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Recent Acquisition

Lithographed View of the Portland Fire of 1866

Joseph E. Baker. Ruins of the Great Fire at Portland, Maine. New York and Boston: Bufford Brothers and Portland: S. B. Beckett, 1866. John Reps, Views and Viewmakers of Urban America 1236.

This hand colored lithographed view of Portland shows the remains of the portion of the city destroyed by a fire that lasted for two days in July 1866. AAS has three editions of Abner Warren Harmon's The Great Conflagration in Portland, July 4, 1866, which details some of the losses. For example, half of the churches were destroyed, as were all of the banks and newspaper offices. The fire started around 5 p.m., probably in a boat shop on Commercial Street. Baker is best known for his portrait prints; this view is an unusual subject for him.
Purchased from Boston Rare Maps. Various Funds.

-Georgia B. Barnhill, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Graphic Arts

Recent Acquisitions Index

"One day I am visited by a collector of ordination sermons; the next, by a collector of 4th of July orations; then comes a collector of geography; another wants religious newspapers; another wants every book printed in New York before 1700. I accommodate myself to all; for I want every thing and collect every thing, and I have more zeal than the whole of them: and in this way I am kept very busy."
~Christopher Columbus Baldwin
 3rd Librarian of AAS