Radio Script #808

Little Talks on Common Things
May 25, 1969

Everyone who ever went to high school and had even the briefest introduction to American Literature has heard of Longfellow’s “Moritur; Salutamus”, the poem he delivered on the occasion of the fiftieth reunion of his class at Bowdoin College. I was therefore interested to find in an old scrapbook that I was privileged to examine that entire. long poem published in the Portland Argus only three days after its delivery by Longfellow on July 7. 1875.

Now “Moritur; Salutamus” are two Latin words that mean “we who are about to die, salute you”. It was the ancient cry of the gladiators in the Roman arena, in salute to the Emperor. What people who have never read the poem, but have only heard of it, think that Longfellow said on that occasion was that he and his classmates, who had received their Bowdoin degrees fifty years earlier, were now useless in their dotage. and if not dying. were at least fading away! So let me quote the last stanza of that poem, to show just what the poet did say about old people:

“What then? Shall we sit idly down and say
The night has come; it is no longer day?
The night has not yet come; we are not quite
Cut off from labor by the failing light;
Something remains for us to do or dare;
Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear;
Not deeds of Oedipus or some Greek ode.
Or tales of pilgrims that one morning rode
Out the gateway of the Tabard Inn,
But other something, would we but begin;
For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress;
And as evening twilight fades away.
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.”

So indeed Longfellow’s words. spoken at Bowdoin 94 years ago are comforting.to some of us oldsters just crawling around these days. Perhaps we are still of some use after all.

What and where were Maine’s earliest newspapers? A brief and. by no means complete investigation that I have recently made reveals the following information. The first printing office in Maine was set up in Falmouth (now Portland) in 1784. It was started as a job printing plant by Thomas Wait. who had come to Portland after experience in an older plant in Boston, publishing a paper called the Chronicle. One year after starting the job plant. Wait took as a partner Benjamin Titcomb. and together they established the Falmouth Gazette. the first newspaper published in Maine. That is a date to keep in mind. In 1785. ten years after the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord that started the Revolution, Maine’s first newspaper came from the press.

It is my privilege to own a facsimile copy of that first paper, the contents of which I long ago discussed on this program. The first press set up in Maine was probably the kind in use for a century and a half. Called the Blaeurn Press. after its Amsterdam inventor in 1620 (the very year that the Pilgrims landed in New England). it was made entirely of wood except for the screw. Its speed was only four or five hundred copies a day by very hard manual labor. There was no external power of any kind. The press was operated entirely by hand.

In 1785 there were no mail coaches in Maine. The Falmouth Gazette was carried to its out-of-town subscribers on horseback. At that time there were only three post offices in the entire District of Maine: Kennebunk, Falmouth and Georgetown. Mail from Boston reached Portland once a week. but only when traveling permitted. Indeed it was so slow that many correspondents preferred to send their letters by the coastline sailing ships.

When Titcomb left the Gazette in 1786, Wait changed the name to the Eastern Herald. Four years later Titcomb started a rival paper, the Gazette of Maine. To meet that competition. Wait started a weekly wagon route to the eastward in 1793 carrying his paper as far as Hallowell, and intervening stops. Because he made his vehicle available also to passengers, Wait is given credit for starting the first stage line east of Portland, although his rude cart was hardly a stage coach.

Maine’s third newspaper was established at Hallowell in 1794 by Howard Robinson and was called the Eastern Star. At that time there was a lot of rivalry between the Hook and the Fort. The Hook was the village of Hallowell; the Fort was Augusta. Augusta people saw to it that a paper was set up at the Fort within a year of Robinson’s establishment of the Eastern Star at the Hook.

Peter Edes. son of the publisher of the Boston Gazette, in whose printing office was probably organized the notorious Boston Tea Party. had been induced to come to Augusta in 1795. and there set up Maine’s fourth newspaper, the Kennebec Intell;gencer.

Three more papers came on the Maine scene before the dawn of the 19th century: the Western Telegraph at Wiscasset in 1796; the Castine Journal in 1798; and the North Star at Fryeburg in the same year. Thus during the last decade of the 18th century there were established in Maine a total of seven newspapers.

Nathaniel Willis. who would later be Portland’s historian, started a third paper there in 1803. and two years later papers were launched at Kennebunk and at Saco. Saying that he would starve to death if he stayed in Augusta, where his paper received poor support. Peter Edes moved to Bangor in 1815. where he set up the first newspaper in Penobscot County, the Eastern Register. It took him three weeks to transport his press and type by ox team to Bangor.

