Radio Script #1254

Little Talks on Common Things
November 23, 1980

Last week’s broadcast covered the story of the first seven of the Kennebec River’s fourteen bridges from the bridge at Augusta in 1797 to the one at Gardiner in 1853. Today we tell the story of the other seven.

After 1853, all the rest of the 19th century elapsed before there was another bridge across the Kennebec. Then in 1905 a bridge was built at Bingham. That community did not even have a ferry until 1820, the year when Maine became a separate state. That ferry was boat-style with what was called driving bats for foot passengers and a small scow for ox teams. It was poled across the river, but it did have a sail that could be used in deep water, but not near the banks. That ferry was one of the first on the Kennebec to use a cable, which was installed in the 1890’s. It was a strand 600 feet long and cost $200.

Erection of the Bingham bridge in 1905 caused one former resident to break into verse when she visited her native town.

“I came back to my native town,
and to the river I went down
Where I had often gone before
To have the ferry take me o’er.
And there a bridge of ample size
To span the river met my eyes.
In the spring and in the fall

There now will be no risk at all
of failing ice and being drowned,
Because the ice is so unsound.
It was a man from Concord town,
a man of honor ‘and renown,
Who worked so hard to win the prize
That’s so important to our eyes.

He has earned a lasting fame,
and Edward Whittier is his name.
Those who live on Concord side
will feel a just and honest pride
That now in comfort they repair
To God’s own house of peace and prayer,
Where goodly sermons may be heard
As saintly pastors preach the word,
When Concord folks come safely down
to go to church in Bingham town.”

The Bingham bridge was soon followed in 1910 by one at the next town downriver – Solon. Almost exactly 100 years earlier in 1809 a man named Bean had started a ferry to the Embden side near where the bridge now stands. Its service continued until the bridge went up at the end this century’s first decade. The place never saw one of the old wooden
bridges, for the first Solon bridge was built of iron. In 1957 it was replaced by the present concrete structure.

The next year, 1911, saw the opening of a bridge at Hinckley. That had been the site of the best known and most largely patronized ferry on the Upper Kennebec, a ferry started by the Fairfield pioneer Pishon family early in the 19th century. and called Pishon’s Ferry. It offered the most direct route between the coast at Belfast and the towns of the Kennebec in
Central Maine, as well as a convenient route from Bangor to those central communities. That ferry’s business was of course reduced by the coming of the railroads to Central Maine, but it continued in service until the bridge went up in 1911.

The year 1927 saw the opening of the Kennebec’s largest bridge and one of major importance. It was the Carleton Bridge between Bath and Woolwich far down the river near the entrance to the sea. It is the Kennebec’s only two deck bridge, one level for highway traffic, the other for the Maine Central Railroad’s line from Portland to Rockland.

Ferries had long crossed the river at that point. By 1920, automobile traffic had so increased that the People’s Ferry Co., that carried not only highway vehicles but also trains across the river, was heavily burdened. In 1921 the ferry conveyed 34,000 foot passengers, 51,200 automobiles, and 10,000 horse-drawn vehicles. Two years later, in 1923, the number of automobiles rose to 88,000.One of those was mine, as I used the ferry sereral times in that year when I was traveling for Ginn & Company, the textbook publishers.

For the Carleton Bridge the instigating force was Luther Maddocks of Boothbay Harbor, who began an active campaign in 1920. He obtained the ardent support of State Senator Frank Carleton of Woolwich, who in 1925 presented a bill in the legislature to authorize a bridge at Bath. The bill provided for a free bridge, and the legislature decided it was not feasible. Senator Carleton compromised for a toll bridge. The amended bill was passed and signed by Governor Brann on April 3, 1925. In September the people in referendum approved a bond issue of three million dollars to build the bridge.

It was a gigantic engineering project and to perfect final plans took several months before construction could even start. A large area in the shipyards of the Bath Iron Works was used to construct the big caissons it needed for the under-water work, and the vacant Texas Company yard was used to layout the spans.

Putting in the piers constituted a big problem because of the depth of the water and the underlying area of mud and sand. The largest pier had to be sunk 120 feet below sea level. A ledge on the Bath side also added to the time and expense of the project. The bridge spans were floated from the yard to the piers on connecting scows, taking advantage of rising tide to lift the huge pieces and place them on the piers. The first span was completed on September 28, 1927. After the steel work had been placed, the railroad tracks had to be laid, and the concrete walls and roadway put in on the highway level.

On October 24, 1927, the bridge was opened with appropriate ceremonies and was named for Senator Carleton. A train from Rockland carried Governor Brewster, Senator Carleton and Mayor Case. It was met at the Bath station by regular train No. 55 from Portland, carrying 1500 excursion passengers. Dignitaries included President McDonald of the Maine Central. Then the train proceeded to cross the bridge and go on to Rockland.

The Carleton Bridge crosses the Kennebec at a portion of the river that from colonial times was called Long Reach. It is so wide that the bridge needed six spans with intervening pieces for a total length of 2,076 feet, nearly two-fifths of a mile. The highway approaches were 427 feet on the Bath side and 597 feet on the Wool Wich end, making the total extent 3,100 feet or three-fifths of a mile. It has a drawbridge with a draw span of 234 feet and lift towers 220 feet high. The bridge cost three million dollars.

