Radio Script #466

Little Talks on Common Things

September 25, 1960

I have been examining some old programs of events at Coburn and at Colby more than half a century ago. One of them is for the Coburn Commencement in 1887. At that time the school operated a separate, advanced course for girls, called the Ladies’ Collegiate Course. This particular program was concerned only with the commencement exercises for that course, which occurred on July 1, 1887. It was a long program, for only one of the twelve graduating girls was excused from delivering a commencement part. Music was furnished by the Beethoven Club of Boston.

Now, to me, the most interesting feature of those old programs is the names that many of my listeners will find familiar. One of those 1887 graduates was Josephine Prince of Buckfield. She is still living — one of our most beloved elderly citizens, Mrs. Albert F. Drummond. The class valedictorian, after a ~eful and exciting life as a Universalist pastor and mountain missionary, spent her last years in Waterville’s Sunset Home, where she died only a few years ago.

I first knew her as a boy of ten years, when she was pastor of our family church in Bridgton. That 1887 valedictorian was Hannah Powell. If the audience that attended the graduation of Coburn’s Ladies’ Collegiate Course in 1887 thought the program with its eleven speakers was long, what must have been the thoughts of those who attended the Institute’s graduation in 1892, when twenty-two speakers, one after another, faced the audience? They delivered original essays on such subjects as “What Constitutes Manhood?”, “Children of Fiction”, “The Object of Culture”, “Fidelity to Every Trust”, “Music and Nature”.

A few of the topics were less philosophical, such as “Electrical Progress” and “Wonders of the Nineteenth Century”. One fellow talked on “The Press”, and one even got down to brass tacks of education on the subject of the “Common Schools of Maine”.

In that graduating class in 1892 were a brother and sister of a prominent Waterville family, Harry and Florence Dunn, both distinguished alumni and loyal workers for both Coburn and Colby through many years. Like Mrs. Drummond, Miss Florence Dunn is still a beloved and respected elderly citizen of Waterville.

Seven years later, as the old century was drawing to its close, and the undreamed events of our own twentieth century were about to begin, Coburn graduated its class of 1899. By that time, under Franklin Johnson’s principalship, classes had become so large that it was no longer feasible for each graduate to have a speaking part. Of the 39 graduates in 1899, twelve were selected to speak on Commencement Day. Let us see who some of them were.

Eugene Thayer, later Mayor of Waterville, spoke on the Dreyfus Case. Cecil Daggett talked about Socialism in America. Sheppard Butler, long afterward on the staff of the Chicago Tribune and editor of Liberty magazine, paid his respects to A Greater America. George Wooster Thomas, who became a noted Presbyterian minister in California, discussed at that Coburn graduation Grover Cleveland’s second administration.

I was especially interested to note that one of the twelve speakers was a woman whom I came to know only a few years ago. On that graduation day in 1899 she was Florence Perry of Camden. I knew her as Florence Perry Hahn of the little seacoast town of Friendship. Her husband, Dr. William Hahn, was the most prominent private collector of books, pamphlets and maps about the State of Maine. The Hahn Library contained not only every book published about Maine, but in some instances several copies. For instance, there were six duplicates of the two volume set of Judge Williamson’s History of Maine, published in 1832.

When Florence Perry Hahn died three years ago, her will provided that the famous library should be divided among her alma mater, Colby College, the University of Maine, and the Farnsworth Museum. Mrs. Hahn honored me by naming me a member of the committee of distribution. Many of the choice volumes, diligently collected by Dr. Hahn, are now permanently preserved in the Colby College library. Others, together with the very valuable set of the Greenleaf maps of Maine, are in the library of our state university. Many books dealing with Knox County communities went to the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, where was also placed a framed crayon portrait of Jonathan Cilley, which had hung on a wall in the Hahn home. It is one of the few extant pictures of that Maine Congressman who was killed in a duel in Washington in 1837.

Florence Perry Hahn was a member of a prominent Camden family, long connected with both Coburn and Colby. Her father was Wilder Perry of the Colby class of 1872, editor and publisher of the Camden Herald, Commissioner to the World’s Fair in Vienna, and for 25 years connected with the famous Boston publishing firm of Houghton Mifflin Company. Four of Mrs. Hahn’s brothers graduated from Colby. The oldest, Dr. Sherman Perry, was in the class of 1901, and for him is named the present Colby infirmary on Mayflower Hill, the generous gift of his widow. Ten years after Sherman’s graduation his brother James received his Colby diploma. Jim Perry graduated from the Hartford Theological Seminary in 1915, studied for a year at Geneva, Switzerland, then entered religious work with the French Army at Bordeaux. When the United States entered the First World War, Jim Perry was a YMCA official with the American troops, doing the same sort of work as that performed by USO officers in the Second World War. After the armistice Jim went to Constantinople as Chief Secretary of the YMCA. On February 2, 1920, while on an errand of mercy in the Syrian mountains, James Perry was killed by a band of Balkan brigands.

