Radio Script #60
Little Talks On Common Things
March 19, 1950
Our request for more information about relics of old Fort Halifax brings a response from the man whom I regard as the best informed person on the life of the Abenaki Indians. He is John F. Hill, former Waterville business man, now living on a RFD route in Oakland.
John -Hill says that several years ago, while on one of his many expeditions hunting Indian relics, he made an interesting find. In the bed of the stream directly opposite the center of old Fort Halifax, he picked up an iron axe, which his expert knowledge of Indian artifacts easily identified with the period of the French and Indian War. He knew that his find was one of the so-called trade hatchets supplied to the Indians by both English and French at that time.
Mr. Hill does not contend that the use of this particular trade hatchet is known, but he points out that its location invites the plausible conclusion that it played an important part in the history of the old fort.
In the course of his many years of relic hunting, Mr. Hill has found three of those old trade hatchets in widely separated areas of Maine. Besides the one picked up near Fort Halifax, he found another on the shore of Cobbossecontee Lake, and a third near the chain of ponds far up on the Arnold Trail close to the Canadian border. John Hill has placed many of his Indian relics for permanent display in the Bates Museum at Good Will. There the visitor can see the trade hatchet which Mr. Hill found near Fort Halifax.
Another item concerning Fort Halifax comes to me as a deeply appreciated gift from Mrs. Walter Scribner of Silver Court, Waterville. Mrs. Scribner is well known as Central Maine’s most expert mender of garments. Mr. Scribner equally well known as a garage operator, has recollections of Waterville that go back 75 years. For my collection of material about the old times Mrs. Scribner has presented an ancient map or plan of the Fort Halifax region.
It is a surveyor’s map, beautifully done in three colors — black, yellow and blue — on white, hand-made paper. Years ago — how many no one can guess — when the paper began to disintegrate, someone pasted the map on heavy wall paper. The upper right hand corner is gone, but it apparently contained nothing but unmarked paper, and the rest of the map is intact.
The map is inscribed thus: “William Freeman’s property, sold Thomas Eaton, abutting his property. This plan represents Fort Halifax Farms and the Divisions as was set off by the Commission. The Freeman lots and house lot laid down by a scale of 20 rods to an inch. A true copy by John Jones, Surveyor. Augusta, February 22, 1798 .
The plan shows the house lots on the point of land at the tip of which now stands what is left of Fort Halifax. Facing the Kennebec are nine lots, and facing the Sebasticook are six. Between them runs a road which must have been very near the location of the present highway. Extending along this road and back up over the hill the map shows huge, undivided lots of 80 acres each, belonging respectively to William Brown, the Merrick Heirs, the Hallowell Heirs, William Whipple and the heirs of John Gardiner. The wide sweep of the Kennebec just above the point, including the island near the Waterville shore, is marked on the map as Great Bay, which explains why the street was named Bay Street.
This map shows only the house lots on the north side of the Sebasticook. The earlier settlements were on the south side of that river and along the Kennebec, from what is now Lithgow Street all the way to the Vassalboro line.
Not long ago the Mayor, Aldermen and Councilmen of Waterville completed the burdensome task of establishing the 1950 budget. The Committee on Appropriations spent long, tedious hours listening to the pleas of the several municipal departments.
We owe a great deal to these men of the City Council. It is no fun to be forced to decide appropriations When, no matter how you decide, you are sure to displease somebody. These city fathers of ours are conscientious men, doing their best to cut the garment of financial appropriations to the cloth of financial resources.
In 1950 our elected officers have dealt with a million dollar budget. It may be small comfort to them, but it is good for the rest of us to know what kind of a budget the city had 56 years ago, in 1894. Waterville then had been only six years a city. Let’s see what money the city fathers then appropriated and where they got it.
In 1894 the total tax commitment was $98,580, divided roughly $73,000 real estate, $20,000 personal property, and $5,000 polls. The tax rate was 20 mills. The year 1894 was a time of depression, and $16,000, or one sixth, of the whole tax commitment remained uncollected at the end of the year.
The poor we have with us always, and $10,000 was spent for their support in 1894. The overseers said in their report: “The past year has been one of the hardest for the poor in the history of this city. Very little work has been done by the city to furnish labor, except street work. The hard times continued, large corporations doing only what was necessary, curtailing in every way. 190 persons have been helped besides those in the alms house. That means many more, as some have large families. The year’s cost of the alms house has been $1,472.57.We have cut and hauled 157 cords of wood.”
