Castine, Maine
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Castine is a town located in Hancock County, Maine. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 1,343.
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Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 51.8 km² (20.0 mi²). 20.2 km² (7.8 mi²) of it is land and 31.6 km² (12.2 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 60.98% water.
Info
Castine is the home of Maine Maritime Academy, a four-year institution that graduates officers and engineers for the United States Merchant Marine. Approximately 750 students are enrolled at the Academy.
Demographics
As of the census2 of 2000, there are 1,343 people, 372 households, and 222 families residing in the town. The population density is 66.5/km² (172.2/mi²). There are 649 housing units at an average density of 32.1/km² (83.2/mi²). The racial makeup of the town is 97.10% White, 0.67% African American, 0.60% Native American, 0.74% Asian, 0.00% Pacific Islander, 0.22% from other races, and 0.67% from two or more races. 0.60% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.
There are 372 households out of which 18.0% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 49.2% are married couples living together, 7.0% have a female householder with no husband present, and 40.3% are non-families. 30.1% of all households are made up of individuals and 12.4% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.16 and the average family size is 2.69.
In the town the population is spread out with 10.3% under the age of 18, 41.9% from 18 to 24, 15.0% from 25 to 44, 18.4% from 45 to 64, and 14.4% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 24 years. For every 100 females there are 186.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 196.8 males.
The median income for a household in the town is $46,250, and the median income for a family is $65,500. Males have a median income of $36,250 versus $30,893 for females. The per capita income for the town is $20,078. 12.0% of the population and 3.2% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 10.9% of those under the age of 18 and 4.7% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.
History
Few places in New England can boast a more tumultuous or varied history than Castine -- which proclaims itself the "battle line of four nations."
Its commanding position at the mouth of the Penobscot River, a rich source of furs and timber and a major transportation route into the interior, made the penninsula now occupied by the town of Castine of particular interest to European powers in the seventeenth century. The area changed hands numerous times with the shfting tides of imperial politics. At one time or another, it was occupied by the French, Dutch, and England's Plymouth Colony.
The first settlement, in 1629, was a trading post established by the Plymouth Colony in 1626. In 1635, it was seized by the French and incorporated into Acadia. In 1667, French authorities dispatched the Baron Jean Vincent de St. Castin to take command of Pentagoet, as the fort, mission, and trading post had come to be known. The Baron married the daughter of the Indian sachem, Modockawando, and became a force in colonial trade and diplomacy.
Pentagoet was attacked and briefly held by the Dutch in 1674 and 1676. In 1692, the village was seized by the English, who destroyed the fort and looted the settlement. With the return of Castine and his sons to France, the settlement was abandoned and remained unoccupied until the eve of the American Revolution.
At the end of the French and Indian War, which secured English title to North America, the unoccupied lands along the Maine coast were opened to settlement by Massachusetts colonists. By the late 1760s, farmers, artisans, and small traders were beginning to take title to properties in and around "Major Baggadoose." Though the fur trade was long dead, the region's abundant fisheries and timber attracted not only entrepreneurs, but also the attention of the British government, which was always on the lookout for store to supply its growing navy.
In early July of 1779, nearly three years after the American's had declared independence from Britain, a naval and military force under the command of General Francis McLean, sailed into the settlement's commodious harbor, landed troops, and took control of the village. They began erecting a fort on one of the highest points of the penninsula. Alarmed by this incursion, the Massachusetts legislature dispatched an expedition -- consisting of more than a dozen armed ships and nearly a thousand armed men -- to retake the town.
Though badly outnumbered, the British managed to repell American attacks for nearly three weeks. In mid-August, British reinforcements appeared at the head of the bay. The Americans abandoned the fight and retreat to the west side of the Penobscot, destroying their entire fleet to keep it out of British hands. The failed Penobscot Expedition proved to be the greatest American naval defeat until Pearl Harbor (December 1941). The British held Majabagaduce until the end of the war, when it was ceded to the Americans as part of the peace settlement.
With the growth of the postwar economy, the town became a prosperous place: the seat of Hancock County and a center for shipbuilding and coastal trading. By the 1820s, it had become a major entrepot for American fishing fleets on their way to the Grand Banks. The town also prospered from the lumber industry, for which eastern Maine as become the national center in the years before the Civil War. During this period of growth and prosperity, many of the handsome mansions that still grace the village's streets were constructed.
Castine declined after the Civil War. Its fleet, which once sailed the globe, now carried coal, firewood, and lime to coastal ports, competing with railroads and steamships. Ambitious young people sought their fortunes elsewhere.
By the 1870s, its quaint old houses were becoming attractive to "rusticators" -- well-to-do urban families in search of summer rest and recreation. The town attracted a number of notables, among them Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose writings helped to romanticize its past. By the 1890s, wealthy families from Boston, Hartford, and Chicago, were buying up old farms and sea captains' houses and establishing a flourishing summer colony. Castine also became the location of the Eastern State Normal School, whose buildings today house the Maine Maritime Academy.
Castine probably reached its economic nadir in the 1930s. The Depression had killed off the hotel trade, the steamship lines that had linked coastal towns and islands, and the local fishing industry. Its fortunes did not revive until the 1960s, with a major expansion in the Maritime Academy and the rediscovery of the town's charms by a new generation of summer people -- including such notables as poet Robert Lowell, novelist Mary McCarthy, singer-songwriter Don McLean, and Nobel Prize winning biochemist Carl Ferdinand Cori.
By the 1980s, many of the old hotels had reopened, boasting first-rate dining facilities. The harbor, almost entirely empty in the 1950s, filled with luxury yachts. Old shoreline shacks and boarding houses were remodelled as luxury homes. Prosperity was given an added boost by the willingness of financially comfortable retirees from New York and Connecticut to brave Maine winters in their golden years.
Today, Castine retains much of its old charm -- the ruins of French and British fortifications and dozens of historically and architecturally significant buildings -- while embracing all the glittering possiblities of gentrification. The town boasts a first rate public library and historical museum.
Sources
Baker, George E. 2002. "The Penobscot Expedition: Commodore Saltonstall and the Massachusetts Conspiracy of 1779." Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press.
Bourne, Russell. 1989. "The View from Front Street: Travels through New England’s Historic Fishing Communities." New York : W.W. Norton.
Bourne, Russell. 1990. 'The Red King’s Rebellion: Racial politics in New England, 1675-1678." New York, NY: Atheneum, 1990.
Doudiet, Ellenore. 1978. "Majabigwaduce: Castine, Penobscot, and Brooksville." Castine, ME: Castine Scientific Society.
Faulkner, Alaric, 1987. "The French at Pentagoet, 1635-1674: An Archaeological Portrait of the Acadian Frontier." Augusta, ME: Maine Historic Preservation Commission.
Wasson, George Savary. 1932. Sailing Days on the Penobscot: The River and Bay as They Were in the Old Days; with a Record of Vessels Built There, Compiled by Lincoln Colcord. Salem, MA: Marine Research society, 1932.
Wheeler, George A. 1923. "History of Castine: Battle Line of Four Nations." Cornwell, NY: privately printed.
External links
- Town of Castine Official Website (http://www.castine.me.us/)pl:Castine