Radio Script #1115

Little Talks on Common Things
February 27, 1977

At the close of last week’s program we left Harvey Eaton and Walter Wyman’s Messalonskee Electric Company and the Waterville and Fairfield Electric Co. in court, with two prominent Maine lawyers, Herbert Heath and Charles Johnson fighting it out.

The decision was in favor of the Messalonskee Co., validating their deal with the Dunn Edge Tool Company for a ten year lease of that power site. That contract provided for hydraulic development of the Cascade at Oakland, the setting of wheels erection of a power house and installation of generators. All these the Eaton and Wyman Co. proceeded to do.

The Waterville Mail then informed the public: “The Messalonskee Co. will soon have 400 horsepower for private lighting demands and a surplus for expansion. The Company still retains the Rices Rips property, which has the largest undeveloped power in Central Maine, where Eaton and Wyman plan for another power station at an early date.”

The news of their power development caused lively competition among suppliers of electrical equipment. The plans called for two water-wheel dynamos, having 45 revolutions per second, creating 4000 volts and 300 kilowatts. The contract for equipment was awarded to the Burdock Electric Manufacturing Co. of Cincinnati, Ohio. It included, besides power station items, new lamps and other items needed to keep the Messalonskee’s agreement to change the Waterville street lighting from direct to alternating current.

It is interesting to note the rates charged to private users of electricity in 1906 here in Waterville. Bear in mind that, at that time, lighting was the only use of electricity in homes, and any other use was for very small motors in wood working and similar small industries. There was no huge use of electricity in factories and no one had then heard of electric refrigerators, freezers, heaters, air conditioners, washing machines and driers, or even such a common device as an electric flatiron,

Now notice what people paid for electricity in 1906, according to the Messalonskee Company’s statement. “Dwellings: three 16 candle power lamps, $3 per month; more than three, 30 cents each per month. We run wires to outside of house, inside wiring is at owner’s expense. Stores: one 16 candlepower light, 25 cents per month, more than one 40 cents each per month. The Company furnishes the lamps and hanger board. Motors: 1 horsepower, $30 per year; more than one, $25 per hlp per year. We will wire your house or store for just what it costs us. We have a telephone in the store of F. L. Hersom, which is at your service for communication with the company. Our aim is to give the best possible service, and if you don’t think we are doing so, you will confer a favor by telling us just as soon as possible. We are trying to work for the best interest of Waterville and Oakland and we want your patronage as far as you can give it to us.”

The Messalonskee Electric Co. founded by Harvey Eaton became the genesis of today’s great Central Maine Power Co. The first step was consolidation with the Waterville and Fairfield Railway and Light Co., which itself became the Central Maine Power Co. in 1911, gaining control in this area not only of electrical usage for street lighting, home and industrial use, but also of the Waterville and Fairfield and the Waterville and Oakland street car lines.

From that time on, the development of the Central Maine Power Co. was rapid until it has come to control the major part of Maine today. And that, in substance, is the story of how electric power came to the Waterville area.

This has been a good winter for snowmobiles and skis. What about snowshoes? Does anyone now use them except a few trapping and rabbit hunters?

Sixty years ago, when I was teaching at Hebron Academy, very few of the students or faculty skied, but everyone snowshoed. And I contend that we had a lot more snow during the second decade of this century than we have had in recent years. Seldom did we have to crawl through a wire fence. The snow covered most of them, and they all were from four to five feet high.

Near the foot of those Oxford County Peaks, Swipepole and Streaked Mountain, drifts often piled higher than eight feet. Anyhow, going across the fields on snowshoes was great sport in those days. That is why an old advertising brochure I recently ran across brings back fond memories. It was published by H.H. Homer of Norway, Maine in 1915, and this is what it said: “I have made snowshoes for over 35 years. My snowshoes will not bog when wet. I use the best neat’s hide for fining, first removing the hair without the use of lime. The wood is white ash, the best for this purpose.”

Homer’s best snowshoe was called the Fancy Club, and it sold for $10 a pair. It was equipped with special sandals of russet leather, hand sewed and embossed. It came in, several sizes from 46 to 48 inches long and 11 to 14 inches wide. His cheapest snowshoes for adults sold for $5 but the same model for a child cost only $4. Homer made a special snowshoe for trappers that was 56 inches long and very narrow. He priced it at $8.

