Radio Script #608

Little Talks on Common Things

March 29, 1964

I suppose most of my listeners have heard stories about the Dark Day of 1780. In his History of Maine, published in 1832, Judge Williamson said: “Ever memorable will be the Dark Day of May 19, 1780, when a lighted candle was needed at noon, and the darkness of the night was extreme and fearful. The phenomenon extended throughout New England. It excited interest and concern and there was much curiosity as to its cause. It is now conjectured to have been in consequence of the smoke rising from large and extensive forest fires in Maine and New Hampshire, and of a peculiar state of the atmosphere.”

Very few historians of Maine towns mention the Dark Day, although some of those histories contain many detailed accounts of early events and are not mere compilations of official town records. Such excellent local histories as Louise Coburn’s “Skowhegan on the Kennebec”, Eaton’s “Annals of Warren”, Sibley’s “History of Union”, North’s “History of Augusta”, and Mrs. Mason’s “Old Hallowell” say not a word about the Dark Day, and the “Centennial History of Waterville” is likewise silent about it.

I was delighted therefore when I ran across an account of the famous day, written in 1822 by a man who got the details directly from his father and mother. Although this account was not written by a Maine man, I am sure the description of that memorable day applied to what happened right here in Central Maine. The writer was D.T. Taylor of Rouses Point, New York, a town at the north end of Lake Champlain. Now listen to what that man wrote 142 years ago about an event of 184 years ago: “On the 19th of May, 1780 the inhabitants of New England and adjacent parts were the trembling witnesses of phenomena never seen before nor since, and which to this day remain unexplained. The year was celebrated for its numerous auroral exhibitions in this latitude. They covered the midnight heavens with of red and silver, and streamed out like lightning, seeming to flash light into people’s faces. The preceding winter had been marked by extraordinary severity. Snow lay on the ground from early November to the end of April. In December and January a storm raged for seven consecutive days and snow fell to a depth of four feet on the level in this single storm. Wind blew the snow into drifts as high as ten feet. Many animals perished with the cold. Heavy artillery was able to cross Long Island Sound on the ice.

“Just previous to May 19th a vapor filled the air for several days with a penetrating smell of sulphur. The morning of the 19th was overcast with some rain accompanied by thunder and lightning. The air was motionless. About nine o’clock in the morning darkness suddenly set in. A dense and undefinable vapor settled over the land from Pennsylvania to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. By noon all sunlight was shut out. The heavens were tinged with yellowish and faint red hues. No clouds were visible. The lurid, brassy color spread everywhere above and below. All out-of-doors took on a weird, sickly look. By 1 p.m. it was night itself, and for the next two hours the darkness was extraordinary and frightful. The extent of the darkness was greater than is related of any similar phenomenon on record. not excepting the celebrated dark days of Egypt and Judea. But the degree of darkness differed in various places, the deepest night settling over New England. There the whole population sat in the middle of the day in profound gloom. At no time between noon and 3 p.m. could time be told by clock or watch, so invisible were the hands. Candles were necessary to see to the simplest tasks. Fires on the hearths shone as brightly as before sunrise on a winter morning.

“Many people were completely terrified, sure that the end of the world had come. It was indeed an awesome event, and to this day it has no acceptable explanation.”

So much for that old 1822 account. I believe the explanation usually accepted today is the one Williamson gives: huge forest fires in Maine and New Hampshire. Certainly there was no eclipse of the sun on that day, and no one has ever given a better explanation than the one Judge Williamson put into his History of Maine just ten years after the man at Rouses Point wrote his account of the Dark Day of 1780.

Many people in this area, as well as hundreds of Colby graduates, remember the venerable professor of Latin at Colby, Julian D. Taylor, who died in 1932 at the age of 86. The house where he lived, on the east side of College Avenue, right next to the old lower railroad crossing, was recently demolished to make room for the approaches to the new underpass.

Last summer there came to my hands a very interesting item concerning Dr. Taylor. It was no less than his wedding announcement. It reads: “Mr. ‘Julian D. Taylor and Mrs. Mary K. Boutelle, married Monday, September 12, 1892, Waterville, Maine. At home after November fi rst, 37 College Street, Waterville. ” When Julian Taylor married the widow of Dr. Nathaniel Boutelle, he surprised a lot of his acquaintances. By 1892 the professor was 46 years old and considered to be a confirmed bachelor. But he had long been close to the descendants of Waterville’s leading citizen and first treasurer of the college, Timothy Boutelle.

