Radio Script #621

Little Talks on Common Things

September 27, 1964

Not infrequently, a hundred years ago, families that could afford it would print at their own expense a laudatory memoir of some son or daughter who had died in childhood or youth. Mrs. Benjamin Wood of the Garland Road in Winslow has one of those curious books that refers to a once prominent Waterville family.

This kind of publication often came from the families of religious leaders, and I was not entirely surprised to learn that such a book had been produced in the family of the preacher who founded the Waterville Universalist Church, the Rev. Sylvanus Cobb.

Sylvanus and Eunice Cobb had nine children, the youngest of whom, born December 22, 1842, was named James Arthur Cobb. Born after his older brothers and sisters were approaching adulthood, this boy became the pet of the family, and it is a wonder he did not become a spoiled little snob. Always in frail health, probably tubercular, the lad died only two months after his ninth birthday in February, 1852.So fond was the family of the little fellow and so grievously did they feel his loss, that the mother wrote a memoir and the father saw that it was published. The title page carries the designation, “Memoir of James A. Cobb, by His Mother, published by Sylvanus Cobb at 61 Cornhill, Boston, 1856.”

Instead of being spoiled, James was, according to his mother, an ideal child obedient, cheerful, thoughtful of others, and profoundly religious. The mother wrote: “From his infancy, so easy was James to govern, or rather so great was his love of duty, that correction was seldom needed. He was referred to as the little boy who was never spanked.”

Naturally what impressed a minister’s family was the child’s strong religious feelings. The book says: “His very nature seemed to be holy. One member of the family called him the glory bud.”

Like much of this kind of writing a hundred years ago, Mrs. Cobb’s book is moody, gloomy, saccharin and flowery. For example: “The mind of little James was like a beautiful garden of choice flowers whose opening buds and expanding petals, which are refreshed by the hand of culture, repay with the richest odor the gardener’s care.”

Mrs. Cobb devoted an entire chapter to a kind of Joan of Arc experience that little James was said to have had. She wrote: “On December 6, 1851, less than three months before his death, James was favored with a most remarkable vision of the spirit world. His sister and I were sitting beside his bed when he suddenly exclaimed, ‘Oh, what a beautiful sight. See those little angels dancing around me with wreaths on their heads. Oh, look, now there are some older angels. Oh, now they are all gone.'”

“Nothing”, said Mrs. Cobb, “was more enjoyed by the boy during his nine years with us than was that visit from the angels. His mind was perfectly clear, he was wide awake, had taken no drug, and was completely aware of all that went on around him. Never for a moment did he doubt the reality of that vision.”

Mrs. Cobb’s book tells of a visit that she and James made to Waterville in 1850. They had sailed from Boston to Hallowell on July 10, visiting friends there and in Augusta. In 1850 the railroad had not yet reached Augusta, and it is interesting to note how they went on to Waterville. Mrs. Cobb wrote: “On the morning of July 22 we started for Waterville in the steamer Balloon.”

In 1818, when Jeremiah Chaplin brought his family to Waterville to start the first classes at what was to become Colby College, they came up from Hallowell via longboat. Now, in Mrs. Cobb’s book, we have evidence that, thirty-two years later in 1850, steamers plied between Hallowell and Waterville. They passed around the Augusta dam and rapids by means of a short canal.

Mrs. Cobb’s account continues: “The morning was pleasant and little James was delighted in passing new-mown fields and in beholding the rich display of corn and grain which adorned the banks of the Kennebec. In Waterville we visited the spot where Jimmy’s father and I first commenced housekeeping, the very house first built for the family. We visited the graves of loved ones buried in Waterville. We called on those who had heard Mr. Cobb preach thirty years earlier. Mr. and Mrs. Morrill, with whom Mr. Cobb had made his home in Waterville before our marriage, entertained us royally, and James became greatly attached to Grandpa Morrill. ”

That Grandpa Morrill was Waterville’s prominent citizen, Jediah Morrill, about whom I talked at length on this program two years ago. One of the original incorporators of the Androscoggin and Kennebec Railroad, a dealer in lumber and timber lands, he was a staunch Universalist and was the principal layman who helped the Rev. Sylvanus Cobb found the Waterville Universalist Church, and he made the largest contribution toward the building of the Universalist Meeting House in 1832.

