Battery Steele

Eaze-E

After our crazy tour of the 8^th Maine, we had made our way over to Battery Steele. It was still cloudy out and the rain had yet to come. It was actually a pretty cool walk, it was right along the water. The houses were amazing as well, and very expensive. We finally got to the trail leading to Battery Steele. It was a pretty muddy trail with some rough bridges, if you want to call them that, over the deep puddles. Thankfully, we made it by all those dams that those beavers had built up to try and stop us. The battery was just like Battery Keyes, it had a lot of graffiti. But what’s a World War 2 battery without Eazy-E?  We started at the north entrance of the battery and made our way south, through a long dark hallway. Shooting off the hallway there were a bunch of rooms. I’m not sure what each room was used for but it was really cool. One of the dark doorways off the main hallway led to some stairs. I went down them and they lead me to bigger room, which was flooded, and to an exit outside. This was about three quarters of the way down the main hallway. When we reached the southern post and went outside to make our way back up to the northern entrance, I saw the exit that I had seen from the stairs and above the door it read, “1980 Star Center”. I’m not exactly what it was used for and it was confusing because it was labeled with the year 1980. Obviously it must have been used for something extremely different than the original intent of the battery.

North entrance that faces east
Also the location of one 16’’ MarkII-M1 gun

After, most of us walked on top of the battery and back up north, towards where we originally entered. The top was highly over-grown with bushes and grass but there was still a distinct pathway. We made it to the top of the concrete entrance, where there was a great view of the ocean, then back down where we left. It was perfect timing as well because it started to rain. It was definitely my favorite historical visit in Maine so far.

Historical Background:

Battery Steele is a concrete battery located on Peak’s Island, Maine. The construction of the battery started in 1942 but would not be put into use until 1945 when it was transferred to the Coastal Artillery. The battery was named after Harry L. Steele who was a Major General and Chief of Coastal Artillery between 1935 and 1936. Due to the location of Peak’s Island, an outer island which had a clear view of the Atlantic, it was a perfect location for batteries such as Battery Steele. The battery was armed with two 16’’ MarkII-M1 guns that were capable of firing shells roughly 2000 pounds 26 miles out to sea.

Picture of what the gun would look like
(taken from internet)

The guns were the largest land based guns in the history of American Coastal Defenses. Between the two guns, a large roadway with many rooms sprouting off, were apparently used for military personnel, supplies, ammunition, and intelligent centers. The battery was built late into the war and would be deactivated in 1948, three years after the World War 2 was over.
 

South entrance. "1942 Battery Steele

Battery Steele, much like Battery Keyes, served the same purpose. They were used to guard the coastal areas of Maine, since it is of course a coastal state. Information from a source reads, “It is an important relic of the end stage of American efforts to mount land based coastal defenses”. This rings true but more importantly, this battery was not only crucial to American defense efforts as a whole, but for Maine specifically. Maine, particularly Portland, had always had a high volume of fishing and shipping vessels entering and leaving the harbor. As a result, coastal waters around Maine had to have great naval defenses due to the high traffic of ships. Battery Steele was one of those defenses during World War 2; helping defend Maine and the United States from the enemy. It is important to preserve the battery because it is an object that reflects what Maine was, and still is, and how important it was for Maine to protect its citizens and its economy. 

Sources: http://www.maine.gov/tools/whatsnew/index.php?topic=mhpc_recent_listings&id=26398&v=article

8th Maine Regiment Memorial

Oh Dick Adams. On October 1, 2011, Libby had taken the class on a field trip to Peaks Island. It was a pretty cloudy day but easily tolerable. Our original plan was to visit the 5^th infantry Maine house and Battery Steele but for some reason the lady who worked at the 5th said it was closed. Like I said, it was cloudy and it eventually rained but the 5^th infantry house is inside, we would have been fine. Next to the 5^th, however, the 8^th infantry house was open. Currently, the house has a few hotel rooms so when we went in, there was a family playing board games in the main room of the house. The place was really cool and was right on the water. The deck was nice as well, it wrapped around a good portion of the house. Inside there were a few pictures of the 8^th infantry and a glass display of different Civil War things such as bayonets, uniforms, and guns. As we were about to leave to go to Battery Steele, Libby made the fateful decision to ask for a tour by the one and only Dick Adams. Oh this guy. He was the tour guide for the 8^th infantry house and was once a professor at Penn State University. This guy was as old school as it gets. He was in his 70s or 80s, way past his prime for being a professor, and maybe a little too old to be giving tours. As we started the tour, I had my notebook out ready to take some notes for this blog. 

