Radio Script #394

Little Talks on Common Things

November 16, 1958

Few Maine people realize how much the relative size of Maine communities has changed since Maine became a separate state, 138 years ago. ·We all know that many of our small towns have declined in population. A journey about the state reveals many an. abandoned farm, and in several sections entire hamlets have been deserted. But I suspect most of us believe that Maine’s largest communities have always been Portland, Bangor, Lewiston and Auburn. Such, however, is far from the case.

When Maine secured its separation from Massachusetts in 1820, the largest town was, just as it is now, Portland, with 7, 189 inhabitants. But I challenge you to guess what was the second largest town. It was not anyone of Maine’s twenty other present cities. It was the York County town of Wells, with 4,489 people.

The settlement of Maine had spread eastward from Massachusetts and New Hampshire. It was natural therefore that in 1820 the bulk of Maine population should be concentrated in York and Cumberland Counties. In fact Maine’s five largest towns at that time were in those two counties. The third town in size was Berwick, with a population of 4,455; the fourth was Falmouth with 4,105; and the fifth was York with 3,046.

I am sure you will be surprised to learn the identity of Maine’s sixth largest town in 1820. It was a town many miles from Portland, beyond the Kennebec River, and along the reaches of Muscongus Bay. It was the town of Bristol, with 2,753 people. The seventh town was one of the very oldest east of Portland, and a town that had grown steadily since its restoration after the Indian Wars, the town of Brunswick, whose inhabitants numbered 2,682.

Believe it or not, there were only 18 towns in the entire state of Maine that had as many as 2,000 people in 1820. After the first seven, that we have already named, the next eleven, in order of population, were Gorham, Bath, North Yarmouth, Saco, Shapleigh, Buxton, Thomaston, Wiscasset, Hallowell, Vassalboro and Kittery.

Notice there is no mention of Bangor or Lewiston, of Sanford or Rumford, of Eastport or Machias, of Ellsworth or Belfast. In 1820 Bangor wasn’t even the largest town in Penobscot County. That honor went to Orrington, which had 1,349 inhabitants, while Bangor had only 850. In Ha~cock County, Belfast was exceeded by Deer Isle, but Machias was Washington County’s biggest town, with 1,570 people.

We know that one of Somerset County’s earliest and fastest growing towns was Norridgewock, and that for many years it was the county seat, until that was removed to the even faster growing town of Skowhegan, which was at first a part of the town of Canaan. It is interesting to note, therefore, that the county’s largest town in 1820 was neither Norridgewock nor Canaan, nor the newer town of Bloomfield, but General Kendall’s old town of Fairfield, where the census showed 1,348 people.

Now let us turn to our own Kennebec County. There has long been such rivalry between Waterville and Augusta for population honors that we forget there was a time when neither held the honor of being the largest Kennebec town. Yet those who know anything about old trading days in the Kennebec Valley should be able to name its largest town in 1820 without difficulty, for not only did the trade of all Central Maine focus at Hallowell, but that town was indeed one of the largest shipping ports of the coastwide trade in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

But what I am sure many of those same informed people do not know is the identity of the second largest Kennebec town in the year when Maine became a state. And it came very near being the largest, for the 1820 census showed that it had only five inhabitants fewer than Hallowell. While 2,068 people were listed in the more famous town, 2,063 lived in the up-river town of Vassalboro. Yes, in 1820 Vassalboro was the second largest town in this county. It would easily have been in first place, if some thirty years earlier it had not lost its territory on the west bank of the river to the new town of Sidney, because Sidney itself was the fifth largest Kennebec town in 1820, with 1,558 people. Third in size was Augusta, while Waterville then stood in eighth place, having a hundred fewer people than Winthrop. As for Winslow, in 1820 it had only 658 inhabitants, being about two-thirds the size of Fairfax (the old name for Albion).

Some other comparisons among Maine towns in 1820 are interesting. Hebron was larger than Norway; Georgetown was twice the size of Lewiston; Farmington was twice as big as Bangor; Litchfield was bigger than Augusta; Sidney had nearly three times as many inhabitants as Winslow; Deer Isle, Frankfort, Gouldsboro and Prospect were each larger than Belfast; and over in York County the town of Shapleigh had more people than Saco. And, comparing some York County towns with towns in other parts of Maine, Berwick had four times the population of Waterville; Wells had five times as many people as Lewiston; York was double the size of Augusta; Buxton was twice as big as any town in all Oxford County, even including Norway and Paris.

Now here comes the crowning blow of all. In 1820 the population of Waterville was 1,314, while that of Fairfield was 1,348. It is a bitter pill to swallow, but it is the truth — in the year when Maine became a state, Fairfield was larger than Waterville.

In 1820 Maine was divided into only nine counties, instead of the present sixteen. The most populous counties were then York, Cumberland, Lincoln and Kennebec, each of which rated three senators in the Maine legislature. Hancock, Oxford and Somerset had two senators each, while Penobscot and Washington each had only one. The state then had a senate of only twenty members instead of the present thirty-one. The Maine Constitution provided that the number of senators should not be less than twenty nor more than thirty-one.

