Browse Items (16 total)

This unique gravestone was designed by Annie French and patented November 16, 1875 (U.S. Pat. No. 169,898).  The patent describes: "Fadeless Ornaments...flowers, fruits, or leaves which shall be fadeless, and which may be used to form ornamental…

Constructed in 1868, the Receiving Tomb served as a storage facility for the bodies of citizens who died during the winter months when interments could not take place due to the frozen ground. Designed by architect, Charles G. Bryant.

Rufus Dwinel was a former mayor of Bangor and a millionaire lumber baron. His greatest competitor was Samuel Veazie whose pride, Dwinel is said to enjoy tweaking. Dwinel, was one of a group of prominent Bangor businessmen who organized the April 13,…

Mount Hope Cemetery is the American’s second landscape or garden cemetery following Mount Auburn in Cambridge Massachusetts by only three years. Its importance lies in its reflection of the mid-19th Century American disenchantment with the urban…

Samuel Veazie, born in Portland in 1787, apprenticed to a baker at an early age but seeing no future in it, became a sailor. He is said to have made his first fortune “by clever use of his stowage rights aboard ship.” Through this method, he raised…

Rebecca Jane Billings Thatcher was the daughter of Caleb C. and Ann (Thoreau) Billings and a cousin to Henry David Thoreau. Rebecca's husband, George Thatcher, accompanied Thoreau on his travels referenced in the work, The Maine Woods.

The husband of Rebecca Jane Billings Thatcher, a cousin to Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau referred to George Thatcher as "the relative" who accompanied him on his trips in the word, The Maine Woods.

Charles A. Peavey and James H. Peavey were the grandsons of Joseph Peavey, inventor of the peavey logging tool that combined a solid socket cant hook with a pike to create a reliable, versatile tool used by workers in the logging industry.Demand for…

Job Collett was born on May 26, 1825, a native of Melksham, Wiltshire, England; the son of Thomas and Jane (Marks) Collett. The Collett family moved to Bangor, Maine around 1845. The Collett name first appears in the Bangor Maine City Directory in…

As industrialization and urban centers expanded in the 19th Century, the traditional extended family infrastructure degraded. In urban settings, family units became fractured and de-centralized, leaving sick and elderly family members without family…