street, Sylvester F. Jones: Pine-Street, James W. Johnston; Congress-Street, Chas. B. Pitblado; Peak's-Island, John 0. Perry. OUK BANKS, With a banking capital of about three-and-a-half millions, and deposits in. our savings banks, of more than eight millions, Portland is not exposed to any great business fluctuations. Most of the banks hereinafter-mentioned, are quite remarkable for the beauty of their banking-houses. FIKST NATIONAL BANK. H. I. Libby, president; Wm. E. Gould, cashier. One of our most favored in- stitutions, with a substantial, handsome building, three stories high, twenty- three by seventy-six feet, with French attic and French roof. The front on Middle-street, is of Connecticut free-stone, which is found to bear the climate changes, with all the dreaded alternations, of humidity and temperature, so de- structive to the same building-material at Xew- York, M'ithout injury; the dif- ference, after all, being between the horizontal and perpendicular surfaces, for it is the pavements, the steps, and side-walks, which crumble and flake off, both at New- York and here, while the upright walls undergo no material change ; not so great a change indeed, as the gneiss, where mica predominates, the syenite, where horn-blende is superabundant, or granite where felspar is too plentiful. It is furnished with iron columns on Middle-street, and the Plum-street side is built of pressed-brick, with free-stone trimmings. The banking-room is fifty-eight feet in length, with private rooms in the rear, for the accommodation of directors, oflicers, &c., &c. 112 POBTLAND ILLUSTRATED. Well do I remember when we had but one bank here, and that, the Port- land-Bank, on the southerly side of Middle-street, not far from Exchange. It was a two-story, frame-building, standing end to the street. You entered from a front-yard, and the first thing you saw, as you mounted the steps, was an oval sign, hung upon the door, about eighteen inches by twelve, lettered on one side, bank open, and on the other, bank shut. And well do I remember when the half-cents came into use, and how the glittering temptation was too much for me, when I was set to counting them out of a small cask, and setting them forth, in piles of ten, by the FIRST NATIONAL BANK BLOCK. cashier, who happened to be my uncle — so that I appropriated a few, which I paid to some boys, for helping me pick strawberries, and got a walloping for my pains; my good uncle being a severe disciplinarian, perhaps for having been a school-master, before he undertook with his nephew. This was, I should say, about 1803, when I was under ten. No one, among all the changes you see, is more gratifying, or encouraging, than the difference between most of our large banking-houses, now, and those of an earlier day, when we were so easily satisfied. PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 113 OUR AUTHORS — MOSES GREENLEAF. The survey of Maine, with statistical tables, maps, etc., published here, by Stanley & Hyde, in 1829, is one of the most valuable works of our time. On referring to the Yankee of March 19, 1829, I find the following editorial testimony, which, at the end of nearly fifty years, may bear repetition. "The work is one of the most valuable ever produced in our country ; and take it altogether, it is one which no reasonable man would have expected to see, for at least half a century to come." And is it not so? Have we produc- ed anything better, or even as good, up to this hour? "It is more like what they bring forth on the other side of the water, among the wealthy and over- crowded communities of Europe, where men have leisure enough, and interest enough, to devote a life-time to the completion of a favorite undertaking, than what we have been accustomed to see in our country, where, instead of being paid for their literary toil, scientific, laborious, and extraordinary men have to work for nothing, and find themselves, whenever they meddle with author- ship." It was in the preparation of this map, in which our friend, John A. Poor, co- operated, that he acquired such a relish for statistics, and such opening capa- bilities for the two magnificent enterprises, which he undertook and carried through so triumphantly — the Atlantic & St. Lawrence-Eailroad, and the British & I^orth- American — for, after all, but for him, they would never have been thought of — and for the Portland, Eutland, Oswego & Chicago road, which narrowly escaped a most successful consummation, through a sudden providence, whereby he was translated, in the midst of his abounding useful- ness and great influence. But the review goes on to say, after abstracting whole pages from the book in relation to our climate, our geography, our resources, and our amazing capabil- ities, "these views it will be remembered, are not the views of a story-book, or a novel-writer ; they are those of a sensible man, a practical surveyor, and a long-sighted politician. Mr. Greenleaf is not an every-day man. * * * * * * We have a country to be grateful for, and proud of, and the sooner we know it the better ; our school-books ought to embody such truths." CLIMATE OF PORTLAND. The average temperature, from observations, taken at sunrise, noon and sun- set, for a period of thirty years, according to Mr. Beckett, were as follows : January, 20 Fahrenheit. July, 66 Fahrenheit. February, 21 (( August, 64 March, 28 <( September, 56 April, 33 (( October, 45 May, 44 << November, 34 June, 60 (< December, 24 With few mosquitoes, and for a short time only, no cockroaches, and no 114 POBTLAND ILLUSTRATED. "chintzes," or bed-bugs of our own breeding, with cool nights in summer — and winter — and with capabilities for sea-batliiug, almost unequalled, what is to hinder Portland from becoming one of the largest and most delightful watering places in the world ? Lincoln Park, by the way, a part of the "lungs" we have no immediate occa- sion for, situated as we are, on a ridge of land, all open to the sea on one side, and to the White-Hills on the other, has an area of 108,530 feet, or something less than two and a half acres. Within the city limits, the greatest elevations are Bramhall's Hill, 175 1-2 feet, on Munjoy, 161 feet, and the lowest point on the ridge is 57 feet. MOKE ITEMS. WTiile going through the press, great changes have begun, and large under- takings have been set on foot among us, which must not pass without a word of notice. For example : At a meeting of the church-members and parish of the Pine-street church, called with a view to build something worthier of the society, subscriptions were opened on Monday evening last, which resulted in raising fifteen thou- sand dollars, and last evening $5222 were added, and a promise from our towns- man, Mr. William Deering, now of Chicago, of no less than five thousand dol- lars, with his long accustomed liberality in the cause of religion — making over twenty-five thousand dollars to begin with — so that we may look for a building worthy of the cause. And by the papers, it will be seen that we have just sold the last of our public lands, originally amounting to millions of acres. When we began taking ac- count of stock, and well-timbered townships became lawful tender in business transactions, and will become of priceless value hereafter, though settling lands may not rise to their proper level for a generation or two, notwithstanding our recent discoveries in the Aroostook region, of unmistakable importance, relat- ing to the productive power of lands heretofore deemed worthless. We have lately discovered also that our si^ruce and hemlock and other growths, which are flourishing where the pine growth has wholly disappeared, is worth more than the pine growth itself ever was, though not many years ago, spruce and hemlock were not worth bringing to market, except here and there, under very favorable circumstances, and for special purposes. The total amount of these land sales, just made by auction, at Bangor, is $145,553.63. And now the State has no public domain worth mentioning. Of the millions of acres she once owned, all has gone into the market, with cer- tain reservations for school-houses, highways, and other like purposes ; and we have no further need of a land-agent, although most carefully provided for in the very outset of our career as a State. Timber lands in Oxford, Piscataquis, and Aroostook, sold for 35 1-2 cents the acre, and from that up to $1.30 ; the right to cut timber till 1884, on K. 16, Som- erset, sold from 20 1-2 to 31 1-2 cents ; right to cut on reserved lots in Aroostook, Franklin and Penobscot, at from 27 cents to $1.75 per acre. Among the pur- POETLANB ILLUSTRATED. 115 chasers who were really in earnest, was Mr. G. F. Foster, who absorbed 1C,000 acres on Township 4, E. 5, north of Bingham's Kennebec purchase. OUK BANKS — TUE CASCO NATIONAL. The Casco National, situated in the rear of Casco-Bank block. Middle-street, with entrance through passage-way, ten feet wide. Building of brick, 42xG0 CASCO BANK BLOCK. Banking-rcona, 40 foet square, 20 feet up to the plates, with open hip showing the beams and rafters, at the apex of which, 28 feet from the is a circular sky-light of ground glass, six feet in diameter. In the rear of the banking-room are the directors' -room, 16 feet square, the cashier' s-room, 19 feet square, and a wash-room, 6x9. Between the directors' and cashier's rooms, are the money and book-vaults, as strong as brick and iron, and all the feet, roof, floor 116 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. improved locks can make them. The counters are so arranged that the opera- tives are within a hollow square, with entrance to the vaults, directors' and cashier's rooms in the rear. The finish is of black walnut, highly polished. The ceiling is plastered between the rafters, and beautifully frescoed in panels. The banking-room is lighted by windows on three sides. The Casco-block on Mid- dle-street, is of Hallowell-granite — gneiss, fifty-five feet front, and four stories high. Well do I remember when the Casco-Banking-house, was only a small room in the second story of a low brick building, one of the three or four in a block, on Middle-street, and nining from the corner of a narrow entrance, to Burnham's, after awhile, Mitchell' s-tavern, erected I should say about 1810, with rickety, wooden stairs, running up outside, like what we used to see leading to law-offices In Chicago or Cincinnati, one of which, our townsman, Bellamy Storer, occu- pied in the day of his glory, and before he became a judge. And now, that same Casco banking-company, occupy, as may be seen by the plate, one of the handsomest piles of architecture among us, built of finely dressed, and very superior stone, resembling white marble, though much better on many accounts, especially in case of fire. Of this liberal institution, Samuel E. Spring, one of our out-of-town growths, is president, a man of remarkable energy and forethought; and William A. Winship, cashier; capital, §800,000. GREXVIL.LE MELLEJf.' While giving a hurried sketch of this fine fellow, I had occasion to speak of his young and beautiful wife, with whom, by the way, most of us popinjays were dead in love ; and now, on opening a volume of the Yankee for another piirpose, I come upon the following paragraph, which brings husband and wife before me, just as I saw them last, forty-five years ago, in their quiet and soothing little home at ISTorth Yarmouth. Shall I re-publish it ? "But the other day — not more than six months ago, Grenville Mellen was a husband and a father, in the full enjoj^ment of everything that such a man would care for, and every prospect before him that a reasonable man would yearn after. To-day, (June 4, 1829,) he is wifeless — childless. A little daughter, a first and only child — the flower of his heart, was transplanted be- fore his eyes, in the siimmer-time, of last year, and instantly the seeds of death, which are scattered through the whole family and kindred of his yoimg and beautiful wife, waiting only for the wind and rain of the sky— or the sighs and tears of earth — to be