Radio Script #396

Little Talks on Common hings

November 30, 1958

From time to time on this program I have had something to say about famous Maine trotters, all the way from General Knox in the 1850’s to the world champion Nelson in the 1890’s. In spite of the fact that a good account of Nelson’s record is contained in Dr. Whittemore’s Centennial History of Waterville, a number of people have asked me what it was that the great Waterville horse actually achieved.

The importance of Nelson to Waterville pride lay not only in the fact that he was owned and frequently driven by Hod Nelson, a Waterville citizen, but also because the horse was foaled and trained in Waterville, at Hod Nelson’s famous Sunnyside Farm just across the Messalonskee Stream on the road from Waterville to Oakland. Born in 1882, the great trotter was still alive when Waterville celebrated its Centennial in 1902, and the noble horse had a conspicuous place in the centennial parade.

In fact world champion Nelson lived to be almost 28 years old, for it was on December 3, 1909, that Charles H. Nelson, with tears streaming down his face, put a fatal bullet into the aged horse, to give the animal a merciful death rather than the slow death by starvation to which disease had doomed him.

What was Nelson’s best verified and accepted record? It was a mile in 2:09, made at Rigby Park in Portland in August. 1893. It was not, as is generally asserted, made in the old high-wheeled sulky, but in the new, bicycle-wheel sulky. The uniform high-wheeled sulky weighed 90 pounds, while the new bicycle type weighed only 20; hence many horses were lowering their marks in the new rigs. In fact, on that August day in 1893, when Hod Nelson hitched the big stallion to the little sulky, Nelson no longer held the world’s trotting record, because in just such a sulky a horse named Stamboul had made a mark of 2:07t, two and a half seconds faster than the world mark of 2:10, which Nelson had set at Grand Rapids in 1891.

Among horsemen there has long been dispute about what -Nelson would have done on that 1893 day at Rigby if he had had a dry track. Sections of the track had been made muddy by excessive watering, instead of the careful sprinkling designed merely to lay the dust. That muddied track slowed the big trotter, but did it slow him enough to take two seconds more from his time that day? Maine defenders of Nelson long contended that he would have lowered Stamboul’s record by at least half a second, to an even 2:07, if the watering cart had not messed up the track.

But Nelson did hold the world record, not at one mark alone, but actually at several marks, for three whole years through 1890, 1891 and 1892. He set his first world mark at 2:15t on the Bangor track in September, 1890. Most of Nelson’s world records were not made in racing competition, but against the clock. Such was his famous 2:10 mark, made at Grand Rapids in 1891, where the betting as to whether the horse wo’u1d beat his own world record of 2:10 3/4 is said to have exceeded $100,000.

These, my friends, are the principal facts about the records made by the greatest trotter ever owned in Waterville, or indeed in all Central Maine.

You have heard me many times refer to the Maine Register. Not long ago I told you something about the contents of the issue for the year 1837, and on another occasion I referred to the very first issue of 1820. The Maine Register simply copied the plan and format of an earlier publication about the time of the American Revolution. The earliest issue I have ever seen is that of 1786, and it gives us very interesting information about conditions at that time, a quarter of a century before Maine became a separate state. The title page of the volume carries the lengthy title: “A Pocket Almanack for the Year of Our Lord 1786, being the tenth of American Independence, calculated for the use of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Printed and sold by T. and J. Fleet, at the Bible and Heart in Comhill, Boston.”

Bear in mind that this volume reached the book stalls just before New Years of 1786, and therefore preceded the Constitution of the United States by considerably more than a year. There existed, of course, the Continental Congress, but it exercised almost no sovereign power. One of the features of this old Register is, in fact, a section called “A General Description of the Thirteen United States of America”. It says in part: “The Declaration of Independence, by which these states took an equal station among the nations, is dated July 4, 1776. The articles of confederation between the said states were finally ratified on ‘March 1, 1781. The supreme power of the United States is lodged in a Congress of delegates from each of the states, but each state retains its sovereignty and independence.”

Now note this interesting statement toward the end of the same section in the 1786 Register: “The inhabitants of Vermont have formed themselves into a separate state. Three counties in North Carolina have also formed a separate state to bear the name of Franklin. Some other parts of the United States, it is said, are meditating the same mode of independence, particularly the eastern parts of Massachusetts”. That certainly meant the District of Maine.

It is interesting to note how many people lived in the 13 states of the new nation in 1786. The largest state was Virginia with 650,000 people. Second was Massachusetts with 400,000. New York had a population only slightly more than half that of Massachusetts (250,000) and did not even rank third among the states, for that place was taken by Pennsylvania with 300,000 people. The smallest population was not in the little area covered by Rhode Island, but in the much larger region of Georgia, where the number was only 56,000.

Believe it or not, in 1786 New Hampshire had as many inhabitants as New Jersey, while South Carolina had considerably more than Connecticut. The entire population of the country, when this book was published, was approximately three million.

