1882 Hubbard Map of Aroostook County, Northern Maine

An intriguing 1882 map of the northernmost portion of Maine, covering much of Aroostook County, prepared by Lucien Hubbard for Hubbard's Guide to Moosehead Lake and Northern Maine. Hubbard's maps and guides played an important role in popularizing inland Maine for travelers seeking a rustic retreat from coastal city living.

A Closer Look

This map covers the sparsely-populated northernmost portion of Maine, including the St. John, Aroostook, and Allagash Rivers. At this time, the area's stunning natural beauty was attracting increasing outside interest, facilitated by a small but growing network of roads and railways. Survey lines overlie the map, dividing it into plots, several dedicated to various groups or causes as 'plantations.' Aside from the small towns along the rivers (including Presque Isle and Caribou Village at the bottom-right), the occasional farm or settlement is also noted. Mountains, streams, rapids, lakes, and other features are recorded.

Land Grants and Plantations

The map records a range of land grants and plantations, where the name of the grant often indicates the owners or intended beneficiaries of money gained from any land sold or for whom the land was intended to provide homesteads. Unlike land grants further south around Moosehead Lake, which had been established in the early 19th century by the Massachusetts state legislature before Maine's statehood in 1820, many of those seen here were more recent creations and followed a pattern similar to homesteading in the Midwest and Great Plains.

For instance, in 1870, the state arranged for native Mainer and Scandophile William Widgery Thomas Jr. (1839 - 1927), who had served as a diplomat in Scandinavia, to recruit Swedish migrants to settle the plantation designated here. Thomas gathered 51 families on this first attempt, and he also settled in New Sweden before serving as a member of the state legislature in Augusta, eventually becoming Speaker of the House, and then returning to Sweden as the American Minister (ambassador) for much of the 1880s - early 1900s.

The plantations and the towns that later emerged from them in the northernmost part of the county/state are distinctive for maintaining a large number of French speakers (reflected in the name of the town Frenchville). Although the 1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty settled the long-disputed border between the United States and British North America (Canada) in this region, most of the residents remained in place. Thus, the French-speaking Acadian settlers along the southern bank of the St. John River found themselves, rather unexpectedly, to suddenly be Americans, though cross-border familial, trade, and cultural ties have persisted to the present (most residents of Frenchville still speak Québecois French fluently, for instance).

'Sportsman's Paradise'

In the late 19th century, this region became a popular destination for tourism due to its natural beauty, rugged wilderness, and increased accessibility. Inland, rural Maine attracted outdoor enthusiasts ('rusticators') interested in fishing, hunting, and scenic excursions, marking the beginning of recreational tourism in the area. This development was made possible by expanding railways from larger, mostly coastal cities into the interior of New England. In this case, the New Brunswick Railway (NBR) narrow-gauge line was extended during the 1870s from Edmundston (near the top) to Aroostook Junction (now simply Aroostook) along the Canadian side of the border. At the same time, the Aroostook River Railroad was constructed and then leased to the NBR in 1878. In 1881, a year before this map's publication, the narrow-gauge line was converted to standard gauge. Over the following years, the NBR went on a consolidation spree, leasing and acquiring several connecting and nearby lines, allowing for connections with Montreal, throughout eastern Canada, and Portland, Maine (and from there, Boston and New York).

Publication History and Census

This map was prepared by Lucien Hubbard in 1882 and printed by Augustus Meisel as a supplement to Hubbard's Guide to Moosehead Lake and Northern Maine. Hubbard's Guide was printed in multiple editions in the late 19th century, and it is unclear if this map changed at all in different editions of the book or was reissued without changes. The corresponding map (Hubbard's 'Map of Moosehead Lake and Northern Maine…', also sold by us) was updated with each new edition of the book. In any event, the present map is independently cataloged among the holdings of the University of Chicago, the Osher Map Library at the University of Southern Maine, the Maine State Library, and the University of Maine at Orono.