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    Portland
    Portland
    Portland
    Ebook166 pages37 minutes

    Portland

    By Robert W. McDougall

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Portland is located in "the big bend" of the Connecticut River near the center of the state, where natural resources provided a prosperous livelihood for generations of residents. First settled as part of Middletown, the area was incorporated as Portland in 1841. The town is known for its brownstone quarries, the Gildersleeve shipyard, and shade-grown tobacco. Meshomasic, the first state forest in New England, is located here. In Portland, historic photographs drawn from the archives of the Portland Historical Society and from private collections take the reader on a journey through the rich history of this quiet small town, now known for its golf courses and marinas.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439632062
    Portland
    Author

    Robert W. McDougall

    Robert W. McDougall, born and raised in Portland, has been a longtime student of town history; he joined the Portland Historical Society as a charter member when he was in the sixth grade. He is a past president of the society and serves as the director of the Ruth Callander House Museum of Portland History, which opened in June 2003.

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      Book preview

      Portland - Robert W. McDougall

      12.

      INTRODUCTION

      In 1974, the Portland Historical Society was established by a group of individuals interested in collecting and preserving material related to the town’s history. The area known as Portland today has a rich history. One of the first lessons every schoolchild in Portland learns about the town is how to locate it on the map in the big bend of the Connecticut River near the center of the state. Strategically located on the navigable portion of the lower Connecticut River, the area contains natural resources that provided a prosperous livelihood for generations of residents. Portland is home to the world-famous brownstone quarries that provided building stone to major cities, from the townhouses in New York and the Back Bay of Boston to the Flood Mansion in San Francisco.

      First settled as part of Middletown, the area has been known as the East Parish, then as Chatham, and was briefly called Conway. It was finally incorporated in 1841 as Portland, namesake of the famous quarry town in the United Kingdom. The abundance of lumber, the meadows gently sloping down to the river, and the demand for watercraft gave rise the great Gildersleeve shipyard that built and launched commercial and military vessels from this area for over 100 years. Blessed with the fertile river valley soil, this area was also famous for its shade-grown tobacco. From nearby hills, the acres of tobacco netting resembled a massive patchwork quilt covering the landscape, rolling like ocean waves in the warm winds of summer.

      But Portland was more than a river valley town; its borders extended east from the plains along the river to the hills of Meshomasic, the first state forest in New England. The highlands were also home to Bucktown, where the classic horse-drawn wagon, the buckboard, was invented. Strickland Quarry on Collins Hill is world famous among rock hounds, as more than 90 varieties of minerals have been found there.

      On July 27, 1998, the Connecticut River was designated one of 14 American Heritage Rivers. That heritage has deep roots in Portland. Ever since the town’s original affiliation with Middletown, crossing the river has always been a significant challenge for residents and visitors alike. Several ferry operations provided passage across the river for over a century. In 1876, the first bridge across the river in this area was built by the railroad and became part of the line from New York to Boston. It was called the Air Line because it was the most direct route between the cities. In 1895, the first highway bridge was built and featured the longest draw in the world at that time. Mother Nature humbled these structures, despite their grand designs, with the great flood of 1936, which led to the construction of the Middletown-Portland Bridge, later renamed the Charles J. Arrigoni Bridge. It has the longest span length of any bridge in the state. When the bridge opened in 1938, it received the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) Annual Award of Merit for Most Beautiful Steel Bridge, Class A. This bridge is still in service today and is the largest bridge on the Connecticut River. It is the only highway crossing between Wethersfield to the north and East Haddam to the south.

      While Portland hosted a wealth of enterprises, it was also home to many industrious and successful individuals who built homes to reflect their success. Portland is home to the only twin pair of octagon houses in the world. The 1852 brownstone home of Jonathan Fuller, a quarry owner, was acquired by the town in 1894 and converted into the town hall. The building was recently renovated and now houses the Portland police department, youth services department, parks and recreation department, and the Buck-Foreman Community Center. In 2001, the town offices moved into the completely renovated c. 1888 Central School building, which had served many generations of Portland students.

      Visitors to Portland today will be pleased to learn that the brownstone quarries were designated a National Historical Landmark by the National Park Service in 2000. In 1998, Mike Meehan, a local geologist, reopened a small brownstone quarry operation on the north rim

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