MAINE
\mˈe͡ɪn], \mˈeɪn], \m_ˈeɪ_n]\
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Name probably meaning main-land, as distinguished from the islands off its coast. It was first settled by a party led by George Popham in 1607, but this was temporary. By grants of 1622, 1629 nad 1639, Sir Ferdinando Gorges obtained the territory between the Piscataqua and the Kennebec. In 1652 and again in 1668, Massachusetts obtained possession of this part of Maine. Eastern Maine, held by the Duke of York from 1664, fell to Massachusetts in 1691. The "District of Maine" remained a part of Massachusetts till 1820, when it was admitted to the Union as a separate State on April 15. Its Constitution, framed in that year, is still in operation. In 1842 the Ashburton Treaty settled the long-standing dispute regarding its northeast boundary. Its boundary with New Hampshire had been settled in 1737. The "Maine law," prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors, was passed in 1851 and permanently in 1858. Maine was almost constantly Democratic from 1820 to 1854; almost constantly Republican from 1856 to the present time (1894). In 1880 a Democratic Governor and council "counted in" a Democratic-Greenback Legislature, and for a brief period there were two bodies claiming to be Legislatures. In 1790 the population of Maine was 97,000, in 1820 298,000, in 1890 661,000.
By John Franklin Jameson
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