Radio Script #850

Little Talks on Common Things
April 26, 1970

This is another landmark in our program. Today sees the 850th broadcast of Little Talks.

Many times on this program I have mentioned Dr. Moses Appleton, Waterville’s early physician. Today I want to devote the entire broadcast to a more detailed account of that remarkable man.

Moses Appleton was born in Ipswich, Mass. in 1773. He was two years old when the first shots of the Revolution were fired at Lexington and Concord. In the 18th century few New Englanders attended college, and usually those few went to Harvard; but Appleton graduated from the younger college, Dartmouth, in 1791. He studied medicine and was licensed to practice by the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1796.

One of Appleton’s classmates at Dartmouth had been Reuben Kidder, a lawyer who had set up an office in Waterville in 1795. In the very next year Kidder persuaded Appleton to come to Waterville. If the growing town offered opportunities for a lawyer, Kidder said, it certainly offered even better opportunities for a physician. Kidder said also that the region offered unusual chances for land and business development. During the following years Kidder and Appleton profited by both those professions and those business opportunities.

As soon as Moses Appleton arrived in Waterville, he built a house on Silver Street and set up his office on the other side of the street. Like other doctors in Massachusetts and in the older York County towns of Maine, but not previously in Waterville, Dr. Appleton opened an apothecary shop in the same building with his office. Thus he became the town’s first druggist. He was also its first full-time physician. Before him, John McKechnie and Obadiah Williams had both attended the sick in Waterville, but for neither was medicine the principal occupation. Although Dr. Appleton developed many other business and civic interests, medicine was his chosen and devoted career, and he made a name for himself far beyond Waterville as a painstaking and progressive physician.

In 1814, Dr. Appleton’s Silver Street house was moved to the corner of Main and Appleton Streets, later the mansion home of William T. Haines. In 1847 Appleton built a large residence at the corner of Front and Appleton Streets, now the site of St. Joseph’s Maronite Church. A bit earlier he had built for his daughter the house on the opposite corner of Appleton Street, the present home of Mrs. Emily Heath Hall.

When Dr. Appleton came to Waterville, carriages had not yet arrived in the town; so the doctor made all his calls on horseback, his saddle bags packed with medicines and instruments. He married Ann, the daughter of Captain John Clarke, shipbuilder and shipowner of several vessels built in the yards below the present Ticonic Bridge. Dr. Appleton died in 1849. During his half century in Waterville, Moses Appleton was one of the founders and life-time director of the Waterville Bank, a shareholder in the original Ticonic Bridge, a selectman and a member of the school committee, and was influential in separating the west side of Winslow into the new town of Waterville.

In fact the warrant for Waterville’s first town meeting in 1802, made out by Asa Redington in his capacity of Justice of the Peace, was addressed to Moses Appleton, who duly posted the warrant on the door of the East Meeting House, as required by law.

When Reuben Kidder left Waterville to take residence in the West, Timothy Boutelle became the town’s leading attorney, and he and Moses Appleton became as close associates as Kidder and Appleton had earlier been. Both men combined professional practice with business interests, and both made profitable speculations in land, in banking, and in public improvements, because in those days such improvements as bridges and turnpikes were made by private corporations that secured their returns from tolls. What was true of association in business was equally true of the society of the time. Tea parties and card parties, dances featuring the minuet and other stately steps of the early 19th century, were the featured gala events and the Boutelles and the Appletons were frequently seen at those parties.

Several of Dr. Appleton’s account books, the property of one of his descendants, Miss Hope Bunker, are preserved at the Waterville Historical Society. They reveal that the doctor immediately set up a successful practice here. In his very first year, 1796, he entered in his book charges against 96 different persons for treatment or medicines. The very first entry is a charge against his medical predecessor, Dr. Obadiah Williams, for pulling one of Dr. Williams’ teeth.

Some twenty years ago Dr. Frederick T. Hill wrote for the Maine Medical Association a lively account of Dr. Appleton’s medical practice. Dr. Hill pointed out that Appleton performed 31 surgical operations during the ten years from 1796 to 1806. Dr. Hill said: “These were almost entirely traumatic surgery, treating fractures and dislocations, with occasional amputations. The brief notations the traumatic field and ‘encysted tumor’ indicate the only departure from… The very rarity of surgery reveals the limitations of that practice before the concepts of bacteriology, the development of anesthesia, and the use of antisepsis.”

In my book “Kennebec Yesterdays”, when giving an account of Dr. Ambrose Howard of Sidney, I mentioned that Dr. Howard’s charge for pulling a tooth was one New England shilling, equivalent of 17 cents. That was indeed the common charge, and Dr. Appleton’s accounts include it repeatedly.

Now let us take a look at some of the other items that appear in the doctor’s accounts for the year 1796: “Cornelius Africanus (could he have been a Negro?) Opodeldoc 25 cents. Obadiah Williams, visit and electrizing him 33 cents. John Runnels, opening abscessed leg, 25 cents. John McKechnie, dressing Mrs. McKechnie’s corn and extracting tooth, 58 cents. James Stackpole, dressing foot 50 cents.”

What Dr. Howard set down in his books as Operation Obstet (meaning obstetrical service at a birth), Dr. Appleton called parturition: “Trial Hill, attendance to wife in parturition, $3.00.”

