John Alfred Poor & Henry Varnum Poor

In 1834, a native of the tiny western Maine town of Andover saw Maine’s future when he witnessed the first steam locomotive in New England pull out of Boston. Thirty-seven years later, an obituary in the New York Times called John Alfred Poor “the father of the railroad system in Maine.”

Poor was a 26-year-old lawyer practicing in Bangor when seeing that locomotive planted the seed of an idea: An inland rail connection between Montreal and Portland could bring new economic opportunities to Maine. By 1843, he was actively lobbying Portland and Canada about his idea. A harrowing winter journey in 1845 from Maine through the White Mountains to Montreal to convince the Canadians not to partner with Boston landed Poor in bed for two months with frostbite and pneumonia, but it also brought about the realization of his dream: construction of the Atlantic & St. Lawrence Railroad began the following year.

With the railroad underway, Poor and his younger brother Henry threw themselves into the railroad business. John opened the Portland Company, a locomotive foundry situated between Fore Street and the Fore River, and established Henry as the manager and editor of the American Railroad Journal after purchasing the publication in 1849.

While Henry turned his enthusiasm for railroads into a financial analysis industry that eventually became Standard & Poor’s, his brother kept building out his dream of connecting Maine to the wider world. He spent his final years promoting the European and North American Railway, dying just weeks before it connected Bangor with Saint John, New Brunswick.

Today, the Atlantic & St. Lawrence no longer runs through Portland, but several of the buildings from John Poor’s Portland Company are still standing along the Fore River in Portland, the company name painted prominently on the red brick.

The Merrill House - Former residence of the Poor family & Henry Varnum Poor

A black-and-white engraved portrait of a man in a patterned jacket, high-collared shirt, and dark cravat. — John Poor, Portland, ca. 1860. Photo: Maine Historical Society.

A historical black-and-white photograph of Henry Varnum Poor with a beard and mustache, resting his arm against a column. — Henry Varnum Poor, ca. 1900. Photo: Wikipedia.

A large yellow historic house with a red roof, white trim, and a small upper balcony, set on a green lawn with trees under a cloudy sky. — The Merrill-Poor House, residence of the Poor family and later Henry Varnum Poor. Photo: Wikimedia, Magicpiano.

A vintage 1880 railroad map showing Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Lower Canada, featuring pink-outlined state borders and a detailed inset map of eastern Massachusetts in the bottom right corner. — G. Woolworth Colton's series of railroad maps, No 2.; "Printed for the History of the Railroads of the United States by H.V. Poor.1860. Photo: American Geographical Society Library Digital Map Collection.

The dark green, hardbound cover of "Manual of the Railroads of the United States 1870-71" by Henry V. Poor, featuring gold lettering. — Cover, Poor's Manual of the Railroads of the United States.

Ornate black-and-white frontispiece for the 1893 edition of "Poor's Directory of Railway Officials," featuring an illustrated locomotive train engine. — Frontispiece, Poor's Directory of Railroad Officials from 1893.

Historic black-and-white photo of the grand stone-and-brick Grand Trunk Station in Portland, Maine, featuring a tall central clock tower. — Grand Trunk Railroad Station in Portland, ca. 1900-1906. Photo: Library of Congress.

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