Radio Script #1138

Little Talks on Common Things
November 6, 1977

Among hundreds of items in the library at the Redington Museum is a typed manuscript of six pages entitled “Origin of Some Place Names in Waterville.” We regret that the author was not recognized by name on the title page. It says only that the information was contributed by the Silence Howard Hayden Chapter of the DAR in 1944.

First in regard to the community’s name. We are told the early pioneers called the settlement on the west side of the Kennebec, Ticonic, from the name which the Indians gave to the nearby falls. The various spellings include Taconnet, Taconick, and Ticonnet as well as Ticonic. By that statement the compiler recognized a well established fact. The white settlers had a lot of trouble turning Indian words into English sounds. Hence many different versions of the same word.

The manuscript quite correctly points out that long after the separation of Waterville from the present town of Winslow, the village on the west side of the falls – the present business section of Waterville – continued to be called Ticonic. Of the naming of the new town Waterville, the manuscript says: “Composed of an English and a French word the name was suitably applied to the town situated on a river and crowned by brooks and streams.” Certainly the presence of a mighty river with two other large streams flowing into it nearby was the reason for choosing the name Waterville, but the fact that water is Anglo-Saxon while ville is French, seems to imply that the name recognized both nationalities that now comprise a majority of citizens. But such is not the case. In 1802, there were French-Canadians in Waterville.

In fact, Waterville is a very old designation for places. There are still at least three Watervilles in the British Isles, and while the suffix ville had been a result of French words entering England after the Norman Conquest, the word Waterville had been accepted as straight English at least 300 years before it was given to the new town separated from Winslow in 1802.

The typed paper next points out that the Messalonskee Stream took its name from the lake of the same name of which it was the outlet, but they both are of comparatively recent use, a result of a return to Indian names for bodies of water in Maine. Many people still call Messalonskee Lake “Snow Pond,” which has nothing to do with winter precipitation, but rather was the name of an early settler on the east side of the pond. The name Messalonskee, however, has long prevailed for the stream. Probably there are in Waterville few people today old enough to remember when it was called Emerson Stream. The manuscript says, “Waterville’s largest stream except the Kennebec was called Emerson Stream for Asa Emerson who in the late 1700’s built a dam and a sawmill below the present Memorial Bridge.”

A small stream well known in Waterville a century ago was Hayden Brook, through which water still runs, but mostly through pipes now underground. Named for Josiah Hayden, a pioneer settler, it starts from springs in a bog off Drummond Avenue, works its way under Chaplin Street and crosses Gilman Street just behind the Sacred Heart Church. From there to its junction with the Messalonskee off Western Avenue, it passes through a deep gully on the east side of West Street, across Winter Street, and traverses another gully to Western Avenue. The manuscript tells us that for a time, Hayden Brook was popullarly called Jumbo Brook because the annual circus, held on the open field then existing off Gilman Street. watered its elephants at the brook.

Until 1828 there was a frame bridge over the brook on Gilman Street. When it collapsed, with serious injury to two men, the street was filled in over a stone culvert, years afterward changed to cement.

Probably few people remember that the industrial area on the Messalonskee where the pumping station of the water district now stands was long known as Crommett’s Mills named for James Crommett who in 1830 built a saw and grist mill near where John McKechnie had built Waterville’s first mill in 1775.

Many people, however, have heard the tradition that Silver Street was so named because that was where all the silver was. By that was meant that only on Silver Street lived men wealthy enough to possess silver plate, which indeed in the early 1800s was regarded as such a luxury that it was taxed. What is not so well known is that Silver Street referred to that highway only as far as the big Mathews house (now a convent) near the western end of Gold Street. The road beyond that had only scattered farms, and its old name was the Irondale Road, because is led to the iron foundry, then Waterville’s largest industrial supplier. That foundry, by the way, situated below the present Flo’s Greenhouse, was where the world’s first platform scale was designed.

In what we now call the Mayflower Hill region, the new site of Colby College, the manuscript tells us there was McKechnie’s corner at the junction of old Western Avenue and Marston Road. The Avenue itself then became the Rice’s Rips road. The junction was given the name McKechnie not for John, the first mill builder, but for one of his sons, Alexander, who developed a farm at that place. In fact, one of the deeds of land secured by Colby College in 1931 shows a particular title , descending from Alexander McKechnie.

