Radio Script #904

Little Talks on Common Things
October 24, 1971

Among many miscellaneous documents preserved at the Redington Museum of the Waterville Historical Society are orders on the town treasurer of Waterville during the year 1856, 115 years ago. Waterville was then already 54 years old, being separated from the mother town of Winslow in 1802. These orders were all signed, by the chairman of the selectmen, or as he was more usually designated, the first selectman, Charles H. Thayer.

Who was Charles Thayer? This program has long made you familiar with two doctors named Thayer. Dr. Frederick C. Thayer, for whom Thayer hospital was named, is personally remembered by our older living citizens today. He was not only a distinguished physician and surgeon, but was also a public-spirited citizen, who led the community in many movements that spelled progress for Waterville. His grandfather, Stephen Thayer had been the best known Waterville doctor to follow the town’s famous first fulltime physician Moses Appleton. Dr. Stephen Thayer, a man of strong conservative views, is said to have been the last man of prominence in Waterville to wear knee breeches. To the day of his death, Dr. Stephen Thayer scorned the new style of full-length pantaloons and Dr. Stephen Thayer lived until 1852. How far behind the times he was in respect to dress is shown by the fact that as early as 1810 James Stackpole recorded in his diary that a local tailor had made him a pair of pantaloons, which he wore for the first time to a funeral. Stephen Thayer was also the physician who presided at the autopsy on the body of Waterville’s first murder victim in 1847, and it was Dr. Thayer who ordered chemical examination of the stomach that led later to the conviction of Dr. Valorous Coolidge for the killing of young Ed Mathews.

So much for Frederick Thayer and Stephen Thayer. What about Charles Thayer? He was the link between those two doctors. He was the son of Dr. Stephen Thayer and the father of Dr. Frederick Thayer. He was a business man, not a physician, and had already accumulated considerable estate while Frederick was still a small boy. He held many town offices during his life and in 1856 headed the Waterville Board of Selectmen.

The way town bills were paid at that time was by what were known as town orders. In fact the custom still prevailed in small Maine towns in my own boyhood. My father was for some ten years treasurer of the town of Bridgton. A person receiving a town order signed by a selectman in payment for goods or services would bring that order to my father, who would hand over the cash from town funds. Sometimes in Waterville, as in Bridgton the town treasury would be empty. In the middle of the last century few towns carried on the present practice of borrowing in anticipation of taxes. So often a town order could not be honored until the tax collector got in enough funds. That is why, in all our Maine towns, it was a practice for merchants to accept town orders at a discount, usually of ten percent. Hence, if a man  handed a merchant a town order for ten dollars, he would receive or be credited with only nine dollars, the merchant collected his one dollar profit when he could get the order honored by the town treasurer. Sometimes the merchant had to wait several months.

A town order always specified the purpose for which it was issued. So let us see what payments in Waterville Charles Thayer was authorizing in 1856. H. W. Getchell got an order for $2 for services at cemetery lots, and the same man got $13.75 for hauling gravel for sidewalks.

Sometimes bills were long overdue. In September, 1856, Thayer issued an order of $38.55 to Increase Johnson for services as building committee in a school district for the year 1853. Likewise James Blunt, in 1856, got $40 for making plans of schoolhouses during 1853. Solyman Heath, Waterville attorney, and father of William and Francis Heath, who recruited and led Waterville’s first Civil War company, received an order of $10 for making and recording the tax list of School District No. 1 in Ticonic Village.

Of course the teachers were paid by town orders. Laurette Leavitt got $35 for teaching a whole term in District 15. Attached to these old orders is a paper showing the school tax that the collector was ordered to gather in from one district in 1854. It totaled only $28.00 and came from only 19 citizens. Most of those men paid not more than $1.50; the largest tax was on Benjamin Lewis for $2.72.