Next to the first College president, Jeremiah Chaplin, the most famous teacher in Colby’s early days was George Washington Keely, a man who on two occasions served as acting president and on both those occasions raised the funds necessary to prevent closing the college. In 1852 Keely’s daughter Mary was married to Timothy Boutelle’s eldest son, Dr. Nathaniel Boutelle. The doctor died in 1890, and two years later his widow married Professor Julian Taylor. Professor Taylor’s long connection with the Ticonic National Bank began with his association with the Boutelle family. Its first president, when it was called simply the Ticonic Bank, had been the old squire himself, Timothy Boutelle. He held that position from the bank’s founding in 1832 until his death in 1855. The Ticonic became a national bank in 1865. and in 1884 Dr. Nathaniel Boutelle was made its president. In 1899 he was succeeded by his son, George K. Boutelle.

Many of Waterville’s great family names were associated with the Ticonic Bank. A.A. Plaisted and his son Appleton Plaisted served successively in ‘ the office of cashier for forty years. For some time Governor William T. Haines was vice-president. For seventy years the Moor family was represented on the board of directors. Solyman Heath, founder of the Waterville family of that name, was the Ticonic president at the close of the Civil War. No fewer than six Redingtons were connected with the bank.

At the turn of the century the Ticonic Bank had close connection with Colby College through its cashier, Hascall Hall, son of Colby’s famous librarian, Edward W. Hall. Hascall Hall had himself graduated from Colby in the Class of 1896. By the way, a subject we must discuss some day on this program is the close connection between Colby College and the business and industrial interests of Waterville during the 19th century.

Speaking of Colby College, it is interesting to note how that 150 year old institution was financed in its earliest years. Before Jeremiah Chaplin arrived in June, 1818 to start classes in the old farmhouse where the Elmwood Hotel now stands. Waterville citizens had subscribed $2.000 to encourage the trustees to select Waterville as the college site. Subscribers were slow to pay their pledges until they saw some sign of building. So two men, Nathaniel Gilman and Timothy Boutelle. personally guaranteed the sum. Old records of the college show that, in the fall of 1818. Gilman handed over to the college treasurer the entire $2,000. Whether he and Boutelle ever collected any of it from the several individual subscribers we do not know. Anyhow that $2.000 gave the trustees encouragement to put up their first building. called the President’s House. Standing on the present site of Memorial Hall, it provided accomodations for the President’s family and several students. In it for a full year the President, as the only teacher. held all the classes.

During 1819 money came in to the college from numerous donors. Many gave as little as $5, but several made substantial gifts. Capt. John O’Brien of Brunswick. who 12-246 was a relative of Mrs. Jeremiah Chaplin, sent $100. Levi Farwell of Portland also gave $100, and $50 came from the man who would be Maine’s first governor, William King.

Already in 1819 the college had adopted a practice it would continue for many years — that of having Baptist ministers serve as collection agents on commission, a practice that was later accompanied by sending out the faculty to seek subscriptions, especially during the long winter vacation. In 1819 the principal agent was Rev. Henry Drinkwater, who turned in the respectable sum of $780 during the year.

By no means did all of the money come from donors in Maine. James Prince of Newburyport gave $20, a Mr. Clay of Medford $30, and Alpheus Lyon, a former neighbor of Chaplin’s in Danvers, $10. Maine ministers did a good job in gathering in the pennies. Rev. Andrew Stearns of Bath turned in $20.55 collected from his parishioners; Rev. Stephen Chapin of North Yarmouth sent $5.40, and Rev. Chase of Buckfield $2.00. One of the most interesting items in the old record reads as follows: “Col. Getchell, collected from officers of his regiment at review, $5.15.” Just imagine a militia regimental colonel holding up his men at muster time for money to help run a new college in Waterville!

By 1822 President Chaplin had been joined by his first faculty colleague, Prof. Avery Briggs. Everyone interested in the college was hard at work getting money to erect the first brick building, South College. President Chaplin himself beat the byways and hedges for funds, collecting over $1,000. Prof. Briggs got more than $500. Another thousand was secured by grant of the Maine Legislature. The largest individual donation was made by Deacon Herman Lincoln of Boston, whose $500 was earmarked “toward erection of new brick edifice for the college”. Other substantial givers were Stephen Weston of Skowhegan, Jonathan Holmes of Winthrop, Joel Briggs of Stoughton, and the famous Cyrus Hamlin.

The college records of that year 1822 contain not a single Waterville name, but that does not mean that nothing came from local citizens. We know that they gave generously of material and labor to put up what was then Waterville’s largest building, old South College.

Year: 1964