Radio Script #1085

Little Talks on Common Things
May 2, 1976

We closed last week’s broadcast with a warrant for collection of Waterville taxes in 1835. We noted that the entire tax commitment including state, county, and town taxes, was only $3,918. It naturally follows that many individual levies were very low by modern standards, but we must remember that a dollar was harder to get in those long ago days when a dollar a day was considered a high wage.

The individual commitments made in the 1835 warrant show that Waterville’s largest taxpayer was then Nathaniel Gilman, who had to pay $206. The second highest was Timothy Boutelle, down for $107. No other resident had to pay as much as $100. Others possessed of considerable property in 1835, and therefore in the higher tax brackets, were Asa Redington $75, James Stackpole $74, Simeon Mathews $85, Baxter Crowell $60, and Jediah Morrill $50.

In 1835, a number of men who later achieved considerable prominence were not among the holders of substantial property. Abijah Smith, son-in-law of the pioneer landowner Obadiah Williams, paid only $12; Asa Bates only $2; John Burleigh a mere fifty cents. Prof. George Keely at Waterville College was taxed $7, while his colleague John Foster had to pay $9. However, another professor, Calvin Newton was hit for only $1.85. The Baptist minister, Samuel Francis Smith, author of the national hymn “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”, was taxed for $2.37. John Webber, ancestor of a later very prominent Waterville family, paid $1.23.

There were large families of close relatives revealed by that tax list of 1835. There were ten tax-paying Getchells, Nehemiah leading them with a tax of $47. There were eight Morrills, nine Marstons, ten Parkers, six Penneys, nine Soules, five Gages, five Moors, six Crommetts, seven Blackwel1s, and five Bateses. But the wealthiest family, the Gilmans, had only three names on the list. Besides Nathaniel, the trader, landowner and financier, there were Nathaniel Jr. and William.

Two of the most prolific families were the Toziers and the Shoreys. Of the Toziers, there were 12, of whom the largest taxpayer was Asa, $3.95, with most of the others taxed for less than $2. As for the Shoreys, they included two names, Shorey and Shores, with, in some cases, brothers taking different names. Together the individual taxpayers named either Shorey or Shores in 1835 numbered eleven, and their taxes generally ran higher than the Toziers’. George Shorey had a tax of $14, James one of $23, and Thomas $10.

In the whole tax list, the minimum tax, payed by about 100 persons, was $1.23. That, of course, was a poll tax, and a person listed for that alone had no taxable property.

Some now nearly forgotten names on that old tax list were Russell Blackwell, father of Temperence Blackwell, who married the shirt maker, Charles F. Hathaway; Wyman Moor, for a time a: U.S. Senator; Knelum Marston, watch maker; William Pearson, owner of a large tannery on the Messalonskee; Peletiah Soule, a prominent farmer; and Franklin Smith who received the title of General.

By 183, the second generation of Waterville early families was beginning to take its place in municipal life. Although Asa Redington was then still living, his son William was among the larger taxpayers. James Stackpole, Jr. had succeeded his father as head of the many Stackpole enterprises, and William Mathews was on the way to become even better known than his father, the wealthy merchant, Simeon Mathews.

By 1870 one of Waterville’s prominent families was the McFarlands, who held the local postmastership for more than 40 years. But in 1835 they were just getting started. Three of them were on that old tax list, and the three together paid total taxes of only $12.

Three others of Asa Redington’s sons besides William paid taxes in 1835. Samuel had to part with $13, S Has with $8, and Isaac with $4.

There were some old-time given names on that tax list seldom heard today.

Fathers gave their children names often taken then from the Bible or from classical literature. So we note on the list Zachaeus Parker, Peletiah Soule, Ephraim Morrill, Isaiah Marston, Jeremiah Mitchell, Elisha Pearson, Elthiel Penney, and Reward Sturtevant. Some had presidential names, although the U. S. presidency was less than 50 years old. There were Washington Gates, Jefferson Soule, and Jackson Parker. It is interesting to note that the commonest given name on the list was not John, but William. There were an astounding number with the same given name as Waterville’s pioneer Redington, Asa. We find 22 Asas on the list. Some quite modern names, one would be unlikely to find as early as 1835, were also there. Among them were Harrison Smith, Sullivan Soule, Summer Percival, Dennis Blackwell, and Theodore Crommett. Indeed there is a lot of information about old Waterville to be gleaned from the town’s old tax lists.

Among many interesting items that come to my attention are letters written long ago in simpler times than we now face.