Because of my interest in local history, all sorts of items find their way into my hands. A few months ago I mentioned the wedding announcement of Professor Julian Taylor and Mrs. Mary Keely Boutelle. Another such paper has recently come to light. It reads: “Mrs. H.P. Elden requests the honor of your presence at the marriage of her daughter, Mary Philbrick, to Mr. ShailerMathews, Wednesday evening, July 16, 1890, at eight o’clock, in the Congregational Church, Waterville, Maine.”

That young man who married the Philbrick girl on that July evening in 1890 became one of the most distinguished graduates of Colby College. Getting his Colby degree in 1884, he went to Newton Theological School and secured his B.D. in 1887. He returned to Colby, where he taught history and political science until 1894, taking a year’s leave in 1890-91 to study at the University of Berlin. In 1940 he was called by President Harper to the new University of Chicago as a professor in the divinity school. For 35 years he was dean of that school and head of the famous University of Chicago Chapel. He was president of the Northern Baptist Convention and of the Federal Council of Churches. He edited the “Biblical World” and wrote more than twenty books.

Many Waterville people knew Dr. Mathews well, not only because of his local relatives, but also because he was a frequent and popular speaker at Colby commencements and other college events.

One local subject worthy of repeated attention is the oldest structure in this area, the one remaining blockhouse of old Fort Halifax, built in 1754. The man who was said to know most about the old fort, when certain measures were taken for its preservation 75 years ago, was Rev. Timothy Paine of Elmwood, Massachusetts, a member of Winslow’s prominent Paine family. In 1852 it was Timothy Paine who made excavations in the area and discovered the remains of oak posts that once formed the stockade. At that time the foundations of another blockhouse were plainly visible at the south end of what was then the platform of Edward Ware’s lumber mill. Later that blockhouse was taken down piece by piece by Benjamin Pettis, and was set up on the Kennebec River bank a mile and a half downstream, and was used as a barn. In 1890 Simeon Keith, an elderly resident of Winslow, recalled how he used to play in the old blockhouse as a boy. After Ben Pettis died, the removed blockhouse crumbled into decay, and no one seemed to care.

After the first stockade and the two blockhouses were built, it was immediately discovered that guns placed on the height known as Fort Hill would effectively cover the point. So another stockade with two blockhouses was built in the area where the Winslow soldiers’ monument now. stands. When Timothy Paine visited Winslow in 1892, he was able to point out clearly the location of those hilltop blockhouses. Because the records never mentioned any powder magazine at Fort Halifax. Mr. Paine was puzzled as to how the powder was kept. In 1852, when he discovered the buried posts, he talked with a ninety-year old lady who remembered the blockhouses and stockade on the top of the hill, as well as those on the river bank. The old lady said she had heard her grandfather say the powder was kept in a hole dug in the middle of the stockade. That was why no magazine building was mentioned. The well from which the occupants of Fort Halifax obtained water was made of large bricks in such shape as to form a circle, and for that reason had the popular name of “moon bricks”. They were burned in a kiln at Augusta and brought up the river by boat.

Timothy Paine’s visit to Winslow in 1892, when he was 78 years old, but was said to look like a man of 50, was recorded in a full-column story in the Kennebec Journal, and it is from that story that I have drawn the facts about Fort Halifax that I have just related.

We should all be proud of the splendid work done during the past two years by the new Vassalboro Historical Society. A visit to their museum at North Vassalboro is well worth while.

It is interesting to note that the first settlement in Vassalboro was made, not within what is now the area of that town, but across the river in what is now Sidney. In 1763 the Proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase made a grant of land to John Marsh, who became the grant’s first settler, followed soon afterwards by Abial Lovejoy, Levi Powers and Thomas Clark. John Getchell was the first settler on the east side of the river at Getchell’s Corner and there he kept the first store.

Vassalboro was incorporated in 1771 and rapidly increased in population until, next to Hallowell, it was the most populous town on the Kennebec. Vassalboro was named for Florentius Vassall, descendent of William Vassall, who had come to Massachusetts in 1630. Florentius was born in Massachusetts and became one of the purchasers of the Kennebec lands from the heirs of the four men who had bought them from the Plymouth Colony in 1661.Vassall never saw his Maine lands. He died in England in 1778, and his Kennebec property passed into other hands.

Year: 1964