HOULTON — Monday, Jan. 12, marked 200 years since British troops from Fort Maductic marched to the Plantation of Houlton and demanded that the residents of the tiny community either sign an oath that they would behave peaceably and quietly and not take up arms against His Britannic Majesty. The alternative to taking the oath was to leave the area east of the Penobscot River, which the British then considered a part of New Brunswick.
Contributed photo/Michael Clark
ROTARY GUEST — Terry Thomas, president of the Woodstock Rotary Club, left, was the featured speaker at a joint meeting of the Woodstock and Houlton Rotary Clubs Jan. 12. With Thomas is Houlton Rotarian Leigh Cummings. The joint meeting commemorated the Bicentennial of the “Battle of Houlton.”
Members of the Houlton Rotary Club listened to a presentation on that historic event during a Jan. 12 meeting. Due to inclement weather the scheduled speaker, military historian and author Gary Campbell of New Maryland, New Brunswick was unable to attend. Leigh Cummings, past district governor of New Brunswick and Eastern Maine, presented Campbell’s program and explained the significance of the Battle of Houlton. This action represented the last time that British military forces “invaded” US soil.
The meeting between the two Rotary Clubs was the first in many years. Both clubs expressed a desire that other joint meetings will follow.
