Radio Script #1156

Little Talks on Common Things
March 12, 1978

One of Maine’s leading figures in the last half of the 19th century was Henry S. Burrage, the state historian and author of several books on Maine historian. He was also a prominent Baptist clergyman, and wrote the official history of Maine Baptist Churches. From 1870 to 1873 he was pastor of Waterville’s First Baptist Church.

Devoted to the preservation of Maine historical records and artifacts are Dr. Burrage’s two daughters, still living in Wiscasset. Active in many projects is one of those daughters, Miss Mildred Burrage, who from time to time has allowed me to see some of her father’s papers.

Though not himself a Colby graduate, Dr. Burrage was for 25 years a trustee of the college and actively interested in its welfare. He carried on voluminous correspondence with fellow trustees and alumni of Colby. In 1885 Dr. Burrage received a letter from the Colby professor of chemistry, William Elden, that reveals an activity of at least one member of Colby’s science faculty at the time when Darwinism was beginning to affect much college teaching. This is what Professor Elden wrote. “About three years ago, a number of freshmen came to me and asked me to take them as a Bible class in the Baptist Sunday School. I made some objection, mainly because college Bible classes are generally very short lived. I had always avoided taking one.

“But these freshmen seemed so unwilling to take a refusal that I finally consented. The group began with twelve, held on well, and studied the lessons dilligently.

“We took up the life of the Apostle Paul and spent nearly the whole college year on that topic. I made maps and lesson plans. I cleaned out and fitted a classroom for us in Coburn Hall. I had been using it only for a storeroom for minerals.

“This term we shall take up the life of Christ. We begin with the study of the land of Palestine in Jesus time. I have a good, topographical map, and section maps of my own drawing and a large engraving of the Temple.

“Now I want- to start a class library so they may have at hand books of reference. In this way I can induce them to have a class meeting once a week between Sundays, to prepare and discuss the lesson in advance.

“Now, in that new room, the class has increased to twenty members. Many are excellent Christian young men, some of whom will probably enter the ministry. Others are of a floating type who may be influenced for the better. I want to get a good hold on them. The possible increased financial prosperity of Colby only makes the necessity greater. It is going to take strenuous effort to hold the college for Christianity and especially for the Baptist denomination.

“I have been trying to beg $100 from someone for this library. I would like to start with a set of Smith’s Bible Dictionary in four volumes, and a good, small complete commentary.

“The whole object of this letter is to ask you boldly, do you not know among your intimate acquaintances perhaps two good men who would give me those two works? They would be the property of the college, and in case of dissolution of the class, would be given to the College Library.

“Of course there is no objection to one man giving both works, nor do I want to beg from those who have already been very generous to the college. But I do want the books.”

During his long active life, one of Henry Burrage’s positions was that of editor of Zion’s Advocate, the Baptist Weekly paper of Maine, published in Portland. Colby College long had an advertisement in the paper, the text of which was changed from time to time. A letter written by one of Colby’s most celebrated presidents, Albion Woodbury Small, to Dr. Burrage in 1890 shows that the ad that then appeared in the Advocate was written by the college president personally. The letter said:

“In addition to copy for our advertisement in the Advocate, I send you a statement which I hope you will publish. It may be best not to say that I wrote it, because I am somewhat out of favor with our straight-laced brethren.”

Then President Small made pointed reference to the religious controversy that was to plague denominational colleges for many years, for it caused a gap between liberals and conservatives about as wide as the gap between Jews and Arabs seems to be in our own day. To the sympathetic Dr. Burrage, President Small wrote:

“I am having a tilt with the Watchman’s editor (the Watchman was a national Baptist paper) about one of his recent editorials in which he charged Colby and Brown University with actually putting obstacles in the way of entrance to those universities. He made gross insinuations at the Newton Theological Institution alumni dinner and I vigorously remonstrated. He replied that I had no right to take the Watchman to task. I told him he certainly had no right to take college presidents to task fifty times as publicly, and what was worse, draw on his imagination for alleged facts with which he defamed us, and spread his words where they could do infinite mischief. It is not true and I boil at the imputation – that we have ever failed to discharge our obligations toward the students.”

