Radio Script #865

Little Talks on Common Things
November 1, 1970

From 75 to 100 years ago a prominent citizen of Waterville was Martin Blaisdell. Born in Winthrop, he had come to Waterville in 1860 to attend Waterville Academy. He stayed in Waterville and married here. He operated a large farm in the southern part of the town and introduced the first Percheron stallion ever owned in Maine. In 1872 he joined Charles Redington in the furniture business. He served the town as selectman and road commissioner, and, when Waterville became a city, he was on the city council for four years. In 1901 he was elected mayor and was reelected in 1902. The City Hall was erected during Mayor Blaisdell’s administration.

Recently I came across some accounts kept by Martin Blaisdell when he was Waterville’s road commissioner in 1894. Some familiar names in Waterville history appear in those accounts: Thomas King, Amos Tozier, Joseph Roderick, George Lashus. They and a dozen others were hired by Blaisdell to work on Waterville’s roads and streets. On one occasion Blaisdell paid Patrick Gallagher $1.50 for a full day’s work filling holes.

One set of accounts is devoted to “labor on the Main Street sidewalk above the crossing”. Men working the most hours on that job were A. Greenwood and C.H. Gullifer.

Some merchants collected sizable amounts for materials authorized by Blaisdell. Edward Ware’s bill came to $120.48; W.B. Arnold’s to $23.28. Hanson, Webber and Dunham collected $25.88 and the Waterville Granite Co. $17.07. Stephen Nye & Co. of Fairfield got a modest $7.12 for cedar. The Lockwood Co. was paid $4.80 for an oil cask. For the Elm Street sidewalk, Blaisdell allowed $26.25 for the bill of the Dodlin Granite Co., and $10.25 to the Waterville Water Co. On that Elm Street job, twenty-two workmen were paid amounts from $1.50 to $11.37. Blaisdell also put in a new sidewalk on Pleasant Street, where 15 men worked for total wages ranging from $3.37 to $18.37. The Temple Street sidewalk required only ten workmen, not one of whom received more than $2.25 for all the work he did on that job.

Blaisdell was especially attentive to the new sewer system. For fifty cents, W.H. Getchell copied the plans. The foreman on the job was George Simpson who was paid $47.95 in June and $55.25 in July. For construction work Horace Purinton & Co. got $4.60, and the Waterville Water Co. was paid $11.30.

On the general road account Blaisdell spent during the year 1894-95 a total of $1,733. Some prominent citizens who received payments on that account were Walter Branch, A.H. Sturtevant, George Webber, Howard Morse and Edward Ware. In the same bundle with that highway account was Martin Blaisdell’s personal expense record for certain months of 1925, or 45 years ago. He paid 25 cents for three cans of beans, 15 cents for minced ham, 75 cents for a hair cut, 25 cents for a quart of strawberries, and 50 cents for a trip to Skowhegan. It cost him $6.00 to have the winter’s ashes taken out of his cellar and hauled away; $3.75 for a telephone bill of 1t months; and $2.59 for his March electric light bill.

Like most of us, Mr. Blaisdell occasionally needed medicine. So to Dr. Luther Bunker went 50 cents for soda tablets and 25 cents for headache pills. At Allen’s Drug Store he paid 60 cents for laxative pills and 20 cents for olive oil for a cut. When we think what canned salmon costs today, Mr. Blaisdell’s two cans for 38 cents seems decidedly cheap. For decorating a room he paid W.F. Kennison $9.75. On the same day in December, he bought a Christmas wreath for 35 cents and a package of corn flakes for 10 cents. Potatoes were cheap in 1925. Blaisdell got a peck for 25 cents, and think what he paid for a can of lobster – 40 cents. In January, 1926 Luke Brown made a pair of pants for Blaisdell for $11, and a new watch crystal cost him 25 cents. All winter he had been paying six cents or more a pound for sugar, but in April he got 50 pounds for $2.50 five cents a pound. In May 75 cents bought him not only a hair cut, but also trimming of his whiskers. Some unusual items in the account were salt for horse, 10 cents; fountain pen tube, 15 cents; gooseberries, 20 cents; gas elimination, 75 cents; celluloid collar, 20 cents.

Mr. Blaisdell did considerable traveling. In August it cost him $2.00 to go to the Bingham Dam, and $6.70 for a trip to Bar Harbor. In September he spent $6.75 for several days in Pittsfield. In preparation for those trips he had bought a new suit of clothes for $20.

Some old family papers in the possession of Carroll Hamlin of Fairfield, the man who told me so much about the Lombard log hauler, gives us further glimpses of the days of long ago.

