Radio Script #651

Little Talks on Common Things

April 25, 1965

Because of my interest in Central Maine history, I have correspondence with many persons allover the country. This correspondence is increased by letters from persons who have written me about Colby College since the publication of my History of Colby in 1963.

Recently I received a letter from an officer of Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., asking if I could give him any information about a man who attended Waterville College in 1830. Now that was 135 years ago, and references to individual students are very scanty in the early college records.

As often happens in these cases, the Schenectady man was able to help me much more than I could help him. He has now sent me very interesting extracts from a diary kept by Jonathan Pearson, when he was a freshman at Waterville College in the fall of 1830. Those diary entries, made when the college had been in operation for only twelve years, give us a fascinating picture of what both the college and the village of Waterville were like at that time.

That autumn of 1830, when Jonathan Pearson entered the college, the freshmen exceeded all the other students in number. The college catalog for 1830-31 shows that there were nine seniors, six juniors and five sophomores, a total of only twenty in all three upper classes. The freshmen numbered twenty-three. Those catalog figures are confirmed exactly by Jonathan Pearson’s diary, for on September 20, 1830 he wrote: “The freshman class is as large as all the other classes in college put together.”  Then he follows with the figures just as they are given in the catalog.

When we consider that in 1965 Colby has nearly 1,400 students, it is hard to realize that 135 years ago there were only 43 students in the entire college. Of course these 43 all were men, because women were not admitted until more than 40 years later in 1871.

Pearson tells us that on September 21st, 1830 he was examined by Tutors Paine and Chaplin; that he passed without difficulty and was duly admitted as a freshman. Pearson did not reside at once in one of the college dormitories, two of which were occupied in 1830 — South College and North College. He wrote that he had a temporary room at Mr. Shepard’s. The college had established a dining commons and put it in charge of the very Mr. Shepard in whose residence Pearson had a room. So Pearson recorded that he had his meals at the commons for seven shillings a week.

When the commons had first been opened, Shepard agreed that board would not exceed one dollar (six shillings) a week, but evidently by 1830 it had become necessary to raise the rate to seven shillings a week, or $1.17.

In 1830 the entire faculty consisted of five persons: the president, Jeremiah Chaplin, who taught sacred theology and moral philosophy; Thomas Jefferson Conant, who held the classes in Latin and Greek; George Washington Keely, the professor of mathematics and natural philosophy; and two tutors. I have always thought it of peculiar interest that two of those three early teachers at Colby were named for American presidents, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

One of the two tutors was Henry Warren Paine, who had just graduated from the  college a few months earlier, in the Class of 1830. In his senior year, 1829-30, he had served as principal of the academy, which had been established to act as a feeder to the college itself. It would be several years before that academy would have anyone in charge of it older or more experienced than a college senior. The academy was, of course, the school that later became Coburn. Henry W. Paine served as a college tutor for just one year when Jonathan Pearson was a freshman. Paine later studied law, served as a Colby trustee, and on the Board of Overseers of Harvard. For 15 years he was on the staff of the Boston UniverSity Law School.

The other tutor in 1830 was John O’Brien Chaplin, son of the President. In 1832 he was promoted to a professorship in the college. Earlier he had presided over the preparatory department, which in 1829 became the academy. When his father resigned as president in 1833, John Chaplin also left the institution, and took a position at Columbian College,which the Baptists had established in the national capital.

Pearson’s diary gives us an interesting glimpse of President Chaplin. “The president”, wrote Pearson, “goes dressed in old-fashioned clothes. regarding nothing but comfort. He looks laughable when he gets into his surtout up to his ears, but this is of no weight since he is of sound understanding and solid sense.”

As I have previously pointed out on this program, all such American institutions as the college in Waterville were uniformly referred to in the plural. Even of Harvard, people spoke of the colleges. That practice derived from the English system of separate buildings housing separate colleges, as at Oxford and Cambridge. So, because Waterville College had two buildings, they were called the colleges. That explains the following section of the Pearson diary: “The colleges are situated about half a mile from the village on the same bank of the river, and consist of two buildings of four stories each. There is a fine yard around them with gravel walks. ”

Pearson was not prepared for some things he encountered: “I find the rooms in the colleges are rented to students for six dollars a year. The rooms are entirely furnished by the students who occupy them. I did not know about this and came wholly unprepared. I find the students generally use straw beds instead of feathers, so a bed will not be very expensive. I have a room temporarily at Mr. ShepardIs, but shall soon move into South College. It is not a very good room, but I must be content with what I can get. The seniors have preference, and so on down in regular gradations to the poor freshmen, who bring up the fag end.”

The Pearson diary tells us more about President Chaplin: “The President is a perfect likeness of old Squire Vaughn of Pembroke. From his looks one would hardly take him for a college president, but I suspect he has a great store of knowledge. I also find Professor Conant to be a fine man. The President himself reads a chapter from the Bible in daily chapel and makes the prayers. Someone being a little vexed with the faculty hid the President’s Bible the other day, but it was soon returned. A mean trick, I think.”

Pearson complains about how hard the faculty worked him — the common complaint of students for centuries: “I have to study very hard and then do not get my lessons as I wish to get them. I can~ot stand it to study too long. We had an awful, horrible, abominable hard lesson today.”

The Pearson diary reveals a library practice of which I was not aware. No reference to it appears in other early writings by the college students. It seems that different days were assigned to different classes to take books from the college library. Pearson wrote: “There is an extensive library belonging to the college, of which students have a use. I took two books yesterday, which was the freshman day. One may take out three books at a time for three weeks. There is also a reading room where useful newspapers and other periodicals are kept.”

Then Pearson records a case of discipline that upset the campus: “Gow of Hallowell has been expelled. He was charged with breaking the door of one of the garrets and of throwing a ball at an officer of the college with the intention of hitting him, and of speaking a ludicrous piece insulting to a college officer.”

Students petitioned for mitigation of Gow’s sentence, but the President stood firm. Now let us see what the Pearson diary can tell us about Waterville 135 years ago. This is the description by that freshman, who had come to the college on the Kennebec from his home in Chichester, N.H., after preparing at the New Hampton School.

“Waterville is a small village, containing about 800 inhabitants. It is built on a straight street and has a fine, large, new Baptist Church and another owned by the town where also the town meetings are held. There is also a brick academy. The people are friendly to the students which is very pleasant, if one expects to spend his four college years in comfort and peace.”

Then Pearson makes a surprising statement: “Inhabitants of the village are chiefly the Baptists, because they built the first church; probably they predominated in numbers. But I do know that many Baptist members lived on the outlying farms. Apparently many people who lived in the village, then usually called Ticonic Village, were, like Nehemiah Getchell and Simeon Mathews, strong Universalists.”

When Pearson wrote that Waterville was built on one straight street, that was not quite accurate, though more nearly so than we would think today. In 1830 Main Street extended north from Post Office Square just as it does now, though that part of the street beyond the square was then called the road to Fairfield Meeting House. On the site of the present Elmwood Hotel was a farm house, and everything north of that, on either Main or College Street was farm or woodland. The settled part of Main Street began at the square and extended south. In fact all buildings between the square and Appleton Street were dwelling houses, and there was only an occasional shop until one got to Temple Street. In fact, in 1830, most of the business places were between the Common and the present site of the Hathaway shirt factory.

That indeed was Waterville when Jonathan Pearson was a freshman in 1830.

Year: 1965