History Articles

Welcome to our wealth of history articles about the St. Croix Valley! If you come across a term you aren’t familiar with, it might be in our Glossary.

Don’t forget to check out our Facebook page and our online Facebook group, Old Pictures of St. Croix Valley, for more photos and shared history.

Passamaquoddy history

Whale of a Tail

Salmon Falls

Fishing with the Etechemins at Salmon Falls Milltown

The “Seal Nose” Scam

Passamaquoddy Whale Hunters

Passamaquoddy History Draws International Interest

Pleasant Point, Maine

Pulpit Rock

Buffalo Bill: A Local Boy

The Passamaquoddy Brass Band

Businesses and buildings

Last service at the Congregational Church

The Dr. Swan House (part 1) (part 2)

The Stable Inn

The Wilderness Lodge

Old Yeller and the State Theatre

Andrews Hotel and Tobacco Stand

The Gem Restaurant

A Great Loss

The First Congregational Church of Calais

Riverview Drive In

On Old Homes and Famous Authors

St. Croix Valley Barbers

Beckett’s Christmas Candy

Calais Jewelers Over the Years

Of Candy and Rifles: The Story of Beckett and Co

Beckett and Co. (added info)

Roger’s Auto and Garage Row 

Frank and Randy’s

The St. Croix Opera House (by Ned Lamb)

The Boston Shoe Store

Unobskey Fashion Show 1949

Johnson’s Hardware

The Sardine was King

Calais’ Grand Hotels

The Master Cabinet Makers of Charlotte County and St. Croix

Dr. Thomson’s Sarsaparilla: Cures when others fail 

The St. Croix Club, 1937

The Stone House Online

Ships, trains, and transportation

The voyage of Barque Ada to the Gold Fields (part 1)

The voyage of Barque Ada to the Gold Fields (part 2)

The Last Train to Calais

The battle over bridges

Gas Stations

The Sky Route

The Mystery of the White Bird

Smuggler’s Friend: The Arch Bridge

A Southerner’s journey Downeast in 1895 (HMT)

Second Letter From Maine (HMT)

The Romance of the Rails

The Romance of the Rails Revisited

Beautiful ships and bankrupt builders

Tales of the Sea

A perplexing article

A Calais Schooner and the Lost Franklin Expedition

Airline Tales

More Tales of the Airline

The Clipper Ship Annie Smith

Covered Bridges

The Fatal Dive

Calais and the Pony Express

The Caribee Calais Slaver

Horses and the Gallop of Progress

Horses in the St. Croix Valley

The Missing Schooner: Julia A. Warr

The Street Railroad, 1894

The First Bicycles in the St. Croix Valley

Everyday living

Invasion of the Seabees

The Battle over Booze

Boston Braves vs. Kiwanis

Bear Hunting

Out on Strike

Calais Pest House

Calais Fair Flying Machine and Trotters

Were Campobello’s 1800s resorts ruined by the Boston elite?

4th of July – The Shirttail Parade

A Puzzling Grave

Mill Cove: Beautiful and Dangerous

Milltown Maine

Blueberry season

Early Doctors – Hard Times and Hangings

Sharks Downeast

A trip to the dentist in 1847

Smoking tobacco in the St. Croix Valley: A look back

Thanksgiving in the St. Croix Valley

The Ghosts of Christmas Past

Christmas Cards of the Past

Historical Society Christmas Cards

Hog Alley

Maguerrowoc

Irish Town by Ned Lamb

Italian Immigrants, Master Builders

A walk along Main Street Calais 1960 (part 1)

A walk along Main Street Calais 1960 (part 2)

Shoe Shine Boy

The Hurdy Gurdy Man

State Troopers of the Past

Guests at the Calais Jail

Snow Management in the St. Croix Valley

Calais Clean-up Day a Spring Tradition

Teachers of Calais, 1930s and 1940s

The Hard Luck Class of 1945

Tourney Time 1931

A Brief History of Calais Football 

Alice Sinclair and the Silent Movie Era in Calais

The Roller Skating Craze of the 1880s

Linus the Wonder Horse

Sheep Drive and Other Stories

Chimney Swifts

Making history (notable events)