In 1891, a Waterville woman visiting in Europe, wrote some interesting letters to her brother in Waterville. Now that year seems to me a long time ago, because it was the very year in which I was born.

The woman was Hannah Philbrick and her brother was a well-known Waterville man of that period, John White Philbrick. On the same tour with the sister was a relative who would soon have a distinguished career. He was Shailer Mathews, who became the renowned Dean of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, and a guest preacher in the most distinguished Baptist pulpits in the nation. Hannah Philbrick’s travels did not diminish her interest in the family’s Waterville business, the foundry that would develop into the Waterville Iron Works. On January 22, 1891, she wrote to her brother as follows.

“What is the outlook for the factory? Don’t you think ID:rease Robinson’s figures for building it are rather high? I would like to know what Cross and Brann would do the work for. I had hoped to get the new carpenter work on my house alterations for $500 because it will take so little wood and only rough work, but I did not reckon on a big bill for plumbing. As for changes in my house, how do you like my latest plan for a bathroom?

“How much did I get from the bank dividends and from my Lockwood stock? I am glad we are not dependent on the houses, they bring in so little.”

She concluded the letter: “I am at a quaint hotel in Ilsenburg. We had supper in the garden, bread and strawberries, chocolate and milk, and a band to play for us while we ate.”

On February 16 she wrote again about living quarters in Germany. “I have amused myself by drawing a complete plan for our apartment here. I have only drawn it by eye, not to scale. Lizzie wrote me your idea for the size of our rooms. They are actually 12 feet high and the stud is 11 feet 3 inches. There is a high iron fence around the block, which fronts on two streets and has many tenements. A narrow yard in front has some beds bordered with box and other small trees. The first floor is occupied by the porter and his family. They attend to the door, keep hall and stairs in good order, and care for the court. He lights the hall early, puts out all lights promptly at 10, locks the gate and the front door. If one is out after that, one must have his own key or ring up the porter. Because you thus get him out of bed, you must give him a generous tip.”

Brother John received another letter written as the heading says “from the top of the Brocken, July 3, 1891.” It says, “We left Berlin July 1. Our party of six now includes Howard Brockman, who acts as a sort of business manager, paying our bills and bargaining with landlords and waiters. We find Howard valuable when we use a train, for we then take several pieces of hand luggage, leaving our trunks at some central hotel to which we return. Those pieces are heavy to lift up into the overhead frames in the cars, and Howard does it all for us.

“In Hildeshein, we went from our hotel to a restaurant across the street just to get Helen a cup of tea. It took nearly an hour. Germans are the slowest people in the world. The Brocken rises 3400 feet above the city, not nearly as high as Mount Washington, but the highest in this part of Germany.”

Hannah’s letter of April 28, 1891, was short but meaty. She wrote: ” ~ay and Shailer have gone to hear one of Wagner’s operas. It is hard to get tickets, and two were all they could find. So I stayed in the apartment. The Tiergarten here is very beautiful, and I never tire of riding through it.

“I wonder how affairs are moving in Waterville. I see by the Lewiston Journal that there has been a freshet on the Kennebec, and the same paper says that Miss Bates is married. Do you think the stir about the State Liquor Agency will make any change? I think it is well to expose the dealings even if there is no reform.”

Hannah’s next letter concerned not houses but graves. “Will you ask someone to see to my lot at the cemetery and have it in good condition by Decoration Day. If you go down to see your own lot, will you take a look at my fence. If it needs painting, get a man to do it.

“I am sorry to hear of Marshall Percival’s misfortune. Who were the two men on his bond? I hope one of them was not you.”

On Easter Sunday, Hannah was in Italy. She tried to attend a church in Florence, but could not get in because of the crowd. Shailer meanwhile was in Rome, taking in the classical sights. On September 6 she wrote John to expect her back in Waterville by the 18th.

Who were these people of the correspondence 85 years ago? John White Philbrick and Hannah Philbrick were children of John Robinson Philbrick, who had been born in 1789 and had died in 1858. John White had been born in Waterville in 1821 and his sister Hannah in 1822. John, after several years in Wisconsin, returned to Waterville as Master Mechanic for the Maine Central R.R, John Philbrick’s son was Frank B. Philbrick, who became a partner with Webber in the business that they developed into the Waterville Iron Works. Frank Philbrick’s son Herbert, a prominent graduate of Colby, was for many years Vice-President in charge of finances at Northwestern University in Illinois.

Year: 1976