Radio Script #404

Little Talks on Common Things

January 18, 1959

In 1853 plans were well under way to extend the Kennebec and Portland Railroad from Augusta on to Waterville and Skowhegan. That meant crossing the Kennebec River three times, at Augusta, Waterville and Skowhegan, for the directors of the proposed road deemed it essential to have it pass through Vassalboro, which was then a very prosperous town. Furthermore they considered the heavy cost of construction along the steep hillside on the Sidney side of the river might in the end come to as much as the expense of building the three bridges. The Legislature had issued a charter to the Somerset and Kennebec Railroad Company, which proposed to build the line.

On January 14, 1853 the company placed the following ad in the Kennebec Journal: “To Railroad Contractors: Proposals for constructing a railroad from the depot of the Kennebec and Portland R.R. in Augusta to Skowhegan, crossing the Kennebec at Augusta, Waterville and Skowhegan, with all necessary bridges, depots, etc., are now solicited, the road to be completed by October 1, 1854. For information, application may be made to Hon. Joseph Eaton, Winslow; Samuel Shaw, Waterville or Daniel Bronson, Bath.”

The Androscoggin and Kennebec Railroad had already come to Waterville via Lewiston in 1849. That was a broad gauge road, 5 feet 6 inches, while the Kennebec and Portland, which then came no farther east than Augusta, had what later became the present standard gauge, 4 feet 8t inches. Each road was determined to beat the other with extension beyond Waterville. The Androscoggin and Kennebec planned to push its broad gauge road on to Bangor, while the newly chartered Somerset and Kennebec, as we have seen, planned to go on to Skowhegan.

In February, 1853 the Kennebec Journal paid heed to this hot controversy. It said: “Edward Appleton, engineer of the Penobscot and Kennebec, the proposed extension of the A & K, was also the engineer of the original A & K. When he made a survey of that road from Danville to Waterville, he laid down on his plan the route to Bangor as crossing the Kennebec in Waterville at Bacon’s Narrows near the College. He also laid dqwn on the same plan a route to Kendalls Mills, denoting it ‘a proposed branch’ of the A & K. In his report to the directors, Mr. Appleton said he had carefully examined the four severally proposed crossings of the Kennebec — viz: at Rock Island, at the Rip, at the Narrows, and at Kendalls Mills — and had deliberately decided that the one at the Narrows was most feasible. The directors accepted his recommendation and application for a crossing then was duly filed with the railroad commissioners. Subsequently the directors of the Somerset road located their line from Augusta via Kendalls Mills to Skowhegan, and filed their location.

“In June, 1851 the Penobscot and Kennebec petitioned the legislature for additional time to establish their exact route. The P and K asked the Somerset and Kennebec not to offer objection to this delay. They assured the Sand K directors that their sole reason in asking for more time was to have opportunity to change from the considered Newport location to a more southerly line. They said nothing about crossing the Kennebec anywhere except at their already approved spot at the Narrows.

“The extension of time was granted. Then in bad faith and in direct violation of solemn assurances, the P and K changed its location and now proposes to extend its road to Kendalls Mills. side by side for three miles with the location of the Somerset road, the two lines for the whole distance being not more than two rods apart.”

Such was the story in the Kennebec Journal in 1853. Two years later that was just what happened. Entering Kendalls Mills were two rival railroad lines, one of broad, the other of standard gauge, and the famous battle of the gauges was on — a battle to which I have referred several times on this program.

Did you know that for more than thirty years after Maine became a separate state there was still dispute about the public lands in Maine — the undistributed land which, located in the District of Maine, had belonged to Massachusetts previous to 1820? A part of the Act of Separation was the agreement that nearly a million acres of public land in Maine should be held in common by both states. Those acres were called the undivided lands. By 1855 about half of that acreage had been sold to private purchasers.

Then suddenly Massachusetts started to sell her half interest in each lot to anybody who would buy, thus leaving Maine in the position of owning land in partnership with private individuals, an intolerable situation fraught with constant dissension. But the indignant attacks which Maine officials then made upon Massachusetts proved, on investigation, to be only the pot calling the kettle black.

The investigating committee of the Maine legislature soon learned that the Maine Land Agent had been doing the very thing that Maine complained of Massachusetts doing. He too had been selling Maine’s half of undivided land to private buyers. And, what was worse, while all this was going on, the Maine governor offered to purchase from Massachusetts the latter’s half interest in the land, without receiving authorization from the legislature to make any such offer.

It was all quite a mess that was not straightened out until just before the Civil War when, by act of the legislature, our state legally bought Massachusetts’ share and settled with the individuals to whom the Maine Land Agent had sold.

