Radio Script #652

Little Talks on Common Things

May 2, 1965

A few weeks ago I named the stations on several branches of the Maine Central, as they appeared on a timetable of 1905. On the Somerset R.R. I gave the first three stations as Oakland, Hoxies, Norridgewock. Ray Tobey of Fairfield, who has a house full of railroad memorabilia and is very well informed on Kennebec and Somerset County rail lines, tells me that he personally remembers a station between Hoxies and Norridgewock that went by the name of Bangs. That station appeared on a New England map issued by the U.S. Railroad Association as late as 1919. It was not a manned passenger station, but was a stop for loading wood.

Mr. Tobey points out the changes that were made through the years on the line he knew best, the branch from Waterville to Skowhegan. When I traveled that branch frequently between 1910 and 1913, the stations after leaving Waterville were Fairfield, Shawmut, Good Will, Hinckley and SkOWhegan. Mr. Tobey has a timetable of 1869 that gives the stations as Kendalls Mills, Somerset Mills, Fowlers, Pishon’s Ferry and Skowhegan. Kendalls Mills was, of course, the old name for Fairfield Village, and Somerset Mills was the place we now call Shawmut. Pishon’s Ferry was Hinckley, because at that place a ferry for many years served the purpose now served by the bridge that crosses to the Clinton side of the river. But one station on that 1869 timetable was unfamiliar to me — Fowler’s. I had to ask Ray Tobey where it was.

Mr. Tobey says that Fowler’s was a flag stop at what is now called Nyes Corner, but a hundred years ago was Fairfield Corners. The land was owned by Mr. Tobey’s great-grandfather, Nathan Fowler, when the railroad bought it in February, 1869. Nathan Fowler was the first station agent there, and was succeeded by his son, Eugene Fowler. Mr. Tobey says he knew of the station only from stories told him by aged relatives or from the printed records, because the station was discontinued and the building removed long before Mr. Tobey was born.

Among Mr. Tobey’s possessions is a sperm oil lantern marked P & K. The initials stood for Portland and Kennebec, because that later became the Skowhegan branch of the Maine Central. It was originally an extension of the Portland & Kennebec R.R., from Augusta through Waterville to Skowhegan. That road had a gauge of 4 feet. 8t inches, which would one day become standard gauge for the nation. On the other hand, the Androscoggin and Kennebec, from Danville Junction to Waterville, and its extension, the Penobscot and Kennebec, from Waterville to Bangor, had the very wide gauge of 5 feet, 6 inches. Because those two railroads of different gauges met at Waterville, it was here that took place the bitter rivalry between the two lines, known in the 1860’s as the Battle of the Gauges.

Ray Tobey has objective proof that there was once a Fowler’s station. In his possession is an old oil can labeled “Fowler’s Station Sperm Oil”. What is more, he has the old date stamp used at that station. It makes an oval impression, on the outer rim of which are the words, “Portland and Kennebec R.R., Fowlers.” In the center was the date.

Ray Tobey’s great-grandfather had another distinction besides being the first station agent at Fowlers. He was for many years postmaster at Fairfield Corners, the second post office opened in the town of Fairfield. Now, don’t start guessing wrong. Fairfield’s first post office was not at Kendalls Mills, Fairfield Village. The town’s first post office was at Fairfield Center, a community which in the early 19th century was always referred to as Fairfield Meeting House. In fact, old Waterville records uniformly refer to the road leading from what is now Post Office Square along Upper Main Street and over the big hill to Fairfield Center as the road to Fairfield Meeting House. In the old days the hill later called the Mountain Farm was known as Pung Hill.

Now let us turn to a tempest — somewhat more than a tempest in a teapot — that raged here 35 years ago. In June, 1930 the Trustees of Colby College voted that the college should be moved to a more suitable location “as soon as feasible”. Then W.H. Gannett, the Augusta publisher, offered a large tract of land in the capital city, a place known as Ganneston Park, free and clear to the Colby trustees, if they would move the college to Augusta. The outcome, of course, was that Waterville citizens got busy, raised the money to purchase 700 acres at Mayflower Hill, and the college stayed in Waterville. But meanwhile more heat than light was stirred by the controversy. Many Waterville people turned against President Franklin Johnson, accusing him of deliberately planning to move the college to Augusta.

