Radio Script #1046

Little Talks on Common Things
April 6, 1975

Occasionally I like to devote a broadcast to items taken from old issues of the Waterville Mail. A complete, bound file of that newspaper is kept at the Redington Museum of the Waterville Historical Society, and I assure you many visitors consult it every year. Under a grant from the Maine Arts and Humanities Commission, secured by the Waterville Society’s curator, Jon Hall, the issues of that old newspaper will be microfilmed during the coming year, and will thus be permanently preserved.

Today I want to select a few items from that Waterville Mail, first taking some that appeared just before the Civil War.

In March 1859, the Mail printed the following simple sentence in a miscellany column: “A new church is planned for Waterville, with the intention of inviting Dr. Sheldon of Bath as pastor. Dr. Sheldon was formerly president of the college here.”

A few years later that church, the Waterville Unitarian, was indeed formed, and right in the midst of the war, in 1863, Dr. Sheldon was installed as pastor. A decade earlier, he had created a heated controversy at Waterville College (now Colby) when, to the horror of the Baptist supporters of that old Calvinist college, he turned Unitarian. It is also interesting to note that Dr. Sheldon was one of only three Colby presidents who are buried in Waterville’s Pine Grove Cemetery. The other two were Arthur Roberts and Franklin Johnson.

Here’s another item signifying the growth of Waterville at the outbreak of the Civil War. “George Gilman has lately purchased land between Pleasant Street and the Messalonskee, is draining its swamp, building a bridge over Hayden Brook, and laying out a road from Pleasant Street to the Messalonskee, with the hope that the town will build a bridge over that stream and continue the road to the Rangeway.”

The editor followed that news item with his own comment saying, “We hope that no rude hand will be laid upon the noble trees that line the banks of Hayden Brook, and that the brook’s course will not be straightened, but be allowed to wander at its own sweet will as it moves along to join its older sister Kennebec.”

In this year 1975, it is quite probable that a majority of Waterville residents never heard of Hayden Brook. In 1860 it was a well-known open stream. Starting from springs in the north end of Waterville, it flowed south along the area west of College Ave. and behind the old railroad station, passed behind the Flood coal yard and crossed what is now Gilman Street in the depression behind the present site of the Sacred Heart Church, in its passage also crossing North Street.

The new road referred to in the Mail article was Gilman Street, put through in 1859 by George Gilman, extending from Pleasant Street to the Messalonskee. It could go no further until the town decided to build what we now call the Gilman Street Bridge. But George Gilman himself decided to provide passage across Hayden Brook, so he built a small plank bridge there. Soon after the town built the bridge across the Messalonskee that the article mentioned, the depression of the brook on Gilman Street was filled in and water flowed through a culvert.

It is difficult today to find any trace of Hayden Brook north of Gilman Street, but its gully south of there was so deep that the old brook bed still remains. It is deepest between West Street and the end of Sheldon Place. It becomes visible again not far south of Winter Street, where in the 1870’s a bridge crossed it, the later fill obscuring all traces until it appears again behind the houses on the east side of Burleigh Street between Winter and Western Avenue.

When old Mill Street was changed from its route along the height on the north side of the present Western Avenue, its Hayden Brook bridge was removed, and the land where the brook crossed the present avenue was filled in, a combination of culvert and open ditch then carrying the brook’s water into the Messalonskee at its big bend south of Western Avenue.

No water is now visible in any part of Hayden Brook. Under its bed, between the North End and the brook’s outlet beyond Western Avenue is a storm sewer now large enough for a man to walk through.

In September 1860, the Waterville Mail made note of what became a prominent Waterville residence. The item said: “On land at 33 College Avenue, the new house of Dr. Nathaniel Boutelle is now open – one of the town’s newest and finest residences.” In the early 1890s after the death of Dr. Boutelle, that house became the property of Colby College, and beginning with Pres. Beniah Whitman, was the residence of Colby presidents until the opening of the new President’s House on Mayflower Hill. Colby presidents who lived at 33 College Avenue, besides Whitman, were Nathaniel Butler, Charles L. White, Arthur J. Roberts, Franklin Johnson, and Seelye Bixler. Dr. Bixler was the only Colby president to live both at 33 College Avenue and in the new house on the Hill.

