Radio Script #941
Little Talks on Common Things
October 1, 1972
One of the historically valuable holdings at the Redington Museum in Waterville is the Stackpole diary. It is actually a series of annual diaries kept during the 1790’s and early 1800’s by James Stackpole, one of the town’s earliest settlers.
On previous programs I have referred to the contents of those diaries, their reference to driving logs and rafting lumber down the river, the spring run of salmon and herring, the building of the Ticonic darn, the early doctors and lawyers, the teachers, and the farm crops. But I have never before told what those diaries have to say about the building of ships at Waterville. I have indeed more than once mentioned those ships and have given some of their names, but it is worthwhile now to add contemporary mention of that once thriving industry, as told in the Stackpole diaries.
In 1807, says the diary for that year, Stackpole’s son, James, Jr., already operator of a prosperous general store, decided to join the rest of Waterville men who were building ships. On October 7, 1807 the father recorded, “Hauled two loads of trunnels and spikes to James’ shipyard.” October 21: “Went to our back lot to cut and haul timber for James’ vessel.” December 2: “Hauled from Clarke’s shipyard to James’ vessel seven oak planks and two ash.” December 8: “Hauled beams for the vessel.” December 12: “Helped clean chips from the vessel’s hull.”
James, Jr. was eager to have his new ship be the first to go into the water in the spring of 1808, but the veteran builder John Clarke beat him by three days. The diary tells us that Clarke launched his schooner on April 20, while James did not hit the water until the 23rd. The Stackpole schooner was appropriately named the JAMES and was of 117 tons. Clarke’s was named the BETSY, a smaller vessel of 108 tons. Seven years earlier the Clarkes had built the largest vessel ever launched at Waterville, the full ship TICONIC, of 268 tons.
The diary notes the launching of other ships by Asa Redington, Nathaniel Gilman, and the Moors. I once told you how the elder James Stackpole was so peeved at Asa Redington in Asa’s capacity of Justice of the Peace, that he wrote in his diary, “Unjust Redington made me pay two dollars damages to Reuben Kidder, for legally hauling logs across land.” We can therefore imagine a grin of satisfaction on Stackpole’s face when he wrote in the diary on October 25, 1808: “Asa Redington set out to launch his vessel today. It stuck on the ways part way down.”
Throughout the diaries, James Stackpole persistently referred to his wife as “Mrs. Stackpole.” Even when she died he did not write in the record her first name. What he did write in two references was “my wife.” April 25, 1808: ”My wife departed this life at 2:00 a.m.” Even his account of the funeral shows no emotion except because of the attendance of prominent citizens. He wrote on April 28: “My wife was buried. Pall bearers were General Porter, Col. Josiah Hsyden , Lt. Cragin and David Pattee. All our children attended and a large number of other people of quality.” Mrs. Stackpole had been the mother of thirteen children. In 1805, her husband wrote in the diary: “Mrs. Stackpole, being of generous disposition, gave her old cradle to Mrs. Wing, fearing she would never more need it.”
Before we leave the Stackpole ships and cradles, let us note what James Stackpole wrote in 1820, only four years before his death, concerning himself: “I take this opportunity to note that I am the oldest son of John Stackpole of Biddeford, where I was born in 1732. There I was married to Abial Hill in 1754. I am still in good health, living in the town of Waterville, County of Kennebec.”
When last week I gave on this program some information about Maine towns contained in the Gazetteer of Maine, published in 1882, I said I would some day tell you what that 90-year old book had to say about our whole state in general. So that is our next subject today.
First, the old book showed how Maine’s railroad system had grown from the short line between Bangor and Old Town in 1836 to 31 railroads with 188 stations in 1880. By that time, of course, many of those separately chartered roads had been merged into the Maine Central, although that merger had been started only ten years earlier in 1870. In 1880 the Maine Central comprised the Portland and Kennebec, the line from Portland to Augusta via Brunswick; the Brunswick and Bath; the Somerset and Kennebec from Augusta to Skowhegan; the Androscoggin and Kennebec from Danville Junction to Waterville; the Penobscot and Kennebec from Waterville to Bangor; an extension from Danville Junction to Cumberland; the Androscoggin RR from Brunswick to Leeds Junction, with a branch line to Lewiston; and the Leeds and Farmington RR. The Maine Central also operated the Portland and Ogdensburg from Portland through the White Mountains to St. Johnsbury, Vermont; and it held leases on the Belfast and Moosehead road from Belfast to Burnham Junction, and the line from Newport to Dexter.
