Radio Script #927

Little Talks on Common Things
April 2, 1972

In the early towns on the Kennebec local taxes, though less in amount than now, were actually more complicated a hundred years ago. In addition to a tax for general town expenses, a separate tax was levied for highways, and still another tax for schools.

An example is provided by the warrant issued to Allen Jones, one of the highway surveyors in the town of Fairfield in 1812. Thirteen men were named in Jones’ district, from whom he was to collect a total of $55.26 in highway taxes. Each man’s tax was divided into three categories: poll, real estate, and personal estate. In Jones’ own case, his poll tax was $1.20, his real estate $10.89, and his personal estate $2.03, a total of $14.12. He was the largest taxpayer in the district, chiefly because his real estate greatly exceeded that of the other twelve residents. Warren Fuller’s total tax, the second highest, was $9.02, while three of the twelve had to pay only the poll tax of $1.20.

In addition to the twelve named taxpayers, the list issued to Jones contained this somewhat indefinite addition: “50 acres on the west of land belonging to Nathan Connors, supposed to belong now to the Crommets of Waterville.”

Jones was not expected to collect all the highway tax in cash. In fact, most of it came from labor on the roads. That accounts for several items in the warrant. That document, signed by William Bryant and Eben Lawrence, venerable Fairfield names, in their capacity as assessors, read as follows: “The following list of assessments made upon the polls and estates of the persons named, each with his respective assessment designated, you are to collect and expend according to law, upon the highways of the town within your district limits. You will allow 12 cents an hour for labor of a man, and 1* cents an hour for oxen (for the hours they actually work) till the first day of September; and later that date 10 cents an hour for a man and the same for oxen. You must cause two-thirds of the total to be expended before the last day of October. If any of the named persons shall be deficient in working out or otherwise pay the sum for which they assessed, you are, at the end of said term, to collect the same in money, or to render us a list of such persons, so that such deficient sums may be put into the next assessment of a town tax, as the law provides.”

The opinion is prevalent that only aged people are interested in old time things and long ago events. The number of young people who, every year visit the Redington Museum of the Waterville Historical Society on Silver Street is most gratifying. Many of these young people return for subsequent visits, some of them to spend hours on a particular project. During the past year, the Museum Curator, Prof. William Miller of Colby, has interested students of the college in study projects at the museum.

This January two students made their so-called Jan. Plan (the annual full month of freedom from regular classes to pursue independent study) on investigations at the museum. Both of those resulted in papers that are now on file in the Historical Society manuscript collection.

One of those was by Miss Tanya Hama, a Colby junior from Southport, Connecticut, who collected information about three taverns: the Elmwood, the Bay View, and the West Waterville Hotel.

The Bay View, later the Crescent Hotel, at the junction of Main and Front Streets was originally the Dunn Block, housing stores on the first floor, offices on the second, and apartments on the third. In the 1890’s, C. C. Tibbetts turned the building into a hotel with 40 rooms. Later proprietors were Remick and Wells, F. M. Savage, and F. H. Hoar. In 1900 the rates were two dollars for supper, lodging and breakfast. Dinner was fifty cents. About 1920, the name was changed to the Crescent. It ceased to be used as a hotel in the 1960’s, and the historic building was torn down in 1971, as part of the project connected with the enlarged Ticonic Bridge and its approaches.

Not much has ever been known about the old West Waterville Hotel except for a sign preserved at the Redington Museum. A card attached to the sign located the hotel at the junction of Church and Main Streets in Oakland. Opened by Guy Hubbard in 1833, it served the traveling public for many years. It stood where, at the turn of the present century, the Mills Livery Stable furnished transportation. At one time the hotel was called the Rice House. At the time when the old sign hung in front of the building, West Waterville was a separate town by that name. Originally, when Waterville was set apart from Winslow in 1802, that area at the north end of Messalonskee Lake had been a part of Waterville. It was set off as a separate town in 1873 and named West Waterville. Ten years later, in 1883, the name was changed to Oakland.

Miss Hama was able to find much more information about the Elmwood Hotel. It began when the ancient site of Nathan Wood’s farmhouse was taken over to put up a tavern. About 1785, Wood had purchased a part of the old McKechnie Lot 106 and cleared it as a farm, building his house on the east side of mat was then the road to Fairfield Meetinghouse (now the highway to Fairfield Center). Later, when College Avenue was built, the farmhouse stood at that street ‘s junction with Main Street.

