Name/Title
Map of Majorville | Eastport, Maine | 1833Description
Photograph of the original map then in the possession of Oscar L. Whalen (1896-1991) of Eastport, Maine. Photograph was taken c.1980.
Majorville
From Eastport Sentinel, December 10, 1890, p.3, col.2:
"Majorville is a familiar locality in our town, but probably very few people know how the name originated. Darius Pearce was a prominent citizen in the early part of the century. He was quite active in the adventurous times of the Embargo, and during the war of 1812 when he and his two brothers-in-law John and Samuel Shackford, were going along the coast in a sail boat they were captured by the British man-of-war Boxer. After a short detention they were set free, and a few days later when up in the vicinity of Monhegan had the satisfaction of seeing the sea fight when the American man-of-war Enterprise beat the Boxer and carried her into Portland. He occasionally went to sea, and was master of the Tom Thumb, one of the earliest steamboats in these eastern waters, but was generally engaged in mercantile business on shore. Though never a military man he somehow acquired the soubriquet of "Major," and was commonly known in that way, though sometimes an ecclesiastical title was awarded to him. When the ambitious avenue known as Broadway was marked out and houses began to be built on that part of the Shackford property to which family his wife belonged, the neighborhood was given the name of Majorville which it has since retained in compliment to him."