Radio Script #880

Little Talks on Common Things
February 14, 1971

To many persons it seems unusual to find college students stirred up about political and social matters. Allover the country last year college campuses were disrupted by protests against the war in Vietnam, against segregation, against pollution, for increased civil liberties, for the demands of striking factory workers, and numerous other areas of social and political concern.

Let me assure you that, while such student activity is much greater now than it was years ago, the outbreaks of 1969 and 1970 were not the first to be politically or socially motivated on the campuses.

The first such disturbance at Colby occurred 137 years ago in 1833, and it was so significant that it caused the resignation of the first president, Jeremiah Chaplin. The cause of that disturbance was the rising movement against slavery. In June, 1833 William Lloyd Garrison, the Boston leader of the anti-slavery campaign, spoke in Waterville. He so fired the enthusiasm of the students at Waterville College that they immediately formed a local anti-slavery society. Since this cause was freedom of human beings, what better day to start the organization than the Fourth of July? So on July 4, 1833 there was set up the Waterville College Anti-Slavery Society. In those days college was in session all through the month of July, with Commencement held about the middle of August. The students, willing to celebrate the Fourth of July anyway, found exceptional reason for celebration when they formed the society against slavery. That night they put on a boisterous celebration. Naturally they made a lot of noise, and even at the other end of the campus the President heard the racket. He suspected the celebrants were fortified by New England rum, but even if they were cold sober, he would not stand for such disturbance to the peace and quiet of his sanctified Baptist college.

The next day President Chaplin told the students, assembled in chapel, just what he thought of their conduct. His characterization of young men who would act that way contained such phrases as “drunken hoodlums” and other epithets to which the students took pronounced offense. One contemporary account tells us that the whole student body arose from their chapel seats and demanded that the President retract the offensive remarks. Chaplin refused, and insisted he meant every word he had said. Then the students walked out in anger. The faculty persuaded Chaplin to take no action to expel any of the students until full investigation could be made. A week later they asked the President to prepare a written statement and read it in chapel. That long statement, in Chaplin’s handwriting, is still preserved in the Colby archives. While denouncing the disturbance, Chaplin did retract the charge of drunkenness. He said: “We are happy to find, on inquiry, that none of you had been drinking ardent spirits on that evening. The noises we heard made us fear that some of you were inebriated, and all of you had been drinking. We now acknowledge that such apprehensions were erroneous.”

In another paragraph of his long speech Chaplin made it abundantly clear that he was taking no backwater on his fundamental charge of disturbance of the peace. He said: “The anniversary of American independence ought to be celebrated by appropriate religious services. But revelry is not compatible with such celebration. We ought to spend the Fourth of July in much the same way as we spend the Sabbath, and as pious people we spend Thanksgiving. It is an occasion of joy, but a joy that ought always to be sober and restrained. We should resort to no amusements and engage in no exercises which have a tendency to unfit the mind for holy contemplation of the blessings of God.”

Aware that most of the students were studying for the ministry, and were already serving as supply preachers, Chaplin said: “What good does it do for you to go to neighboring towns to pray, exhort, and preach with seeming fervor and solemnity, only to return here to celebrate the Fourth of July in unbecoming manner? How could you, who intend to be pious ministers of the gospel, thus engage in loud and boisterous mirth?”

At the conclusion of his address, Pres. Chaplin announced that two ring leaders had been expelled and six others had been given long suspension. That was too much for the students. They demanded further retraction and restitution of the dismissed members. When the trustees met in annual meeting a month later, they were confronted with President Chaplin’s resignation. They tried to persuade him to change his mind, but Chaplin insisted he could no longer preside at a college where the students were so disrespectful of authority.

Jeremiah Chaplin was a man of granite convictions. No matter how many people thought he was wrong, including members of both faculty and trustees, if he conscientiously believed he was right, no one could swerve him. He left the college as a true Christian, with no hard feelings against anyone. Unwilling to face the fact that he was not up with the changing times, he just stepped aside.

Most interesting is the point that in this controversy the cause of it all was entirely submerged. In the exchange of communications between opposing elements, not a word was said, at least in the numerous written documents that have been preserved, about what started it all the protest against human slavery.

