My Debt to Maine

American roots grow deep – first in our country, and then in our homes. We’re proud to take up the names of our states. We’re Kentuckians, they’re Texans. No matter where you are, you know where you are from, where home is, what a good meal is, what kind of smell and sound you fall asleep to.

Well, here we go. Let’s see what makes Maine proud.

Colonial times are the most prominent in Maine’s culture. You may tour through their Acadian heritage, or through houses full of early murals. Castle Tucker and Nickels-Sortwell houses in Wiscasset were built off of the wealth gained by seafaring and shipbuilding. In Portland, we can find the house of Neal Dow, an abolitionist, and that of the author, Sarah Orne Jewett. These are only a few examples of the pride Maine takes in their history. They have also preserved portions of towns and lighthouses.

Theodore Roosevelt visited Maine many times, and wrote of it, titling the small letter “My Debt to Maine”.

I owe a personal debt to Maine because of my association with certain staunch friends in Aroostook County; an association that helped and benefited me throughout my life in more ways than one…

 

I also remember such delicious nights, under a lean-to, by lake or stream, in the clear fall weather, or in winter on balsam boughs in front of a blazing stump, when we had beaten down. I’d shoveled away the deep snow, and kept our foot-gear away from the fire, so that it should not thaw and freeze; — and the meals of venison, trout, or partridge; and one meal consisting of muskrat and a fish-duck, which, being exceedingly hungry, we heartily appreciated. But the bodily benefit was not the largest part of the good done me. I was accepted as part of the household; and the family and friends represented in their lives the kind of Americanism –self-respecting, duty-performing, life-enjoying– which is the most valuable possession that any generation can hand on to the next. It was as native to our soil as “William Henry’s Letters to his Grandmother” — I hope there are still readers of that delightful volume of my youth, even although it was published fifty years ago…

 

 

When I was President, the Sewalls and the Prides came down to Washington to visit us. We talked over everything, public and private, past and present; the education and future careers of our children; the proper attitude of the United States in external and internal matters. We all of us looked at the really important matters of public policy and private conduct from substantially the same viewpoint.

 

Never were there more welcomed quests at the White House.

 

Theodore Roosevelt
Sagamore Hill, March 20th 1918

Maine is the site of the first ship to be built in North America. They keep up a thousand year old site, home to Native Americans. Again, these are only a few of the many sites of Maine. They hold a wide variety of sites well looked after, waiting for people to discover them, to learn more about them. If you’re ever in Maine… There’s a part of your country to learn about.

– By Haley,  FPP Intern and Blogger