Radio Script #569

Little Talks on Common Things

March 17, 1963

From earliest colonial times every New England community was concerned about the care of its poor, and just as soon as a town was incorporated, some way was found to meet that acknowledged public responsibility. Let us see how, in its early existence as a town, Waterville met that problem. A study of the old records found at City Hall last year gives us the answer.

At first, when the town had few inhabitants, individual paupers were treated separately. The second town order drawn on the treasurer is dated October 23, 1802, and says: “Pay to the order of Thomas Scannon $3.00, it being for keeping Mrs. Earl, one of the poor of the town”. The fact that the order designates Mrs. Earl as “one of the pOO~1 implies that there were others; but, though several additional orders were drawn during the remaining months of 1802 to take care of Mrs. Earl, none was· drawn for any other pauper.

The reason for that seeming lapse lies probably in the confusion that existed during those months between Waterville and the parent town of Winslow concerning which town was responsible for certain bills. In fact the dispute finally led to litigation that had to be settled in the Kennebec County Court, a case in which Waterville won a substantial payment from the older town.

When town meeting was held in 1803, Waterville adopted the then common practice of putting paupers up at auction. Just as collection of taxes was entrusted to the man who would collect them for the lowest percentage, so the care of paupers was individually handed over to the lowest bidder. Thomas Scannon thus retained care of Mrs. Earl for $1.25 a week, and another widow was taken by James Emerson for the absurdly low rate of a dollar a week. For some reason bidders thought it would be more expensive to keep Widow Jackson, for she was finally knocked down to Asa Moore for $1.40 a week.

In September, 1809, a town order was drawn to Benjamin Kidder in the amount of $20 for, as the order said “boarding and clothing Old Shannon and wife”. A few years later James Penney collected one dollar for making a coffin for one of the town’s poor. Both orders were duly signed by two of the selectmen, Asa Redington and Alpheus Lynn.

Winslow was not the only town with which Waterville quarreled concerning responsibility for a particular family. An article in the 1808 town meeting read: “To see what the town will do about the charge against the town by the town of Augusta for the support of Asa Emerson, John Shannon, Matthew Butterfield and Elwood Lander, paupers of the town of Waterville, when in prison.”

That support of the town poor had become a serious problem by 1827 is shown by the town report for that year. Between March 1, 1826 and March 1, 1827 the town had spent $914 for the support of indigent individuals and families. No single case called for as much as $100. but altogether there were 32 cases. While the greater number were widows, some of them were aged men, but perhaps the most pitiful were those that concerned children. Support of Naomi Quimby and children called for $73, Mrs. Kendall and children $36, and Luban Trafton, wife and family $57. Then there were Thomas Seaman’s children (no reference to a living father or mother), and most pitiful of all an item listed merely as “children at Mrs. Smith, $76.88.” Poor, nameless children!

In that pauper list of 1827 we note one surprising name, Hannah Cool, for whom the town expended $10.10. She was Aunt Hannah Cool, looked upon both as the town witch and the town’s Good Samaritan, for she carried to the sick healing medicines made from herbs and roots of her own gathering. She was doubtless an eccentric old lady, but she certainly had wealthy relations. One of them had been the Revolutionary soldier, John Cool, for whom Cool Street was named. He was so well-to-do that he was the only original settler who owned two of those huge lots of the McKechnie survey, each forty rods on the river and extending back to what is now the First Rangeway. Yet Aunt Hannah became a town pauper.

The first suggestion that Waterville establish a poor farm came in 1829, when a proposal was launched to have something that partook of the present nature of the consolidated schools or the regional airports. It was the selectmen of Vassalboro who made the suggestion in the form of a letter to neighboring towns. It said: “We consider a county establishment or union of several towns the best mode of supporting the poor. You are therefore requested to insert an article in your town warrant to call a meeting in September next so that the several towns may properly take the subject under consideration and if they approve, may choose committees to confer with the committees of other towns. The Committees so chosen are requested to meet at Palmer’s Tavern in Augusta at 11 A.M. on September 23. 1829 for consultation and such further action as they may judge expedient.”

Nothing came of this plan. and it was not until 1851 that Waterville got a poor house. During the intervening years the poor were taken care of by individual assignment or by general contract. as was done in 1842. when George Pressey agreed to care for all the poor of Waterville for the ensuing year at a fee of $900. Pressey agreed. in the words of the bonding document. “to support, maintain and relieve all paupers and poor persons whom the inhabitants of Waterville should by law be liable to support. and to furnish those paupers with all necessary food. clothing. washing. lodging and nursing. including all necessary medicines and doctors’ attendance.” Pressey would also furnish suitable schooling to the children of paupers, but the selectmen must furnish school books. That last provision was made because, at that time, school books had to be furnished by the parents. and of course pauper parents could not be expected to buy books. Pressey, on the other hand. was given the use of all property belonging to the paupers, even to such items as bed clothes.

