Maine's Governors

Since William King was inaugurated as Maine’s first governor on June 2, 1820, the state has been led by 70 men and one woman. The position held today by Janet Trafton Mills has been occupied by such notable figures in our history as Hannibal Hamlin, Abraham Lincoln’s first vice president; Abner Coburn, generous benefactor to Maine educational institutions; Joshua L. Chamberlain, Civil War hero at the Battle of Gettysburg; Percival P. Baxter, donor of Mount Katahdin to the state; and Edmund S. Muskie, champion of Federal environmental protection legislation.

Only two governors are not represented by pictures. Of the balance, four are shown in portraits and the rest in photographs. Photographic images dating back to the 1840s enable us to study with complete clarity the faces of the men who governed Maine during the first decades of statehood before the Civil War as well as their more recent successors. These pictures come from three sources, the Maine State Archives, the Maine Historical Society, and the Maine Historic Preservation Commission.

These pages are based upon research which I initially undertook in 2001 assisted by the Commission’s summer intern Adam M. Crowley of the University of Maine at Orono, now an Assistant Professor of English at Husson College in Bangor. At that point, the project was envisioned as a publication, but the ever expanding use of the internet during the last decade has led me to offer this information to a broader online audience. I want to thank the Friends of the Blaine House for hosting this information. 

Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr.
Maine State Historian

 

Governor Abner Coburn

Abner Coburn

DATE OF BIRTH:  March 22, 1803
PLACE OF BIRTH:  Skowhegan
DATE OF DEATH:  January 4, 1885
PLACE OF DEATH:  Skowhegan
PROFESSION:  Businessman
POLITICAL AFFILIATION:  Republican
TERM IN OFFICE:  January 8, 1863 – January 7, 1864

QUOTE: We are well advanced in the second year of a war involving issues of the gravest moment to all of us. The contest was precipitated by those who, no longer able to rule, were determined to ruin, the Government of the United States.

Inaugural Address, January  8, 1863

OTHER ELECTED OR APPOINTED OFFICES: State Representative, Executive Councilor, Presidential Elector

FURTHER READING:

Biographical Encyclopedia of Maine of the 19th Century.  Boston: Metropolitan Publishing and Engraving Company, 1885, pp. 137-142.

Chase, Henry.  Representative Men of Maine.  Portland: The Lakeside Press, 1893, p. XLV.

Hatch, Louis C.  “Abner Coburn,” Dictionary of American Biography.  New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1933, Vol. 4, pp. 249-250.

Williams, Charles E.  The Life of Abner Coburn.  Bangor: Thomas W. Burr, 1885.

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