developed, sprang up in her bosom, and to-day, she is no more. What are such men to do under such overwhelming sorrow ? Are they to give up in despair — to lie down forever in the dust; or shall they wake up in renewed strength, resolved to convince the world that there is, indeed, a prerogative in genius — a divine spirit in what is called poetry — the spirit of manhood, of resignation, and of power." Is it not very true, that many of these every-day happenings lie "too deep for tears?" PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 117 OUR BAXKS — TUE CANAL NATIONAL. Now SO Stately aud imposing, of wlucli, with the annexed cut before you, you must judge for yourself, was, not long ago, on Union-street, occupying the ground-floor of a brick-building, which, for some reason or other, we called our AtheuiBum, a strange, out-of-the-way place for business-men, though, to be sure, people who visited the i3ublic-library over-head, knew where to look for it, CAXAL, 15AKK BLOCK. on emergency; William W. Thomas, president — a town-bred man of business late mayor, and one of the most enterprising among us, though exceeding cau- tious and circumspect; B. C. Somerby, cashier ; capital, $600,000. OUR PORTLAND HORTICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. We have just gone through with an exhibition of our fruitage and flowering, 118 PORTLAND ILLUSTBATED. topped off with a pomological feast, given by our Portland association to the Maine Pomological Society, and truly, it maybe said, have astonished ourselves. In 1859, there were but two graperies, and two green-houses in Portland. To- day, says Mr. Hersey, the president, they may be counted by scores. Such apples, we venture to say, were never before seen at exhibition or show, so beautiful, so large, and of so many different kinds. Maine used to be celebrated for sound apples, and for a few high-flavored, though not large varieties, even when the russets, the greenings, and the Newtown pippins were supplying the country, and going abroad by cargoes. And our pears — what shall we say of them ? And of our grapes ? One member, Mr. George W. Woodman, sent in twenty different kinds of pears, the result of careful selection and treatment for a few years only, and might have sent fifteen or twenty more, if he had thought it worth while ; and other members furnished a large variety of deli- cious and beautiful specimens. And the grapes, the black Hamburgs, Isabellas, Catawbas, Delawares, and other kinds, were abundant, luscious and healthy; all going to show what Maine is capable of doing, and what our citj^, and Ban- gor, and the Kennebec region, have already done toward arousing our farmers, and begetting a generous enthusiasm for fruit-culture, and especially for that of apples — the best in the world, all things considered ; for, rightly treated, many varieties are almost imperishable, in appearance at least; large, beautiful, souud and hearty. And then, we had the flowers, — the poetiy of earth — heaps upon heaps, glowing, fragrant, and almost shedding their colors upon the atmosphere. Po- etiy we call them — beds of poetry and baskets of poetry — because, holding the same relation to our cabbages, beets, and other substantials, that singing-birds bear to roast beef and mutton, that poetry bears to every-day prose, they are re- garded by the unthinking as useless, and comparatively Avorthless, although such is the refining and elevating influences of their loveliness and fragrance, and infinite variations of color, that even the dullest of clod-hoppers will think better of people who live in farm-houses or cottages, with roses, and honey- suckle, and morning-glories, and woodbine or ivy clambering over the windows and roof, instead of sun-flowers and hollyhocks, and thistle-blows, white-weed, and buttercups, or dandelions encumbering the front-yard. On the whole, therefore, we may well thank God and take courage, for having opened our eyes at last, though rather late, to the resources within our reach, and the ca- pabilities we are to be answerable for hereafter. Say what we will of grapes, and pears, and apples, and plums — all excellent in their way, it must be ac- knowledged — flowers are the best educators we have ; appealing to no vulgar want, or appetite, or inclination, they enter into our being like a perfume, and appeal to our sense of the beautiful, without regard to usefulness, or nutrition, or market-value, like the singing of birds, the tinting of sea-shells, the spatter- ed gold, or melted rubies, and emeralds, and piu-ple shadows we see on the plu- mage of birds and butterflies. And this, our people are beginning to feel and to lay to heart — even our farmers — who, if they would keep their daughters, and humanize their sons, must give them flowers — must, I say, whatever they PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 119 may do about apples, or grapes, or pears; or, what is called sentiment, will be confined to the dwellers of cities — and vegetable-poetry will be unknown among our laborious cultivators of the soil. The cottages of England, even the lowliest, are often embowered in roses and clambering vines. In the South of Fi'ance, it is the same, and even among the rough habitants of Canada, they have little enclosures in front of their miserable houses, crowded with flowers. OUK BAXKS — MERCHANTS NATIONAL. Designed by Mr. Stead, finished in black-walnut and maple, with solid oak MEKCUA>T.S HANK liLOfK. doors, and sliding iron-doors — Merchants National on ground floor; Bank of Portland, and the National Traders', on the second-floor. Formerly occupying the ground-floor of an old-fashioned, unattractive, brick building, on Exchange-street, no more to be compared with the present four story structure, of Albert-stone, where the institution is now flourishing, than "Satyr to Hyperion." Near it, on the other side of an alley, not four feet wide, 120 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. running between Jones' s-row, and the Neal-block, was the Maine-bank, now no more. Jacob W. McLellan, president — a native Portlander, for many years a sea-captain, then mayor, and then president of ovir celebrated Portland Com- pany; Charles Payson, cashier, A very beautiful, and richly ornamented banking-house, built of Albert-stone, which greatly resembles the celebrated Caen-stone, so much used in the palaces of London and Paris, with brown free stone for relief. Capital $600,000. OUK MILITAKY ORGANIZATIOISrS must not be overlooked, though, with our limited space, we cannot undertake to do them justice. Let it be remembered, that Portland furnished altogether, about five thousand men for the last war — the war of the Kebellion — and paid bounties amount- ing to $423,970, as we have had occasion to state before, witli interest on a much larger sum, after the State equalization. But of our own people, Portland fur- nished 2500 men, of which 421 died : 194 of disease, 190 of wounds, 23 in Rebel prisons, 14 by accident, and pi'obably since the war, 100 more liave died, from causes which arose during the Rebellion. Of these, there were one lieutenant colonel, 1 army-surgeon, 1 navy surgeon, 3 officers in the navy, 12 captains in the army, 14 lieutenants, 32 sergeants, 1 non-commissioned staff officer, 2 mu- sicians, 300 privates and 15 sailoi's. Before the Rebellion burst upon us, like a thunder-clap, we had only five companies of infantry, organized under State authority, viz., the Mechanic Blues, the Light-Infantry, the Rifle-Corps, the Light-Guards, and the Rifle Guards. All these companies lost no time in offering their services to the State, which were accepted, and tliey all achieved a most honorable record in the service, but were so cut up, and so scattered and decimated by the terrible vicissitudes to which they were exposed, that the organizations were lost for awhile. But wlien the war was over, on tlie 19th of February, 1SG9, the Me- chanic-Blues were re-organized, under their original grant, Avhich was dated June 21, 1807. They have now for their captain, Cljarles J. Pennell, a zealous, trustworthy leader, and every inch a citizen-soldier. The Light-Infantry were organized at an earlier period — that is, on June 6, 1803, and re-organized June 1, 1868 — Jesse T. Reynolds, captain, another of our tried ones. The Portland-Cadets, were organized January 4, 1870, Neal D. Winslow, captain. The Sheridan-Cadets, were organized Sept. 17, 1872, Robert P. Somers, captain. The Portland Montgomery-Guards, were organized Oct. 20, 1872, Augustus J. McMahon, captain. The Portland Cadets were made up of the Portland High-school students, and for a time, were called the High-school Cadets, with John Anderson for captain, a fine, soldierly youth, and are now acknowledged for the best-drilled company of the State, holding the champion flag, presented to them by the PORTLAND ILLUSTBATED. 121 city of Portland, July 4, 1872. And this, we may be sure, is no trivial distinction, our soldier-boys having a constitutional aptitude for military duties — when duty calls them to the field — and are never slow in preparation, nor ever backward in assuming a soldier's responsibility, at the first tap of the drum, or blast of the bugle. The Montgomery-Guards are Irish-Americans to a man, and they are all men. During the last Presidential canvas, they were known as the Greeley Guards, and were afterward organized under the title of the Montgomery Guards, and, of course, are not the boys to forget Montgomery, that glorious Irishman, who fell in storming the fortress of Quebec, if they should ever be called into the field. The Sheridan-Cadets, are another company of Irish- Americans, just ripening into manhood, and none being over twenty-one. With such material to begin with, ■what may we not hope from our Irish blood, in the day of tribulation ; for much as their fathers loved their country before they were driven away by wrong and oppression, it is certain that these, their sons, love their country as much — their country still, whether by ado^jtion or birth, and as Robert Emmett, and Wolfe Tone, and Richard Montgomery, and Alexander Hamilton struck, so will they strike for the rights of man — the right of self-government, and the right of going to heaven their own way, without hindrance or molestation. Go back to our early history — even to our earliest — and see how largely we are indebted to these Irish, of whom not a few of our people speak disparagingly at times. Go through the history of our Revolutionary-war, the war of 1812-1.5, of the Mexican-wars, our Indian-wars, and at last, of the rebellion, and see how largely we are indebted to these warm-hearted, blundering, headlong Irishmen, who are so much laughed at, and abused, now that the danger is over. To the Irish laborers, we owe much, for our canals, our highways and rail-roads, but to the Irish soldiers, infinitely more, almost as much, indeed, as England owes to the Irishmen of her great military organizations in every part of the world, where fighting is no longer play, and Wellingtons are no myth, any more than the Sheridans are with us. If we would know what our country owes to these Irishmen, and to these Northern soldiers, let us consider the habits of our people for a moment. The men of the South — our chivalry — or, as they would pronounce it, our shivalry, are quarrelsome and overbearing; and have always had military-schools, and a well-trained militia, and have always been familiar with fire-arms, rifle and pistol shooting, while we of the North, as a general thing, patient and submissive, up to a certain point, whether of native or foreign birth, are, and always have been, deplorably ignorant of arms, and averse to war and strife, with no military academies, no regular training, no drilling, and are called to- gether, but once or twice a year, only to be made more and more inefficient and helpless, at every meeting. Our miUtia-system, in its best days, until within the last five years, being a most oppressive and unrighteous poll-tax, from 122 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. ■which