Johnson’s actual position was quite different. Determined that the college must have a new location, he had the sound judgment to see that one way to get that done was to secure offers of different sites. So he took a firm, neutral position. So far as he was concerned, the college would go where the best offer was made.

Frank Johnson was a shrewd, observant man. He knew very well the college would not leave Waterville if the local people could once get it through their heads that they really might lose Colby. A lot of local people were saying: “We don’t need to do anything. Colby will never leave Waterville”. When community leaders and the city government realized that the Augusta offer presented a genuine danger, they got busy. That is just what Johnson wanted in the first place, but it would never have happened if he had not made it clear that sentiment alone could not retain the college in Waterville.

As I have said the controversy was heated and tempers feverish all through that summer and autumn of 1930. The slightest remark of President Johnson elicited criticism. On September 27 the Waterville Sentinel appeared with this two-column headline: “Johnson’s Chapel Talk is Taken as Direct Rap at Colby Alumni Body”. Let us see what the Sentinel had to say: “What has been interpreted as a direct knock at the intelligence of Colby’s alumni was contained in an address delivered yesterday morning at the first chapel service of the new college year by President Franklin Johnson. Implying that the alumni body was ignorant of conditions surrounding removal of the college to a new site, because they are not in a position to know what’s what in the affairs of the college, Johnson said: ‘It should give us all confidence to observe that 28 of the 31 members of the Board of Trustees are themselves graduates of the college, and their attachment to the spiritual and material accomplishments of the college during more than a century are just as strong as that of any other alumnus. The more intimate knowledge of those alumni who are trustees, acquainting them with all the elements of this critical situation, and their sense of responsibility, both for the past and for the future of Colby, will enable them to make sound decisions at each step in the program of development. And on them rests the burden to make the decisions. “‘

The Sentinel went on to say: “That this statement of Johnson’s should follow protests of some of the leading graduates of Colby against any action which would take Colby out of Waterville will certainly not make it set well with the whole alumni body.”

Franklin Johnson knew very well that some of his blunt statements would be misinterpreted. Certainly one thing he said did raise the hackles of his critics. In that chapel talk he minced no words about the duty of the Colby trustees. He said: “The concern of the trustees cannot be primarily with the effect their choice of a new site may have upon any particular city, nor with the sentimental attachment of the alumni to any spot or locality. Their choice must express their reasoned conclusion as to which location will enable the college best to carryon its work in this century and for centuries to come.”

After the decision for Mayflower Hill had been made, not only in preference to Augusta, but also in preference to two other stoutly defended sites in Waterville, Franklin Johnson always contended that the choice had been soundly and wisely made. He was just as pleased as any Waterville native that Colby remained in Waterville.

Mrs. Ina Stinneford, who is one of the best informed of all living persons on Winslow history thinks the date I recently gave for the building of the first meeting house in this community that.was once one town on both sides of the river, is at least a year too late. I said 1797. Mrs. Stinneford thinks it was 1796, or perhaps even as early as 1795. I must now admit that she may well be correct. Let us see what printed records have to say about it.

The Centennial History of Waterville says: “On February 10, 1794, at a town meeting held at John McKechnie’s it was voted to erect a meeting house on the east side of the river on land given by Arthur Lithgow, Esquire.Nothing came of that vote, because on March 7, 1796 the town voted to build a meeting house on the hill near or in Ticonic Village. The next day the town voted to build another on the Lithgow lot in Winslow, the previous vote having been rescinded.”

That shows clearly that as late as March 7, 1796 no meeting house had been erected on the Lithgow lot. Kingbury’s History of Kennebec County must therefore be in error when it says: “The old meeting house, built in 1795, was reseated and crowned with a steeple in 1830.”

Kingsbury came nearer the facts when he wrote: “The town voted in 1794 to build a meeting house on the east side of the river, which was so far completed as to be used for the town meeting in the spring of 1797.”

On the strength of all these statements, I decided 1797 must have been the year of the completion of what is now the Winslow Congregational Church. But it actually could have been finished some time in 1796, after the annual town meeting in 1796 was held in the home of Elnathan Sherwin, and it was at that meeting that this final decision was made to build the two meeting houses — one on the Lithgow lot, the other in Ticonic Village. But there is no question that the one on the east side of the river was built first, and it may well have been ready for some sort of use before the year 1796 had elapsed.

Year: 1965