Main

Here, through links, is a brief overview of early attempts at Catholic colonization in Maine, including some biographical information on Bishop Benedict Joseph Fenwick's founding of the Catholic township of Benedicta, President of Georgetown University, founding of the newspaper The Pilot, and Holy Cross College (originally intended to be built in Benedicta). Fenwick even has a present day high school - the largest in the Archdiocese of Boston - named after him. An impressive career for a man who died in his early 60's.

And, thanks to some feedback on the site - positive I might add - I have also included here links for genealogy that are also listed in the Classified listings. These are the links to the 1837 Census (which was just 3 years after the founding of the town in 1834), the 1860 Census (which has links near the bottom of the page to original documents in .gif format), and a repository of Maine databases. Also, here is a link to a PDF of a thesis by Sr. Marie Nicknair on Bishop Benedict J. Fenwick and the history of Benedicta.

For those of you who are interested in another colorful resident of the past, here is a page the is a copy of a March 16, 1953 Bangor Daily article on John A. Cummings - quite an inventor.

As with all content on the pages of this site, if you have pictures, information, comments, or anything else to add to what you find here, feel free to send it along to us here.

And lastly, here is our most recent page with videos from the 175th Anniversary celebration weekend!