ROCKLAND — Two windjammers with ties to Rockland celebrated 150th anniversaries. The mayor presented the governor with a key to the City. The governor cheered the ending of the pandemic’s State of Emergency, which has allowed Rockland’s event to be the inaugural concert event in Maine’s postponed Bicentennial Concert Series, bringing the community to Main Street and Harbor Park for food, art, entertainment, and socialization between 5 p.m. and the 9 p.m. fireworks.

For many within the 7 - 7: 45 p.m. crowd partaking in Rockland’s Bicentennial (plus one year) concert celebration, gray, overcast skies and 56-degree evening temperatures along Rockland’s shoreline drew pants and jackets from closets, Friday, July 2, 2021. Yet, limbs stayed limber and legs hit their stride (or not) with the freedom of movement through the park, down the closed Main Street, and into restaurants and galleries.

Restaurant windows allowed glimpses of packed seating – a view of the continuation of economic momentum for a city built by the sea. Windjammers, ferries, tugboats, maritime construction companies, the Coast Guard, boat yards, ship yards, “it goes on and on,” said Mayor Ed Glaser as he reflected on the maritime industry’s importance in Rockland history.

Glaser introduced, and personally thanked, “the steady hand that got us to the point, in COVID, that we’re allowed to have an event like this out in the open.”  

Governor Janet T. Mills told the crowd that in her view, Maine has the highest COVID-19 vaccination rates and therefore Maine is the safest state in the nation in regards to the virus. She also noted that Maine has the lowest violent crime rate, one of the highest vaccination rates, lowest case numbers of those hospitalizations, and lowest death rates in the nation.

“We’re proud to be out here in the open,” said Mills. “The pandemic is gone – on it’s tail end. And we have ripped up the State of Emergency Proclamation. We are free from masks.”

Governor Mills then presented a proclamation each to the proprietors of the Louis R. French and the Stephen Tabor. After listing the local historical significance of each windjammer, the governor signed off each proclamation with:

“I, Janet T. Mills, governor of the great state of Maine, do hereby proclaim July 2, 2021, as Sesquicentennial for the Louis R. French (or Stephen Tabor).”