Radio Script #602

Little Talks on Common Things

February 16, 1964

I am ashamed to say that I had lived in Central Maine for 30 years before I ever heard of Cape Cod Hill. Often have I driven up on the highway that runs south from New Sharon Village to the highest land on that highway overlooking the village and its two bridges. It is the best sunset view I know of anywhere in this vicinity. I came to know the owner of the big yellow house at the top of the rise. He is John Ayer, a retired civil engineer, who in his early days had a part in the building of the Boston subway system, and he is still an avid collector of information about the nation’s narrow gauge railroads. Several years ago Mr. Ayer restored the old family home on that hilltop and has made the house and grounds a true show place for the region.

What I did not know is that east of Mr. Ayer’s house. approached by a private road just south of his property is another hill that rises just as high above Mr. Ayer’s house as his house rises above New Sharon Village. That higher eminence is on the big dairy farm of the Chandler family, owners of the land for nearly two centuries. The view from that big hill on the Chandler farm is truly magnificent. The whole range of Maine’s northwestern mountains — Abram, Bigelow, Saddleback and all the rest — stretch out in their grandeur. Farther away, but distinct, are the White Mountains. Scores of lakes are within one’s vision. In fact the scope of the panorama from any vantage point at the top of this hill is more than 3/4 of a complete circle. The place is called Cape Cod Hill because the original settlers, including the Chandlers, came there from Cape Cod, just as did the first settlers of Fairfield.

My guide to Cape Cod Hill was R.P. Tracey of Oakland, who died a few years ago, the same man who had more than once put me on track of valuable and interesting nistorical information in Central Maine. Mr. Tracey knew the occupants of the Chandler farm and he was anxious that I should see an old deed in their possession. Mrs. Chandler, since deceased, was a most gracious hostess, allowing me to inspect the deed fully and carefully.

It turned out to be the oldest deed I have ever seen of any Central Maine lands. My listeners may recall that several times I have mentioned the incorporation of four of our towns by the Legislature of Massachusetts on the same day in 1771. Those four towns were Winthrop, Hallowell, Vassalboro and Winslow. The Chandler deed was written four years earlier in 1767, in other words, four years before any of those communities had become large enough to be an incorporated town. Like all the Central Maine deeds before the Revolution, this one conveyed a tract of land from the so-called Plymouth Company, correctly entitled the Proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase, that had been formed in 1749 and had gained control of this entire region for a distance of 15 miles on each side of the river.

This Chandler deed is of peculiar significance because it bears the signatures of five of the most important proprietors. One is a signature that any American will at once recognize, for it is the same bold hand that first signed the Declaration of Independence, that of John Hancock. The other four signers to the Chandler deed were James Bowdoin, for whose family Bowdoin College was named; Sylvester Gardiner and Benjamin Hallowell, who gave their names to two Kennebec towns, and whose families intermarried; and James Pitts, owner of that part of the Kennebec Purchase on which the City of Waterville now stands.

The deed was dated in Boston on January 17, 1767 and reads as follows: “We, the committee of the Kennebec Purchase from the late colony of New Plymouth, do hereby agree that Mr. John Chandler shall have a grant of two lots of land of 200 acres each, near the mill stream in Pond Town and also one other lot in some other place in said township, upon condition that he give bond to build a saw mill in one year and a grist mill in three years, and make one settlement on the 400 acres and another on the 200 acre lot.” Pond Town was the old name for Winthrop, and there was located the first Chandler grant. Later the family came to the Sandy River at New Sharon and developed what is now the big farm at Cape Cod Hill.

I have long been interested in any contemporary references to the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. That celebration was in fact this country’s first World’s Fair, held in Philadelphia in 1876, and therefore preceding by 16 years the World’s Fair in Chicago that celebrated the 400th anniversary of the landing of Columbus in the New World.

Recently I was looking through several Maine newspapers published in 1876, and I want now to share with you some of the references to the Centennial Exposition that then appeared in our state press.

One such reference referred to the Grange. The item said: “The Grangers are looking out for their interests. They have built on the line of the Pennsylvania Railroad, where the fare will be 15 cents for round trip to the centennial grounds. The Grange building contains 1,500 rooms, with double bed, washstand, table, looking glass and three chairs. The rate is one dollar a day. Breakfast and supper cost 50 cents each. A lunch will be put up for those who wish to stay on the grounds of the exposition all day. All through Philadelphia arrangements have been made to accomodate the multitude. There is one hotel covering seven acres, that is devoted entirely to ladies.”