Now let’s turn to other streets. The writer tells us our oldest streets are Main, Silver, Front, Temple and Water. Temple was named for Isaac Temple who bought Lot 105, a proprietor’s lot held by one of Plymouth Company owners, James Pitts. Elm Street got its name from the big trees set out by David McFarland after he moved there from Silver Street near Main a house he bought from Waterville’s first lawyer, Reuben Kidder. Sherwin Street took its name from Col. Elnathan Sherwin who moved to Waterville from Clinton in the eighteenth century, became a business leader and represented the town in the Massachusetts Legislature before Maine became a separate state.

Much of the land west of Elm Street in the area of Winter and School streets was owned by Moses Dalton, whose name was taken to designate Dalton Street. Many other Waterville streets have been named for persons – Appleton Street for the early physician, Dr. Moses Appleton; Redington Street for its developer, Isaac Redington, son of the pioneer Asa Redington, a builder of the first dam at Ticonic Falls; Morrill Avenue for Jediah Morrill, an original director of the first railroad to reach Waterville; Chaplin Street for Jeremiah Chaplin, first president of Colby College; Cool Street, for John Cool, the Revolutionary soldier who was the only man to own two of Waterville’s big lots surveyed by John McKechnie; Halde Street for Rev. D. J. Halde, Waterville’s first Roman Catholic resident pastor. Many other streets, even some of the newest, are also named for persons.

Ticonic Street is a relatively new name for the street extending from Chaplin to High streets. For many years it was known as Paddy Lane, until residents insisted it deserved a more dignified title. It seems that, as the French tended to settle first at the Head of the Falls, then along Water Street, the Irish clustered together on Ticonic Street, a street later inhabited by many Jewish families .

Interestingly the manuscript notes that Waterville has at least one Indian street name, Canibas Avenue. The words Kennebec and Canibas derive from the same Indian root. Historians tell us it is not quite clear exactly which was the Canibas tribe. Did they include the Norridgewocks and others of Central Maine? Probably. Anyhow, Canibas Avenue is named for them.

Waterville, like most other Maine towns, was not very imaginative in naming its street names. When people couldn’t agree on honoring some individual with the name of a new street, they turned to what was almost a universal practice in the English-speaking world. They used the name of seasons, trees, and other objects. So in Waterville our streets recognize all seasons of the year – spring, summer, autumn and winter. A whole row of streets on Upper College Avenue are named for trees: Maple, Walnut, Ash, Oak, Spruce, Myrtle, Hazelwood, etc. In other parts of the city are Pine, Birch, Elm, and others.

Probably because we already had Silver Street, we got Gold Street, and it is possible Pearl Street just added more glitter.

Why anyone wanted to change old Mill Street to Western Avenue is uncertain. It may have been that it just sounded more fashionable. It is however an indication that points of the compass were often used for street naming; hence also North Street, South Street and West Street.

In recent years, off the West River Road we have had two streets given the first names of women: Louise and Patricia avenues.

That there were once thick woods near to First Rangeway is commemorated by the name Forest Park for a street between Violette and Barnet avenues. A similar historic indication is revealed by Edgewood Street.

Recognition of fruit as well as trees is shown by Cherry Hill Drive and Cherry Hill Terrace, and of course the fragrant spring bloom is recognized by Mayflower Hill Drive.

Some street names are rather vague – just opening up wide vistas, such as Fairview Street.

Two of our streets were, of course, ancient roads laid down by the McKechnie survey in 1762. They are First and Second Rangeways. When John McKechnie made that survey for the Proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase, who owned the vast tract 15 miles on both sides of the river from Merrymeeting Bay to above Norridgewock, he surveyed the land that is now Waterville into lots 40 rods on the river and one mile deep constituting the first tier, then another tier of back lots extending also a mile deep. Those tiers were called ranges, and McKechnie set down that between the ranges should be highways. Hence the First and Second Rangeways.

Although I have felt obliged, in this broadcast, to add information not contained in the 1944 DAR manuscript, I am grateful to that writer for many facts we had not previously known about Waterville streets.

Year: 1977