our wealthiest men always escaped, if not by exceptions on account of age, or some disqualifying infirmity, like dimness of sight or dullness of hear- ing, or a sluggishness of limb, or because of holding office, or being profes- sional, a school-master, a judge, or a minister of the gospel, as if one might not do for a chaplain, though afraid or unwilling to burn powder; and this, while the poor man, the every day laborer, to whom the loss of a day's work is a loss of the dinner for his family, and perhaps of sleep, was held to a strict discharge of his duty, and must either appear "armed and equipped, as the law directs," and lose a day or two, or pay a heavy fine. All things considered, therefore, the disadvantages under which we of the North labored, is it not wonderful that we escaped overthrow or annihilation ? — But we were not slaveholders, and our serfs were free-laborers, paid for their services, which, after all, ex- plains the great mystery. OUR BANKS — THE CUMBEELAND-NATIONAL. W. F. Milllken, president, another out-of-town growth, and quite of a piece with most of the leading men of our large cities, in all professions, and. in all kinds of business, who were trained in the country, and there learned the value of time, the worth of labor, and the importance of thrift, and frugality. Samuel Small, cashier; capital $250,000. Building but so, so — of pressed-brick with free-stone trimmings, and iron pillars. The bank still occupies chambers only, as it did before the fire. CUB INSUBANCE COMPANIES — MARINE, FIBE, LIFE, &C., &C. These companies are numerous, and without a single exception, we believe, trustworthy. The oldest of all our native institutions, is the Ocean-Insurance Company, IT Exchange-street, which has confined itself to sea-risks, hulls, cargoes, and freights, though, as originally organized, it was intended to do a fire business, also. Chas. M. Davis, president ; George A. Wright, secretary. OUB FIRE-INSUBANCE agencies, are very numerous, but all foreign, that is, of other States; and many, if not most of our largest and safest offices, are represented among us by the following officers. Barnes Brothers, 28 Exchange-street, representing fourteen companies, with assets of $10,000,000; K. W. Deering, 5 Exchange, one company, assets $1,000,- 000 ; Dow, Coffin & Libby, nine companies, assets $20,000,000 ; Jeremiah Dow, 67 Exchange, one company, assets $2,.500,000 ; John E. Dow and J. S. Palmer, 1 Exchange, six companies, assets $12,000,000; J. M. Heath, 42 1-2 Exchange, three companies, $25,000,000; W. D. Little & Co., 49 1-2 Exchange, ten com- panies, assets $10,000,000 ; John W. Hunger, 156 Fore, five companies, assets $2,000,000; W. G. Kay, 190 Fore, two companies, assets $1,250,000; Rollins, Loring & Adams, eighteen companies, assets $50,000,000 ; Warren Sparrow, 96 POBTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 123 MiiUllo, throe companies, assets $2,000,000 ; Upham & Gardiner, 7 Exchange, six companies, assets $2,000,000 ; Joseph H. Webster, 84 1-2 Middle, two com- panies, assets $1,000,000. LIFE-INSUKANCE. And we have also represented among us, The Mutual-Benefit Life-insurance, which I, myself, had the pleasure of introducing here, immediately after its organization, a company which has wrought many changes in the whole system of Life-insurance, and has been, to say the least of it, astonishingly- prosperous. Mr. Warren Sparrow is the agent now. THE NEW-l'ORK MUTUAL, W. D. Little & Co., agents, was somewhat earlier in the field than the Mutual Benefit company, requiring all cash however, while the Mutual-Benefit and some other companies allow a credit of one half, on certain desirable and safe conditions. This company, one of the largest and most prosperous in the world, has accumulated a fund of $75,000,000. TUE KEW-ENGLAND MUTUAL, of which the late William Willis, was agent for many years, and then Mr. N. P. Deering, up to the time of his death, is now represented by J. M. Palmer. The ^tna, by A. G. Dewey; American Popular, by John B. Hudson; Charter Oak, by S. H. McAlpine; Equitable, by Roberts & Clark; Massa- chusetts-Mutual, by S. F. Merrill ; Merchants, by Aug. H. Ford ; Phoenix Mutual, by J. T. Reynolds ; Xorth America, by M. L. Stevens ; State-Mutual, by Dow, Coflin & Libby ; Travelers, by A. J. Chase. ACCIDE^-T INSURANCE. Is represented here by W. D. Little & Co., A. J. Chase, and Rollins, Loring & Adams. OUR BANKS — THE PORTLAND-SAVINGS. On Exchange-street. John B. Brown, president; Frank Noyes, cashier. Deposits with accumulated interest, over Jive millions. Decidedly one of the most prudent, and cautious, and at the same time, one of the most liberal in- stitutions of the kind, which we have any knowledge of. The president, a host of himself, a tower of strength — sagacious and prosperous, and the officers, managers, cashier, and assistant cashier, experienced, coiirteous and faithful men, their triumphant progress from the beginning, is no marvel. Our first Savings-bank was a melancholy failure ; both of those now in operation, are, in fact, our safety-valves, and worthy of entire confidence. And the building itself, including the block, which belongs to the bank, and was got under-way soon after the fire, is exceedingly beautiful, without being 124 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. overloaded, or of extravagant pretensions. It is built of pressed-brick with Albert-stone trimmings, three stories high, with a tall, French-roof -but here you have it, and may judge for yourself. The Banking-house, with handsome, well-finished rooms, for the comfort and accommodation of the directors and '^/aj/im£i/iSS^ PORTLA^•D SAVOGS BANK BLOCK. Officers, occupies the whole ground-floor, on the nearest corner ; in the second story, the Gas Company, and law-offices, are established, and the upper story IS occupied as a hall, by all the Masonic bodies of the city, and there are three large, handsome stores on Exchange-street, running through to Market 8tr66t« SOMETHING REMAEKABLE— FORETELLINGS AND THEIE FULFILMENT. On the 12th of March, 1828-nearly fifty years ago, there appeared in the Yankee, the following bold prophecies, and stinging reflections. I do not pre- tend to be a prophet, or the son of a prophet; but my friend. Gen. John Marshall Brown, who had been tumbling over a stray copy of that inestimable folio, the PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 125 Yankee, has just called my attention to the following papers, which, after due consideration, I have concluded to re-publish, hoping that fifty years from now they may be again disinterred, and set a-ringing once more. It is entitled "Portland — the Future," and I have changed only here and there, a word or two: "We should like to ask our people, who appear to have spent a heap of money upon the streets and side-walks of the town, whether it has been profit- ably or worthily spent; whether, if it cost a thousand dollars to do a thing properly, there would be any real wisdom in appropriating but nine hundred and fifty for it? And whether it would be possible, in their opinion, to per- suade a stranger, who had been trapped here once by a rainy day in March, ever to run the risk a second time ; or in other words, whether they do or do not believe in the old proverb, "that a burned child dreads the fire." "As for ourselves, were we not born here, and rooted here, {rooting here, we should say, if we had not a mortal aversion to a pun,) we do not believe that we could be tempted by any reasonable bounty, to venture near such a congre- gation of sloughs, pit-falls, mantraps, slides, slippers, and leg-breakers (we de- sire to be particular, ) as abound here — here — in one of the most beautiful towns on the face of the earth, and capable, we are quite positive, all things considered, of being made more of, than perhaps any other town of America — after having once been caught in it, or kept in it by bad weather. "We do wish we could persuade our people to look into the truth of a few axioms, which require only to be stated to prove themselves. "We say that the character of a town is but another name for its wealth and prosperity." (N. B. Just here I should like to insert, that the character of a town determines the character of its people.) "And we say, moreover, that its character abroad — not at home; its character among its neighbors, and among travelers and strangers, — not among its own citizens and house-holders, or land-holders, will decide its prosperity for an age, if not forever. And we say also, that however much may depend upon its hospitality, the public spirit, the commercial spirit, or the wealth of a town, quite as much, if not more, depends upon its public-houses, public conveyances, roads, streets, and sidewalks ; and that either beauty of situation, or beauty of neighborhood, if rightly taken ad- vantage of, may be made a mine of wealth, a source of perpetual revenue. Just look at the situation of Portland. With landscapes on every side of it, sea-shores, sea-bathing, and sea-views at every man's door; with pictures on the earth, and pictures in the sky; water and woods, and hills, rivers and seas, and bridges and forts, a salt-water lake on one side, with the Wliite-Hills of ISTew Hampshire in full view of almost every house, and the high-seas on the other; and yet so abominably deficient in good streets, and sidewalks, or platforms, that for weeks and weeks every yeai-, it is hardly possible for next-door neigh- bors to visit each other, unless they go in a carriage, or swing themselves from door to door by a rope, without going over shoes in mud, or slumping half-leg deep into the snow and slush of the season. "As for ourselves, we are satisfied that more money is lost, in the shape of carriage-hire, shoe-leather, comfort, health, time, doctors' bills, &c., &c., every 126 POBTLAND ILLUSTRATED. year, than woiald be required to keep the sidewalks of the whole town as neat as a breakfast-table." — But query — "If our young men go to a party, they must go in boots, or in shoes that unship ; and as for the women, they cannot go at all — they have to be carried and dropped at the door." "Would that our men of large property would bestir themselves — or die off — we don't care which. They are only in the way now, and if they could hear the whisper of the public, they would find it so. If they do not wake up from their apathy, the sooner they are off, the better. They have done all the good they were ever capable of. Good! — to be sure they have. But how? By looking to the future ? No — by laboring for themselves, and for themselves alone. By educating their children, by building up houses, and hoarding up wealth, and thereby preparing, in spite of their teeth, and as the cattle do that enrich the hills, or tread the clay for the hands of the potter — the very materi- al that our future statesmen are to work with, to endow with beauty and strength, or to shape for magnificent uses. If they had half the spirit of our young men, or if they would co-operate together, and avail themselves of the ad- vantages that lie within their grasp, they would live all the happier for it, and die all the richer, and Portland in ten years from to-day, would be a city of thirty thousand inhabitants." Some of these hints and suggestions were taken in good part, and now what are we ? Just look at our streets, and sidewalks, and public-houses, and public conveyances, our population, our wealth, and our business-resources. "But," says the writer, "our wealthy men ought to know, must know indeed, if they consider the matter in a way worthy of their reputed sagacity, that the value of their houses and stores, nay, of the very dirt they tread uj^on — their acres of earth, which they would retail from the apothecary-shop, if they had the power — is in exact proportion to the character of the place where they are situated, in the view of comparative strangers." "Let them watch the growth of the most inconsiderable village — nay, the first settlement or breaking up of the wilderness, let them go along with its