In 1826 one Levi Barrett signed a note agreeing to pay John Ladd ten dollars in the form of grain in the following January. Young women were interested in each others’ beaux in those days. In 1836 a girl signing herself Eveline wrote from Harmony, Maine to her friend Nancy Ladd in Sidney: “I improve the present opportunity to fulfill a promise I made you to write as soon as I was able to sit up, and that time has just arrived. Peter is attending school at St. Albans and he occasionally visits Newport. I suppose to call on Miss Butler. How will that coincide with the feelings of the Rt. Hon. Mr. Smith and some others who say they are interested in her? We received a letter from George. He mentioned you very particularly. A few days later he was here in person and inquired about your ladyship. I asked if he had any message for you. He replied, ‘Tell her that I have not despaired of forming an agreeable acquaintance.’ So you had better tell Mr. Stanley he is going to have a rival. As for myself, by epistulary correspondence James Martennus to communicate his hopes and fears. I should like to know if he is as anxious to get married as he was last summer. I should think the cold, chilling breath of November would warn him of a still colder winter. Yet, as uncongenial as he is to my feelings, he is not devoid of pleasing attributes, and he does enjoy merry sleigh rides, parties and joyful Thanksgivings.

“Alas, I seem doomed to spend my youthful days in solitude and seclusion. Yet I do not regret my lot.”

More than 125 years ago, in 1842, Charles Ladd of Winthrop wrote to his brother Hosea in Minot: “Father is anxious to hear if you have decided to come down this way with your family, and whether you would like to have him come up with his team to move you down. We have not heard from you since January. Probably you have been waiting for better traveling, but we are growing impatient and cannot wait for the mud to dry up before we hear from you and learn of your arrangements. We thought you might come yourselves and leave your goods until the traveling is better. The Methodists have been holding a meeting. As yet it has continued only two weeks, but by the time you get here it will probably be at its meridian. I believe Lucinda will be much interested in this meeting. Congregationalists, Baptists and Methodists are all uniting in it.”

Twenty-five years after that letter Mrs. Hosea Blaisdell, then living in Waterville, wrote to her sister Lizzie in Livermore Falls, on Feb. 27, 1867: “Grandmother is now better and sits up long enough to have her bed made twice a day. She wants to see you very much, but will not beg you to come, because she thinks it may cause you too much trouble. But please do come, for it would give her great satisfaction. I do not mind taking care of her, though for the past 16 nights I have been up from three to six times every night.”

How people got along in the depression that quickly followed the Civil War is revealed in a letter to Mrs. Hosea Blaisdell from another relative in May 1868: “William has not done much this spring. His line of busi ness is very slow just now. It has been so wet he cannot even plant his garden. Burnett worked for a neighbor, who had no money to pay him, but did give him 20 apple trees. I guess we will have to lay up treasure in heaven. We can’t seem to lay up any here.”

Another letter from the same source on July 9, 1868 said: “On the 4th of July there was quite a celebration in Brackett’s woods. That, with the haying, has caused about as much confusion as my shattered nerves can bear. We have moved into the two-story house opposite the milk factory at Livermore Falls. I have a full view of the falls, that make an awful racket, but I suppose I shall get used to it.”

In this year, 1970, the Lewiston Journal Magazine keeps us informed of events in the twin cities of Lewiston and Auburn a hundred years ago. Here are a few of those happenings in the Androscoggin communities in 1870.

“The quantity of meat eaten just now, in July, is much smaller than at any other time of year. Meat doesn’t keep long in this heat. But, while the meat dealers are having a rest, the fish men are called to active duty, getting haddock and pollock to their customers fresh from the coast every day.”

In March it was reported: “Street Commissioner Lydstrom has been busy clearing the sidewalks. He has done the work most promptly considering the heavy snowfall of the past week.”

In November the news was: “Col. Keene of the City Market is cutting up the largest and fattest moose ever sold in these parts.”

In December came this item: “Sensational news comes from Auburn. Several sharpshooters there have been trying to knock a big icicle from the cornice of the Phoenix Block, their weapons being snowballs. So far the icicle has the best of it.”

In 1870 the railroad locomotives were still burning wood. Hence this news item: “Our railroad uses several hundred cords of wood a year. That helps circulate both axes and money in this region. Soft wood now retails for $3 a cord.”

Here’s one last item: “The police visited Fred Greene this afternoon and found him all prepared for celebration. They seized 30 gallons of liquor in bulk and a miscellaneous collection in bottles. ”

Year: 1970