Radio Script #545

Little Talks on Common Things

September 30, 1962

I have seen many verbal and pictorial descriptions of Waterville over the years. Especially noteworthy were the publications connected with the centennial of the city in 1902. But not until a few weeks ago had I ever seen a large, 32-page pictorial booklet published in 1898 under the title “Souvenir of Waterville, the University City of Maine”. It was the work of a professional compiler of such souvenir booklets, a man named George H. Haynes, who before he brought out the Waterville volume had already published “Great Resorts of New England”, “Casco Bay Gems”, “East of the White Mountains”, and a dozen other such books.

The pictures in this book are clear, sharp lithographs done by the Andrew Kellogg Company of New York City. I am amazed how the compiler could get away with the kind of book he produced. For instance, about half of the 32 pages in the Waterville book are devoted to the prai.se of just eight individuals, and two of those lived in Fairfield. Surely more than six Waterville man ~served personal sketches in such a volume, if any deserved them at all. There must have been much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the families whose prominent men were left out. It is true that a number of persons besides the exclusive six are casually mentioned in the text, but that hardly made up for the extensive space given to the favored ~ew.

Who were the Waterville men thus honored in the souvenir booklet? Four of them were doctors: Frederick C. Thayer, J. Frederick Hill, C. W. Abbott and John L. Fortier. No one can deny that they were prominent men and for one of them is named a great, expanding hospital in this community. The other two names were certainly prominent: William T. Haines and Horace Purinton. In 1898 Haines was attorney general of the state and on his way to becoming governor. The booklet’s account of Haines’ achievements in the legislature, before he became attorney general, includes several things that most Maine people have long ago forgotten, but were important at the time. One was a constitutional amendment requiring an educational qualification of voters, adopted in 1892. Another Haines victory concerned the railroads. The booklet says: “Mr. Haines’ efforts to pass legislation for regulation of railroad rates and fares forced the railroads to issue mileage books at two cents a mile.”

Waterville citizens are well aware that, when William T. Haines died, he left a large sum to the city, the income of which has been used annually for the support of the deserving poor. We also know that the Haines Theater got its name because it stands on the site of the spacious Haines home, which was moved back toward Front Street when the theater and the Professional Building were built.

What are not so well remembered are Mr. Haines’ contributions to Waterville during his life time. He organized the Waterville Loan and Building Association, and the company that built the Masonic Building on Common Street. In 1897 he himself put up the Haines Block on the same street. A graduate of the University of Maine, he was long a member of its Board of Trustees. In that capacity he supervised the construction of several of the university buildings. He was considered the father of the University Law School established in Bangor in 1898.

As for Horace Purinton, the booklet pointed out that he came to Waterville in 1875, to work as a mason on the construction of the first Lockwood Mill. The contractors put him in charge of their brick yard, and in a few years he owned the whole business. By 1897 Purinton was operating yards at Waterville, Augusta, Skowhegan and Mechanic Falls, with a combined output of 4-1/2 million bricks a year. From brick making Purinton went into general contracting and put up many of Maine’s more impressive buildings.

As for those four physicians to whom the booklet gave extensive space, the best known was Dr. F. C. Thayer, grandson of one of the town’s earliest doctors, Stephen Thayer. Frederick C. had been born in Waterville in 1844, had graduated from Colby in 1865 and from the Bowdoin Medical School in 1867. His lifelong practice Was in his native town of Waterville, where he won distinction as a surgeon as well as general practitioner. Of his house on Main Street opposite the Elmwood Hotel — the house that became the first Thayer Hospital — the booklet said: “His home is in one of the prettiest locations in the city, in the cool shade of majestic elms.”

J. Frederick Hill, ten years younger than Dr. Thayer, was associated in practice with the older doctor until 1897, when Dr. Hill decided to specialize in eye, ear, nose and throat. C. W. Abbott was just one year younger than Dr. Hill. A graduate of the Bowdoin Hedical School, he had begun his practice in Albion, but came to Waterville in 1893. Of him the booklet said: “He has a fine residence on the corner of Spring and Elm Streets, and is a great lover of harses, owning some of the best in the city.” Like Dr. Thayer, Abbott was also a surgeon.

The French-Canadian citizen given prominence in this old booklet was Dr. John L. Fortier. Born in the Province of Quebec in 1853, not until his family came to Waterville and he came under the influence of that great priest, Father Charland, did he determine on a career in medicine, and he was thirty years old when he received the M.D. degree from the Bowdoin Medical School. For his home Dr. Fortier purchased the old John Ware mansion on the east side of Silver Street. The booklet says: “Dr. Fortier is emphatically a self-made man, and a pleasant, agreeable gentleman.”