In that same year, 1815, printing reached the eastern coast of Maine, with a paper at Eastport. After that the proliferation of Maine newspapers came rapidly. By 1820 there were presses in Bath and Belfast; soon afterwards in Alfred, Paris, Norridgewock and Machias; and by 1826 in Thomaston and Norway.

Maine’s first daily newspaper appeared in Portland in 1829. Started by Seba Smith, a man who gained some fame as the Mr. Dooley of his time, Smith called his paper the Daily Currier. All that time, since 1784, Maine presses had been made of wood. The first iron press appeared in Waterville in 1835, and a year earlier the Portland Advertiser had installed Maine’s first power press. Soon few presses would anywhere be operated by hand.

The second daily paper in Maine was the Bangor Whig and Currier in 1834, and the next year the Portland Argus, hitherto issued weekly, became a daily. The Kennebec Journal, that had been started as a weekly in 1825, put in a power press in 1836.

Book printing first appeared in Maine at Brunswick in 1819, but it was Hallowell that achieved greatest fame in that field. In the collection of old school books at the Waterville Historical Society are readers, spellers and arithmetics printed by four different Hallowell firms in the first third of the 19th century. D.L. Sanborn of Portland was known in 1840 as Maine’s leading publisher of Bibles.

The early water-power presses were soon followed by steam power, first used by the Augusta Age in 1849. In the midst of the Civil War, in 1864, the Maine Farmer put in the state’s first folding machine.

I realize that I have probably omitted other important facts and other places about Maine’s early printing establishments, but this is what I was able to pick up in a rather hasty investigation.

Now let us take a look at Maine transportation 84 years ago in 1885. The Maine Central was operating four trains a day in each direction between Portland and Bangor. On the steamship lines between Portland and Boston the fare was one dollar. One ad said: “The elegant new steamer Tremont and the favorite John Brooks will leave Franklin Wharf. Portland. every morning at 9 and every evening at 8. Returning. leave India Wharf. Boston, at 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. The day passage gives an opportunity for a splendid ocean trip and a view of the charming ocean scenery_ Staterooms may be secured in advance.”

The most famous skipper who ever commanded Kennebec steamers was at his height in 1885. He was Captain James Collins. the indefatigable fighter who finally drove the boats of the multimillionaire Commodore Vanderbilt from the Kennebec. Collins’ 1885 ad said: “The Star of the East. Capt. James Collins, will run her regular trips this season between Gardiner and Boston. Leave Gardiner Monday and Thursday at 2:30 p.m. Returning, leave Lincoln Wharf, Boston, Tuesday and Friday at 8 p.m. Fares: from Augusta, Hallowell and Gardiner $1.75; from Bath $1.50. Return trip to A. H & G $3.00.

In our part of Maine a prosperous stage li ne in 1885 was trying to compete wi th the railroad to provide passengers for Capt. Collins’ boat out of Gardiner. If a passenger boarded a train at Waterville, bound for Boston, and wanted to take part of the journey by boat, he was more likely to stay on the train all the way to Portland and take the steamer there for Boston, rather than get off at Gardiner and take the longer water journey on the Collins Boat. So Captain Collins made arrangements with A.S. Pease of Fairfield to operate a stage from that town, through Waterville to Gardiner, and by that method the passenger could go from Fairfield or Waterville to Boston for $2.50, or make the round trip for $4.50. Pease also agreed that express picked up by his stage from Collins’ incoming boats would be delivered in Waterville or Fairfield the next morning.

Several times on this program I have talked about some vessel built on the Kennebec above Augusta during the first half of the 19th century. but I don’t recall that I have ever told you how many such vessels there were. During the years from 1800 to 1853 schooners, brigs, full sailing ships, and even steamers were built at four places on the Kennebec above Augusta. Those four places were Vassalboro, Sidney, Winslow and Waterville.

The first such vessel of which we have record was the schooner Sally. built by John Getchell near Fort Halifax in Winslow in 1794. During the next half century there would be several Kennebec vessels named Ticonic. but the first to carry that name was John Clarke’s.Ticonic,built also at Winslow in 1800.

It has been often assumed that the largest number of all kinds of ships built at the four places were launched at Waterville, but such is not the case. It was not Waterville. but Vassalboro. that led in Kennebec shipbuilding above Augusta.

During the half century 29 boats hit the water at Vassalboro. while the best Waterville could do was 23. Winslow’s total was five. and Sidney produced four. The total for the four towns was 61. The only one of the four towns in which steamers were built was Waterville, where William Moor. William Getchell and Peletiah Gove launched six steam-propelled vessels between 1842 and 1853.

And with that salute to one of this area’s liveliest industries 150 years ago, we must say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1969