Radio Script #319
Little Talks On Common Things
November 18, 1956
Alexander the Great is said to have wept because there were no more worlds to conquer. But Alexander had never heard of a mid-twentieth century physicist named Fritz Zurcky, who would have consoled the conquering Alexander with the news that the v:hole solar system may some day be colonized. He says it may become feasible and practicable to blow off portions of planets with hydrogen bombs and arrange the fragments into new spheres in space, with atmospheres and temperatures like those on earth, thus makinq them habitable for Earth?s overf I ow pop u I at i on •
Well, don’t get excited about it. It won’t come in our time, for which we may be duly thankful. Haven’t we job enough to secure a peaceful earth without taking over colonies in outer space?
One of the most important and MOst controversial of the Maine land 9rants in colonial days was the ‘daldo Patent, a vast tract of land between the Medomak and the Penobscot, and at one ti me c I aim i ng I ands between the Medomak and the Kennebec. Its first sett lements we re a long Muscong us Bay, at \’/a I doboro and St. George,. at Thomaston and \\farren, but the I ands of the patent extended in I and for many mi I es •
Let us see how this grant came about. In 1620 a group of Londoners, headed by Sir Ferdinando Gorges,secured a charter from the King under the name of the Counci I for New England. The first permanent settlement within the charter limits was made by the Pi Igrims at Plymouth, but their rights were from the London Company, whose I ands ‘vIe re in Vi rgi n i a, not in New Eng I and. So when the May-‘ flower returned to England, she carried a petition from the Plymouth colonists for a charter from the Counci I for New England.
In response to this petition the Counci I promptly granted to John Pierce, citizen and cloth worker of London, and a number of his associates, a uniQue charter, which was brough~ to the colony by the ship Fortune in 1621. That charter recognized no defined boundaries, but simply stated that a settlement had been started in New England, and it conveyed to Pierce and his associates 100 acres of land for every person It/hom they mi ght transport to New Eng I and and persuade to stay there for three years.
In 1635 the Council for New England was compelled to surrender its charter to the King. But before dissolving the Counci I members divided by lot among themselves al I the territory remaining within the limits of the grant, expecting that eventually the King would confirm that arrangement. Furthermore, ignorinq the grant they had made to John Pierce in 1621, the Counci I made another grant, covering at least part of the very same lands, to John Beauchamp of London and Thomas Leverett of Boston, Eng I and. That grant, made in 1630, was known as the Lincolnshi re or Muscongus Patent.
/\Ithough these lands were clearly situated between ~:1uscongus and Penob-. scot, how far inland did they go, and how far west of ~!1uscOn9us Bay? The patent itself was decidedly vague as to boundaries, and it could scarcely have been otherwise, for it was drawn up by a group of men in England, none of whom had ever seen the ivJai ne coast, and the map they used cou I d have been no more accur-‘ ate than the crude outline Captain John Smith had made in 1616.
On the death of Beauchamp, Leverett came into possession of the whole patent, then passed it on to his son, Capt. John Leverett, who later became Governor of the Province of rvlassachusetts. In 1714 it descended to John Leverett, pres i dent of Harvard Co I lege and a grandson of the ori gina I grantee. The Farvard president was eager to induce settlers on his rv1aine landS, but felt it too much of a task to accomplish single-handed. So he divided the grant into shares and in 1714 took as associates eight other men, one of whom was Spencer Phips, adopted son of Sir Wi I liam Phips.
In 1737 the grant was again divided, and a group called the Twenty Associates were admitted into the company. Among those twenty were two brothers, C.orne I i US and Jonathan Via Ido. Ei ght years previ ous Iy, in 1729, Co I. Davi d Dunbar, a former officer in the ‘King’s Army, had been made Surveyor of the King~s ~/oods in America. Through the aid of English leaders hosti Ie to the Puritans;, Dunbar obtained a royal order giving into his hands the whole province of Sagadahoc, which he was ordered to settle and govern for the King.
