Radio Script #595

Little Talks on Common Things

December 29, 1963

In previous broadcasts we have had information from the Flood diaries concerning the early railroad years in Central Maine and concerning the founding of Waterville’s prominent fuel business, the G.S. Flood Co. Those diaries contain much other valuable information about persons and events of the period 75 to 100 years ago. For instance, one gets a glimpse in those pages of the way families of substantial means lived during that era.

I have already told you that, soon after his graduation from college in 1860, George Flood had a room in the home of Edwin Noyes, son-in-law of one of Waterville’s wealthiest citizens, Timothy Boutelle. The diary therefore contains hundreds of references to the Noyes family. Even before he became a regular lodger, Flood was often in the Noyes home because of his close friendship with the son, Boutelle Noyes. In September, 1861, while Flood was still living in his father’s home at Clinton, he was taken with a severe cold during a visit to Waterville, and Mrs. Noyes insisted on his staying with her family. On September 6 Flood wrote: “Have been in bed all day. Have good care from Mrs. Noyes. She gave me fruit to eat. The servants have been very kind.” Note the plural. The Noyes home had more than one servant.

The next winter, when Mr. and Mrs. Noyes made a trip to Detroit, Flood was permitted to use their fast driving horse and buggy. In April. 1864 Flood spent a day “helping Mrs. Noyes trim the shrubs on her grounds. Mrs. Noyes presented me with a dressing gown, very nicely made. Feb. 21, 1865 – Rode with Mrs. Noyes for two hours on the Sebasticook River, a beautiful ride.” It has been a long time since Waterville folk took sleigh rides on the river ice. but that used to be a common winter recreation. In August, 1865 Flood joined the Noyes family at Cape Cottage, where they were spending a vacation month. Flood wrote: “Went to Cape Cottage and had a walk with Mrs. Noyes on the rocks. Sighted 150 sail looking like a forest. No sound save the splash of waves on the rocks. Walked to the lighthouse.”

When in 1865 Boutelle Noyes was admitted into the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, George Flood became even closer to the Noyes family. In a way he seemed to take the place of their absent son. When Mr. and Mrs. Noyes made trips to Annapolis to see Boutelle. Flood took charge of things in the Waterville home.

In the summer of 1866 Mr. and Mrs. Noyes took their vacation in Quebec, but the following. summer they were back at Cape Cottage. It was the time when places on the Maine coast were just beginning to attract vacation visitors, and many spots along Penobscot Bay were attracting tourists. It was in 1870 that the Noyes family decided on the Penobscot region instead of Cape Cottage. On July 29 of that year Flood wrote: “Have been fixing up my office and getting ready to go to the seashore.

Mr. and Mrs. Noyes have gone to Camden. I shall join them next week. Aug. 2 – Very busy fitting up the team and packing things in the carriage to start for Camden.” That gives us the information that he intended to drive over the road, a considerable journey from Waterville. He says: “Got away at 3 p.m. and drove to Liberty, where I stopped overnight.” The next day he drove through to Camden. While there he went with Mrs. Noyes on several sightseeing trips — to Beauchamp Point, to Owls Head, to Thomaston, to Rockland to buy shoes. and by rowboat out to Negro Island.

Of the Knox Mansion at Thomaston, now so beautifully rebuilt, Flood had this to say in 1870: “Went to Thomaston to see the old Knox Mansion now owned by a Mr. Stetson. It is now fast going to ruin and part of it is used as a ship carpenter’s shop and store room.” One day was spent at Northport at a camp meeting, then  for a climb to the top of Decker’s Bluff, where there was a magnificent view of the bay and its many islands. On September 2 they packed the trunks to go home and were on the way the following morning. Instead of driving straight home via Liberty, as Noyes had come, they decided to have a look at Pemaquid Point, driving from Camden through Rockland to Waldoboro, then down through Bremen and Round Pond to Pemaquid.

The diary entry for September 3 says: “Settled our bills and started from Camden for Pemaquid Point. Had a splendid drive, but instead of the thirty miles we had been told, it was 38, and we did not get there until 7 p.m. Mrs. Noyes was very tired. Sept. 4 – Went to the site of Fort Fredrick (the fort at Pemaquid, near the present Gilbert’s Lobster Pound) and saw the new discovery they have made there of a brick cone or pit. Sept. 7 – Set out at 9 a.m. through Damariscotta, Alna and Pittston to Gardiner, where we stopped over night. Mrs. Noyes stood the trip well.”

Flood’s next vacation trip with the Noyes family came in September, 1871. They went by train to Bangor and took the steamer Cambridge for Rockland, where they stayed overnight at the Lynd House. At five o’clock the next morning they took the steamer Lewiston for Mount Desert, where they put up at the Agamont House. They immediately hired a team and drove to Schooner Head. Flood says “because it was now the 10th of September, there were few people on the island, the food only fair, and my bed terrible. Sept. 11 – Took a team and drove Mrs. Mason and Mrs. Noyes to the top of Green Mountain Road, very bad and dangerous, but view magnificent.” The next day they were back home in Waterville going by steamer from Mount Desert to Rockland and from Rockland to Bangor. and then by train to Waterville.

