Radio Script #653

Little Talks on Common Things

May 9, 1965

During the 163 years that Waterville has been an incorporated community it has had a number of banking institutions. One such was the Waterville Loan, Trust and Safe Deposit Co., founded in 1889. Its original incorporators were W.I. Snell, L.H. Soper. Dr. F.C. Thayer, William T. Haines, A.L. Moore, C.C. Burrill and John A. Woodsum. The capital stock was $50,000. divided into hundred dollar shares.

To get the bank started aid was secured from the Winton Deposit Vault Co. of Boston, which took 250 shares. Other original stockholders included George Alden with 25 shares. Mark Gallert with 10, the same number taken also by W.A.R. Boothby, and Dr. Thayer. L.H. Soper subscribed for seven shares. Horace Purinton for three, William T. Haines for five. and Everett R. Drummond for one.

When the certificate of organization was drawn up on March 29, 1892, only 353 shares of stock had been sold. Still to be floated were 147 shares. The bank’s first officers were Dr. F.C. Thayer, President and C.G. Carleton, Treasurer. The directors were, besides Thayer and Carleton. W.A.R. Boothby, Mark Gallert, Horace Purinton, David Gallert, P.S. Heald and E.A. Milliken.

For their headquarters the bank leased what the document described as “the two west stores of the Masonic BUilding on Common Street” for the term of twenty years to July 1, 1912. The bank agreed to take over the stores just as they were, and put in their own furnishings, and install the necessary vaults. As rent the bank agreed to pay $500 a year for the first two years, $600 for the next four years, $700 for the next six, and $800 for the last eight years. The lease was signed for the Masonic Building Co. by I.S. Bangs, its president, and for the bank by Dr. Thayer.

In 1894 the long-winded name of the Waterville Loan, Trust and Safe Deposit Co. was changed to the simple title, the Waterville Trust Co. Gradually a prominent resident of Fairfield was buying stock in the bank. By 1900 E.J. Laurence owned more than fifty shares, and had installed as Treasurer a man who had long assisted Laurence in his extensive business affairs. So it came about that Harry Holmes would be the most prominent person in the Waterville Trust Co.

In 1908 William Preble, the Waterville photographer, placed for safekeeping in the Trust Company a promissory note dated November 11, 1907 for $2,200, issued to Preble by Horace Purinton and Company.

Two years later, in the summer of 1910, Preble was in San Diego, California, whence he wrote to Holmes that he had received a check from Horace Purinton in full payment of principal and interest and that Holmes should at once turn over the cancelled note to Purinton. A month later Holmes notified Preble at the other side of the continent that Holmes had duly delivered the note to Purinton. Then Holmes added some information about the bank’s affairs. He wrote: “Regarding bank matters, I will state that we are getting along very well, although it seems sometimes as if things come a little slow. We hope within a few months to be able to pay a second dividend of 25%, and then a third will close up the matter. We do not feel that in the end we shall come out much different than we anticipated.”

That letter to Preble shows that the bank was already considering some change. It would be several years before the change would occur and what is now a very strong Maine bank, the Federal Trust Company, would be created. One of the bank’s financial interests was the Maine Condensed Milk Company. Besides a plant here, it had factories at Winthrop and at Newport. What happened to that company is just what happened to many small processors. It was absorbed by a fast growing national organization, the Borden Condensed Milk Company. That was before the Borden people began to advertise their contented cows, but they were already big enough to start picking up the small processors of condensed milk. So on January 23, 1902 the Waterville Trust Co. noted that it had received 26,546 shares of the stock of the Maine Condensed Milk Co., to be held until demanded for delivery to the Borden Company. It was provided, however, that Borden would wait at least twelve months before claiming the stock, and that meanwhile all dividends should be paid to the prior stockholders.

It is really not so many years ago, in terms of old times, that the Waterville Trust Co. flourished, and I’m sure a number of people in this vicinity have vivid recollections of that old bank of which the revered Dr. F.C. Thayer was the first president.

