by Emily Burnham
of The Weekly Staff
In their new book, Bangor writers and historians Richard Shaw and Brian Swartz didn’t focus on a historical event or a famous building in the Queen City. For “Legendary Locals of Bangor,” Shaw’s eighth book for Arcadia Publishing and Swartz’s first, the pair profiled more than 200 individuals who have influenced the course of history in Bangor.
“Legendary Locals of Bangor,” available now at local bookstores including Bookmarc’s and Books-a-Million, and online via Amazon, takes a personality-based look at nearly 500 years of Bangor history, from the earliest settlers on the Penobscot River to Civil War veterans to modern-day icons such as Stephen King and MMA fighter Marcus Davis.
“I’m pretty sure we’re breaking new ground with this book, because I don’t think a book about Bangor personalities has ever been written,” said Shaw, who most recently authored “Around Blue Hill and Ellsworth” for Arcadia’s Postcard History Series. “This is one of the first in [the Legendary Locals] series that has been done in Maine.”
In 127 fact-packed pages, Shaw and Swartz, both retired former employees of the Bangor Daily News, delve into the lives of a diverse array of individuals. Though names such as Samuel de Champlain and Hannibal Hamlin are part of any history lesson, people such as World War II-era U.S. Army nurse Alice Zwicker, who was a prisoner of war in Japan for three years; angler Jennie Sullivan, who caught the Presidential salmon in the Penobscot River in 1916; and W. Alonzo Johnson, an African-American merchant and Bangor Symphony Orchestra musician, are less known.
People such as Charlie Howard, who was beaten in 1984 for being gay and whose death spawned a statewide outcry, also are included in the book. Shaw and Swartz wanted to be sure that their book reflected the full breadth of the history of the city, not just the pleasant parts.
“We felt his murder was a major turning point in the city,” said Swartz. “It was really hard to pick what did and didn’t make the cut [in the book] but there were some we felt just had to be in there.”
Shaw originally was going to write the book on his own, but after running into Swartz at the Piscataquis Heritage Hot Air Balloon Festival, the two decided to work together. They began writing in June 2014, and by early December, they had a manuscript completed.
Researching the individuals in the book required a great deal of fact-checking, as well as extensive sourcing of photos and lithographs from the Bangor Public Library, the Bangor Historical Society and the Bangor Daily News, as well as private collections.
“We had a responsibility to get everything just right, because these are real people. Some of them are still alive,” said Shaw, referring to Husson University coach and teacher Clara Swan, broadcaster George Hale, basketball coach and historian Bob Cimbollek and others.
In the process of writing the book, Shaw and Swartz, historians though they are, still managed to discover individuals they didn’t know very much about, such as clothier Joseph Wheelwright, businessman Charles D. Bryant and librarian Mary Curran, who reportedly raced into the Bangor Public Library during the Great Fire of 1911 to rescue its priceless collections.
“I was surprised by the cluster of merchants, politicians and lawyers who played key roles in the city’s development from about 1825 into the 1870s,” said Swartz. “You always hear about the Devil’s Half Acre and the red light district in Bangor, but what you don’t always hear about is the high society element, and the elegance that so much of the city had. Bangor wasn’t just a rough and tumble city.”
A book release for “Legendary Locals of Bangor” is set for 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, June 19, at the Elks Lodge on the Odlin Road in Bangor.