The Centennial opened on May 10, 1876, with a first day attendance of 75,000 people, including the entire diplomatic corps from Washington. One Bangor paper quoted its correspondent on that opening day as follows: “There were speakers, but we couldn’t hear a word. This was fortunate, as it allowed the guests to move about, chatting with old friends from other parts of the country.” But the Bangor reporter did get around to saying something about the gathering. He wrote: “A large space was occupied by the 800 ladies of the Women’s Centennial Committee and their guests. When the sun came out, some of the ladies opened parasols to shade their heads, because their bonnets only shade shoulder and neck. Protest went up from those in the rear, and the obstructing parasols had to be furled. What could those sun-exposed ladies do? The bonnet could not be placed on top of the head; the rear elevation of the hair would prevent it. Hair styles designed to attack hats perpendicularly do not protect the top of the head. One inventive sister unsheathed a hairpin and with it fastened her program securely to the front of a coach-shaped hair arrangement, to which the bonnet, standing erect behind, did duty as a sort of footman. In less than five minutes, the 799 other women had done the same thing.”

A controversial point about the Centennial Exposition in 1876 was whether it should be open on Sunday. A Portland paper editorialized on that subject thus: “The advocates of Sunday opening of the Exposition are still pressing their point. We think, however, the voice of the country will approve the action of the commission in closing on Sunday. The Sabbath in this country has never been a public holiday. With us Sunday is a day of rest and religious worship. To keep Sunday such a day, not a day of amusement, is an estab 1 i shed institution of our country.”

A Lewiston paper ran a full column on the Maine exhibit at the Centennial. It said in part: “Maine visitors will find a table to register and there be likely to meet acquaintances. It is in Room 79, and close by are elegant cases containing fabrics from the mills of Lewiston and Biddeford, and a fine display of lap robes from Mr. Goodall’s 25 varieties of blankets, robes and horse coverings on display. The Worumbo Co. of Lisbon Falls exhibits fine Cashmeres and Doeskins. The Barker Mill of Auburn has a case filled with bleached cotton of excellent finish. The Knox Woolen Company of Camden has felt goods and fine blankets. The Androscoggin Mills display sheetings, while the Bates Mills offer quilts, ginghams. towelings and damasks. The Laconia and Pepperell Mills have sheetings, jeans and battings. Most of the display cases were made by F.D. Bailey & Co. of Portland.”

The account went on to say: “The exhibit of Maine granite is impressive, especially the huge monuments from Hallowell. There is stone also from Calais, Fox Islands, Jonesboro and Waldo. Near by is an exhibit of ore and products made from it, that comes from the Katahdin Iron Works.

“In Machinery Hall Maine makes some suitable displays, and Belfast offers a greater variety of inventions than any other Maine city. But there are machine exhibits also from Saco, Biddeford, Lewiston, Machias and Portland. The Dunn Edge Tool Factory at West Waterville sends excellent specimens of scythes and other farm tools.

“In Agricultural Hall are exhibits of canned goods by John Winslow Jones and by Burnham and Morrill. There is no corn so sweet as that grown in Maine. There is also Morton’s Patent Drag Rake, made at Paris Hill.”

In 1964 we cannot but note that three Maine products, justly famous today, are completely missing in this story of Maine at the Centennial of 1876. Those products are potatoes, blueberries and lobsters. Eighty-eight years ago, when Maine exhibited in Philadelphia, Aroostook potatoes had not come to national fame, and only a few enterprising pioneer canners were beginning to experiment with blueberries. As for lobsters, they were no luxury — their price being five cents a pound.

In the adjoining column to that account of Maine at the Centennial is the story of one of those frequent accidents that infested Maine railroads in the 1870’s. Here is the way the old newspaper told the story: “A train on the Eastern Railroad from Boston to Portland ran off the track between Kennebunk and Wells on Thursday, the locomotive, tender and baggage car being thrown into a heap, but luckily nobody was hurt. Engineer Waterman and Fireman Drake stood at their posts and did not leave until the locomotive was thrown bottom side up. The passengers were so pleased with the bravery of the engine crew that they raised a purse of $100 for them on the spot.”

Year: 1964