Radio Script #746

Little Talks on Common Things

December 10, 1967

We have all heard many times about the formal, stilted letters that were written between members of families a century or more ago, especially letters written between two generations. I was delighted, therefore, to run across a very informal letter written by a Vassalboro man to his young grandson in 1860. The grandfather was George Files, husband of Helen Smiley, and the grandson was Joseph White.

The letter written from North Vassalboro on January 24, 1860 said: “Dear Little Joseph — I thought you might want to hear from your grandfather so I take this opportunity to write a few lines directly to you, not through your mother. I have been over to Waterville today with Old Charley. I hauled over some pressed hay, met lots of teams, and had to stand in the road a long time because a man was stuck in the snow with a load of wood, though he had three horses. I saw a little boy badly hurt by trying to cross the street in front of a team. He cried dreadful loud. I guess his mother heard him, for she came to the door and took him in. I saw a very high meat cart with a cow’s head painted on it. I met a man hauling a great live pig in a box, and I saw men cutting ice to pack away in sawdust, to put in their drinks next summer.

“I wish you were here to help me tend the pigs. I have three all white and just of a size. If you were here to help me mix the Daisy Flour and milk for them, would they not grow? They have a bed of straw to sleep on and they cover themselves up in it. I can’t see them at all sometimes, but when they hear me put the milk in the trough, they come rattling out and go to eating as fast as they can.

“Grandmother and Aunt Alice have got so they can eat beefsteaks and are improving fast. Alice swept the carpet while I was gone to Waterville, though I cautioned her not to. She said it did not hurt her.

“I went down to the grist mill and got some corn and oats ground. Turner Ann got her chain unhooked the other night, and I found her helping herself to hay. Tell your papa you mean to be a great and good man. — From your grandpa to his little pet.”

In these days when most people take religion casually and when many find it hard to say exactly what they believe, it is impressive to note how very deeply concerned some of our ancestors were about spiritual things a century and a half ago.

In a time when the Puritan faith still prevailed in New England. when it affected alike the Congregationalists, the Baptists, the Methodists and the Presbyterians, religious conversion was a very real thing. No matter how innocent or right living a child might be, unless that child showed outward, emotional sign of conversion, there was no chance of its ever reaching Heaven.

Such family concern is shown by a letter that a mother in Newcastle, Maine wrote in 1843 to her daughter in Kennebunk. The mother came by her religious zeal naturally, for she was Hannah Case Harley, daughter of Maine’s colporteur Baptist missionary, Isaac Case. So this is what Hannah Harley in Newcastle wrote to her daughter Amanda, who seemed as far away from home, though only in Kennebunk, as a relative in California now seems to us: “My dearly beloved child — Your letter and paper came to hand yesterday. I thank you for the interesting papers you have sent me this winter and for the kind feeling you express for us. You have, through the goodness of God, been preserved from sickness and death, while our neighbors have been visited with both. Ralph and Samuel have experienced religion, and we are a very happy family. I have not written to you as often as formerly, but I have not been unmindful of you. I pray to God often that you may leave your wicked ways. If you will be good, dear Amanda, you will be happy. I feel in doubt how it will turn out with you, and I yearn for your conversion more than anything else. Amanda, you cannot know the anxiety I feel for your precious soul. Your soul must one day dwell with God in Heaven or with the devils in Hell. Unless you are converted and born again, you are headed down to the pit of darkness. Your uncle, Ambrose Case, was a very wicked man. Now God has converted him, and he says he never knew us before, though he has seen your father and me all his life. Ralph was dreadfully stubborn about religion, but God has bowed him down. HR and SHm Hrp right now HWHY attending protracted meeting. I beg you, dear Amanda, to write me soon. Mother.”

Now before you either scoff at or criticize that admittedly gloomy letter, just ask yourself what in life is your own greatest concern. It might be well, if in this pleasure-loving, money-mad age, we had some of our great-grandparents’ concern for spiritual things. For with all their sometimes gloomy forebodings, they had a persistent faith that “through change and decay in all around I see, 0 thou who changest not, abide with me”.

