Radio Script #398

Little Talks on Common Things

December 14, 1958

There are many of us who remember the Waterville Fair. Like most of you, I usually paid the entrance fee every day I attended that fair, but just once I recall that I had a pass. Hon. Leon Tibbetts asked me to speak on the occasion of Old Folks Day at the fair in 1925. There was a good attendance of the older people, and I remember asking Leon whether I ought to say Rancourt or Ronco in referring to the family that was most largely represented. Since that day the annual meeting of the Three Quarter Century Club has taken the glamour from those old folks days at the fair.

Before the fair grounds that we knew so well were developed, Waterville had several trotting parks, the best remembered one being on Upper Main Street, near where the new Industrial Building now stands. In several spots, in spite of street building and grading, the outlines of that half mile track can still be discerned.

On that site, when it was called the Waterville Park, there was in 1863 a day of horse racing which the Waterville Mail recounted. That was in the midst of the Civil War, but the long dampened hopes of the North had been freshened by the Battle of Gettysburg in July. So, on August 4, 1863 the Waterville Mail could say: “There was a good attendance at the Park on Wednesday to witness the trotting, and everything passed off pleasantly.”

Today when we are quite accustomed to the two minute trotters, it is interesting to note the times of some of those races. The Mail said: “Three entries were made for the first purse of $40. Ned Davis by F. S. Palmer; Dubber by A. Savage; and the Bailey horse by H. Thayer. The money was taken by Davis in two heats timed at 2:43 and 2:45. The Bailey horse was withdrawn after the first heat, and Dubber, having become lame was withdrawn after the second. So there was no third heat. For the second purse of $25 the entries were Moll Pitcher by G. R. Doolittle, Drew Horse by J. Bodfish, Hunter by Cummings, and Black Mare by H. Wells. Moll Pitcher was the winner in 2:51, 2:56 and 2:57. Several entries made for the purse of green horses resulted in victory for Foster Palmer’s Bay Horse in 2:59, 3:01 and 3:02.”

Despite horse racing, Waterville people were fully conscious of the war. Patriotic meetings were held during nearly every week of 1863. The Mail thus described one of them: “The meeting Monday evening on the common was probably the largest ever convened here. The principal address was by General Howard, preceded by remarks from Solyman Heath and the Reverend Dillingham. Abijah Crosby of Benton closed the speaking with an earnest appeal for enlistment, declaring his own intention to go at the call of the President.”

On July 24 the Mail announced: “Tomorrow the voters of Waterville meet to see how much they will give the soldiers who enlist for the war. A liberal policy will no doubt prevail. Fairfield, Clinton and other neighboring towns have voted $100 to each soldier.”

That liberal policy resulted in a scandal which my friend and former student John Pullen has so ably described in his book “The Twentieth Maine”.

There was flagrant stealing of one town’s recruits by another, by the process of simply increasing the bonus, so that when recruits reached Augusta, it was often impossible for the Adjutant General to ascertain to what town they should legally be credited. By the way, there is a lot of other important information about the Civil War in John Pullen’s book. If you are one of the few who haven’t yet read “The Twentieth Maine”, by all means do so. The Waterville vote resulted in a bonus of $100, and “with characteristic liberality”, Edwin Noyes, local agent of the Androscoggin and Kennebec Railroad, offered $5 additional to each recruit.

Waterville was not the only place to hold patriotic meetings. Abig one was held at Fairfield on July 28, 1863. This is the way the old newspaper reported it: “On Monday evening there was a large and enthusiastic war meeting at Kendalls Mills. Fairfield had filled her quota and was celebrating. Senator Morrill was the principal speaker. The meeting convened in front of the Fairfield House and the speaking was from its piazza. The Senator’s speech was one of his most stirring and eloquent efforts, and must have convinced the audience that the great united heart of the North is beginning to beat in earnest.

“Di. Rowell, who is raising a company and has already himself enlisted to go with it, made an earnest appeal for recruits. If the doctor proves as powerful on the battlefield as he was here in the use of words, the enemy will find him a troublesome man to meet.

“An extra train of cars added many Waterville people to the already large gathering.”

