There’s a lot that sets us apart here in Maine. We’re the state closest to Europe. We’re the only one among the lower 48 that rubs elbows with only one other.
In keeping with our Dirigo motto, Latin for “we lead,” we get the jump on the rest of the country in experiencing the first daylight. We thus will see the sun in 2019 sooner than the rest of the nation.
That is, if one is at either the summit of Cadillac Mountain or Porcupine Mountain in Lubec, both of which are in contention for near simultaneous vantage points to fetch the first rays of sun in the U.S. at about 7:08 a.m. Other Maine locations see the sun later, and some places along the East Coast first see the sun at the same point or even earlier than the rest of Maine.
Take even Katahdin, for example. Its nearly mile high altitude is over three times the height of Cadillac’s 1,529 foot summit. But when it sees the sun just a minute later than Cadillac, it’s also at the same time as dozens of other locations in the East, including Miami Beach. What a difference a minute can make!
No matter where one is at the time the sun rises Jan. 1, most will have the day off. The January rituals were not always so observed, however. For one thing, during the first 132 years of settlement in New England, our years began on March 25. This was Annunciation Day, the time when by tradition the angel Gabriel announced, or “annunciated,” to Mary that she would be delivering Jesus. March 25 also was chosen because it corresponded to a time close to the start of spring.
By the mid-18th century, Maine along with the rest of the British-dominated domains juggled the calendar to revert to an early Roman practice of ringing in the year on the first of January. This was a date that in earlier times approximated the start of winter. London’s imperatives were carried out with surprisingly little challenge, despite some restlessness on other matters at that time. This was in part because many colonists, including those in Maine, had already made the shift to a newer New Year. It’s also, of course, a reminder that when our break from England came only a couple of decades later, it was not a cultural separation. We maintained the same language, holiday, and basic religious beliefs, despite having forsaken tea for coffee.
Thus, such social touchstones as the calendar remained in step with those of England, Canada and the rest of the “empire” countries. America’s break from the British was in this respect a forerunner to Maine’s own emancipation from Massachusetts that occurred by 1820. To be sure, there was no Bunker Hill, Saratoga, or Valley Forge in our revolt. The state, following a pattern of the colonies’ departure from the rule of George III, remained tied into similar — though not identical — culinary tastes and fashions as before.
When we became a state, we continued with the same calendar. It took a while, however, before New Year’s Day would become a legal holiday. Sundays and days of “public fast” were the only ones in the early years of statehood. Though Christmas and Washington’s birthday would be added by the 1850s, New Year’s Day didn’t emerge as a full-fledged “day off” holiday for the government until 1935, just after the end of Prohibition.
Whether one begins this new year on Cadillac Mountain, in Lubec, on Katahdin or Miami Beach, no matter how soon the moment arrives, the wisdom of James Russell Lowell has some modicum of timeless validity. For it is, as Lowell reminded us, “now later than it has ever been.”
Paul H. Mills is a Farmington attorney. He is the brother of Gov.-Elect Janet Mills.
This article originally appeared on www.bangordailynews.com.
