Radio Script #669

Little Talks on Common Things

December 5, 1965

The many references I have from time to time made on this program to Colby Commencements have come almost entirely from local sources, the Waterville Sentinel or the Waterville Mail, and sometimes from Colby publications and letters of Colby graduates.

I was therefore delighted when, not long ago, I encountered a full account of the Colby commencement in a metropolitan newspaper, the New York World. How that important paper happened to cover the commencement of what was then a tiny freshwater college up in the wilderness of Maine, we can only guess. It is clear that the reporter was not a graduate of the college, that in fact it was his first visit to Waterville.

The time was 105 years ago. Less than a month before that issue of the New York World came off the press, the national convention of a political party that was only six years old had been held in Chicago, and a tall, lanky Illinois lawyer that Maine folk had never seen had been nominated for presidency of the United States. When the World printed its issue of August 13, 1860, the campaign that would end in the election of Abraham Lincoln was just getting under way.

Colby commencement now comes in June. During the first half century of the college’s existence, commencement was held in August. In 1860 the event covered two days, August 8 and 9.

Now let us sea what the reporter from the big city had to say about festivities at the little college in the remote town of Waterville 105 years ago: “Commencement days in our colleges are proverbially hot, and this occasion at Waterville College is certainly no exception. Extra temperature seems to have been turned on for the purpose of keeping up to fashion. It is cloudy, but close and sultry, and this notwithstanding a sharp thunder storm last night.

“I reached this out-of-the-way village yesterday via the Androscoggin and Kennebec R. R., from its junction with the Grand Trunk, which I took from Portland. I took that route because I am told it is pleasanter than the more direct line through Brunswick and Augusta, the line that is called the Portland & Kennebec.

“When I reached Waterville, I found the place alive with people. Every sort of vehicle is seen on the streets, from an occasional elegant carriage to the frequent one-horse farm wagon or the more comfortable chaise. Commencement in Waterville is the festive occasion of the year. No other occasion, not even a circus, brings so many people into this village.

“I got here just in time for the tea table, having missed the junior and the sophomore oratorical exhibitions. But today I saw the prizes for those contests awarded to four likely looking young gentlemen.”

Then the reporter launches into the first commencement event he was in time to attend. Since almost the beginning of the college there had been two rival literary societies, both older than the Greek letter fraternities. For many years they held separate public meetings at commencement time, each society inviting two prominent public men to address them, one as orator, the other as poet. For instance, one orator in 1841 had been Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Shortly before 1860 the two societies had sensibly got together, and their annual public meeting had become a joint affair. One year one society would furnish the orator, and the other society, the poet. The next year the selections would be reversed. That practice explains the following account by the New York World reporter: “The meeting house of the First Baptist Church was densely crowded last night at the joint anniversary of the Erosophian Adelphi and the Literary Fraternity. After a brief prayer by the Rev. Dr. Shailer of Portland, Dr. J. G. Holland of Springfield, Massachusetts was introduced as the orator. He spoke on ‘Art and Life’. Notwithstanding the somewhat elaborate and obtruse nature of his subject, the orator succeeded in holding the attention of his audience for an hour and 20 minutes. By that time the poet must have thought his cha1ce of having the prolonged good will of the people to be very slight. But the poet, Rev. W. C. Richards of Providence, began with some playful preliminaries in prose. The weary crowd was thus put into a mood to hear him. His theme was ‘Music’, and he discussed it both historically and humorously, keeping the big audience quiet until his close, save when they noisily applauded some of his passages. In closing, Mr. Richards commended congregational Singing and severely rebuked operatic numbers in the church sanctuary. His poem was a model of its kind, and although following a long oration, it was an audience-fastening success.”

The next day the World reporter attended the graduation exercises, about which he had this to say: “The names of eleven young men appeared in connection with themes on the program, which was circulated rather inappropriately during the opening prayer, a time decidedly unfit for such distribution. The speech on ‘Individualism’ was unquestionably the most individual and effective, standing out among those of only average merit in either thought or manner.

“After the speeches of the graduating class, the degrees were conferred. Those degrees, both in course and honorary, were conferred by the President of the College, Rev. James T. Champlin D.O., as follows: “The degree of A.B. upon the graduating class, two of the whole number failing to graduate. The nine who received the degree were Ransom Norton, Almore Kennedy, S. H. Record, J. B. Shaw, J. H. Jackson, G. H. Buzelle, J. F. Elder, L. M. Pierce and W. W. West.

