Radio Script #609

Little Talks on Common Things

April 5, 1964

Some time ago on this program I told about the coming of the Lockwood Mills to Waterville. It was those big mills that changed Waterville from a community of small factories to an industrial city with large manufacturing payrolls. What I have not previously broadcast is the story of the arduous, even hazardous, steps that had to be taken by enterprising Waterville citizens before the city finally got the big cotton mills.

The Civil War had hit Waterville hard. Payment of substantial bonuses to encourage men to fill the increasing draft quotas, the expense of caring for the families of men in the services, and the inflation that always accompanies war, had placed the town deeply in debt. Many people could not pay their taxes, modest as those levies were a hundred years ago. Waterville simply had to get new industry or wither on the vine.

Since the building of the first Ticonic Dam in 1792 the power rights had been divided among several families — the Getchells, the Redingtons, the heirs of Obadiah Williams, the Moors and the Stackpoles. A group of men, led by George Phillips and Everett Drummond, conceived a plan to buy up and control all the power on the river at Winslow and Waterville. Only thus was there any hope of inducing a large manufacturing company with any outside capital to build a plant here.

The problem faced by the local promoters was to locate and reach agreement with many non-residents who, through inheritance, held interest in the water rights. Through the persistence of George Phillips those owners were finally located and their rights purchased.

On February 7, 1866 the Maine Legislature issued a charter to the Ticonic Water Power and Manufacturing Company. That charter authorized the new company to carryon at Ticonic Falls, on both sides of the river, the manufacture of wool, cotton, iron, steel, lumber, butter paper and other articles, and to purchase and hold real estate in the amount of one million dollars, as well as to build a dam. The corporation chose as its first directors Solyman Heath, George Phillips, James Blunt, James Drummond and John Richardson. Everett Drummond was elected clerk and George Phillips treasurer. Sufficient stock was subscribed to complete the dam, the first to extend entirely across the river, in 1869.

Despite attempts to interest outside manufacturers, none responded for several years. The best the new company could do was to rent power to Dennis Milliken for a grist mill and to Smith and Meader for a large saw and framing mill. The company had originally raised $75,300 by sale of 753 shares of stock, but it failed to make money even after the dam was built. It found itself increasingly in debt. Late in 1869 the stockholders authorized the directors to take any measures necessary to renew the company notes and devise means to pay at least a portion of the debt. For four years the company managed to hold on, but was nearly ready to give up the ghost when in 1873 it got a break. There entered the picture the man who has been justly called the father of the cotton industry in Waterville, Reuben B. Dunn. He agreed to take over the controlling interest in the company, pay its debts, and improve the property.

Reuben Dunn had developed a thriving business in the making of scythes and axes at North Wayne, before establishing a similar factory at West Waterville (now Oakland). He was one of the most active promoters of the railroad merger that created the Maine Central, and for several years served as president of the system. In 1873 Mr. Dunn was already more than 70 years old, but he was still vigorous enough to attempt what most of his neighbors considered a risky and already a dying enterprise. The reorganized company was set up on January 17, 1873 with Reuben B. Dunn as president, his son Willard as treasurer, and another son, Reuben Wesley, as general agent.

The elder Dunn at once made contact with a well known cotton man, Amos D. Lockwood. The result was to plan a mill of 33,000 spindles. Largely at Mr. Dunn’s own financial risk, ground was broken and foundations laid. Meanwhile Mr. Dunn persisted in what at first seemed to be a vain attempt to induce Mr. Lockwood to make substantial investment, but at last, when the Lockwood Company was founded in 1874, Mr. Lockwood was indeed a substantial investor, although the Dunns still had to supply much of the capital.

Affairs of the Ticonic Water Power and Manufacturing Company, despite Mr. Dunn’s control, became so involved that the only way to clear the power rights for the Lockwood mills appeared to be the creation of an entirely new power company. How that came about is a story not told in the official history of Waterville, nor in the columns of the Waterville Mail. The story is now revealed from old papers found at the home of Mrs. Harrison Smith in the fall of 1963. Those papers consist of four folded. foolscap sheets, which carry the records of the power company over several years.

At a meeting held on February 7, 1874 George Phillips offered a resolution that was unanimously adopted. It said: “Whereas the company is indebted to the amount of $50,000, and whereas it has exhausted its power to assess the stock already sold. and whereas new stock can be sold at only about 25% of par value, therefore be it resolved that the directors be instructed to sell enough property of the company to pay the debts, and if partial sale shall prove to be impracticable, then to sell all the property, pay the debts, and hold the balance for future disposition by the stockholders.”

