Radio Script #627

Little Talks on Common Things

November 8, 1964

How long has it been since, in any winter we have had a warm thaw with several days of rain? That was what happened nearly 65 years ago in February, 1900. On February 10 it was so warm that melted snow was running down the gutters. But it froze that night so that, as one diary put it, streets and sidewalks were covered with ice. On the morning of the 13th it began to rain and continued steadily for two days, not freezing at night. The brook running through the Flood coal yard rose so high that it overflowed and some fifty cords of wood were set afloat. On the 15th, when the rain stopped, not only was the wood afloat, but five or six tons of coal had been washed into the brook. Then on the 18th it grew colder and a heavy storm deposited two feet of snow. That was soon followed by another foot of snow, but that storm ended in hail. Charles Flood said that, when he went home from the coal yard about 9 p.m. there was three inches of hail on the ground. He wrote: “It was like walking on sand.”

Last year when I talked a lot about George Flood I mentioned that he died in 1896, and even before that he had for some ten years been inactive in the fuel business. When he was head of the firm the deliveries of wood ran into several thousand cords a year. Four years after his death the turn of the century still saw the Floods doing a big business in wood. On March 8, 1900 Charles Flood wrote: “We have had four teams delivering and one hauling green wood from the cars. Mr. Mussey of Unity was here today, says he has 300 cords of wood nearly all cut for us.” On March 19 the Floods were getting low on wood. They had a little of what Charles called “Three-cut hard wood”, which means each four-foot stick was sawed twice, that is into three pieces. They were entirely out of four-foot hard wood, and were just beginning to get in the season’s supply of green cut. They had some four-foot soft wood, but Charles said few people would buy it because it burned too fast.

Every diary, like those of the Floods, gives us light on recreation and entertainment of the diarist’s time. On April 17, 1900 Charles Flood went to the City Opera House to hear, in his words, “the college boys playa piece”. He meant a drama, one of those old-time melodramas that amateur actors loved to perform. In 1900 little did Charles Flood realize that his teenage daughter Exerene would one day be coaching the college plays and be known allover the nation as a public entertainer through her readings and impersonations. On June 12 the coal yard was short-handed because many of the help had gone to Augusta to see Buffalo Bill’s show. On July 8 Flood went again to the City Hall and heard Horace Purinton and Wilbur Berry on temperance. His judgment was that “they reasoned well and made quite an impression on the people”. On September first he wrote: “I have heard Dolliver of Ohio on the political issues of the day. It was best short speech I ever heard.” Dolliver was in Maine campaigning for the reelection of President William McKinley.

I remember very well the crippling coal strike of 1922, but I don’t recall an earlier strike that caused a lot of trouble to Charles Flood. It happened in 1902, and though I was certainly old enough to recall it, I do not, because it made no impression upon me for a very good reason. We didn’t use enough coal for any strike to bother us. In our modest Bridgton home we had no furnace. The kitchen range burned wood. The only other heat in the house came from one of those big, pot bellied parlor stoves, in which we did burn coal, not more than two tons all winter. And if we couldn’t get coal, that old pot bellied round oak would still do well on big chunks of hard wood.

Even at my father’s big store, the only heat was supplied by a big box stove that took two-foot sticks of wood. When my father and uncle first took over that store, as partners, in 1889, that stove corner served as a rendezvous for oldtimers to sit around it and swap yarns. But, as business increased and space became cramped, the idlers were discouraged, the old chairs were removed, and counters were placed closer to the stove. We hear and read so much nostalgic comment about the earth-shaking arguments and the prolonged checker battles that went on around the stoves in country stores that we forget that at least half a century ago, those havens of refuge for the idle and the weary, as well as for the respectable aged, were already passing out of existence in the factory villages, though they lingered on at the rural crossroads.

Well, to get back to that coal strike of 1902, Flood’s first diary reference to the walk-out came on September 24: “Strike in the coal mines is causing people here to order fast. If the strike continues, we must put up the price. October 1 -We put up the price of coal 25¢. The strike is getting to be severe. October 17 – Went to Portland to learn what I could about the coal market. The wholesalers are asking $7 a ton and are very short of coal.” The strike lasted 15 weeks, ending before the winter set in. Although the miners were back at work by November first, it was Christmas Day before the Floods received their first shipment, a small cargo of 363 tons, landed by ship at Gardiner.

