Maine State Museum

🦋 This spring and summer, the museum is partnering with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife on an extensive project to catalogue and rehouse thousands of butterfly specimens in the museum’s natural science collections.

At the helm of the project is collections manager Chase Gagne (pictured second from right), working wing-to-wing with a talented and dedicated group of volunteers.

Stay tuned for more as this exciting project flutters on. 🦋

✍️🐈 For our last ‘Journalling June’ post, meet McKinley the cat of Farmingdale, Maine. ✍️🐈

McKinley was reportedly the largest domestic cat (though it is unclear whether that meant in Maine or the US; either way, an impressive feat) weighing in at a robust 35 pounds. Most likely named for the 25th U.S. president, William McKinley (1843-1901), this hefty feline was well known among local residents. A note written on this 1907 postcard even points out that McKinley lived nearby—a testament to the cat's local celebrity.

The postcard reads:

"Dear sister Eunice I send this postal
to remind you are to come down here
Friday. This cat lives near us. I know
you would be pleased with a cat by me."

Though the author of this letter (a.k.a. Eunice’s sister) remains a mystery, it’s quite clear that McKinley the cat stole a lot of hearts in his day. 😻

We can see a sort of resemblance between the famous cat and the famous man… Does your pet have a celebrity doppelganger❓🐱

Image ID 1 & 2: Historic photographic postcard, MSM Collection #2004.23.1
Image ID 4: McKinley the cat and President William McKinley, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Miss Marieli Benziger

⚾🐄⛺ Did you know that Augusta’s Capitol Park has served as a baseball field, a Civil War encampment, and even leasable farmland? ⚾🐄⛺

Learn all about the storied history (and many lives!) of Capitol Park this summer:

⏰ Tours run every 30 minutes, from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm
📅 Every Wednesday in July and August
✔️ No registration necessary! Just show up.
📍 Meet in the park across from 19 Union Street in Augusta

Tours are FREE!

A great way to spend the day–and soak up some sun with your !

✒️ This week’s ‘Journaling June’ post comes from the journals of William Harris (1856–1934) of Mercer, Maine. ✒️

🎣 In an entry dated June 19, 1890, Harris described a fishing excursion to Great Pond in the Belgrade Lakes region. After stopping for lunch, he visited Adams Hoyt, a farmer who lived on an island in the lake. Harris sketched the scene, capturing Hoyt’s farmstead and even Hoyt himself standing in the doorway of his home—a small but vivid glimpse into life on Great Pond more than 135 years ago.

Of the excursion, Harris wrote, “...22 fine bass and five or six white perch. Found George Dyer and Alice here when we got home. Cleaned my fish and got to bed at twelve o'clock.”

Harris frequently illustrated his journals with sketches that documented daily life in rural Mercer, where he lived with his father, stepmother, and three half-sisters. Harris eventually married and moved to Wilton, Maine, where he worked for the Bass & Co. shoe factory.

🖼️ Image ID: Sketch of Adams Hoyt by William Harris, 1890, MSM2023.30