Radio Script #959
Little Talks on Common Things
February 4, 1973
Several times this program has mentioned Norridgewock, and on one occasion it dealt at some length with the killing of the Jesuit missionary, Father Rasle, when a troop of British colonials destroyed the Indian village there in 1724. Old Norridgewock was not at the present site of that village, but several miles further up the Kennebec at what is now known as Old Point. It is easily noted because on it is the tall granite monument erected as a memorial to Father Rasle.
Allen’s History of Norridgewock, published in 1849, more than 120 years ago, describes the place of Old Norridgewock as follows: “The Kennebec, sweeping south, receives the waters of the Sandy River from the west, then turning with a short curve runs eastward for a hundred rods, then northeast for half a mile, thus forming a neck of land containing a hundred acres of intervale, deluding the elevated part where the village once stood. Between two rows of wigwams and huts, a path about eight feet wide ran parallel to the river.”
The beginning of the present Norridgewock did not come until nearly a half century after the destruction of the Indian village. In 1771, Joseph Weston of Littleton, Mass., Peter Heywood, Jonathan Oakes, and Isaac Smith came to Ticonic Falls, where a small village had developed after the building of Fort Halifax in 1754. From Ticonic the party explored the country along the Kennebec north as far as Old Point. Both south and north of Skowhegan Falls they established land claims for their homes.
Meanwhile the Proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase, from whom Weston and the others had offers for settlement, employed the well-known surveyor, Black Jones, to run out lots on that part of the Kennebec. He surveyed the greater part of what are now Skowhegan and Norridgewock and named it all Canaan Plantation. Then in 1774 Thomas Farrington made a more careful survey. Beginning at Skowhegan Falls, he marked the corners of lots on both sides of the river up as far as Old Point. He called the land encompassed by his survey Norridgewock.
The early settlers were widely scattered on 200 acre lots, but gradually both banks a short distance below the falls developed into a sizable village that was the first county seat of Somerset County long before Skowhegan became its shiretown. About the early settlement Allen, writing in 1849, said: “Many now living have heard their mothers tell of the comfort they enjoyed in their new log house, when their little clearing produced a supply of good corn, wheat and vegetables. Their cows, running in the woods in summer, were kept on meadow hay and corn stalks in winter. The surrounding maples furnished them with sugar, the river afforded fish, and the forest game. Any fall day a man could go out and shoot a dozen partridge. They always had plenty to eat.”
Building a sawmill at Norridgewock made possible frame houses instead of log cabins, and the first signs of luxury came to that part of the Kennebec. But before that was possible a memorable event happened to the little settlement. That was the passage of Arnold’s army on its way to Quebec in the autumn of 1775. The General stopped at Thomas Farrington’s where he saw the first white child born in Norridgewock. Arnold spent the night at the cabin of Lovell Fairbrother. The men of the settlement helped the successive regiments carry the heavy bateaux . around Norridgewock Falls. James Waugh used his oxen to help in that task, the only oxen in the settlement. Nathan Parlin enlisted with the army and went with it to Canada.
In 1788 Norridgewock was incorporated as a town in Massachusetts’ District of Maine. Massachusetts immediately levied a tax of 254 pounds on the town, a sum the inhabitants considered an impossible burden. Heeding their ardent protest, the Legislature agreed to abate the tax if Norridgewock would pay into the state treasury only $72 instead of the $1,235 represented by the 254 British pounds. But the town had also to agree to set aside one-third of the remaining $1,163 for support of a minister, another third for schools, and the remainder to build town roads. By that time Norridgewock had 79 heads of households upon whom the tax was assessed.
Somerset County was organized in 1809, with Norridgewock as the county seat.
John Ware, who by that time had become the town’s leading citizen and its representative in the Mass. Legislature, gave an acre of land for a jail and $800 toward the cost of building it. He also allowed his own house to be used as a court house.
When Maine became a separate state in 1820, Norridgewock was one of very few towns that voted unanimously in favor of separation, casting 62 affirmative votes.