Two other of Mrs. Hahn’s brothers also received Colby degrees, George in 1914 and Gleason in 1920. Like his brother Jim, George saw YMCA service in thewar, and he also saw direct military service, being commissioned as a lieutenant in aviation in the U.S. Army. Like his older brother, George also served with the YMCA in Turkey, having a tour of Y duty at Smyrna in 1919-20. In recent years both George and the youngest brother, Gleason, have lived in their native town of Camden. I take it for granted that everyone of my listeners saw the motion picture “Peyton Place”, much of which was filmed at Camden.

Do you recall that early in the picture is the scene showing a Maine farmer plowing with a tractor? Well, the farmer sitting on that tractor, performing for a one-minute shot in that two hour movie, was George Perry, brother of the woman whose name appears on the Coburn commencement program of 61 years ago.

Last week I mentioned the Shaker Colony at Sabbathday Lake. I was delighted to see, not long ago, an account of that old Shaker community as it existed in 1855. The account appeared in an issue in September of that year in an Augusta newspaper, Drew’s Rural Intelligencer. Here is what it said: “The Shaker Village is situated in West Gloucester, some six miles from the New Gloucester depot of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence R.R. The village is on a high elevation from whence is a fine view of the surrounding country. At the base of the hill lies Sabbathday Pond, as beautiful a sheet of water as the state can boast.

“The community here numbers about 100, and their territory covers 2,000  acres, divided into tillage, pasture and wood land. Among the most recent improvements is a mill on a small stream that never runs dry. During the great drought of last summer, when all other mills in the vicinity had to suspend operation, this one was kept in constant use. Besides the grist mill, there is other machinery propelled by the same power planing machines, machines for jointing timber and for making laths. Here the Shakers manufacture various articles for sale — pails, churns, tubs, spinning wheels, brooms, and other items in great variety.

“From their six acre garden they gather an abundance of seeds and herbs. Their fruit, especially the grapes, are famous.

“About a mile north of this settlement is another called the Upper Shakers. It is across the line in the town of Poland. Though a separate community, it is connected with the lower settlement. The two groups formerly worshipped on Sunday at the Lower Village, but it became such a time of common resort by the curious and worldly, that public worship was abandoned and the Shakers turned to private services.

“One of the characteristics that first strikes a visitor to the Shakers is their perfect neatness. If cleanliness is next to Godliness, then certainly the Shakers are a Godly people.

“How is it that these people, with so many children and so many aged persons among them, can continue to accumulate wealth? The answer lies in their orderliness, sobriety, economy and industry, and in their communal system. All members work for the community, young and old alike. If a person cannot do one thing, something else is found that he can do. None work slavishly,but all work systematically and to a purpose. All are well taught, the aged are respected, the sick are nursed. At times every member has opportunity to go outside and see the ways of the world.

“It is a great mistake to suppose that the Shakers are ignorant of what goes on around them. It is true that they take no part in the affairs of state. All attempts of politicians to induce them to vote have failed. They do send a delegation to the annual town meeting, where money is to be raised, for they are large taxpayers, but they never vote. never speak at the meeting. and keep themselves from all entangling alliances with either side of any controversial issue.”

That is what Editor Drew in Augusta had to say about the Sabbath day Lake Shakers 105 years ago — a sect of remarkable. industrious people that, despite its waning numbers, is today not entirely extinct.

Did you know that a railroad was once expected to be built on the Dresden side of the Kennebec River? In 1854 a charter was issued for a railroad from Richmond to Wiscasset, and an Augusta newspaper made the following comment: “Wiscasset is the natural winter port of the Kennebec Valley and our nearest point to salt water, and its harbor is one of the best on the Atlantic coast. A railroad would soon make Wiscasset an important commercial depot. Should a junction be made with the Kennebec and Portland RR at Richmond, as the charter provides, and a bridge built across the Kennebec to the Dresden side, Richmond would become the head of navigation on the Kennebec. The towns of Wiscasset and Richmond alone could afford to build the road and would make money on the investment. Once built to Wiscasset, the road would soon proceed to Damariscotta and Rockland, through the busiest commercial region of Maine.”

That railroad was never built. Augusta and Waterville opposed it. Powerful interests at Gardiner, Hallowell. Hallowell especially could not countenance its busy port being shut off to ocean-going ships by the obstruction of a railroad bridge down the river. Many years had to elapse before a little two-foot narrow gauge became the first and only railroad in the Sheepscot Valley.

Year: 1960