Radio Script #795

Little Talks on Common Things

February 16, 1969

During all the years of this program I have had little to say about county government. Although it is true that, in recent years, the counties have become less and less important in Maine affairs, three-quarters of a century ago they assumed a larger role. So I want to share with you today some items from the Report of the Treasurer of Kennebec County for the year 1898, the memorable year of the Spanish-American War.

The county had then, as now, 29 towns and cities and one plantation. Between the towns of Benton and Unity still lies a tract of land officially designated as Unity Plantation. In 1898 the largest county tax, $9,200, was paid by Augusta. Waterville was second with $6,500. Gardiner third with $4,400. The smallest tax paid by any town was Rome’s $98. Vienna paid $130. Unity Plantation, of course, paid much less than any of the towns, $19. Outside the cities the largest tax on any town was upon Winthrop, $1,432. Winslow’s tax was $1,370, Mt. Vernon’s $1,034, and Vassalboro’s $1,019.

Especially significant is what had happened to Vassalboro during the threequarters of a century that had elapsed between the time when Maine became a separate state and the time when the Kennebec County treasurer made his report in 1898. In 1820 Vassalboro was second only to Hallowell in population among all Kennebec communities. and it then paid the second largest county tax, nearly twice the tax of the then smaller town of Waterville. Disastrous fires. the moving of industries. the death of leading industrialists and merchants, and the rapid increase of business at Ticonic Falls had. by 1898, considerably reduced the population and the resources of Vassalboro. especially what had been its leading trade center at Getchell’s Corner.

A striking instance of changed conditions since 1898 is the fact that. in that year only eight of Kennebec’s 29 towns and cities paid a tax of more than $1,000. Hallowell, which had once been Maine’s most thriving community next to Portland, was already in decline. Its tax was only $300 more than Winthrop’s. $400 more than Winslow’s. and less than one-fourth the tax of Waterville.

In 1898 Kennebec had four municipal courts located in Augusta, Gardiner. Hallowell and Waterville. There were trial justice courts in Belgrade. Chelsea, China, Clinton, Monmouth. Oakland. Randolph, Readfield and Vassalboro.

Just as now, some of the largest court expenses, as well as largest court revenues, were caused by violation of the liquor laws. Cost to the county for prosecution of illegal liquor sales had been $6,933, and for cases of drunkenness $9,087. Fines and costs collected on liquor prosecutions totalled $23,192. So the the treasurer pointed out that strict enforcement of this law by the County Sheriff and his deputies had netted the county a profit of more than $7,000. Prisoners in the county jail received no lavish meals in 1898. The average weekly cost of each prisoner’s board was then $1.75. Today we seldom see a tramp. the wandering hobo of half a century ago. In 1898 he was a common figure in every town. Shelter and food for tramps in the Kennebec County jail in that year cost $4.236.

During the year 855 persons had been placed in the county jail at Augusta. and 31 of them were women. Nearly half of all the prisoners, 390 of them, had been committed for drunkenness. The second largest committal had been tramps, 324.

Almost every crime then on the statute books had at least one committal in 1898: murder. manslaughter. burglary, arson, forgery, assault. and sexual offenses. One poor fellow was incarcerated for illegal possession of moose meat.

Did you know that as late as 1898 a person in Maine could be jailed for debt? In that year nineteen citizens were put in the Augusta jail as poor debtors. Salaries in 1898 were low. The pay of all county officers together, including the jailer. was only $9,300. The Register of Deeds got $1.500, the Judge of Probate $1,000. and the Register of Probate $800. Chairman of the County Commissioners was paid $600 and his two colleagues got $400 each. The sheriff had no salary, but was paid under what came later to be denounced as a vicious and corrupt fee system. It took considerable agitation and a long campaign of reform to make all fees payable to the county. and place the sheriff and his deputies on salary or per diem service.

Let us see who were some of the Kennebec County officers in 1898. The commissioners were Sewall Pettingill of Wayne, Ruel Burgess of Vassalboro and John Spear of West Gardiner. Note that not a single commissioner came from anyone of the county’s four cities. The county attorney was George Hesselton of Gardiner. the clerk of courts was W.S. Choate of Augusta, and the sheriff was Andrew McFadden of Waterville, who also served as jailer. The county treasurer. who signed this 1898 report, was J.S. Blanchard of Chelsea.