In August, 1872 Mr. and Mrs. Noyes vacationed at the Kineo House on Moosehead Lake, but George Flood did not go along. In 1873 it was again September before Mrs. Noyes could go to the seashore. On Sept. 9 Flood wrote in the diary: “Drove Mrs. Noyes to Camden for a stay in the sea air. Rode across country via China, Montville. Liberty and Searsmont, 40 miles. Arrived at Camden at 7:20 p.m.” There they spent a week at the Bay View House and on the 16th were back in Waterville.

Mr. and Mrs. Noyes did a lot of traveling. They went frequently to Boston and New York, several times to Annapolis while their son was there, and in 1884 they were one of the first Maine families to spend the winter in Florida. The very first item in the Flood diary for that year 1884 reads as follows: “Jan. 1 – Mr. and Mrs. Noyes are going to Florida. They will shut up the house except for one room which Alpheus and I will warm up and occupy.” Then for the first time we learn the identity of the Noyes servants: “The man Oscar will take care of the two cows and the horse, and the French girl, Virine, will go home. The other girl, Fanny, will visit her brother and sister. It makes me sad to have the house left alone. I feel the need of a good home and could not stand it to move about and rough it.”

It was the 9th of May before the family returned from Florida. On the previous day Flood wrote in the diary: “New servant girl arrived tonight on the Pullman. She came direct from Ireland.”

Although George Flood was always close to Mr. and Mrs. Noyes, there was one person in the family with whom he did not get along well. That was Boutelle Noyes’ widow. Flood had been best man at their wedding in 1879. As a naval officer Boutelle was often away on long voyages, and it was on such a voyage with the Asiatic fleet that the young officer met his death when a ship’s boiler exploded in August, 1883. In the intervening four years the couple had had two children. Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Noyes were very fond of these two children, and indeed of their mother, and because of Boutelle’s death they naturally felt an obligation to them. For several years Mrs. Boutelle Noyes and the two children spent the summer with the older Noyes family. It began in the summer after Boutelle Noyes’ death, when widow and children arrived in Waterville in June. At. once George Flood assumed occasional care of the children. He drove them through the Stackpole woods in a pony cart, took them in a boat up the Messalonskee, and walked with them to Mayflower Hill. He was always alert to see that they met with no accident. That solicitude won him his first rebuke from the mother: “July 12, 1884 – Boutelle’s wife got very angry with me for taking the children away from the lawnmower. July 13 – Boutelle’s wife has not spoken to me all day.” After two years things were no better, for on Aug. 28, 1886 Flood wrote: “Mrs. Boutelle Noyes seems as distant as ever. I am very fond of her children and they of me, but I fear I shall never get along with their mother.”

Nearly every summer Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Noyes went to a different resort, but finally they sought a place to build a summer cottage of their own. They inspected sites at Sullivan, at Islesboro, and at Pemaquid, but eventually chose Squirrel Island, where they continued to spend every summer until Edwin Noyes’ death, and where Mrs. Noyes, in the years of her widowhood continued to put in the months of July and August. The cottage was not ready for occupancy until early August of 1885, so the family spent only a short time there that summer; but in 1886 it was a beehive of activity. The diary entry of August 28 tells us: “Went to Squirrel Island to visit Mr. and Mrs. Noyes. Found their summer home very pleasantly located on the southwest point looking out to the open sea. With them are Mrs. Boutelle Noyes and her two children, Dr. J.F. Noyes, and four servants. Mr. Noyes went to Chase House to sleep and gave me his room, but I shall not accept it another night.”

When Edwin Noyes died suddenly of a coronary attack in March, 1888, Mrs. Noyes became more than ever dependent upon George Flood to manage her affairs. How free run he had even before that is shown by the diary entry of Jan. 18, 1888: “Mr. and Mrs. Noyes have started for Florida. I shall remain in their house and pay for provisions used except flour. Mrs. Noyes pays the servants. I have the use of the cows and run my own fire.” On March 23 he wrote: “Received a telegram from George K. Boutelle in Boston, saying that Edwin Noyes died there at 6 a.m. from heart trouble. This is a terrible blow to his wife, to whom I had to break the news. March 24 – The remains of Mr. Noyes arrived this evening. Mrs. Boutelle Noyes came with Dr. Robert Noyes. I have had the whole matter to arrange and I am about exhausted. Sent a telegram to Dr. J.F. Noyes at San Francisco. March 26 – President of the College, Dr. Pepper, conducted Mr. Noyes’ funeral. The house is still terribly sad. April 4 – Drove Mrs. Noyes out for an hour. She is very depressed. The house is quiet and lonesome. I shall remain with her and she will keep everything running as it has been, at least for the present.”

In July Flood took Mrs. Noyes and two servants to the Squirrel Island cottage, and in December he accompanied her to Boston for shopping. George Flood continued to reside at the Noyes home until Mrs. Noyes herself died in January, 1892. Then Flood decided to have a house of his own. He already owned the old Stackpole house on Upper Main Street, where he had a tenant. Near it, a bit north, he built a new house for himself and took residence in it in the fall of 1892, having as his housekeeper Mrs. Noyes longtime maid, Fanny Woods. Flood called his new home Sunny Hill. There he lived until his death in 1896.

Year: 1964