With good reason the press of 1863 gave praise to the patriotism of the students at Colby, which was then still called Waterville College. Arch Leavitt of the senior class had raised a company for the 16th Maine, and Zemro Smith of Hodgdon, another senior, had recruited a company in the neighborhood of Ellsworth, which had encamped at Bangor as part of the 18th Maine. Leavitt had just left for Washington at the head of his company, having two of his classmates as lieutenants, W. E. Brooks and William Stevens. Even some Colby students who were preparing for the ministry turned to military service before entering the seminary. One such was a member of my wife’s family, William Carey Barrows, who served four years as an officer of the 24th Maine and postponed his seminary entrance until 1866.

Turning back again to the old time fairs, it is interesting to note the prizes offered by the North Kennebec Agricultural Association at its fair held in Waterville in October of 1862:

For the best trotting mare or gelding, five years old, which has never trotted a mile in less than three minutes.

For the best plowing with four or more oxen.

For the best acre of wheat, twenty or more bushels per acre.

For the best experiment in the use of artificial fertilizer.

For the best farm-built ox cart.

For the best stump-pulling machine.

The officers of the fair proudly announced that they had made arrangements with the management of the Ticonic, Sebasticook and Fairfield bridges to pass livestock and drivers bound for the fair free of toll. Concerning that fair the Waterville Mail said: “Nobody expected a great display at our fair this year. The paralyzing effect of the war is heavy upon these associations. To  a very few of our own people are due thanks for not allowing the fair to be a failure. The exhibition of cattle and sheep was good, and that of horses at least equal to the emergency of the time. Better oxen have rarely been seen. But the show at the hall was decidedly inferior.”

The list of prize winners at that fair contains some memorable local names, among them G. E. Shores, Hall C. Burleigh, John Ware, Homer Percival, N. G. Pullsifer, M. C. Penny, Mrs. Daniel Moor, and Mrs. B. C. Paine.

In these times when we are much concerned about attracting new industry to Waterville, when even the government statistics showing that 62 per cent of Waterville households have incomes exceeding $4,000 a year do not arouse excessive optimism, it is enlightening to discover what our local newspaper thought about the prosperity of the town in the midst of the Civil War. On November 13, 1862 a leading article appeared in the Waterville Mail under the heading “prosperity in Waterville”. I think it will do us all good to hear it now word for word:

“Some very shrewd men”, the article began, “will laugh when we talk about prosperity in our village.” It might have comforted that editor to know that 96 years later there are still scoffers. The writer continued: “They may with some interest look to us to point out details. This is easily done. We have $300,000 bank capital, a large portion owned by our own townsmen. We have a greater number of men worth from $3,000 to $5,000 than any town of our population in Maine, and we believe none has more whose wealth exceeds $25,000. We have railroad connections east, west, north and south, and the same river navigation that in times past provided nearly all the business transportation along the upper Kennebec. In our college, academy and common schools we have educational attractions unequalled elsewhere in the state. In our agricultural population we have a guarantee of safe and permanent thrift. Finally, we have unlimited water power that is hardly equalled in all New England. It could carry the spindles of another Lowell, or afford power for half a dozen enterprises like that at Lewiston.”

With that start in praise of his town the editor went on to make a comparison not too favorable to Waterville. He wrote: “Let us compare ourselves with smaller places. The village of North. Vassalboro is several miles from the river and an equal distance from any railroad. It is but a mere hamlet in population. Its water power is barely sufficient for its present machinery, and its banking facilities may be represented by a cipher. It has but little surplus wealth among its citizens, and that little is deeply buried in the enterprises already associated with the whirl of its spindles. Those spindles feed its few hundred industrious people. Ten years ago North Vassalboro was but half what it is now. It has become a thriving village in the time that Waterville, if it had enjoyed proportionate growth, would now be a large city. What a difference! Waterville has buried its money in banks and has traded on usury, while North Vassalboro has invested in factories and dealt in the products of labor. Now we see Waterville stagnant with dead enterprises and North Vassalboro glowing in thrift and doubling its interest. We have drawn a sorry picture, but our capitalists and business men will do well to look at it. It is their fault that our village is a drone. They lack courage, breadth of vision, and a true understanding of the use of money. When they change from their present narrow view, our natural advantages will be turned to account, but until then we remain a sleepy country village.”

Well, there it is. Does the description apply at all to Waterville in 1958, or doesn’t it? I’ll let you decide.

Year: 1958