Radio Script #936

Little Talks on Common Things
June 4, 1972

Today’s broadcast begins with some items picked up from Maine newspapers in the early years of this century. I have previously mentioned on this program Admiral Peary’s stop in Waterville on his return from the North Pole. I was a Colby freshman in that fall of 1909 when Peary passed through Waterville on the train that carried him from Halifax to Portland, where he then made his home. I am sure other Waterville people of my age were at the railroad station on that day, when one of the biggest crowds ever assembled here, gathered to greet the Admiral, who spoke from a flag-decked platform erected in front of the station.

Recently, I ran across a newspaper clipping showing that Peary made a longer stop in Waterville in the following April, when he came here on his nationwide lecture tour. Here is what that clipping tells us: “Commander Peary had not then been promoted to Admiral Robert E. Peary gave a public address in Waterville on April 15. He arrived from Dover, where John Francis Sprague had persuaded him to lecture the previous evening. It is 8:15 when Dr. J. F. Hill stepped out in front of the audience with Commander Peary and introduced him to the audience that filled the Opera House. Dr. Hill said, “A few years ago from this platform a man told you of his long search for a goal which had long beckoned adventurers from every land. He then declared that some day an American citizen would be first to reach the apex of the earth. Tonight we welcome again that same man, who has now himself achieved that goal, who has penetrated the frozen north and has planted at the North Pole the American flag. By that act he has linked his name forever with the great discoverers.”

Peary then gave a graphic account of his trek over the ice fields and with large maps showed his route. He covered the whole trip from his departure from the U. S. on July 6, 1908 to his arrival at the top of the world on April 6, 1909. He showed many slides revealing the hazards of his adventure. Immediately after the lecture Peary was driven to the station and took the evening train for Portland. He had time, however, to hold a brief reception in the city council room, where many people shook his hand. In the receiving line with Commander and Mrs. Peary were Dr. and Mrs. Hill, Mayor Fuller and Frank Redington.”

Now for another clipping of a different nature. It concerned the new, but growing town of Millinocket on the border of the Katahdin wilderness. Published in 1899, the clipping said: “This place is coming. It promises, one of these days, to be a smart manufacturing town and a beautiful place in which to live. The eastern bank of Millinocket Stream is covered with spruce and hemlock. On the western bank the pulp mills are being built, and on that side the town will develop. The major streets are going to be called Central and Penobscot. One large boarding house is now going up, and ground was broken for another last week. The Great Northern Paper Co. has nothing to do with putting up houses. It merely sells the lots under certain wholesome restrictions. The company has all it can do to construct its enormous plant covering six acres. Its main building is 900 feet long. The 700 men working there now are laborers not of the highest paid class, since their work is only preparation. Within a few weeks, however, an army of skilled workmen will replace these unskilled Italians. Then board and lodging will be in great demand. Right now only fair accommodations are available, and they cost seven dollars a week for room and meals. Millinocket now has employment to support a snug little city, but it is truly desolate of housing. Lodging often means sleeping 45 men in one room. Many of the Italian workmen sleep on the bare ground. Horses stay out all night under the open sky. When the better class of workmen arrive, housing will indeed be desperate. They will demand much better accommodations and will be able to pay for them. A large boarding house to accommodate 200 persons would be a fine paying investment. Some time ago the newspapers said the Great Northern mills would be operating before this time. The truth is the plant will not be finished and fully running within two years. People who have not seen Millinocket do not comprehend the stupendous nature of the undertaking. Millinocket is on the way to a great industrial town.”

Dld you know that the Confederate leader, Jefferson Davis was once in Maine? In 1902 a veteran stage driver, George Spratt, told the Bangor Commercial how he had Jefferson Davis as a passenger in 1859. Davis and his family came to Maine as guests of Professor Bach of the U. S. Coastal Survey. Bach’s headquarters were at Lead Mountain, three miles from the village of Beddington, on the Air Line road from Bangor to Calais. Bach was a southerner who was an intimate friend of Davis. The Davis family looked forward to a few weeks’ rest in the Maine woods.

