Radio Script #579

Little Talkson Common Things

June 2, 1963

Leafing through Warren’s “Hi story of Waterford”, which as many of you know is an Oxford County town near Norway, I found some interesting information as to how my own native town of Bridgton got its start. You have often heard me comment on the part played by water in the formation of our Maine towns. Bridgton was no exception. Its first settlement was on Long Lake, where the village of North Bridgton, seat of old Bridgton Academy, is now located. The lake and its connection with the bigger Sebago Lake provided a ready-made highway to the towns already settled nearer to Portland and the sea.

Bridgton’s second settlement was on the stream that now flows through the length of Bridgton Center, the town’s main village, connecting Highland Lake with Long Lake. That stream, called Stevens Brook, has a series of falls between the two lakes that furnished water power to the early mills. It was natural that the first grist mill in the region should have been built on that stream.

Waterford is the next town north of Bridgton directly across the county line, for Bridgton is in Cumberland County, while Waterford is in Oxford. When the whole area was first being settled just before the Revolution, the trading and mill centers on Long Lake and on Stevens Brook did a lot of business with Waterford pioneers.

The Waterford historian tells us: “A blazed path ran through the woods west of Sebago Lake in 1767, through Flintstown to Stevens Brook. This road was not passable for wheeled vehicles until 13 years later.” Flintstown, by the way, was the old name for Baldwin.

We are further informed that one David McWain, who settled in Waterford in 1775, fished and hunted with the Indians and sold his pelts to the trader at Stevens Brook. To that same trader’s grist mill the Waterford settlers also had to carry their grain, 12 or more miles, for grinding.

In 1787 a road was built from the settlement at North Bridgton on Long Lake to Waterford Flat. It became the road over which an increasing number of settlers came into the wilderness from Waterford and Oxford, as well as from Sudbury Canada, the old name that included the territory now comprising the two towns of Rumford and Bethel.

That road made even more business for the trader Captain Kimball at North Bridgton and for the two traders who by 1790 were competing for business on Stevens Brook, a community that was fast growing into Bridgton Center.

Meanwhile the road from Portland to Bridgton, via Standish and Baldwin was in bad shape. The historian says: “Incoming settlers toiled over the wretched road from Flintstown to Bridgton on horseback and in ox carts, and more often on foot.”

That Bridgton was the center of trade is confirmed by another statement in the Waterford history: “Except for a few staples kept for sale in some houses, the people bought goods at North Bridgton and Stevens Brook. But the wants of the people were few, and a scanty supply of goods met all the demand.”

Until a post office was established at Bridgton in 1798, the whole region depended upon the courtesy of the postmaster at Portland for any mail. He would send it into the back country by any respectable person who happened to be in Portland from the region of the new settlements. Of course settlers used the same method to mail their outgoing letters at Portland, and we can well believe that those letters were very infrequent.

Very early inns and taverns were opened on the route between Portland and Waterford. There was an inn at North Bridgton and two at Bridgton Center before 1800. There was the long-lived Chute’s Tavern at Naples, Longley’s at Raymond, and as many as three taverns within the town of Windham. In Portland the Elms House and the American House were the great stage taverns, the former at the corner of Federal and Temple Streets, the latter on Congress Street.

A stage line ran through Bridgton to Waterford as early as 1797. It was prosperous until 1846 when it encountered competition from two different sources. One was a competing stage line opened by George Kimball of Waterford and Richard Gage of Bridgton. Mr. Gage kept a hotel in Bridgton at the top of Main Hill, on the south side of the street.

House, kept by Mighill Davis.

Opposite on the north side stood the Bridgton The Waterford stage always stopped at the Davis hotel, and Gage was anxious to divert travel to his own hostelry, so he and Kimball started a rival stage line.

But even stiffer competition came from the water. A group of men in Bridgton and Harrison decided to make use of the 30 mile waterway afforded by the chain of lakes. So in 1846, under the name of the Sebago and Long Pond Stream Navigation Company, they built a little steamer to ply on the lakes, connecting with stages at one end for Portland, at Bridgton Center for Conway and Lovell, and at Harrison for Waterford and Bethel.