When Jeremiah Chaplin arrived in Waterville, in 1818, to start classes at the new college that would one day become Colby, the Wood farmhouse was vacant. So Timothy Boutelle, the chief local promoter of the college, arranged for Chaplin to occupy the Wood farm until a building could be erected on the property, farther north, purchased by the college trustees in 1815. That first building was not ready until the summer of 1819, so Chaplin occupied the Wood farm for a full year. There he not only housed his large family, but also the seven theological students he had brought from Danvers, Mass.

In 1837, Abial Follansbee converted the old farmhouse into a small tavern that he kept as a temperance hotel, at a time when the bar was a common feature of every inn. In 1839 Follansbee sold to Ivory Low. Several proprietors ran the place between that date and 1846, when the building burned. Nothing, therefore, remained of the hand-hewn timbers Nathan Wood had used in 1785.

The first building on that site to have the name Elmwood was built and opened in 1850 by John Seavey. In 1863 it was completely destroyed by fire. The lot was vacant until 1879 when another Seavey, Osborne, made arrangements with the Trustees of Colby for the financing of a new hotel on the site. The cost of construction in those days is revealed by the size of the Colby investment, $15,000. The contract provided that the college would own the hotel and rent it to Seavey, who would apply all the furnishings. Seavey could not make a success of the venture, and in 1881 the college had to take over the operation of the hotel, as well as ownership of the building. For four years Colby was in the hotel business, putting in a succession of managers on a percentage basis. Finally in 1886 the College leased the hotel to Eben and Harry Murch for $1400 a year, less than many people are paying in 1972 for rent of a small apartment.

The Elmwood was never successful until the coming of Henry Judkins in 1891. He bought the property from the college for $15,000, exactly the amount of the college investment of twelve years before. Judkins completely remodeled the building, served excellent meals, and made the place known as one of the finest small taverns in New England.

In 1900, the Elmwood was enlarged to 150 rooms, and in 1910 interior changes included expansive dining facilities. The hotel became the property of Nathaniel Barrows, chief owner of the Wyandotte Mills. It was finally sold to a firm that also operated the Augusta House, and its last proprietor was Henry McAvoy.

The long front porch of the Elmwood, with the rocking chairs that characterized New England inns, was the place to sit when we wanted to see what was going on in Post Office Square. The view down Main and Elm streets was unobstructed, because in front of the hotel was only a small park. By 1950, the park had gone and a filling station stood in front of the hotel. Throught the 1960’s the Elmwood struggled along as a so-called Motor Hotel, but patronage steadily declined. Finally Mr. McAvoy closed it, and in 1910 it was torn. down to make room for industrial development in the area.

In 1911, when the new dining rooms were opened, the local Board of Trade Journal said: “One approaches the main dining room, on the east side of the first floor, through elegant entrance doors with plate glass inserts, so that one has a full view of the room before entering. The woodwork and the table arm chairs are done in willow green. The walls are shaded from Pompeian red to brown, representing Spanish leather. The ceiling is in ivory white. All the windows are new, of leaded ripple and crystal glass. They are hung with warm, golden brown silk draperies on Dutch fixtures. On each table is a glass candle stick with red and green shade.”

All that elegance is now just memory. After a century of entertaining travelers and serving numerous local banquets, the Elmwood Hotel is gone forever.

During its long history, the old hotel saw many famous persons cross its threshold. Among those were Ralph Waldo Emerson and James Russell Lowell, General Sherman and Admiral Peary, President Taft and President Harding, Senators Robert Taft and Hiram Johnson and Maine’s own James G. Blaine and Tom Reed. In the Elmwood, Colby lecturers were often lodged. Over the years, they included Henry Ward Beecher, Neal Dow, Newell Dwight Hillis, William Butler Yeats, and dozens of other famous figures.

Banquets and luncheons held in the Elmwood are well remembered: the city’s greeting to President Franklin Johnson of Colby, its earlier farewell to President Nathaniel Butler, the luncheon to Robert E. Peary after his return from the North Pole, the luncheon to Robert Taft when he sought nomination for the national presidency, the annual dinners of the Phi Beta Kappa society, numerous banquets of Colby fraternities, and of course the weekly luncheons of Rotary and Kiwanis.

Many of us will long remember Waterville’s Elmwood Hotel.

Year: 1972