Krista Luttrell
Researching Ancestors. Creating Things.
recent posts
- A Small Update Changed Everything: My mtDNA Genetic Genealogy Journey
- An Honest Day’s Work for an Honest Day’s Pay: Irish supporting Irish in 19th Century Portland, Maine
- Announcement: Major New Brunswick Museum Renovation Underway
- Machias, Margaretta and O’Brien DNA
- America’s 250th and the Maine Irish
Category: ireland
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An Honest Day’s Work for an Honest Day’s Pay: Irish supporting Irish in 19th Century Portland, Maine
If you stand on Munjoy Hill in Portland, Maine, and look towards the Casco Bay waterfront, you’ll see the brick and stone remnants of the old Portland Company rising up from Fore Street. In the 1800s, this was the city’s biggest employer, a large factory that made locomotives, steam engines, and other heavy machinery. Most…
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An ambitious project is underway in our next-door neighbor’s largest community. The Province of New Brunswick, Canada, is building a new museum of history and culture on Douglas Street in the city of Saint John. According to their website, they expect to complete in 2028. Although it’s been a few years since I visited this…
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The United States of America turns 250 years old this July 4th, and even though 1776 seems like ancient history, it’s not that long ago. Maine was part of Massachusetts at the time and played a part in the American Revolutionary War. One of the most notable events in Maine was the Battle of Machias,…
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Happy New Year! As the United States of America celebrates its 250th birthday, I’ll be sharing 12 bite-sized stories, one per month, throughout this year to explore how Maine’s Irish community helped shape the incredible experiment in democracy we know as the United States of America. Picture Revolutionary-era Maine with its dense, dark, primordial forests, biting Atlantic…
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In the 1840s, echoes of a new sound emerged from Maine’s forests: the rhythmic bang of hammers striking upon granite and iron. Within a few years, the promise of progress had reached the northernmost corner of Maine and other northern New England States. Portland’s merchants dreamed of an economic lifeline tethering their city to the…
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On December 9th, 1850, at St. Dominic’s Church in Portland, Maine, Patrick Burke and Bridget Kildea of Paris Cape stood before Rev. John O’Donnell and made their matrimonial vows. Their witnesses, Patrick Cunningham and Catherine Burke, the wife of Thomas Gantley, Portland residents, were likely close family members. Paris Cape is in Paris, Maine, and…
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The Portland Company was founded in 1845 by John Poor, a lawyer and entrepreneur originally from Andover, Maine. It played a pivotal role in Portland’s industrial growth during the 19th century. Situated on the waterfront side of Fore Street at the bottom of Munjoy Hill, the Company quickly became a leading manufacturing hub, producing steam…
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Many moons ago, when I first began my journey into the realm of family history, my intention was simple: to write a small book about what I had discovered, for the benefit of my beloved children and the generations who will come after them. In the early Spring of this year, I finally began this…
Krista Luttrell 