Radio Script #537

Little Talks on Common Things

May 6, 1962

Just thirty years ago a spirited and patriotic woman in Oakland published a paper called the Oakland Chronicle. The woman was Louise Benson, who was then secretary of Sarah Sampson Tent of the Daughters of Union Veterans, and it was under the auspices of that organization that on August 3, 1932 there appeared Vol. 1, No. 1 of the Oakland Chronicle. I am indebted to Mrs. Argie Buzzell of Oakland for calling my attention to this unique paper. Mrs. Buzzell is well known in this area both for her cooked food and her collection of buttons. I have been unable to learn whether a second number of the Chronicle was ever published. If not, this paper is indeed a rare item, an example of that unusual publication, a single issue periodical bearing a volume and issue number, showing the intent to have other issues.

The paper names no editor, gives no subscription rates, and carries no advertising. It is Obvious that almost everything in it came from the pen of Louise Benson. In what she called a foreword, that lady stated the reason for publication was the 200th anniversary of the birth of George Washington, and she felt this was a good time for patriotic observance. Louise Benson said such interest suggested to her the need for careful preservation of local history. She wrote: “The data here presented have been gathered from the most reliable sources at our command. We have tried to give our readers something worthy of circulation and preservation, and we offer it as a tribute to the memory of our soldier fathers.”

Louise Benson had carefully compiled the list of all Oakland men who died in the Civil War; not an easy task, because until 1873 Oakland was a part of Waterville and after it was set a side as a separate town, it was not easy to remember on just which side of the line a particular family had lived. Anyhow, Louise Benson’s list contained the impressive total of 42 names. Most of those war veterans were soldiers in the rank of private. Only one was a commissioned officer, Capt. Andrew Hubbard, who commanded a company in the 59th U. S. Colored Infantry.

There were four sergeants and one corporal on the list. Among the well known Oakland names that appear among those Civil War fatalities are Bates, Wheeler, Blake, Messer and Young. The G.Itl\nd Army post at Oakland was named for one of those Civil War casualties, Sgt. William Wyman of the 21st Maine. The Sarah Sampson Tent of the Daughters of Union Veterans was named for Mrs. Sarah Sampson, a Civil War nurse, the wife of Capt. C. A. Sampson of the Third Maine. It is interesting to note that ten of the Oakland tent’s charter members were descendants of soldiers of that famous regiment.

Louise Benson interviewed a number of Oakland citizens who were over 90 years old in 1932, and compiled their recollections into a most interesting article for her paper. She entitled the article “Reminiscences of Nonagenarians; Oakland a Century Ago”. Especially interesting is what she learned from Cyrus Wheeler about the coming of the Androscoggin and Kennebec Railroad in 1849. Mr. Wheeler said the railroad went right through the middle of his father’s land, and like most of his neighbors similarly affected, the father was persuaded to take his land damage in shares in the railroad. They soon dropped in value to $8 a share, but when the time came for the Maine Central to take over the road, each share brought its holder $85.

Mr. Wheeler said it took about three years to build the part of the railroad that passed through Oakland, because the land was so boggy. The builders tried first with piles driven into the bog, but overnight the piles sank out of sight. Then dirt and rocks, load after load, was dumped in until a deep fill had been made across the whole bog. That was the way much of the roadbed was laid between Oakland and Belgrade depots.

Mr. Wheeler said he had an aged aunt, who went down to the Oakland depot to see the first train come in. She avowed it looked like a whole city coming in on jiggers. Lest you don’t know what a jigger was, let me remind you, it was a low, flat, horse-drawn truck, on which heavy goods were carried. Mr. Wheeler said that in the winter, snow often blocked the deep cut back of Church Street so badly that the railroad’s flimsy plows couldn’t break it up. Scores of men and boys had to turn out and shovel out the cut by hand.

Louise Benson quoted verbatim What Mr. Wheeler told her about rum. Let us have it in the old man’s words: “My father” , said Mr. Wheeler, “told me that, when he was first married, if anyone came for a social call or to spend the evening, all kinds of liquor would be set on the table. I remember an old fellow, Jim Shores, a big, husky man, who went into the woods to work every winter, I have seen him go into Kimball’s store, take a pint dipper, go to the rum barrel, fill the dipper full, and drink it right down without stopping.”

Like all old timers, Mr. Wheeler liked to recall his long ago school days. The strictest disciplinarian he remembered among his teachers was Llewellyn Weston, who came from Belgrade. As Mr. Wheeler put it, Weston made his pupils toe the line. lie used his ferule on fourtee,n boys one afternoon. Weston had a rule that there must be no whispering, and he had uncanny ability in detecting a whisperer. After Weston left, according to Mr. Wheeler, several teachers had less control.