In the 1850’s after Maine passed the Neal Dow bill, our famous prohibitory law, the only legal way to secure spiritous liquors was to purchase them on prescription or permit, directly from the town liquor agent, who was the only individual in the town authorized to distribute the forbidden beverages. It seems also to have been legal, for it certainly was the custom, for the agent in a larger town to set up a kind of wholesale business supplying liquor agents in smaller towns. This got to be such a racket that in 1853, only two years after the state liquor law was passed, the State Liquor Agent at Augusta felt called upon to place the following notice in Maine newspapers: “Town agents can be supplied with all kinds of liquors and in any quantity, at the agency in Augusta, at as low prices as they can be purchased in Boston, and as pure quality as can be bought anywhere. Town agents should not patronize other agents, even those in larger nearby towns.”

I don’t suppose many of you ever heard that, about 1850, it was proposed to form a new Maine county called Ticonic, with its county seat at Bath. Plans for it were well under way when nine towns in Somerset County, eleven in Penobscot, two in Waldo and one in Kennebec, joined together and petitioned to be set aside as a new county of Ticonic with Newport as the shire town. The petition was not granted, but the controversial use of the name Ticonic for two quite differently situated counties caused the name to be dropped, and Maine’s sixteenth county, with its county seat at Bath, took the old name for the lower part of the river, the name Sagadahoc.

I have often suggested that the best way to know how people lived in any period of the nineteenth century is to read newspaper advertisements of the time. Here are a few ads of the 1850’s: “Air-warming wood furnace. Also a variety of cook, parlor and airtight stoves. I can furnish coal stoves and furnaces of any pattern desired. E. D. Norcross, two doors north of the post office, Augusta.”

Here’s another: “Three thousand pounds of Livermore cheese of superior quality, for sale at No.1, Merchants Row, Hallowell.”

“F. G. Haynes, portrait painter. Likenesses of all sizes made from the sitter or from daguerreotypes, in oil colors or with crayons, and warranted to give satisfaction. Studio 1, Preble Block, Portland.”

“Phosgene lamp and gas. A new article for light, to take the place of oil solar lamps. If not satisfactory, they can be returned. Dillingham and Titcomb, Augusta.”

“Keep dry. Come to the umbrella factory opposite the Maine Farmer office in Augusta. Constantly on hand is a good assortment of custom-made umbrellas. We also repair umbrellas and parasols and trim canes.”

“Wanted: A smart, active boy to learn the tailor’s trade. One from the country would be preferred.”

A hundred years ago political tempers often flared hot, even in the solemn halls of the Maine legislature. An old newspaper of 1853 tells us that Mr. Tabor, the representative from Houlton, didn’t like the way the Land Agent, Anson P. Morrill, was handling the job, and he made open criticism.

Notwithstanding the emphatic denial by Morrill, supported by Governor Hobbard, Tabor persisted in his attacks. Finally this was too much for a Morrill supporter, Representative Sewall of Old Town. He said he would take the word of Anson Morrill against a whole regiment of denouncers like the gentleman from Houlton, for nobody ever paid any attention to what that representative said. In fact his news carried as little weight as an idiot’s. Tabor shouted back that a squaw from the Indian village at Old Town, on a recent visit to Bath, had been asked down there concerning the character of Old Town’s Mr. Sewall. The squaw had replied: “He lie all the time”. At that juncture Representative Smith of Calais appealed to the Speaker to put a stop to such personal remarks. Whereupon both Sewall and Tabor jumped on the innocent peacemaker for interfering in what they contended was none of his business. Eventually the furor subsided without any blows being struck. It turned out that to some extent Tabor’s attacks had been justified for, as we pointed out earlier this evening, the Land Agent was illegally selling certain public lands.

When every bank issued its own paper money, as was once the case all over the United States, counterfeiting was easier and therefore more common than it is today. At Augusta in 1854 a man and a woman were arrested and found to have in their possession 159 three dollar bills, counterfeited on the Medomak Bank of Waldoboro. Three dollar bills, counterfeit or legitimate, have long since disappeared from circulation, but I still have one of them, a genuine $3 bill, issued by the Calais Bank of 1833, which several years ago was given me by Waterville’s coin and currency dealer, Bill Kenworthy.

You have heard about the young man who failed his examination in pharmacy because he didn’t know how to make a club sandwich. We have a lot of fun with remarks like that, reminding us how the old time drug store has changed. But, believe me, those old time apothecary shops were not all restricted to the filling of prescriptions, as many people would have us assume. Listen to this ad in the Kennebec Journal 104 years ago, in April, 1855: “J. W. Cofren, Druggist and Apothecary, No.9, Bridge Block, Water Street. Dealer in drugs, medicines, paints, oils, dye stuff, window glass and wall paper.”

Year: 1959