Radio Script #896

Little Talks on Common Things
June 6, 1971

Some time ago I told you about a Waterville weekly newspaper, the Union, published by the shirtmaker, C.F. Hathaway. That paper lasted less than a year, when Hathaway sold his printing plant, and whatever worth in good the Union had gained, to Ephraim Maxham and Daniel Wing. They changed the name to the Eastern Mail, and later to the Waterville Mail. The two partners published their paper for many years, and after Maxham’s death, Wing continued as the publisher.

The particular issue of the Eastern Mail that I want to tell you about today is dated November 1, 1849, and the masthead tells us that it was a family newspaper devoted to agriculture, literature, the mechanic arts and general intelligence. Nothing is said about religion and morality that Hathaway had avowed to boost in his Waterville Union. For subscriptions paid in advance, the Eastern Mail lowered the Union’s rate of $2.00 to $1.50. But unlike the Union, advance payment was not demanded. If the subscriber paid within six months, the annual rate was $1.75; between six months and a year in arrears cost $2.00. For subscriptions the Mail did not even require cash. The announcement said: “Most kinds of country produce taken in payment.”

Like the Union, the Mail filled its columns chiefly with stories and copied articles, but it did contain more local news than the Union had given its readers. Here are a few of the items that its subscribers read in the fall of 1849: “The gale of Monday night was one of the most severe in many years. An unfinished brick house on Pleasant Street was partially blown down, and a small dwelling on Front Street was destroyed. A new, unfinished home in Winslow was moved ten feet from its foundation.”

“A man in West Waterville has caught 30 barrels of eels at the foot of the cascade on Emerson Stream.” Emerson Stream was, of course, an old name for the Messalonskee. The Mail added. “That is profitable fishing. The eel is a most delicious pan fish for those who have taste enough to relish it.”

Although the first train would arrive in Waterville less than a month after this issue of the Mail was published, the paper says nothing about the expected completion of the A and K R.R. To learn any railroad news of that time, we have to turn to the ads. Listen to this one: “New railroad route from Kennebec River to Boston. Daily line, commencing August 1. 1849, by the Kennebec and Portland R.R. Passengers will be conveyed over the Kennebec and Portland, the Atlantic and St. Lawrence, the Eastern, the Boston and Maine and the Boston and Lowell, stopping at all stations. The cars will leave Bath for Boston at 1:00 p.m. on the arrival of the Steamer Huntress from Hallowell, also cars will arrive in Portland via the Atlantic and St. Lawrence R.R. at 1:00 p.m. Leave Portland at 3:00 p.m. via Portland, Saco and Portsmouth, the Eastern R.R. and the Boston and Maine. Baggage conveyed free between stations in Portland. Steamer Huntress leaves Hallowell at 9:30 a.m. on the arrival of Pinkham’s coaches from Augusta, and will convey passengers to Bath in time for the 1:00 p.m. train. Boats will also run daily from Waterville and Vassalboro in connection with this line.”

Another ad concerned boat navigation on the Kennebec. It said: “Steamer Phoenix will leave Waterville every Monday and Thursday, leaving Davis’ landing at 8:00 a.m.; Augusta at 10:30, Hallowell 11:30, Gardiner 12:30, Bath 3:30, Boothbay 5:00. Leave Boothbay Tuesday and Friday for Augusta and Waterville. Fares: Waterville to Boothbay 75 cents; Augusta, Gardiner and Hallowell to Boothbay, 50 cents.”

In 1849, Ticonic Bridge had been built less than 25 years before and was still a toll bridge owned by private stockholders. A notice in the Eastern Mail said: “The stockholders of Ticonic Bridge will hold their annual meeting at the Ticonic Bank on Monday, November 19, 1849 at 10 a.m. to choose officers and see what alterations they will make, if any, in the tolls of said bridge.”

Another notice concerned school teachers: “An examination of teachers for the winter schools in Waterville will take place on Wednesday, November 14 at 2:00 p.m. at the home of J.O. Loomis. There will also be examinations at the home of Rev. Bean in West Waterville on November 28. There will be no other examinations.” The J.O. Loomis referred to was Prof. Justin Loomis, teacher of chemistry at Waterville College, the man who just two years earlier had discovered prussic acid in the stomach of Ed Mathews, whose body was found in a store basement on lower Main Street. That discovery led to the conviction of Dr. Valorus Coolidge for the murder of Mathews.

In the middle of the 19th century, notices like the following were common in the papers: “I hereby relinquish my son William H. Joy his time until he is 21 years of age, in consequence of which I will pay no debts of his contracting nor claim any of his earnings after this date. Charles Joy. Clinton, Sept. 29, 1849.”

Here’s another: “All persons are forbidden to harbor or trust Dolly Pushon, my wife, on my account, she having left my bed and board without consent or provocation on my part.”

