Radio Script #1153

Little Talks on Common Things
February 19, 1978

My recent discovery in the library of the Waterville Historical Society at the Redington Museum of a small, paperback volume leads me to still another broadcast on Maine’s early railroads. This will add some information to previous broadcasts on the same subject.

The booklet carries the title “Charter and By-laws of the Portland and Kennebec R.R. Co” I have often mentioned the fact that the first railroad train to enter Waterville arrived in November, 1847, on a line extending from Danville Junction to Waterville that was named the Androscoggin and Kennebec R.R. It was three years later that Augusta saw its first railroad train, and that was on a line called the Kennebec and Portland. It was that line that later changed its name to Portland and Kennebec. It had been chartered in 1836, but was unable to raise money enough to start building until 12 years later in 1848, when it completed tracks from Brunswick to Augusta.

Now before we giY~mC>:t:’edeta~ls €;l about the Portland and Kennebec, let us see how this railroad played a part in making Waterville the railroad center of interior Maine.

It was the father of Maine railroads, John Poor, promoter of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence that connected Canada’s largest city, Montreal, with the ice-free port of Portland who brought the first railroad to Waterville. A firm believer in wide gauge, Poor had built the Atlantic and St. Lawrence on a track 5 feet 6 inches wide when he got the needed financing for a road to connect his Canadian line with interior Maine at Waterville, he saw that it was built the same width. That road, called the Androscoggin and Kennebec, used the Atlantic and St. Lawrence tracks from Portland to Danville Junction, so that new tracks had to be laid only from there to Waterville. The Androscoggin and Kennebec passed through Lewiston, Monmouth, Winthrop, Belgrade and Oakland to Waterville.

Years later it became known as the back road of the Maine Central between Portland and Waterville. The Kennebec and Portland had been built from Portland to Brunswick on a narrower gauge of 4 feet, 8-1/2 inches, the width that later in the
1870s became standard of American railroads. So naturally, its extension. to Augusta was originally that width.

In 1848, a year before the Androscoggin and Kennebec reached Waterville, the legislature had granted a charter for an extension of the Kennebec and Portland from Augusta through the Waterville-Fairfield area to Skowhegan, to be built by a separate company, the Somerset and Kennebec. Before that chartered line was built, however, there had peen chartered the Penobscot and Kennebec RR, an extension of the Androscoggin and Kennebec from Waterville to Bangor. That was in 1855. The next year the Somerset and Kennebec laid its tracks from Augusta to Skowhegan, forming a junction with the Penobscot and Kennebec at a point in Fairfield just north of the Waterville line.

The fact that these two roads were of different width led to a lot of trouble and to long controversy called “The Battle of the Gauges”.

To prevent passengers from quickly changing trains at the Fairfield junction, the A & K, which also controlled the Penobscot and Kennebec, operated a schedule that made long waits at the junction for passengers between Augusta and Bangor, and to lure westbound passengers for Augusta to stay with them, they operated a stage line from Winthrop to Augusta and made the fare from Bargor to Augusta, by their railroad and the stage, less than the fare from Bangor by use of the two railroads with a tiresome wait at Fairfield.

The whole story of the controversy is too long to tell 0;; :.bis .?rogra r”but with many short periods of truce, several legislative acts, and periods of chicanery on both sides, there was no real peace until the Andcoscoggin and Kennebec and the Penobscot and Kennebec, were merged to form the beginning of the Maine Central system in 1862. Nine years later the Maine Central adopted for all its roads the standard gauge of 4 feet, 8-1/2 inches, and the change was completed in 1873.

Now we turn again to the Kennebec and Portland, whose extension the Somerset and Kennebec, was the railroad to connect Waterville with the state capitol at Augusta. By act of incorporation in 1836, sixteen years before the line was actually opened to Augusta, the Maine Legislature had granted a charter to 43 men to construct and maintain a railroad starting at a point in the city of Portland, passing through North Yarmouth, Freeport, Brunswick and Topsham, to Gardiner, then to Hallowell and then to Augusta village on the west side of the Kennebec.

Among the prominent men who formed the company was Robert Hallowell Gardiner, grandson of the Kennebec pioneer Dr Sylvester Gardiner, and in 1836 the richest landowner in Central Maine. Two leading Augusta men were Heuel Williams and Asa Redington, Jr., the latter a son of Waterville’s leading citizen and Revolutionary veteran, Asa Redington.

The capital stock was fixed at $1,200,000 divided into shares of $200 each. Ten years later, in 1846, the legislature granted the Kennebec and Portland an amendment to their charter to locate the road through and east of the village of Brunswick to t::’de water in the village of Bath, to be built simultaneously with construction between Portland and Brunswick. The amendment also provided for shares of stock at $100 each instead of $200.

