Marcellus Emery, Bangor, ca. 1864
Contributed by Maine Historical Society and Maine State Museum
Description
John Martin (1823-1904), a Union man, drew an illustration of Marcellus Emery, a Confederate supporter and Democrat, who published a newspaper in Bangor during the Civil War.
Union supporters destroyed Emery's press, but he continued publishing.
Martin quotes Emery as writing in his newspaper in 1861, "52 thousand dead bodies will be traveled over before a democrat can be compeled to go and defend the Capital at Washington." There were 52,000 Democrats in Maine in 1860 and Emery determined that none would support a war or join Union forces.
Martin's illustration is on page 85 of his 1864 "Scrap & Sketch Book." He related some of Emery's history and the events in Bangor during the war -- as well as Emery's pledge at the end of the war of his support for the Union.
Martin was an accountant and shopkeeper who wrote about his life and events in Bangor and surrounding areas in a journal, three scrapbooks, and an record of a dancing organization he helped found.
View additional information about this item on the Maine Memory Network.