Call it the Battle of 1633.

The trouble started on Oct. 1, 2015, when Portland’s Downtown District, the nonprofit charged with improving and promoting the city’s downtown and Old Port, unveiled its new name, Portland Downtown, and a new logo. Besides the new name, the new logo contains only this text: Est. 1633.

Sounds harmless, right? Well, not if you’re a historian, or anyone else who thinks the dates of Portland’s history matter.

The year of Portland’s founding by European settlers was 1632. In the latter half of that year, Richard Tucker and George Cleeves, having been booted from an outpost in what’s now called Cape Elizabeth, headed north to a spit of land known as the Neck — the modern-day Portland peninsula — and settled there.

That date is not in dispute. It’s cited on numerous plaques and monuments around town and documented in such esteemed tomes as William Willis’ classic “History of Portland,” first published in two volumes in the early 1830s. In 1982, the city marked its 350th anniversary by partying like it was, well, 1999.

Among those who remember those citywide celebrations is Abraham Schechter, the archivist at the Portland Public Library. The professional historians and history buffs Schechter works with at the library’s Portland Room were none too pleased to see the logo of this prominent civic organization brazenly declaring 1633 to be the date the city, or its “downtown,” was established.

So, on Oct. 13, the ever-helpful Schechter (of his own volition, not representing the library) sent an email to Casey Gilbert, Portland Downtown’s new executive director, in which he pointed out the error and politely requested that it be corrected. Gilbert’s response, which Schechter shared with me, was likewise polite, but also resolute in its assertion that the date will not be changed.

The “logic” behind Portland Downtown’s decision is that the logo is a marketing tool, and as such, like most corporate advertising these days, it need bear no relation to facts, history or reality. “While historians may not agree with our logic,” Gilbert wrote to Schechter, “we were really looking at the new brand/logo as a marketing piece and something that people would want to have on tote bags, t-shirts, postcards…”

Let’s apply that “logic” to some other famous dates. Would you like to buy a t-shirt that says “United States of America, Est. 1777?” How about a nice tote bag that reads, “Maine, Est. 1819?”

As Schechter continued to press his case for a correction, the reasoning Gilbert employed became increasingly tortured. A document she provided to explain the decision states: “While we are intrinsically linked to the City, which was founded in 1632, we did not want anyone to confuse Portland Downtown with the City of Portland.” Furthermore, “it was not until the next year, in 1633, that Portland began to blossom into a place of commerce — with active fisheries and trading.”

image/courtesy Portland Downtown

The Portland marketing firm Pulp+Wire, which was paid upwards of $8,000 to design and roll out the erroneous logo, subsequently designed an eye-catching graphic to defend this embarrassing mistake. In this confusingly annotated timeline, it’s claimed that Tucker and Cleeves “settle the Neck” in 1633, “build the first house” and “establish trade” there that year, and “more than likely they cut down the first tree” in 1633. The sole source the firm cites is Willis’ “History of Portland.”

According to Maine State Historian Earle Shettleworth, “a careful reading of Willis’s first chapter … seems to indicate otherwise.” Willis wrote, he notes, that the pair “selected the Neck, called Machigonne by the natives, now Portland, for their habitation, and erected there in 1632 the first house, and probably cut the first tree that was ever felled upon it, by an European hand.”

Gilbert’s contention that using 1633 is less confusing and more historically appropriate is patently ridiculous. You can’t establish a “downtown” before there’s even a town. But she and her board have dug in their heels. “It’s really not up for debate,” she told me. “This is what we’ve chosen to represent our organization, we’re really proud of it and we stand behind it.”

“Why would anybody be stubborn about a thing so small, that’s so easily corrected?” wonders historian and former state legislator Herb Adams, who predicts this battle has just begun. “Little things like this start as a tempest in a teapot and quickly become the whole tea party.”

“It is important to get history right,” Adams continued. “It is about the sharing of wisdom, gratitude and respect across generations. It’s about legacy, not logos.”