Radio Script #586

Little Talks on Common Things

October 20, 1963

Before we turn to George Flood’s personal experiences with Maine railroads after the close of the year 1871, where we ended last week’s broadcast, let us note some of the major railroad news of Maine that was happening at that time quite independently of George Flood.

The two most important events were the merger of the Maine Central with the Portland and Kennebec in 1870, and the opening of the European and North American in 1871. The Maine Central had been formed in 1862 by merger of the Androscoggin and Kennebec and the Penobscot and Kennebec into a single system. Eight years later the Maine Central took over the Portland and Kennebec to Augusta, and its extension, the Somerset and Kennebec to Skowhegan. But the merger was not accomplished without bitter controversy. John A. Poor, builder of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence, put up a strong fight. Poor always favored the wider gauge of 5 feet, 6 inches, and had succeeded in getting the Atlantic and St. Lawrence, the Androscoggin and Kennebec, and the Penobscot and Kennebec all to adopt that gauge. Because the proposed merger contract specified that the whole Maine Central line should be changed to the 4 feet, 8t inch gauge of the Portland & Kennebec, Poor fought it bitterly. The Portland Press, favorable to the merger, stated that Poor insulted A.P. Morrill, who gave him a scathing reply. Poor was defeated, the merger was ratified, and the new board of directors included Reuben Dunn of Waterville and Abner Coburn of Skowhegan. As I told you on last week’s broadcast. the road was at once changed to the 4 feet. 8t inch gauge.

In the early days railroad accidents were common. Sometimes, on the Maine Central alone, there were as many as six in a single month. Most susceptible were the brakemen, whose work before the days of airbrakes and automatic coupling was extremely hazardous. The month of June. 1871 was especially bad for the Maine Central.

It began with a wreck at Belgrade. The day had been unusually hot, and late in the afternoon the rails expanded, forcing a locomotive and several cars of a freight train off the track. The fireman was killed and the engineer badly hurt. A week later a passenger train left the track at Freeport, overturning six cars, killing the baggage master and a brakeman, but inflicting only slight injury on passengers. The very next day two trains collided between Augusta and Gardiner, killing both engineer and fireman and smashing the locomotives and cars of both trains. The down train had members of the Democratic Convention aboard. but none was seriously injured.

A wrecking crew had to be sent from Waterville to clear the track. Only a week later a freight train. bound west from Waterville, had stopped for water at Vassalboro, when a following passenger train crashed into its rear, the locomotive plowing right through six freight cars. On the passenger train the saloon car next to the engine was smashed and four passengers were injured. Miraculously, engineer and fireman escaped unscathed. Only two days later the mail train broke through a bridge in Hampden, killing a brakeman and one passenger and injuring 59 persons. The engine and one car dropped through the bridge before the whole structure collapsed. Working on the railroad was indeed a hazardous occupation a hundred years ago.

It was not wrecks, however, but the precarious nature of braking and coupling, that cost the lives of many brakemen. That sort of accident touched my own family.

My recollection of Uncle Billy Marriner, my father’s uncle. is of a man whose hair had not yet turned gray, but who hobbled about on leg stumps and crutches, because in 1875, when he was a 19 year old brakeman on the Maine Central, he had lost both legs below the knee while coupling cars in the Portland yard. During the year 1871 alone the Maine Central lost thirteen brakemen in just such accidents. It was real tragedy for the families of those victims, because in those early railroading days 90 years ago there was no such thing as an industrial accident compensation.

The Maine Central had plenty of other trouble besides wrecks. On October 12, 1871 torrents of rain began to fall throughout Maine. At first it was heaviest east of Waterville, and there were bad washouts at Somerset Mills (now Shawmut), Clinton, Etna and Hermon. The next day renewed torrents washed out many sections between Waterville and Danville Junction. Not a train ran between Portland and Bangor for three days. In December the locomotive Uncle Jam — all the engines carried names in those days — was picking up iron at Cumberland Junction when its sparks set fire to the woodshed. The structure burned to the ground. and with it went 200 cords of wood. The flames then spread to the depot and it too was destroyed.

Business on the railroad was seriously affected by the condition of the highways. Where farmers and merchants in the outlying districts could not get to a railroad station. traffic naturally dropped. That happened several times in 1871. In January the roads were so long blocked by snow that the railroad officials complained bitterly of their small business. In March the mud was so deep that business was again low.