Dunbar’s orders were in direct confl ict with the Muscongus Patent held by the Leveretts and their associates. So they put up a stiff fight. The Massachusetts authorities decided to present their case to the Lords of Trade in London, and as their representative the Boston merchants chose Samuel Waldo, son and nephew respectively of the two Waldos who had become Leverett associates. Samuel’s mission was successful. The King’s attorney and solicitor qeneral decided in favor of Massachusetts and the Leverett proprietors. On his return to Boston ~\Jaldo was granted a further SUbstantial interest in the patent, and from that time on he became the dominant proprietor.
In 1737 ~~aldo gained possession of the whole coastal area of the Datent, and of 90 of the 100 larger inland lots. From that year the colonization of the grant came exc I us i ve I y under the di recti on of Samue I Wa I do. After the Revolution a noted patriot general entered the picture of the \’/aldo Patent. In 1773 the major part of the unsettled lands of the patent were lega II y vested in Thomas F I ucker ,son-i n-I aw of Samue I VJa I do and secretary of the Commonwea Ith of ~ljassach usetts •
Most of the \\/a I dos, like the i r fe II ow prop ri etors on othe r grants, such as the Gardiners, the Hal lo\.”el Is and the Vassals on the Kennebec, were Tories J and their property was seized by the Continental Congress, and some of them never retri eved the i r lands. But Lucy F I ucke r, Samue I \va I do 1S granddaughter, married a young officer of the Revolution, Gen. Henry Knox. Lucy inherited one- fifth of the \”/a I do Patent from her mother and tv/o-,f i fths from her father., \”ho had purchased his share from his mother-in-·law~ ttse wido’,\’ of Samuel 1,\laloo. Be cause \,fa I do was a Tory. that 2/5ths was conf i scated by the Congress in 1778, And when the Revolution was over, the Court named as agent to adjust the claim none ot~etUthan General Henry Knox. He was finally able to establish the validity of his wife’s claim, not only to her mother’s uncontested fifth, but to the widow VJa I do’s two-f i fths as we II. In 1793 Genera’i Knox bought a II other ti ties to the Patent. Thus in his own right and through his wife’s inheritance, Knox became the sole proprietor of the \’/aldo estate.
In that same year, 1793, General Knox bui It his famous mansion Montpelier at Thomaston. ~Jorkmen came dO\,/n from Boston and started constructi on under the supervision of the architect, Ebenezer Dunton. Meanwhi Ie Knox remained in “Vas h i ngton ‘s government at Ph i I ade I ph i a. On June 1, 1795 he I eft that c i tv by sloop for Thomaston. The finished mansion was waiting to receive him. To primitive Maine that mansion was indeed imposing. Though it was ~obably bui It for less than $20,000, its restoration in 1931 cost $150:000. Apart from the big house itself were numerous out-bui Idings, stables, cookhQuses, and servants! quarters, after the grand style of the Virginia plantations.
Stah lin his History of ~va I doboro says: FKnox not on I y lived on a grand scale, but he did business the same way. He soon placed his lands on a profit basis. His enterprises included lumbering, mi I ling, lime quarrying, brick making, the curing and export of fish, merchandising, farming, shipbui Iding, and cattle and sheep breeding. His laborers totaled more than a hundred men. To maintain them required in a single year 15,000 pounds of beef) 900 pounds of ta I low, and vast quant it i es of gra in. !’
Hosp i ta Ii ty at Montpe Ii er \Alas on a grand sca Ie. There were hordes of guests. Twenty saddle horses and a number of carriages were kept in readiness.
One hundred beds were made up dai lyon the estate. On the Fourth of July, 1795 five hundred guests attended open house at ~1ontpelier. The entire tribe of Penobscot Indians would be the general’s guests for a week at a time. Among the more distinguished guests were Tal Iyrand and Lord Ashburton, Lafayette and Louis Ph i II i pe.
General Knox died on October 25, 1806. He had swal lowed a fragment of chicken bone which lodged in the intestinal tract and caused a fatal infection.
