Radio Script #1202

Little Talks on Common Things
May 6, 1979

I had not intended to let my story of the Paine family stretch out into this broadcast, but I found so much of interest in the Paine papers that I could not manage to condense it into shorter time.

Now we are ready to take a look at the man I mentioned frequently in the two previous broadcasts, Timothy Otis Paine. He was born in Winslow on October 13, 1824. As the youngest boy in the family he was, as a child, completely overshadowed by his brothers, one of whom was 14 years older than Timothy. But even as a school boy in the Fort Halifax one room school, he showed promise of being as good a scholar as his older brother, Albert, who graduated from Waterville College in 1834. Thirteen years later in 1847 Timothy got his own degree from that college. Then for a few years he lived at home.

Thanks to his mother’s diary we do know a bit of what he was doing soon after his college graduation. The part of his mother’s diary that has been preserved covers the year 1848 and some of 1849. Let us note a few of the items that concern Timothy. We learn that the young man had some ability as an artist. “April 12, 1848. Timothy has just finished a portrait of Charles, who was killed on the Steamer Halifax. He did it from a daguerreotype. It is admirably done.” “August 15 – Timothy today finished doing his own portrait.” “Nov. 25 – Timothy has just finished a second portrait of Charles.”

Here are some other items. “Timothy has been three weeks in Bangor with Albert. A long siege of bilious fever brought Albert near to the grave”. “Timothy has purchased a boat of Mr. West for $4.50. He is very fond of it. I praise that Boy’s economy. He will get through life easily.” “Timothy has now made 16 portraits of humans and two of Newfoundland dogs, for which he got good pay.” “Timothy took the Halifax to Gardiner on his way to Boston.”

Just before his graduation from the college, Timothy had written his brother Albert: “There are strange doings at Waterville College. One of my classmates was expelled for blowing a horn on the Fourth of July, and with him another horn blowing sophomore. I do not know what will come next. The Sons of Temperance had a fine meeting on the Fourth. There were about 400 of us. I belong to Ticonic Division No. 13 that has 140 members. I have made important changes in my diet. I eat no meat, not even fowl, no butter on potato or bread, and I shun pies and cakes of every kind. I do not like even to see them. I take a shower bath every day, and twice a day in warm weather. I can walk 40 miles without trouble.”

In Boston, when he went in 1848, Timothy Paine became interested in the Swedenborgian religion, known as the Church of the New Jerusalem. That sect had been started in Sweden early in the 18th century by Emanuel Swedenborg. It was related to spiritualism. The man did not intend to found a separate church. He held that members of all churches could belong to the Church of the New Jerusalem without forming a separate organization. His followers, however, did establish a separate church, and it was one of that so-called Swedenborgian faith, that appealed to Timothy Paine in Boston. His new found faith led Timothy Paine into studies of biblical architecture, culminating in his controversial book, Solomon’s Temple. Timothy read carefully .the chapter in the book of Ezekiel which gives the measurements of the temple. In 1852 he made a sketch of it, representing the overhanging galleries supported by pillars. Then he turned to more profound study of the book of Ezekiel in Hebrew, and the comments upon it by Jesuit scholars in the Talmud. He made comparisons with the Greek scriptures, and made a study of perspective, something he had already considered in his painting.

In 1861, publisher George Phinney of Boston brought out a book containing 21 photos made from drawings by Timothy Paine. They included the Ark of Noah, the Tabernacle, the First Temple, the House of the King (that is, Solomon’s Palace) and the Last Temple. In 1886 the firm of Houghton Mifflin and Co. brought out a sumptuous volume by Paine under the title “Solomon’s Temple”. It was a massive, dignified book containing 42 full page plates and 20 smaller cuts in the text – photo reproduction of Paine’s original drawings.

Timothy’s next project was a study of the hieroglyphic texts of Egypt both in carvings and on papyrus. He obtained old and rare texts from the Bodlean Library at Oxford. He was able to decipher many Egyptian items in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and he delivered numerous lectures. He became Professor of Hebrew, Greek and Latin in the New Church Theological
School.

Timothy received many compliments on his book. One said, “Your work deserves wide recognition. It shows exhaustive research and makes the Jewish representation of the first and last temples much more intelligible.”

