Lincoln Paine lends a unique lens to historical society lecture

An exploration of Maine’s maritime history

- CLARK TATE

It took maritime historian, author, editor, and curator Lincoln Paine 50 minutes to run through 200 years of Maine’s history during the Castine Historical Society’s 12th annual Deborah Pulliam Memorial Lecture held July 15 via Zoom. When his fast-paced lecture, titled “Perfected Visions of the Past: Maritime Maine in Almost 2020 Hindsight,” concluded, Lisa Lutts, the evening’s host and executive director of the historical society, said, “I’m going to have to watch this several times to grasp all that you were talking about, because there were a lot of new concepts in there for me.”

The full video will soon be available on the historical society’s website, castinehistorialsociety.org. In the meantime, the public may explore the current exhibit, “Risky Business: Square-Rigged Ships and Salted Fish,” now through October 11. The subject matter is meant to overlap with Paine’s recent lecture.

Questions followed Paine’s lecture and discussion ensued. But, like Lutts, we could all use more time with such dense and insightful material. I chatted with Paine after the presentation to delve deeper.

Recognizing historical context

Paine began by briefly acknowledging elements of this extraordinary moment in history, saying, “Tonight we’re celebrating Maine’s 200th anniversary as a state, but we are late due to the pandemic, and our country is embroiled in debates about our history and how we understand it.” He was quick to put it all into historical context. “We have to remember that Maine’s statehood was nearly postponed because in 1820, our country was also in crisis,” he said.