Dick Adams (far left)

After about 5 minutes of him talking about those I-talians, different types of Asians, and how there was once an abundance of slaves in Maine, I gave up. To be honest, I don’t really know what I had learned about the 8^th infantry. He kept going off on tangents, usually about his personal experiences in life. He basically gave a 15min speech about every single picture in the house with many interruptions by two kids playing ping pong, which I thought was funny. As we got to about the 4^th or 5^th picture, I looked around the house and I realized that there were about 10 more remaining. I was dreading what was coming. As we made it around the house, we knew pretty everything about the random items in the house, even about the kitchen, but nothing about the 8^th infantry. After about 45min (I think), rather it felt like eternity, we were free of Mr. Dick Adams. It’s important to know however, I do not regret Dick Adams’ tour for it was one of the most unique tours I have ever had.

Historical Background:

The 8^th regiment of Maine was a volunteer infantry regiment who served out of Augusta, Maine for the Union Army. In 1871, the 8^th Maine Regiment Memorial Association was put together to keep the bonds that the members of the 8^th had with each other strong. In fact, the 8^th Maine Regiment house was completed in 1891 to solidify those bonds and was used as a place for the 8^th members to get together and to refresh their ties. After the Civil War, Brigadier General William McArthur had won $75,000 from the Louisiana State Lottery and had used $8,000 of his winnings to construct the house and $800 for the land. If I recall correctly, Dick Adams had said that many of the lotteries were rigged during the time and that this particular one might have been as well. Either way, McArthur had used that money to help build the 8^th Regiment Memorial house. The building consists of 3 floors and even to this day, the building still keeps the original 1800s style, as I saw for myself. According to Dick Adams, it was one of the first buildings to use steel rods to support the second floor. It also has an amazing wrap-around porch and the upper floor consists of 11 bedrooms and the lowest floor consists of a kitchen. Now, the building is a memorial to all those who had served in the 8^th and the memorial has a large collection of items that belonged to the 8^th regiment.

It should not be surprising that Maine has a memorial for one of their volunteer regiments because, after all, the people of Maine are such proud people who know the importance of supporting their own thus the 8^th Maine Regiment Memorial was constructed.

Members of the 8th

Sources: http://eighthmaine.com/defaul.aspx

Portland Head Light

The same day we visited Battery Keyes we also made our way over to the Portland Head Light since they are both part of Fort Williams. Again, it was open lighthouse day and unlike the battery, this place was packed. There was also a wedding happening in the same area so it was pretty crazy. Unfortunately, I could not make my way up the lighthouse. They ran out of tickets, which was understandable, and they said that if I waited around long enough, I might have been able to climb it for free. Since we had my girlfriend’s sisters, that was definitely not a good idea. I got to walk around inside though and that was pretty cool. One of the pictures inside read, “Intoxicated keepers to be suspended from duty” which really got me. I feel as though it could get boring up there, what else would there be to do?

The crowd was made up of a lot of older people and a lot of war veterans actually. I didn’t have much time to talk to the people who worked there because they were swamped with a ton of people, but like I said, I had the chance to walk around in and outside the lighthouse. I’ve only ever been into one other lighthouse. Maybe in the future I’ll make my way up the Portland Head Light.

