Radio Script #877

Little Talks on Common Things
January 24, 1971

It is amazing how old records are sometimes preserved remote from their point of origin. Recently there turned up in an old barn several miles outside the village of Athens, Maine, an account book kept by a Waterville store in 1865, the last year of the Civil War. The business was the dry goods firm of Phillips and Meader on Waterville’s Main Street. It had been started in 1848, when Edward Meader came to Waterville and went into business to sell dry goods with the already well known local commercial figure, George Phillips. In 1869 the business was sold to C.R. McFadden, and Meader went into the hardware business with W.B. Arnold.

This old record, found in Athens, is not a day book or ledger, but rather a cash book, showing incoming and outgoing payments day by day through the year 1865. When the year started, the firm was in sound financial position, with a cash balance of $1,835.

It seems they not only sold dry goods, but also operated an insurance agency, for each week shows payments to insurance companies such as Aetna, Hartford and City Fire. Phillips and Meader collected insurance premiums from such prominent citizens as W.B. Arnold, Joseph Percival, H.R. Butterfield, Charles Redington, David Gallert, and the bookseller Charles K. Mathews. Purchasers from the store included two distinguished professors at Colby College. One was Samuel K. Smith, professor of rhetoric, whose son, Will Smith, was the beloved pastor of the local Congregational Church, and whose grandson, Abbott Smith, is a top executive in the C.I.A. in Washington. The other was Charles Hamlin, professor of natural history, who left Colby to join the staff of the renowned Louis Agassiz at Harvard. Other customers of Phillips and Meader were Josiah Morrill, promoter of Waterville’s first railroad; Wyman B. S. Moor, the only Waterville man except Ed Muskie who ever served in the U.S. Senate; James Stackpole, grandson of one of the town’s first merchants and shipbuilders; Aaron Plaisted, the banker; and W.A. Dillingham, for many years pastor of the Winslow Congregational Church.

Each day there was recorded in the book not only payments from individuals for previously charged items, but also over-the-counter cash, which amounted to $100 to $200 a day.

From whom did Phillips and Meader buy their merchandise? That they bought in considerable quantity is shown by payments they made like these: Houghton, Savage & Co. (that was the predecessor of the Houghton Outten firm) $431; Jordan Market Co. $798; Goldthwaite & Co. $324; Fellows, Bradbury & Co. $331. It seems that Phillips and Meader owned the building in which their store was located, for among their receipts was office rent from Solyman Heath and rent of hall by Waterville Lodge of Masons. Also the firm had some invested funds. In one month alone they received $296 from interest on bonds. Scattered among the larger payments are several small items, such as stamps and envelopes $2.61; Somerset & Kennebec R.R. for freight $6.01; revenue stamps $5.00; “Young Folks” magazine $3.00; bricks $2.20; and one most unusual item, “dried apples” $11.80.

Annual taxes paid by Phillips and Meader, including both real estate and stock in trade, came to less than $150, quite different from the tax levies today. Of course some repairs were always popping up. It cost them $9.00 to set up a furnace; $1.25 to whitewash the place; and Ralph Jones charged them $4.50 for fixing windows in the hall.

The partners seem to have taken no regular salary, but withdrew funds as needed. In one month, Phillips might take $100, but two more months might elapse before Meader took a smaller amount. Once Phillips had $600 in one payment, and it was three months later before the same amount was set down for Meader. Evidently both men had other sources of income besides the store.

Anyhow this old account book throws a bit of light on Waterville business just at the time when the boys were coming home from the Civil War.

That once lively weekly newspaper, the Fairfield Journal, lasted long enough so that many people now living remember it well. It was still being published after the First World War, and a copy of the issue of August 24, 1921 recently came into my hands. It is marked Vol. 48, No. 38, cost three cents a copy, or $1.50 a year. The paper had only four pages, and the two inside pages were filled with items copied from other sources, giving national and overseas news. Pages 1 and 4 were devoted to local items, and there were ads on all four pages. Strangely, the paper has no masthead, so the publisher is not identified.