Tha river’s next bridge crossing came at Richmond in 1931. This was a controversial matter. In the past. the area had been one of the most important on the Kennebec. It was the site of the first settlers obtained by the Proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase after they gained possession of the huge land grant in 1749. So many traffic jams occurred on the old bridge at Augusta that the need for a second bridge was met in 1948 by a crossing slightly downstream, connecting the streets forming the junction near Cony High School with the junction of streets near the Augusta House on the west side. This made a direct route for the area north of Augusta to the State House and to areas south and west without encountering the slow and often stalled traffic in Augusta’s business section. It was an expensive bridge, though not as expensive as the much larger Carleton Bridge. It cost $1,800,000.

In 1964 came a Kennebec bridge built without expense to the State of Maine or any of its municipalities. The big freeway, Interstate 95, a long federal highway up the Atlantic Coast, built entirely by the federal government, had to cross the Kennebec on its way from Waterville to Bangor. That crossing was made by a high level concrete bridge a short distance north of Fairfield Village. Because the new highway greatly shortens the time for a drive to Bangor and the Northern Maine Aroostook towns, the bridge sees a lot of traffic.

The Kennebec River’s newest bridge is at Gardiner, where the river was first spanned in 1853. This is not an additional structure but replaces the old bridge, which was in bad repair. It was opened only a year ago in 1979.

That completes our story of the Kennebec’s fourteen bridges. It is a story that involves three successive construction materials wood,iron and concrete. When the first bridges were built wood was plentiful, not only for the long, huge timbers, but also to build a kind of long shed to cover the whole structure and prevent its too rapid weathering. The iron bridges made the covered bridges obsolete. Then came the era of reinforced concrete. Of what material bridges of the 21st century will be built we dare not even guess.

In this story of the bridges we have told how the first Kennebec bridge caused a big fight between the two communities of the Hook and the Fort. In the time left on this broadcast we want to tell a bit about the community that lost out in the bridge contest, the one at the Hook, which became the city of Hallowell.

For many years Hallowell, with its convenient port for sea-going ships was the largest town above Merrymeeting Bay. Before the separate incorporation of Augusta it included that community at the Fort. To and from Hallowell went every day hundreds of freight teams bringing the port and carrying from it goods between Hallowell and the back-country towns.

In the 20th century, Augusta became famous for its magazine publication, where the several periodicals printed by W. H. Gannett made Augusta’s the largest post office north of Boston, exceeding in business even the office at Portland. But in the early 19th century it was Hallowell, not Augusta that was noted for printing. It was between 1800 and 1820 the largest publishing center in the entire District of Maine. Prominent among the Hallowell publications were schoolbooks. Central Maine residents may see a display of those old schoolbooks in the Library of the Redington Museum of the Waterville Historical Society on Waterville’ s Silver Street. Others are at the Hubbard Library in Hallowell.

Hallowell’sfirst printed book was not a schoolbook, but a novel entitled: “Fenwick Friendship, a Modern Novel” published in 1797. When Peter Edes, printer son of the publisher of the Boston Gazette, set up a press in Hallowell, Dr. Benjamin Vaughan helped him to publish in 1800 a pirated European book called the “Rural Socrates,” the sayings of a Swiss farmer-philosopher. Edes’ office was not at the Hook, modern Hallowell, but at the Fort, present day Augusta. The first printer at what is now Hallowell was Ezekiel Goodale who set up a press in his bookstore at his home, where he was already selling schoolbooks, especially the celebrated New England Primer. In 1813 he opened an office at the Sign of the Bell near the foot of Hallowell’s Academy Street. In 1816 he published an English version of a Dutch book entitled “History of the Bible and the Jews”. Deacon Gow of Hallowell had brought an English translation of the book from London to Hallowell, and encouraged Goodale to reprint it.

After printing an edition of Pilgrim’s Progress in 1814 Goodale turned to textbooks: Murray’s Grammar. Kinney’s Practical Arithmetic, Allen’s New Spelling Book, French Verbs, Daley’s Evidences of Christianity (a college text) and a popular reader called Children of the World. Books of Morals for children were popular in the early 19th century. Goodale published in 1809 as he said “for the benefit of the rising generation,” a book called “The Naughty Boy Repressed.” Goodale also became a regular contributor to the Maine Farmer’s Almanac with a homey column signed “Uncle Zekiel.”

Born in Massachusetts in 1780, Ezekiel Goodale came to Hallowell in 1802. and remained its leading printer until his death in 1845. His business passed to Marston and Livermore, two men who had worked for Goodale.

Meanwhile the state capital had been moved from Portland to Augusta. and the Hallowell printing firm became the official state printer bringing out Maine Annual Reports and many other volumes for the state. The most widely known of all Hallowell books was Williamson’s History of Maine. brought out in two volumes in 1832. The firm also published many local histories, including Eaton’s History of Warren. that contains the celebrated story of the beautiful horse.

So, while Hallowell lost the bridge to Augusta, it published far more books than ever left the Augusta presses, even after the Kennebec Journal began book publication.

And with that we must say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1981