“The honorary degree of Master of Arts was conferred upon N. R. Boutelle of Waterville and J. W. Briggs of Auburndale, Mass.

“The degree of Master of Arts in course went to Charles C. Low.

“An honorary Doctor of Divinity was awarded to Rev. James Upham of Vermont and Rev. L. B. Allen of Burlington College, Iowa.”

Naturally the New York reporter attended the commencement dinner. In his report he called it the ‘Alumnus Dinner’. In later years there would be two such dinners, one for the alumni on Tuesday noon of Commencement Week, and the Commencement Dinner for all who cared to attend on Wednesday noon, following the graduation exercises.

But in 1860 there was only one dinner, that following the graduation. It was held in the town hall that stood near where the Waterville City Hall now stands. Now let us see what the reporter said about that dinner: “The chief feature of the Alumnus Dinner was the speech of Hon. Hannibal Hamlin, the Republican candidate for Vice-President of the U. S. He made a decided hit in a few minutes of playful remarks. There were other speeches of the usual average dullness and duration we have become accustomed to on such occasions. I feel bound to add that President Champlin did not protract the sitting as unwarrantedly as some college presidents do, and the feast was therefore not a surfeit.”

In later years it became customary to open commencement with the President’s Reception.

In 1860 that was the closing event, and the New York World said of it: “Went to the President’s reception, or levee as it is called, at which we saw some of the beauty and more the representative wisdom of Maine. I am now going to sleep, if the heat will permit, prior to tomorrow’s early start for the White Mountains, where all metropolitan readers may well wish they too could go during this wretched heat spell. The Grand Trunk Railway will set me down tomorrow afternoon at the foot of Mount Washington, where happily I shall have no commencement to attend or report.”

It is interesting to note what happened to those nine young men whose names were spread on the pages of a metropolitan newspaper as getting the A. B. degree at Waterville College in 1860.

While many Colby graduates of those times entered the Baptist ministry by way of Newton Theological School, George Buzelle went to Bangor Theological Seminary, became executive secretary of the American Sunday School Union, but soon left religious vocation for business, in which he was the highly successful president of a shipping line.

Joseph Freeman Elder also entered the ministry, by way of Rochester Seminary. He served for twenty years between 1870 and 1890 as pastor of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church in New York, and for two years was president of the New York State Baptist Convention.

John Henry Jackson became a physician, taking his M.D. degree at the Maine Medical School attached to Bowdoin College. He became one of New England’s first specializing neurologists with offices in Boston.

Almore Kennedy served for many years as Judge of Probate in Knox County and was also in both houses of the Maine legislature. From 1862 to 1913 — a period of 49 years he maintained a law office at Waldoboro.

Ransom Norton had a career successively as teacher, lawyer and manufacturer. After presiding over several Maine academies and high schools, he entered the practice of law at Houlton. Like many a man who has gone to Aroostook with other occupation in view, Norton was bitten by the potato bug. From trading in potatoes he turned to starch, bought controlling interest in a starch factory, and at his death at the age of 70 he was regarded as a leading trader and manufacturer in the county.

Levi Merriam Pierce was known for his ability as a musician even in his student days. So no one was surprised when, after half a dozen years of teaching in Massachusetts schools, he went to work for the Arlington Piano Company in Boston, and soon became its president. Selling his Boston interests at a healthy profit in 1875, he went to Springfield, where he established himself as the leading music dealer in the Connecticut Valley.

Stillman Hersey Record became a home missionary also serving the American Sunday School Union in several states.

Jacob Bartlett Shaw, an Albion boy, entered government, but not military, service. Within a year of his Waterville graduation he was a clerk in the Department of the Interior in Washington, transferring later to the Pension Claims Office. In 1867 he became partner in a carriage factory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he remained for 13 years. The last thirty years of his life he spent as a commission merchant in New York.

The ninth man, William Wallace West, was the only member of the class who served in the Civil War, and it is interesting to note that he was also the only Waterville man in the class. Although he had spent one year at the Bowdoin Medical School when war broke out in 1861, he did not finish his medical course, but enlisted as a hospital steward, and after a few weeks was made Assistant Surgeon of the Eighth Maine. Stricken with fever, he was invalided home to Waterville, where he died in February, 1862, a few weeks before his 23rd birthday.

And with those comments on the Colby men whose names made a New York newspaper in 1860, we must say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1965