Radio Script #524

Little Talks on Common Things

February 4, 1962

Waterville is proud of the national fame achieved by an industry that began here more than a hundred years ago, for it was in Waterville that Charles Hathaway started in 1845 the making of Hathaway shirts. He began in a very small way, and it was not until 1863 that he erected the first unit of his factory off Appleton Street. After that factory, with an early addition, had been operating for 27 years, the Waterville Mail published an article that gives us a picture of how shirt making was conducted 80 years ago, before the invention of modern machinery and long before the coming of electric irons. Every shirt produced in the old Hathaway factory had to be ironed by hand. In fact the women who did that ironing so outnumbered the shirt-makers that the popular name for the whole establishment was the “Laundry”. In my possession is an old photograph labeled “The Laundry”. It is a picture of the Hathaway factory taken about 1880. The article have mentioned appeared in the Waterville Mail on December 29, 1880, when that venerable paper was a weekly publication.

Now listen to what the Mail said 80 years ago about the Hathaway plant: “The buildings occupied by the manufactory and laundry of C. F. Hathaway and Co.” — notice the double reference to ‘manufactory and laundry’– “fronts on Appleton Street, connecting with Mr. Hathaway’s private dwelling. Some 27 years ago Mr. Hathaway began work on the grounds, which were then a wet, sunken marsh, and by persistent effort and the expenditure of considerable money he has brought it into condition for the large, substantial buildings demanded by his increasing business.

“Every department has machinery of the latest, improved pattern. It is propelled by a 10 horse power steam engine, with horizontal boiler set in strong masonry. The establishment is heated throughout by steam and is lighted by gas generated in the building. More than one hundred hands are employed.

“The material for shirts is purchased in large quantities and is stored in ” specially prepared rooms. The material is taken to the cutting room in webs of twelve yards and there cut by patterns into various sizes. Each size, packed in a small parcel numbered and marked, then goes to the machine room, where it is stitched into garments. The shirts then go to the button-hole makers, and from them to thesshing and starching room. They are then raised by elevator to the drying room, where they are hung upon lines and are subjected to a high temperature of dry heat. When properly dried, they go to the ironing room to be laundered. The irons are heated in ovens of a new pattern, Mr. Hathaway’s own invention. These ovens are so arranged as to bring powerful heat to the face of the irons. The operatives in this department are required to be skilled workwomen, for ready sale of the shirt depends upon their glossy, polished front.

“From the laundry the shirts are sent to the package room to be folded and put in packages of half a dozen, then packed in wooden cases for shipment.

“A shirt, from the time it is cut from the web until it is packed in the shipping case, passes through fifty hands to make it presentable for the fastidious young man’s attire for the New Year’s ball.”

Now several interesting points are revealed by that long-ago article about the making of Hathaway shirts. First, we learn that the site of the now abandoned Appleton Street factory was once a wet marsh. In fact Main Street, from what is now the site of the Haines Theater to Temple Street, was until the 1870’s a depression so that a team had to go up a rise going either north or south. When Main Street was raised from Appleton to Temple, many buildings also had to be elevated. One such was the Flood Block,on the west side of Main Street. In his voluminous diary the man who then owned it, George Flood, founder of the Flood Fuel Company, tells us he finally received $600 damages from the town because he had to spend that much to raise the building to a higher level.

Another thing we learn is that, as early as 1880, Waterville had a manufacturing plant heated entirely by steam and lighted by gas. Perhaps the most interesting of all is the fact that in 1880 the only shirts mentioned in the article are the old-fashioned stiff-bosomed dress shirts. We know that at times Hathaway did make work shirts, but for many years the feature of his business was the smooth, glossy finish of those stiff bosoms. You will note that the article in the Mail mentions button holes, but says nothing about buttons. Those old, stiff-front, dress shirts had no buttons. There were button holes in the sleeves for the attachment of cuffs, holes in the back of the neck to fasten the shirt and attach the collar, and a hole in the closed front of the neck, where the :.front collar button was placed. The crowning feature was the button hole in the middle of the stiff bosom where the wearer placed a jeweled button, even if the jewel were made of glass.

What did those glossy Hathaway shirts cost in 1880? You could buy one in Perham Heald’s store for $1.50.

You all know by this time that I am delighted to encounter new information about Waterville’s famous William Heath, the Civil War colonel who died at the Battle of Gaines Mill in 1862, and for whom the local GAR post was named. I recently ran across an amusing story concerning William Heath on the occasion of his graduation from Waterville College (now Colby) in 1855, four years after his return from that eventful voyage around the world that I told you about a year ago.