Historical Background:

The construction of the Portland Head Light had started in 1787 after a shipwreck that resulted in two deaths. The lighthouse was not put into service until 1791, however. Originally the lighthouse was supposed to be 58 feet tall but one of the two masons, Jonathan Bryant and John Nichols, who were involved in the construction had changed the plan to make the lighthouse 72 feet tall instead. The original sum of money used to start construction was only $750 but later Congress had given an extra $1,500 in 1790 when they had run out of funds. The first lamps that were installed burned whale oil. Whale oil was extracted from certain types of whales because, apparently, it was a clean burn. By 1855 the older lamps and reflectors were replaced with a fourth-order Fresnel lens. The Fresnel lens was a much larger and thinner lens than previous lenses which allowed for greater illumination. It captured the light much better which made the light travel a much farther distance. In 1864, however, a ship called the Bohemian, had wrecked and killed 40 immigrants. As a result, the light was raised an additional 20 feet and a new second-order Fresnel lens was installed.

List of  lighthouse keepers

The purpose of the lighthouse is obvious but the importance of the Portland Head Light, just like all Maine lighthouses, was the fact that it protected ships from Maine’s highly dangerous jagged coast. Starting from the first keeper, Joseph K. Greenleaf, in 1791 to 1795 until Nathan Wasserstorm in 1985, Portland Heal Light has been manned by 33 people. Currently, the actual lighthouse is unmanned but maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard. The current beacon is visible from 24 miles away with a 200,000 candlepower, DCB 224 airport style aerobeacon. In 2005 the lighthouse received a $260,000 for renovations and other upgrades such as paint. It currently stands at 80-feet and still protects ships from Maine’s coast just like it had done in 1791. Maine’s shipping industry has always been a staple in the local economy, especially Portland, so it was essential to have these lighthouses because ships were too frequent in the area. And again, to this day, the lighthouses are still needed for those same purposes. 

Sources: http://www.portlandheadlight.com/

Battery Erasmus Keyes

On September 17, 2011 my girlfriend, her two younger sisters, and I had visited Fort Williams, specifically Battery Erasmus Keyes. The fort is located in Cape Elizabeth. My girlfriend had showed me Cape Elizabeth a few years back. We actually rented a couple stand-up paddle boards there a few weeks before and I can honestly say that Cape Elizabeth is among the few places in Maine that I would live. I’m sure everyone who is not from Maine says the same thing. Anyway, we went around 2 in the afternoon and surprisingly there were only a few people at the battery (it was open lighthouse day). Call me a nerd but I always think seeing old military bases and batteries are pretty cool. Anyway, Battery Keyes had a lot of graffiti on it unfortunately. You can’t miss it. If anyone has been there they know of the three dark walkways that go inside and back around the fort. I had a pretty fun time scaring my girlfriend’s sisters. I was the only guy, I had to do something. The fort looked over the channel and to each side there were two tiny rooms. I’m not sure but I think these rooms were used for ammunition, although they were pretty small.

Historical Background:

There wasn’t anyone there that knew a lot about the battery and there are only a few websites online that give decent information about this specific battery. Thanks to those few websites and the Battery Keyes information stone, I was able to gather some information. The battery was built and finished in 1905 and made out of concrete. It was constructed during the Endicott Period. This period was between 1890-1910 under President Grover Cleveland who had recommended a $127 million dollar construction of coastal defenses plan. It was not until 1906 when it was transferred to the Coast Artillery that it was put into use. The Coastal Artillery was basically a division in the military that was stationed on coastal bases to protect the waterways from invading forces. Battery Keyes was named after a Civil War volunteer, who would become major general, Erasmus D. Keyes. He had also helped lead the IV Corps of the Union Army of the Potomac during the war. Keyes was actually born in Massachusetts, but lived in Maine. It is unclear exactly why the battery was named after him. The battery actually served in not only the First World War, but the second as well. The fort had two 3inch coastal guns located on the top part of the battery. The guns looked over the mined channel (submarine mines were part of this battery) in front to protect the waterway and also Cape Elizabeth. According to the stone, there was a range finder to the right of the guns that determined the distance of the target and had also been used as the command center. The same two guns were also used during the Second World War. It served almost the same purpose during the second war; protecting Cape Elizabeth and firing on any ship unwilling to property identify itself. 

