Radio Script #1286

Little Talks on Common Things
October 25, 1981

Today let us take a brief view of our State of Maine when it was only 32 years old in 1852. For that time, nearly 130 years ago, our information comes from the 1852 Maine Register, a tiny 7~ x 5~ inch volume of 200 pages, compared with the huge tome of more than 800 pages today. Today’s Register gives information on everyone of Maine’s more than 600 towns, cities and plantations. In 1852 the information was much more general, and contained nothing on individual towns, although at that time there were more than 350 incorporated towns in the state.

That old Register has much information usually found in an almanac: time of sunrises and sunsets for every day of the year, high and low tides, and phases of the moon. But it also made note of historic Maine events that had occurred on a particular day of the month in preceding years.

Some of those events we would regard today as of little importance. In fact many people now living never heard of some of them. They included the death of Chief Orono of the Penobscot Indians, a Maine freshet on the Penobscot in 1846, and the death of General Waldo in 1759.

Other events were, however, of lasting historical significance: John Smith’s landing on Monhegan Island in 1614, the birth of Henry W. Longfellow in 1807, Maine’s separation from Massachusetts in 1820, William Pepperell’s capture of Louisburg in 1745, and the destruction of the Indian settlement at Norridgewock in 1724.

A section of the Register was devoted to the federal government headed by President Zachary Taylor. There were only six cabinet members, led by Daniel Hebster as Secretary of State. A well remembered Maine man ,vas then in the U.S. Senate. He was Hannibal Hamlin, who eight years later would be Abraham Lincoln’s Vice President. The other Maine senator was James Bradbury, by most people long since forgotten. Instead of two Maine representatives in the national House, as Maine has today, in 1852 there were seven. Only one of those is well remembered: Israel Washburn, one of the famous Washburn brothers of Livermore. He then lived in Bangor. The other six came from Biddeford, Portland, Farmington, Paris, Camden and Calais. At that time the whole Union numbered only 31 states.

When Israel Washburn was in Congress, that branch of government did have some members who became persons of national importance. They were Senators Henry Clay of Kentucky, Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, and William Seward of New York. In the House were Horace Mann of Massachusetts and Andrew Johnson of Tennessee.

By today’s standards government salaries were very modest in 1852. The President of the U.S. got $25,000 a year, and the Vice President only $5,000. Each Cabinet member was paid $6,000. Next to the President, the highest salary was paid to the U.S. Ambassador to London, $7,000 a year. U.S. Senators got $2,500 and Representatives $1,800.

As for governing the State of Maine in 1852, John Hubbard was Governor, while Anson Morrill, a man who became much better known, was the State land agent. Noel Price of Thomaston was President of the Maine Senate, and George Sewall of Bath was Speaker of the House. Samuel Cony of Augusta was the State Treasurer. Some of the legislators later became well known among them were Thomas Cleaves of Bridgton, James Dascomb of Bloomfield and John Honan of Vassalboro. Ethan Shepley of Portland was Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Court, and Asa Redington of Augusta, son of the Waterville pioneer of the same name, was Court Recorder.

Maine had some highly competent and widely recognized lawyers in 1852: Nathan Clifford and William Pitt Fessenden of Portland, Reuel Williams of Augusta, Samuel Appleton of Bangor, Timothy Boutelle of Waterville, and Stephen Coburn of Skowhegan.

The Register devoted several pages to information about civil officers in Haine’s then 13 counties. The counties of Androscoggin, Sagadahoc, and Knox not then been established.

Population figures were for the census of 1850, and they give us an interesting glimpse of several Maine communities, concerning the big difference in numbers of people from what it is today. Lewiston, now one of Maine’s three largest cities, had then only 1845 people. Bath was six times the size of Lewiston, which was then smaller than even the towns of Newcastle or Jefferson. By 1850, Augusta’s population had grown to 8000, while Waterville had only half that number. Gardiner was then larger than Waterville. Hallowell, which at the turn into the 19th century had been Kennebec’s largest community, had only 3200 people in 1850, and was surpassed by Vassalboro with 3400. One of Kennebec’s large towns was then China, which had three times as many people as Winslow.