The most extensive items of state news concerned the unfilled vacancy in the chairmanship of the Public Utilities Commission. It involved a controversy much like that in 1970 between the Governor and the Council over appointment to the Maine Supreme Court except that in 1921 it was the Utilities Commission, not the court, that was at stake. The Fairfield Journal printed the following public statement by Governor Percival Baxter: “I became Governor on January 31 and was not then and am not now under obligation to any person or corporation, and I am free to act in what I consider the best interests of the State of Maine. When the vacancy occurred in the Utilities Commission, it became my duty to fill it. I wanted to find a man who would represent both the people and the business interests. After considering all candidates and discussing them with the Executive Council, I nominated Howard Davies of Yarmouth, but the nomination was not confirmed. I have since renominated him three times with the same result. The councilors have given me no reason which would induce me to change my mind.

“In order that the people may know why the councilors differ from me. I have urged them to make a public statement telling why they oppose Mr. Davies. My reasons for nominating him and his record have been made public. The people have a right to know all the facts on both sides.

“The council meetings have been held behind closed doors. I desire that everything that has been said at those meetings be made a matter of public record, but that cannot be done without consent of the councilors. The Councilors have definitely told me that they will never confirm Mr. Davies nor make any public statement of their position.

“In view of the deadlock and in justice to my nominee, I cannot yield from my contention that the public has the right to know why the Governor’s nominee is not acceptable to the Council. The Governor is head of the state and he, not the Council, is responsible for the record of the administration.

“I want the people to understand that the Governor takes no part in choosing the Council, for they are elected by the legislature and are thus not responsible either to the Governor or to the people.

“A principle is involved in the present situation and no self-respecting Governor could do otherwise than I have done. The people will determine who is right.”

There ends Governor Baxter’s statement. How true it is that history repeats itself. What a Republican governor confronted in 1921′ came again to a Democratic governor in 1970.

In 1920, the year before this issue of the Fairfield Journal came from the press, Maine had celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of its statehood. As a part of that celebration, the federal government had been persuaded to mint a number of special half dollars, bearing on one side a recognition of Maine’s first hundred years. The Centennial Commission, bent on making a profit to be used for celebration expenses, had put those coins on the market for double their value, or one dollar each. As often happens in such cases, the sale had not been fully successful. So in the summer of 1921, the surplus was offered for their coinage value of 50 cents a piece. The Journal said: “The Governor and Council believe it is better to put these coins in circulation than to leave them in the vault where they can earn no interest.”

Well, here we are in the year of Maine’s 150th anniversary. Perhaps it might have been well to keep more of those coins. Today they are collector’s items, worth much more than 50 cents.

Here are a few local items of Fairfield in 1921: “The patients at the San were given a fine program of music on Sunday by the Waterville Military Band led by W.O. Haines. The concert was given free by the generous band boys.”

“Mr. and Mrs. John Lawry have returned from a visit at Peaks Island.”

“Four members of the Ed Hatch family of Rockland have been in town visiting Albert and Will Hatch and other relati ves here.”

“Marriage intentions have been filed by Miss Ruth Hatch and Leslie Ames.”

As usual I find the ads in that fifty year old Fairfield Journal quite as interesting as the news items. It is many years since I have thought of William Tell Flour, with the picture on the barrel head of William Tell shooting the apple off his son’s head. I once sold a lot of that flour. An ad in the Journal proclaimed it “as fine as silk, actually sifted through silk mesh thirteen times.”

Doctors W.H. and Ethel Walters advertised that they would see patients at their office between 10 and 12 a.m., and 2 to 4 and 7 to 8 p.m. H.H. Brazell, Attorney, said that probate and bankruptcy work was his specialty.

Fletcher’s Castoria was heralded in a big quarter page ad: “Children cry for it.”

I had forgotten that marriage brokers advertised in our Maine papers as late as 1921. But Mrs. Wrubel of Oakland, California placed the following ad in that Fairfield Journal: “For speeding marriage, apply to my Old Reliable Club, best and safest in the country. Established 15 years. Thousands of wealthy members, both sexes, wishing early marriage. All arrangements strictly confidential.”

And with that salute to wedlock by mail, we must say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1971