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  • 24 Mar 2023 9:47 AM | Anonymous member

    The Castine Historical Society offers guided Walking Tours of Castine for the 2022 season! Starting June 17, the staff and volunteers of the Historical Society will offer Castine Uncovered Walking Tours, a fun, informative, outdoor learning experience.  All tours are free of charge, but donations are greatly appreciated and can be made onsite or on our donations page. No reservations are required for the tour.

    June 17-October 10:

    • Friday, Saturday, and Monday at 10 AM

    Meet your guide in front of the Abbott School at 17 School Street, and take in the sights and sounds of Castine while learning about our beautiful town and its historical significance.  The tour takes approximately one hour, and will give you an overview of Castine’s history, identify buildings of architectural significance, show you several of our beautiful Elm trees, and point out Fort George, the earthworks of a Revolutionary War British fortification.  Please wear good walking shoes!   The tour is a little over 1/2 mile long and involves some inclines.  

    If you are not in Castine at one of these times and would like to set up a special tour, please call us at (207) 326-4118, or send an email to info@castinehistoricalsociety.org.  Special tours are offered 7 days a week through the season, but must be arranged a minimum of 48 hours in advance.



  • 24 Mar 2023 9:45 AM | Anonymous member
    Date: Saturday, October 14, 2023
    Time: 10:00 am - 11:00 am

    Reservations required at castinehistoricalsociety.org and limited to the first 15 people. Rain date October 21.

    Join Georgia Zildjian and Lisa Lutts for an hour-long walking tour on Castine’s African American history.

    Attendees will take an hour-long walk through Castine to visit the homes, places of work, and burial sites of Castine’s African and African American residents. During the tour you will learn first-hand about their lives, struggles, and successes living in this coastal community.



  • 24 Mar 2023 9:44 AM | Anonymous member
    Date: Thursday, September 7, 2023
    Time: 7:00 pm

    Preregistration is required for those attending via Zoom at castinehistoricalsociety.org. No registration is necessary if you will be attending in-person.

    A lecture by Dr. Mary Freeman, University of Maine, that explores slavery and emancipation in Maine, antislavery activism and the role of African Americans, and Underground Railroad myths. Via Zoom and in-person at Emerson Hall, 67 Court St., Castine.

    This presentation will briefly explore the long history of slavery and emancipation in Maine before focusing on antislavery activism in the decades leading up to the Civil War. Dr. Freeman will pay particular attention to the role of African Americans in advancing the cause of abolition in Maine and the complicated relationship between myth and historical fact in understanding Mainers’ involvement in the Underground Railroad.


  • 24 Mar 2023 9:41 AM | Anonymous member
    Date: Thursday, August 10, 2023
    Time: 7:00 pm

    Preregistration is required for those attending via Zoom at castinehistoricalsociety.org. No registration is necessary if you will be attending in-person.

    Dr. Kate McMahon of the Smithsonian Institution will deliver a lecture on New England and the slave trade via Zoom and in-person at Delano Auditorium, Leavitt Hall, Maine Maritime Academy, Castine.

    In her talk, Dr. McMahon will discuss how the United States prohibited its citizens from participating in the African slave trade in 1808. Yet despite this, northern New Englanders, including Mainers, plied the coasts of Africa in increasing numbers from 1808 until 1862, transporting and selling hundreds of thousands of captive Africans to the Caribbean and South America. This talk will discuss how this brutal traffic occurred, and the ways in which African people resisted their enslavement.


  • 24 Mar 2023 9:38 AM | Anonymous member
    Date: Tuesday, July 11, 2023
    Time: 5:30 pm

    Preregistration is required for those attending via Zoom at castinehistoricalsociety.org. No registration is necessary if you will be attending in-person.

    A talk on Portland’s African American meeting house and its ties with Castine by Pamela Cummings, Board Chair, Abyssinian Meeting House. Via Zoom and in-person at Emerson Hall, 67 Court St., Castine.

