Sober Reflection Attends this Year's Observance of Maine Memorial Day, Honoring the Americans who Died in the Sinking of the Battleship Maine and in the Spanish-American War which Followed that Tragic Event ... In Memory of the 266 Men who Died Aboard the Maine on February 15, 1898, and of the American Soldiers and Sailors who Fought to Protect this Hemisphere from Foreign Domination, I Hereby Proclaim Wednesday, February 15, to be Maine Memorial Day ... Given Under My Hand and Seal of the State at the Capitol, in Hartford, this First Day of February ... One Thousand Nine Hundred and Sixty-one ...