The seven Maine counties that have been organized since 1820 are Sagadahoc, Knox, Waldo, Franklin, Piscataquis, Androscoggin and Aroostook. Of the older counties from which territory was taken to form the new counties, Lincoln suffered most. It was once in area by far the largest county in Maine, but gradually it was reduced to one of the smaller counties. Its old town of Bristol, once among Maine’s ten largest towns, is now smaller than Wiscasset or Damariscotta or Waldoboro.

So much for Maine in 1820. Let us now take a look at a few items from the mid-century, the period of just about a hundred years ago. A couple of hotel advertisements of the year 1851 recently caught my eye. One is Jeremiah Webb’s ad for the Skowhegan Hotel. Webb announced: “The subscriber would call the attention of the traveling public to the Skowhegan Hotel, the old and well known Searle Stand. This house is centrally and pleasantly located, and the proprietor will endeavor to do the utmost to make it a home for all those who favor him with a call. His table will always be supplied with the best the market affords, and no pains will be spared for the comfort and convenience of his guests. Good and faithful ostlers will always be in attendance. Connected with this House is a Commodious Hall, suitable for Balls, Concerts, etc., which will be let for those purposes on reasonable terms.”

The second ad which I noticed in the same 1851 paper with that of the Skowhegan Hotel was for the Carratunk House, operated by Elbridge Savage at Solon. Savage proclaimed: “This house is in every respect what it should be. Mr.Savage perfectly understands his business, having had ample experience in it. Travelers may be assured that neither pains nor expense will be spared to make everything convenient and comfortable for all those who may call at this house. It is well located, and it will be the proprietor’s aim to make it, in all things, a home for the traveler. Mr. Savage returns thanks to his customers for past favors, and solicits a continuance of their patronage.”

You will note that this old Carratunk House was located at Solon, not at the present Caratunk Village, between Bingham and The Forks. It is things like that which cause confusion to many a later investigation. Even before anyone settled in the region, explorers and fur traders had given to the falls at Solon the name of Carratunk Falls, and for many years the whole region above what are now Madison and Anson was called Carratunk.

Only ten years ago there died one of the most talented women who ever lived in the Kennebec Valley, Miss Louise Coburn of Skowhegan. One of the first women to be permitted to attend Colby, which until 1871 had been exclusively a college for men, she received her Colby degree in 1877. In fact she was preceded by just one other woman, Mary Low, who had graduated in 1875. It was because these two were Colby’s first women graduates that the first two dormitories erected for women students on Mayflower Hill were called Mary Low and Louise Coburn halls.

In the fall of 1878, Miss Coburn taught at Greely Institute in Cumberland Center. She taught there just one term, and it proved to be her only active teaching experience, though all of her long life was devoted to the interests of education, and she gave generously of both time and money to support Coburn Classical Institute in Waterville which had been named for her uncle, Governor Abner Coburn.

Only last summer I found under the top cover of an old book, given to me by a friend, a letter written by Miss Louise Coburn to her college and Coburn friend, Ellen Koopman of Waterville, a girl destined to a much shorter life than Miss Coburn, for she died in far-away Georgi a at the age of 31.

The letter written on November 25, 1878 is addressed to “My dear Nellie”, for Miss Koopman was better known by that name than by her baptismal name of Ellen. To Nellie, Miss Coburn explained what had happened to her teaching career. She wrote: “I am home now and am not going back. My father and mother wanted me very much to stay at home, and I got it into my head that I ought, and so wrote that I couldn’t return to Cumberland. But I have been grieving ever since, and would have taken it back any minute. ‘I had got so attached to my scholars and classes that it seemed as if I couldn’t give them up. I have been inclined to laugh at myself. It is so absurd to make a decision oneself and then raise a moan over it. But I am always unstable as water. You see I can’t lisp a word of this to anyone here, so I am making a sort of escape valve of you.”

After some remarks about Miss Koopman’s health and the hope that she may be able to resume her courses at Colby — something she was never able to do -Miss Coburn’s letter tells about a visit she has just made to the college from which she had received her diploma 15 months earlier: “I visited Prof. Taylor’s class. It seemed natural and yet unnatural. He asked me how I liked teaching. I said ‘Pretty well’. He said he thought I should find it very stupid. I wonder if he finds teaching stupid.”

In the fall of 1878 there were just three girls who dared the awful venture of entering Colby College. Miss Coburn wrote: “I saw the three Freshwomen (How’s that for a new word?) — good-looking girls. Ah, well! Things isn’t as they used to was, especially in the female department at Colby. The girls are reviving Sigma Kappa (the sorority of which Miss Coburn had been one of the founders). 1 guess the poor thing wasn’t so dead that it couldn’t be resurrected.”

In this letter are several references to a girl named Pease who, according to Miss Coburn, was largely responsible for the revival of the Sigma Kappa sorority. That girl was Emily Pease Meader, whose family lived in the big white mansion which stood where Waterville’s First National Store now stands. Somewhat regretfully Miss Coburn wrote: “As I looked about at the academy and the college, everything seemed queer. I realized that I was no longer, and could never be again, a little wheel within the big wheel of Waterville life.”

How wrong she was! Although the rest of her long life was spent at the old home of her parents in Skowhegan, she continued to be very much a part of Colby and of Coburn, and thus a true part of Waterville life. She will always be listed among the most talented and the most distinguished graduates of both institutions.

Year: 1958