When all downtown Colby property was torn down or sold, the Nathaniel Boutelle house was purchased by Drs. Ted and Howard Hill, where they and other associated physicians had offices until the place was taken by the Federal Government as part of the site for a new post office. The building was then torn down.

From 1861 through 1865, the Mail naturally gave a lot of attention to the war, but it did not neglect local incidents apart from the great conflict. In June, 1863, it noted a Waterville tragedy. The item said: “Two women and two children were drowned by being carried over Ticonic Falls in a boat, while they were collecting driftwood. They were French Canadians living at the Head of the Falls.”

In its issue of June 14, 1865, the Mail noted the coming to Waterville of a man who would become well known and fondly remembered, especially by generations of Colby graduates. Here is what the Mail said. “Although the war has been over for only two months, the cause it represented – freedom for Negro slaves is already evident in Waterville. Col. S. C. Fletcher of the 7th Maine, on his return home, brought with him a colored man who had been the colonel’s personal servant. Named Samuel Osborne, he has, with the help of Col. Fletcher and others, obtained work with the Androscoggin and Kennebec Railroad. He has already been able to send for his family in Virginia, and they will soon join him here.”

Sam Osborne worked for the railroad less than a year. He transferred to the job as the one and only janitor of Waterville College, which soon after he went to work there became Colby. Sam was indeed what people called “a character”, with an individual personality that impressed itself on all who knew him. He called the Colby students – all of them male until the 1870’s – his boys, and they called him Professor Sam. His annual address to Colby freshmen became renowned.

Col. Fletcher was a member of Waterville’s First Baptist Church, and one reason why he became so attached to Sam was his discovery that Sam belonged to a Baptist Church at Culpeper, Virginia. But the war had destroyed that church and all its records. When Sam wanted to become a member of the Waterville church, he could get no letter of transfer. The church could have demanded that Sam be rebaptised and its strictness in those days might well have so insisted. But the result was quite different. Samuel Osborne became a member of the Waterville church without record of either Baptism or membership in another church. His word, supported by Col. Fletcher, was considered sufficient.

When Sam Osborne died in 1904, the eulogy was delivered by Charles Lincoln White, President of Colby College, and the bearers were Colby seniors.

In October, 1865, the Mail recognized the growth of Waterville by the following article: “The business of our village is working up town. Time was when it was all down under the hill on the shore of the bay – not a single business building on any part of what is now Main Street. There under the hill, the sawmills and grist mills were built, there were the shipyards, and there the boats landed. Even as late as the coming of the railroad in 1849, the area around our end of Ticonic Bridge was the busiest part of town, but we soon found that water traffic could not compete with the locomotive. The old mills burned. Property there that was once valuable is now comparatively worthless. On the contrary, property in the upper part of the village constantly rises in value. Lincoln and Marston have bought the store of Charles Witham in Ticonic Row. Daniel Webb has moved up Main Street to the Marston Block. Jacob Crocker has moved from the south end to a store opposite the post office, and the Ticonic Bank has moved up Main Street.”

Two points should be noted about that article. First, the move of those businesses from Ticonic Row between Silver and Water Street, and from the area of the old mills and shipyards, was not a very long move. All the businesses mentioned in the article had their new locations between Temple Street and Silver. Secondly, the town would have to wait only ten years before what the Mail called the worthless old mill property became valuable again. In 1876 the first Lockwood Mill started its looms and for nearly 80 years remained Waterville’s largest industry. Even after the Lockwood closed, the old mill site was by no means abandoned. The Hathaway Shirt Co. turned one of the buildings, after complete remodeling into its principal factory. The Central Maine Power Co. occupied another. Bit by bit other industries came in until today the site of
the old shipyards is again a busy place.

As our last of the old newspaper items today, we select one that mentions the name of Waterville’s first full-time physician, Moses Appleton. The item said: “The former residence of Jones Elden has been moved from the north to the south side of Appleton Street and fitted up for the home of Aaron Plaisted, cashier of the Ticonic Bank. Originally built on Silver Street in 1799, it was moved to the east side of Main Street in 1816 and was for many years the home of Dr. Moses Appleton. When Appleton Street was opened, the house was moved again to the north side of that street. Now, in 1866, it sees its third removal, to the south side of Appleton Street.”

Year: 1975