Arcadia Bestsellers

The tragic story of the murders of three women committed over three decades by one cold-blooded man in Maine's North Woods.

Jennie Cyr disappeared in 1977. Jerilyn Towers vanished in 1982. Lynn Willette never came home on a night in 1994. Each woman had a relationship with James Hicks, who in 2000 confessed to murdering them, dismembering their bodies and burying the remains alongside rural roads in Aroostook County. This is their story.

Author Trudy Irene Scee follows Hicks from the North Woods to west Texas, detailing three decades of evasion, investigation and prosecution. She interviews police officers and victims' families--and meets Hicks at the state prison in Thomaston, where he remains remorseless as he lives out his days behind bars. Thoroughly researched and carefully documented, Tragedy in the North Woodsis the definitive history of one of Maine's most ruthless killers.

A pictoral history and moving tribute to the people of Portland's spirit, drive and ability to overcome adversity from the last 130 years.

Portland is often associated with the mythological phoenix, the animal that rises out of the ashes of its apparent death. Life here has often been a struggle: to overcome the disastrous fires of 1775 and 1866, to rebuild after the change in Canadian policy in 1920 that devastated the waterfront and to outlast the Depression and the other economic crises that have affected the area. The people of Portland have always faced these problems head on, survived, and rebuilt the city stronger then it was before.
Portland features more than 200 images that together document life in Maine's largest city over the last 130 years. We see immigrants arrive from all corners of the world and watch as they build lives and businesses in their new home. We witness the waterfront and Congress Street rise, fall, and rise again. We observe how the political scene has changed and been changed by everyday people. Perhaps the most interesting photographs, however, are those of everyday life: people working, playing sports, relaxing, falling in love and living life to its fullest.

Go inside the people, places, forests and machines that made Maine the logging and lumber giant it is today.

Known as the Pine Tree State, Maine once led the world in lumber production. It was the first great lumber-producing region, with Bangor at its center. Today, the state has nearly 18 million acres of timberland, and forest products still make up a major industry. The state's lumber industry went through several historical periods, beginning with the vast pine and spruce harvests, the organization of major corporate interests, the change from sawlogs to pulpwood, and then to sustained yields, intensive management, and mechanized harvesting.

At the beginning, much of the region was inaccessible except by water, so harvesting activities were concentrated on the coast and along the principal rivers. Gradually, as the railroads expanded and roads were constructed into the woods, operations expanded with them and the river systems became vitally important for the transportation of timber out of the woods to the markets downstate. Logging and Lumbering in Maine traces these developments in the industry and examines the history from its earliest roots in 1630 to the present, providing a pictorial record of land use and activity in Maine.

Maine's Hunting Past captures the pursuit of wild animals through a century of documentation. Since about 1850, animals have been taken for sport, for food, and for their hides. Hunting has long been not only a sport but also an industry, resulting in the increase and growth of sporting camps and an expanding number of guides. Maine's Hunting Past highlights favorite regions, featuring famous sporting camps and well-known guides. Big game, small game, upland birds, waterfowl, furbearers, and numerous photographs of trophy animals and large bag limits are all included.

For eight decades, an epic power struggle raged across a frontier that would become Maine.

Between 1675 and 1759, British, French, and Native Americans soldiers clashed in six distinct wars to claim the land that became the Pine Tree State. Though the showdown between France and Great Britain was international in scale, the decidedly local conflicts in Maine pitted European settlers against Native American tribes. Native and European communities from the Penobscot to the Piscataqua Rivers suffered brutal attacks. Countless men, women and children were killed, taken captive or sold into servitude. The native people of Maine were torn asunder by disease, social disintegration and political factionalism as they fought to maintain their autonomy in the face of unrelenting European pressure. This is the dark, tragic and largely forgotten struggle that laid the foundation of Maine.

Unless you're from New England, you may not know the expression "He's got a lot of moxie!" came from a bittersweet patent medicine turned soda.

The expression is taken to mean that one has nerve, vigor, and grit. The soda pop originally called Moxie Nerve Food was guaranteed to cure nervous exhaustion and a host of associated ailments. First bottled in 1885, today it is the official soft drink of the state of Maine and still enjoyed by many. This book chronicles Moxie's rich history and brilliant marketing breakthroughs as well as some corporate misfortunes and rebounds along the way.

Photo by photo, discover the stories that have been made along Maine's stretch of Appalachian wildneress.