Within a year nearly every man of property from Sebago to Harrison held stock in the steamboat line, and they were determined to make it succeed. A ruthless combat of fare cutting ensued between the boat line and the stage’line. For many years the stage fare from Waterford to Portland had been $2.00. In its fight with the boat line the stage owners reduced their fare to 50¢. and the rival Kimball and Gage stage line could scarcely get started before it ceased operation. Although the original Portland to Waterford line continued in business. it had a hard time during the months when the lakes were open. Only when the frozen lakes forced travelers to take the stage did it have a monopoly of the business.

Concerning that battle of fares in 1847 the Waterford history has an interesting account: “The whole county seemingly went to Portland. Such an inroad of country cousins had never before been seen in the seaport town. A Portland business man had two sons at Bridgton Academy. Those boys took advantage of the low fares to come home every Friday, bringing a group of school friends with them. The father remonstrated with the stage owners. ‘Put the fare back to $2.00’, he pleaded. ‘I’m being eaten out of house and home, and there’s nothing left in the house but a ham bone and a salt fish.

Many times on this program I have referred to Maine’s largest and most impressive canal, the Cumberland and Oxford, connecting Long Lake with Portland Harbor.

The Waterford history contains some additional information about that waterway which was so important to people of the region during the middle of the 19th century. The history says: “The project of a canal between Sebago Pond and Saccarappa was considered as early as 1791. A charter was finally issued in 1821. In 1825 there was incorporated in Portland the Canal Bank on condition that one-fourth of the bank’s capital be invested in the canal. Work began in 1828 and was finished in 1830. The total cost was $206,000. The canal did a big and prosperous business until the construction of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence R.R., and finally the opening of the Portland and Ogdensburg R.R. up the west side of Sebago Lake to the White Mountains caused its abandonment. Heavy goods of all kinds were brought to Bridgton, North Bridgton and Harrison by the canal boats during the summer months, were then stored and distributed, as needed, through the back country even as far as upper Vermont. More than 100 canal boats were in use at the height of the traffic.”

Now let us devote the closing minutes of this program to the old-time highway supervisors. Throughout the first three quarters of the 19th century the same system of maintaining town roads was used as that for operating the schools — the district system. Just as each town had a number of school districts, so the same town would have a number of highway districts, not necessarily co-terminal with the school districts. Each district supervisor was allotted a certain proportion of the town’s highway appropriation, and it was his duty to collect that proportion from the taxpayers in his district and expend it on the district’s roads. Of course few surveyors ever collected any money. What they did collect was working time from the inhabitants. A man paid his road tax by work at stated rates for himself, his oxen, his cart and his plow in repairing or building a road. Even the more wealthy taxpayers often put their hired men at work on the road in lieu of paying their tax directly in money.

The state law gave the district highway supervisor considerable authority. It said: “The supervisor shall have power to cut down, lop off, dig up and remove all sorts of trees, bushes, stones, fences, rails, gates, barns, enclosures, or any other thing that shall in any way hinder or impede the highway; and he shall also have the right to dig for stone, gravel, clay, sand or marl, suitable for making and repairing ways, in any land, planted or enclosed, and remove such materials to places on the highway for repair thereof. If the land from which such materials are taken is not within the limits of the way, the owner over it must be paid therefor in money by the town.

“When the highways are blocked by snow, the supervisor shall cause so much of it to be removed or trodden down as will render the road passable.

“Surveyors shall give reasonable notice to each person on his list of the amount of his tax, affording each taxpayer an opportunity to work with his oxen, cart or plough to the amount of his tax, or the tax may be paid to the supervisor in money.

“Of the sum granted to his district, the supervisor shall expend at least two-thirds before the first day of July. If a supervisor, duly chosen, shall refuse to serve, he shall incur a penalty of $5. If he fails to render to the town a proper account of his expenditures, he shall forfeit $20.”

In 1825 Waterville had 15 highway districts. Reuben Hussey had to collect $80.26 from 12 persons in his district. His biggest taxpayer was Ebenezer Holmes, at $11.65. Nathan Hussey had a bigger district, with 25 householders taxed a total of $180.12. In Hussey’s district lived Asa Redington, Levi Ricker and Nathan Crowell. His biggest taxpayer was Leonard Cornforth at $15.84. The biggest single highway taxpayer in town was the firm of Mathews and Gilman, who paid $115.00 toward the total tax of $238.00 collected by Supervisor Joseph Warren in the district that included the business section of Waterville’s Main, Front, Temple and Silver Streets.

Year: 1963