Here is another letter that passed in the same family 32 years later in 1875. This time it was Hannah Case Harley who was the recipient, and the letter came from her granddaughter Julia, who had just enrolled as a student in the new normal school at Farmington, Maine. This is what Julia wrote to Grandma down in Newcastle: “Farmington, Feb. 11, 1875. My dearest Grandma — As I have opportunity and as I promised to write to you, I will now fulfill that promise. I like Farmington very much. It is quite a lively place. I should think it would be lonely in the summer, but now the snow is three feet or more. Although it is good training, as I knew it would be, the school is very large 125 students, of whom 90 are girls. The family I board with live quite a distance from the Normal. I should have written before, but I don’t like to write as many others do. To me it is a task rather than a pleasure. I do not forget my religious obligations, but I cannot agree with those who say this life is all a mistake and only the next life is important. Yet I want you to remember me at the Throne of Grace. My love to all the family. Julia.”

At least one member of the Isaac Case family had made a step toward more liberal and more cheerful beliefs in the 32 years that had passed since Hannah Harley was so concerned for her daughter in 1843. But note that even in 1875, Hannah’s granddaughter up there in what she called “lively” Farmington still felt that faith in spiritual reality was very important. I wonder if many of us think so today, and I also wonder whether the world wouldn’t be rather better if we did.

Among the many papers in the Isaac Case collection at Colby College is one that reveals how clergymen got authority to perform marriages in Maine in the very first year of statehood. On February 10, 1821 Governor William King authorized the Rev. Isaac Case to perform marriages anywhere within the boundaries of the new State of Maine.

In the early part of the nineteenth century, when wandering missionaries zealously traveled allover Maine, making converts and founding churches, there were sometimes charlatans who passed themselves off for regular ministers. So the genuine preachers were careful to carry documents testifying to their authority.

One such was issued by the Baptist Church in Lincolnville, Maine on August 8, 1819. It said: “This is to certify that Brother Allen Files of Gorham, County of Cumberland, was publicly ordained on April 21, 1819 to preach the gospel and administer the ordinances wherever God in his Providence may call him. For the Lincolnville Baptist Church — Moses McFarland, John Lamb, Thomas McKinney, deacons.”

Well, that is enough about religious subjects for one broadcast. Let us now turn to some information about Waterville. Today when we have three strong banks and three sound building and loan associations, it is interesting to see what a special edition of the Waterville Mail, published as a Christmas issue in 1896, gave as an historical sketch of banking in Waterville. TheMail said: “Banking began here in 1814 when the Waterville Bank was organized with a capital of $50,000. It closed in 1831, when the Ticonic Bank was organized with a capital of $100,000. The Ticonic’s first president was Timothy Boutelle, Waterville’s early prominent attorney and financier.”

The Mail’s story continued: “In 1865 the Ticonic became a national bank. A.A. Plaisted was cashier from 1872 to 1895. The present officers (1896) are C.K. Mathews, president; A.H. Plaisted, cashier; G.K. Boutelle, viCe president. The Second Waterville Bank was chartered in 1851, but closed in 1865, when the Waterville National took over its affairs.

“The People’s Bank was organized in 1855, and changed to the People’s National with the National Banking Act of Congress in 1865. Its capital was $200,000. Its present officers are J.W. Philbrick, Pres.; J.F. PerCival, Cashier. The Merchants National Bank was started in Waterville in 1865, with John Ware as president. He was succeeded by his son John, one of the wealthiest men in our county and a director of the Maine Central R.R. H.D. Bates is now cashier of the Merchants Bank.

“The Waterville Savings Bank was organized in 1869. It has since seen only one disastrous period. Following the national panic in the early 1870’s, the bank examiners reported in 1876 that the Waterville Savings Bank’s deposits of $427,000 were met by assets of only $396,000. However, with only one day’s suspension, the bank resumed business and has continued ever since. Reuben Foster is president and E. R. Drummond, treasurer.”

The account ended with glowing reference to another Waterville Bank that would have a life of only about 20 years, but in 1896 apparently the Waterville Mail thought well of it. The paper said: “The most wonderful strides ever made in banking in this City have been seen in the rapid advancement of the Waterville Trust and Safe Deposit Co., incorporated in 1892. Although it opened just before one of the darkest periods of finance this country has ever known, it has been successful from the start. I.C. Libby is president, Dr. F.C. Thayer, Horace Purinton, William T. Haines and Col. W.A.R. Boothby are directors.”

More than seventy years have gone by since the Waterville Mail published that account of local banks. Now in 1967 all of them are gone except one, and that one is far more prosperous and even more highly esteemed than it was in 1896. While the other banks of that year have disappeared, the Waterville Savings Bank lives on, its name unchanged through all the years since its founding nearly a hundred years ago. For in just two more years, in 1969, the Waterville Savings Bank will celebrate its one hundredth anniversary.

Year: 1967