Radio Script #521

Little Talks on Common Things

January 14, 1962

This month a Waterville business that has had only two proprietors in a hundred years again changes hands. The Gallert Shoe Store on Main Street now passes from Isaac Hillson to his nephew, Hobert Hillson. On the same spot where it is now located, just around the corner from Common Street on the east side of Main Street, the store was first opened by Mark Gallert just a hundred years ago in 1862. In those days shoe stores were not common, because factory-made shoes had been on the market for only a few years. Most people had their shoes custom made by the local shoemaker.

Only ten years before Mark Gallert opened his store, there was not a single shoe store in Waterville. In 1852, though without a shoe store, the town did support three cobblers or shoemakers: Charles Harvey, S. C. Newell and John Rhodes. West Waterville (Oakland) also had three, and Fairfield had two.

It was just 50 years ago in 1912 when Isaac Hillson took over the store, so that, just as Mark Gallert conducted the business for exactly half a century, so did Isaac Hillson. Perhaps Hobert Hillson now starts a third half-century at the same location. “Ike” Hillson has been not only a familiar figure in Waterville’s business section; he has also been prominent in community affairs. He is a charter member of the Waterville Kiwanis Club, one of the original directors of the Federal Trust Company, and, though he doesn’t play golf, he has been a member of the Waterville Country Club since 1916.

How wonderful it would be to return to the prices of footwear when Ike Hillson took over the store in 1912! A pair of rubbers then sold for 49i. That was also the price of men’s velvet slippers, a Christmas specialty. The highest price for any pair of shoes in the store was then §3.50. Mr. Hillson recalls that when the Dorothy Dodd shoes for women presented three styles at respectively §2.50, §3.00 and §3.50, many friends told him nobody would pay as much as $3.50 for a pair of shoes, and he would be stuck with all those best quality Dorothy Dodds.

Somehow they did sell, as did the similarly priced Packard shoes for men. In those days few men or women bought what were technically called shoes. Everyone wore boots laced high up the ankle. A few women did buy summer Oxfords, and young men had dancing pumps. But every respectable adult of either sex wore high laced or button boots.

Ike Hillson will be missed on Waterville’s Main Street, but his many friends and customers wish him years of happy retirement.

One of the oldest settlements in Maine is what is now the town of Brunswick, and I want to tell you a little about that settlement tonight.

That the first settler was Thomas Purchas in 1624 is confirmed by the original deed of what is known as the Pejepscot Purchase. That deed, showing the purchase of land by Richard Wharton from Warumbee and five other Indian sagamores, recognized Thomas Purchas as the first proprietor, who claimed to hold a patent from the Plymouth Company in England. This deed was made in 1684, sixty years after Purchas had come to the place, but it stated that Purchas had joined with the six sagamores in giving a quit claim deed of the land. It further said that the Indian chiefs sold the land, not merely for the money that Wharton gave them, but also because they wanted him to promote there the marketing of salmon and sturgeon, as he promised to do. The original tract was on both sides of the Androscoggin to the falls at what is now Brunswick.

During Thomas Purchas early years of residence at Brunswick,. he felt increasingly insecure. So he made a deal with the Bay Colony in Boston, whereby he assigned to Gov. John Winthrop, in 1639, “all the tract at Pejepscot on both sides of the river Androscoggin, four miles square toward the sea”. In return it was provided that Purchas and his heirs should have the protection of the Massachusetts government and be allowed to enjoy forever the lands they might clear and improve during the next seven years.

By 1675, when Purchas was approaching old age, he had already fallen into disfavor with the Indians, by trading with whom he had accumulated a large estate. When, in that year, King Philip’s War broke out and soon spread to the Androscoggin Indians, it was natural that Purchas should be the earliest eastern sufferer in that war.

On September 4, 1675 a party of twenty Indians came to Purchas’ house and began to parley with his wife, under pretense of trade. As soon as they found that her husband and sons were absent, they threw aside all pretense and proceeded to rob the house, taking all the guns, ammunition and liquor that they could find. They killed several cattle and made themselves merry on the liquor.

Suddenly one of Purchas’ sons rode up on horseback and saw what was going on. When discovered by an Indian, he fled for his life, closely pursued by the savages. However, the Indians offered no violence to the women and children in the house, but told them others would soon come and treat them worse.

Indeed that very thing happened, for King Philip’s War was only the beginning of half a century of Indian troubles that ended only when the Androscoggins were all but wiped out in 1725 at the Battle of Lovewell’s Pond.