In the middle of the last century a feature of each Colby Commencement was the annual recognition of the two literary societies, Erosophia, Adelphi and the Literary Fraternity. The societies joined together in bringing two prominent men as speakers for the occasion, one as orator, the other as poet. They obtained some really great men. Twice Ralph Waldo Emerson was the orator, first in 1841, again in 1863.

In August, 1855, when William Heath was one of the graduates, the poet at the celebration of the societies — always held on the evening before the graduation exercises — was the famous wit and much sought speaker, John G. Saxe. He had agreed to write an original poem for this Waterville occasion.

Before the event William Heath, a staunch J;:rosqpnia_h,r;. had laid down a bet with the president of the rival Literary Fraternity. Heath bet a whole dollar — a lot of money in those days — that he could, right at the event, make the audience laugh harder than Saxe could. His friends had no idea how Heath would attempt to win his wager, but they knew him well enough to suspect the worst.

So his fellow ~r:-osop~tan.s, advised him not to try it. “The faculty can hold back your diploma the next morning”, they warned. “Don’t worry”, said Heath, “I’ll win that bet. You just watch me.” It was a terrifically hot August evening. The audience suffered through a dull oration — this time by a much lesser man than Emerson — but stayed in the stifling room to hear the witty Saxe. Whatever he said was either funny or accepted as funny.

Every remark was greeted with a ripple of merriment or an outright burst of laughter. One especially funny remark brought a loud, hearty outburst of guffaws.  The laughter subsided and the audience sat back to listen to more. Just as the speaker was about to resume, the silence was broken by a belated roar of laughter, apparently by someone who had just seen the joke. Those in the audience nearest the disturbance saw that the laugher was young William Heath. There he sat, with his red head thrown back, bellowing that belated laugh. The audience was convulsed. The speaker joined in, and even the college president’s grim dignity gave way to a broad smile. William Heath had won his wager, and the next morning he received his diploma from the dignified president’s hands.

The old records contain many references to the frequent use of liquor before the temperance forces became prominent and under Neal Dow’s leadership, put through the Maine Prohibition Law in 1851. It is commonly known that liquor flowed freely at every barn raising and on every public occasion. When the minister called on a family during the early years of the 19th century, he had to be treated to a potent cup. That liquor was prevalent, even at the ordination of a minister, is shown by a bill submitted in 1806 to the committee in charge of the ordination of Rev. Samuel Veazie at Freeport. It was submitted by the local tavern keeper.

In addition to charges for lodging, meals and baiting of horses, the bill carried the following items:

18 pints Rum §9.00

13-1/2 n Brandy 5.75

7 ” Rum 3.50

4-1/2 n Gin 2.25

4 It Bitters 2.00

To get that minister properly ordained 145 years ago cost the ordination committee §22.50 for nearly six gallons of liquor.

Many times on this program we have made brief reference to Bangor. It is time we said something about the settling of what was to become Maine’s second largest city. The Penobscot River as far as the falls at Bangor was visited by white men as early as 1605, when both DeMonts and Champlain made their way up the river.

Before the English made a permanent settlement at Plymouth, the French had already set up an Indian trading post near where the Kenduskeag empties into the Penobscot. At the time when the English decided to wipe out the French trading posts — it was during that same period that the Indian village at Norridgewock was destroyed and Father Rasle was killed — at that time the Penobscot trading posts were wiped out.

In 1759 the Massachusetts government authorized the building of Fort Pownal on the Penobscot, in what is now the town of Prospect. The manning of the fort encouraged settlement inland, and ten years later in 1769, Jacob Buswell came from Salisbury, Mass. with his wife and nine children, and built a log cabin at the junction of the Kenduskeag and the Penobscot, the site of the old French trading post.

Before the Revolution broke out in 1775 the Buswells had been joined by twenty other families. A fort was built near the present site of Mount Hope Cemetery. In 1786 came the first settled minister, and by 1791 the place had enough people to apply to the Massachusetts Legislature for incorporation as a town. It got the name Bangor when the minister, Rev. Seth Noble, was given the honor of selecting the name. Bangor was the name of Mr. Noble’s favorite hymn tune.

In fact we have in Maine two incorporated places that were named for hymn tunes: Bangor and China. Bangor does not owe its name to Bangor, England; and China, Maine has nothing to do with China in the Far East.

Year: 1962