Radio Script #573

Little Talks on Common Things

April 14, 1963

We have not yet exhausted the amazing contents of those old papers found at the Waterville City Hall last spring. Let us begin tonight’s broadcast with what those papers tell us about liquor.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Waterville first became a separate town, there was no such thing as licensed liquor sales. No one paid any attention to alcoholic beverages as special sources of tax revenue, and they were dispensed as freely in general stores as were tea and molasses. The most common alcoholic beverage in 1800 was rum. Commonest next to rum was gin, which had already become a curse to the working classes of England’s larger cities. Whiskey was very seldom seen in the Maine stores until well into the 19th century. Of course wines had long been known, but the Anglo-Saxon settlers of Maine were not wine drinkers. They preferred rum.

As early as 1830 the incipient temperance movement had hit Maine, and both preachers and prominent laymen were denouncing the evil of drunkenness. By 1840 the practice of licensing retail dealers in liquor was well underway, and it became increasingly the custom to limit the licenses to a single dispenser in any given community.

In 1846 the State of Maine passed a law, setting up in each municipality, under jurisdiction of the selectmen, an agency to dispense liquor for medicinal and mechanical purposes only. The first reference to liquor in those old City Hall records is dated 1847, and the paper reads: “The Selectmen of Waterville do hereby license and authorize Ira H. Low to sell in the store occupied by him wine, brandy, rum and other strong liquors, in quantities of 28 gallons and under, to be used for medicinal and mechanical purposes only, agreeably to a law of the State approved August 7, 1846. The said Low shall not furnish to any foreigner or to any person not naturalized any spirituous liquors unless in case of sickness and by direction of a regular practicing physician, and he shall not exact for liquor sold a profit greater than 33 1/3 per cent.”

In 1851, when Pharmacist William Dyer was appointed liquor agent, he had to give a bond of $600 “to lawfully sell intoxicating liquors for medicinal and mechanical purposes and no other”.

By 1854, after Maine’s prohibitory law had been in effect for three years, the town itself was running the agency. A bill dated July 10, 1854 shows that they did a brisk business:

“1 bbl. Swan Gin, 43 gal. @ 1.35 $ 58.05

“1 cask Scotch Ale, 7 doz. @ 2.00 14.00

“Sent this day by the Stonington boat.”

As late as 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, the town of Waterville was still in the liquor business. On behalf of the town, the Town Clerk then acknowledged receipt from William Leslie in Boston of 38 gallons of New England rum @ 32 cents a gallon, for a total of $12.16.

No sooner had the Maine prohibitory law been enacted in 1851 than prosecutions for its violation began to be frequent. On March 2, 1854 Lawyer Josiah Drummond collected $31 for prosecuting liquor violations in his capacity as town agent. In the same year the town treasurer paid Moses Hanscom $5 for storage of seized liquor. The next year Edwin Noyes collected $50 for his part in liquor prosecutions.

Now let us take a look at just one bill submitted in 1860 to Enoch Marshall, liquor agent of Waterville, for just one shipment of liquors. It came to $139 and included the following items:

7t gal. Brandy @ 3.00

16 gal. Holland Gin @ 6 shillings

8t gal. Port Wine @ 3.50

5t gal. Sherry Wine @ 2.50

21 gal. West Indies Rum @ 1.00

4 gal. Bourbon Whiskey @ 1.50

Now note what he was charged for containers and accessories.

