Newspaper Articles

A note kept by Old York Historic tells us York resident Chet Toby indicated the cannon came from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard by the railroad. He further stated that Cecil Hobson, who was owner/operator of Putnam’s Express and affiliated with Railway Express, moved the cannon from York Harbor Station. Please note that Merriam-Webster Dictionary lists both “cannon” and “cannons” as the plural forms of the noun “cannon,” which is a good point to remember when researching artillery and looking at Mr. Toby’s note. York actually took delivery of three, identical artillery pieces and a November 24, 1897, article from the York Courant tells the story.

“The “York Association” refers to the York Village Association of Veterans and Sons of Veterans, a local branch of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), a fraternal organization made up of Civil War veterans. In places where the veterans were too few for a GAR Post, local associations were formed that included the sons of those veterans as their fathers had passed away over time.

To add further veracity to this story, the former keeper of The National Registry of Known Surviving Civil War Artillery, had recorded that three, 100-pdr Navy Parrot Rifle cannons were donated in 1897 to "village selectmen" in York, Maine.”

Researchers have also seen references to a delivery of cannon balls from the Portsmouth Naval Yard during this same time period.

Village Greens, commons and park

Historically, certain town land was always available for community uses such as grazing animals, collecting wood for fuel, hunting and fishing and many others. For example, at this time in history York was a farming and fishing community and a public hay scale was made available on that ever-shrinking triangle of village green where the Soldiers’ Monument now sits. The word “park” in the above article refers to that very spot.

Generally, if a piece of property in the vicinity of York Village had anything green growing on it, that property would, at some point in time be referred to as “the village green” or “the common” and in the case of this informative newspaper article “Park at the Village.” Another term not in common use anymore is “Town House” and that refers to York’s town hall.

Having established that York had been gifted three cannons the size of our one remaining cannon that now resides on Gaol (Jail) Hill, we naturally have to tell the story about those other two cannons – where they were mounted and where they ended up. Have some fun reading these newly available and chronologically arranged newspaper articles about these large artillery pieces. The mood and texture of York at the turn of that century is well reflected in these articles.

April 21, 1899, The York Courant