Another road to which the 1882 Gazetteer called attention was the Aroostook River RR, 15 miles long, a narrower gauge than the MC’s 4 feet 8 inches, being a width of only three and a half feet. It ran from across the border in New Brunswick into Fort Fairfield, and was operated by the New Brunswick Railway Co. One of Maine’S most important railroads at that time was the Atlantic and St. Lawrence, soon to have its name changed to the Grand Trunk. Running from Montreal to Portland, through parts of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, it was the principal route to an Atlantic seaport for grain of the prairies when the St. Lawrence was shut in by winter ice. Operating for only five years when the Gazetteer was printed, was the Bangor and Piscataquis, covering the 63 miles from Old Town to Blanchard. Connecting Bangor with Bucksport was a line only three feet wide called the Bucksport and Bangor RR.
A much more important road was the European and North American, then running from Bangor to Fredrickton, but soon to go on to St. John and Halifax. Within the border of Maine that railroad ran from Bangor to Vanceboro. It was a young road in 1882, having been opened in 1876. Another road not well remembered today was the New Brunswick and Canada RR from Woodstock to St. Stephen in New Brunswick, but with a branch line from Debec Junction to Houlton. In 1871, the same year that saw the opening of the European and North American, the Knox and Lincoln RR had begun operating between Bath and Rockland.
Coming into Maine from the west were the Portland, Saco and Portsmouth, the Boston and Maine, and the Portland and Rochester. In 1882 what later became the Rumford Division of the Maine Central was a separate line called the Rumford Falls and Buckfield, which by that time had been built on to Mechanic Falls where it connected with the Atlantic and St. Lawrence. Recently opened was the Somerset RR, from Oakland to North Anson. It would be several more years before it was built on to Solon and Bingham. Down in Washington County were two short lines, the St. Croix and Penobscot from Calais to Princeton, and the even shorter line from Whitneyville to Machias. It would be nearly ten years after the publication of that Gazetteer before Maine could see an electric trolley line, but horse cars had already come to two Maine communities, Portland and Lewiston.
As for education beyond the common school, Maine had in 1882 four colleges, Bowdoin, Colby, Bates and University of Maine, as well as 24 academies, and three state normal schools, Farmington, Gorham and Castine. Three of the academies had teacher training departments, MCI, Oak Grove and Kents Hill. Farmington had private schools divided by sex – the Little Blue School for boys, and Wendall Institute for girls. When we consider the huge enrollment of the University of Maine today it is surprising to note that in 1882 it had only 102 students and a faculty of eight. The Gazetteer noted that Hallowell Academy was the chief fitting school for Bowdoin, Waterville Classical Institute for Colby, and the Nichols Latin School for Bates.
In 1880 there were 133, periodicals being published in Maine. Of that number 11 were dailies, 79 weeklies, 18 monthlies, two quarterlies, ten semi-monthlies, ten semi-weeklies, two twice a week, and one three times a week.
About Maine religion in 1882, the Gazetteer said: “A form of religious polity was first established in Maine by the Charter of the Province of Maine in 1639. That was not the Congregational state church of Massachusetts Bay, but the Church of England, the denomination of the charter recipient, Ferdinando Gorges. In his province, however, Gorges never made religious belief a qualification for either citizenship or ownership of property.”
“First mention of a Protestant minister in Maine history was not Episcopal, but a dissenter who came to Saco in 1645. When Massachusetts finally got possession of Maine, the state church of the Bay Colony, the Congregational, was prescribed for every incorporated Maine town, but very early other sects were tolerated.”
The growth of churches in Maine during the sixty years from 1820 to 1880 is shown by the following figures. Congregational churches had grown from 130 to 243; Calvinist Baptists from 109 to 263; Free Baptists from none at all to 281; Methodists from 73 to 236; Roman Catholic from only two to 49; Universalists from 10 to 88; and Unitarians from none to 21. In 1820 the state had 12 Presbyterian churches; in 1880 only one, having made a deal with the Congregationalists that divided certain territory in the northeast. The Swedenborgians had got a start in Maine by 1880, there then being five churches of the New Jerusalem.
In a section entitled Civil History the Gazetteer listed significant events from Gosnold’s first sighting of Mt. Desert in 1602 to the founding of the Swedish colony in Aroostook in 1870. Here are a few of the more important items that the Gazetteer says happened in Maine: “1677 – Massachusetts buys Maine from the heirs of Gorges for 1,250 pounds sterling. 1724 – Killing of Father Rasle at Norridgewock. 1744 – Sir William Pepperell captures Louisburg. 1760 – Formation of Maine’s second and third counties, Cumberland and Lincoln. 1775 – British burn Portland. 1788 – Maine’s first newspaper, the Falmouth Gazette. 1812 – Gen. Henry Dearborn of Maine made field commander of all U.S. forces in War of 1812. 1813 – Battle of Enterprise-Boxer near mouth of the Kennebec. 1816 – The year of no summer. 1820 – Maine becomes a state. 1831 – State Capitol moved from Portland to Augusta. 1839 – The Aroostook War. 1861-1865 – Maine furnishes 57,000 men for the Union forces.
Year: 1972