At the town meeting in 1851 Samuel Appleton and Isaiah Marston were appointed a committee to purchase a farm with buildings for the use of the town as a poor farm. They purchased property on the county road that continued in use as the poor farm until recent years.

Typical of arrangements to operate the poor farm was the agreement between the selectmen and Elnathan Cook in 1858. Cook agreed to furnish the labor of himself and his wife at the Town Farm for the purpose of taking care of the poor of Waterville. He could require the able-bodied men and women assigned there to work on the farm or in the house, but he must provide suitable care to all, whether or not they were able to work. At the end of the year, when Cook put in his bill for extraordinary expenses, for which his contract did not make him personally responsible. he listed 61 yards of sheeting madeup into 8 sheets and 20 pillow cases, costing $5.53; ten table cloths, $1.20; a tin coffee pot, 50 cents; a tin tea pot, 25 cents; and a dozen iron spoons, 60 cents.

Trouble with other towns over the responsibility for certain paupers was especially rife in the 1850’s. In 1853 the following letter was received from the overseers at Skowhegan: “In regard to the Gurney family, we do not own them. No one of that name lives in this town. We have as yet not ascertained that the Garusha family ever gained residence here.”

Even more interesting is a letter which the Waterville overseers sent to the town of Wells in 1854. It said: “Mrs. Betsy Merrill, an inhabitant of your town, has fallen into distress and is in need of immediate relief, which has been furnished her by us, at a proper charge to the town of Wells, where she has her legal residence. We conceive it proper to give you this notice. that you may remove her to her legal residence or provide for her as you think best, and settle the bills we have already incurred in her behalf, which already amount to about $50. and continue at about four dollars a week. The said pauper is the wife of Daniel Merrill, who also is an inhabitant of your town. and both are now here on a visit. I should have given you notice sooner, but their friends have supposed that Mrs. Merrill’s sickness would terminate in her death or by getting better long before now, and if that had proved to be so, they would not have called on your town for pay. But I think, by your attendance to the matter, you will be able to settle the bill reasonably. Very respectfully yours, Samuel Doolittle, by order of Overseers of the Poor of the Town of Waterville.”

From the earliest times the ministrations of physicians accounted for a part of the expense of caring for the poor. As early as 1807 the most famous of all Waterville doctors, Moses Appleton, received an order on the town treasurer for $6.75 for “visits and medicine to Mrs. Woods during her last sickness and allowed to him in court December last, and rejected in our execution recorded in said court against the town of Winslow.” That, apparently, was one case that Waterville lost, among the many brought into litigation after Waterville was set off from Winslow as a separate town.

In the winter of 1856-57 an epidemic of small pox raged through the French population on the Plains. The Overseers of the Poor engaged Dr. Nathaniel Boutelle to treat the cases, and there is preserved at City Hall an imposing document that shows what happened. For the 31 days of January, 1857 Dr. Boutelle was paid $310, at the rate of ten dollars a day for every day of the month. Then the epidemic let up a bit, and the doctor received $5 a day for the next 17 days.

During the whole period 22 persons caught the disease and four of them died. Dr. Boutelle vaccinated 61 of the French population. At that time nearly as many of the French people lived at the Head of Falls as lived on the Plains. So many in addition to Dr. Boutelle’s 61 had to be vaccinated that he employed the assistance of Dr. Fortin to vaccinate over a period of five days 180 additional persons.

Dr. Boutelle’s more normal work for the town, when no epidemic raged, is shown by his contract for the year 1855, when he agreed to render all medical services and supply all medicines needed by the town’s poor for the whole year for $25, with the exception of any cases of cholera or small pox.

When the Civil War was on, services of the town physician called for more money, probably because so many families of soldiers became dependent upon the town. Anyhow in 1863 Dr. Boutelle got $75. Some idea of prices in that wartime is shown by a bill rendered the town by E.G. Crowell for supplies to paupers in 1863. A 24 pound bag of flour cost a dollar and the same was charged for 9t pounds of pork. Sugar was 16 cents a pound, crackers 12 cents a dozen, molasses 45 cents a gallon, butter 20 cents a pound. A pair of calf shoes cost $1.25. six skeins of thread four cents, and a pound of soap ten cents.

Compare that with a bill submitted by Simeon Mathews for supplying paupers in 1827. Then he supplied no flour, but rather wheat at $1.00 a bushel and corn at 85 cents, and butter was then 14 cents a pound. One of Mathews’ items was a pint of West Indies rum at 15 cents.

Year: 1963