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1970

Radio Script #848

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Little Talks #848, April 12, 1970

A number of persons have asked me why, when we held an ecumenical service in this area in honor of the Maine Sesquicentennial, we claimed that our date of celebration, March 15, was the exact 150th anniversary of Maine’s independent statehood. The answer is that on March 3, 1820 President James Monroe signed an Act of Congress that contained these words: “On and after March 15, 1820 Maine shall be one of the United States of America, admitted in all respects whatever on an equal footing with the original states.”

Few Maine people have ever noticed a conspicuous difference between what the Constitution of the U.S. and the Constitution of Maine say about religious freedom. The federal constitution is vague and exceedingly general on the subject, as surely was fitting for a union of 13 independent states in 1787, when that document was framed. It makes no mention of God. Here are the words: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

On the other hand the Constitution of Maine has a longer and much more specific section on religious freedom, and it distinctly pays respects to our Judeo-Christian tradition by referring to God. This is what our state constitution says: “All men have a natural and unalienable right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences, and no one shall be hurt, molested or restrained in his person, liberty or estate from worshipping God in the manner and season most agreeable to the dictates of his conscience, nor for his religious professions or sentiments, provided he does not disturb the public peace or obstruct others in their religious worship. No preference for anyone sect or denomination shall ever be established by law, for any office or trust under the state, nor shall any religious test be required as a qualification for any office or trust under the state, and all religious societies shall have the exclusive right to elect their public teachers and contract for their support and maintenance.”

In our own community we note that the beginning of Colby College as a degree-granting institution came in the same year in which Maine was made a state. The college had been chartered as the Maine Literary and Theological Institution by the Massachusetts Legislature in 1813, but the hard times caused by the War of 1812 with Great Britain had postponed the start of instruction until 1818, when Jeremiah Chaplin came to Waterville to begin the first classes with a handful of theological students.

An enthusiastic supporter of the new institution was William King, who had got the bill of 1813 through the Massachusetts Senate, of which he was an influential member. When in 1820 King became Maine’s first governor, he was just the man to see that the Waterville institution got a much needed privilege that had been denied it in the Massachusetts act, namely the right to grant degrees. So in the very first session of the Maine Legislature, on June 19, 1820, Governor King signed a bill that had passed both houses. It said: “The President and Trustees of the Maine Literary and Theological Institution are hereby authorized and empowered to confer such degrees as are usually conferred by universities established for the education of youth.”

Already by 1820 Jeremiah Chaplin and the leading trustees had become convinced that the chief mission of the institution was to give instruction in the liberal arts and sciences, not to be a theological school. The latter was indeed continued until 1828, but it was quickly overshadowed by the liberal arts college.

So as early as 1821 the second Maine Legislature passed the following bill: “The name of the Maine Literary and Theological Institution shall cease, and the same shall henceforth be called and known by the name of Waterville College. ”

Until 1867 that was the name by which everyone knew the college in Waterville. Then, because of a generous, life-saving gift from the Boston merchant, Gardner Colby, the name was again changed to Colby University, and 23 years later to Colby College. For the past 80 years that has been the institution’s name.

Now I want to say just a bit more about Uncle Solon Chase, whom I have mentioned several times on this program as our state’s most prominent leader of the Greenback cause in the 1880’s. The name greenback did not originally mean a fully redeemable federal piece of paper money, but a kind of note first issued by the federal government during the Civil War, and not redeemable in silver or gold. In 1876 there was organized the Greenback Political Party, which favored increase of that first paper money and were opposed to the issue of notes by the national banks. The party was built around bankrupt farmers, who sought relief from legitimate grievances. Solon Chase of Turner was their leader in Maine.

