Radio Script #1099

Little Talks on Common Things
November 7, 1976

Something of what the Waterville area was like nearly a century ago is revealed by the directory of Waterville, Fairfield and Oakland for the year 1887. It would be another year before Waterville would become a city.

Its town government in 1887 was headed by Selectmen Charles Farrington, Fred Pooler, and Howard Morse. Charles Johnson was Treasurer and Sidney Heath was Clerk. Some town offices that have since disappeared were Pound Keeper, John Lublow, Town Hall Keeper, Stanford Chase, and Night Watch, C. H. Weeks. The Superintending School Committee consisted of J. G. Soule, Martha Baker Dunn, the accomplished poet and essayist, and Albion Woodbury Small, Professor of History at Colby, who two years later would be elected President of the college. They had charge of the high school and 14 elementary schools, two of which were designated as grammar schools, two as intermediate, and 10 as primary. That division into primary, intermediate and grammar schools was exactly the arrangement for the schools I attended in another Maine town a decade later.

Waterville’s two grammar schools in 1887 were called First and Second, and the intermediates were North and South.
Names of the ten primary schools give us some information about their location. North Primary was the schoolhouse still standing, but now apartments on College Avenue, opposite the Colonial Manor Nursing Home. South Primary was on Summer Street near its junction with Gold, not far from the present site of the South Grammar School. Mill Street Primary was what we knew fifty years ago as the Western Avenue School. Plains Primary was later the Redington Street School, while South plains Primary became the Grove Street School. There was a primary school on Oak Street and another on Front Street. The Oakland Street Primary was near the junction of that street with Cool Street. The town had two rural schools, one-room schools – Webb District Primary and Neck District Primary.

In 1887 the extension of Western Avenue on by the present location of Mount Merici to the Oakland line, passing over the present campus of Colby College, was then called the Neck Road, which explains the designation of that school as Neck District. The schoolhouse stood near the present south end of Johnson Pond. Among living persons who attended that school is the world renown mathematician, Marston Morse.

Let us now take a look at some Waterville businesses, the very nature of which has disappeared since 1887. The town then had three carriage makers. Fairfield also had three, and Oakland one. Two of them placed ads in the directory. One ad read, “Thomas Smart, manufacturer of carriages and sleighs, Mill Street, Waterville.” The other was worded, “G. W. Young Co., Carriage Repository; all kinds of repairing done on short notice; Main Street, corner of Water, Fairfield.

Waterville had a cigar maker at that time, Lovell & Putnam at 59 Main Street. The directory carried the names of 35 dressmakers, 21 of them in Waterville, nine in Fairfield, and five in Oakland. Among the best known in Waterville were three maiden ladies: Mary Branch, Helen Crommett and Edna Springfield. The area boasted seven harness makers, three each in Waterville and Fairfield, and one in Oakland. Waterville had three ice dealers: John Hodgdon on Hinter Street, Joseph Lublow on Chaplin Street, and James Young at Head of the Falls. The area had plenty of livery stables, six in Waterville, four in Fairfield, and five in Oakland. Five of them advertised in the directory. Those respective ads said: “Elmwood Livery, Hack and Boarding Stables, 151 Main Street, next to Elmwood Hotel. George Je~vell, Proprietor. Hacks for funerals, weddings and parties. Office connected by telephone.” “Hanson’s Livery and Boarding Stable, 25 Silver Street. First-class teams at reasonable rates. F. M. Hanson, Proprietor.” “Jewell’s Stables, Silver Street. The Proprietor’s personal attention given to letting and boarding horses.” “George C. Small, Bridge Street, Fairfield; sale and livery stables; hacks to all trains and to order. Orders for hearse and team for funerals may be left at the stable.” “~. E. Cunningham, Oak Street, Oakland. Teams for hire. Horses boarded. The Proprietor also runs a stage between Oakland and Augusta four times a week. Leaves Oakland on arrival of Somerset train and connects with the Steamer Star of the East from Augusta to Boston. Fare $1.00.” Two persons were listed as wheelwrights: Thomas Smart in Waterville and George Young in Fairfield. The area had five dealers in stove wood and one wool dealer.

Large factories were not common here in 1887. The largest was, of course, the Lockwood Company, with its cotton products. C. F. Hathaway had been making shirts since 1850 and was still living in 1887. The Waterville Iron Works, run by Webber and Philbrick, was then located off the West River Road on the Messalonskee. Horace Printon made bricks at his yard on College Avenue near the Fairfield line. Jeremiah Furbush made doors, sashes and blinds in his small shop on Cool Street. W. B. Marston had a match factory at Crommett’s Mills, off Western Avenue on the Messalonskee and nearby H. R. Butterfield had a shovel handle factory and Henry Ricker, a tannery.

In Waterville’s Mechanic Square, J. P. Wyman made soda water. Perhaps what today seems the oddest business listed in the 1887 directory was the Bonemeal Bleachery conducted by Mrs. S. C. Gray.

