Radio Script #426

Little Talks on Common Things

September 13, 1959

As we begin tonight the twelfth consecutive season of Little Talks on Common Things, I can assure you that the summer has produced much new information for this program. It is amazing how hitherto unpublished items keep turning up, as well as items that did receive publication in old and now all but forgotten newspapers.

Most of our people in Kennebec County never heard of an institution I want to bring to your attention as our first item this fall, and even our older people who had once heard of the institution have forgotten all about it. One of Maine’s most famous families is the Richards family of Gardiner. The present head of the family is Mr. John Richards, president of the Trustees of the Gardiner Public Library and an authority of the history of Gardiner. His mother was the famous Maine author, Laura Jean Richards, and his grandmother was the even more famous author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, Julia Ward Howe.

Well, that famous Richards family of Gardiner once operated a school camp at North Belgrade. Fifty-six years ago an item about that camp appeared in a publication to which I have often referred on this program — the weekly newspaper called Maine Woods, published at Phillips in the early half of this century.

Thanks to my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Vincent York. of Greenwood Inn, Phillips, who have supplied me with numerous issues of the paper, Maine Woods is one of my favorite sources of information about summer-time Maine half a century ago.

On July 17, 1903 Maine Woods said: “Henry Richards of Gardiner has built a hotel which he has named the Merryweather. Mr. Richards married a daughter of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

Now it is amazing to note that in that last sentence Maine Woods made a mistake similar to that I once heard Lowell Thomas make on his radio program many years ago. Thomas referred to Harriet Beecher Stowe as the author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. That prompted me to write one of the very few fan letters I ever put into the mail. Mr. Thomas replied graciously, saying there was no excuse for the error, of course he knew better, but it was one of those slips that do occur.

Maine Woods, as well as Lowell Thomas, ought to have known better. The wife of Henry Richards was not a daughter of Harriet Beecher Stowe, but was Laura Jean Howe, daughter of Julia Ward Howe. The account in Maine Woods went on to say: “Mr. and Mrs. Richards have a son and daughter who are fine teachers, and they have 20 to 30 pupils at their summer school on the shore of Great Pond. The pupils are sons of wealthy parents and are from 12 to 15 years of age. They have hours for study, and are taught to swim, canoe and play ball. The boys pay $25 a week for instruction, board and washing. The teacher son of Henry Richards to whom Maine Woods referred was the same John Richards who is now the distinguished library trustee and historian, still living in the beautiful Richards home on top of the big hill in Gardiner.

In the same issue in which Maine Woods described the Richards school, the paper pointed out that a rival school on Great Pond had already been established. The paper said: “Now that the Richards school has proved successful, Clarence Colby, a student at Harvard, and his mother, Mrs. Florence Colby of Boston, have bought Pine Island in Great Pond, and have built a fine set of buildings costing $8,000, and will make it a summer outing place for school boys. It will be unlike the Richards place in that Mr. Colby’s boys will not study books, but will indulge in other amusements suitable to a summer outing place.”

Some of my listeners will at once recognize that camp as what later became, under the famous Dr. Swan, the Pine Island camp for boys.

The Maine Woods’ distinction between the Richards camp and the Colby camp emphasizes a controversy that was rife in the early years of this century, when the camp movement was getting its start. Should a camp for boys or for girls be a summer school or a recreational venture? There were strong advocates of the school concept — a place where slow children could make up failed work or where brilliant children could accelerate their school program. A few such camps still do business. notably Long Lake Lodge at North Bridgton, which has been a prominent summer tutoring camp for nearly half a century. But the most successful camps in Maine were usually those that followed the lead of Luther Gulick at Sebago and Hortense Hersom at Belgrade.

The Luther Gulick camp and Miss Hersom’s Camp Abena shunned the concept of a summer school and made no attempt to give instruction in the usual school subjects. But they insisted that for every boy or girl who attended their camps, the experience should be educational as well as recreational. So, in addition to instruction in swimming, sailing, canoeing, tennis and other sports. those camps introduced nature study and crafts and paid a lot of attention to dancing and theatricals. Because it was so vitally different from ordinary school routine, the latter kind of camp became much more popular than the tutoring camp as anyone can testify who knew Pine Island or Abena in their most flourishing days in the 1920’s. My own experience was five years which my wife and I spent helping the Hersoms at Camp Abena from 1931 to 1936. Under different management, Abena is still a fine, popular camp, but I like to remember it when that famous trio — Miss Hortense and Miss Rilla Hersom and their sister Mrs. Lambert were in command.

