Radio Script #249
Little Talks On Common Things
January 16, 1955
A few weeks ago a significant event took place at Saugus, Massachusetts.
There the Inland Steel Company led a movement to restore that town’s famous i ron works. So they bui It an exact rept ica of what was America’s fi rst successful plant for producing iron materials in quantity. Every detail of the original plant has been duplicated to make a memorable historical exhibit of the beginnings of today’s gigantic steel industry. Three hundred years ago the Saugus works produced 160 tons a year. Today’s steel mi lis over the nation turn out 124 mi Ilion tons a year.
We. are hardly aware today of the rapidity with which the New England colonies grew after the landing of the Pi Igrlms in 1620. Two decades later in 1640 the New England population exceeded 20,000. The new seti1<J.ements needed iron -for saws and axes, for hammers and nai Is, for scythes and plowshares. AI I the iron had to be imported from England. John Winthrop, Jr., son of Boston’s governor, decided to see what could be done about making Iron products in the colon ies • He interested a group of London investors to put upl ,000 pounds to bui I d the first comp I ete i ron works in the New Wor I d.
For several reasons the proprietors chose Saugus. It lay half way between Boston and Salem. Nearby were ample supplies of bog iron ore, extensive woodlands to supply the charcoal, and a navigable stream to supply the necessary water power and transportation. The plant began production in 1646, only 16 years after the settlement of Boston.
The Saugus plant kept going for more than 200 years, but was finally put out of business by the Bessamer process of making steel. Between 1650 and 1850, when the world’s economy was based on iron, the Saugus plant, though surpassed in size by others nearer the big iron deposits, kept up a steady output. It is fitting indeed that the historical restoration, dedicated a few weeks ago, Should mark the place where began the first sustained production of cast and wrought iron in the New Wor I d.
Time passes so swiftly that it is hard to realize that no Waterville native under eighteen years of age ever saw an electric car in operation in the Elm City, and no one under 23 ever saw the big cars of the inter-urban line between Wate rv i I I e and Lew i ston •
It was at exactly ten o’clock on the evening of July 30, 1932 when the last car ever to trave I on the Androscoggi n and Kennebec Ra i Iway rounded the curve on TO the Ticonic Bridge on its farewell trip down the Kennebec Valley.
As the trolley car travelled south, it virtually rolled up the greater part of its I ine. Service ceased between Watervi lIe, Augusta, Gardiner., Hallowell, and the side branch to the Veterans Facility at Togus.
That inter-urban I ine operated for nearly a quarter of a century. Late in 1908 the first car came through to Watervi lIe, although it had for more than a year a I ready operated between Sabattus and Augusta. At one time the line p rovided the only fast means of transit to several summer resorts on the lakes. It was the only public transportation into North and East Vassalboro, and for years carried hundreds of mi II workers.
But the years between 1908 and 1932 had seen the rapid increase of motor l1ransport, both for passengers and for freight. After the close of the First World War, the electric roads fought a losing battle. The long distance, interurban lines were among the first to give up the ghost. The electric roads within cities and into thei r suburbs lasted a little longer. But only three years after the last trolley left Watervi lie on the way to Lewiston, the street cars within the city were also abandoned.
On October 10, 1937 the I ast car left the Watervi lie wa i ting room at 10 :40 P.M. for the Fairfield terminal. At the controls was Theodore Stevens of East Vassalboro, who back in 1888 drove the first horse car over the same rails.
Herbert Cunningham of Belfast who, as a Watervi lie citizen, had ridden on the first electric car, and as a chi Id had ridden on the old horse cars, was on hand to complete an interesting record by making that last trip. George Hegarty was on hand to represent the Central Maine Power Company, of which the electric rai Iway had become a subsidiary. The eventful trip was in charge of N. R. Longfellow, for 20 years the line’s superintendent. Sidney Wentworth of Oakland, motorman on the first trolley that ran to that town, also handled the last car to go there.
We are often reminded that Amos Gerald was the promoter of the trolley line in Watervi lie. Indeed he did promote simi lar lines in many parts of Maine., but he was not alone in starting the I ine between v/atervi lie and Fairfield. He had the active cooperation of four other men~ Stephen Nye of Fairfield. E. F. Webb, S. J. Abbott and E. L. Jones of Watervi lie. Those five men were the promoters of the original horse-car I ine. When the road was electrified the directors also included A. H. Totman and Edward J. Lawrence of Fairfield and P. S. Heald, then postmaster of Watervi lie.
