Portland Library Society

According to historian William Willis: "In 1763, several gentlemen ... desirous of promoting the diffusion of useful knowledge, and extending the means of information, made some attempts to establish a library.

In 1765 ... the first associates were Enoch Freeman, Benjamin Titcomb, Stephen Longfellow, Richard Codman, Edward Watts, Thomas Scales, Paul Prince, John Waite, Benjamin Waite, Enoch Ilsley, Jonathan Webb, Francis Waldo, Thomas Smith, Moses Pearson, James Gooding, Josiah Noyes, John Cox, Jeremiah Pote, Alexander Ross, Ebenezer Mayo, John Wiswall, Richard King, Jedediah Preble, Ephraim Jones, Stephen Waite, and John Waite, Jr. ... At the opening of the library in 1766, it contained but 93 volumes ... not one was printed in this country.

"[16] By Willis' account, "in the destruction of the town, the little collection was widely dispersed and a number of the books lost: during the war its operations were entirely suspended until 1780, when an attempt was made to collect the fragments and restore them to use.

"[18] The local newspaper announced the Falmouth Library Society was "re-established upon such principles and rules as to render it a very useful institution.

In looking over the catalogue of the Portland Library, though it contained a large number of works of standard merit, and perhaps quite as large a proportion of works of this character, as are usually found in libraries formed as this has been, by small additions made from year to year, and thus made up of the popular reading of the time.