When Nicholas Emery was born, the state in which he did most of his important work didn’t yet exist.

At the time of his birth, Maine was still considered part of Massachusetts, which is a vast oversimplification, since New Hampshire also had claim to a lot of this land (and that partially explains why New Hampshire has about 15 miles of coastline between Maine and Massachusetts).

What’s more, Maine might not have become a state had it not been for the Missouri Compromise, part of which provided that for every slave state added to the Union, a free state also would be added, and vice-versa. Therefore, the addition of (free) Maine as a state allowed (slave) Missouri to become as state as well.

(Side note: I have a favorite joke about the Missouri Compromise, because I’m nerdy that way. It comes from Dave Barry. He explains the Missouri Compromise as a law which says that half the people there have to pronounce it “Missou-ree” and the other half has to pronounce it “Missour-ruh”.)

While Emery was part of the Convention to separate Maine from Massachusetts, and he was a delegate to the new state’s Consititutional Convention, he was not around to sign the document itself.

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