Fairfield and Oakland were quite as rich in factories as was Waterville ninety years ago. In fact, Oakland was known all across the nation as the place where quality edge tools were made. Three such factories were then located on the Messalonskee between its source at the lake and the present site of the Cascade Mill. The largest was the Dunn Edge Tool Co., owned by the Dunn Brothers of Waterville. Others, both of considerable size, were the Emerson and Stevens Co., and the Hubbard and Blake Co. By 1887, the Cascade Woolen Co. was already in operation. Another Oakland firm was the Augusta Wrench Co. Fairfield had the Fairfield Furniture Co., the Kennebec Framing and Lumber Co., the Maine Manufacturing Co., and the Somerset Fibre Co., on the island across the first of Fairfield’s three bridges. That town also
had four sawmills on the Kennebec at Kendall’s Mills (now Fairfield Village). They were the mills of A. H. and C. E. DUDen, Stephen Nye, E. Totman & Co., and N. Totman and Sons. At Somerset Mills (now Shawmut) was the big sawmill of Lawrence and Phillips. Frank Libby had a sawmill at Larone, and Oren Hoxie had one at North Fairfield.

Before the days of the big supermarkets every town had a number of grocery stores. Waterville had 25, Fairfield 14 and Oakland 5. It is interesting to note how widely the Waterville stores were distributed. Only eight of the 25 were on any part of Waterville’s long Main Street. Three were on Ticonic Street, one on Temple, one on Gold, one on Maple, one on Mill Street, and seven in the south end, on or just off Water Street.

Waterville had six drug stores in 1887, all listed in the directory as apothecaries. If you want to know what the inside of those stores looked like, you should visit the Redington Museum of the Waterville Historical Society and see the completely furnished old-time apothecary shop recently donated to the Society by Reginald LaVerdiere, the LaVerdiere family, and the operator of chain drug stores, LaVerdiere Enterprises. Waterville’s largest apothecary in 1887 was George Dorr’s in the Phoenix Block near the corner of Main and West Temple Streets. His ad said: “George W. Dorr’s Connected Drug and Book Stores. This is the place to buy pure drugs, chemicals, patent medicines, trusses, and sponges. Imported and Domestic cigars. Headquarters for Fairchild’s gold pens.”

What about professional men in Waterville ninety years ago? There were 13 doctors, of which the best remembered are Frederick C. Thayer, Nathaniel Boutelle, J. Frederick Hill and N. G. H. Pulsifer. There were 12 law firms, of which the best known were Brown and Johnson, in which the partners were Simon S. Brown and Charles F. Johnson; and the firm of Webb and Webb. Oliver Hall and Warren Philbrook (later a justice of the Maine Supreme Court) combined the business of real estate with their practice in the Arnold Block. In fact, other lawyers also had side lines. Frank Shaw, later judge of the local municipal court, had a Main Street law office in 1887, where he also served as agent for the Farmer’s Loan and Trust Co.

A long-lived and popular local business thriving in 1887 was Otten’s Bakery, whose directory ad said: “A. Otten, plain and fancy bread, cake and pastry, Temple Street; Parties and picnics supplied on short order; wedding cakes a specialty.”

Now back again to professional men. Besides nearly a dozen retired or inactive clergymen as residents, Waterville had eight in active charge of local churches in 1887. William Spencer was at the First Baptist and at the French Baptist Mission on Water Street. E. N. Smith was the Congregational pastor, G. A. Crawford the Methodist, Albert White the Unitarian, and R. H. Aldrich the Universalist. Melville McLaughlin was at St. Mark’s Mission on Center Street. There was then only one Roman Catholic Church in town, St. Francis de Sales, of which the pastor was the much loved Narcisse Charland. In 1887, the Getchell Street Baptist, the Adventist, and even later Waterville churches had not been established.

Strange minded seems the hour for Sunday services in the Baptist and Universalist churches. It was not in the morning but at 2:30 in the afternoon. The other Protestant churches had services at either 10:00 or 10:30 on Sunday morning, and many in the whole-list held Sunday evening services and mid-week prayer meetings. The St. Francis Sunday masses were at 8:00 and 10:15 a.m., and vespers at 3:00 p.m. Appended to the St. Francis notice is this item: “Instruction in English every second and fourth Sunday; in French every first and third Sunday.”

Colby College and Coburn Institute are each given a full page in the 1887 directory. George Dana Boardman Pepper was then the Colby President, and his faculty consisted of nine men, but at the end of the list in just as large type was added Samuel Osborne, Janitor, thus recognizing the service of Colby’s renowned colored janitor, whom students remembered better than they did many of the faculty.

Coburn’s best known principal, James H. Hansen, was still active in 1887. Besides three academic assistants, he had two teachers of music, one of drawing and painting, and one of penmanship.

All together, that old directory tells us a lot about this area of Maine ninety years ago.

Year: 1976