Radio Script #221
Little Talks On Common Things
April 4, 1954
I am I ndebted to James George, Jr. of Un i on Street, Watervi lie for the loan of a large wall map of Somerset County, published in 1860 by J. Chase, Jr., clvi I and topographical engineer and map publisher of Portland and Philadelphia. This map is more than ten years older than the county atlas to which referred on th is program about two years ago. I n the center of th i s huge map is the county i tse If, with the town lines clearly marked. Then, around three sides, the way they are sometimes printed on modern highway maps, are detai led maps of the principal vi Ilages. The ownership of farms, dwel lings and mi I 15 is clearly shown. At last this old map makes clear a point that has long puzzled me. Just where was the rai I road j uncti on where passengers from the standard guage I I ne changed to the broader 5 ft. 6 inch line.: because, as we have frequently menti oned, the Andr05cogg in and Kennebec and the Penobscot and Kennebec were of different guages1 The map shows a station near the Fairfield-Watervi lie line, considerably south of the present Fairfield station. There the two roads met, not at Watervi lie. Of course we have known for a long ti me that the Watervi lie junction came much later than 1860, for the road from Augusta then passed up the river bank behind the college bui Idings and did not cross College Avenue.
But this is the first time that we have ever known that the actual meeting place was near where the present highway underpass now lies. The Penobscot and Kennebec Rai troad crossed the Kennebec at Fairfield about where it does now, crossing Main Street at Elm and using Gulf and Hudson Islands as stepping stones across the river. What was long known as Nyels Corner is designated on this map as Fairfield Corner, but no fewer than six fami I ies named Nye had homes nearby. Another bit of information new to us is the existence in 1860 of a railroad staTion on the Somerset and Kennebec aT Nye’s Corner. just a few rods above Nob Ie’s Ferry. We had not dreamed that there ever was a station between Shawmut and Hinckley, except for the whistle STOP at Good Wi I I.
Who lived at what is now Hinckley when this map was made? It shows homes at Pishon’s Ferry belonging to S. Pishon, W. Burrill, J. Burrill, P. Wheeler, N. Burrill, J. A. Spaulding and H. Spaulding — Just three family names, Pishon, Burri II and Spaulding. More than once on This program we have mentioned the Hoxies. Within a short distance of Black’s MI lis (now North FaIrfield) the map shows no less than seven Hoxie homes. At Winslow’s Mil Is (now Larone> was a flourishing tannery. Another Item of which we were not aware was the location of the toll house thaT controlled the collection of fees to cross the three covered bri dges over the Kennebec at Fa i rf I e I d wh i ch, in 1860 of course, wenT by the name of Kendall’s Mi lis. That toll house was located on Bunker Island. Up the Ridge Road were eight Emerys, four Glffords. the Bucks, The Wi II iamses, the Tuttles, the Nowells and J. Ellis. At Kenda II’s Mi II s no factory any longer carried the nane of Kenda II. The good general was only a memory in 1860. But his foresight in selecting a spot near the islands for mi I I development had borne fruit. This big map shows no fewer than eleven mi lis operati ng there in 1860. A lion The west bank of the river, at what. is now Fairfield Vi Ilage, were the plants of E. and N. Totman; Samue I Tay lor &. Co.; Fogg and Newha I I; S. Connor &. Co.; J. and S. G. Bradbury.: Fogg, Hall &. Co.; Gage and Cate Planing Mi II; Moss, Fogg and Co.; J. and J. Foss; and F. H. Black.
On a later broadcast we shall tell you about other things revealed by this century-old map. Meanwhi Ie let us add just one more. Clearly designated, away up where the Dead River joins the Kennebec, is the J. Spaulding Hotel, that hostelry at The Forks whose preserved register I told you about some time ago.
Through the courtesy of my col lege classmate, Jack Kennedy of Vassalboro, have seen a copy of a brief autobiography written In 1875 by the famous preacher, Thomas Adams, for whom is named the Adams I’-’emorial Church at Getchell’s Corner. Mr. Adams was ordained as pastor of the Getchell’s Corner church in 1818, so that he was an old man when he wrote the biographical sketch. What he then wrote about the church,which has recently been reopened by the zealous efforts of Vassalboro residents, starts as follows:
“Fifteen individuals, five males and ten females, were organized into a church a few days previous to my ordination. There had been considerable missionary work performed in Vassalboro, principally by Mr. Ldvejoy of Albion, whose sons Eli jah P., Joseph E. and Owen afterward became distinguished. Meetings were held sometimes at the town house on the river road a mi Ie south of Getchell’s Corner, and sometimes at a small house bui It chiefly or wholly by Mr. Charles Webster, a Baptist preacher,who could neither read nor write, but this house had disappeared before I came to the place. The Congregational house, wh i ch now stands desol ate mi dway from Getche II’s to Brown’s Comer, had been bui It and was dedicated about a year before my arrival.
There was a Methodist Society, which held its meetings on Cross’s Hi /I. and the other at the Outlet. In Sidney there was a Baptist Church, but in a rather divided state. In Winslow there was a minister, Joshua Cushman, who was sett led by the town under the 01 d Massachusetts law, when Watervi lie was sti I I a part of Wi ns low. When I came to Vassalboro, Cushman had discontinued preaching after 18 years, and was then a candidate for Congress. By that time there were only two or three Congregationalists in Watervi lie who were church members. In fact there was then no religious organization in Watervi lie at all. Mr. Emerson, who visited the place as a missionary, stated that the people were chiefly Universalists and infidels.”