Maine native Myron H. Avery recruited friends from Washington, DC; Maine forest and warden service personnel; guides and sporting camp operators; and the Civilian Conservation Corps to extend the Appalachian Trail through Maine, despite questions of whether it would be possible to carve a trail through the state's wildlands. Volunteers of Maine's Appalachian Trail Club, created by Avery in 1935, have since maintained the trail, built shelters, relocated more than half of the original hastily constructed route, and taken on the task of managing the trail's protection corridor. Along Maine's Appalachian Trail illustrates the rich history of the trail's rugged mountains and vast forests, which have provided a livelihood for generations of workers and communities.

In 1604, when Frenchmen landed on Saint Croix Island, they were far from the first people to walk along its shores.

For thousands of years, Etchemins--whose descendants were members of the Wabanaki Confederacy--had lived, loved and labored in Down East Maine. Bound together with neighboring people, all of whom relied heavily on canoes for transportation, trade and survival, each group still maintained its own unique cultures and customs. After the French arrived, they faced unspeakable hardships, from ""the Great Dying,"" when disease killed up to 90 percent of coastal populations, to centuries of discrimination. Yet they never abandoned Ketakamigwa, their homeland. In this book, anthropologist William Haviland relates the history of hardship and survival endured by the natives of the Down East coast and how they have maintained their way of life over the past four hundred years.

Far on the northeastern coast of Maine sits a small island whose size belies the depth of its storied past.

Over the course of its existence, Eastport has been a part of the ancestral homeland of the Passamaquoddy, seized from American hands by the British, who would occupy it for four years, and ground zero for the North American sardine industry. Its remote location and stunningly rugged environment make it appealing to a wide variety of people, from fisherfolk and sailors to artists and performers from all over the world. Once serving as the stomping grounds of Benedict Arnold (having gone from traitor to trader), it was later frequented by a young Franklin D. Roosevelt, who became enchanted by its coastal charms. Habituated to facing periods of strife and of runaway success alike, the story of Eastport is one that changes as steadily as its momentous tides.

Lura Jackson was raised in Eastport. She became an award-winning community journalist writing for the Quoddy Tides and the Calais Advertiser and developed a strong passion for local history after becoming involved with the St. Croix Historical Society. She holds a master's degree in peace and reconciliation from the University of Maine. Hugh French, director of the Tides Institute & Museum of Art, provides the foreword, while the institute provided dozens of rare photographs to the book's interior.

From the Age of Discovery and the earliest settlement of America, Midcoast Maine has played surprising roles in America's history.

Europeans might not have survived in the New World without the Kennebec beaver trade, the lessons of the Popham Colony and the friendships Maine's first settlers built. Experience the storied survival of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's military grandfather in precarious Revolutionary Maine and meet resilient, creative, noteworthy and notorious Midcoasters. Pat Higgins recounts Puritan power plays, the sea fight between the "Boxer" and the "Enterprise," duels, U-boats and much more. Discover the fascinating and quirky bits of history that have remained hidden along the rocky coast from Portland to Acadia--until now..

Immerse yourself in the visual language of the Wabanaki tribe and learn about how the art was---and continues to be--preserved and celebrated.

For centuries, the people of the Wabanaki Nations of the northeastern United States and eastern Canada used signs, symbols and designs to communicate with one another. As Native Peoples became victims of European expansion, the Wabanaki were separated by war, the search for work and intermarriage, as well as by hiding their identities to avoid persecution. In this diaspora, their visual language helped them keep their teachings and culture alive. Their designs have evolved over time and taken on different meanings, and they are now used on objects that are considered art. While their beauty is undeniable, these pieces cannot be fully appreciated without understanding their context. Tribal member Jeanne Morningstar Kent sheds light on this language, from the work of ancient Wabanaki to today's artists--like David Moses Bridges, Donna Sanipass and Jennifer Neptune--once again using their medium to connect with their fellow Wabanaki.

Around Houlton documents the history of this town with Yankee pioneer spirit from potato farming to Market Square.

Since the development of photography in the mid-19th century, the camera has been used as a tool of both discovery and preservation. Photographs bring alive our picture of the past in a way that other historic relics cannot, and they tell us much more than at first appears. Houlton, Maine, is a town still infused with the Yankee pioneer spirit, an independence that can be traced back to Houlton's roots at the beginning of the 19th century. This is reflected in nearly every face in this delightful selection of images of the people of Houlton and its surrounding communities in the century between 1850 and 1950. Some of the best photographs are those that simply show ""how things used to be""--pictures of potato farming, of industry, of lively activity in Market Square, and of peaceful summer recreation at cottages at Nickerson, Grand, and Drew's Lakes.

