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Portland Head Light

The practice of lawmakers' securing money for projects back home is not new.

In fact, the first-ever "earmark" is believed to be for a project in Maine. On Aug 10, 1790, Rep. George Thatcher of Massachusetts persuaded Congress to spend $1,500 -- a substantial sum at the time -- to help complete Portland Head Light, the state's iconic lighthouse.

At the time, Maine was still part of Massachusetts.

The Washington Post recently brought this obscure fact of congressional history to light when it got hold of a document penned by a former Appropriations Committee staffer titled, "The Fairness of Congressional Earmarking in American Democracy."

The committee document credits Thatcher with securing the first earmark, and it says he worked with none other than President George Washington to steer the money to Maine.

The entry from the Congressional Record from Aug. 10, 1790, states that, "Monies arising from the duties on imports and tonnage, a sum not exceeding fifteen hundred dollars, for the purpose of finishing the lighthouse on Portland Head, in the district of Maine."

The Massachusetts Legislature provided $750 to start building the lighthouse in 1787. Three years later, the U.S. Congress gave Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton the authority to spend the $1,500 "to cause the said lighthouse to be finished and completed accordingly."

Thatcher was born in Yarmouth, Mass., in 1754, and attended Harvard College. He set up a law practice in York, Maine, and moved to Biddeford in 1782. Maine became its own state in 1820.

Thatcher served for a term in the Continental Congress and for six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

He then became a judge, serving as a district judge in Maine and then on the Massachusetts Supreme Court. He died in Maine on April 6, 1824.