When Richard Wharton died in 1714, his heirs sold his Pejepscot Purchase to a group of Boston men for 100 pounds, and the new buyers made a survey and laid out three towns: Brunswick, Topsham and Harpswell. In the same year the Massachusetts General Court ordered a road to be constructed from Berwick to Pejepscot Lower Falls, and appropriated 50 pounds toward opening the road.

Settlement in the three towns was slow. In 1718 Brunswick had no family dwellings except inside the stockade of Fort Pejepscot or in the blockhouse near Maquosit Bay, where a guard was stationed to protect the landing of stores for the fort. In the same year of 1718 there was not a family in Topsham. The three families that had settled there earlier had all been wiped out in the Indian wars.

Many a Maine town was completely laid waste in the Indian wars. That is what happened to Portland. it happened to Brunswick in the fateful summer of 1722, when scores of Maine settlements were destroyed. A band of some 200 Indians suddenly descended upon Brunswick, killing many men, taking women and children as captives to Canada, and burning the village to ashes.

The historian Williamson says: “The enemy then withdrew to the Kennebec, where they celebrated their success by a great dance.”

Such was Brunswick in its very earliest days. Like the fabled Phoenix, it arose from its ashes and became one of Maine’s most famous towns, the seat of Maine’s first college and the home of one whom Abraham Lincoln called “the little woman that started so big a war”, Harriet Beecher Stowe and her “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. The eleventh town to be incorporated in the whole District of Maine, it gave up the old name of Pejepscot in 1738 and has since been called Brunswick.

We have become so accustomed in Waterville to the prestige of Sunset Home for Aged Women that many people have forgotten its early struggling days. In 1922 a group of Waterville citizens started an organization to provide such a home. The President of the society was Rev. I. B. Mower, executive secretary of the Maine Baptists. The society’s secretary was Curtis Morrow, professor of sociology at Colby, and the treasurer was Edward W. Heath. A leading director was Julian Taylor, professor of Latin at the college.

In 1923 the will of Col. F. E. Boothby bequeathed to the organization his splendid home at 114 College Avenue, on condition that the society raise a trust fund of $50,000. The money was raised and the building thoroughly renovated, and on October 29, 1924 it was dedicated as Sunset Home. President Mower said: “This i.s not an institution; it is a home.”

When depression came, after the stock market crash in 1929, the organization was in trouble. For a time, when requests for funds brought little response, it looked as if the home might have to close. But suddenly there came an unexpected legacy of $28,000 from the will of Mrs. Lelia Fos~er of Oakland, and Sunset Home was able again to balance its accounts. It has never since been threatened. In 1949 an addition was built, providing room for more occupants and a much needed infirmary. Only citizens of Waterville, Winslow, Fairfield and Oakland are admitted to Sunset Home, on such terms as the circumstances of the particular case demand. Waterville is rightly proud of Sunset Home.

In this seventh decade of the 20th century, when we have

become so accustomed to big numbers, it is difficult for us to realize how small Maine communities are, compared with many other parts of the nation. We have every right to be proud of our state and its significant contribution to America for many, many years. But we ought to be even more proud of the fact that Maine has rendered its great contribution from a relatively small population, and we must face the fact that this total population of less than a million people is becoming more and more concentrated in our larger communities. Only one entire county in Maine — Cumberland — has as many people as the single city of Worcester, Mass.

Eleven of our 16 counties have in the whole county fewer people than live in Portland alone, and eight of them do not have as many people as Lewiston. In the whole state of Maine there are only thirteen places with as many as 10,000 people, and only seven with more than 20,000. Ten of our 21 cities have fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, and two of them have fewer than 4,000. In ten of our 16 counties there is no town with as many as 10,000 people. E’ranklin County has no town as large as 5,000, and only three towns with more than 3,000. Only six of all the towns in that county have more than 1,000 inhabitants.

Hancock County has no town with as many as 4,000, and the largest town in Lincoln County has less than 2,600. That town is Waldoboro, whose population is 2,536. Oxford County, with its 32 towns, has nearly 2/3 of its population concentrated in six towns. Although Somerset County has 40 towns, more than half its people live in the four towns of Skowhegan, Fairfield, Pittsfield and Madison. Our easternmost county, Washington, has 39 towns, but only nine of them have as many as 1,000 people. Twenty of the towns have fewer than 500, and eleven of them do not have as many as 200 folk.

Take a look at Maine’s most populous county, Cumberland, with 169,000 people, more than 1/6 of the whole population of the state. While the number of people in Cumberland County increased from 79,000 in 1860 to 169,000 in 1960, seven of the county’s towns had more people a hundred years ago than they have today.

Yes, Maine is a small state, and whether we like it or not, its rural communities are getting constantly smaller.

Year: 1962