Coming in advance of her husband, Mrs. Davis arrived with the children at Bangor and was taken to the Bach camp on George Spratt’s stage. When Davis himself arrived a few days later, Spratt got out a buggy and took the southern leader to join his family. At that time, Spratt held the contract for carrying the mail between Bangor and Calais and during the stay on the mountain, Spratt saw that the gentleman received his large volume of mail. Spratt said it was a merry party that he drove to the Bach place. The stage was full because there was a whole retinue of servants accompanying the Davises. Several tents had been put up to accommodate these servants, and at some expense a piano had been hauled laboriously up the mountain for the Davis’ entertainment. Only a few years later, Maine people who had so eagerly welcomed the stately southerner were joining in the chant, ”We’ll hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree.”

The year 1904 was when the Democrats hoped to get Teddy Roosevelt out of the White House with their nominee Parker. One Maine paper that supported the Democratic cause had this to say: “It will be a great occasion when Maine admirers of the great Democratic chief assemble in Waterville at the festival board with Lewe1l:-:t Barton, the state’s Democratic conmittee chairman. They will celebrate with food and speech the memory of Andrew Jackson, hero of New Orleans. Here is a new song with which the rafters will resound:

“We, the Jackson men, must stand
together all throughout the land,
and strive to oust the mighty Teddy.
So here in Waterville
we’ll shout aloud with hearty will;
For Parker and for Oliver, we are ready.”

As everyone now knows, the singing and festivity were in vain. Theodore Roosevelt was reelected by a huge majority. The Commercial proudly called attention, however, to Maine’s participation in Andrew Jackson’s inaugural 75 years earlier. It said: “Maine’s representatives and senators were within the charmed circle of which the warrior president was the central figure. Present also was Nathan Cutter, Acting Governor of Maine since the recent death of Governor Enoch Lincoln. George Evans, Speaker of the Maine House, was there, as was also the Adjutant General, Samuel Cony. We are pleased to recall that Maine was then a Democratic state, and our Senator Chandler was in his glory.”

Because one of the last of the Maine Central’s steam locomotives is preserved here in Waterville it is always delightful to recall old-time railroad days, so I was thrilled to run across an account of Maine Central Locomotive No. 65. Here it is: “No. 65 was the best known of the Maine Central’s wood burners. Long after her best days on regular runs, she survived as a spare out of the Portland yards and came to be called ‘Payson Tucker’s engine’ because that Maine Central president had her attached to his special train. With presidential right of way over all other trains, Tucker made some very fast trips behind No. 65.

“On one occasion the engineer of 65 was ordered to collect what freight lay in the Portland yard consigned to down east and haul it to Bangor, then return the next day with a long train. The engineer gathered 14 cars and a caboose and left Portland 30 minutes ahead of the fast passenger train for Bangor, No. 11. That train ordinarily overtook and passed the freight at Brunswick, but that day the engineer wasn’t waiting for any other train, when he could make old 65 go just as fast, and especially with only 15 cars behind it. Held up briefly by a gravel train at Bowdoinham, the engineer left that station just 11 minutes ahead of the passenger train. That meant just one minute leeway, because regulations demanded that all freight should clear following passenger trains by ten minutes. Leaving Bowdoinham, the engineer proclaimed that the passenger engineer would not see his tail lights this side of Bangor, and he balled No. 65 through Richmond at a mile a minute. That put him 16 minutes ahead of the passenger train when he reached Augusta. Asking for orders concerning a west bound train that usually crossed No. 11 at Riverside, the engineer sped on past that train at the Riverside siding, and thence opened up a clear run to Waterville. From there on his luck held and he reached Bangor a full twenty minutes ahead of the passenger train. That venerable engine No. 65 was reduced to hauling work trains, and finally in 1894 was broken up. What a pity that old wood burner could not have been preserved in some railroad museum.

Now we will close this broadcast with some details of an old treaty with the Penobscot Indians, which required that certain articles be delivered to the tribe. In 1818, before Maine took over from Massachusetts the public obligations to that tribe, the Commonwealth delivered to the Penobscots the following items: One six pound cannon, one swivel for the cannon, 50 knives, 6 brass kettles, 200 yards of calico, two drums, four fifes, and one box of tobacco pipes.

Year: 1972