history, step by step, till the former has become a great commercial-city, and the other is teeming with nations. It is the first traveler — it is the stran- ger that settles there first; the stranger that gives it a character with strangers, — who cares for the favorable testimony of the inhabitants? — they are all in- terested witnesses — the stranger that builds it up and gives it a name and a his- tory ; and the very day that the stranger avoids it, or bears testimony against it, is the very day from which its downfall may be reckoned. Ask yourselves the question. Do you not feel kindly toward that place, whatever it may be, where you spent your time agreeably, years and years ago ? And do you not speak bitterly of that place, whatever it may be, where you were treated unkindly, or spent your time disagreeably— though it was in your boyhood, ever so long ago ? And has not your influence, do you believe, hindered some person or other, in the whole course of your life, either from settling in, or visiting that place ? If so, it has probably lost much more than it ever gained by you, even though you were cheated by every man you had to do with, while you were there. Look POBTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 127 at the history of the great cities of our earth, which, after rising from the deep, like meteors — John Milton says like exhalations — like meteors have dis- appeared, leaving their very neighborhood a desert. What has destroyed them ? The curse of the stranger. Who would trust a ship in a port charged with punic faith? Who would sleep in a land where the stranger is looked upon as lawful prey? The wreck-season on the coast of Cornwall, and the harvest reaped of travelers in the decrepit cities of Europe, have made both a by-word and a reproach everywhere. A few years more, and the harvest in the cities will be done with, and tHe posterity of the wreckers will be found only among the paupers of the land that gave them birth. Look at the history of Baltimore. See how it throve while it bore a high character abroad ; see what it has be- come now, with its mobs, its banditti, its pirates, privateers, and bankrupts. It is decidedly one of the most beautiful cities in the world, with a very intelli- gent, moral, and high-hearted community, and yet, an age may not restore to it the character it lost within a period of six years." P. S. But, God be thanked, is now restored, standing higher than ever. It is not the natural growth of a town we are to trust to — for if a town does not go ahead faster than the surrounding country, it goes backward. The population are always rowing against wind and tide. It cannot afford to he stationary for a moment. If a place he not attractive enough to hring the stranger to settle in it, we may he sure that it will not be attractive enough to keep those who are horn in it, and they it is, that form the true wealth of a country. The stranger will be fixed by that which is overlooked by the eye of one familiar with it. Turn to Portsmouth — deserted a few years ago by all her young men, as fast as they were able to get away, she had better been deserted by all her old men, with all their wealth into the bargain. So with Newburyport; and both atthe same time, were over-peopled with women, with well-educated, superior, handsome, unmarried women. It was a reproach to the country." — And how is it with Salem to-day? "Depend upon it, there is something wrong in tlie social system of every com- munity, where fine girls are left unmarried, especially in a country like this, where even yet, as it was in the days of Doctor Franklin, a second-hand wife, with a ready-made family, ought to be looked upon as a fair capital to be- gin with. It may appear strange at^first, but such is the fact, and after a little consideration, it will not appear strange, that though it must be harder to sup- port a family than yourself, it is generally done with more ease — we have uttered a queer paradox, but we shall not unsay it, for it is literally true. It would be often easier for a married man to support a family in a given way, than for a single man to support himself, in the same way. His neighbors have more faith in him ; they see him rooted as it were, among them ; his fam- ily are his bondsmen. They are so many pledges to the public for his good behaviour. And who that knows much of the human heart, would not prefer the endorsement of a good wife, with two or three healthy children, to that of most unmarried-men, for a promissory-note?" "We don't ask people who keep fifty, or a hundred thousand dollars lying idle, 128 POBTLAND ILLUSTRATED. year after year, in the vaults of a bank, nor men who found theological institu- tions, and then buy up notes against poor debtors, that have failed, and are beginning the world anew, with a little family strapped on their backs — notes, with which to pay them for wash-stands that are bought by the score to give away ; but we speak to those who have not the courage to damn themselves so utterly ; to those who woiild be sorry to have their children rejoice over their death-bed." "But look at home! Do we not perceive that our young men who go abroad are attracted for permanent residences, only to the beautiful cities, or thriv- ing towns of our country ? If they go to New-Orleans, it is only to get rich enough to be able to leave it, and for what i^lace? for their native town? — no indeed, but for some town more celebrated; more beautiful, or more enterpris- ing. Ask anybody of experience, if it be not true, that they who have once left their native town, are more reluctant to return to it, than the stranger is to settle there, and this, in spite of all their supposed yearning after the home of their childhood, and in spite of all their oaths to go back, when they are able to keep a carriage, and make their old bare-footed playmates die with envy." "But there are people, who, if they see their money going in large quantities, and coming in small quantities, can never be made to believe, that after all, there may be a profit in the ojjeration ; just as there are those, who, if they lay out money, are never satisfied with any other return but money — health, strength, happiness, comfort, respectability, all these are nothing, if they cannot be scored off in pounds, shillings and pence, or reckoned by decimals. Give such men power, and they would never consent to the repairs of a side-walk, or a high- way, at the public cost, much less at their own. But why ? Because, forsooth, it would be imijossible to prove to them that the money they expend, will ever come back to them, in the shape of money. The whole town may prosper for it; it may be thronged with strangers and visitors, from every part of the world ; everybody may be able to live in comfort, and run about among the curiosities, without going over-shoes in mud, and yet, these ha'penny calcula- tors would never acknowledge, or never see that the money has not been wasted. But enough. Our town we are proud of. We know what it is capable of being made, and we have no patience therefore, with our people, when we look at our side-walks and thoroughfares, and see strangers plowing through them half-leg deep, on the way from their boarding-houses to the regular places of business. We are half inclined to stop them in the street, and advise them not to venture abroad without a balloon — or stilts, and a cork jacket." But reforms followed this startling appeal, and we began to travel dry-shod, after a city-government was established. And again, April 2, 1828, we have another article about Portland, which seems written for to-day. It is entitled ''Portland. JVfiat is everybody's business is nobody^s business. Ours is a land of steady habits, and this town is remarkable for severity of religious discipline — if not for morality. We have plenty of law to, but who cares for it? " — Look at our police-reports, and the staggering men, women and boys, we meet with at every turn, though not a PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 129 drop of liquor is to be had this side of Moosehead-Lake, if we may believe a late mayor, and one of our highest authorities on the temperance question, and we have — it is pretended — prohibitory laws, and oflacers with the highest inquisitorial powers. "Boijs play bat-and-ball, at noon-day, in the most frequented streets, with windows all about, and horses continually passing. We have constables by the score, and yet nothing is done." Now, all this, be it observed, was in 1828,— How miich better is it now ? "Boys break into our dwelling-houses on the Sabbath-day, and steal whatever they can carry off; they break the windows of our sleeping-chambers, in pure sport; and they set fire to our dwellings at night, in a frolic. We have magis- trates, and constables, and judges enough and to spare; yet no inquiry is had, no complaint is made." Yet more: "Cart-loads of garbage, are left steaming and smoking, day after day on the only sidewalk of a large, wide-street, which is rendered impassible by the filth, and almost uninhabitable by the smell : we have citizens, and neighbors, and selectmen, and police-officers — yet these things are." Then follow a number of cases, in confirmation of all this — and then a proposition for a City-government, which soon followed, though it had been, refused over and over again. LATE OPERATIOXS ON THE GRAND-TRUJfK — CHAKGE OF GAUGE. We have had occasion to speak of this truly vast, generous, and well-managed institution, more than once already. But a gigantic operation of this Company, just completed with astonishing energy, promptitude and success, deserves honorable mention. For many years, there has been a war of gauges in this region. At one period, the broad gauge carried all before it; and most of us being unacquainted with its practical disadvantages, and having our whole attention fixed upon its apparent advantages — greater safety and greater carrying power — we denounced the narrow gauge, and resisted every proposed change, though it was evident enough that the narrow must yield to the broad, or the broad to the narrow gauge, throughout a line of twelve hundred miles. But within the last three years, our eyes have been opened, and the magnifi- cent operations of the Grand-Trunk, with its twenty-two hundred passenger and other cars to change, and yet leaving four thousand, four hundred broad gauge trucks to be dealt with. Of these, about sixteen hundred may be adapted to the narrow gauge, thus increasing the aggregate rolling-stock, by that number. An idea of the magnitude of this undertaking may be had, by considering that "the wheels of cars, standing at Point St. Charles, and packed closely together, end to end, would probably cover a space of ten acres, and stretched along a single line, loould cover a distance of from eight to ten miles. In addition to this, there were on the Anthabaska branch, on Friday night, Sept. 25, enough tn-oad gauge cars, packed end to end, to cover a distance of Jive miles.'" 