Pittston is a town in Kennebec County, Maine, United States. The population was 2,875 at the 2020 census. The town was named after the family of John Pitt, who were early settlers. Pittston is included in the Augusta, Maine micropolitan New England City and Town Area.
Fort Western is a former British colonial outpost at the head of navigation on the Kennebec River at modern Augusta, Maine, United States. It was built in 1754 during the French and Indian War, and is now a National Historic Landmark and local historic site owned by the city. Its main building, the only original element of the fort to survive, was restored in 1920 and now depicts its original use as a trading post.
The Kennebec River is a 170-mile-long (270 km) river within the U.S. state of Maine. It rises in Moosehead Lake in west-central Maine. The East and West Outlets join at Indian Pond and the river flows southward. Harris Station Dam, the largest hydroelectric dam in the state, was constructed near that confluence. The river is joined at The Forks by its tributary the Dead River, also called the West Branch.
In September 1775, early in the American Revolutionary War, Colonel Benedict Arnold led a force of 1,100 Continental Army troops on an expedition from Cambridge in the Province of Massachusetts Bay to the gates of Quebec City. The expedition was part of a two-pronged invasion of the British Province of Quebec, and passed through the wilderness of what is now Maine. The other expedition invaded Quebec from Lake Champlain, led by Richard Montgomery.
Reuben Colburn (1740–1818) was a shipbuilder in Pittston, Maine who made great contributions to the American side in the Revolutionary War. His home, the Major Reuben Colburn House, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Fort Popham is a Civil War-era coastal defense fortification at the mouth of the Kennebec River in Phippsburg, Maine. It is located in sight of the short-lived Popham Colony and, like the colony, named for George Popham, the colony's leader. The site is preserved as Fort Popham State Historic Site.
Fort Halifax is a former British colonial outpost on the banks of the Sebasticook River, just above its mouth at the Kennebec River, in Winslow, Maine. Originally built as a wooden palisaded fort in 1754, during the French and Indian War, only a single blockhouse survives. The oldest blockhouse in the United States, it is preserved as Fort Halifax State Historic Site, and is open to the public in the warmer months. The fort guarded Wabanaki canoe routes that reached to the St. Lawrence and Penobscot Valleys via the Chaudière-Kennebec and Sebasticook-Souadabscook rivers. The blockhouse was declared a National Historic Landmark and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1968.
Fort O'Brien State Historic Site, also known as Fort Machias, preserves the remains of a fort located in Machiasport, Maine that was built and destroyed three times over a 90-year period. It was involved in military actions during the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is now managed by the Maine Department of Conservation's Bureau of Parks and Lands, and is open between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
The William Briggs Homestead is an historic farmhouse at 1470 Turner Street in Auburn, Maine. Built in 1797 by one of the area's early settlers, it is one of Auburn's oldest surviving buildings. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Colonial Pemaquid State Historic Site is a publicly owned historic property operated by the state of Maine near Pemaquid Beach in Bristol, Maine. The site includes the reconstructed Fort William Henry, archaeological remains of 17th- and 18th-century village buildings and fortifications, and a museum with artifacts found on the site including musket balls, coins, pottery, and early hardware.
The Old Pittston Congregational Church is a historic church building on Pittston School Street in Pittston, Maine. Built in 1836, it is an architecturally distinctive blend of Federal, Greek Revival, and Gothic Revival architecture, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The congregation, organized in 1812 by Major Reuben Colburn, now meets at 21 Arnold Road. It is affiliated with the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference.
Patriot on the Kennebec: Major Reuben Colburn, Benedict Arnold and the March to Quebec 1775, is an historical narrative by Mark A. York published on February, 17, 2012 by The History Press of Charleston, South Carolina. The book tells the story of Benedict Arnold's expedition to Quebec from the point of view of Reuben Colburn, the much-maligned planner and boatbuilder enlisted by George Washington to supply and guide the ill-fated mission through the Maine wilderness to capture British-held Quebec City in the early months of the American Revolution.
The Hodgdon Site, designated the Maine Archeological Survey Site 69.4, is a prehistoric rock art site near Embden, Maine. The site is located on a ledge overlooking the Kennebec River, in territory that was under the control of the Norridgewock tribe around the time of European contact, and is several miles downriver from the historic Norridgewock village. The markings are estimated to date to the Late Ceramic Period and include anthropomorphic representations of human figures, as well as an unusual representation of a post-and-beam structure topped by parallel semicircular arcs. This latter figure is thought to represent the house of Father Sébastien Rale, a French Jesuit priest who built a house at Norridgewock in 1722.
The Caratunk Falls Archeological District is a complex of prehistoric and historic archaeological sites in the Solon, Maine area. First identified in the 1960s as archaeologically significant, the site was mapped by state archaeologists in the early 1980s. At that time it was the single largest complex of archaeological significance in interior Maine, encompassing a period of human activity from the Archaic to the European contact period. The 16-acre (6.5 ha) area was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
The Evergreens is a campground on Ferry Street in Solon, Maine, on the banks of the Kennebec River. The property has a documented archaeological history, with evidence of human habitation dating back thousands of years. It is also known that the military expedition of Benedict Arnold camped in this area in 1775 while en route to Quebec City in the American Revolutionary War. The property has had formal excavations by the Maine State Museum, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
Skowhegan is the county seat of Somerset County, Maine, United States. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 8,620. Every August, Skowhegan hosts the annual Skowhegan State Fair, the oldest continuously held state fair in the United States. Skowhegan was originally inhabited by the indigenous Abenaki people who named the area Skowhegan, meaning "watching place [for fish]," and were mostly dispersed by the end of the 4th Anglo-Abenaki War.
The Colburn School is a historic schoolhouse on Arnold Road in Pittston, Maine. With an estimated construction date of 1815, this brick schoolhouse is the best-preserved of the town's 19th-century district schools, and served for a time as the town hall. Now a local historical society museum, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.
The Joseph H. Underwood House is a historic house at 1957 Main Street in Fayette, Maine. Built in 1837, this large brick house was built for Joseph H. Underwood, one of the small community's leading businessmen and politicians of the first half of the 19th century. Underwood owned a mill and other local business, and served in town offices and the state legislature. His house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.
The Waterville Main Street Historic District encompasses the best-preserved portions of the historical commercial downtown area of Waterville, Maine. Developed most intensively in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this area was the center of commerce for Waterville and the surrounding rural communities. It encompasses 25 properties on Main and Common Streets, including the Waterville Opera House and City Hall. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012, and was slightly enlarged in 2016.
Jemima Warner was a camp follower with the Continental Army in the early days of the American Revolutionary War and, according to the Women's Memorial in Washington D.C., she is the first American “military woman killed in action."