Summertime Blues

The Mysterious Death of Fred Stinson

Calais diplomats in Hawaii

Mysterious German U-Boat sinks in the St. Croix

Calais Man Wins Coin Flip To Name Portland Oregon

Go west, young man

Yankee Ingenuity Meets the Gold Rush

The St. Croix Valley and the Gold Rush

North to Alaska – The Klondike

A Most Distinguished Wedding

The Fenian Invasion of New Brunswick

Skedaddlers

Confederates Raid Calais

Benedict Arnold and the St. Croix Valley

Two Men From Calais Died in Combat in WW1, The Sherman Brothers

Memorial Day

Princeton’s Prisoners of War

German Sabotage Vanceboro 1915

Calais During World War II 

Veteran’s Day Honor Rolls

The Calais Girls Basketball team were Maine’s First Champs

Calais Beauty 1926 Miss Maine

The Year Hunting Season was Cancelled

Frontier Week, 1961

International Festival (expanded)

International Festival 50th Anniversary

Calais and Hawaii Closer Than You Think

The White House Christmas Tree of 1941

The Flood of 1923

Crimes and punishment (or lack thereof)

Colonel Benjamin Church

The Calais Jail

Hunting Season

Rum Row and Bobby Kerr

Crime and Punishment

The Infant’s Grave Vanceboro

The St. Stephen Lottery Swindle

A perplexing murder case in Pembroke

The Hanging of Ebenezer Ball

The Warden Murders (part 1)

The Warden Murders (part 2)

The Murder of Sam Kelley

Sam Kelley’s murder revisited

The Lubec Gold Scam

A Perry Bootlegger’s Murder

Bootleggers and Benedict Arnold

Benedict Arnold Redux

Pirates and Slavers in Calais, Maine

The Red Beach Bigamy Case

Wool Gathering and Other Crimes

The Red Beach Horror

Maine: The Prohibition state

The Moxie Scandal

Funny Money

The Baileyville Book Banning Case

St. Croix Valley in the news

100 Years Ago

1905 from the Newspapers

200 Years Ago Downeast

Interesting and odd from old newspapers

“It must be true, it was in the paper!”

Bits and Bytes: The St. Croix Valley in national news

Gypsies and other interesting items from the papers

Three tales from the 1950s

A Look Back at (national and local history by year)

Personal Stories Related to the St. Croix Valley

Harold Alley’s short but eventful assignment as a B-24 turret gunner

Tragedy at Kellyland: Herbert and Olive Bacon

Nat Barker Pioneer Doctor

Arlo Bates

Edith Beckett

Kimball Bent, Downeast Māori

Luigi Bernardini and the Boston Shoe Store

Emma Boardman: Calais Artist Extraordinaire 1885-1956

Earl Bonness, Grand Lake Stream Guide

The heroine of Spruce Point: Bertha Boyd

Lois Campbell

Thomas “Tommy” DiCenzo

The bookkeeper: John Evans

Isabella Fogg in the Civil War

Mike Foggia and the Woodland Opera House

Malcolm “Doc” Foster and the Bataan Death March

Black Jack Harris

Keene’s Lake by Henrietta Keene

F. W. Keene Writes of Old Time School Experiences

High Diver Bee Kyle

Harry Edgar “Ned” Lamb

The Good Morning Man – Ron MacKechnie

Harry Haley McClaskey

Curious Case of Henry McElroy

The English Bride: John McFarlane

R.J. McGarrigle

Louis “Red” Morrison

Guy Murchie: One of Teddy’s Roughriders

Ollie Olsson

Olle and Lillian Olsson’s Bad day

William Pattangall and the “Meddybemps Letters”

1959 Calais Anniversary Bull Powers

Francis “Bull” Powers

Bull Powers, State Trooper

George S. Pratt, Pioneer of the Airline

Mansion House Drama: Stephen Simkhovitch

The Mysterious Billy Smith

Diary of a Gravedigger: Justus Smith(?)

The end of an era: The Unobskey Family

William Vance and the History of Baring, Maine

Exciting 1945 V-Mail: Betsy Walker et al 

Mary Woods and the Orphans of Calais The Stone House Online

Horatio Nelson Young: Hero of the Civil War

Old newsletters

November 2017

March 2017

October 2016

January 2016

September 2015

May 2015

December 2014

September 2014

June 2014

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