Appendix H - Historical Archaeological and ... - CBP.gov

Along the Atlantic Coast, seventeenth-century and early eighteenth-century French farmsteads
and settlements are alluded to in the archival record. Extensive salt marsh diking is suggestive of
Acadian farming practice. However, in the nineteenth century, the economy of the coastal
region came to be dominated by shipbuilding and fishing; granite and slate quarrying and cotton
textile production were also practiced. Nineteenth-century archaeological sites are represented
by numerous site types, including farms, dwellings, tidal, water- and horse-powered mills,
quarries, and many others.
Distant markets and poor roads discouraged rapid town development until the extension of rail
transportation into the St. John Valley and other interior parts of the state. This resulted in the
commercialization of potato growing which produced rail-side potato houses, starch factories,
and increasingly larger farms. Outside the Aroostook County farming district, logging and
lumbering retained prominence as northern Maine’s most important industry.
Beginning in the 1820s, the logging industry grew to become a vital part of the economy across
much of Maine. It is has gone through three distinct phases, each phase representing more
extensive harvest areas and more intensive means of mechanical production. Resources
representing the earliest phase of logging and lumbering, the white pine-era, generally have
greater historical significance than those representing the subsequent periods of spruce-logging
and pulp and paper manufacturing. Nevertheless, logging camps, driving dams, company farms,
and other resources from these latter phases also possess historical significance. Other inland
rural industries in the state included maple syrup production along Maine’s western border with
Quebec, and quarrying, hide-tanning, and lime and charcoal production. Also, beginning in the
early twentieth century, paper and wood pulp production supplemented the lumber industry.
In the remote townships of the interior parts of the state, where settlement was virtually nonexistent,
logging and lumbering, hemlock bark extraction and other forest-based industries
provide site types of potential historical significance. Archaeological resources, such as logging
camps, driving dams, company farms, supply depots, logging railroads, and sporting camps form
a significant portion of the infrastructure of Maine’s nineteenth century forested interior.
Transportation
In Maine’s Interior, the network of roads and waterways utilized for local and long distance
transport make up a set of resources related to the patterns of early settlement and town
development. Notable among the long distance overland routes are the Coos Trail/Magog Road
leading from the head of navigation on the Kennebec River (Hallowell) to Montreal, and the
Canada Road, linking the upper Kennebec River region with Quebec.
The first railroads were built in Maine in the 1830s. By 1853, the Grand Trunk Railroad
connected Portland with Montreal and Portland became the de facto winter port for much of
Canada. A large portion of Maine’s historical railroads use an atypically narrow gauge of 2 feet.
A number of historic resources and contexts apply specifically to the Maine-Canadian border.
These range from historic, cross-border familial and economic ties to smuggling, customs and
law enforcement.
Northern Border Activities H-70 July 2012