Amos Gerald was always alert to what he cal led the sporting opportunities of the trolley line. He developed an amusement park on Bunker Island, with big crowds from Watervi lie taking the trolley to get there on summer evenings and Sunday afternoons. When the I ine was extended to Oakland, several amusement enterprises opened at fvlessalonskee lake, but it was Cascade Park on the side of Swans Hi II, not far from the present site of the Watervi lie Country Club, that became most renowned.
broadcasts soon. sha II te I I you about that park on anothe r of these The Oakland terminal was known as rv”essalonskee Hall, and it used to be a favori te p lace for dances and other enterta inment when was a Col by student.
We ATO’s used to make the most of the fact that one of our members, Verne I Ie Dyer, I ived in the big house at the top of the hi II just out of Oakland on the way to the shore and mi dd Ie roads. So it d i dn ‘t bother us if we mi ssed the last car back to Waterv i lie. There was a Iways a bed at the Dyers.
Gene Letourneau, the veteran out-of-doors writer for the Gannett Press, recalls an amusing incident about Messalonskee Hall. Frequenters of the place became accustomed to seeing t-he walls of the bui Iding sway when the dancers became especially I ively. But it was an awesome experience t-o a stranger. Gene says a Colby student who was a prominent- banjo player showed up t-here one night as a new member of the dance orchestra. Suddenly noticing the swaying walls, he wondered what he had been eat-ing, for he knew he hadn’t drunk anything stronger than lemonade. When t-old that- the bui Iding often shook with music, he packed up and left in disgust.
The last car to Oakland, leaving Watervi lie at 10:35 P.M. on that same Oc·tober 10, 1937 had on board, besides Mr. ~/entworth, It/. E. Penney of Oakland, a motorman on the line for 13 years. At the controls was L. D. Ruston, motorman for 14 years.
Thus passed into oblivion t-he Watervi lie trolley system. At quarter past five on the next morning the shiny new busses of Arthur Duplessie’s Community Bus Li nes went into ope rat ion.
One night not long ago on t-his program, I referred to a quack doctor’s advertisement of an electric condenser, and asked if anyone knows what it is.
That persistent and valuab Ie friend of this program, the man who calls himself One-Eleven, takes me roundly to task. He writes: 111 am surprised that you have never seen a picture of an electric condenser. As I recall the contrivance, it was a hand-operated generator that- stored up current- in two cells. A wheel about 5 inches in diameter, with a handle to turn it, was geared up at a rat’io of about 8 to 1, and by friction electric energy was developed.
“Two electrodes could be grabbed, one in each hand, to produce a slight shock, forerunner of the present-day shock therapy. At the turn of the century there was quite a trend to magnetic belts, It was thought the human body requi red a c i rcu I atory stimu I ati on, and e lectr ic therapy was the answer. The condenser was fairly expensive, so the sellers and operators of the gadget both made a good prof it.”
One-Eleven says the reference to mystic circle, in the advertisement to which I referred when I mentioned the electric condenser, is explained by the fact -that about 1900 electric therapy became such a fad that scheming promoters created groups of enthusiasts and cal led them mystic circles. Some of the groups actually had ritual ceremonies, and to all of them the promoters entrusted their healing secrets.
The magnetic belt cost much less -than the condenser, but lacked the sting that made demonstrations so convincing. Every few months they had to go back to the factory for recha rg i ng •
There was another, even cheaper, device called the electric vibrator. This became popular after homes were wired for electricity. because it could be operated on ordinary alternating current. It was merely a rubber pad with nubs on it, and was held to the hand by an elastic strap. When the current was turned on, the body felt a vibrant exhi laration. Even nowadays barbers use a vibrator to stimulate circulation in the scalp.
Wha-t has become of the common complaint of old people fifty years ago -rheumati sm? Is it dressed up today in the fancier names “neuritis” and “arthritis”?
I suspect our grandparents suffered as much under the old name as folks do today under the new ones. In fact they may have suffered more, for thei r remedies were crude and ineffective. In the old Bridgton store we had at least a dozen salves and liniments, all guaranteed to cure rheumatism, and all equally ineffective, if equally harmless. Yet men and women with a “tetch of rheumatlz” tried them all • Most of the remed ies were descrl bed as good for man or beast, and were rubbed with equal vigor on a lame horse or a lame man. One-Eleven tells me that one of these popular remedies, called Joint-Eye, was”made in Hallowell.
He says: “It was really a penetrating remedy. Workers had to change their clothing each night before sitting down to supper. People measured the efficacy of any such medical concoction by its odor, and Joint-Eye had one you could detect yards away. Internal medicines were judged by the bitterness of their taste. If a tonic didn’t have a revolting taste, and if a liniment didn’t give forth an obnoxious odor, neither was any good.”
In closing, let us consider another of the sayings of that Central Maine character whom we have called Old Ed. He says: “I like to go to an auction sa Ie jest ter see what’s going gone.”
Year: 1955