Several persons have commented favorably on the time we devoted a few\u00a0weeks ago to pertinent facts about the State of Maine. One lady wrote that\u00a0these things should be emphasized in our public schools. I think so too.<\/p>\n
Maine is much more than a state of watermen, woodsmen and hunters, as Arnold\u00a0Toynbee called us.<\/p>\n
I have no intention of repeating tonight those facts about Maine which I\u00a0gave on a previous broadcast. I want rather, on this program, to point out a\u00a0few interesting items in Maine history. For instance it occurred to me that\u00a0it might be well to find out which were Maine’s first ten incorporated towns.<\/p>\n
And do you know that hasn’t been so easy a task as I thought. The names changed\u00a0so many times, the records are so much in dispute, and the authorities\u00a0so disagree that it has taken some digging to arrive at an accurate list.<\/p>\n
I wonder if our present high school generation knows which is Maine’s\u00a0oldest town. A little thought should prompt the guess that our oldest towns\u00a0are those nearest Boston, and that is the fact. The town just this side of the\u00a0Piscataqua River, across from the ancient Portsmouth, is indeed Maine’s oldest\u00a0town. Kittery was, in fact, incorporated in 1652, only 22 years after\u00a0the establishment of Boston. Our second town, York, was incorporated later\u00a0in the same year. In 1653 came Wells. Then we strike some confusion because\u00a0of changes in name. The fourth town was incorporated as Saco, but it was actually\u00a0on what is now the Biddeford side of the river. Fifth was Kennebunkport,\u00a0which in its history has gone by four different names.<\/p>\n
The first five towns, therefore, were all in what is now York County.<\/p>\n
The first town to be incorporated in what is now Cumberland County was\u00a0Scarboro in 1658, and soon after came Falmouth (not the present town of Falmouth, but the old name for Portland) \u2022 Only one other town was incorporated\u00a0before 1700 – North Yarmouth in 1680.<\/p>\n
Brunswick is one of Maine’s very old towns, but strange as it may seem\u00a0to present-day people, not so old as the now much smaller Georgetown. The\u00a0latter in fact was the first town incorporated in the Androscoggin-Kennebec\u00a0area, getting its charter in 1716. Brunswick’s incorporation was in 1737,\u00a0making it the eleventh town, for meanwhile another York County town, Berwick,\u00a0had been created in 1713.<\/p>\n
Maine’s first ten towns, therefore, incorporated between 1652 and 1716\u00a0were Kittery, York, Wells, Saco, Kennebunkport, Scarborcr,~Falmouth, North Yarmouth, Berwick and Georgetown.<\/p>\n
What about the towns in Kennebec County? In what is now the County of\u00a0Kennebec no town can-claim the sole honor of being the first. Four of them\u00a0were incorporat~ on the same day, April 26, 1771. They were Hallowell, ,X\u00a0Vassalboro, Winslow and Winthrop. The next town was Pittston in 1779. After\u00a0those first five Kennebec towns twelve years elapsed before the incorporation\u00a0of the sixth, Readfield in 1791. After that new towns were created rapidly,\u00a0with Monmouth, Mount Vernon and Sidney in 1792; Clinton, Fayette and Litchfield\u00a0in 1795; Belgrade and China in 1796; and Augusta in 1797.<\/p>\n
Before 1800, therefore, Kennebec had fifteen incorporated towns; but\u00a0note that, of what are now the four largest in the County, only two had then\u00a0been separately incorporated: Hallowell and Augusta. Waterville and Gardiner,\u00a0although settled much earlier, did not get separate incorporation from\u00a0their parent towns until after the turn of the century.<\/p>\n
Now for another subject. When I occasionally present some of the statistics\u00a0from government or industrial reports, I try not to bore you with them.<\/p>\n
I hope you agree that some of them are important, if we are to keep our\u00a0thinking straight about protecting and perpetuating the American way of life.<\/p>\n
The cash receipts from farming, according to figures supplied by the Department\u00a0of Agriculture, are impressive. In 1910 they were $5,793,000; in 1929\u00a0they had risen to$ll, 296,000. In 1939 after the depression years they were\u00a0down to $8,684,000. Last year, 1949, they had reached the previously unheard\u00a0of total of $30,803,000. Since 1929 labor income has increased 192%, business\u00a0and professional income 360%, and farm income 408%.<\/p>\n
Now take a look at some of the figures regarding strikes. We have. seen\u00a0much in the papers lately about the severe loss to the miners by the prolonged\u00a0coal strike. All the nation was affected, but it is the miners themselves who,\u00a0individually, were hurt most.<\/p>\n
The whole industrial picture, according to the u. S. Department of Labor,\u00a0is this: in 1929 strikes affected 289,000 workers who lost 5 million man days;\u00a0in 1939 they hit 1,171,000 workers with 18 million man days lost; in 1949, even\u00a0before the coal strike got going at its worst, strikes had made idle 3,059,000 workers, who lost 53 million man days. In spite of those strikes,the industrial production index, using the year 1939 as the guage of 100, stood\u00a0at 170 in 1949. The great boom year of 1944, when production shot the index up\u00a0to 235, was in the past, but in 1949 we had the highest peace-time production\u00a0in our history.<\/p>\n
Just one more item; then I will keep still about figures for the rest of\u00a0tonight’s program. But I do want you to let these particular figures sink in.<\/p>\n
During the past ten years, while the population has increased 25% and prices\u00a0have increased 69%, retail sales have increased 310%. Those sales shot up from\u00a0$42 billion in 1939 to $130 billion in 1948, and will exceed $120 billion for\u00a01949 when that year’s figures are all in. Sometimes I wonder if we realize,\u00a0under the private enterprise system of America, just what a wonderfully prosperous\u00a0nation we are.<\/p>\n