Few people realize the part played by Colby College in property holdings in Waterville during much of the 19th century. I have previously called your attention to the fact that Coburn Classical Institute was originally Waterville Academy, owned and operated by the College. In fact, until within a very few years, the College had long owned the land on which the Coburn buildings stood. For the purpose of building an academy to prepare students for the college, that land had been donated in 1829 by Timothy Boutelle. Its value was then placed at $250. The deed described it as “part of river lot 104, beginning at the southeast corner of the Burying Ground in the west line of the road leading by the Baptist Meeting House, a lot containing three fourths of an acre.”

In 1834 Benjamin Shepard conveyed to the college. for the sum of $1,100, a lot in Waterville. It was described as on “the east side of the road which passes through the village northerly by the said college”. That of course is the modern College Avenue, and the lot adjoined the earlier college property.

From the coming of Jeremiah Chaplin as the first President of the College in 1818, the intent was to have the professor stay permanently. To implement that policy parts of the college land in Waterville were conveyed to professors, not as free gifts by any means, but on advantageous mortgage terms. When professors did leave, the college, holding the mortgage, usually took over house and land and sold it to another professor. That is what happened in 1838 when the following deed was issued to Professor Calvin Newton: “Beginning at the point of intersection of the cross street leading from Main to College Street, with College Street, thence northerly on the west line of College Street ten rods; thence W 32 degrees N 36 rods to Lucius Allen’s land; thence southerly to the said cross street; thence easterly to the first mentioned bound, containing about two acres.”

I realize that technical, legal descriptions of land are hard to follow, but I am sure some of my listeners are able to identify, from what I have just said, the location of Professor Calvin Newton’s home here in Waterville 125 years ago. It was in what we now call Roberts Square and included the land on which the recently demolished Maine Central station was later built. The cross street referred to is, of course, Chaplin Street.

Note some of the mortgages that the college held in 1850: $800 to Russell Ellis on two parcels of land on the Fairfield road; $600 to Noah Boothby on land on Water Street; $500 to James Blunt on land on Main Street; $1,000 to Florence Plaisted, property on College Street.

It is not generally known that the old physics and astronomy building, Shannon Hall, was erected in 1889 on land not owned by the college. Not until long afterward did the college acquire that land and the neighboring athletic field from the Maine Central. In 1889 that land was leased from the railroad at ten dollars a year.

Did you know that Colby College once owned the Elmwood Hotel? Here is how it happened. In the old Elmwood, erected in 1850, fire broke out on the night of December 3, 1863. The next morning all that was left was a heap of ashes. Owned by the proprietor, John L. Seavey, it was insured for $16,000, and to rebuild would cost much more. To get his inn going again Seavey borrowed $15,000 from the college, which took a first mortgage on the new building. For a few years all went well, but the serious depression of 1873 brought hard times to all inns and taverns. Seavey was unable to meet interest payments on the mortgage, and the college had to foreclose. For ten years it held ownership, paying Seavey an annual salary to run the place. It was well into the 1880’s before the college got rid of the troublesome property. Its unintended venture into the hotel business was not profitable.

The deed by which the college finally parted with the hotel property was dated February 5, 1887, and read substantially as follows: “The President and Trustees of Colby College quit-claim to John D. Miller of Waterville and George B. White of Boston the property known as the Elmwood Hotel lot in Waterville, lying between College and Main Streets, extending and northerly from the intersection of said streets, and bounded northerly by land of Isaiah Marston and Charles Gray; easterly by College Street, and westerly by Main Street; being the same premises conveyed to the College by George W. Seavey and Osborn D. Seavey by their deed dated September 5, 1879. This deed is subject to a lease of the hotel to Eben and Henry Murch, running for 5t years from April 1, 1886.”

Similarly allover the city of Waterville are pieces of property to which at one time Colby College held title. The College is still of great financial importance to the city. Its payroll to faculty, secretarial and clerical workers, matrons and house mothers, cooks, chefs and kitchen help and scores of maintenance employees is one of the largest payrolls in Waterville, and most of that money is spent right here in our community.

Year: 1964