It seems that, needing a replacement for Samuel King Smith, the venerable, retiring professor of Rhetoric, Small had asked Burrage to help him find a man, for he ended his letter with this question, “Did you get in touch with a rhetoric man?”

Another letter from Dr. Small to Dr. Burrage written in 1890, shows the college president’s genuine interest in religious affairs, not only’ Baptist, but also an ecumenical movement, stimulated by a leading Congregationalist, President William DeWitt Hyde of Bowdoin College. Small wrote to Burrage: “President Hyde informs me that, at the last state conference of Congregationalists, he was made chairman of a committee instructed to ask the state convention of Baptists, Free Baptists and Methodists to appoint similar committees to confer on the subject of a united plan to reduce the number of separate congregations in small Maine communities, many of which are scarcely large enough to support a single denomination.

“President Hyde asked me if I thought the Baptists would be willing to consider the subject. I replied that they would surely consider it, if invited to do so, and would certainly do anything proper to promote more thorough evangelization of the state. Pres. Hyde asked me to suggest four Baptists who might be asked to confer with his committee, with a view to having an official Baptist committee later appointed by our Convention. I suggested, as the four, the President and Secretary of the Maine Baptist Convention, Mr. Moses Giddings of Bangor and yourself.”

The correspondence between Dr. Small and Dr. Burrage continued after Small left the college presidency to start the then new academic discipline of Sociology at the University of Chicago. From the Windy City Small wrote Burrage about the latter’s just published book, “Maine, in the Northeast Boundary Controversy”: “On my return from meetings in Atlantic City,I put on my desk your magnificent volume, Maine in the Northeast Boundary Controversy. It at once convicts me of breadth and depth of ignorance, which I propose to remedy by careful study of your book.

“By a curious coincidence, I stumbled at once on the picture of Governor Parris. It is a delight to see what manner of man in appearance gave my father his name, Albion Keith Parris Small. The picture reminds me of Deacon Barrows, who was the leading supporter of Hebron Academy when my father and his Colby classmate Mark Dunnell were teaching there. I visited the Deacon’s home during the maple sugar season of 1865. Your book arouses my historical interest, and I shall study it closely.

“I want to ask you about the recent three volume set of Maine history. Is that work to be taken seriously? The letter that solicited my subscription to it had a letterhead in exact imitation of that of the American Historical Association. I jumped to the conclusion that the work was sponsored by the association, and I mailed a subscription.

“Some months later a proof, purporting to be my biography to be placed in the work, reached me. It was so rank I was sure it could not have been produced by anyone sanctioned by the association. I corrected the factual errors without attempting to reform the grandiose style. I wrote the publisher that I had subscribed under misapprehension, that I had no desire for the books and I considered my subscription void.

“Nevertheless the books arrived. I spent half an hour dabbling at the two volumes labeled Biography. I have not had time to sample the history. If it is as bad as the biography, it might as well go out with the rubbish. I jotted down names that do not appear, far more worthy of inclusion than many that are included. Missing I note Brian Bradbury, George Emery, Percival Bonney, and Asa Dalton. I could extend the list to at least fifty without taxing my memory. Under Waterville it first featured Dr. Pulsifer, but no mention of its most prominent early citizen, Timothy Boutelle. Not a word about the distinguished Professor George Washington Keely, nothing about the famous Dunn family, and no mention of the important business man, John Ware. There was a portrait and three pages of text for Arad Thompson, but not a line about the much better known Moses Giddings.

“Of course I know how such books are made, and I suspect the biographies appearing are those only who helped finance the scheme. What do you know about this slovenly work?!”

Evidently Dr. Burrage asked from Small more detail about his visit in 1865, for another letter says: “I was at the Deacon’s sugar camp when news came of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. It was two months before my 11th birthday. The Deacon then seemed very infirm.”

And with those brief references to two great Maine men, Henry Burrage and Albion Woodbury Small, we say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1978