How many of you know about a building you have probably passed and glanced\u00a0at many times a building with historical significance? It is located\u00a0at Riverside, four miles this side of Augusta, and before the construction\u00a0of the latest stretch of new highway, the main road from Augusta to\u00a0Waterville used to pass directly by it.<\/p>\n
At the place locally known as Brown’s Corner stands a big colonial house\u00a0flanked by two big barns and a shed. This house, still occupied, was once\u00a0one of the best known taverns and stage stops between Portland and Bangor.<\/p>\n
There it stands, stately and impressive, on a hill on the \u00b7east bank of the\u00a0Kennebec. Straight down to the river is the site of the old ferry which operated\u00a0across the river until only a few years ago.<\/p>\n
The land on which the old tavern stands was deeded by the New Plymouth\u00a0Company to Bunker Farwell of Vassalboro, who built the house and sold it to\u00a0Benjamin Brown of Bath. He operated it as a tavern for many years, and\u00a0made it a famous stopping place for the traveler and change\u00b7 of horses for the\u00a0stage.<\/p>\n
Wooden pegs instead of nails fastened many of the beams and rafters.<\/p>\n
Beautiful scroll carving may still be seen on the stair case. Waist-high\u00a0wainscotting decorates all the first floor rooms. There is a thick, handhewn\u00a0attic door. The huge beams and wide floor boards mark it as a very old\u00a0house.<\/p>\n
Benjamin Brown grew very prosperous. Besides the tavern he had a general\u00a0store, kept in the building which is now the hall of Cushnoc Grange. For\u00a025 years he was postmaster at Riverside. He owned a big lumber mill and\u00a0built ships for the Kennebec traffic.<\/p>\n
In the historical records of the state Brown is best remembered as the\u00a0principal founder of the insane hospital at Augusta. He donated the first\u00a0$10,000 toward its construction. In fact his portrait, like that of other\u00a0early directors, hangs in the hospital chapel today.<\/p>\n
That portrait has a curious history. Although a man of wealth and prominence,\u00a0and living in a day when all such men had their portraits painted,\u00a0Brown was too busy and too constantly on the go to find time to sit for an\u00a0artist. After his death the hospital directors wanted his picture. His\u00a0daughter, then living in Philadelphia, remembered that Judge James Dascombe\u00a0of Skowhegan greatly resembled her father. So up she carne, all the way from\u00a0Philadelphia, bringing a ruffled shirt, a velvet coat, high collar and other\u00a0clothes that her father used to wear. She persuaded Judge Dascombe to don the\u00a0garments. She combed his hair as her father’s used to be combed. Then the\u00a0artist went to work and did his job so well that few people who saw the portrait\u00a0of Innkeeper Brown, even in days when Brown himself was well remembered,\u00a0had the slightest idea that they were really looking upon the features of another\u00a0man.<\/p>\n
Although Maine had for many decades very little foreign population, it\u00a0now owes a great deal to those who have come here from foreign lands. Not\u00a0only the French Canadians, but the Syrians and Lebanese have contributed to\u00a0the advancement of Waterville.<\/p>\n
Sometimes a colony of immigrants takes over a whole community and \u00a0spreads its influence for years afterwards. Such was the Thomas colony ofSwedes who came to Aroostook in 1870. Eight miles northwest of Caribou they\u00a0settled and called the settlement New Sweden. By 1873 their leader, W. w.\u00a0Thomas, could report that the original 50 colonists had now expanded to 1,300,\u00a0and the Maine Register of 1873 proudly said of them: “These colonists have brought\u00a0with them $60,000 in cash, have taken up 20,000 acres of land, and have thoroughly\u00a0cleared 600 acres.<\/p>\n
Thus began the towns of New Sweden and Stockholm in Aroostook County.<\/p>\n
The descendents of those Swedish settlers are now some of the County’s leading\u00a0citizens, and many young men from those Swedish towns have achieved distinction\u00a0far beyond the borders of Maine.<\/p>\n
Someone has said that the map of the world is pretty well peppered on\u00a0the map of Maine. The number of our communities bearing foreign names is\u00a0truly conspic.uous. Here in Waterville we have Italy on one side of us and\u00a0Sicily on the other side, for to the west of us is Rome and to the east is\u00a0Palermo. But we have to cross Asia to get to Sicily, because between us and\u00a0Palermo lies China.<\/p>\n
I was born in the midst of Scandanavia, Maine. Within 15 miles of my\u00a0birthplace, in three different directions, were Norway, Sweden and Denmark,\u00a0but in the fourth direction I too knew Italy, for the adjoining town to the\u00a0south was Naples. Once I got there it was only a step into Eastern Europe,\u00a0for the town of Poland was near.<\/p>\n
During the eight years that I lived:in that good old Biblical town of\u00a0Hebron, over in Oxford County, I had Europe, Asia and South America within\u00a0easy distance. The nearest town was paris, off to the north was Canton, and\u00a0a little farther away was Peru.<\/p>\n
Over in Franklin County most of the towns bear old English names, but\u00a0one at least, Madrid, is of no English origin. With or without its much disputed\u00a0narrow guage railroad station, it is remindful of old Spain, even though\u00a0it is pronounced with the accent on the first syllable.<\/p>\n
Down in Lincoln County the towns of Bremen and Dresden remind us of the\u00a0German settlements in that region; up in Aroostook Mars Hill testifies to the\u00a0religious zeal rather than Greek relationship of the early inhabitants. The\u00a0same is true of Canaan in Somerset County and Lebanon in York County. Bangor,\u00a0as I am sure many of you know, is <\/em>named not for Bangor in England, but for\u00a0the name of a hymn tune.<\/p>\n Year: 1950<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #59, broadcast on March 12, 1950<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1153,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7105"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}