Two years ago on this program I told about finding in old storage space at City Hall the original receipts signed by Waterville inhabitants for their share of the surplus federal revenue distributed in 1837. In these times when the national debt runs into hundreds of billions, it is interesting to be reminded that 128 years ago the national treasury contained so much surplus money that the government did not know how to spend it. So about 50 million dollars was distributed to the states, which were then 26 in number. Maine’s share was almost a million distributed to the towns in proportion to population. The towns, after at first finding other uses for the money, were finally unanimous in distributing it in equal amounts to every person in the town over four years of age. At the time of a special census taken in May, 1837, the money was actually paid to heads of households who collected for all persons living under his care. That included not only wife and children, but also indentured servants.

One thing I did not say in the previous broadcast was that the money was paid in cash, two dollars for each person. So a householder who had ten dependents received $22 in cash. And cash did not mean paper money. That kind of money, all in the form of notes issued by individual banks, was in 1837 highly suspect and sometimes subject to considerable discount by merchants. A man might present a five dollar bill in payment for goods, only to be told that it was worth only $4.50.

So the only money people considered safe was specie — that is, gold and silver coins.

That the state authorities well understood the monetary situation is shown in a letter written from Augusta to the selectmen of Dennysville on April 3, 1837. The letter said: “Having made necessary inquiry, I am authorized to say you may receive your proportion of the surplus revenue by a draft on Portland or Bangor after voting in regular town meeting to receive the money, and choosing an agent, which votes must be certified by the town clerk. To procure the drafts two votes must be certified by the town clerk and two receipts signed by the agent and sent by mail to Asa Redington, Jr. Treasurer of the State at Augusta, with directions to send you drafts on whichever place may be most convenient for you or your agent, by bringing the certified votes. may obtain gold and silver at the Treasury Office in Augusta. Two installments are now due.”

I suspect many a town agent went to the trouble of going to Augusta for the money because the financial situation in the summer of 1837 had become so bad that many a bank, when called upon with a draft, had no gold and silver coins to meet it.

That letter to the Dennysville selectmen is now in the office of the Secretary of State at Augusta and is the sort of paper that, in very large numbers, will be an important part of the proposed State Archives. as soon as our legislature has authorized that Bureau to be established. At the end of the letter the writer added an amazingly interesting statement that has nothing to do with the surplus revenue, but casts surprising light on transportation in Maine 128 years ago. This is what the letter said: “I shall return by way of Boston. The books and other articles belonging to your town will be sent by water via Boston as soon as the Kennebec is free of ice.”

Is it possible that in 1837 there was no regular shipping from the Kennebec River ports to places on the Maine coast east of Penobscot Bay? That is what the letter certainly seems to say. In order to get a package by water route from Augusta to Dennysville it had to go by boat from Augusta to Boston and taken from Boston to Dennysville. That is as bad as the present absurd practice of having for sale in some of our food stores fish caught on the Maine coast, then eventually reaching the stores through Boston.

In 1850 controversy arose in Waterville over the sites of new schoolhouses.

At that time schools were controlled by individual districts within each town. Waterville’s largest district was No.1, including the most settled part of the town, Ticonic Village.

As early as 1848 the district voted to build, in addition to its existing school building on the Common, another schoolhouse in the north part of the district. That eventually turned out to be the first schoolhouse built on the corner of Pleasant and North Streets, where 25 years later was erected the North Grammar School. But it was some time before the district voters could agree on that site.

In 1849 they appointed James Hanson and Samuel Redington to recommend any buildings or rooms necessary for the use of schools and report at an adjourned meeting the same evening. The district agent was then authorized to procure by loan, for the time being, such accommodations for schools as might be necessary, “provided the said system of schools shall not make provision of the dead or foreign languages.”

After a vote in 1850 authorized the building of a two story schoolhouse at a cost of not more than $1,800, the question was where should it be built. A week later a committee reported that they had examined five prospective locations for the school: a lot on Elm Street for $210; a lot on Front Street for $450; another on Church Street (now Park Street) for $300; another on Elm Street, adjoining the Academy lot for $250 and a fifth on Pleasant Street for $600. The committee recommended the lot on Front Street.

The voters refused to accept the report or come to any decision about building. The matter dragged on amid bitter controversy until 1853, when it was decided to build on the corner of Pleasant and North Streets.

Year: 1965