Harpswell resident James “Jim” Henderson, a lifelong public servant devoted to preserving Maine’s history and making it publicly accessible, died on April 18 at the age of 83.
Henderson spent 20 years in charge of the Maine State Archives in Augusta, retiring in 2007. In retirement he continued work on a personal project called Maine: An Encyclopedia, an online compendium of the state’s people, places, animals and more that he started in 2001.
He followed his father, a Somerset County sheriff, into politics and public service. Henderson won a seat on the Bangor City Council in 1971, then was elected to the Maine House of Representatives in 1974. Redistricting before the 1978 election hurt his chances for a third term, so Henderson ran in the Democratic primary for U.S. Congress. He lost, as did his opponent; it was the race that first sent Olympia Snowe to Washington, D.C. In 1979, he was appointed deputy secretary of state.
It was in his next role, as state archivist, that Henderson seemed to find his calling, and where he made a lasting mark on the state. But he explained in a 2001 interview for the Edmund S. Muskie Oral History Project that his appointment was meant as a punishment.
Henderson described a dispute with perennial legislator and then-Speaker of the House John Martin, of Eagle Lake. Martin had directed Henderson to schedule a recount of a primary election, “and I just told him he doesn’t schedule the recounts, I schedule the recounts,” Henderson told his interviewer.
In apparent retaliation, Martin co-sponsored a bill eliminating the deputy secretary of state position that Henderson held. After that, Henderson said, he was “exiled to the archives.”
Henderson’s younger son, Brady Williams, said that even though his father joked about being banished, he took it in stride and looked at his new situation through the same lens he applied to all parts of his life: How can I help here?
Henderson worked to modernize the state archives, digitizing records and thinking about how to make sure they stayed accessible as technology changed. He also helped shape Maine’s freedom of information laws.
“Jim was really dedicated to the First Amendment and freedom of speech, and foundational to that is freedom of information,” said Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows. She met him when he was the state archivist and she was leading the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, and she described Henderson as an early mentor to her.
Henderson joined the Maine Freedom of Information Coalition when it was largely a group of journalists and lawyers, said Judith Meyer, a former executive editor for the Sun Journal and current president of the coalition.
She said Henderson helped the coalition see the importance of preserving records, not just the public’s access to them. She remembers him as kind, reserved and respected. “When he had something to say, people really listened,” she said.
With the coalition, Henderson helped conduct a 2002 audit of public records access, traveling to towns across the state to request documents. The audit revealed that access laws were not being followed at police stations, schools and municipal offices.
Along with Meyer and the late Mal Leary, of Maine Public Radio, Henderson helped create Maine’s Right to Know Advisory Committee, which oversees implementation of the state’s Freedom of Access Act. Henderson also served on the committee.
As archivist, Henderson dealt with an aging building that was running out of space. He purged old documents that didn’t meet the archives standards, saved soggy records from leaky pipes, and tried to ensure digital records would remain readable.
As he said in the oral history, “We have 360-year-old pieces of paper that are perfectly readable, and we’ve got 10-year-old stuff that you can’t read because it was in some obscure word-processing system on some obscure-size disk.”
“I don’t think we could have done as well with anyone else,” said Maine State Auditor Matthew Dunlap. As secretary of state in 2006, Dunlap reappointed Henderson to his final stint at the archives. Dunlap said Henderson cared about the archived records like they were his children.
Dunlap described Henderson as a steady, kind and beloved leader. He said Henderson gave his staff latitude to pursue their own interests, such as educating visiting school groups. “That’s a hallmark of a great leader,” Dunlap said.
Henderson also built strong relationships with historical societies, libraries, and other groups that preserved public and historical records across the state — work he would continue as he fleshed out his online encyclopedia. His family plans to maintain the website.
He became a kind of crusader for public documents in the late 1990s, when he fought for the return of a copy of the Declaration of Independence that had been sold at auction.
Copies of the declaration had been made in 1776 and sent to the clerk of each town in Massachusetts, of which Maine was then a part. In 1999, the document was sold to a private collector. Maine sued the buyer for its return, with Henderson arguing that it remained a public document with historical value. It was eventually returned in a settlement agreement.
Henderson spent the second half of his life in Harpswell, where he also served his town. He was a member of the Select Board and a moderator of town meetings. He moderated candidate debates on Harpswell Community Television, where he served as a board member.
Jay McCreight, a former state representative from Harpswell, remembers that Henderson offered her advice when she first ran. “His guidance was invaluable and I was grateful for his wisdom and selflessness,” McCreight said.
“I never saw him get angry,” said David Chipman, a current Select Board member. “And he was in some situations on the Select Board where he could have gotten angry.”
Chipman, who helped create the TV station, also recalls that when Henderson was archivist, he would lend the station old logging videos to air.
Both Brady and Henderson’s daughter, Julia Gibson, recall their excitement at spending time with their dad in Augusta; Julia in the Legislature and Brady in the archives. Henderson shared with them and his older son, Aaron Henderson, his love of hiking, sailing and being outside. Just days before he died, Julia hiked with him to the cascade on Cliff Trail.
He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in January, although he had been having cognitive issues for several years. His wife, Rebecca Williams, said he continued to find joy in everyday life and approached the changes with his characteristic placid logic. “We would tackle the problems as they arose,” she said. She credited Harpswell’s Dementia Caregivers Book Group for helping them.
Henderson seems to have always been available when something needed doing, in public and in his personal life. He rehearsed Brady’s lines for a high school play. He volunteered as an announcer at his grandsons’ wrestling meets.
A print of Norman Rockwell’s “Freedom of Speech,” which depicts a man speaking at a town meeting, hung in Henderson’s office for decades, a gift from Rebecca. It would be obvious to think Henderson saw himself in it, but Rebecca and Brady said he didn’t identify with the painting’s subject. Rather, he saw himself in the process, a facilitator of democracy and public debate. But his family saw both — Henderson was the man standing up for his principles, too.