130 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. "This company," says the Montreal Gazette, from which the foregoing ex- tract is borrowed, "witliin the last two years, have expended, including addi- tions to rolling-stock, siding-accommodations, and the great bridge across the Niagara-river, at Buffalo, tioelve and a half million dollars." And now, they have changed along the whole line of twelve hundred miles, the broad gauge to a narrow gauge, as if by magic, having an army of laborers, stretching from Portland to Island-Pond, who did their part of the work almost in a day. "Of the importance of these improvements, to the efficiency and usefulness of this great route of trade and travel, it is difficult to make an adequate esti- mate. Not only will the line itself, be equal to a vast deal more work, but it will be able to extend its usefulness in all directions. Cars may be loaded here at Portland, with goods from Europe, and proceed to almost any poiiit in the West or No7'th-ioest, without interruption, and in the same loay, merchandise may be put on the cars at Montreal, and sent to Chicago or San-Francisco, without breaking bulk." Let us lay these facts to heart, and then publish them to the world, as by the sound of trumpets, until we are known everywhere, as the chief central depot in the great inter-oceanic thoroughfare, between the Old World and the New — the Atlantic and the Pacific. P. S. We cannot withold the following items, that have just appeared in the Argus, one of our half-dozen papers, which, to say the least of them, are entitled to entire confidence, in all such matters. Alike trustworthy, and careful, they deserve all we have said or can say of them, as business-papers in particular, to say nothing of their newspaper qualifications. "The advantages to follow from this change of gauge, can hardly be estimated. It is sufficient to know that a car-load of tea, silks or flour, from San-Francisco, can now be landed on our streets, ivithout change of gauge or break of bulk, and vice-versa, a car of European goods from Portland can be landed in San-Fran- cisco; and also that, with equal facility, goods can be moved to and from our city to every part of the United-States and Canada." OUR THEATRES. What a wonderful change ! Not long ago, a theatre in Portland seemed to be out of the question. We had tried, over and over again, year after year, but in vain ; although something would be set up and called a theatre, even the "Portland Theatre;" but after a few convulsive gasps, it would undergo a change, and actually disappear, sometimes for a long period. But just now, such is the desire, such the rage for theatricals, that we have not only amateur clubs, dramatic-associations and itinerant companies, wandering hither and thither in our midst and about our neighborhood, but no less than two theatri- cal companies, with two regularly organized theatres, under a different name, to be sure, one being "The Portland-Museum and Opera-House," in Fluent's Block, and the other ''Ward's Opera-House," in what used to be known as Music-Hall, on Congress-street, with a "grand Family-Matinee," on every Satur- daj-afternoon ! And all this, too, while we have theatrical performances in PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 131 our Congress-square church-vestry (UniversaUst), for some charitable or other purpose. And why this cliange ? Simply because, our people have come to their senses, and are as willing to hear a sermon from the stage, as from the platform or pulpit, and as ready to see a sermon acted in a theatre — or muse- um — or opera-house — by well-behaved men and Avomen, as in the Plymouth Church, N. Y., or in other ecclesiastical bodies. And this, too, without any falling away, or backsliding. It is not roe, who have changed, but they, the managers and caterers for such institutions. What was once not only tolerated upon the stage, by our best people, but encouraged, like the Beggar's Opera, the PORTLAND MUSEUM AND OPERA-UOUSE. Tartuffe, or Hypocrite, the Fair Penitent, and fifty others we could name, have passed away, and would not be endured without emasculation, so that our conscientious objections are no longer in play; and then too, more attention is paid to the moral character of i^layers now ; and it is no longer said, nor even, suggested, that we have no mare right to complain of Portia, or Juliets' repre- sentative, though abandoned or shameless, than of a shoemaker for unfaith- fulness as a husband, or misbehavior generally, provided his workmanship is 132 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. what it should be. This dangerous fallacy, which served in other days, would not be listened to, in our day. And therefore it is, that some of the sturdiest among the adversaries of theatrical representations and theatres, have lately undergone — to all appearance — a thorough change of opinion — myself among the number. Once, and for many years, a friend of theatrical performances, though never intimate with actors or actresses, nor ever an habitual frequenter of theatres, either abroad or at horns, I was led into a severe criticism of certain actors and actresses, whose profligate behavior stirred me up, and exasperated me, while they were continually urging the example of Addison, of Dr. Johnson, of Dr. Young, or of Hannah Moore, as writers of plays, to justify their mis-representation of character, by their private lives, which rendered their best playing, an offen- sive caricature. And then — to follow out some of these changes — a proper occasion having presented itself, and the stage being occupied by men and women of good character — well-behaved moralists, if nothing more, I began to speak well of plays — plays of the right kind, I mean, of course — and of actors, where I knew them to be quite as good as the rest of us. Whereupon, my excellent friend Dr. Cari'uthers, called on me and remonstrated ; and the conse- quence was, that I went off upon quite another tack, and, without abandoning my convictions, or shuflllng, I added a few qualifications; and so far did I carry my love of consistancy, as a church-member, that I refused to see the performance of my old friend Hackett, whom I had introduced upon the London stage, when he came here and played Falstaff, his greatest character, and the richest of all his fine personations, if I may judge by what I have heard; for I never saw it, nor him afterward. But the change has come, and I am heartily glad of it. We may have preaching now, and the best of preaching from the stage, as well as from our closets, or pulpits ; and just as there may be silent preaching, by our daily walk and conversation, so there may be, by playing. A word or two now of our theatrical history. Wlien I was a boy, and a very small boy, not over eight or ten, I was taken to our first theatre, near Union Hall, I should say, where a farce, which I have never met with, nor heard of since. Blue Deyils, was undergoing a representation. Though not much of a critic, I remember being sadly puzzled by "me father," and "O, me father!" uttered by a pretty girl, as she clung to an old white-haired man, the very image of the late James D. Hopkins — if not James D. Hopkins himself — in whose house, connected with a rope-walk, where the Hopkins-block now stands, my mother lived. But my pleasure Avas shortlived — "me father! O, ??ie father !" being about all I heard of the play, and all I saw, except the light of a candle which I mis- took for a star, seen through a heavy baize curtain. I was wanted elsewhere it seemed — having swindled my poor mother out of her consent, by saying that I shouldn't wonder if Mr. Jenks, the printer, for whom I had done some little errand, should take me with him to see the play, whereupon she pooh- poohed I at my folly, in supposing such an event within the limits of possibility. PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 13a but did not say no. And therefore I went. Being alarmed by my absence, how- ever, all at once it popped into ber bead tbat perhaps I had gone to the devil in the way mentioned; and so she started a couple of the " friends " on my track, one of whom, after hurrying me away, just as I began to breathe freely, took me down to the old jail, then kept by Gibbs, in the rear of our new City-IIall, and there, standing at the huge wooden gate, made believe all he could, to frighten me — but he failed — failed pitibly — and I went home to my dear mother, a wiser, if not a sadder boy. Our next theatre, after many a long year, was in the Union Hall — but I VIEW ON MIDDLE STREET. never saw the inside of it; and then our old play-goers, who, as business-men, believed that a theatre would be a great attraction to strangers, got together, and about forty years ago, built a very respectable theatre on Free-street, whicli was in full blast for a season or two — with long intervals of rest — and then sold to the Methodist Episcopal Church, who purged it, as with fire, remodelled it, and finally added a tall spire and a handsome turret, and stuccoed the front, and made it one of our finest buildings. 134 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. After this — many years after — Mr. Francis O.J. Smitli, one of our most energetic, adventurous and remarkable men, built a theatre for us in Union street, -which, after awhile, came into the hands of Mr. John B. Brown, and then into those of his first partner in business, Mr. St. John Smith, another of our straight-forward, prosperous and wealthy country-boys. And now, after another long interval, during which we have been satisfied with occasional exhibitions at our City Halls, both old and new, and at Deering Hall, by wandering associations, we have these two theatres. Museums, or Opera-Houses — whichever you will — to satisfy the reasonable desires of our young men, and keep them out of mischief — to say nothing of our old men — and very little of the strangers, that are believed to be on their way, tolled in, or roped in, we care not which, so that they bring their money and take away our goods. Boi,h of these houses are prettily finished and furnished, and very creditable to our taste, and the companies are said to be /((ss-raie, as General Tom Thumb used to say, with his little, cracked, trumpet-voice. CUB BAXKS — THE MAINE SAVINGS. On Exchange-street. Benjamin Kingsbury, jr., late municipal judge and then mayor, president. Alfred Barton, cashier. Deposits, and accumulated interest, nearly /our millions. This, too, is an institution we have reason to be proud of. Carefully managed, exceedingly prosperous, we may be thankful indeed for the security it offers to the productive classes and property-holders — the builders and mechanics of our city. OUR BANKS — THE NATIONAL TRADERS. A. K. Shurtleff, president — another of our earnest and faithful business men, occupying the front second-story chamber ; as it did that of a low, brick building on Fore-street, before the fire, with stairs outside. Edward Gould, cashier. Capital, §250,000. OUR PRIVATE BANKING-HOUSES. We never have had a private banking-house, here, until Messrs. John B. Brown & Sons, launched out into a new field of enterprise, after their enor- mous sugar-house had been swept away, with all of its outlying appendages, by the great fire, and opened at No. 49 Exchange-street — our Wall-street — in a large, handsome building, put up to order, by Mr. William W. Thomas, of pressed brick, with free-stone trimmings, iron pillars, &c. ; followed by Mr. William N. Gould, with his private "Bank of Portland," in a very modest, unpretending, though evidently profitable way. But we have had, and still have, brokers, eminently trustworthy, to supply certain of our wants, such as Henry M. Payson, 32 Exchange-street, Swan &, Barrett, 100 Middle-street, and Willi^-m E. Wood, 61 Exchange-street, all bankers in their way. PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 135 BOOK STORES — BA.ILEY AND NOTES. We have already had occasion to say a few words, about this fine establish- ment, but, having had our attention called to it afresh, we find that we have not done the parties full justice. In the first place, the store itself is one of the largest, handsomest, and most conveniently arranged business-establishments of the kind, in all the United States. In the next place — to be more particular — the building itself occupies the BAILEY & >'OYES' BLOCK. ground of two large deep stores on Exchange-street — the "Wall-street of Port- land — is three stories high, with a French roof, and built of pressed-brick, with iron caps and Albert-stone sills and trimmings. The Sales-room on the ground floor is believed to be, and undoubtedly is, the finest bookstore in Maine, with an overflow of all that is precious in literature. 