Radio Script #239
Little Talks On Common Things
November 7, 1954
That constant friend of this program, D. E. Decker of Clinton, has sent in a copy of the Bangor Weekly Commercial which invites scrutiny. This particular Issue was published on August 19, 1898, and what do you suppose was its principal item of news? I’m sure that the year 1898 rings a bell in the memory of older people, who remember it as the year of Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders and the Spanish-American War. That’s right, and the chief news of that August week 56 years ago was the Battle of Manila. I shall always remember that event, because the first time I was ever conscious of the fact that I could get any meaning from a newspaper was when, at the age of seven, I was able to make out a few words in the headlines of the old Boston Globe in that week when Admiral Dewey won the naval battle of Manila Bay.
It is interesting to note the mild, unsensational character of the headlines in the newspapers of half a century ago. The Bangor Weekly Commercial was one of those wide, eight column newspapers. The headlines about Manila are only two columns wide, and they say: “Dewey sends word. Notifies Washington of the fall of Manilla on last Saturday. Loss only five killed. The Spanish loss was much heavier, according to reports received by special correspondence.” Dewey’s dispatch to Washington, according to the Commercial, was addressed to the Secretary of the Navy. It read: “Manilla surrendered today to the American land and naval forces after a combined attack. The city surrendered about five o’clock, the American flag being hoisted by Lieut. Brumby. About 2,000 prisoners were taken. The squadron had no casualties; none of the vessels were injured.”
I suspect that few of our listeners ever knew the part the State of Maine had in Dewey’s victory at Mani la. Who was the man whom Dewey addressed as Secretary of the Navy? He was a Maine native, John D. long. And now comes the Interesting point home in Buckfield. In August of 1898 long was on vacation at the old family Kept daily informed by the Navy Department in Washington of the war situation, long was suddenly faced with the necessity of issuing orders to Admiral Dewey whether or not to risk destruction of American ships by sailing past the stout Spanish defenses at the entrance of Mani la Bay. Secretary long decided to take the chance, and he issued the historical message to Dewey to proceed. That message, one of the most important in American history, was sent in code from the little telegraph station at BuckfieId, Maine.
When we think of the billions now expended on defense, of the men, the guns, the tanks, the aircraft, and the ships kept in constant readiness, it is hard to believe what the situation was in 1898. As the Bangor Commercial then put it, “Congress has never made any appropriation for mobilization expenses in the’ event of war with a European power. So there are no camps and no rendezvous.” The Commercial had made an unusual arrangement for news from the front.
It received dispatches from Margherita Arline Harrison, the only woman war correspondent of the time. Now just note how casual we were in those days. Miss Harrison was not a civilian correspondent. She was an Army nurse, under salary by the War Department, with the title of Inspector of Supplies and Head of Nurses’ Staff, Women’s Auxiliary. Her dispatches to newspapers provided a profitable side line. It is as if, in the second World War, Mrs. Hobby had been war correspondent for the Hearst press a completely unthinkable situation. How times did change between 1898 and the 1940’s.
It has been some time since we mentioned the old stage drivers. One such driver lived in my native town of Bridgton. His name was Sumner Davis. Born in 1843, he was only 15 years old when in 1858 he began driving the stage between Bridgton and Portland. Soon after the Civil War the Portland and Ogdensburg railroad (now the Mountain division of the Maine Central) made Brownfield a nearer rail road point to Bridgton than far away Portland. Instead of having to truck goods by tote team the forty miles from Portland, or bring them up through the Presumpscott Canal and then through the Sebago lake system in the summer months, only an eight miles haul from Brownfield brought supplies to Bridgton — not only the usually freighted consumer’s goods, but the big bundles of wool and the many tons of coal for the town’s three woolen mills.
So it came about that Sumner Davis started a daily stage line, to carry passengers and light freight between Bridgton and Brownfield. In 1881 the building of the second of Maine’s little Wigglers, the two-foot narrow gauge line called the Bridgton & Saco River Railroad, made unnecessary the overland haul of wool~coal and other heavy freight from Brownfield. The narrow gauge connected with the Mountain Division at a place just below Hiram Falls on the Saco River, a place that for the next fifty years was to be called Bridgton Junction. But the coming of the narrow gauge did not put an end to Sumner Davis’ passenger stage -to Brownfield. For many years after 1881 his sprightly four horses met the train at Brownfield, and two hours later pranced up to the wide-porched front of the Cumberland House in Bridgton.
It may be mere legend, but in my boyhood the story was often told how the first white flour came to Bridgton. Before the Civil War most of the inhabitants in that town used the unbleached flour, ground at local grist mills. In 1858 Sumner Davis is said to have brought on his stage from Portland the town’s first whole barrel of white flour. It cost him $54, and he peddled it out to the townspeople in small quantities.