Down East Maine is well known for its breathtaking scenery and art museums. However, much of the history in the traditional mining and fishing area of Rockland and St. George remains untold.

Hanson Gregory from Clam Cove invented the donut. Mary Brown Patten sailed a clipper around Cape Horn. Captain Albert Keller was shipwrecked on Easter Island and Effie Canning of Rockland composed the lullaby "Rock a Bye Baby.'? Captain Charles Holbrook of Tenants Harbor and his ship, the Hattie Dunn, fell victim to a German U-boat in the Atlantic.

Local author Jane Merrill uncovers the forgotten stories and personalities that bring this unique area's history into focus.

Bath Iron Works was established by Gen. Thomas Hyde in 1884 and launched its first ship in 1891. This collection of shipbuilding photographs brings to life the proud history of Bath Iron Works.

Since then, the shipyard on the Kennebec River has built dozens of luxurious yachts, hardworking freighters, tugs, trawlers, lightships, and more than two hundred twenty warships for the U.S. Navy. Today, Bath Iron Works continues a shipbuilding tradition that began nearly four hundred years ago when the first ship built in America was constructed just a few miles downriver from Bath. Bath Iron Works showcases a unique collection of photographs that provides a rare view inside one of the nation's great shipyards. The book shows the yard's origins in a few simple buildings, its expansion into a modern shipbuilding facility, and its rapid growth into an industrial powerhouse during World War II. During these years, Bath Iron Works produced famous ships such as the America's Cup defender Ranger, the yachts Aras and Hi-Esmaro, the record-setting destroyer USS Lamson, and fully one fourth of all destroyers built for the U.S. Navy during World War II. Bath Iron Works gives an insider's view of these great vessels and many others, as skilled craftspeople turn raw materials into complex ships, each uniquely suited to its purpose.

Nearly one-third of Maine residents have French blood and are known as Franco-Americans.

Many trace their heritage to French Canadian families who came south from Quebec in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to work in the mills of growing communities such as Auburn, Augusta, Biddeford, Brunswick, Lewiston, Saco, Sanford, Westbrook, Winslow, and Waterville. Other Franco-Americans, known as Acadians, have rural roots in the St. John Valley in northernmost Maine. Those of French heritage have added a unique and vibrant accent to every community in which they have lived, and they are known as a cohesive ethnic group with a strong belief in family, church, work, education, the arts, their language, and their community. Today they hold posts in every facet of Maine life, from hourly worker to the U.S. Congress. These hardworking people have a notable history and have been a major force in Maine's development.

Maine has a collection of unique characters and tales that has helped to shape its identity. Meet the Artist Who Played Robin Hood, the Hermit of North Pond and the Mysterious Billy Smith.

Uncover the state's hidden gems with stories like the Midas Scam in Lubec, which left investors with little but salt water to show for their investment. From the tragedy of the Wreck of the Circus Ship to the uplifting story of the Schoolgirl Ambassador, Maine author and veteran storyteller Jim Harnedy brings out the offbeat characters and events that have made the Pine Tree State so unique.

Take a journey back in time through the charming scenes of small-town life in the vibrant community of Cumberland.

Maine Narrow Gauge Railroads is a comprehensive pictorial record of the history of the narrow gauge railroad in Maine. From the one-hundred-twelve-mile Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes Railroad to the five-mile Kennebec Central, Maine Narrow Gauge Railroads features the toylike miniature trains of Maine as they appeared at different stages in their history. The Bridgton and Harrison Railroad, the Monson Railroad, and the Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington Railway lines are documented within, as well as the current restoration projects that are under way.

In the summer of 1643, John Sanders was granted land bordering the Mousam River in Kennebunk.

From this early grant to the present, many generations have called Kennebunk home.Through nearly two hundred vintage photographs, Kennebunk portrays life in this charming village from 1850 to 1940.From the architecture of its downtown neighborhoods to scenes of the rural countryside, the images in this book provide a window on Kennebunk’s past.They also capture the people who made up the fabric of this community, from early sea captains to hardworking farmers.Among them are immigrant Sam Tvedt, an eccentric preacher who sported shoulder-length hair and a long flowing coat while shouting sermons from beside the town pump, and Colby Jack Coombs, the famous World Series pitcher, shown spending time with his family on their Alewive farm.