136 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. In the third place, the finish throughout is very beautiful, being of carved walnut, chestnut and butternut woods, just such as Michaux, in his North American Sylva, first called our attention to, as a mine of wealth, and a trea- sury of taste, in comparison with which the foreign woods we have heretofore used so abundantly are but rubbish in many cases, and even the best, not so beautiful as our commonest native-growth — the birds-eye maple and black ash for example. Here you find a collection of authors in most of the languages now in use ; with all kinds of stationery, account-books, writing papers of the most beautiful tinting, perfumed note paper, and all the luxuries of boudoir, office, and counting-room. On the second floor, they have a constant supply of the Chickering pianos, and of Mason and Hamlin's Cabinet Organs, of the best character and most beautiful workmanship — this firm being the exclusive agents for both, in this part of our country. Up another flight, you find yourself in a large hall, given over to the exhibi- tion of paper-hangings of all patterns, colors and prices. And finally, on mounting to another story, you enter one of the largest and best arranged book-bindei'ies of New-England, superintended by Mr. George S. Bailey, and turning out a large quantity of the best work that can be done by skilled workmen, with machinery and bi'ains for whatever may be wanted. EAGLE SUGAK-KEFINEBY. John Sparrow, President; John Sparrow, G. S. Hunt and J. W. Williams, Directors. Geo. S. Hunt c% Co., selling agents. It is only within a few years, eight or ten perhaps, that we have meddled with the business of refining sugar ; and this, notwithstanding our large Cuba trade, amounting almost to a monopoly, and though dull now, on account of the domestic troubles in that most beautiful island, quite sure to revive with the first signs of tranquility there. The Eagle Sugar-Refinery was incorporated in 1S03, with an allowed capital of $250,000. They manufacture sugars from molasses only, and have a wide reputation for what are called C — C C — and extra C sugars. The process is by boiling in vacuo, and purging with centrifugal machinery. They are able to turn out the product of from seventy to eighty hhds. per day, yielding about twenty tons of sugar; and now it is said that their full time capacity is all of one hundred and fifty hhds. a day. Take it altogether, by and large, as the sailors say, this Company may be justly regarded as at least equal to any in the United States. It is not a kiln- drying operation — steam only is employed — and no fires are used, except for the boiler, which generates all the steam required throughout the works. It may be worthy of especial mention, that a committee of the New- York under- ^vriters, who went through the land for purposes connected with their business, decided, after a thorough examination, that the Portland Eagle Sugar-Refinery was beyond all question, the best establishment of the kind they had ever seen. PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 137 After a course of patient and careful, and it may well be supposed, of costly experiment, the works were remodelled, in 1869, and such improvements were introduced, as enabled them to double their producing power. As already men- tioned, their sugar is made from molasses, and not refined sugars — and the process being now well understood, and justly appreciated — not kiln-boiling, but steam boiling — the product bears a ready market-value for all they can furnish. They furnish eleven grades of sugar to satisfy the continually increasing demands of the market, and these range from nearly white, down to a dark EAGLK SLGAU KEKIXEUV. yellow, and all are kept to a scrupulous unchanging standard, so that purchas- ers may always be sure of what they order. The process itself is known as the centrifugal, and is everywhere valued for the safety and quickness of its ope- rations. Tiio sugars are barreled off on the fifth day after the molasses is received. The machinery is very beautiful and ingenious. There are twenty-four centri- fugals in the lower story; ten vacuum-pumping engines, two vacuum pans, two steam-boilers, each of two hundred horse-power. About two thousand hhds. of water are used every day for condensing the vapor which rises from the vacuiun pans. The boiling is done at a temperature 138 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. as low as 120°, with a vacmim of twenty-eight inches ; which is indicated by exceedingly delicate instruments attached to the pans. At any time, the water pumps can be turned on and used as force-pumps. The steam-pump has a ca- pacity equal to that of two steam fire-engines, and 150 feet of hose are always ready for use. The furnace is set on a brick floor, and the steam pumps are all covered with asbestos. No steam-pipe runs nearer than four inches to any wood-work ; and where the pipes run through the floor, they are set in tin plates, and tin is freely used throughout the building, wherever there are any pipes. The works are abun- dantly lighted from the skies, and gas only used in the office and one other place, near a stairway to the basement. The walls are protected with iron, and the whole interior made undeniably safe. The machinery is in perfect order — and always kept so — the store-room is fire-proof, and the pan-room carefully watched. The store is about twenty feet in the rear of the main buildings, which are of brick, and here it is that the molasses is stored until wanted. OUR POKTLAXD MECHANICS AXD APPREXTICES. Last evening, Sept. 30, we had a great gathering of our mechanics at the seventeenth triennial, of the Maine Charitable-Mechanic Association ; and a supper worthy of the occasion, with speeches, toasts, songs, and lots of me- chanics' wives, daughters and sweethearts, to make it pleasant for strangers. Out of debt — wholly oat of debt. — with a building, worth to-day, nearer a hundred and twenty-five or one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, than what it cost in 1856, with the land — that is, ninety thousand dollars; with a library of four thousand volumes, a clear income of four thousand dollars a year, and about to organize a school of design, for the mechanical arts in all branches, free of access to all who come properly introduced — what may not be hoped from the mechanics of Portland, hereafter? Compare the public, ay, and the priuaie-buildings of our city, put up within a few years, just before and since the fire, and going up now in every part, with all that had been done before, and then say whether Portland has not re- deemed herself, and acquired imperishable honor, by her enterprize and thrift, her ambition and her taste. And this, be it remembered, is mainly the work of our mechanics. Having associated together in 1815, under great difficulty and discouragement, only fifty-seven in all, they persevered through evil report and through good report, undergoing the trials common to ail our producing classes, and all our property-holders, during the war of 1812 to 1815 — with all that preceeded and all that followed, the wasting of our heritage by embargoes, non-importation acts, and non-intercourse acts — until they had built for themselves and their children's children, in perpetuity, that noble monument, the Mechanics'-Hall. * We had a capital summary view of its past history, in the address of Mr. Charles P. Kimball, the late gubernatorial candidate of our two-fisted, strong PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 139 hearted democracy, and were not a little gratified to learn, that, for a long time, though not from the first, when the bells rang out their eleven o'clock and four o'clock invitation to the grog-shop or the rum-jug— but for many- years, their constitution denied membership to all drinking-men, without waiting till they became drunkards by profession ; for this association, there- fore, it was claimed, not by Mr. Kimball, alone, but by others, that they began the temperance counter-march, to sobriety, which has ended — where we find it now. But Mr. Oliver Gerrish, one of its oldest members, informed us that the re- form originated in the Ancient-Landmark Lodge, of Free-and-Accepted masons, long before 1815— about 1807, he thinks. Be it so. Whenever it begun — and VIEW COUNEB OF BROWN AKD CONGBESS-STllEETS. whoever began it — great good has been accomplished, and not a little mischief, by over-doing, and by attempting impossibilities, by combining politics with temperance, and forgeting the injunction, to be temperate in all things. A son of Captain Coyle, with a rich, ponderous voice, well worth remembering, was persuaded to give us a song — one verse of which, canonized the wine-cup, as did most of the songs, in use fifty years ago — and though he apologized hand- 140 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. somely, yet, when called out by a vociferous encore, many times repeated, he gave us another, in praise of beer, of malt, and hops, and brown stout, as the ali- ment of our fathers, the Gods of the Sea. Of course, all the hearty, generous, old-fashioned tipplers, whether of beer, ale, brown-stout, Santa-Cru?, or Jamai- ca, or Holland-gin, will remember the doctrines that were always to be heard on festivals, election-day, and fourth of July — "If any pain or care remain, Let's drown it in the bowl." For example; or "Delightful days of whim and soul, When mingling love and laugh together, "We leaned the book on Pleasures' bowl, And turned the leaf with Folly's feather. &c., &c. And when John Pierpont — that apostle of temperance — wrote "thy glass may be purple and mine may be blue," upon a question of theology, while he gave up Beecherism for Unitarianism. But our friends of the Maine Charitable Mechanic-Association, must not be left here. In addition to their pledge, now about to be redeemed, quietly, and unostentatiously, to establish a school of design, for the help of beginners and strangers, who need instruction, as a capital to enter life with, so that they may not only design, but execute, hereafter, with a full understanding of me- chanics, of properties, of the strength of material, and of safety from fire — in addition to this — they have almost pledged themselves — would we might say not only almosthut, altogether, as Paul did — to revive, or, at any rate, to establish a liberal system of apprenticeship, so that the rash and presumptuous boys may be helped, who are now turned loose upon society, after a few months worried away in some mechanical trade, only to spoil whatever they undertake — at half price — and at quarter- work, until, in the hurry of business, they supersede our skilled workmen. Ignorant, perhaps, of the very elements of the trade they profess — the verv alphabet — they rush headlong into business for themselves, underbid others who have gone through a long course of training, if not of regu- lar apprenticeship — or as journeymen. Of this great evil — evil to the young men who are honestly disposed to earn their own living, and evil to the com- munity, Mr. Kimball spoke earnestly, and with his large experience, in a way to produce a profound impression. To hear some people talk about the labor- ing or productive classes, one would almost believe, that they had never heard of our great Master, who chose fishermen for apprentices, and was himself a car- penter, nor of Paul, the tent-maker. CUB COUNTKT-BOYS — DEVELOPED. Everywhere — in all the cities and commercial-centres of our country, at any rate, if no where else — they have their A. T. Stewarts and Cornelius Yander- bilts, and a class of leading business-men and professionals, lawyers, doctors and preachers, who were born and bred in the country ; men who labored in their boyhood, up to man's estate, and learned to breathe freely, without much PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 141 help, until they began to feel acquainted with themselves, and to find out, by little and little, what they were good for — and then hopped the twig — and launched forth into God's free air, and became, after a few years, the foremost among their fellows. We have a hundred or two of such men among us ; and nothing would gratify us more than to read their biographies — their auto-biographies, if you will — to follow them, step by step, through their preparatory exercises, in the country