In the year 1797 Dr. Appleton’s very first January item is especially interesting: “Began with Ebenezer Parker of Fairfield on condition if a cure is effected in six months, he is to pay me $8.00; otherwise nothing.”

Two other items in the Appleton account were long ago picked up by Dr. Hill and widely publicized, but they will bear repeating. This is the way one of them reads: “Solomon Spencer engages to pay me $10 if I cure his child of her tinea in 15 months, if not made in that time, he is not obligated to pay any demand on her account.” The other item says: “It is agreed with Jabez Mathews that he pay me at the rate of two cords of wood per season in consideration of being supplied with materials for curing the itch in his family.”

Now listen to a few more of these records: “John Clarke agreed to furnish me with good shoes and boots for two years in consideration of my attendance on his family for that term of two years. Barnabas Jackson, inspecting your son’s dislocated wrist, 50 cents. Elihu Bowerman, visit by mistake and medicine, 67 cents. Asa Redington, for certificate of disability given to Francis Dudley, which you promised to pay, $1.00. Ann Dillingham, bleeding and medicine, 42 cents. Hannah Cool, visit, one shilling. David Hoxie, visits, 9 shillings.” Note that, near the turn into the 19th century, Dr. Appleton was still making some of his charges in pounds and shillings, others in dollars and cents.

Among Dr. Appleton’s other ventures was the operation of a legal distillery for liquors. Here are some of the charges from that operation between 1804 and 1808: “David Pattee, 2 qts. rum @ 4/6 – 75 cents. John Heywood, 1t pints Corsican Wine. 2/3. Reuben Kidder, 5 gal. brandy, $10.00. Alexander McKechnie, 1 qt. wine 2/3. Jedidiah Thayer, 1 qt. rum, 38 cents. John Cool, 1 pint brandy, 20 cents.”

One John Veasy evidently met with an accident, whether by a gun or otherwise, we do not know. Dr. Appleton’s record merely says: “Picking powder from John Veasy’s face, one shilling.”

For a time between 1804 and 1810 Dr. Appleton also operated a general store, as witnessed by the following charges: “Hannah Cool, 1 yd. gauze, 2 skeins silk, 5 skeins thread – 4/6. David Getchell, one pair shoes, 8/16. Isaac Temple, 1 quire paper, one shilling. Joshua Blackwell, 1 lb. brimstone, six pence.”

Evidently something went wrong with Appleton’s account with the woman known as “the witch of Silver Street”, Aunt Hannah Cool, for Appleton recorded in his account book, “Hannah Cool, short pay on flannel. 5/9.” Another curious item reads: “Jeremiah Fairfield, 2 pairs stockings to be paid in shoes, $2.20.”

Those were the days of knee breeches and long stockings for men. Hence the seemingly steep price of $1.10 a pair.

Appleton paid one shilling a foot for wood to heat his office. “John Mathews, credit by five feet of wood, at one shilling per foot, 83 cents.” That is at the rate of $1.34 a cord.

In his store Dr. Appleton sold other things besides cloth, stockings, and brimstone. One day he sold half a pound of sulphur for 13 cents, two cigars (spelled segars) for four cents, and half a pound of Hosea tea for two shillings.

The wealthy land speculator, Isaac Temple, for whom Temple Street was named, paid Dr. Appleton $1.34, or eight shillings, for a case knife and in quite a different category, Appleton charged Temple six shillings for “fees for handling your debtors accounts”. That was in Appleton’s capacity as a justice of the peace.

Some people had odd names 150 years ago. “Prince William Henry, medicine, 13 cents.”

Appleton made a big sale when John Cool bought two camel hair shawls for 7/5, but that was topped by Daniel Moor’s purchase of cloth and trimmings for $5. 17.

Dr. Appleton occasionally added to his income by renting teams. Two of those charges were against Timothy Boutelle: “Horse and sleigh for a ball, 50 cents. Horse to Kendalls Mills, 34 cents. James Stackpole, Jr., chaise to Clinton, 50 cents. Sent my electrical machine to John Cool of Vassalboro, he to pay me $1.00 if he returns machine within two weeks, or at rate of $1.00 per month thereafter.”

Meanwhile Dr. Appleton kept busy at his profession. “John Stackpole, visit, 1/6. Weston Malone, bleeding, 1/6. Hannah Cool, 2 visits, 50 cents. Moses Wyman, sewing deep wound, $1.00.”

At times Dr. Appleton ran a kind of pawn shop. “Received of Mrs. Phillips, a clock for which I am to pay $10 in goods, she to have the privilege of redeeming the clock at any time within six months. Bill Williams left in pawn, a trap to be redeemed by his paying $2 in three months.”

Here is one of Dr. Appleton’s typical deals: “It is agreed between Isaac Temple and Moses Appleton that, provided Temple shall pay Appleton any time within six months $12 and interest, Appleton will sell to Temple a two-year old heifer bought of Temple this day.” And here is one more: “Put into Gilman’s still house yard two hogs. Provided they weigh 200 to 250 pounds each in three months, I give to Gilman $1.50. Whatever more than 250 pounds each is to be divided equally between Gilman and me.”

He was indeed quite a man, that Dr. Moses Appleton, but if he called himself a full time physician, he certainly made the most of his spare time.

Year: 1970