As was happening at that time allover Maine, the older boys made a regular game of putting the teacher out of the school, sometimes physically right out a window into a snowdrift. A common trick was to plug the chimney so that the school room filled with smoke. Finally, according to Mr. Wheeler, the school agent got fed up with this reign by unruly boys. So he hired an old sailor to keep the school. Wheeler said there wasn’t much teaching done that term. The old tar didn’t know anything about teaching, and apparently knew less about the three R’s than did the obstreperous boys themselves. But he did keep order, and he made little use of the traditional ferule. When a boy started cutting up, the old sailor would knock him out cold With one blow of the fist. One bit of teaching the old tar did perform. It was to make each pupil read a verse in the Bible every morning, and it had to be read to the satisfaction of the old sea dog.

Some of Mr. Wheeler’s most interesting recollections concerned a gang of young Oakland men who took the name of Shad Eyes. The members were divided into groups, each of which had the task of providing refreshments for one meeting. The group would go out, steal chickens or a turkey, then cook the birds at the meeting place. One day the meeting was held at Elijah Gleason’s. After the meeting assembled, the committee on refreshments set out to get the needed food. They were gone a long time, but at last returned with a plump turkey, which was promptly cooked and eaten. Not until the next day did Elijah Gleason find out that the refreshment consisted of his own prize turkey.

A number of Oakland people in those years before the Civil War used to keep bees. One day a swarm of Wheeler bees deposited themselves in a neighbor’s hive. The Shad Eyes stole the hive and carried it down to the pond, where they killed the bees and took the honey. It was too precious a secret for all to keep.

Someone told, and the Shad Eyes had to make good the loss. Other old time recollections came to Louise Benson from George Goulding, who left Oakland to settle in wild Minnesota Territory in 1852 at the age of eleven. But Goulding remembered well his boyhood days in Oakland. One day during the haying season George was at his grandfather’s farm on the Fairflield Road, where he helped by carrying the hay-time drink of cider and ginger to the men in the field. Coming up from the hayfield to the road, George met a man leading a horse, and George asked for a ride.

The obliging man helped the boy up to the animal’s back, then gave a sharp slap on the horse’s flank. Off the horse started at a mad gallop, young George clinging on by the mane and the halter strap. The horse turned into a dooryard and stopped abruptly close to a picket fence. George pitched over the animal’s head, clear over the fence and into a flower bed.

George Goulding had memories of Squire Wheeler, a prominent Oakland man a hundred years ago. The Squire was an ardent antislavery man, so enthusiastic in the cause that he built Wheeler’s Liberty Hall at the junction of Alpine and Summer Streets. At that time there was a meeting house, but no public hall, in the western part of Waterville. The Squire’s big, three story building therefore became very popular. The first floor was used as a store by the Farmers’ union; on the second floor was a shirt factory; and the upper floor was the meeting hall for use of any organization that would pay the modest rental. Later the building for a time housed the Grange Hall, but by the time Louise Benson published her paper in 1932 it had been converted into a three-family tenement.

Before the Civil War, Oakland had a military group known as the String Beans. It was organized by George Mairs, a Scotsman not long from the old country. George Benson, an aged man in 1932, recalled that, at the age of 15, he was a member of that company. He was always grateful for the drill he then received under the Scotsman, because it helped him a lot when he enlisted in one of those raw regiments recruited in the early months of the Civil War.

The Bensons had long been a prominent family in Oakland. Stephen Benson had come to the town in 1834 to run the tavern at the junction of Summer Street and the Belgrade Road. It was a busy place when the daily stage arrived from Winthrop on its way to Waterville. Stephen had three sons, all of whom became well known business men of Oakland. Benjamin was a carriage maker; Russell was a carriage-smith and George made scythes. Their brother, known as B.C., had a carriage shop at the corner of Summer and Church Streets.

In her 1932 paper Louise Benson gave a careful account of the building of Oakland’s first Memorial Hall. The aged George Bryant told her that the first he ever heard of the building was in 1866, when John Hubbard announced the community Was going to have a soldiers’ monument. At that time the place was still a part of Waterville. John Hubbard had lost a brother in the war, and he wanted to see the brother’s name on the monument. Community meetings on the subject were held in the old school house on Water Street. At once it was decided to do more than just put up a monument, and to build also a Memorial Hall. George Bryant says all sorts of entertainments were held to raise the money: dramas and concerts and levees in Wheeler’s Hall or in Mechanics Hall over Watson Leonard’s grocery store. There Was much discussion about location, but the present site met with greatest approval, since the Hubbard family, originators of the project, owned the land. The lot was then covered by a thick growth of bushes and oaks. At last the lot was cleared and construction began in the fall of 1870. Completed the next spring, the hall cost $12,000.

In 1883 it was taken over as headquarters for the Wyman Post of the Grand Army.

It was quite a story altogether — those historical facts about old time Oakland, so patiently collected by Louise Benson

in 1932. And with that we must say Good Night for Old Times’ Sake.

Year: 1962