school-house, wading through snow drifts up to their necks, or in the dark VIEW ON CONGRESS-STREET. wilderness, getting out wood for the winter, and cutting and splitting the knot- tiest and most unmanageable of logs, like so many playthings, till they lay piled in heaps, for oven, wood, and so on, up — and up — and up — until we find them Presidents of Banks, clothed in purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day, the acknowledged leaders in all great enterprises of the day. Among these, and the very first that occurs to our recollection, for we have 142 POBTLAND ILLUSTRATED. known them well, from their first coming to Portland, are John B. Brown, of Lancaster, New Hampshire — we do not like to say the Honorable John B. Brown, nor John B. Brown, Esquire, for such every-day embellishments add nothing to the value of such men — and St. John Smith, once co-partners in trade here, and keeping a small country-store — for it was nothing else, even here — in Morton's Block, on Middle, now Congress-street, just above the Long- fellow mansion, bartering their groceries for hoop-poles and shooks, country- produce and all sorts of truck, as they do, away up in Oxford. It seems they were both in the same store as shop-boys, at Gray, if I do not mistake the place, a small, quiet village, about fifteen miles from Portland. After getting well acquainted with the business — such as it was — and with the farmers in all that region, such as they were — they began to hear "The night- mare moaning of Ambitious breast," and forthwith pulled up stakes, and started for Portland, Smith to enter a small shop, or store, on Exchange-street, where his uncle, Elijihalet Smith, one of our old-fashioned retail haberdashers, had grown rusty over pins and needles, quality-bindings and cheap calicoes. What Brown took to for a season, I never knew; but when I returned from abroad, after an absence from Portland of a dozen years, or so, I found them both in business together as Smith and Brown, and evidently prospering, though in a small way, compared with what they have done separately, since their separation. And the result has been, after a busy life of about fifty years, that Mr. Smith is one of our largest real-estate holders, with handsome blocks of stores and houses in different parts of the city, and his fellow shoji-boy, not only one of our largest, but I am inclined to believe the largest property-holder among us — paying a tax for himself of twenty thousand dollars ; owning many blocks of stores among our handsomest and best, and one block of dwelling-houses, if no more, a large, beautifully ornamented, and highly cultivated domain, away up on Bramhall-Hill, with what deserves to be called a chateau, or villa, occupied by himself, and with a cluster of tasteful habitations, occupied by his children, all within half rifle-shot of their father. And now, just now, we find him building another block, of four large, hand- some, brick-stores, on Cross-street, 100 by 74 feet — a large manufacturing ware- house on Union-street, and filling up a large district on the water-side, where no less than three wharves, belonging to him, are now fully occupied, Brown's wharf, the Berlin Mill's wharf, and Merchants' wharf; to all these, and from one to another, he is also laying railways; whereby, uninterrupted com- munication may be kept up, with all our leading railways, and with our great lumbering-region. But enough — are not such men worth mentioning, while they are yet alive, and busy among us ? or would you have them and us wait for an obituary notice ? And then we have T. C. Hersey, a former partner of St. John Smith, and one of our most faithful, earnest and thoroughbred business-men, among the foremost of those indeed, who have introduced large manufacturing-associa- tions among us. And the two Springs, Andrew and Samuel E., both country-boys, and both PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 143 among our foremost busiuess-men ; and the two Joses, Horatio N., and Charles E. — and George W. Woodman — and William Deering — and William II. Milli- ken — and the two Storers, Horace P., and Frederick, and the two Libbys, Harrison I., president of the First National-Bank, and James B. ; and Shurt- leff, Ambrose K., president of the I^ational Ti'aders'-Bank, all of the back country growth, and all men to be proud of — to say nothing of our town-bred property-holders, and bank-presidents, who are not among those who die of sheer inanition, or live, rubbing their shins, or twirling their thumbs, and com- plaining — or murmuring — at all the ways of Providence; lamenting the good VIEW vy illDDLE STUKET, old times, and thinking only of their misfortunes, of their losses and trials, and disappointments and sorrows, but never of their comforts and blessings and deliverances and exemptions — of whom we have enough and to spare among some of our thriftiest old good-for-nothings, who, if the truth must be spoken, have no business here. But enough — we must draw the line somewhere, else we should only be filling out a catalogue of mere names, without a word to dis- tinguish one from another, which would never do — Portland is not to be illustrated in that way ; and therefore, we must be satisfied with a few stero- scopic-views and a turn or two of the kaleidoscope, however much we may desire to deal with scores who have not been mentioned, and whom we have no space for mentioning here. 144 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. GKAIS^D ABMT OF THE EEPUBLIC. A Fair has just been opened In our City-Building, for the help of this most praiseworthy organization. An address was delivered last evening, brief and comprehensive, by Charles P. Kimball, who had been greatly consi)icuous at the very outbreak of the rebellion, by introducing an order, which passed the City Council, providing for the support of the families of volunteers ; and being himself what we have called a war-democrat, we had, and still have, all the more reason for thankfulness ; for who can over-estimate the influence of such a resolution, at such a time, by such a man, throughout this whole region ? From this address, remarkable alike for its im pretending truthfulness and simplicity, we have taken several passages, which embody an amount of infor- mation respecting our first movements in Portland, not elsewhere to be found, and of such a nature, as to well deserve a more permanent shape, so much does it concern the character of our people, as a self-sacrificing community, energetic, prompt and faithful in the discharge of their obligations to their beloved country. On hearing that fires had been opened upon Fort Sumpter, the outrage was felt, like an earthquake throughout the land. Our whole population sprang to their feet ; and the following passage will show something of the stir that fol- lowed : " Sunday, April 21st, was one of the most exciting days of the war. A public meeting assembled in front of the old City-Hall that could be numbered by thousands, from a notice of less than two hours ; speeches were made by C. C. Woodman, Wni. P. Fessenden, F. O. J. Smith and Albion Witham, and one other. This was the first great war meeting in Portland ; but one feeling pre- vailed, and that was to defend the flag and to stand by the government and the constitution." On the 22d of April, the Legislature came together, and Governor Washburn, our present Collector, sent in a message — or delivered an address — which was received with a transport of enthusiasm. " Immediately at its close Mr. Gould, of Thomaston, one of the ablest and most prominent Democrats of the State, introduced a resolution pledging the entire resources of the State in men and money to the vigorous support of the government in an effort to put down the rebellion." And this pledge was gloriously redeemed. " The Legislature promptly responded to the patriotic recommendations of the Governor and the wishes of the people. Gen. Veazie, of Bangor, tendered the State a loan of $50,000 ; other banks and bankers promptly followed. En- listments went on as they never did before, and probably never will again. The excitement continued to be intense. Business was neglected or at a stand still. The calm, dignified Judge Davis adjourned the supreme judicial court on the 23d day of April, stating that his mind was so pressed with the cause of his country that he felt he was w\fit to try a case. He had no doubt the lawyers, clients and jury felt the same." The generous contagion spread like a prairie-fire. " Troops began to pour into Portland from this section of the State. The Norway Light Infantry, Capt. Beals, I think, were the first to arrive, and they PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 145 were received by our citizens and soldiers with great enthusiasm and admiration. " The first regiment was speedily formed and went into camp, and were soon mustered into the United States service. And then, for the first time, the stern duties and regulation of United States soldiers were required of them. They were not then allowed to spend a portion of their days and nights with their families." And then followed the arrangements heretofore mentioned. " They soon began to realize they were soldiers indeed, and the thought of leaving their families began to haunt them. The money they had left at home would soon be gone, then who would care for the wife and children? How well I remember those sad days, and how I pray to God I may never see their like again. The feeling of the soldiers soon reached the people and the city authorities. Mayor Thomas called a special meeting of the City Council to see what action they would take looking to the care of these families. '* One of the aldermen introduced an order appropriating the sum of ten thousand dollars for the aid of the wives and children of the soldiers from this city. This order was unanimously passed, and a committee of both branches of the city government was appointed to carry out the provisions of the order, and I say with pride for this city, that I know the work was faithfully done." The alderman referred to here was but one of many who began to feel their accountability; and 10,000 dollars to begin with was no trifle at the time, though we thought nothing of hundreds of thousands after awhile. "But," continues Mr. Kimball, "The same evening, a member of the Common Council offered, and the Council passed, a resolution saying to all the men that had or should hereafter enlist, that we should consider their families as children of the city. I am thus particular that you may plainly see, under what fair promises and pledges, those brave men, who had heart and courage enough to lay down their lives for their country, left their beloved wives and precious children. How well I re- member the warm pressure of their hand, as they tearfully left their homes to fight, that you and I might enjoy the blessings of this free country. And how feelingly they would say to you, meaning the people of this city: *We leave our wives, our children, our loved ones, all in your care. See to it that they do not suffer at your hands.' Friends, have we done all for them we promised, all that they desire? We have done much for which God will bless us a thousand fold, but much more needs to be done. Shall we shrink from our duty now, or go on ? "At last, a sense of this great and solemn obligation began to be felt in the hearts of our people, far and wide, all over the land ; and in 1805, an organiza- tion, calling itself the grand army of the republic, sprang up, in golden panoply complete. Originating at Decatur, Illinois, and beginning with a representation of eleven States only, which organized the first National Encampment, Nov. .30, 1866, it went on, till in December, 1867, twenty-one States were represented at the Pennsylvania Convention, with a membership of over 200,000, which has been constantly increasing. "The Department of Maine was organized January, 1868, and now we have twenty-one posts, in the most perfect working order." But enough — the address itself was worthy of the occasion, and the Fair, with all its contributions, and attractive arrangements, something to be proud of, and thankful for, not only now, but hereafter. Let all the people say Amen! If you would know more particularly, what Portland accomplished during the war, from the very outbreak to the end, when her maimed and scarred 146 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. veteran survivors returned in triumpli to their homes, and took their places among us, just as if nothing had haijpened, loolv at pages 120-122. Tlie liistory of tlie world contains nothing to be compared with what followed the disband- ing of our armies. Instead of levying contributions all along our highways ; instead of over-running the land with banditti and thieves, ravishers, house- breakers and pillagers, our soldiers went back to their business, to their workshops and counters and counting-rooms, at the first tap of the drum — ready to re-appear, if wanted at the second tap, as they had over and over again, during the war, after being relieved on furlough, a hundred thousand at once. Of a truth, one hardly knows which most to wonder at, their bravery in battle, their patience under the wrongs and outrages of the prison-houses, or their immediate acquiescence in the order of its change, or their amazing self- control and self-respect, as manifested on their return to civil life. WESTBEOOK SEMINARY. We are indebted to a friend for the following account of another institution, which has done much, and promises more. "The Westbrook Seminary had its birth in a resolution passed by the Kenne- bec Association of Universalists, in its annual session at Greene, Sept. 29>. 