Before Mr. Davis died in 1917 he had turned over his stage lines to his son, James William Davis. By 1905, however, the chief Davis route was not from Bridgton to Brownfield, but from Harrison to Norway. It had earlier been the Bridgton-Norway stage, but the extension of the narrow gauge railroad from Bridgton to Harrison had eliminated the part of the Davis route that lay between those two towns. But between Harrison and Norway the Davis stage continued to operate for many years, even after the coming of the automobile, for the stage itself was motorized about 1920.
So, to the list of well known stage drivers which I started compiling about two years ago, I am pleased to add the name of Sumner Davis of Bridgton.
Where was the Maine State Fair first held? I am not quite sure, but I will venture a guess, subject to correction by any listener who may have better information. The first Maine fair ever given the name “State Fair”, so far as have been able to learn, was held on the State Capitol grounds at Augusta on September 24, 1857. A trotting park was graded on the grounds for the occasion, and the attendance was 15,000. The exhibits of farm products, preserves, needlework, and all such things that folks used to show at the fairs were placed in various rooms inside the state House, including the House and Senate Chambers. Cattle were exhibited in open sheds erected in a part of what is now the Capital Park in front of the State House. There was no midway, though we suspect plenty of peddlers roamed the grounds.
Now let me tell you about Augusta’s spectacular bank robbery that occurred 106 years ago. Some time in December, 1848 the Augusta bank moved from the block it had occupied on Water Street since its founding in 1814, to new quarters on the first floor of the newly built Stanley House, site of the later Cony mansion.
On the morning of New Year’s Day, 1849, Cashier George Allen opened the bank and swung back the heavy iron door of the new vault. To his amazement he saw in the rear of the vault a hole large enough to admit a person. Behind it was a hole through the Stanley House wall into an unoccupied apartment. Allen was relieved to find the safe locked and uninjured. But his relief was short-lived. When he opened the safe he saw that the boxes of specie were gone. About $29,000, of which $21,000 was gold and silver in bags, had been taken. Then the thief had carefully locked the safe behind him. It was long before the day of combination locks, and only too clear that the thief must have obtained a key to the safe.
Naturally Intense excitement spread through the tom. Spurred on by a large reward offered by the bank directors, authorities and citizens were determined to catch the culprit. Suspicion soon centered upon two young strangers, who had been in town with no apparent business, and had since disappeared. They had hired a team at the Cushnoc House on Saturday night and had gone to Gardiner. On Sunday the older youth had gone on to Portland and the younger had returned to Augusta. He was arrested but Indignantly denied knowing anything about the robbery, and there was no clear evidence against him. However, a detective brought in from Boston recognized the youth as Edward Wingate, aged 18, of Charlestown, and decided that his companion was his older brother Fred, aged 22. Both young men were well known by the Boston police. Fina”y the detective and the bank directors got a confess ion from Edward and he promised to show them where the money was hidden.
Now comes the spectacular part of our story — almost incredible, yet factually stated in the contemporary accounts found in old newspapers of the time — Edward Wingate led the authorities to the rear of the State House Itself, and showed them how easy was access through a basement window. Then”he conducted the police up the stairs, through the corridor, and straight into the HaII of Representatives. He went behind the Speaker’s desk and, kneeling, he pulled up a loose floor board. In a narrow aperture under the floor lay boxes and bags of silver and gold coins.
Edward’s story revealed how he and his brother had opened the safe 80th were machinists in Boston, employed in the factory where the safe was made. Observing the safe on the sidewalk in front of the factory, with the key in the lock, they made a wax Impression, then made a duplicate key. They then watched the safe, saw it loaded on a dray and carted to a wharf, then put aboard a vessel bound for the Kennebec. The two Wingate brothers decided to go along, so they actually accompanied the safe to Augusta. In the unoccupied apartment of the Stanley House, they easily made a hole through the wall and through the brick wall of the vauIt. The rest was easy.
By turning’ state’s evidence, the younger brother escaped punishment, but the older, who was clearly the Instigator of the” crime, was convicted and sent to State Prison at Thomaston. After a few weeks of Imprisonment he found himself one day alone with a guard in the prison workshop. Knocking the guard unconscious, Fred Wingate opened the door with the guard’s key, gained his liberty and was never heard from again.
As we are in the midst of the annual Community Chest Campaign, so well organized and so richly deserving of support, let us not forget that another Important appeal for money will come to us during a brief period that begins next Sunday. “That is the annual Every-Member Canvass made simultaneously by a number of churches which are members of the Greater Waterville Council of Churches.
A few churches of the council have the i r canvasses in the spring, but most of them are joining in this common November appeal. If you are affiliated, either by membership or customary attendance, with one of the churches of Waterville, Winslow, Fairfield or Oakland, whose representatives come to you for your subscription during the next fortnight, stop and think a minute before you give only a token amount. Stop and think what our communities would be without the Christian church. Then give accordingly. Your giving is a measure of your faith.
Year: 1954