Now let us see what was the general plan of assessing taxes, as authorized by the early laws of Maine. In 1830, only ten years after Maine became a separate state, the legislature passed an act entitled “to ascertain the amount and description of estates, and of certain descriptions of persons within the state”. That law ordered the assessors of each town on or after the first day of May, 1830, and before the first day of September, to report to the Secretary of State a list of all male polls of 21 or more years of age resident in the town, and all rateable estates, both real and personal within the limits of the town, and to list all persons supported in whole or in part by the town, with the expenses of supporting such persons. Specifically exempted from such listing were the students of Bowdoin College, of Waterville College, of the Maine Charity School, the Gardiner Lyceum and the Maine Wesleyan Seminary, and all real and personal estate belonging to those institutions. Already exempted by previous law was the property of churches.

Now let us note some of the things the town assessors had to report, besides persons, number of dwelling houses, barns, shops, stores, warehouses.
Manufacturers of tin-ware, brass and iron.
Clock and watch makers, silversmiths and jewelers.
Gun-smiths.
Chaise-makers and wheelwrights.
Printing offices.
Tanneries, potash pits and rope walks.
Distilleries and breweries.
Grist mills, sawmills, cording and fulling mills.
Value of all articles produced.
Amount of each person’ s stock in trade, his annual sales as factor or commission merchant.
Each person’s amount of money on hand, including bank bills and deposits in any bank.
Money loaned at interest.
U. S. bonds and securities of separate states.
Stock in the Banks of U.S.
Other bank stock.
Any foreign securities.
Shares in any toll bridge or turnpike.
Shares in any stage company.
Number of acres of tillage land, including orchard.
Number of acres of pasturage.
Number of acres of woodland.
Number of acres of waste land.
Number of ounces of silver plate.
All live stock and all harvested crops.

The act also provided that the State Treasurer Should ascertain the number of acres of wild land in Maine within the limits of each incorporated town owned by non-resident proprietors and liable to be taxed. Compiling these lists was quite a job for the town assessors, and we have reason to believe there were many loopholes, depending on how seriously the particular assessors took the job.

One who examines old manuscripts of our Maine towns discovers how frequently some young man owed his rise to affluence and status because of the patronage of an older man. Going over the Stackpole papers at the Redington Museum, I discovered such a relationship between the first James Stackpole and Jediah Morrill. In the middle of the 19th century Morrill was one of Waterville’s most prominent citizens. He was a principal promoter of the plan that brought to town the first railroad in 1849. He was a dealer in real estate, lumber, and other produce, a director of the Waterville Bank, and an intimate friend of Neal Dow, father of Maine’s prohibition law.

James Stackpole was already nearly forty years old when he came to Fort Halifix in 1780. Two years later he moved across the river to Waterville. He was lumberman, farmer, and merchant. His lumber interest included timber lands on the Sandy River, where his sons conducted many winter operations. His oldest son, also named James, became a leading Waterville merchant, shipper, and ship builder, as well as owner of saw and grist mills. He struck up a close friendship with another young man of the town, Jediah Morrill. The elder James Stackpole also came to regard young Morrill so highly that he employed him, first as a farm hand, then bit by bit gave him larger responsibilities.

The old man’s diary, now preserved at the Redington Museum, contains many references to Jediah Morrill. Among the miscellaneous papers in the Stackpole collection is a letter written by Jediah Morrill to his elderly patron James Stackpole from Chesterville on December 10, 1816. Let us see what that letter had to say.

“Dear Sir: We got to our camp on Thursday, and on Saturday we got all our hay for the oxen this winter. We did this with the assistance of Mr. Butterfield’s team, and with no accident except laming your off ox in his fore foot. He is very lame and there is no probability of his being any better. We await your direction on what to do with him. We were here four days without any bread stuff. Then we employed John Butterfield to go back into the county and get some. He got 8 bushels of wheat for $15. We could not get oats here at any price, but last Saturday he got us five bushels at 4 shillings a bushel. Potatoes are 3 Shillings. I have tried to hire a yoke of oxen, but cannot get any. On the average we have got in 25 logs a day. We bought a small quantity of beef, but have no milk, because we could not get a cow at any fair price. We shall expect to see you soon after you hear from us. I think you may be able to get oats at Starks for 50 cents a bushel. Your friend with respect, Jediah Morrill P. S. Please inform our families that we are all in good health and spirits.”

Year: 1971