Maine citizens were eager to get railroads into their towns but they were also wary about how much and what kind of land those companies should take over. So, in 1852, the legislature passed the following statement: “A railroad company may take and hold real estate for the location, construction and convenient use of its road and may purchase land therefor, may take in the manner provided for taking land for highway (that is, by eminent domain) not to exceed four rods in width. No meetinghouse, dwelling house or burying ground shall be taken without consent of the owners.

By 1857 some of the tracks of the Kennebec and Portland within the City of Portland had become a nuisance to traffic by teams in a rapidly growing city, and the legislature passed a new act affecting the railroad. It said: “The Kennebec and Portland RR Co. is hereby authorized, at any time within the next three years, to alter the location of its road between a point in its present track on the southside of the highway leading from Bramhall’s Hill to Libby Corner, said highway being an extension of Congress Street, and from that point to the junction of the K & P RR with the Portland, Saco and Portsmouth RR in Cape Elizabeth so as to avoid crossing Fore River. ”

By the time of the outbreak of the Civil War, the Kennebec and Portland was in financial difficulty. For some time no interest had been paid on the bonds, and there had never been a stock dividend. The operation of the Kennebec and Portland RR simply was not profitable. Interest having been defaulted on :…. ..,., 8 second mortgage bonds in 1857, trustees set up by the bondholders took over the road, and in 1859 gave notice of foreclosure, the text of which was printed in this booklet. It says: “Whereas the K & P RR Co. has refused and neglected to pay to the holders of mortgage bonds since in 1852 or interest fees since April 1, 1856, and still refuses to pay the same, and whereas Reuel Williams, owning $48,800 of said bonds, and eight others owning divers amounts of said bond stIna11 amounting to $1 .1.. 2 , 0U”0 , “c,e.L.,, g r.lore than one-1:., h.”l re” 01~ J<n e entire issue; now therefore, the owners of said bonds give notice that because of the company’s neglect to pay the semi-annual interest, they claim foreclosure of the mortgage.”

The result was that the original company went out of business and the trustees operated the road from 1857 to 1864, when those distressed bondholders formed a new company by simply reversing the name, the defunct Kennebec and Portland became the Portland and Kennebec. That wiped out the value of the common stock of the old company, and when under the management of Richard D. Rice the new company became prosperous, they naturally sought redress. That led to long litigation that eventually exonerated the new company from any claim of the old stockholders.

The by-laws of the newly organized Portland and Kennebec gave broad authority to its board of directors. They could borrow such money as they deemed necessary for use of the company and issue bonds or notes as payment. They had unlimited authority to buy real estate, materials, engines ,cars, construct depots and make all needed settlements of claims. They had unrestricted right to fix passenger fares and freight rates and legal authority to collect the same. The charter did, however, fix the capital stock at 15,000 shares of $100 each. A definite risk the buyer of stock in any railroad took in those early days was not limited to the probability of a long wait before the road could pay any dividends. There was also the possibility that every stockholder might haye to come up with additional money to protect his investment. That was done by assessments to provide money to pay unexpected additional expense of construction or operation beyond the original budgeted estimates. A provision, in the Portland and Kennebec by-laws said: “The directors may from time to time make such em-. .lal assesments on all the shares of the company as they may deem expedient and necessary, and if any shareholder shall neglect or refuse to pay such assessment the directors may order the treasurer to sell any such shares at public auction. If those shares shall not sell for enough to pay the shareholder’s assessment, he shall be liable to the company for any deficiency to be collected by law.”

Now let us close this broadcast by noting the variously, chartered Maine railroads that eventually composed the huge Maine Central system.

As we have already p6:il1te~’o;lt, the Maine Central began in 1862, a merger of the Androscoggin and Kennebec and the Penobscot and Ke!mebec. In 1868 the Maine Central leased the Dexter and Newport, then in 1870 the Portland and Kenr.ebec as well as its extension to Skowhegan, the Somerset and Kennebec. The next year it, leased the Belfast and Moosehead, between Belfast and Burnham Junction, and in the same year the Androscoggin RR and Leeds Junction to Farmington. In 1882, it took over the European and North American from Bangor to Vanceboro, and in 1883 the shorter line from Bangor to Bucksport, followed in 1884 by control of the line from :aan~o:!:’ to Mt. Desert Ferry, the route to Bar Harbor.

In 1888, it took a long lease of the Portland and Ogdensburg, and made it the Mountain Division, and at the same time acquired the Piscataquis and Doyer, which was really an extension of the Dexter and Newport. It got the Knox and Lincoln, from Woolwich to Rockland in 1891. In the twentieth century the Maine Central acquired the Washington County Railroad and the Portland and Rumford Falls in 1907, the Somerset Railroad from Oakland to Bingham and Moosehead in 1911, and two narrow gauge lines, the Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes, and the Bridgton and Saco River in 1912.

Year: 1978