Hidden History of Maine

Hidden History of Maine

The history of the Pine Tree State would be bare but for the contributions of hardy and impassioned individuals--generals, governors, settlers and activists whose lives of leadership make up the story of Maine's "hidden history." Author Harry Gratwick creates intimate and detailed portraits of these Mainers, from the controversial missionary Sebastien Rale to Woolwich native William Phips, whose seafaring attacks against French Canada earned him the first governorship of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Gratwick also profiles inventors who "challenged the assumptions of their] time and place," such as Robert Benjamin Lewis, an African American from Gardiner who patented a hair growth product in the 1830s, and Margaret Knight, a York native who defied nineteenth-century sexism to earn the nickname "the female Edison." Discover four hundred years of Maine's history through the tales of its unique residents, from soprano Lillian Nordica, who left Farmington to become the most glamorous American opera singer of her day, to slugger George "Piano Legs" Gore, the only Mainer to have ever won a Major League batting championship. Harry Gratwick is a lifelong summer resident of Vinalhaven Island in Penobscot Bay. Recently retired, Gratwick enjoyed a forty-six-year career as a secondary school history teacher, coach and administrator. He spent most of these years at Germantown Friends School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he chaired the History Department and coached the varsity baseball team. This book combines two of Harry's passions: his love of history and of the sea. He has cruised the Maine coast from Casco Bay to Mount Desert. He is an active member of the Vinalhaven Historical Society and has written extensively on maritime history for two Island Institute publications, the Working Waterfront and the Island Journal. Gratwick is a graduate of Williams College and has a master's degree from Columbia University. Harry and his wife, Tita, spend the winter months in Philadelphia. They have two grown sons, a Russian daughter-in-law and two grandsons. Hidden History of Maine is his second book.