Farmington

The Hiram Ramsdell House, also known as the Octagon House, is an historic octagonal house located at High and Perham streets in Farmington, Maine.... Built in 1868, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 4, 1973.
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Lillian Nordica was an American opera singer who had a major stage career in Europe and her native country. Nordica established herself as one of... the foremost dramatic sopranos of the late 19th century and early 20th century due to the high quality of her powerful yet flexible voice and her ability to perform an unusually wide range of roles in the German, French and Italian operatic repertoires. She was born Lillian Allen Norton in a small Cape Cod style farmhouse built by her grandfather on a hill in Farmington, Maine. The Nordica stage name was bestowed by an Italian maestro at the beginning of her operatic career. He convinced her that European opera-goers would not tolerate a diva with a plain sounding, Anglo-American name. The adopted name, Giglia Nordica, meant "Lily of the North" but she soon became known as "Madame Nordica" or simply as "Nordica". In her youth, Nordica is said to have possessed an inherent fondness for music and the sounds of singing birds and running brooks. When she was eight her family moved to Boston, Massachusetts to continue the musical education of her sister Wilhelmina. Wilhelmina died before her 18th birthday.
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Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost portion of New England. It is known for its scenery—its jagged, mostly rocky coastline, its low, rolling mountains, its heavily forested interior... and picturesque waterways—as well as for its seafood cuisine, especially lobsters and clams. For thousands of years, indigenous peoples were the only inhabitants of the territory that is now Maine. At the time of European encounter, several Algonquian-speaking peoples inhabited the area. The first European settlement in Maine was by the French in 1604 on Saint Croix Island, by Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons. The first English settlement in Maine, the short-lived Popham Colony, was established by the Plymouth Company in 1607. A number of English settlements were established along the coast of Maine in the 1620s, although the rugged climate, deprivations, and conflict with the local peoples caused many to fail over the years.
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