1830."— Eeu. Wm. A. Drew, in Gospel Banner of April, 1870. "This Convention provided for a meeting at Westbrook, to take into consid- eration the matter of a classical school, or Seminary, 'digest a plan for the same,' and taking measures for accomplishing the object. Revs. W. A. Drew, of Au- gusta ; S. Brimblecom, of Norridgevvock ; W. I. Reese, of Portland ; Hons. C. Holland, of Canton; J. Dunn, jr., of Poland; S. Gardiner, of Bowdoinham; Elisha Harding, of Union; Maj. J. Russ, of Farmington; Dr. A. Pierce, of Greene ; Gens. Thomas Todd, of Portland, and J. Herrick, of Hampden, were appointed to address the public upon the subject. There was considerable dis- cussion in this convention, as to location ; Waterville, Winthrop and Westbrook, were named, but finally, as there was no similar iiistitution in New England (or indeed, as far as known, in the world), it was thought to make the school as accessible as might be, to Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and it was established at Westbrook. According to appointment, a meeting was holden at Stevens' Plains, Oct. 27, 1830, Dan. Read, of Lewiston, was chosen president, and Daniel Winslow, of Portland, secretary. It was voted to adopt a constitu- tion, and petition the next Legislature for an act of incorporation. This was obtained, and the Westbrook Seminary incorporated, and the following trustees appointed: J. C Churchill, F. O. J. Smith, Daniel Winslow, Nathan Nutter, Wm. Slemmons, Moses Quinby, Josiah Dunn, W. A. Drew, D. McCobb, G. W. Tinker, Alfred Pierce. These, with others allowed by the Charter, met the following May, and organized as follows: Hon. J. C. Churchill, president, Daniel Winslow, vice-president and secretary, Hon. F. O. J. Smith, treasurer. The Universalist convention, which met in June, at Farmington Falls, endors- ed the plan and purpose, and appointed Rev. Messrs. Drew and Brimblecom , to address 'our Religious public,' on the subject. Mr. Brimblecom, was at that time in charge of the parish at Stevens' Plains, and was one of the most 148 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. earnest workers in collecting funds, and pushing the matters of the Seminary toward completion. He was at that time associate editor of the Christian Pilot, and mentions in the issue of May 23, 1833, that 'the building is now in progress.' In the spring of 1834, a 'brick-building, 37x70, two stories high, with a cupola,' was erected on land generously given by Z. B. Stevens, and O. Buckley, Esq. Cost of building about $7000. "The first term commenced June 9, 1834, with Eev. Samuel Brimblecom, principal. Rev. Alvin Dinsmore, assistant. Board was secured in iirivate families, in the neighborhood, at $1.25 to $1.75 per week. Mr. Brimblecom re- signed in the fall of 1836. Between this time and 1839, Mr. Furbush had charge of the school, a portion of the time. In 1839, John K. True, was chosen principal, and remained until Dec. 1842; to him the following principals suc- ceeded. 1843, Moses B. Walker, and Geo. W. True ; 1844, E. P. Hines ; 1846, G. W. Bradford ; 1849, Rev. L. L. Record ; 1851, Mr. Nathaniel Hatch. Rev. J. P. Weston, came to the charge, in March, 1853. The school had been closed for several terms, and was in a very low state. Mr. Weston gave it new life, and it began to show permanent strength. "Chiefly through Mr. Weston's untiring efforts, money was raised for build- ing and furnishing Goddard-Hall. He resigned in the fall of 1859. From that time, the school was under the charge successively of Messrs. C. S. Fobes, S. B. Rawson and B. G. Ames, until Rev. S. H. McCoUister, took charge in the spring of 1861. Under his care, the institution continued to prosper. "Rev. J. C. Snow, was called, in 1869, and under his wise and energetic ad- ministration the school was established upon its present basis. Hersey-Hall and the new dining-hall were built, new steam apparatus put in, and other improvements made, to the total amount of $40,000. Mr. William A. Post came in 1872, and administered affairs ably until his resignation, in the fall of 1873. "G. M. Bodge, A. M., was called to take charge in the spring of 1874, and the school is greatly prospering under his care. "The institution provides two courses in the Collegiate Department, and con- fers the degree of Laureate of Arts, upon all young ladies, who successfully pass examination in a classical course, and Laureate of Science, in the scientific course. In the Academic Department, Diplomas are granted in two courses, English and College Preparatory. "The present trustees are: Hon. S. F. Hersey, of Bangor, president; D. Torrey, vice-president; Chas. Fobes, treasurer; G. M. Stevens, Esq., secretary. Members: Hon. I. Washburn, jr., Hon. N. G. Hichborn, Rev. G. W. Quinby, Hon. S. Perham, C. S. Fobes, A. M., Oliver Moses, Esq., Rufus Dunham, Esq., Hon. L. L. Wadsworth, M. B. Coolidge, A. M., Rev. W. R. French, Hon. A. C. Dennison, Rev. A. Battles, Rev. J. C. Snow, W. W. Harris, Esq., C. P. Kimball, Esq., N. K. Sawyer, Esq., C. Morrill, Esq. Board of instruction: G. M. Bodge, A. M., Principal; I. B. Choate, Prof, of Latin and Greek ; Rev. H. C. Leonard, Prof, of Belles Lettres ; F. L. Bartlett, Nat. Science ; M. Johnson, Mathemetics and Business ; G. A. Quimby, Prof, of Music; Mrs. Helen Boothby, Perceptress, Mrs. S. P. Choate, Drawing and Painting; Miss J. E. Bodge, Rhetoric and Composition; Miss Lizzie Hoyt, Teacher of Music." PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 149 OUK BUSINESS PKOSPECTS. VIEW AT JUXC. OF FKEE AXD MIDDLE STREETS. Already have we had occasion to speak of our business-men and business prospects, encouragingly; but enough has not been said. Occasional items — with here and there suggestions arising out of incidents that have occurred, while this vindication of Portland has been going through the press, are not enough to satisfy the nat- ural desire of many among us, to know of a truth, what Ave have to depend upon, for the building up of a great commercial centre here in Portland — just here — In a leader of the Argus, for October 9, there are some facts mentioned, which are well worthy of attention — such as the follow- ing: "The panic, which caused such a crash in New- York and other large business-centres, hard- ly made a ripple here. The busi- ness-men of Portland weathered the storm, if not altogether un- harmed, at least not severely affected ; and the business of Portland, as a whole, has never been so large, safe and sound, as it has been this year. AH depart- ments may not be doing equally well, but all are making progress — are pros- perous to a remark- able and very en- couraging degree, under the circum- stances, with a broader and still more hopeful out- look for the future.''^ "And this," con- tinues the editor, "this, we repeat, is a very encouraging state of things. It shows that Port- land, so far from 'wilting,' isprobably the most prosperous city in the country, except, perhaps, San Fr a n cisco — that amid severe depres- sion in many parts of the country, she is making real progress, her trade and her population constantly increasing — not very rapidly it is true, as compared with what has been seen in some Avestern cities, yet still making a healthy, solid VIEW ON COMMERCIAL STREET. 150 PORTLAND ILLUSTRATED. VIEW COR. EXCHANGE AND FEDERAL STS. growth, that will take no step backward. And this is much, in fact a great (leal to say, at such a period as this. It betokens well for the future of our beautiful city," "In proof of all this," contin- ues the writer, "one lias only to take a look about town, and consult the business-men he meets. There is scarcely a va- cant store or house. On the con- trary the demand for mediinn end cheap rents is very hrisk. Every new house to rent is at once taken, and many tenements have been fitted up over stores. A considerable number of stores are now in j^rocess of erection or soon to be undertaken — more than at any season, ice think, since the fall after the r/reat fire, and these stores are nearly all engag- ed in advance. The hotels liave been full all the season, and the 'let up,' has hardly yet come." And now, October 13th, we liave the following editorial, from our cautious and trustworthy Press, corroborating these views, in lan- guage not to be mistaken. To all testimony like this we may well attach great importance. "It is proper matter for felicitation, that this stagnation, which is so con- spicuous in New- York, Boston, and most other trade centres, is hardly per- ceptible here in Portland. The panic of last year, which had so crippling an effect elsewhere, was hardly felt here, as our people have for many years de- voted themselves almost exclusively to legitimate business, and have dabbled but little in the enticing speculations lohose ruin in thepanic, wrought so much des' ruction. Portland entered upon the present year, in a good condition for business, and has been exceptionally prosperous in nearly every branch of commerce and industry. "There is a general agreement among our citizens that the city lias fairly en- tered upon an era of growth, in wealth and population, and this view is fully confirmed by an examination of the elements of prosperity in detail." VIEW OK FREE STREET. CONTENTS. Akers, Pawl, Army & Navy Union, Aged Brotherhood, Architects, our, Bishop's Mansion, Board of Trade, . Brooks, James, Barnes, Phiiieas, Brown, Harry, Beckett, Chas. E.. " Sylvester B., Burgess, Fobes & Co.'s "White Lead Factory, .... Bailey & Xoyes, . Business Prospects, our, City Hall, .... Custom House, Godman Charles, Cumberland Bar Association, Chickeriug, Kev. Dr., Congress Street, C. P. Kimball Company, Colesworthy, D. C, Cummings, Rev. Asa, D. D. Carriage Drives around Portland, Consuls, Congress Scjuare Universalist Church Chestnut Street Methodist Church, Climate of Portland, . . » Gaboon Manufacturing Co., Casco National Bank, Canal National Bank Clergy, our. Dry Djcks, Deering, Nathaniel, Davies, Charles S., Deane, Rev. Samuel, D. D., Exchange St., before and since the Fire, Evergreen Cemetery, Eagle Sugar Refinery, Freeman, Samuel, Forest City Sugar Refinery, Fessenden, Wm. Pitt, Female Orphan Asylum, Falmouth Hotel, First Parish Church, . " Baptist " " National Bank, . Fuller's Varnish Factory, . Foretellings and their Fullfilment Greenleaf Law Library, Grand Army of the Republic, Greenleaf, Moses, Greenleaf, Simon, Grand Trunk Railway, Historical liici