The cost of the street department was almost exactly the same as that of the poor department, $10,000. The commissioner, Martin Blaisdell, received a salary of $750 per year. The big job of the year was replanting the Kennebec bridge, part of the expense being borne by the town of Winslow. Edward Ware was paid $468 for the lumber to do that job. What would it cost today? The department spent $50 for a dump cart, $12.15 for granite, $15 for moving a barn at the gravel pit, and $1.25 for cutting limbs of trees.
How the work on the streets was done 55 years ago is revealed by a few items taken from the department.’s 1894 inventory: 1 road machine, 2 dump carts, 2 sets forward wheels, 3 steel road scrapers, 2 plows, 3 four-horse snow plows, 4 sidewalk plows, 1 sod cutter, 3 wheelbarrows, 4 lanterns, 1 bush scythe.
1894 was a fortunate year for fires. The largest fire of the year caused a loss of only $250 in the basement of W. D. Spaulding’s store. Total expense of the department was $7,500. The chief’s salary was $1,000. The largest single item of expense was to the Waterville Water Company — $1,105.
The city report for 1894 reveals some interesting facts about the street lights of that period. Compared with our street lights today, some of those of 1894 were pretty dim. On Winter Street were two lamps of only 20 candle power.
On College Avenue, near the Perkins place, and on Temple Street were lamps of 32 candle power. But of course the principal lighting was furnished by the old-fashioned arc lights of 1,000 candle power. There were 58 of those arc lights scattered through the city, and in 1894 it cost $390 to supply them with carbons.
Maintenance of the street lights was in charge of Thomas Landry, who was engaged for this job from April 1, 1894 to April 1, 1895 at a salary of $1,140, but two additional jobs supplemented his earnings a bit. He took care of the fire alarm for $75, and he cared for the city’s parks for $100. Altogether it would seem to be quite a job for one man, and his total salary of $1,315 was not lavish. A few oil lamps were still in use in 1894. There was paid to C. A. Plummer $6.00 for the care of oil lamps on Pleasant Place.
The police department under A. L. McFadden made 172 arrests in 1894, 111 of them for drunkenness. Arrests for serious crimes were one each for forgery, embezzlement, threatening to burn buildings, and keeping a house of ill fame, and four for breaking and entering.
Economically 1894 must indeed have been a year of hard times, for 907 persons applied to the police department for lodging in the jail. In fact the chief said in his report: “The expense of the department has been increased the past year by the add1tion of a regular night watchman on the Plains, also by having 75 Italians to board three days in Augusta, Who came to our city without any means whatsoever, being unable· to collect their wages from the contractor of the Wiscasset and Quebec Railroad Where they had been employed.” Among the well known names listed as policemen — perhaps they were part time — are S. E. Whitcomb, George L. Cannon and Frank Dusty.
Those were the days When, under local option, towns ran liquor agencies, and Waterville had one. Its year’s sales were $4,870, just about one day’s good sale at the State Liquor Store today. The agency made a net profit of $833. Salaries paid the three agents were respectively $268, $163 and $162.
Expenses included installation of a coal bin and repairing the roof. One item makes us raise our eyebrows a bit: “liquor furnished to paupers, $6.89.” In 1894 as now the schools called for the largest appropriation. But what a difference! The school appropriation by the city was then $17,500. Approximately $6,800 came from the state, making the total school budget $24,300.
The separate appropriation of $3,000 had been made for a new schoolhouse. Does anyone remember where it was? The building committee spent$659.43 more than the appropriation and, believe it or not, the difference was supplied from the regular school appropriation. In the new school house Redington and Company furnished the seats and F. J. Goodridge supplied a clock.
Choosing from the list a few well remembered names, let us take a look at the salaries our teachers then received. Dennis Bowman, principal of the high school, got $1,200 a year, Minnie Smith had $560, Cora Lincoln $450; Lulu Morrill, Eva Towne, Alice Osborn and Sarah Lang each got:$360. The total salary account was $15,452.
For conveying scholars the city paid $197.50. Just contrast that with conveyance costs today. Fuel cost $1,700, and as late as 1894 it was still mostly wood. Repairs cost $650, books $2,000, and all the janitors in all the schools of the city received together only $1,630.
Among the miscellaneous receipts was $135 for non-resident tuition in the high school, $5.92 for the sale of pens, and $17.00 for blanks. Among the items of miscellaneous expense were $3.25 for thawing pipes, 75 cents for typewriting, $1.70 for pitch pipes and $5.00 for removing ashes.
Probably the city fathers in 1894 had just as many headaches as the present government has in 1950, but how the present aldermen and councilmen would like to deal with those 1894 figures!
Year: 1950