Another interesting fact which I learned from perusing a file of the Maine Woods is that, early in this century, furs were shipped from the Rangeley region direct to London. In 1903 J. H. Mathews of Rangeley sent to C. M. Lampson & Company of London 1,916 red fox skins, three silver fox, 763 coon, 591 mink, 8,221 muskrat, 370 marten, 31 otter, 18 bear and 11 lynx.

Letters from Civil War soldiers are common treasures in many Maine homes, and I have told you about some of them in previous years on this program. But less common of mention today are letters written by the women whom those soldiers left at home. One of those more rare letters recently came to my attention.

It was written by Mrs. Ella Hewitt Lougee of Winslow, who had moved with her husband, Stephen Lougee to Elmira, New York. Stephen had enlisted in the Union Army, had been wounded at Gettysburg, and after his recovery had entered service in an army hospital. Patiently waiting in Elmira, Ella wrote this letter to her husband’s cousin in New Hampshire:

“Elmira, New York, Dec. 18, 1864

“Remembered Cousin:

“Your kind and truly welcome letter was received in due season, and I was very glad to get it. I have often thought of you, and now that we have in this silent way introduced ourselves, I trust we may hear often from each other. Allow me to congratulate you on the bright hopes that cluster around your infant Lillian. May you and yours have grace to guide the tender mind committed to your care.

“I have just come from church and it is in this evening hour that I most miss my good husband. I look forward to the time when we shall be together again.

“He has a little over eight months still to serve, and if by the blessing of God he is allowed to come home then, we shall be very happy. He now serves as a clerk at the principal office of Lincoln General Hospital, and I presume he will stay there his time out. You will remember that he was wounded in the battle at Gettysburg last year. He is lame and must use a cane. He expects always to do that, and we are getting used to it. I am so thankful his wound was not worse. In fact, several men in his company were killed outright. While I mourn his absence, I rejoice that he was patriotic enough to go, and when he returns he can feel that his duty has been fully done.

“Remember me with kind regards to your husband and accept for yourself my lasting love. Your Cousin, Ella H. Lougee”

So much has been said on this program about the Winslow Congregational Church, the oldest church holding continuous services in the Kennebec Valley, that I decided to see what the original records of the Town of Winslow had to say about plans to build that church. Some of you know that it was originally the public meeting house for the town of Winslow, before the part of that town on the west side of the river was set off in 1802 as the separate town of Waterville.

Here is the record of the Winslow town meeting 165 years ago in the year 1794: “Town meeting convened at home of George Warren. Voted to erect a meeting house on the east side of the river on land to be given by Arthur Lithgow. One hundred pounds to be raised by a tax on polls and estates for the purpose of building the meeting house. Col. Josiah Hayden was elected a delegate to a meeting in Portland concerning the proposed separation from Massachusetts.”

In the possession of many old families of Maine are receipts for regular use of the old-time toll bridges, but seldom do we see one of such length and complication as was the receipt issued to a Winslow man in 1851. This is what it says: “Mr. C. H. Keith, wife and children, with the horses and teams owned by him in his business, are permitted to pass Ticonic Bridge from April 1, 1851 to April 1, 1852 for the sum of two dollars, one half to be paid in advance and the residue on the first day of August, 1851. If said person shall pass the bridge with teams loaded with wood, bark, hides, leather, lumber, or goods and merchandise, he shall pay one half toll each way, but for live stock bound for market he shall pay full toll. T. Boutelle, S. Plaisted, Directors T. Simpson.”

Maine towns had trouble with liquor long before the passage of the so-called Maine Law in 1851. As long ago as 1837 that old Belfast paper, the Waldo Patriot, had this to say: “The Legislature of Massachusetts last winter passed a law forbidding the sale of intoxicating liquors in smaller quantities than 15 gallons. Many of the grog sellers in that state have openly defied the law for the deliberate purpose of being prosecuted. When called upon for the penalty, they have refused to pay and have gone to jail. Thus they hope to sway public sympathy and get the law changed by the force of public opinion. Thus far Maine has not seen fit to pass such a law and the grog sellers of Belfast do a thriving business without fear of either fine or jail. Their besotted customers are too common a sight on our otherwise attractive streets.”

Year: 1959