In 1850 Fairfield was Somerset county’s largest town, having about 50 more inhabitants than the combined towns of Bloomfield and Milburn, that today form the town of Skowhegan, Norridgewock, not Skowhegan, was then the county seat, and it was, next to Fairfield, the county’s largest town. Mercer which now has fewer than 400 people, in 1850 had 1882. Bangor was then the state’s most rapidly growing community. In the ten years between 1840 and 1850 it had grown from 8000 to 14,000 people.

In the same period Portland’s population had increased from 15,000 to 20,000. At that time very few Maine towns were rated with a valuation of more than a million dollars. There were only 11 towns and cities in that category: Portland, Westbrook, Augusta, Waterville, Gardiner, Bath, Rockland, Bangor, Belfast, Biddeford and Saco. The total valuation of Lewiston was then set at $580,000, more than $100,000 less than Wiscasset, Farmington or Gorham. When we consider the recent rapid growth of Winslow, it is astounding to note that in 1850 all the real estate in that town was valued at only
$342,000.

The Register gives a list of newspapers published in Maine in 1852. The state then had four dailies, two each in Portland and Bangor. All were politically oriented. Only one was a Democratic paper: The Portland Argus. The Portland Advertiser, the Bangor Whig and Courier, and the Bangor Mercury were all three Whig publications.

Weekly papers were published in Augusta, Bath, Biddeford, Calais, Camden, Dover, Eastport, Ellsworth, Farmington, Gardiner, Hallowell, Paris, Rockland, Saco, Skmvhegan, Thomaston, and Waterville. In Augusta the weekly Kennebec Journal was issued three times a week when the Legislature was in session. Three weeklies were at that time published by religious denominations in Maine: Zion’s Advocate by Baptists, the Christian Mirrorby Congregationalists and the Gospel Banner by Universalists. The Fountain, a weekly devoted to the cause of temperance, was published in Gardiner, and a paper that became an historical curiosity was Dr. Mann’s American Miscellany in Skowhegan.

The Register pointed out that, when Maine became a separate state in 1820, it had only six newspapers, the Portland Gazette and the Portland Argus, the Kennebec Weekly Visitor in Augusta, the Gazette and the American Advertiser both at Hallowell, and the Bangor Register. In 1820 those were all weeklies.

Of the Maine banks operating in 1852 Waterville had two: the Waterville Bank and the Ticonic. The only small towns that then had a bank were Wiscasset, Waldoboro and Thomaston. That was because all three were seaports with Federal custom houses.

Railroads were few and very young in Maine in 1853. The Atlantic and St. Lawrence connected Portland with Montreal. The Androscoggin and Kennebec from Portland to Waterville had been running for only three years, the Portland and Kennebec, projected to go as far as Augusta, had reached only Brunswick, with a branch line to Bath. The Buckfield road connected that town to the Atlantic and St. Lawrence at Mechanic Falls. The Bangor and Piscataquis had been built only through Veazie to Old Town. The Portland, Saco and Portsmouth gave connection to Boston via the Eastern Railroad. The York and Cumberland, later to become the Portland and Rochester, had been opened only as far as Gorham. There was a very short line between Calais and Baring. Just keep in mind that twenty years earlier, Maine had no railroad at all.

Of course there were no telephones in 1852. The telegraph which ten years later would play an important part in the Civil War, was in its infancy, but Maine already had two companies, both incorporated in 1841: the Maine Telegraph Co., whose president was Hiram Alden of Belfast, and the Kennebec Telegraph Co., headed by Henry Haskins of Gardiner.

I have already mentioned some federal salaries in 1852. Now let us see what some state offices were paid. The Maine governor got $1500 a year, the Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Court $1,800, the State Treasurer, $900 , and the warden at the state Prison $700. Legislators, both senators and representatives, got $2 a day when the Legislature was in session, and no allowance for lodging and meals. County Commissioners fot $2.50 a day and ten cents a mile for attending meetings.

About the institution that is now Colby College the Register said the president was Rev. David Sheldon, who had four other men on his faculty. They were professors of mathematics and natural philosophy, of chemistry and natural history, of Greek and Latin, and of rhetoric. There was also a tutor in modern languages. The library boasted a collection of 13,000 volumes. The entire student body numbered 88, of whom 34 were freshmen and only 11 seniors. One statement said. “The estimated value of grounds, buildings, library, apparatus, and geological cabinet is $40,000. Just consider the difference today when an addition to the already large Colby Library costs over six million dollars.

And with that story about Maine in 1852, we say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1981