What prompts mention of Uncle Solon today is my recent discovery of an advertisement sent out by that Greenbacker to announce his plan to start a party newspaper. This is what the ad said: “Chase’s Mills, Feb. 20, 1882. I shall print at Chase’s Mills a seven column weekly Greenback newspaper. The first number will be issued on March 15, 1882. After my labors for the last six years, my inclination is to rest at Chase’s Mills and I should do so if I could conscientiously cooperate with many who claim to be Greenbackers. Selfish politicians are trying to make honest men believe that crooked is straight and crafty money changers, who thrive by swapping dollars, are trying to enact a law to rob the honest masses who live by steady toil. A newspaper has a very large mouth and takes a good deal of feed. A forkful of hay and a ration of meat from true men, who will not enter into entangling alliances with either of the old parties, is all that is needed to make them steers plow a furrow from the white birch hillsides of Maine to the land of the olive and the orange. I am now prepared to make thunder for subscribers and to receive subscriptions at $1.00 a year, 50 cents for six months, 25 cents for three months. Solon Chase, Chase’s Mills, Maine.”

Now for something about Waterville. A few years ago I devoted some time to a study of the origin of Waterville streets. My source of information was official town records unearthed in a storeroom at City Hall by Welton Farrow when he was City Treasurer. A few weeks ago I uncovered further information about streets from an unexpected source, the early records of the Trustees of Waterville College, now Colby. On August 31, 1825 those trustees passed the following vote: “Voted that land sufficient for a road through the college lot in Waterville from the Fairfield Road to the road near the house of Dr. Chaplin be given to the town of Waterville, should the town see fit to locate such a road.”

That was the first move toward what is now Chaplin Street. One might easily assume that the phrase “Fairfield Road” meant the present College Avenue, but if that newer road along the river had been meant, the note would have read: the road to Kendalls Mills. The Fairfield Road, more commonly, especially in earlier records, called “the road to Fairfield Meeting House”, meant Upper Main Street. Bear in mind that there was then no railroad and what after 1850 became a commercial area in the vicinity of the junction of Main and Pleasant Streets was then uninhabited except for a single farmhouse. So, when Chaplin Street was built, the people here were unconcerned about railroad yards, freight sheds and crossings. They simply put through a street to connect Main and College Streets.

When the recorded note said that the eastern end of the road was near the house of Dr. Chaplin, they meant the frame house that had been built for the college president on the lot that trustees had purchased from Robert Hallowell Gardiner in 1815. That frame house stood near the spot where Memorial Hall was later built. It was in fact so near Memorial Hall that, when the new stone building went up, the old house was regarded as an eyesore, and it was removed. Part of it became the ell of the large house just south of the college campus, the home of Prof. George Washington Keely, later the home of George K. Boutelle.

When that house was torn down a few years ago, the last vestige of the first building connected with Colby College disappeared. On July 27, 1830 the college trustees passed another vote: “Voted to instruct the Prudential Committee to open a road from the brickyard on the road leading from Fairfield Meeting House to the Village, to the road leading by the college buildings at a point near the President’s House.”

That note shows that, for five years after the original vote, the town did nothing about a street to connect Main and College Streets. For the 1830 vote is obviously for the same road as the vote of 1825. Note that this time the old phrase “road to Fairfield Meeting House” is used for Upper Main Street. The brickyard referred to was at the foot of the big hill near Sanger Avenue. The lot that the college trustees bought from Robert Hallowell Gardiner in 1815 was a large area, extending from the Kennebec to the Messalonskee, encompassing the whole Ticonic Street area, and both sides of Main Street from its junction with Pleasant nearly to where is now Boutelle Avenue, and on the west to the bank of the Messalonskee. That was, of course, more land than the college needed for its own purposes. So we note without surprise several of the early records. August 27, 1828 — “Voted to sell the land belonging to the college on the west side of the road leading from Ticonic Village to Fairfield Meeting House, in order to purchase the house and lot occupied by Prof. Briggs.”

The college wanted that Briggs property, which stood near where the railroad station was later built, and it had no money to pay for it. Hence the necessity for selling more land. Three years later much of the big lot remained unsold. On July 26, 1831 the trustees voted “to sell that part of the college lot lying west of the road to Fairfield Meeting House at a price not less than $11 an acre, and to purchase the house and lot adjoining the college lot, belonging to Dr. Stephen Chaplin, for the sum of $2,500.”

A year later, on July 24, 1832 the vote was “to sell any part of the college lands except the lot on which the college stands.” Some lots were sold in small pieces, usually of only a few acres, until 1849, when the A & K took a big piece just west of College Avenue. After that the other lands went fast, and by the beginning of the Civil War, very little except the campus remained in college hands.

Year: 1970

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