Cumberland County, Maine – Hon. James Phinney Baxter
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Biography
Hon James Phinney Baxter
Biographical Review
Cumberland County, Maine
Boston
Biographical Review Publishing Company
1896
Page 37-38

Hon. James Phinney Baxter, the present Mayor of Portland,was born in Gorham,
Me., March 23, 1831, and was about nine years old whenin 1840, his father, Dr.
Elihu Baxter, removed from Gorham to this city, where he engaged in the practice
of medicine.

In 1859 Mr. Baxter formed business relations with William G. Davis; and
subsequently the two partners united with the firm of Rumery & Burnham, under
the style of the Portland Packing Company. The provision packing business was
then in its infancy, but under the efficient management of the firm the business
increased so rapidly that it gained a national reputation. Other enterprises
have claimed the attention of Mr. Baxter,in each of which he has been uniformly
successful, having acquired a large fortune. His marked skill in money matters
has commended him to several of the leading financial institutions of Portland.
He is Trustee of the Portland Savings Bank; Vice-President of the Merchants'
National Bank and of the Portland Provident Association; Vice-President of the
Portland Trust Company, being one of the original Directors of this company,
which is capitalized at one hundred thousand dollars.

He is also Director of the Maine Industrial School and the Portland Benevolent
Society, and President of the Maine Historical Society and of the Public
Library, and is besides a working member of the American Historical Society of
Washington, D.C.; the New England Historic Genealogical Society of Boston; the
Old Colony Historical Society of Taunton, Mass.; the Rhode Island Historical
Society; the American Antiquarian Society of Worcester, Mass.; and the Portland
Society of Natural History. He has prepared and read a number of papers on
historical and other subjects before most of the above-named societies.

In 1893 Mr. Baxter was elected Mayor of Portland, and early in his first term he
gave his salary of two thousand dollars to the School Board to maintain the
Manual Training School for Boys. He was re-elected in 1894 and again in 1895,
and in the Mayoralty as elsewhere his business efficiency has accomplished the
most gratifying results. His public-spirited generosity is shown by his frequent
and bountiful gifts to the city of Portland, among which may be named the
elegant public library building on Congress Street, a monument to his artistic
and literary tastes. As an outgrowth of his interest in the Home for Little
Wanderers in Boston, he founded the Portland Associated Charities.

While Mr. Baxter's varied ability and power of adaptation have rendered him a
most efficient functionary in city and State, his favorite field is literature;
and his labors with the pen for the last twenty years have been constant and
valuable. He was an early contributor to the New York Home Journal, Shillaber's
Carpet Bag, and Godey's Ladies' Book. His annual addresses to the City Council
during his period of office as Mayor are models of a clear, incisive style,
placing before the city fathers in terse and forcible English the condition of
the municipal departments' and calling attention to the city's most urgent
needs. Of late years Mr. Baxter has given much attention to historical research,
having in 1885 made a prolonged visit to Europe, where he procured valuable
historical data. The "English Colonization of the New World" was the result of
careful and discriminating study, as was also his work entitled "Western
Civilization," the two being among the most important of his publications.
"Idyls of the Year" is full of grace and possesses an interest for all true
lovers of poetry.

The following list of the printed works of Mr. Baxter is taken from the
Bibliography of the American Historical Association: "Laus Laureati," a poem
delivered before the Maine Historical Society on the celebration of Longfellow's
seventy-fifth birthday, Portland, 1882. "A Greeting to the Mentor," a poem
delivered on the eightieth birthday of Professor Packard, Longfellow's tutor,
Portland, 1883. "The Great Seal of New England," Cambridge, 1884. "Idyls of the
Year," poems, Portland, Hoyt, Fogg & Donham, 1884. "The Trelawny Papers,"
Portland, Fogg & Donham, 1884. "George Cleave and his Times," Portland, Gorges
Society, 1885. "The British Invasion from the North," Albany, Munsell
(Historical Series), 1887. "Documentary History of Maine," vol. iv., Portland,
Maine Historical Society, 1889. "Early Voyages to America," Providence, Rhode
Island, Historical Society, 1889. lbid., Old Colony Historical Society's
Collections, No. 4, Taunton, Mass., 1889. "Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his
Province of Maine," Boston, Prince Society, 1890. "The Abanakis," New England
Magazine Boston, September, 1890. "Reminiscences of a Great Enterprise,"
Portland, 1890. "The Campaign against the Pequakets : Its Cause and its
Results," Portland, 1890. "The Beginnings of Maine," Portland, 1891. "A Lost
Manuscript," Portland, 1891. "Isaac Jogues, A.D. 1636," New York, 1891. "The
Abanakis and their Ethnic Relations," Portland, 1890. "A Period of Peril,"
address delivered at City Hall, Portland, on the Centennial Celebration of the
Adoption of the Constitution of the United States, April 30, 1889. "Three
Suggestive Maps," Maine Historical Quarterly, January, 1893. "The Observatory,"
an illustrated poem, The Stevens & Jones Company, Portland, 1893. "Christopher
Levett, the First Owner of the Soil of Portland,"Maine Historical Quarterly,
April and July, 1893. "Christopher Levett, the Pioneer Colonist in Casco Bay,"
Portland, Gorges, Society, 1893. "Pioneers of New France in New England,"
Albany, Munsell (Historical Series), 1894. "Raleigh's Lost Colony," illustrated,
New England Magazine, January, 1895.

In politics Mr. Baxter is Republican. He is a man of liberal ideas; and his
political, commercial, and literary career has ever been characterized by honor,

"The finest sense
Of Justice which the human mind can frame."