Radio Script #969

Little Talks on Common Things
April 15, 1973

More than once I have referred on this program to changing populations of Maine towns. Perhaps it is time we took a more thorough look at that subject today, not only the declining numbers in many of our communities, but some indications in the opposite direction – places that have seen significant growth.

Well, let’s have the bad news first. In Kennebec County, the towns that have seen the worst losses of people in the century between 1870 and 1970 are Fayette, Mt. Vernon, Rome, Wayne, and Vienna. Only two of those towns has half as many people as it had 100 years ago. Hardest hit has been Vienna, dropping from 740 to 205. Rome lost as nearly as large a percentage, shrinking from 725 to 362. Mt. Vernon went down from 1252 to 680, Fayette from 900 to 447, and Wayne from 938 to 577. Other Kennebec towns that showed losses, but not so large as those five, were Albion, Belgrade, China, Litchfield, Pittston, Readfield, Sidney and Vassalboro.

Kennebec County has in all twenty incorporated towns and four cities. Of those twenty towns, 13 lost population in the last century. But let us now take a look at the brighter side of the picture, what happened in the other seven towns. The most spectacular increase occurred in Winslow, which increased its population five times, rising from 1437 in 1870 to 7299 in 1970. A hundred years ago, Winslow ranked tenth among the Kennebec towns, and fourteenth in all including the cities. Now Winslow is third in rank among the 24 communities in the county, being exceeded only by Augusta and Waterville. Winslow now has more than twice as many people as Hallowell which in 1870 stood second only to Augusta.

Surprising has been the growth of Benton, which has added 650 to its 1180 population a century ago. Not so surprising is the growth of Chelsea from 1238 to 2095, because that is the site of the large Veterans’ hospital. Clinton has added 200, Monmouth 300, and both Manchester and Winthrop have doubled their population.

Now let us turn to Somerset County, which has no city but does, besides several plantations and unorganized territory, contain 25 incorporated towns. Only ten of those towns have shown any increase in the past 100 years. The other 15 have all lost population. The biggest loss has occurred in Starks, which shrank from 1,083 to 323. Nearly as hard hit was Mercer, which went down from 846 to 313. New Portland lost nearly 2/3 of its 1870 numbers, falling to 559 from 1454. Ripley, Cambridge, Embden, and Smithfield lost half their number. Solon shrank from 1176 to 712, Canaan from 1492 to 904, while whens suffered a big drop from 1540 to 592. In 1870 only two of Somerset’s 25 towns has fewer than 500 people. In 1970 seven towns did not reach that total.

The Somerset town that grew most during the century was not one of the larger towns, as one might expect. It was Jackman, relatively unsettled territory a hundred years ago with only 65 people. The 1970 census showed Jackman’s count at 848. While the county’s shiretown, Skowhegan, largest in 1870 was still largest in 1970, with its population almost exactly doubled, from 3893 to 7601, its growth was not so great percentagewise as Madison’s, which increased from 1401 to 4278. The neighboring town of Anson also added 400 people, while Bingham, largely because of the big dam, doubled from 826 to 1754. Another town that nearly doubled was Fairfield, which rose from 3060 to 5684. Hartland showed a gain of 300, Norridgewock added 200, but it was Pittsfield that showed surprising growth. With only 1800 people in 1870, it had nearly 4300 a century later. Despite the Wyman Dam, Moscow showed only a slight increase, from 528 to 586.

In Somerset County a hundred years ago, Athens was larger than Madison, but St. Albans was bigger than either. It was then the sixth largest town in the county, exceeded only by Skowhwgan, Pittsfield, Norridgewock, Fairfield and Anson. Today Somerset’s smallest towns are Cambridge with 281 people, Ripley with 297, Mercer with 313, and Starks with 323. Those four towns all together have only 1214 people.

Let us now take a brief look at one other Maine county, very large in area, but small in population. It is Piscataquis, with the long prosperous towns of Dover-Foxcroft and Dexter, both of which have increased during the century. Of the county’s fifteen other towns, only four have added population during the hundred years. The largest increase has been in Greenville, from 369 to 1874, but Milo, with its big spool factory, did nearly as well, growing from 938 to 2572. The Canadian Pacific Railroad brought Brownville from 860 to 1490, and its factories shot Guilford’s population up from 819 to 1694. Piscataquis’ other eleven towns all lost population. Some, like Monson and Sangerville, had almost as many people in 1970 as they did in 1870, but others lost appreciably. Abbott went down from 797 to 453, Atkinson from 870 to 213, Parkman from 1105 to 457, Sebec from 1152 to 325. Today five Piscataquis towns have each fewer than 200 people: Shirley, 174; Medford, 146; Wellington, 126; Williamsburg, 85; and Bowerbank a paltry 29.