In 1898 Waterville had two deputy sheriffs, Colby Getchell and James Hill. For some reason, not now clear. the county had financial obligation for the operation of one ferry, the one across the Kennebec at Hallowell, which in 1898 cost the county $50. When ferries were first operated across the Kennebec they had usually been by private operators, who collected the toll fees to reimburse their expenses. As time went by and population increased, bridges were built at the larger towns, but a bridge was too expensive for smaller places. Yet. even in the smaller towns along the Kennebec, ferries as well as bridges came to be looked upon as the same as highway obligations, to be assumed by cities and towns. So we see that by 1898 only one ferry was in any wayan obligation of the entire county.

Some of the other county expenses in 1898 are today of more than passing interest. The county paid $30 to the agent for the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It cost $200 to “alphabetize the index of the probate court”; and $13 went to the janitor of the county jail.

The treasurer had to confess that county finances were in the red. The defi- cit at the end of 1898 stood at $21.000. One reason for that bad showing was the difficulty in collecting county taxes from the towns. We are pleased to note that both Waterville and Winslow had paid their assessment in full, as had also Augusta, Gardiner and Hallowell. Several towns. including Albion. Clinton and Sidney. had paid in part. but several others had paid nothing at all when the treasurer closed his books at the end of the year. Among the delinquents were China. Manchester, and Windsor. The total tax committed for all the towns and the plantation of the county was $35.662. On December 31 more than two-sevenths of it. $10.432. remained unpaid.

That the liquor laws gave constant concern is shown by the treasurer’s quotation from the statutes covering his duty to make annual reports. The last sentence of that statement said: “The report shall also show, in a separate table. the actual expenses incurred in enforcing the laws relative to the sale of intoxicating liquors, together with a detailed statement of the fines received therefrom.” Filled as is that treasurer’s report with tables and figures, it casts some light on finances and law enforcement ;n Kennebec County seventy years ago.

Several times this program has dealt with information about Maine’s academies. the earliest of which were established in the 18th century. before Maine became a separate state. It is well known that, allover New England. the early colleges were active in establishing such academies. as Colby did in 1828, when it set up Waterville Academy, that later become Coburn Classical Institute. As time went on various colleges brought existing academies under their wings, as Bowdoin did with Monmouth and Fryeburg, and as Colby did with Coburn, Hebron. Higgins and Ricker.

Recently I saw an interesting document that showed how Bowdoin College endeavored to found an academy in its home town of Brunswick. They succeeded. at least in some measure, because Brunswick Academy, long since extinct. was the result. The document to which I refer was a petition to the Maine Legislature, at its very first regular session in 1821, by the Bowdoin Trustees. The petition was signed “by order of the executive government of Bowdoin College, William Allen, President”. It was dated at Brunswick on January 1, 1821.

After calling attention to that part of the Constitution of Maine that calls for the state’s encouragement of learning, the petition pointed out that the state required the support of primary schools in all towns at local expense, but that the Constitution itself obliged the Legislature to financially assist academies and colleges when in the Legislature’s judgment the circumstances of the people should so warrant. For the remainder of the petition, let us now turn to its original words: “The legislature has already passed acts extending generous patronage to Bowdoin College and to the literary Institution at Waterville, and has created and endowed a medical seminary, which must in a few years prove a blessing to the whole state.

“The legislature will undoubtedly in good time consider the subject of academies, which may be regarded as intermediate between primary schools and colleges, and as essential to the prosperity of both. It is from academies that our youth are transplanted to the colleges; and it is both from academies and colleges that qualified teachers are furnished for the public schools.

“There are in this state many incorporated academies, not all of them endowed, even with unproductive lands — most of them, it is believed, struggling with difficulties and maintaining a precarious existence. Some in fact are no longer in operation, being academies only in name.

“Your petitioners believe that the endowment of a new academy in the central part of Maine might be of great value to the state. There is much wanted an academy in which more ample classical instruction shall be given than is now practicable, especially with reference to youth who have finished their preparatory course but are too young to enter college.

“Your petitioners are strongly impressed with the belief that. for a central academy, the town of Brunswick is a very suitable place, as it is situated at the point of junction of the great eastern road and the great northern road leading up the Kennebec River, and as it is. on account of its excell~nt air and water, remarkably salubrious.

“Such are the views which your petitioners entertain. as individuals interested in the progress of literature and the welfare and glory of Maine. and they respectfully offer their views to the Legislature of the state of which it is their boast to be citizens.

“Your petitioners therefore humbly request the Legislature to take such measures in respect to the establishment of a central academy at Brunswick as they in their wisdom may see fit.”

So that is the part played by Bowdoin College in the founding of an academy before the State of Maine was a full year old.

Year: 1969