Much earlier than 1833, even before Colby was founded, political agitation had disrupted more than one college campus. In 1765 students at Princeton attended commencement dressed in American homespun, in defiance of British duties on woven cloth.

After 1773 students at Harvard, Yale and Princeton regularly boycotted, burned and condemned tea, and by 1774 they were burning British statesmen in effigy. In 1775, the undergraduates at Brown persuaded their trustees to abandon a public commencement as inappropriate to the political crisis, while their counterparts at Yale tarred and feathered one of their own number who had denounced the American cause. By the time of the Revolution, Harvard under Langton, Yale under Daggett, and Princeton under Witherspoon were clearly in patriot hands. One prominent Tory alumnus of Yale described the students at his alma mater as “seditious disruptors of the peace and traitors to the King”.

Now for a bit about Waterville in its very early days. The first bank established here opened in 1814 and was called the Waterville Bank. The directors built a small structure on a lot 40 feet square at the lower end of Main Street, just south of where the Waterville Hardware Co. is now located. Along the area now occupied by the hardware company was a large, frame, two-story building, which, with the adjoining structure to the north, was called, in 1810, Ticonic Row. That is why the Centennial History of Waterville describes the bank as standing at the lower end of Ticonic Row.

The land on which the bank was built had long been the property of the early settler and shipbuilder John Clarke. It was sold to the bank directors in 1814 by John’s son Samuel Clarke under conditions that later led to considerable controversy. On April 25, 1814 Samuel Clarke made an agreement with Dr. Moses Appleton to sell to the President and Directors of the Waterville Bank “my house and lot of land in Waterville and give a warranty deed of the same”. Sam agreed to sell the house and lot, or an adjoining four rod strip at suitable prices, the largest of which was $750. The directors chose to buy only a small piece, 40 by 40 feet.

The bank directors authorized Dr. Appleton to search the title and make sure the property was free from any encumbrance, and that Samuel Clarke had a right to convey it. Dr. Appleton gave assurance that the property was clear, Clarke gave his warranty deed, and the bank paid him the money. Two and a half years later, in September, 1816, Asa Redington, Jr., in his capacity as cashier of the bank, wrote to Sam Clarke’s father John, the original owner, who by that time had moved to Canterbury, Conn., as follows: “In the year 1814, we had occasion to purchase a spot of land to erect a bank building on. Your son Samuel proposed to sell a spot. We employed Dr. Appleton to examine the records and ascertain whether any encumbrance existed, and if not to make a bargain with your son. Dr. Appleton informed us that there was no incumbrance. We accordingly paid the cash, taking your son’s warranty deed. Lately, however, it has been discovered that a mortgage from Samuel to you was recorded prior to our deed, which Dr. Appleton must have overlooked. Permit us, sir, to inquire whether that mortgage to you is now operative, and if so, on what terms we can procure from you a release of 40 feet square, where the bank now stands.”

Two weeks later John Clarke, down in Connecticut, received a letter from his son-in-law Peleg Tallman in Boston, a sea captain sailing from that port. Tallman reported that John Clarke’s son George had found a record of the mortgage that Asa Redington’s letter had referred to. “Sam says”, wrote Tallman, “that mortgage was never meant to be operative and should not have been recorded.” Then Tallman continued: “Dr. Appleton seems to be unpleasantly situated in this mortgage business of Sam’s. It seems he took Sam’s word and reported the property clear without full examination of the records. Now the directors blame the doctor.”

On October 8, 1816 John Clarke replied to Asa Redington’s letter. John confirmed that he did indeed hold a mortgage on the property and he invited the bank to tell him how much they would pay him to clear the property for them. After further correspondence the bank offered John Clarke $500 for a final release. On November 30, another son of John Clarke, Francis, wrote his father from Boston, urging that the father settle the case speedily. He said: “The bank directors agree to pay to Mr. Tallman, Dr. Appleton, or any other man you would name to the Eastward, the sum of $500. Though Samuel has stood in his own light in the unpleasant business and is himself only to blame, permit me to ask again your interference in this business suited to your dignity as a father and your interest as a creditor. I leave town for Waterville tomorrow. Please communicate with me there.”

John Clarke took the advice of his son Francis and settled for $500. And that is the story of how Waterville got its first bank building.

Year: 1971