Like every Maine town in the early 19th century, Norridgewock had its troubles with the demon rum. When the settlers started to replace their log cabins with frame houses, all the settlement turned out to raise the frames at festive occasions called house raisings and barn raisings. No building could be erected without plenty of rum. Even when the meetinghouse was built, gallons of rum graced the occasion. No Da1ster of militia could be held without barrels of New England and West Indies rum. Allen tells us that intemperance was an early curse in Norridgewock. Mind you, he was writing a dozen years before Maine adopted its prohibition law. Allen says, “Some of the most polished and refined of our citizens fell victims to abuse of rum and spirits. At the end of the War of 1812, prices were so reduced that a man could get staggering drunk for six cents. Consequently intemperance increased alarmingly.”
By 1816 the better people of Norridgewock decided to take action. They formed a society to suppress the unlawful use and check the improper sale of ardent spirits. Public opinion was opposed to such restrictions, just as Maine public opinion today opposes restriction of firearms, and it was not until 1828 that a new temperance society began to get results. Allen added: “Now in 1839, the evil has been somewhat allayed, and no Norridgewock merchant any longer sells a hogshead of rum every week.”
Only 12 years before Allen wrote his history, had occurred the notorious distribution of the Federal Surplus in 1837. Several years ago I told about Maine’s use of its share on me of these programs and in an article in Down East Magazine. It is interesting to see what Allen wrote when the subject was still fresh in his memory. He said: “In 1837 the surplus revenue of the national treasury was deposited with the several states, and Maine, instead of applying her share to the payment of the state debt, distributed it among the towns, according to population, at the rate of $2.00 to each inhabitant, to be refunded when called for by the State. Norridgewock chose a committee of five to invest their share in bank stock or in loans to individuals. The interest was to be applied to the improvement of burial grounds and other town purposes. The committee invested the money, but before a year had elapsed there arose a public demand that it be distributed among the inhabitants, but there were plenty of people who were satisfied with what had already been done. Town meetings were repeatedly held attended with angry discussion. Finally, the vote to invest the money was rescinded; it was voted to sell the bank stock and collect the individual loans. It was also voted to distribute the money by paying $2.00 to each inhabitant. No transaction in Norridgewock ever produced so much altercation and bitterness. One prominent citizen said that if one wanted to do the greatest injury to the town, one had only to raise by taxation $1,000 every year and distribute it among the people.”
The way Norridgewock had grown since the first settlement is shown by recorded population figures. In 1784 it had 280 people. Six years later, at the first federal census of 1790, there were only 376. Ten years later, at the turn of the century, there were 633, and in 1810 the number had risen to 820. The first 20 years of the new century saw the population more than doubled, the figure reaching 1710 in 1830. In 1849, when Allen published his history, there were more than 2,000 people in the town.
From the town’s incorporation in 1788 there were regular, annual appropriations for schools and highways. In this first year, the people voted $200 for roads and $100 for schools. At the end of the 18th century twelve years later, Norridgewock was still spending twice as much for roads as for schools. In 1799 the appropriation for roads was $400, for schools $200. Ten years later the town was spending much more. In 1810 roads were costing $1,000 and schools $400. In the year when Allen published his history, 1849, they were spending $2,000 for roads and $900 for schools. During the first half of the 19th century all other town expenses in Norridgewock, except roads and schools, never exceeded $100 a year.
A long time ago, on this program, I told you about John Ware’s leaving Norridgewock and taking residence in Athens. It was, in fact, from Athens that some of the inheritors of John Ware’s large estate came to Waterville and became one of this city’s most prominent families. Among their many real estate holdings here was the mansion house and other buildings on Silver Street purchased about 20 years ago by Thomas College, and now owned by the state for USA as a police academy. Allen, in his history, disposes of John Ware’s departure from Norridgewock in a single sentence. Allen wrote: “In 1816, the new inventory of the town (that means a new assessment) caused John Ware to consider himself aggrieved by the assessors, and he removed from the place, taking with him nearly one-tenth of all taxable property in town.”
That means he had in 1816 more assessed taxation in movable property than in real estate. Today we think of taxable property as chiefly real estate, buildings and lands. But even today other tangible property is taxed, specially stock in trade, or merchant’s inventories. Since Ware was Norridgewock’s leading merchant, the closing of his Norridgewock store and his taking all the goods to Athens was a tax blow to the town he left.
Perhaps Allen regarded Ware’s departure with pleasure, if not relief. To the sentence already quoted, he wrote: “The town upheld the assessors by electing them all to office again the next year. With the exception of John Ware, there has been little complaint about taxes.”
Year: 1973