The railroad ran frequent excursions. Every fair. every circus. every special event in one of the larger towns called for excursion trains. On Oct. 22. 1871 the Maine Central carried 700 passengers from Carmel and intervening stations to Lewiston for a celebration there. In April there was an excursion from Bangor to Portland to accomodate more than 1.000 people who went to visit the British battleship Monarch in Portland Harbor. But the biggest excursion in the year 1871 came on October 18. when everybody who could get there traveled to Bangor for the opening of the European and North American Railroad. What especially drew the crowd was the presence of the President of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant. In fact the Maine Central had the honor of hauling the President’s special train over its tracks from Portland. Every station along the way was decorated with flags. and crowds that could not raise the cash to get to Bangor assembled at the water stops to catch a glimpse of the nation’s chief executive. The people of the eastern part of Maine had waited more than twenty years, after its original charter, for the E & NA to become a reality. At last the rails were laid all the way from Bangor through Vanceboro to St. John, New Brunswick, and with President Grant in town Bangor was ready for a big send-off of the first train on the new railroad. There was a big parade, parts of which included the 10th Company of the Maine Infantry, fire apparatus from numerous towns, and a procession of lumbermen, all appropriately reviewed by President Grant from a big stand in front of the Bangor House. After that eventful 18th of October in 1871, it was possible to travel by rail from Boston on Massachusetts Bay to St. John on the Bay of Fundy.

A practice long to be continued was begun in 1870. A special train carrying directors traversed the whole line. George Flood tells us: “They had lemonade and a little stronger stuff on board.” So now let us return to George Flood’s personal experiences on the railroads.

One of the most important series of consecutive items in the Flood diaries gives us valuable information about a scandal that hit the A & K RR when Edwin Noyes, Superintendent of the A & K, was suspected of defaulting and disappearing with railroad funds. As I told you on an earlier braodcast this fall, Flood had taken residence in the Noyes family, and Edwin Noyes had become a kind of business mentor to the younger man, who was a close friend of Noyes’ only son, Boutelle Noyes. In 1863 Flood was not yet working for the railroad. nor had he yet taken the room in the Noyes home, where he would later live for many years. But he came down from his home in Clinton frequently to see Mr. Noyes, and he had already done a lot of business for the Superintendent, going around among the farmers to buy wood for the railroad.

The first reference in the Flood diaries to the Noyes difficulty was entered on September 4. 1863: “Have been to Waterville. There are stories that Mr. Noyes has defaulted the company of wood to a great extent. Sept. 6 – Mrs. Noyes and Boutelle came to Clinton to tell me that Mr. Noyes had gone no one knew where. I went to Waterville with them and was there told by men at the depot that Mr. Noyes had fled to Canada. Mrs. Noyes is much cast down. Sept. 7 – Have just learned that Charles McFadden has opened a letter belonging to me in the Bingham post office and that it was written by Mr. Noyes from Canada.

“Sept. 12 – Learned that Mr. Noyes is in New York. I took the train to Boston and went to Providence where I am staying overnight. Sept. 13 – Took the train to New York, reaching there at 7:30 p.m. Found Mr. Noyes had been arrested and lodged in police headquarters. John Ware, President of the A & K, is in town and opposes my seeing Mr. Noyes. Sept. 15 – Today I saw Mr. Noyes before Mr. Ware did. He is very calm, but uneasy. I do not know what Mr. Ware will do. Sept. 16 – No definite plan yet for Mr. Noyes. I have been with him nearly all day.”

By this time it will be clear to my listeners that we have here a side of the Noyes story that has not previously come to light. About everything else that I have come across concerning this scandal of a hundred years ago has been strongly antiNoyes.

Yet we know he was never tried in court and that eventually he was back in the good grace of Maine’s prominent men who controlled the railroads, and in 1872 was Superintendent of the enlarged Maine Central that then represented consolidation of four early roads. Here in the Flood diaries we have the Noyes side of the story from the young man who was closest to him during those trying days. Of course George Flood was prejudiced in Noyes’ favor, but it is time we heard that side of the story.

On September 17 Flood wrote: “I hear that Dr. Boutelle and Mr. Milliken are on their way here. (Dr. Boutelle, the physician son of Timothy Boutelle was Noyes’ brother-in-law, for Noyes had married the doctor’s sister. Milliken was a prominent director of the A & K.)

By the next day arrangements had been made for Noyes to return to Waterville, although the diary does not tell us what those arrangements were. The diary item simply says: “Started home with Mr. Noyes at 5 p.m. in the Stonington boat. Mr. Noyes came freely with me, not under arrest.” On the 20th Flood wrote: “Have been in the Noyes home most of the day. Everyone is very quiet and sad. I cannot help partaking of it. It is an awful blow to Mrs. Noyes, with her sense of honor and integrity, to have her husband considered a defaulter. Sept. 22 – Have been in Waterville all day helping Mr. Noyes collect his papers and accounts. I do not think they will come to a satisfactory settlement very soon.” But everything was settled eventually. On November 14 Flood wrote: “Mr. Noyes has settled his affairs with the railroad and signed the papers.” Although Flood does not say ~o. the money to make that settlement probably came from Noyes’ wealthy mother-in-law, Mrs. Timothy Boutelle.

Year: 1963