University of Maine at Portland - Reflection / Umpire Yearbook (Portland, ME)

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Y.M1C.A. 1933 Moumain View 1946 Deering Estate 1948 petity. His sociai connections were agreeable. and the affable hnst extended hospitality :0 celebrity and piebian alike- an era can be read in their names alone; untold sadness and immeasur- able fame in their hnal reputations. Deering's sister, Sarah, married Commodore Edward Pteble, the renowned subduer 0f the Barbary Pirates and Father of the United States Navy. By marriage, he was affiliated with Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury and former United States Senator, William Pitt Fessenden. Dent Daniel Websret walked the Mansionis hails; swatthy Vice President, Hannibal Hamlin, danced in its glittering parlors; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, long a tesi. dent of Portland, read poetry on thegreen lawn beneath the elm trees. Secretary DFWar, jefferson Davis, personally inspected the construction ofbrooding Fort Gorges in the harbor, solemnly int dicative ofthe stutms then gathering. In the corps attending the lean and dignified Secretary was Robert E. Lee ofVitginiaA The War of Rebellion, whiie dearly expending the lives of thousands of Maine soldiers in celebrated and infamous batties alike, left unaltered the boundaries of the state, but profoundiy 10 Lee Memorial 1946 Boy's Club 1947 altered the compiexion of its resitients. Times were not kind to- the Deering famiiy yet they remained unwiiling to sell any- subsrantial portion of the land surrounding the Mansion to; fourteen years A common sreeLplate map of1875, A Bitd'siEye- View of Portland, pictures a singie railroad spur straggling- aiong ForeSt Avenue with mi Other buildings lying between this ; track and DeeringAvenue save the Mansion and extending farm buildings. It was no: until 1879 that the Deerings 501d a iatge ponion Of Deering Oaks to the city. This confined the boundaries 05th? family estate solely within the limits ofthc municipal bordered: the town of Deering, named for the landowner, james Deering- Westem Falmouth was ruled off as Wwbrook in 1814, and-a portion ofthat municipality, Deering, was incorporated in 1871:: it was later reannexed by Portland in 1899. The Great Portland Fire of 1866 forced many prominent: bumednut and homeless families onto the remaining Dean, land, and the Family sold much of the satellite areas of the ndw failow farmland for house lets. In 1946, when Portland Junk ?

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College was itself seekjtag a new home, the Deering acreage had been dimished from three hundred to eighteen acres. Portland Junior College was conceived during the hard times of the thirties. In the early years of the Great Depression,sevetal local men became concerned with providing an effective advanced education for the aggregation of high school graduates 'who Found themselves unable to afford, or to attend, colleges in other areas. By cooperation with the trustees and the staff of the Portland Young Men's ChriStian Association which shared the concern for higher education, the group evolved a plan whereby college coursa would be offered inexpensively in Portland through the use of the facilities and rooms of the YMCA build. ing on Pores: Avenue. In 1933, the legislature granted the assembly the tight to award degrees and four reputable Maine colleges, as well as Boston University, promised their aid. Two freshman programs were announced for that initial year: one in Liberal Arts, acceptable to Maine colleges; and a second in Business Administration, identical with that offered by the well known Boston University College of Business 11 Adminisuation. The Dean of that Branch, Everett W. Lord, directed five fulltime instructors and several professors who engaged in the planning and development of the inStitution. Seventy Students comprised the complete enrollment of the Elm year. Seven years later, Portland Junior College was accorded two distinct honors: it was recognized by the United States Office of Education as an accredited Junior Coltege; and secondly, it was approved as a unit of the Civilian Pilot Training Program by the Civil Aeroaautics Adminisuation. The former event is notable for its own sake; the latter is of significance because it marks the beginning ofa deep involvement ofa very singular man. Luther I. Bonney was one of the original group of concerned men who had provided the germ for the institution, and he was appointed a Dean of the college. A graduate of Bates College, a scholar of Latin and Greek, he re-entered the world ofeducation from the world ofbusiness in 1933 The student body was reduced to a mimimum of fourteen in 1943 when, with the necessities of the broadening War, Pres.