The two Fairfield men to rate separate notice in this booklet were Amos Gerald and E. P. Mayo. Gerald was the boom and bust promoter of Central Maine’s electric railroads. In 1898 he had not built the stone mansion on Fairfield’s Main Street that later became the residence of Martin Keyes and is now the Lawry Funeral Home. He had an even bigger, though not so luxurious a house — a big frame structure at the corner of Lawrence Avenue and Newhall Street, long since turned into apartments. Always a promoter as well as somewhat of an inventor, Gerald, when a young man, made a small fortune out of certain rollers and other household inventions.

Obsessed with the idea that electric power was the key to industrial future, he came to Fairfield, just across the river from Benton, where he had been born in 1841. In Fairfield he formed a company that installed the first central station electric light plant in Maine. Then he turned to street cars, promoting mere than half the electric railroads in the state. In 1898 the old booklet said: “Mr. Gerald is head of one of the largest street railway systems in the United States, the Lewiston, Brunswick and Bath R.R., about 60 miles long, more than twice the mileage of any other street railway in Maine and the longest in New England.”

Then comes for me a real surprise. The booklet says: “Mr. Gerald is the sole owner of the elegant opera house at Fairfield, one of the best equipped in the State, a cut of which we show on the preceding page.” Last winter I gave you some information, gleaned from manuscripts and scrap books at the Lawrence Library about that Fairfield Opera House. Those papers gave no inkling that it was owned by Mr. Gerald. When and how did he acquire it? Does any present Fairfield resident know?

Some of the interesting photographs in that 1898 souvenir booklet are a splendid shot of College Avenue, looking north from Post Office Square; a long view of Elm Street, looking south from the same square; Silver Street, looking south from the Universalist Church; Monument Park, looking across from Park Street to the whole expanse of the imposing structure of Coburn Classical Institute; two views of the old Colby campus, one the north end, the other the south end. It is difficult to realize that, although the college had been in operation for 80 years in 1898, it then had only seven campus buildings; North College, South College, Recitation Hall, Memorial Hall, Coburn Hall, the Shannon Observatory, and the Gymnasium. On the avenue below the lower railroad crossing, the college owned and used the President’s house, now the Hill professional offices, and Ladies Hall, later the Phi Delta Theta House, where the A & P market now stands. Chemical Hall, Hedman and Roberts Halls and Foss Hall had not then been built. And much later still would come the Alumnae Building, now occupied by the Waterville Boys Club, and the old Field House, only  recently torn down.

Two pages of the booklet are devoted to Colby, with a picture of its then president, Nathaniel Butler. A whole page is naturally given to the Elmwood Hotel, with pictures of both exterior and interior, as well as a photo of the proprietor, H. E. Judkins. No proprietor could ask for a better boost than the booklet gave his hostelry: “The hotel is well ventilated, most comfortably furnished, has modern conveniences, steam heat, incandescent lights in all rooms, electric bells, and is distinguished for its fine service and air of refinement. The hotel enjoys a supply of pure spring water and has perfect sanitary arrangements.”

I wonder even in the enlightened era of 1898, whether that hotel had means for keeping out the flies, for connected with the Elmwood was a large livery stable. Anyone my age who was brought up among horses knows that it was almost impossible to keep flies out of a house to which a stable was attached.

Even more surprising than the booklet’s inclusion of only a few persons and the omission of others nearly or quite as prominent, is what the compiler did about Waterville’s churches. The second oldest church in town, the Universalist, is not even mentioned. In fact, just three churches rate any notice at all: the Baptist, the Unitarian, and St. Francis de Sales. How in the world did any editor get away with leaving out the Universalists, the Congregationalists, the Methodists and the Advents?

The sketch of the Baptists names every pastor from Jeremiah Chaplin in 1818 to William Spencer in 1898. Correctly, the origin of the Unitarian Church is credited to Rev. D. N. Sheldon. But the sketch charitably does not say that Sheldon was once pastor of the Baptist Church and President of the College, who ripped Baptist circles wide open when he became a Unitarian. The St. Francis sketch gives appropriate credit to the popular and public spirited Father Charland.

One of the interesting photos, in a section devoted to the Waterville and Fairfield Railway and Light Company, is a shot of Island Park.

1898 was 64 years ago, yet this old souvenir booklet of Waterville will bring back fond memories to a lot of people in Central Maine, provided, of course, they are more than 65 years old.

Year: 1962