    The Abyssinian Meeting House, a National Historic Registry site located at 75 Newbury Street in Portland, was built in 1828, and was the historical, religious, educational, and cultural center of Portland’s 19th-century African American community. It has a unique tie to Castine as one of its founders, Abraham Niles, was born, raised and educated in Castine before moving to Portland to continue his career as a sailor. Cummings will talk about the history of the Meeting House and its ties to the Underground Railroad. Because of its easy access by rail and sea, Portland developed as one of the northernmost hubs of the Underground Railroad, the last stop before legal freedom outside the country. When the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, it allowed slave owners and their agents to track down freedom seekers in the North and return them to slavery. Portland’s black and white activists reacted, providing safe houses and helping to organize escape routes to England and Canada. Despite the trepidation of some members, The Abyssinian Meeting House was closely associated with the Underground Railroad and with local abolitionist activity. Leaders and members of the Abyssinian Church actively participated in concealing, supplying, and transporting refugees from slavery, as recounted in slave narratives and oral traditions. The Portland Union Antislavery Society, founded in 1842, was one of several grassroots movements advocating for the abolition of slavery in the South. The founding meeting was held at The Abyssinian Meeting House. One unpublished memoir also refers to a fugitive slave being concealed in the meeting house itself. 


  • 24 Mar 2023 9:35 AM | Anonymous member

    Thursday, June 29: “Castine: Occupation, Accommodation, Collaboration, and Treason in the War of 1812", 7:00 p.m. Hosted by the Castine History Partners, this talk by Dr. Joshua Smith focuses on the 1814 British occupation of Castine with stories of traitors, smugglers, and spies. Via Zoom and in-person at the Wilson Museum’s Hutchins Education Center, 112 Perkins St., Castine.

    Preregistration is required for the zoom session at https://www.wilsonmuseum.org/events/castine-war-of-1812-2023

  • 24 Mar 2023 9:32 AM | Anonymous member
    Date: Thursday, June 22, 2023
    Time: 7:00 pm

    Preregistration is required for this Zoom event at castinehistoricalsociety.org.

    A talk via Zoom on Castine’s African American Jackson family by local author and historian, Georgia Zildjian.

    During this talk, George Zildjian will explore the legacy of a life-long African American resident of Castine, Mary Tyler Jackson (1850-1917). This remarkable woman’s story forms the center point of a fascinating two-generation family saga. Orphaned and alone at just 14, Mary persevered through the often incongruous circumstances of her youth, becoming a beloved member of her community. Join us as we chart the journey of Mary Jackson’s life and her impact on the living history of Castine.


  • 23 Mar 2023 10:38 AM | Anonymous member
    Date: Thursday, May 18, 2023
    Time: 7:00 pm

    Preregistration is required for this event at cstinehistoricalsociety.org.

    A talk via Zoom on the hidden stories of Castine’s African American population from enslavement to the early 20th century by CHS Executive Director Lisa Simpson Lutts.

    The stories of Castine’s African and African American citizens have largely been ignored in the written histories of the town. Over the past few years, staff have researched the archival records to uncover these hidden stories. Attendees will learn about the earliest enslaved people who worked in Castine, as well as the stories of free black families who lived and worked in Castine while raising their children.



  • 23 Mar 2023 10:32 AM | Anonymous member

    Thursday, May 4: “The Place Justice Initiative: A Statewide Truth-seeking and Historical Recovery Initiative of the Permanent Commission”, 7:00 p.m. A talk via Zoom by Meadow Dibble and Erika Arthur of Maine’s Place Justice Project. Preregistration is required at castinehistoricalsociety.org.

    Who gets memorialized through place names, statues, and historical markers is a strong indicator of a society’s values and its dominant sense of collective identity. The Permanent Commission on the Status of Racial, Indigenous, and Tribal Populations has launched a Place Justice Project that seeks to engage Wabanaki and Maine communities in examining a wide range of commemorative practices to better understand and respond to the ways in which racialized and Indigenous populations are represented in or absent from the narratives inscribed on our natural and built environment. Whose memory is visible and celebrated, and whose has been erased or misrepresented? How do the politics and practices of public remembrance and forgetting continue to impact our communities today?

  • 23 Mar 2023 10:28 AM | Anonymous member
    Date: Thursday, April 20, 2023
    Time: 7:00 pm

    Preregistration  is required for this event at castinehistoricalsociety.org.

    A talk via Zoom on three centuries of Maine’s Black history by historian and journalist Bob Greene.

    Did you know that Maine’s Black history goes back to at least 12 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock? The history of the Pine Tree State includes many Black builders, farmers, fishermen, ship captains, educators, and more whose lives have often been forgotten or ignored. In fact, the first doctor in Maine may have been a Black man, and the nation’s first Black lawyer practiced in Portland after passing the bar. The Castine Historical Society will host historian Bob Greene, who will explore and celebrate this often hidden side of Maine’s history.


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