With each shoe Homer put out careful instructions. Here are a few of them:

“Mocassins without heels are the proper footwear for snowshoes. Never strike snowshoes together to remove snow. Do not dry them near open fire or stove; they will burn easily when hot. Keep them away from rats and mice. Never put oil on the fillings, it will injure the hide.”

Apropos our earlier remarks on the beginnings of the Central Maine Power Co., a brochure issued by this company, chiefly for information of its stockholders, appeared in 1924, and it gave us some information about that company more than half a century ago. The pamphlet was filled with illustrations which showed the power stations at Skowhegan Falls, the Shawmut Dam, the Island station at Fairfield, the Bangs Station at Waterville, and the Fort Halifax Station in Winslow, as well as a dozen other stations in various parts of Maine.

In 1924 what is now the big dam at Moscow had not been built, but a photo of the Upper Kennebec carried the captions “One of the power sites which the company controls is on the Kennebec at the Carrying Place about 10 miles above Bingham, where 10,000 horsepower awaits development.”

That spot called the Carrying Place has a long historical record. It was used by the French and Indians in the 1700’s when they made their journeys between Quebec and the Kennebec, and in 1775 it was where Benedict Arnold’s, army of 1100 men left the Kennebec to make the carry to the first of three ponds that gave them access to the Dead River and the Height of Land beyond which the streams flowed north to the St. Lawrence.

In 1924 the Central Maine Power Co. operated a number of retail stores, one of which was on the east side of Main Street near the present Sterns store. There we could buy light bulbs and fixtures, pay the monthly electrical bill, and sit in a comfortable waiting room until the street cars operated by the company came along.

In 1924 Central Maine Power’s rival was not Bangor Hydro, but the Cumberland County Power and Light Co. in Portland. Later CMF acquired that company too. The President of CMF in 1924 was Walter Wyman, the same man who nearly a quarter of a century earlier had TrE de with Waterville’ s Harvey Eaton, the initial venture on the Messalonskee that resulted in t.he big utility company.

A central two page spread in the brochure was devoted to the original source of the company’s power, the Messalonskee Stream. It said: “Rarely is so complete control of watershed stream and stations to be found as Central Maine Power Co. developed along the Messalonskee Stream. Instead of this drainage of the Belgrade Lakes flowing idly to the sea, it is now harnessed at four of our stations, generating 10,000 horsepower of hydroelectric energy. Here at Oakland, CMP installed its first generator that supplied only 150 horsepower, all that was necessary, for customers at that time. The Messalonskee has a drainage area of 200 square miles and a storage capacity of four billion cubic feet. The watershed includes land in Belgrade, Rome, Smithfield, Sidney, Oakland and Waterville. On this stream CMP has four large stations.”

A hundred years ago when Maine’s largest industry was farming, and when individual farms were mostly small enough for a man and a couple of boys to do all the work, most Maine homes subscribed to some agricultural journal. While most popular was the Maine Farmer, a monthly published within the state, other papers were frequently seen. One was called American Agriculture, a monthly magazine with many illustrations by hand-made wood cuts. For its day it was a large publication, frequently running to 48 pages. Its subscription price was $1.50 a year.

I recently looked through its issue of July, 1880. Besides its farm information it had a lot of other advice for the rural householder. One article was headed “Sundry Humbugs,” among which it included counterfeit money, also a package of written paper slips with a few genuine bills on the top and bottom, getting someone to write his signature on a blank piece of paper, then putting a promissory note above it, fake gold rings, and useless electrical medical machines to cure every disease under the sun. Special attention was called to a new machine called the magnetic galvanometer. The article warned, “If you wear one of these things, your own mother won’t know you.”

The magazine was more friendly toward new farm equipment. It loudly praised Blanchard’s Churn with revolving dashers. It really did churn the cream into smooth butter, and didn’t take all day to do it.

When we consider the price of real estate today, it gives nostalgic feelings to note this magazine’s design for a country home of ten rooms that could be built for $3500, including a fully cemented cellar.

This issue had two articles about foreign animals, the Iceland sheep and the African zebra.

A curious article told how to train a yoke of oxen to tilt a seesaw back and forth to generate power for a small thrashing machine.

The housewife could learn from this magazine about the nature and properties of yeast, how to make a paper shade for a kerosene lamp and how to distinguish among various kinds of glass.

One ad in the old magazine refers to a new invention of the time. It was the safety, hot-blast oil stove, said to be perfectly safe for cooling in the summer or heating a room in the, winter.

And with this reference to smelly old oil stoves, we say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1977