ABSTRACT
“When you enter the front door,” wrote Mary (Pierce) Poor describing the “Poor House” in Bangor, “the first left-hand turn ushers you into a parlour, a room measuring about fourteen feet by thirteen…. 1 For furniture it has my sofa, six best chairs, card table and the mantle-piece is decorated with…vases and my plated candlesticks.” Her favorite room was opposite the parlor because “the sun shines brightly in the windows all day, and the full moon looks right down upon us as I fancy it looks nowhere else.” Flowers, bookshelves, a writing desk and work box and two rocking chairs furnished the room together with “all the little articles that make a place look homelike.” This room also contained the “great Bible” presented to Mary by her sister, Elisabeth. The view from its windows arched over most of Bangor and rested on the Penobscot. Henry was much too busy even in the early years of his marriage to spend much time with Mary looking out the windows of the sitting room during the day, but this, “the mooniest place” must have had special meaning for the young marrieds after Henry returned from his office about nine o’clock at night.