Six months later, in August, 1874, the committee appointed to sell the property reported that, finding no way to sell part of it to advantage. they advised acceptance of an offer for the whole property for $80,000. That offer had been made by a group of three attorneys. Josiah Drummond, Everett Drummond and Everett Webb, ‘representing a :new corporation called the Ticonic Company. This was known to be interests close to the Lockwood Company. So on August 11, 1874 the Ticonic Water Power and Manufacturing Company sold to the Ticonic Company all its property. franchise and rights, and the Ticonic Company agreed to assume the building contract already entered into for construction of the first Lockwood Mill. Reuben Dunn had been personally responsible for making building contracts with Norton and Leavitt, and with George Hanson. The old company, at that August meeting, voted to confirm those Dunn contracts in order that they might legally be taken over by the new company. When in October all details had been completed. the old company declared a dividend of $27.50 a share and wound up its affairs. Two months later the Ticonic Company sold all its real estate and water rights to the Lockwood Company for $125.000, paid in stock of the Lockwood Company. and all building contracts were assumed by Lockwood. In the summer of 1875 Mill No. 1 was ready for machinery, which was installed in the autumn, and in February, 1876 the first cloth was woven.

Waterville owes much to the Dunn family. Without the vigorous efforts of 70 year old Reuben B. Dunn, it might have been many years before any large manufacturing plant was built at Ticonic Falls. Mr. Dunn was born in Poland, Maine in 1802, and he died in Waterville in 1889. In business for himself as early as 1821, Reuben B. Dunn enjoyed nearly 70 years of active business life. He bought and sold timber land and lumber, traveled allover New England selling threshing machines, organized the hardware firm of Dunn, Elden & Co., manufactured scythes, axes and agircultural implements in two different Maine communities, promoted the early railroads and the first large textile mills. represented Waterville for several terms in the legislature, and was a leader in the Methodist Church.

The older son of Reuben B. Dunn was Willard M. Dunn, born in Fayette. Maine in 1845. His father had been one of the founders of the prominent Methodist school, Kents Hill Seminary, and from that Willard Dunn was graduated. After some experience in the management of a shoe factory in Auburn, he came to Waterville to help his father develop the Lockwood mills. He also became president of the Dunn Edge Tool Co. in Oakland. He served as postmaster in Waterville for many years. Willard Dunn’s daughter Mabel married Herbert C. Libby. long professor of public speaking at Colby and one of the best remembered of Waterville’s mayors. Honored by our entire community, Dr. and Mrs. Libby spend winters at their home on Pleasant Street and summers at their beautiful seaside home at Pemaquid Point, where they promoted and developed one of the finest summer resort properties in Maine.

Two years younger than Willard was his brother, Reuben Wesley Dunn. He too graduated from Kents Hill, and in 1868 he received his college degree from Colby. He was a classmate of the man who made a record as the professor in longest active service in any American college, Julian D. Taylor. For many years Mr. Dunn served as a Colby trustee, and he and Dr. Taylor were neighbors, living almost directly across the street from each other on College Avenue. Like his father and brother, Reuben Wesley Dunn was prominent in the Lockwood Company, and for some time he served as president of the Somerset Railroad.

The wife of Reuben Wesley Dunn gained fame in her own right. She was Martha Baker, daughter of a supreme court justice who lived in Hallowell. She became a well known writer of both prose and verse, her writing appearing in prominent magazines and in several books. A special collection of her work is preserved in the Waterville Public Library. Her writing came to the attention of Theodore Roosevelt, when he was President of the United States, and a lively correspondence between the great T.R. and the Waterville authoress was carried on for several years.

Still living in Waterville is Reuben Wesley Dunn’s daughter, Florence Dunn. Although now confined to her home, she has an enviable record of long service to college and community. Graduating from Colby in 1896, she joined the college faculty in 1902 as instructor in Latin, where she worked as a colleague of Dr. Taylor. After ten years of other pursuits, she returned to Colby as Assistant Professor of English in 1923, and became a full professor in 1929. She retired in 1934.

Miss Dunn’s long association with the Waterville Public Library had begun in her girlhood, when she had seen her mother and other prominent women, including Mrs. George Dana Boardman Pepper, take the lead in organizing the Public Library Association and succeed in securing a beautiful library building as the gift of Andrew Carnegie. Miss Dunn herself became a trustee of the library in 1915, and after 49 years she still remains a respected member of the board.

Waterville indeed owes much to the family of Reuben B. Dunn who, at the age of 70, took on the big task of bringing the Lockwood Mills to Waterville.

Year: 1964