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Cumberland & North Yarmouth

A Neighboring History of Two Towns

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    • Maine's Pauper Laws and the Cumberland Overseers of the Poor
    • Population Decline in Maine's Coastal Counties
    • Representative Industries of Cumberland and North Yarmouth
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Population Decline in Maine's Coastal Counties

Maine in 1860
Maine in 1860
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Population swings
Between 1790 and 1860, the population of Maine increased from 96,450 to 628,279. The following decade, the state registered a decline in population of two-tenths percent, to 626,915. From 1870 through 1910 Maine's population increased just 18%, compared to the nation's more than doubling. The growth in population in the state's manufacturing centers drove the state's increase, and counterbalanced an actual decline in six of Maine's eight coastal counties.

Lumberman, Patten, c.1900
Lumberman, Patten, c.1900
Patten Lumbermen's Museum

Industries responsible for coastal settlement
Lumbering, fisheries, agriculture, shipbuilding, shipping and quarrying provided the livelihoods for most coastal Maine residents. The initial seasonal stations established in the 17th century by fishermen and fur traders were supplanted by more stable farming settlements. The abundance of timber, good harbors and a demand for sailing vessels resulted in the development of the shipbuilding industry, which reached its zenith in Maine between 1845 and 1880. Many of the ships built on the Maine coast were owned and crewed by locals. Fishing villages up and down the coast sent men and boats offshore. Granite and limestone quarries employed locals in quarrying and Maine ships in the carrying trade.

Flake Yard, Portland, 1854
Flake Yard, Portland, 1854
Maine Historical Society

The fishing industry
Before the advent of refrigeration on vessels, Maine's fishing villages hosted the fishermen who caught the fish, the processors who dried, salted or otherwise preserved the fish, and the suppliers who shipped the product to market. The use of ice in the fishing industry allowed for an increase in the market for fresh fish, and the expansion of rail lines resulted in a greater distribution of product. Vessels that iced their catch could deliver to the distribution centers of Portland and Boston, bypassing the locals. The loss of the local fishing industry devastated many small coastal communities.

Shipbuilders, Kennebunkport, 1901
Shipbuilders, Kennebunkport, 1901
Brick Store Museum

The shipbuilding industry
A shift in shipbuilding from wood to steel put Maine at a major disadvantage in an industry where the state previously had considerable success. Maine did not have the coal and iron needed to produce the steel for the ships and engines, and Bath emerged as the only Maine shipbuilding center to successfully make the transition from wooden to steel vessels. A decline in the number of Americans in the shipping trade decreased demand for vessels built locally, further affecting the industry. Taken together, the number of ships built in Maine and crewed by locals declined dramatically, disrupting life in shipbuilding centers the length of the coast.

Whitney Farm, Harrison, c.1880
Whitney Farm, Harrison, c.1880
Maine Historical Society

Agriculture
Maine’s climate from 1765 through 1880 was normally cool, interspersed with short periods of more moderate conditions. The decade of the 1820s was one of the climatically benign periods, raising expectations among farmers and prompting the introduction of new cash crops. A return to cooler temperatures in the early 1830s and an increase in precipitation that lasted for nearly fifty years brought the state’s farmers back to reality. New cash crops were proposed and new agricultural methods were implemented, and while the changes helped the state’s farmers somewhat, the unforgiving environment and competition from the West limited recovery. With the exception of Aroostook County, Maine’s remaining farmers survived by practicing a subsistence strategy that included diverse crop and livestock production, nonfarm work, and nontraditional products and crafts.

Granite quarry, Mount Desert, c.1890
Granite quarry, Mount Desert, c.1890
Maine Granite Industry Historical Society

The quarrying industry
Maine's coastal granite quarries were in a good position to supply stone for buildings and streets to the growing cities of the Eastern seaboard. The westward expansion resulted in the growth of inland cities, while rail lines allowed quarries in the interior to supply the materials needed for building. The use of concrete and steel in constructing buildings and bridges diminished the importance of granite, affecting employment in the state's granite centers. The state's limestone industry was impacted to a lesser degree, since a market for lime remained.

Sources:
Condon, Richard H. “Living in two worlds: Rural Maine in 1930,” Maine Historical Society Quarterly 25 (Fall 1985): 58-87.
Packard, Leonard O. "The decrease of population along the coast of Maine," Geographical Review 2 (1916): 334-41.
Smith, David C., et al. “Climate fluctuation and agricultural change in Southern and Central Maine, 1776-1880,” Maine Historical Society Quarterly 21 (1982): 179-200.

Text by Thomas C. Bennett


Case Study: Cumberland

  • At its founding in 1821, Cumberland had a population of 1,386
  • By 1860, Cumberland’s population had increased to 1,713, a rise of nearly 24%
  • From 1860 through 1920, the town lost 563 one-third of its residents
  • The 1910 U.S. Census reported that 84.44% of the 482 heads of household in Cumberland were born in Maine
  • By 1920, the percentage of native born heads of household had decreased slightly, to 82.1%
  • From 1920 through 2000 the town gained 6,009 residents, an average growth rate of 26.33% per decade

Case Study: North Yarmouth

  • In 1850, the year after Yarmouth seceded, North Yarmouth had 1,121 residents
  • The town lost an average of nine percent of its population for each decade from 1850 through 1930, when it registered 552 inhabitants. During that period, it gained population only between 1900 and 1910, going from 642 to 686 residents
  • The 1910 U.S. Census reported that 85.24% of the 244 heads of household in North Yarmouth were born in Maine
  • By 1920, the percentage of native born heads of household had decreased to 82.1%
  • From 1930 through 2000 North Yarmouth’s population increased from 569 to 3,210, an average growth rate of nearly 22% per decade

Cumberland County’s population increased by 23.51% from 1900 to 1920, from 100,689 to 124,358. Most of that growth occurred in Portland, where the population increased by 38.14%, from 50,145 to 69,272.

The 26 municipalities comprising Cumberland County in 1920 included 20 that had populations under 2,500, which the U.S. Census classified as rural. Of those 20 towns, 11 registered population increases between 1920 and 1930, including Cumberland. The growth rates experienced by those 11 towns ranged from 2.24% to 54.89%, while actual growth ranged from 26 in Gray to 842 in Cape Elizabeth. The average growth rate for the 11 towns was 21.21%.

In 1930, more than three-fourths of Maine's rural residents were native born of native parentage, the highest percentage of any state, and an equal proportion was Protestant.





Cumberland & North Yarmouth
In partnership with the Maine Memory Network    |    Project of Maine Historical Society