 This battery was highly significant to the Union and the Americans during the First and Second World Wars. Due to Maine’s jagged coast, the batteries had a distinct advantage over any incoming threats. Thankfully for Maine, the jagged coast was just as intimidating because it allowed the battery to be in a significant spot that if an enemy would to come into the channel, their maneuverability would significantly drop, unlike if a battery was located on a straight, flat coastal line. The military utilized Maine to its fullest and correctly so. Maine sometimes if forgotten about, at least through my observations, so I think it is important that these historical societies preserve these forts. They clearly show how coastal Maine was significant in the defense of the Union and the United States in the first two world wars.

Sources:  http://fortwiki.com/Battery_Keyes

The Portland Observatory

On September 8, 2011 Libby Bischof, our history professor, took us on a tour of the Portland Observatory. Unfortunately, at that time this was one of the first historical sites of Maine that I have visited, aside from Fort Williams. I thought it was a very unique site. To me, it was one of those sites that has always been there, obviously, but taken for granted. I’m from New Jersey and all of my friends who are from here had no idea what it was used for nor had any information about why it was there, etc. I came to find out that it was a pretty amazing site for it being so out of sight.

Our tour guy, his name was Pete I believe, was pretty entertaining and very knowledgeable about the observatory.  He had a sense of humor to him as well, which was a relief. Usually historical tour guides, at least the ones that I’ve had, can be pretty old and simply boring with extremely dry dialog. Sorry but that it was I have experienced. Anyway, this guy was not. Inside the observatory was similar to a lighthouse. It had a spiral staircase with several platforms in between. Let me tell you, the stairs were a pretty tight squeeze. It was pretty funny seeing all of us men wobbling up the steps. It stands at 86-feet tall and has an incredible view of Portland and the harbor. It really was quite surprising. You could see most of Portland. The most incredible view, to me, was the view of the harbor. I could see all the industrialized ships, sailboats, and other fishing vessel docked and also moving. It gave me a whole other perspective of Portland.  

Historical Background:

Anyway, the tour guide provided the class with the basic use of what the observatory was used for. Basically, the observatory served as a signaling station for all incoming ships and what they were carrying to the merchants that awaited them on land. It was built in 1807 by Captain Lemuel Moody. Captain Moody would climb to the top with a variety of different flags and peer out at the harbor with his telescope. Each flag represented what type of ship was entering the harbor and what the ship was carrying. Moody called this “signaling”. The merchants on land who waited for these ships to come in had no idea what they were carrying, thus, leaving them unprepared for what was to be unloaded and sold. Moody had built this on top of Munjoy Hill for the simple purpose that it was a high point in Portland. Because of this, the observatory being 86-feet tall, and Moody’s telescope, he was able to see as far as 30 miles from the tower. The Merchants who subscribed to this “signaling” method would have had to pay a fee but had the advantage of knowing what type of ship and what it was carrying, thus, giving them the advantage over other non-paying merchants. The Portland Observatory eventually became a victim of technology. Unfortunately for Moody and his flagstaffs, radio on ships would prove fatal for his method of signaling in 1923. Merchants were then able to listen over the radio to the Captains instead of Moody’s flags. It was a system that was happily utilized for 116 years.

Today, the Portland Observatory is a historical landmark in Maine. It’s important because it is just one of many sites of Maine that capture the coastal essence of what Maine was and still is. During the nineteenth century, Maine, specifically Portland, was a city that based a lot of its trade on shipping. This was what coastal Maine had been and the Portland Observatory tells a story of just that. It had been restored a couple times to make sure it stays that way. Once in 1939 and the other between 1998-2000 when the structure was threatened by powder post beetles. I actually learned that they had moved the observatory for a road. I have absolutely no idea how an 86-foot tall observatory on top of granite, I think, was moved. It’s pretty amazing and I’m glad that our class had gotten the opportunity to see it. It was a great first visit.

Sources: notes and http://portlandlandmarks.org/observatory/