December 17, 2007

Book review



A Concise History of Portland, Maine
By John B. Robinson
Warren Machine Company

Portland author John B. Robinson has written a short, lively, readable history of our fair city, one that can be read in a single sitting. A breezy page-turner as thin as an iPod and only twice as wide, it's a book that lives up to its name: it's concise, but as a reliable record of the past, it's best tossed into the fireplace.

Distilling history into a short, readable narrative is always challenging – it forces the writer to sacrifice nuances and subtleties for the sake of the "big shapes." Successful shorthanding requires a great deal of work, as one has to locate narrative arcs that are both engaging for the reader and broadly representational of the subject at hand.

Robinson picked his theme well: the repeated rise and fall of Portland by war, fire, and economic malaise. Every time the city has seemed on the verge of greatness, it's been laid low by unexpected calamity: from the Indian raid of 1676 and the British bombardment of 1775, to the Great Fire of 1866 and the collapse of Portland's industrial base in the aftermath of World War II. Our municipal motto is Resurgam, I shall rise again, because it seems we keep falling on our faces.

This book's critical flaw isn't what's left out; it's all the erroneous material that's been carelessly thrown in. For a book so short, there are an appalling number of errors of fact, interpretation, and typography.

At the outset, we're told that Vikings and Basque fishermen were visiting the Maine coast in the 13th and 15th centuries, respectively – a popular myth unsupported by any evidence. Scholars have devoted entire lifetimes to both groups' activities in the New World, and in so doing have revealed their fascinating and impressive activities in Newfoundland, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the icy shores of Labrador and beyond. If they came to Maine, they left no trace.

Most of the errors in A Concise History aren't as consequential, but they are compounded by their sheer number. Citing them all would require a book nearly as long as Robinson's, so here's a representative passage.

In chapter three we're told that in 1676, the Indian leader Squando "collected every able bodied warrior in the region, [and] descended on the settlement of Casco," as Portland was then called. "Anthony Brackett was the first to die, followed by several of George Cleeves' grandchildren. The settlers were routed without any effective resistance. One hundred and thirty-one terrified survivors fled to Portland Island (now Cushings) where they were rescued by a ship from Boston…"

In reality, Squando did not lead the 1676 attack. It was led by an Indian the English called Simon. Anthony Brackett, who lived on Back Cove near the present site of the University of Southern Maine, was not the first to die, his brother-in-law was. Brackett survived three years in captivity, moved back to Portland, had more children, and appeared regularly in the documentary record thereafter. Survivors of the raid did flee to Cushing Island, but in 1676 it was known as James Andrew's Island.

Robinson continues: "Virtually nothing is known about the period between 1676 and 1690. The source of information usually available from the New England settlements is the written diary of the requisite clergyman. In this case, the historical record notes that Mr. George Burroughs, a graduate of Harvard College, spent two years in Casco, but he took his knowledge of the settlement to the grave."

Actually, we know an enormous amount about Portland in this period, as the town was resettled by 1680. The standard history of the city, William Willis' History of Portland (1865) – available as a free PDF from Google Books – devotes more than 60 pages to this period, including excerpts from local court proceedings, official petitions by settlers, land grants and property valuations. We probably know more about this period than the one that preceded it.

Clergymen were not requisite in northern New England towns – indeed, many Maine hamlets could not afford to support one – and even when they were present, their letters are by no means the standard source of information available to historians. Most of what we know about 17th century British America comes from court records, petitions, land grants, and the official correspondence of governors and corporate officials. Finally, while Burroughs did spend two years here before the 1676 raid, he returned for several more years thereafter, swapping land with my wife's ninth great-grandfather, John Skillings, in 1683. (Burroughs got a house lot on the eastern waterfront, near his church; Skillings got the land around what's now the Irish pub Brian Ború.)

Most readers will probably finish this book with a better appreciation for Portland's long and disaster-prone history. But if Robinson had done his homework more carefully, he could have given them an account that was concise, entertaining, and reliable.


– Colin Woodard

Colin Woodard is the author of The Lobster Coast and The Republic of Pirates. He lives in Portland and maintains colinwoodard.com.