Maine cats of Maritime origin

That the early ancestors of the Maine Coon cat came to Maine via the sea was clear to Mrs. Pierce. While still a young girl in 1869, she keenly recalled seeing for the first time the pair of blue-eyed white little kittens peeking out of a sailmaker's pocket. Mrs. Pierce later owned personally one of their white offspring. "From that time on long-haired blue-eyed white kittens sprang up in most unexpected places." Mrs. Pierce is careful to explain "that Maine at that time was one of the largest ship-building States in the Union, residents of the seaport towns and cities being often masters of their own floating palaces, taking their families with them to foreign countries..."

She carefully explains that "pets of every variety were bought in foreign ports to amuse the children on shipboard; otherwise, as in one case I call to mind, the children would make pets of the live stock..." "Therefore ...cats...found their way to nearly all the coast towns---many more in the past than at this time [prior to printing in 1903], when sailing vessels have passed their usefulness as money-making institutions, ..."..."those [cats] we find there now can safely be called natives."

This comment shows that the genetic base of the Maine cat was established from the maritime families' love of cats, and that it changed little after the demise of the shipping industry.

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