It is interesting to note what part the District of Maine had in the government of Massachusetts in 1786. The governor of the Commonwealth was James Bowdoin, for whom Bowdoin College had just been named. The legislature, called the Great and General Court, consisted of a senate of 40 members and a house that year by year changed in number, because every incorporated town that had  150 rateable polls elected one representative; if it had 375 polls it elected two; and if 600 it elected three; and for each additional 225 polls the town got another representative. Hence the largest town, Boston, had seven representatives; Salem had four, Newburyport three, Cambridge two, and Plymouth two.

But in 1786 no town in Maine was large enough to have more than a single representative. At that time, of cou~se, what is now the city of Portland was called Falmouth. It had a representative in the legislature at Boston in the person of Joseph Noyes. At that time, the entire District of Maine was divided into three counties: York, Cumberland and Lincoln. In York were 18 incorporated towns with at least 150 polls, in Cumberland 16 and in Lincoln 29; so that Maine was entitled to 63 representatives at Boston. But this old Register reveals that many of the towns had not sent any representative to the General Court.

York had made the best record by filling 10 of its 18 seats. But Cumberland had filled only five of its 16 seats, and Lincoln 11 of its 29. Among the Lincoln County towns that were not represented in 1786 were Winslow, Vassalboro and Hallowell. Over in Cumberland County my own birthplace of Bridgton was then unrepresented, as were also Gorham, Windham and even Brunswick. Among the towns that did take the trouble to elect a representative and have him make the arduous journey to Boston was Fryeburg, which was then the York County town farthest from the coast.

Especially interesting are the names given to towns which we now know by quite different names. One notable exception is a York County town listed in the 1786 Register as Arundel, the town made famous by Kenneth Roberts’ novel about Arnold’s expedition to Quebec. Many years ago the town’s name was changed to North Kennebunkport, and only last year it was changed again to the old, original name of Arundel.

Here are eleven Maine towns, each of which was entitled to a representative in the Massachusetts legislature in 1786. Can you identify these towns: Pepperrelboro, Cox Hall, Massabesec, and Little Falls in York County; Pearsontown, Royalsboro, Bakerstown and Sylvester in Cumberland and ~ki’ Howardstown and Ballstown in Lincoln?

Let’s take the Lincoln County towns first, because they are nearest to our part of Maine. M~dqncook was Friendship, Ballstown was Jefferson, and Howardstown was the very old Kennebec town of Canaan. As for the four towns in Cumberland County, Pearsontown was Standish, Royalsboro was Durham, Bakerstown was Poland, and Sylvester was Turner. Probably many of you can identify Pepperrelboro in York County. It is now the city of Saco. But Cox Hall, Massabesec and Little Falls are not so easy. They were respectively Lyman, Waterboro and Hollis.

Did you know that religious tests for full citizenship lasted far beyond the formation of the United States? It is generally known that the theocratic province of Colonial Massachusetts allowed only persons of the established church of the colony to vote and hold office, but Massachuestts had abandoned that practice long before the publication of this old Register of 1786. But five states still had a religious test of some kind. New Jersey restricted the rights of government to Protestants; Pennsylvania limited it to “all who profess the Christian”‘ religion”; Delaware to those who believed in the Trinity, thus barring all Unitarians; North Carolina and Georgia excluded Roman Catholics from offices of government. Altogether, in the 13 states a lot of people were denied what we today consider ordinary democratic rights.

A whole page in the 1786 Register is devoted to directions for sailing in and out of Boston Bay, and these are followed by Signals at the Castle. This was Castle Island in Boston Harbor, which played such a prominent part in the Revolution, for in its fort the British imprisoned many a Boston patriot, among them young Peter Edes, who later became the first printer at both Augusta and Bangor. Note what were some of the Castle Island signals: for a ship in sight, a blue flag on the upper staff; for a brigantine, a pendant; for a vessel with two topsails, two flags. The list ended with these words: “No signals are made for sloops and schooners”. Can you guess why? They were much too numerous.

The few ambassadors and ministers from foreign countries, in 1786, were assigned to the Congress, for that is all the national government that existed. There was no executive branch. The President of the Congress was Richard Henry Lee, and the minister of war was none other than Maine’s future landowner and Thomaston squire, Gen. Henry Knox. The Congress was represented in only four foreign countries: by Benjamin Franklin in France, by John Adams in England, by William Carmichael in Spain, and by John Rutledge in the Netherlands.

This old Register gives the names of postmasters and the location of their offices on all the post roads throughout the United States in 1786. The first route mentioned is called “the post road eastward from Boston to Casco Bay”.

Only five post offices are named: Salem, Ipswich, Newburyport, Portsmouth and Falmouth. How often did the mail go over this road? This is what the Register says: “The post from Falmouth in Casco Bay arrives at Boston each Saturday in the afternoon, and sets out on its return the following Monday at noon”.

Year: 1958