Radio Script #566

Little Talks on Common Things

February 24, 1963

Does anyone know where there is a complete, or even a substantial, file of the old Fairfield Journal? The best I have been able to do is to locate an occasional issue of that paper or some old scrapbook in which have been pasted clippings from the Journal over a period of years. Several such scrapbooks are carefully preserved at the Lawrence Public Library in Fairfield, and through the courtesy of the librarian, Mrs. Henry Brophy, I have been allowed to examine them. Those clippings, although random and scattered over several years, reveal quite a bit about Fairfield 70 to 80 years ago.

For instance, in 1883, as in many another year, there was a lot of controversy over enforcement of the Maine prohibitory law. Said the Fairfield Journal on March 28, 1883: “Governor Robie appointed Dr. D. C. Perkins trial justice in Fairfield only four weeks ago, but already the good result is evident. Citizens here knew that under Dr. Perkins justice would be done in Fairfield and the previous flagrant violations of the liquor law would cease, because the doctor is .a strong temperance man. The first case brought before him was that of W. C. Wyman, who was convicted and fined $30. The same fate awaited W. W. Reynolds and B. H. Dyer. Soon Wyman Was arrested for a second offense and Judge Perkins fined him $200. Then came Landlord Pease of the Fairfield House, who was fined §30. Fairfield is by no means dead to the cause of temperance.”

One of the scrapbooks was made by Miss Nellie Nye, for many years a Fairfield school teacher and correspondent for the Journal. Born in 1856, she was an advocate of crusading causes until her death in 1910. A famous temperance society in the old days ~as the Good Templars, of which the colored janitor of Colby College, Samuel Osborne, was a prominent member. Nellie Nye organized a younger group called the Juvenile Temp1ars. A Journal clipping says of that work: “Nellie Nye of Fairfield, Superintendent of the Juvenile Templars, is a tall, spare young lady who seems to be much interested in her work. Light of complexion, with a countenance not indicative of excellent health, she is an alert and forceful speaker, quick to notice points in discussion and covering all the necessary ground in a few words.1!

That is quite a compliment — a woman who could say anything in a few words!

The scrapbooks contain a lot of information about the Fairfield churches. When the Methodist Church was remodeled in 1886, the Fairfield Journal told the story of its rededication: “The Methodists rededicated their meeting house last Sunday with appropriate ceremonies. A new communion service has been presented by Mrs. S. D. Fogg. Other gifts have been a heavy, marble-topped table, a pulpit chair, and handsome collection baskets. The audience room has been completely remodeled, and has new pews of western ash. There are new carpets in shades of red and crimson. For the first time the building is iighted by electricity, the fixtures being the gift of Amos Gerald. There are elegant stained glass windows, one a memorial to Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Bragdon. Huch credit is due to the pastor, Rev. D. B. Holt.

Now that last sentence interests me very much, for the first Methodist minister I ever knew personally was that same D. B. Holt. When I was a small boy, he was the Methodist minister in Bridgton, and because at that time the church had no parsonage, he lived in a rented house next door to my parents.

Another clipping recounts the history of the Fairfield Baptist Church. It seems that in 1874 Dr. Joseph Ricker, the prominent Baptist leader for whom Ricker Classical Institute, now Ricker College, in Houlton was named, was attending Colby Commencement in his capacity of 8. Colby trustee. There he encountered Rev. Moses Jones Kelley, chaplain of U. S. Army posts in the Dakotas, who was attending the commencement on furlough.

Kelley had graduated from Colby in the same class with General Ben Butler, in 1838. Since Kelley’s furlough would extend for nearly a year, Dr. Ricker persuaded him to go to Fairfield and try to start a Baptist church.

At first Kelley held his Fairfield meetings in the West End school house, then in the Universalist vestry, and still later in an empty warehouse of the Kendrick Carriage Company. Before he had to return to his army service, Kelley had succeeded not only in creating an informal organization, but also in securing $1 ,000 for purchase of a lot where the Baptists could erect a meeting house. Three hundred of those thousand dollars were contributed by Waterville Baptists. During the summer of 1875 a chapel was built, costing §1,675, and in that year Rev. B. F. Shaw came as the first settled pastor. In 1876 the informal group became a formally organized Baptist Church. It was small, for after two years of existence its membership was only fifteen.

When this account in the Journal was published in 1886, the pastor was Rev. N. D. Curtis, a man greatly respected and loved by his people.