A salesman for Timothy’s book was Arthur Bates of Roxbury. About four months after its publication he wrote to Timothy: “Your relative Henry W. Paine of Cambridge is one of my purchasers of your book. He is in a position to give it a good word at Harvard. He wants you to see him when you are next in Boston. I realize the list of purchasers is not yet long – but I claim only the merit of a good salesman – patience.”

The book was well reviewed by many papers, including the New York Tribune and such church magazines as the Congregationalist. The book was reviewed for Zion’s Advocate, the Maine Baptist paper, by Edward W. Hall, Librarian of Colby College. Not all readers were favorably impressed. Several prominent churchmen thought, in spite of his research, Timothy had let his imagination prevail, that he was depicting what he thought the temple ought to have been rather than what it really was.

For his Egyptian studies Timothy received high commendationin France and Germany. Timothy wrote several other books on biblical architecture, one of which was called “The Houses of God”, but none ever reached the fame of his “Solomon’s Temple”.

Timothy Paine spent the later years of his life in Elmwood, Massachusetts. His daughter wrote this about his life there. “Father came to Elmwood in 1853. Our home was in the village part of the town that was called Joppa. We lived in a little white cottage on a short street. The yard was surrounded by a high fence and a latched gate. The house had a small piazza. Many of the houses brought the air of other worldliness then characteristic of the New Church. Our house was a refuge and a fortress. Callers were expected only between 3 and 5 in the afternoon. Nothing was allowed to interrupt the regularity of our lives. Father always took us children seriously, and he respected us as individuals. Father often referred to his younger days as an artist, and he considered all modern artists corrupt in their lives, and he deplored the use of models, and just could not understand anyone modeling in the nude. Lest he be accused of the same kind of corruption by those who saw his paintings, he burned most of them.”

Timothy Otis Paine died in Boston on December 6, 1895, at the age of 71.

Last week I told you of some of the references to Colby College in the Paine papers. Here is another writing in 1855 by Lawyer Albert Paine of Bangor, who had graduated from the college in 1832. “I claim for my alma mater good old Waterville College, and I don’t yet have the heart to recognize its new name of Colby. I feel the way a boy does when his mother changes her name by a second marriage. I can remember the progress of improvements on the college grounds. There were then only two buildings, North and South College, the former finished only in part. The grounds were wild and uncultivated, few. trees and nothing ornamental. The triangle in front of South College and a path to the road was the work mainly of our little class when we were sophomores. The senior class plot at North College and the path there were wholly our work during senior year; all the paths were laid out by our hands. The large willows which line the path from South College to the river were planted as little whisps in my senior year 1832.

“During my college days I was selected to ring the bell, enabling me to pay my term bills. After freshman year I found opportunity to teach during every winter vacation. But it was only by boarding at home, two miles away, that I was able to get a college education.”

In the Paine papers is an account of a Sunday School outing held in Waterville in 1838. The writer says: “I was living then in West Waterville and I had joined a class at the Winslow church taught by William Lewis. The school superintendent was Francis Alonzo Gates of the college class of 1837. We met at the Winslow Meetinghouse and marched to the boat landing. We crossed the river by ferry, were met by other Sabbath school pupils and marched to the college grounds where we had exercises and a picnic. Rev. Thomas Adams had charge of the singing.”

It seems appropriate to close this account of the Paine family with something about the member of the family whom persons of my age knew well, Dr. Edward Paine. Son of George Paine, he was a great-grandson of the pioneer Lemuel Paine. Dr. Paine wrote this account of his experience in World War I. Before America cast her lot with the Allies, there were several organizations in France founded by Americans. One was the American Ambulance Corp. serving at the French front and a base hospital just outside Paris. I applied for the Ambulance-Corp. in July, 1916. I was sent to the hospital at the edge of the Marne battlefield dotted everywhere by French and German guns. We received wounded from the front by train and ambulance. Then I had the rare privilege of working with Dr. Carrel, who perfected the technique for treatment of war wounds that was one of the most brilliant achievements of the war. Then I spent a year in a British organization,the Croix Rouge Francais (the Red Cross of France). We occupied the hunting lodge of the Duc de Penthou, turned over as a hospital, a great stone chateaux in a beautiful park, surrounded by one of the most extensive forests in France. In March, 1918, I had a surgical operation on my hip, which caused my- rejection for service in the U. S. Army Medical Corp. and I returned to the U. S. before the war was over.”

And that concludes our three weeks account of one of this region’s pioneer families, the Paines of Winslow.

Year: 1979