On October 28th the last of the Proprietors of the Waldo Patent was buried on his estate, beneath the favorite oak where he loved to stand and contemplate on his vast domain.
do not need to tell you of my fondness for narrow guage rai I roads. I have talked about them many times on this program, devoted a chapter to them in r:Kennebec Yesterdays:;, and take considerable pride that in our own State of Maine were bui It and operated more of the tiny roads than anywhere else in the nation.
I am often asked whether any narrow guage road is sti II operated as a common carr ier anYlrJhere i n the Un i ted States. Many peop Ie know about the Edavi I Ie road at Carver, tvlassachusetts, where tracks and rolling stock were collected from several of Maine’s old two foot narrow guages, especially the Rangeley and Bridgton lines, but the Edavi I Ie is not a common carrier.
So far as I have been able to ascertain, only one narrow guage I ine is sti I I in common carrier operation, and it is not what I call a real, honest-togoodness narrow guage. My narrow guages must not be wider than two feet~ but of course any track narrower than the standard four feet, eight and a haif inches may logically be cal led narrow guage. The one remaining, regularly operated narrow guage is a three-footer. It runs dai Iy during the summer months in the state of Colorado, on the Si Iverton branch of the Denver and Rio Grande VJestern Rai Iroad. The train itself is cal led the Silverton, and consists of ten orange coaches and a locomotive. So steep are the grades that the average speed is only 13 mi les an hour. In three hours the train climbs 3,000 feet. In,the Rio de Las Animas Canyon the cars crawl around a ledge where there is a sheer drop of 700 feet to the raging river. In some places the ends of the ties seem to rest right on the edge of the precipice.
Because the Si Iverton is the last regularly scheduled narrow-guage train in America, it is a great tourist attraction, not only for rai I road fans, but also for general tourists. In the summer of 1955 it carried more than 20,000 passenge rs • From the main line to Si Iverton, 40 mi les away, the fare is $1.80, or $3.30 for the round trip.
was once within a few mi les of the Si Iverton narrow guage, but it was not the right time of year. The road does not operate in the winter months; and it was in December, 1952, about two weeks before Christmas, when I was riding on the Denver and Rio Grande \A/estern between Denver and Salt Lake City, through the Royal Gorge, on my way to Califo~nia. Just west of the Royal Gorge at Salida, Colorado, a branch line goes to the southwestern part of the state, and its terminus is Durango, where one takes the narrow guage to Si Iverton. So, whi Ie I like to think that I was once near the scene, I actually did not come anywhere near gett; ng a ri de on .A.mer; ca ‘s I ast narrow guage.
There has been so much controversy some of it engendered on this program six years ago — about the number and location of covered bridges in Maine, that we are glad to have the matter at last officially settled by the Maine State Highway Commission. That body tel Is us that there are now exactly ten covered bridges left standing in Maine. They are the Porter bridge over the Ossipee River, between the towns of Porter and Parsonsfield; Babb’s bridge over the Presumpscot between Gorham and \,Jindham; Hemlock bridge over the Saco, three mi les northwest of East Fryeburg; the famous Sunday River bridge, sometimes called the Artist’s bridge, in Newry; the South Andover bridge over the Ellis Ri ver; the Bennett bri dge over the fv1.aga Iloway near ~Ii I son’s Mi I Is; the Lowe f s bri dge over the Pi scataqui s between Gui I ford and Sangervi lie; the Robyvi I Ie bridge across Kenduskeag Stream in the town of Corinth; the Morse bridge, located right in the city of Bangor on Val ley Avenue, and crossing the Kenduskeag just as the stream enters that city; and finally the bridge over the little Meduxnekeag Stream in the town of Littleton on the road to \voodstock, New Brunswick.
Of Maine’s ten remaining covered bridges, one is in Cumberland County, five are in Oxford, two in Penobscot, one in Piscataquis, and one in Aroostook. Thus -there is at least one covered bridge left in five Maine counties, while eleven counties have lost their last covered bridge.
Year: 1956