In 1887 the chapel was enlarged into a full-sized church structure, for by that time the membership had increased from 15 to 66. So impressive was the job that the Baptist Conference Board accepted the invitation to hold its meeting there. Present were President G. D. B. Pepper of Colby, Professor Albion Small and John B. Foster, Dr. Joseph Ricker, Dr. A. K. P. Small of Portland, and Dr. Burrage, the editor of Zion’s Advocate. The Journal said: “The audience room has been enlarged, the interior finished in white wood and cherry. The walls have been beautifully painted, the front has stained glass windows, there is a handsome carpet, comfortable pew cushions, and electric lights. In fact, this is the first church in Maine to install electric lighting. The church now has a handsome spire and a large bell. At the rear has been built a vestry, and under it a dining room and kitchen. The pastor, Rev. N. D. Curtis, is very popular. Due largely to his efforts, there is no debt. The improvements, costing §2,600, have all been paid for. The bell is the gift of the Newton Baptist Church.”

It was a memorable day in Fairfield when the first horse cars ran to Waterville on June 24, 1888. The Journal made the incredible statement that in 14 days tj,nie they had carried 21,000 passengers. That is an average of 1,500 passengers a day.

The Journal doesn’t tell us how often the horse cars ran, but it does say that the company owned 25 horses and four cars, two open and two closed. Promoter of the road had been Amos Gerald, who would later build many of Maine’s early electric railroads. That horse car line extended from the square near the end of the bridge in Fairfield to a point opposite the common in Waterville.

One reason why I think the Journal may have exaggerated the patronage in those first eleven days.l S because in a later issue 1. t said :. “The horse cars are having good crowds on each trip. Even on a stormy day the total number carried reached 535.”

When electric street lights carne to Fairfield Village, the Journal commented: “The Electric lights will prevent secret meetings on the corners hereafter, much to the regret of certain young people of both sexes. One elderly citizen says he is going to ask God to take in the moon. We donlt need it now the street lights are so bright.”

Many of us remember the travelling Chautauqua that used to corner to the larger Maine towns every summer. I believe it was last here in the 1920’s, when its tent was annually set up on Monument Park. Whether Fairfield was ever large enou~h to warrant a week of Chautauqua programs in the summer I do not know, but it did set up a Chautauqua connection that I have heard about, but was born too late to experience. It seems that the Chautauqua idea bred the creation of local units that functioned throughout the year and were united into a state association. So, in Fairfield there thrived in 1883 the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, one of 14,000 such circles in the United States. It was part of the Maine Chautauqua Union. When that Union held its annual convention in Portland in 1887 with Edward Everett Hale as speaker, diplomas for completing the winter course were handed to fifty persons £rom various Chautauqua circles in Maine. Among those diploma recipients were Nellie Nye and Adelia Merrill of Fairfield.

A clipping dated March 26, 1875 tells us that the. course of entertainment for benefit of the Fairfield Soldiers’ Monument Association had closed on the previous Friday. The item said: “The play, “Our American Cousin’, was well received. The receipts of $283 will be used to grade the park.”

I wonder if the writer of that item recalled that “Our American Cousin” was the play being produced at Ford’s Theater in Washington on the evening when Abraham Lincoln was killed?

In 1888 the Journal told about plans for better hotel accommodations in Fairfield. That was, of course, many years before Amos Gerald’s erection of the striking and even gorgeous Hotel Gerald, and referred to an entirely different plan. This is what the article said: “The new hotel enterprise was the principal topic at the recent meeting of the Board of Trade. It was expected that Mr. Bragdon of the Lancey House, Pittsfield, who has been looking at the hotel property here, would be present. He could not come, but sent a letter saying that he would like to locate in Fairfield. He asserted, however, that, though the Fairfield House was for sale at a reasonable price, it was unsuitable for a first class hotel. It would have to have a new front of three stories, and steam heat must be installed throughout the building. He said the cost of improvements would be at least $1,200.

If Fairfield interests could put the building into proper shape, he would hire it for §1,000 a year and furnish it himself. He would also take some of the stock, if a stock company could be formed.”

We do not know whether anything came of Bragdon’s offer, because the scrap books contain no subsequent clipping on the subject. Perhaps some older residents of Fairfield can tell me whether Landlord Bragdon of the Lancey House ever took over the old Fairfield House.

So much for Fairfield in the 1880’s. Now I have an important announcement. Next Sunday this program will begin a series of nine broadcasts, to run through March and April, devoted to newly discovered and hitherto unpublished items about old Waterville. A few months ago Treasurer Welton Farrow found dumped in an old, abandoned lavatory at City Hall many boxes and bundles of old papers. He asked me to examine them, and I did so over a period of several weeks. I found it was indeed a precious historical find, because among those two or three thousand papers were some that dated back to the very first year of Waterville’s existence as an incorporated town in 1&02. I have now assembled the more important and more interesting of those old records under such topics as taxes, streets, schools, care of the poor, etc. So next Sunday evening the series will begin with information that has been lost for many years — where and when Waterville’s earliest streets were built.

Year: 1963