Radio Script #712

Little Talks on Common Things

January 8, 1967

I have found another local resident who has visited the Austin Castle in the town of Franklin. Mrs. Ray Tobey of Fairfield remembers the place well and recalls a conversation with one of the sisters many years ago. Mrs. Tobey confirms what others have told me that the Austin sisters were not complete recluses, shutting themselves off from the world. They did shun publicity and did not relish intrusion from curiosity seekers, but they welcomed legitimate callers and were quite willing to talk. Mrs. Tobey was delighted to find that they remembered a relative of hers who had done business with them many years earlier.

Mrs. Tobey adds one bit of legend about the Austins that is especially interesting. The time when the Austins came to Franklin was soon after the famous Charlie Ross kidnapping. It was the nation’s most notorious case of its kind until the Lindbergh baby in the early 1930’s. The child Charlie Ross disappeared, ransom was attempted. but the boy was never heard from again. Today it remains America’s most mysterious, unsolved kidnapping.

Mrs. Tobey says it was generally believed that Austin had taken residence in that remote spot in Washington County. not primarily to seek gold, but to supply a refuge for his two small daughters for whose safety he feared in the big City. Whether true or not, it is an interesting addition to our growing story about Austin Castle.

Often on this program I have made reference to Waterville’s very early newspapers, those published during the first half of the nineteenth century. It began with the Waterville Intelligencer, whose first number appeared from the press of William Hastings in 1822. That paper lasted through 1828; then for one year, 1829, there was a paper called the Watchman. It was 1831 when the well-known printing family of Burleigh appeared on the local journalistic scene. From that year on, from time to time until the opening years of the twentieth century, one or another of the Burleighs would be publishing a newspaper in Waterville.

On June 25, 1831 Waterville residents greeted a new paper called “The Times”, published every Saturday by John Burleigh. Recently there has come to my attention a copy of the original prospectus carried by Burleigh’s agents who gathered subscriptions for his paper. Attached to the prospectus is a list of subscribers that the agent who handled this particular copy had gathered. It is possible that this agent worked chiefly in Fairfield, because among the subscribers were six Nyes: Sturgess, Joshua, Caroline, Sylvester, George and Ellis. Other names were Herman Atwood, Jonathan Burgess, Charles Tobey, Ruel Ellis, Job Bates, Oliver Blackwell and Henry Lawrence.

The prospectus itself is worded in the extravagant language that characterized all such announcements 130 years ago. It said: “John Burleigh proposes to publish a newspaper in Waterville called The Times, and respectfully requests the patronage of the public. The central position of Waterville and its connection with adjacent towns warrants the belief that a public journal may at this time be established here with a fair prospect of success. The Times will deserve support by the veracity and value of its information.

“The present is an interesting period in the history of the world, and no one should remain ignorant of passing events. On the intelligence and discretion of the mass of our citizens will depend the success of our experiment in government, which strips from royalty its absurd pretense to secure civil and political liberty on the basis of equal rights. For the people there is, therefore, every inducement to patronize the press, when its controlling power is exerted for their benefit.

“The Times will be devoted to the great interests of our country: Agriculture, Manufactures and Commerce; and in its columns public measures affecting those interests will be examined with freedom and candor. The Times will support the cause of American industry and enterprise and will advocate the protection of our own working man against foreign competition. In political discussions, so far as possible, asperity will be judged by their actions. The abuse of obsolete party distinctions to excite prejudice, to screen inequity, and to depress real worth, will not be tolerated. To the farmer and the mechanic The Times will convey information of the improvements daily making in their several callings, while due attention will also be given to the literature of our country.”

Appended to John Burleigh’s prospectus is this statement in finer print: “The Times will be published weekly at two dollars per annum, paid within the year; $2.25 if payment is delayed beyond that period. Most kinds of country produce taken in payment.”