As I have now shown you, population in the three counties of Kennebec, Somerset and Piscataquis is a mixed picture. The number of towns that have lost population during the past hundred years greatly exceeds those that have gained. But the gaining towns did so well that everyone of those counties, in total, has more people today than it had a century ago. In other words, the situation is Central Maine is not as bad as many pessimists would have us believe.

About forty years ago, Oliver Hall, Colby 1893, then editor of the Bangor Commercial, selected an all time Colby team that consisted not only of good baseball players in their college years, but everyone of whom won distinction in a life-time career. Hall called it Colby’s all-time, all-star baseball team. The battery was composed of two men both of whom served as Chief Justices of the Maine Supreme Court. The pitcher was Charles Barnes, 1892, and the catcher Leslie Cornish, 1875. Relief pitcher was another Supreme Court Justice, Harrington Putnam, 1870. Hall gave Barnes the major pitching assignment because he played in more games and at a more sophisticated time than Putnam, who was on Colby teams when the game was in its infancy in Maine colleges in the late 1860’s. On first base of Hall’s team was Henry Hudson of Guilford, Class of 1900, a judge of the Maine Superior Court, whom Hall let share that sack with Bill Bonney, 1892, Treasurer of the State and Speaker of the Maine House. On second base was Shailer Mathews, 1884, who won national renown as a theologian and Dean of the Divinity School at University of Chicago. At shortstop was Albion Woodbury Small, 1876, founder of the modern social science of sociology, and for a time President of Colby. Third base was ably held by Arthur Roberts, 1890, Colby’s President from 1907 to 1927, who for three of his undergraduate years was the team’s leading hitter. For him is named the Roberts Union on Mayflower Hill. In left field Hall placed Herbert M. Lord, U.S. Director of the Budget, and a Major General in charge of finances in World War I. The center fielder was Clarence Melaney, 1876, distinguished Superintendent of Schools of the City of New York. In right field was Nathaniel Butler, Colby’s President from 1896 to 1901, and later the nationally distinguished Dean of the College of Education at the University of Chicago.

It is noteworthy that on Hall’s all-star team were three men who carved out brilliant careers as heads of graduate schools at Chicago – Butler in Education, Matthews in Divinity, Small in Liberal Arts. Do college atheletes make good in later life? Oliver Hall presented strong evidence that at least the Colby baseball men from 1870 to 1892 certainly did.

Not long ago I devoted nearly an entire broadcast to Norridgewock. Here are a few more items about that town. William Allen published the first history of Norridgewock in 1849, a century and a quarter ago. In it he made a curious statement that until recently escaped my notice. Allen wrote: “Norridgewock is pronounced, according to the analogy of the word and the custom of the Indians, with accent on the second syllable, Nor-ridge’-wock. The present accent on the first syllable Nor’-ridge-wock, is a later corruption.” Of the Indians at Old Point, Allen said: “There were five Indian tribes in Maine, all under the general name Abnakis. Of them the Canabas, afterwards called the Norridgewocks, were the most formidable in war.”

Concerning different treatment of the Indians by English and French, Allen confirmed what has become the prevalent historical opinion. “The first English on the Kennebec captured some of the natives and carried them to England for show. The French sent missionaries from Quebec to instruct the Indians of Maine. The English tried to exercise authority by force of arms, the French by force of religion. The Indians adopted unrelenting hatred of the English.”

About settlers near Norridgewock, Allen wrote: “In 1767, when there were no settlers above Fort Halifax, the Plymouth Company, to encourage settlement on their lands, employed John McKechnie to survey twelve great lots on each side of the Kennebec, each great lot being 306 rods on the river and extending back fifteen miles. The survey then divided the great lots into settlers’ lots of 200 acres. The proprietors then offered each settler one of those 200 acre lots if he would agree to stay for ten years, build a house, and within three years have at least five acres under cultivation. By 1773 there were eleven families at Norridgewock. The place grew so fast that it was incorporated as a town in 1788.”

We read so much about Norridgewock in the various accounts of Arnold’s Expedition that we think of it as a sizable place in 1775. Actually the first settlers had come only three years earlier in 1772, and when Arnold went through there were not more than a dozen families.

Year: 1973