`Revolution Downeast’ re-creates wartime Maine

REVOLUTION DOWNEAST, by James S. Leamon, copyright 1993 by the Maine Historical Society, published by the University of Massachusetts Press, 302 pages, $29.95.

According to Maine history as I remember it being taught in a Penobscot Valley school system, only three major incidents happened in Maine during the American Revolution: the seizure of the Margaretta off Machias, the American fiasco at Castine, and the communitywide bonfire at Falmouth (now Portland).

After reading “Revolution Downeast,” I’ve learned that a whole lot more went on in Maine during the years between Lexington and Yorktown.

An exceedingly well-written and historically detailed book penned by Bates College Professor James S. Leamon, “Revolution Downeast” re-creates Maine as it was experienced by the people living here during the Revolution. His book flows almost chronologically from the decades before the war to its legacy, which included a growing desire for statehood.

Far from being the rustic frontier, Maine formed the boundary between the upstart Colonies and British Canada. Maine residents divided their loyalties between revolution and king, and while a patriotic fervor generally held sway everywhere in Maine, proximity to the British garrison at Halifax let the British dominate the Maine coast from 1779 onward.

Life was not easy in Maine, where the population clung primarily to towns along the coast or larger rivers. People lived off the land or sea, as farmers, fishermen or traders. The colonists who emigrated to Maine came as an independent lot, not given to knee-bowing before king, governor or magistrate; Leamon often mentions the incidents in which disaffected taxpayers or subjects vented their frustration with officialdom.

Leamon introduces his readers to the people who played major or minor roles in Maine during the war. Most names aren’t found in school textbooks, but these people were quite real, whether a privateer scouring the Nova Scotia coast (I relished Leamon’s accounts of the privateers’ trials and tribulations), a woman whose husband had gone off to war and left her to raise their family alone, or a politician dealing with decisions made in far-away Boston.

Readers will learn that what happened, and did not happen, in Maine during the Revolution fueled the drive to separate Maine from what Leamon views as its true colonial master, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Leamon neglects little as he covers the failed Penobscot Expedition, the uneasy relations with Maine’s Indian tribes, the wartime economic disruptions, and the clashes between patriots and loyalists. He spreads through his book interesting glimpses of people and incidents overlooked in the broader scope of the war.

Although “Revolution Downeast” looks like a college textbook and could be used as one, don’t be fooled by appearances. Leamon writes in a clear, concise prose that I’ve seldom found in a collegiate textbook, where my reaction after reading one has been to read a chapter, snooze an hour, read a chapter, snooze an hour.

The highly (but inconspicuously) footnoted “Revolution Downeast” is one of those books that I could not put down; it also made a valuable addition to my reference shelf. History buffs will enjoy Leamon’s eye for detail, while people interested in colonial Maine will like finding so much information between one set of book covers.

Get “Revolution Downeast” and read it. You’ll be glad you did.

Brian Swartz is the NEWS advertising staff editor.