We interrupt the Adams account at this point to call attention to two or three interesting points in what we have just read. The famous sons of Parson Lovejoy. to whom Mr. Adams refers, include Colby’s most famous graduate who, just nineteen years after Mr. Adams’ Vassalboro ordination, laid down his life at the hands of a mob in Alton, Illinois, because he insisted on freedom of the press. It was the experience of his brother’s martyrdom that inspi red Owen Lovejoy to take a fi rm abol itionist stand. He becarre close friend and consultant of Abraham Lincoln, and though impatient with Lincoln’s conci I iatory views toward the slave-holders, he supported Lincoln’s policies vigorOUSly in the Congress. Most of our listeners tonight know that Getchell’s Corner is the present Vassalboro Vi I lage, and that Outlet Is the old name for East Vassalboro. What Mr. Adams says about Watervi lie in 1818 is amazing but correct. There was I ndeed no organt zed denomi nati ona I church in Waterv! lIe untl I Jeremi ah Chaplin, founder of Colby Col/ege, established the First Baptist Church in the same year that saw Adams’ ordination at Vassalboro. The old community meeting house, afterwards used as an arrrory, was open to the use of preachers of all denominations. The community church, with its remarkably liberal articles of association and belief, set up by Joshua Cushman, had ,disintegrated with the cessation of his ministry. There had been a lot of internal dissension in the congregation, and they had fi na Ily voted “to pay him $1,200 not to preach to us any more.”
Classifying Universal ists and infidels, as Mr. Adams does, in the same sentence, reveals what the evangelical denominations in those days thought of the liberal sects. In fact it was the Rev. Cushman’s alleged Unitarianism that got him into troub Ie. At any rate, the Mr. Emerson to whom Adams refers, fe I t sure that when the approved and godly Jeremiah Chaplin came to Watervi lie, he encountered a lot of infidels, and what was nearly as bad — Universalists. It was only a few years later that the labors of the Universalist Sylvanus Cobb saved Jeremiah Chaplin’s Baptist college. By clever parliamentary tactics and devotion to what he believed to be a good cause, Cobb persuaded his fellow legislators to grant a much needed appropriation.
Let us tu rn aga into Mr. Adams’ na rrat i ve an d note wh at he says ab out a preacher’s financial compensation. “It was the understanding that I was to receive a salary of $600, $300 from the Congregational Society in. Vassalboro and $300 from missionary societies. An arrangement had been made for the first year, and I, in my inexperience, supposed it could be relied upon permanently. I was to receive $200 from the Society for Propagating the Gospel, of which Dr. Holmes of Cant>ridge was the secretary, and $100 from the Massachusetts Missionary Society. The Massachusetts society paid but one year, and the other paid but $150 after the first year. Then the local people found that they had undertaken more than they cou I d accomp II sh. had to make up my mind either to abandon the ground or.submit to a reduction of about one third of my expected salary. decided to remain as long as my wants were comfortably supplied. ”
Concern i ng the comi ng of Jeremi ah Chap lin to Watervi lie .• Adams wrote: “Waterv; lie was designated in my commission from the Society for Propagating the Gospel as a field for missionary labor, but an arrangement had been made for Rev. Jeremiah Chaplin to come to Waterville, and under the patronage of the Baptist denomination, establish a literary institution. Of course he would establish publ ic worship. A Baptist church was established there almost as soon as I was ordained, and in the circumstances J decided to make Winslow instead of Waterv; lie the field of my missionary labor. I accordingly preached at Winslow every fourth sabbath. At the end of the first year, it was decided that I should extend sti II further the field of my labors, and I preached also in Sebasticook, now Benton. “In 1833, feeling a good deal discouraged by the many removals of substantial members, I requested a dismission. A counci I was called 1 but so strong a des I re was man i fes ted for my cont in uance that I comp lied with the counci I f S request and remained one more year. In 1844 they permitted me to withdraw.”
Mr, Adams f younges t son had lived to the age of ninety when he died in 1929. He was the distinguished financial editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and did not retire from his editorial desk unti I he was 86 years old. His son, Frank Adams, a resident of Berkeley, Califomla l is much interested in the old days of Vassalboro and keeps up a correspondence with some of the older resi dents.
It was some time ago that I asked for information about the origin of the town name, Vassalboro. Of course the name means the borough of Vassal. Miss Nettie Burleigh recalls that many years ago a man named Whitney, who lived at North Vassalboro, wrote a history of the town. have not had opportunity to inquire if such a book is in the state library, but intend to do so soon, Meanwh i Ie does any listener know of such a book — a hi story of Vassa Iboro by Whitney? Miss Burleigh thinks that writer said something about the origin of the town’s name. S’usan Bow of North Vassalboro is even more speci fico She thinks the town may have been named for 5 i r W I II i am Vassa I who was at one tl me secretary to the governor of the Massachusetts B:ly Colony. The Vassal family were said to have owned several ships, including the famous Mayflower. Wi lIiam Vassal first settled in Scituate, nearer to the Plymouth than to the Bay Colony. According to old records he had a quarrel with the minjlster over baptism, and led a dissenting group out of the church. Interesting Iy enough, the mi riister with whom William Vassa I quarre led was Charles Chauncey who, disgusted with the break up of his Scituate church, had gone to Boston to await passage back to England when he was asked to become the second presi dent of Harvard College.
Well, that is all we knQl tonight about the name Vassalboro. Does any listener have information which, by settlement, land titles, or any other item, connects Wi II i am Vassa I or any of his des:cendants with the name of our Kennebec town?
Year: 1954