12 Faucets @ 9 pence

10 Barrels @ 75 cents

6 Half Barrels @ 50 cents

1 Keg, 37 cents

1 Jug, 33 cents

1 Demijohn, 25 cents

6 Bottles @ 5 cents

Believe me, there has never been a time in the 160 years of Waterville history when the curse of over-indulgence and illegal dispensing of alcoholic beverages has not been felt by this community. Although the harmful effects of liquor are still with us, one outrageous custom of the early days has fortunately now been abandoned. That was the custom of indenture, the bound-out boy or girl. Too poor to feed, clothe and educate their children, parents would often bind a boy or girl to be the unpaid servant of some family until the age of 21, the master agreeing, of course, to feed and clothe the child. as well as give him a few weeks of schooling each year. Abuses of the practice were flagrant, and are strikingly revealed in an old letter preserved at Waterville’s City Hall. Addressed to Selectman Asa Redington on January 2, 1829, the letter read: “I received yours of December last concerning the child you named. I have made some inquiry and find that the boy is not as well used as he ought to be. Some of the neighbors say he has been whipped unmercifully by the woman with whom he lives and that his clothing is scanty and ragged. I am of the opinion that Mr. Knowles and his wife are not suitable persons to manage this child. Yours with due respect, Charles Morse.”

As I have pointed out earlier, in this series of broadcasts on the old Waterville papers, care of the town’s poor was always a problem. From its incorporation in 1802 until the’ present day Waterville has never been free from the necessity to expend annually a substantial sum for the support of indigent citizens and their children.

One of the problems was the necessity of sometimes paying persons to support their own relatives. In 1854 Ansel Blackwell was paid $7.35 for, as the order put it, “keeping his daughter to April 27″. In the same year Leonard Young got $7.50 for supporting his father to April 15.

There were always funeral expenses for the poor. In that same year of 1854 Henry Pressey charged the town three dollars for making a coffin for a pauper.

Sometimes complications arose over the care of a town dependent. In 1844 Samuel Merrifield agreed that, if the town would care for him during the rest of his life, he would convey to the town at once the following items of property:

1 cow valued at $ 23

1 heifer ” ” 10

1 Shoat and hog 20

Garden sauce 3

40 bu. Potatoes 10

About 10 bu. Corn 6.67

All the manure made during the winter.

Just as pitiful as some of the pauper cases were those of the insane. In April, 1857 Asa Bates of Waterville received from H.M. Harlow, Supt. of the Insane Hospital at Augusta, the following letter: “We can receive your daughter if you conclude to bring her to the hospital, but we cannot allow her to bring her child with her, as we have no conveniences for taking care of a woman and her child. In regard to expenses, provision is made by law for the town to pay a part and the state to pay the balance in all cases where the individual or friends do not have the means to pay. Clothing is always furnished by the friends or the ,town. The price per we~k is $2.50 not including clothes. In case you conclude to bring her, we shall require an order from the selectmen of your town.”

In the middle of the last century the law did not require an application for insane committal by a near relative. In February, 1859 Julius Alden of Waterville complained that one Jane Nourse was an insane person and a fit subject for admission to the insane hospital at Augusta, and he urged the selectmen to order the committa 1.

In 1845 a new toll bridge was built across the Sebasticook at Winslow. Eleven years later, when the corporation ownership was reported to the selectmen of Waterville, the document revealed that the large~t ~har~holder ~till lived in Winslow in the person of P.S. Eaton. But by far the majority of shares were held outside the town. The Eaton family really owned the bridge. for Solomon Eaton of Bowdoin held 37 shares, so that he and his brother Perley together had a total of 75 shares. Brooks Descomb, the Skowhegan lawyer, held ten shares.

Henry Nourse with 12 shares and Jediah Morrill with two were the only Waterville stockholders. In fact the total issue was only 100 shares, and in all there were only six stockholders. Besides the two Eatons, Descomb, Nourse and Morrill, Trafton Simpson had one share. Attached to the document is the following deprecatory statement: “The Winslow bridge is eleven years old and the capital stock, when the bridge was built, was worth between four and five thousand dollars. Naturally it has depreciated with age.” By “it” I suppose the writer meant both the bridge and the stock.

Until well after the Civil War one particular church bell in town was designated as the official town bell. In the 1850’s, in fact, that bell was no longer a church bell, but was the bell attached to the old town hall, which had originally been Waterville’s first meeting house. On July 1, 1857 a town order was issued to E.P. Cole in the amount of $11 for ringing the bell one quarter at the rate of $44 per year. A month later Joseph Marston received a similar order for $12.50 for ringing the bell in West Waterville.

Year: 1963