With just under a month until Election Day, Americans are getting swamped by all manner of signs, ads and other messages promoting the lofty ideals of candidates seeking higher office.
For anyone who spends much time in the midcoast, though, those ideals may sound familiar. That’s because the region is filled with towns named after those same ideals that elected officials have long professed to embody.
Hope. Liberty. Freedom. Unity.
So, why did the founders of so many midcoast towns choose these virtues as their names?
Now, some two centuries later, there are few clear answers to that question, but in at least a couple cases, they appear to have been inspired by the broader principles of independence that were in vogue during the early days of the nation.
Of course, it’s important to note that the European settlers who eventually established the state of Maine displaced many of the region’s original Wabanaki inhabitants during the 17th and 18th centuries. So in that sense, the founders of these communities did not always live up to those virtues — and in some cases, went directly against them.
But that didn’t stop them from embracing them in name.
This was at least the case for Freedom. Originally named Smithton Plantation and then Beaverhill Plantation, Freedom was incorporated as the United States and the United Kingdom were fighting the War of 1812. According to a town history, its naming was one example of the region’s early settlers trying to assert an independent identity during another clash with their former colonial ruler.
Historians also have speculated that the same spirit of revolutionary camaraderie was behind the names of the other nearby towns of Union (1774), Unity (1804) and Liberty (1827), although there isn’t a clear record of what their founders had in mind.
Earle Shettleworth Jr., Maine’s state historian, did not himself know the reasons for those town names, or the broader trend of midcoast communities picking these broad ideas as their monikers. He referred to A Gazetteer of the State of Maine for some answers, but it contained few.
The town of Hope is another example of a community whose name might seem to suggest some kind of optimism about the future of the new country. But it’s also possible the founders were actually going in a different direction and embracing their roots in England. According to information gathered by the local historic society, the town may have been named after a prominent British family, as Camden was as well.
Two other communities in the region that have similar lofty names are Friendship and Prospect. The reasons for Friendship’s name also have been lost to time.
But the Gazetteer offers a simple explanation for the name of Prospect (founded in 1794), one that could apply to many other communities on Maine’s coast, but that was not directly related to the young nation’s idealism.
Situated at the mouth of the mighty Penobscot River, “The name was suggested by its beautiful views,” the Gazetteer says.