An unusually worded physician’s ad appeared in that 1849 issue of the Eastern Mail: “Dr. O. Wright, botanic physician and surgeon, has returned to Waterville House on Silver Street, one door above the Parks’ house. Persons living at a distance may apply for medicine by letter, giving a description of the complaint.”

Selectmen Alpheus Lyon and E.L. Getchell called for bids to build a fence around the town hall common – the grassed area that now adjoins Castonguay Square.

W.C. Bridge announced that during the fall and winter he would do baking at his home on Elm Street: “Brown and white bread delivered hot in any part of the village on Thursday mornings. If you will bring your pot of beans to Bridge every Friday before 7 p.m., he will bake them free of charge and have them ready for your Saturday supper.”

D.C. Johnson, who had a tailor shop in West Waterville, wanted ten girls who were first rate coat makers. He said he would pay good wages of ten cents an hour.

Proposals were issued for bids to build three reservoirs for the fire department in Waterville. Even in this last half of the 20th century some of those old reservoirs along Main Street still come to light when excavations are made.

Henry Phillips, at his store on Main Street, had a new supply of buffalo coats, while his neighbor, George Sinclair, offered at low prices chocolate, prepared cocoa, cocoa sticks and cracked cocoa. In Ticonic Row, back of the Main Street stores, Sam Smith had a supply of pickled salmon. William Robinson announced sperm whale and lard oil at Boston prices.

So much for that 1849 issue of the Eastern Mail. We now turn to another subject. Where was the ancient American land called Norumbega?

Between a line extending due north from Pemaquid to the St. Lawrence, and west of the border of New Brunswick and Maine, lies the earliest occupied region in all New England an area about 90 miles wide and 200 miles long. It includes what are now the Maine counties of Washington, Hancock, Penobscot, Waldo, Knox and parts of Lincoln, Somerset, Piscataquis and Aroostook.

At first, after the coming of the white men, the area was held by France and together with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia was called Acadia. In 1605 navigators of two rival nations appeared on the coast: the Frenchman Samuel Champlain, and the Englishman George Weymouth. Both explored the coast from the Bay of Fundy to beyond Casco Bay.

Tradition has it that the name Norumbega was given to this region by Spanish and Portuguese sailors. In fact the navigator Verrazano gave that name to the whole coast from Cape Breton to Florida, but its more usual designation was a narrow strip between Pemaquid and the St. Croix.

In 1652 the Dutch geographer Peter Heyglain described the area in these words: “Canada contains in it the several regions of Nova Scotia, Nova Francis and Norumbega. Norumbega has on its northeast Nova Scotia and on its southwest Virginia. Virginia extends from the 34th parallel, where it joins Florida, to the 44th where it joins Norumbega.”

The first history of Maine was published by Judge Sullivan in 1795 – now a very rare book. In it Sullivan said: “In Acadia there was another term, the County of Newcastle, which was not included in the Duke of York’s province of New York. This was perhaps the ancient Norumbega. It extended from Pemaquid to the St. Croix.”

The first settlement in Norumbega was the Popham colony at the mouth of the Kennebec in 1605. In the previous autumn of 1604 the Sieur de Monts had set up a small band on Mount Desert, and on the north side of the island built a fort, a chapel, and a storehouse. There he spent a terrible winter. Scurvy was so bad that, in the spring only 40 of his 79 men had survived. In the summer, he abandoned the settlement and transferred the survivors to Port Royal in Nova Scotia.

In 1604, Henry IV of France transferred de Monts’ rights to M. de Poutrincourt with orders to prepare for a Jesuit mission on Mt. Desert. Poutrincourt, more commonly called Biencourt, left France for the colony in 1610 and placed it in charge of his 19 year old son. With his Jesuits he arrived at Port Royal in the spring of 1611. Next to obtain the old de Monts charter was a woman, the Marchioness of Guencheville. She planned a settlement outside Biencourt’s jurisdiction, up the Penobscot River near the present site of Bangor. She supplied a ship that left France in the spring of 1613. They made shelter in fog on the east side of Mt. Desert and finally came ashore at the head of Somes Sound.

For some time, English fishing ships had dried their catch at Pemaquid. They were often harassed by French and Spanish so that, in 1613, the fishing fleet was convoyed by a man-of-war with 60 men and 14 guns. They found a French settlement on Mt. Desert, attacked it, and took several captives to Jamestown.

We have no account of any Norumbega settlement except de~onts prior to 1613. But during the remainder of the 17th century there were other settlements at Machias, Castine and near the present sites of Eastport and Calais. But even, as early as the third decade of that century, when the Plymouth Pilgrims sent their shallops to the Maine coast, the name Norumbega had disappeared. The French called the region Pentagoet, the English called it Penobscot.

Sullivan’s history tells us: “An ancient people were supposed to have lived on the Penobscot and to have built a great city called Norumbega.” But that is all legend. No ruins of any great city were ever found on the Penobscot. Even about the ancient Norumbega between Pemaquid and the St. Croix, I have told you all that historians have been able to ascertain.

Year: 1971