John Burleigh’s Times was short lived. It lasted a year, 53 issues from June, 1831 through June, 1832. In its last issue Burleigh announced that he was fed up. Delinquent subscribers accompanied by delinquent advertisers had made The Times decidedly unprofitable. With each week’s issue Burleigh was losing money until, he told the public, continued publication would mean eventual bankruptcy. So he offered for sale his press, type and other equipment as well as his dwelling house on Elm Street. He would seek greener pastures.

Burleigh sold his printing outfit to Daniel Wing, a very young man who would be a publisher in Waterville for the rest of his life, and would one day convert his weekly Waterville Mail into the town’s first daily paper. In 1832 Wing started a paper with the jaw-breaking name of the Watervillonian. In the fall of 1833 John Burleigh was back in town, starting another paper, the Waterville Journal.

In 1842 a young man, who would later become a nationally known writer, decided to try his hand at the game. He was William Mathews, son of the pioneer settler Simeon Mathews, and brother of Edward Mathews who, five years later, would be Waterville’s first murder victim. So William Mathews became the editor and Daniel Wing the printer of “The Yankee Blade”.

It was in 1847 that the shirt maker, Charles Hathaway, turned to journalism. Hathaway was the opinionated, explosive kind of man who would not like any paper published by any other person. The only way he could get a satisfactory newspaper was to publish one himself. So in the spring of 1847 he brought out the Waterville Union, writing almost all of its columns himself, and hiring as his printer Ephraim Maxham. Hathaway soon got tired of the venture, putting out only fourteen issues of the Union. He sold to his printer Maxham, who on July 22, 1847 produced the first issue of the Eastern Mail. That was the beginning of the paper that eventually became the Waterville Mail, a journalistic enterprise in which Ephraim Maxham and Daniel Wing were associated for many years.

I am always eager to pick up information about the old railroad lines, both steam and electric. Raymond Manson has given me an account of his recollection of the old Waterville, Augusta and Lewiston interurban line during his boyhood days in North Vassalboro. Mr. Manson says: “Before 1905 there were two ways of getting to Waterville from North Vassalboro. One was by stage, by which for 50 cents you could be landed right on Waterville’s Main Street. The second possibility was to walk out the Oak Grove road about a mile to the narrow gauge station and there take the train to Winslow, from where you could either walk or take a ten-cent team to the other side of the river. The cost was 45 cents.

“When the electric cars came in 1905, they ran along North Vassalboro’s main street through the center of town, and they carried one into the city in twenty minutes. But at first the tracks did not cross the river. We could ride only as far as the brickyard on Bay Street in Winslow, and had to walk across the bridge into Waterville.”

Mr. Manson adds: “I never knew how they got the cars down on to Bay Street, for originally the cars ran only from the narrow gauge tracks in East Vassalboro to the Maine Central tracks in Winslow. Neither company would allow the electric road to cross their tracks. It took a lot of litigation and court action before the electric cars could cross the Maine Central at East Vassalboro, and they never did cross it at grade level in Winslow. Instead, an inclined plane was built up the side of Sand Hill, and the electric line crossed the steam line on an overhead trestle.”

A part of Central Maine of peculiar historical interest is the little community of North Fairfield, where the Quaker Church, founded in the 18th century, is still in operation. The pioneer settler of that region was Elihu Bowerman. Through the kindness of Mrs. Carl Stevens of Hinckley I have seen a letter written in 1848 to William Gifford by Elihu Bowerman’s son. The letter tells us about that pioneer family. It says: “When I was about five years old, my father on horseback took me behind him one Sabbath. He went to see his sister who had married Benjamin Swift. Her maiden name was Waite Bowerman. We had a fine time that evening, when the family was together except for my great-grandparents. They were then about 96 years old and did not often leave their rooms. The next morning I went with my cousins to see them. They looked very old indeed to me. I had never seen such old people before. After leaving them for the last time, my father and I went down to meeting at the Friends’ Meeting House, then returned home much pleased with our lovely visit.”

The visit that letter tells about was made in 1793. The next year the old grandfather died, followed in 1795 by his wife. Since both were more than 95 years old at the time of death, there once lived up in North Fairfield two people, both of whom had been born before 1700.

Year: 1967