The Know-Nothing Party also known as the Native American Party prior to 1855 and afterwards the American Party believed that Catholicism was subverting civil and religious liberty in the United States. Founded in 1844 by Lewis Charles Levin, the xenophobic party believed the large number of Irish and German Catholics immigrating to the United States were the cause of religious differences between Catholics and Protestants became a political issue.
The anti-Catholic sentiments were running high in the summer of 1854. The violence spread to Biddeford targeting the Irish and French-Canadians. As Maine began to learn about the Know-Nothings that year, a chapter was formed in Bath in early May, lodges in Eastport and Belfast. In 1855 Ned Buntline, real name Edward Zane Carroll Judson, went on the lecture circuit including in Biddeford to “defend American principles”. The movement in Maine had principal support along the coast in several counties and developed slowly in York County but in March, 1855 a slate of Know-Nothing candidates won in Biddeford.
The Know-Nothing flag: Native Americans Beware of Foreign Influence.
The Know-Nothing Manual: Bible and Liberty from 1855. A man is stepping on the head of the Pope and holding a horn with the words "Down with the Pope". Courtesy Special Collections, University of Southern Maine, Bernard and Shirley S. Kazon Americana Collection.
The name "Know-Nothing" originated in the semi-secret organization when a member would be asked about his activities and was supposed to answer "I know nothing."
A year before Ned Buntline made an appearance in Biddeford, the Know-Nothing party was in the middle of expanding and organizing as a national society. In Ellsworth William Chaney, the editor of the newspaper the Ellsworth American became a leading agent of anti-Catholicism in Hancock County. His support of the party came as result of a school committee's requirement that Catholics as well as other students should read the King James Bible in classes.
Violence spread in cities and in Biddeford the Irish and French-Canadians were targeted. Turf wars in the city caused gangs to threaten women and children in the tenements and intimidated them by throwing rocks at windows. Street preachers were influential, inciting crowds of people, traveling around the cities. John Sayers Orr called the "Angel Gabriel" came to Biddeford, blowing a horn and wearing a white robe and patent leather hat with ribbons with words "Rule Britannia" and "Hail Columbia" and "To Hell with the Pope". A preacher named Brown led a crowd in Bath to burn down the Old South Church in the summer of 1854. The church had been rented by Irish Catholics for worship and had purchased the pews. The mob destroyed the interior, chopped up the pews and set the building on fire.
The Know-Nothings were followed by a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920's reviving the backlash against minority groups which included Catholics and French-Canadians. Led by Eugene Farnsworth, a native Mainer from Columbia Falls, he became the regional leader of the Klan in Maine. His influence in state politics resulted in the election of Ralph Brewster as governor who did not denounce the Klan as he owed them his job.
The influence of the Know-Nothing Party began to fade because of internal power struggles, their divided position on slavery and a rise in public opposition. The new Republican Party drew members away from their secret meetings and into more open political venues. Nativism, antislavery, temperance and social prejudices did not disappear. Allan Whitmore, author of the journal article "A Guard of Faithful Sentinels": The Know-Nothing Appeal in Maine, 1854-1855 observed that "the peculiar orthodoxy of Know-Nothingism had proven wanting in Maine".
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