The present campaign is by no means the first time that the citizens of Waterville have rallied to the needs of their college. For 135 years the people\u00a0of this community have rightly considered the college theirs, although legally\u00a0it is a privately operated institution.<\/p>\n
The charter granted to the Maine Literary and Theological Institution by\u00a0the Massachusetts Legislature in 1813 did not provide for locating the college\u00a0in Waterville. On the contrary, the land allotted for the new institution was\u00a0in Township No.3, fifteen miles above Bangor on the Penobscot River. That site,\u00a0then far out in the wilderness, was obviously so unsuitable that, in 1816, the\u00a0trustees of the as yet unbuilt college obtained the right to locate and establish\u00a0their buildings in any town within the limits of Kennebec or Somerset Counties.<\/p>\n
Three towns actively competed for the new college — Farmington, Bloomfield\u00a0and Waterville. Does Farmington surprise you? It need not, because there was\u00a0then no Franklin County. Bloomfield was, of course, the old name of Skowhegan.<\/p>\n
Credit for bringing the college to Waterville has long been given chiefly to\u00a0Timothy Boutelle, and it was indeed he who collected the subscriptions and issued\u00a0receipts for them. But it seems reasonably clear that the man who gave the movement\u00a0its start was Dr. Obadiah Williams. If they could have been contemporaries,\u00a0Obadiah Williams and Franklin Johnson would have made a great team. Both men of\u00a0vision and foresight, both devoted to the welfare of the community, both undaunted\u00a0by adversity, both such optimists that they believed the impossible only takes a\u00a0little longer than the difficult; one of them planned for a college in Waterville,\u00a0the other made the little, struggling institution a college with a new site and a\u00a0national reputation.<\/p>\n
You will perhaps recall an earlier broadcast in which I told how Obadiah\u00a0Williams gave to the town the site of the City Hall and its park. It was on\u00a0that site that the first meeting house on this side of the river was erected\u00a0the building that was to serve nearly a century and a half successively as a\u00a0church, town house and armory. Dr. Williams was by all odds Waterville’ s leading citizen until his death in 1799, fourteen years before the college trustees\u00a0got their charter.<\/p>\n
Born in Antrim, New Hampshire in 1752 young Williams had participated in the\u00a0battle of Bunker Hill, and afterwards served as surgeon in General Stark’s regiment\u00a0throughout the Revolution. The first Maine town to benefit by his practice\u00a0was Sidney, where he stayed until 1792. He then came to Waterville, married a\u00a0Waterville qirl and became the father of five boys and two girls. He built the\u00a0first frame house in Waterville.<\/p>\n
Such was the good physician who in 1788 wrote to Dr. Whittaker of Canaan\u00a0about his plans for an advanced educational institution in Winslow, for not until\u00a0fourteen years later did Waterville become a separate town.<\/p>\n
When in 1816 a committee of the trustees reported in favor of Bloomfield,\u00a0Waterville citizens remembered how hard Obadiah Williams had worked to interest\u00a0people in a college, and they determined not to be unmindful of his memory. They\u00a0persuaded the trustees to locate the institution in Waterville provided the people\u00a0of the town would raise a suitable sum of money. Over $2,000 was subscribed,\u00a0but in 1816, just as today, it is easier to get pledges than to collect them.<\/p>\n
Nine men came forward and guaranteed the subscriptions, some of which were in\u00a0amounts as small as fifty cents. Two of those nine men were Waterville’s leading\u00a0citizens of the time, Nathaniel Gilman and Timothy Boutelle.<\/p>\n
Believe me, the men who were determined to have the college in Waterville\u00a0were glad to get those fifty cent subscriptions. And it is just the same today.<\/p>\n
No one need refuse to give to a worthy community cause for fear that a small gift\u00a0does not help or will not be appreciated. It is the accumulation of many small\u00a0gifts that brings success to\u00b7’ every such enterprise. What a thrill those small\u00a0givers of 1816 must have had when they talked about their college.<\/p>\n
I haven’t forgotten that last week I promised to tell you about Vassalboro’s\u00a0newspaper. It was a very interesting sheet and one of its editors was a woman\u00a0very well known to many of you who are listening tonight.<\/p>\n
In March, 1886 there appeared in Vassalboro Volume I, Number 1 of the Clarion,\u00a0published by S. A. and N. C. Burle~gh. The first named editor was Samuel\u00a0Appleton BurleIDgh, who about eight years later would graduate from Colby College.<\/p>\n
In 1886 he was only fifteen years old and his associate editor, N. C., was his\u00a0even younger sister, Nettie Burleigh.<\/p>\n
That first issue of the Clarion was a tiny, four-page sheet, 6 by 5! inches.<\/p>\n
The enterprise of the young editors was shown, however, in their publication of\u00a0three display ads; one announcing that Lizzie Taylor, fashionable dressmaker,\u00a0made cutting and fitting a specialty at North Fairfield; another that the Lang\u00a0Farm at Vassalboro had Plymouth Rocks for sale, also eggs for setting; and the\u00a0third ad stated that Miss Mary Morrison of Vassalboro had a good, second-hand\u00a0Davis Machine for sale. There was space for a fourth ad, but the young editors\u00a0evidently failed to sell it, for they printed therein “This space is <\/em>reserved\u00a0\u00b7for our patrons”.<\/p>\n Every proprietor of a new paper in those days took pains to announce his\u00a0plans and policy in the first issue, and these youngsters were no exception.\u00a0This <\/em>is what the first column of page one announced:<\/p>\n “To our patrons: With this our first issue we launch our little bark upon\u00a0the boundless sea of literature, trusting in the charity of our fellow voyagers\u00a0to overlook anything that resembles incompetency and to encourage our labors so\u00a0far as they meet with approval. Our object is the dissemination of truth and\u00a0temperance, and the advancement of scientific and practical knowledge among our\u00a0fellow men.”<\/p>\n The Burleigh children announced their advertising rates as 10 cents an inch,\u00a045 cents a column, 85 cents a page. They proposed to publish the paper monthly.<\/p>\n The only local news in <\/em>that first issue concerned the opening of the spring term\u00a0at Oak Grove and an entertainment by the ladies of the Congregational Society.<\/p>\n Now it is not unusual for children to start a paper, especially if someone\u00a0gives them a printing press, but it is <\/em>not so usual for such a paper to continue\u00a0publication. I suppose most of the Burleigh neighbors expected Sam and Nettie\u00a0soon to tire of the press in the upstairs room of the house. How surprised folks\u00a0must have been to see that little paper not only keep on month after month, but\u00a0increase in size and actually achieve a circulation of more than a thousand\u00a0copies. By June, 1888 its crude, childish printing had disappeared, and a neat\u00a0four-pager, ten by eight inches, three columns to a page, heralded Volume 3, No.\u00a01 of the Clarion.<\/p>\n The ads were now numerous. Hall and Meader, with stores both at Vassalboro\u00a0and North Vassalboro, carried the biggest ad — two columns of four inches. Their\u00a0ad ends with this interesting postscript: “We shall cut prices on fertilizers,\u00a0if other firms do”. Mrs. H. C. Minot of Belgrade evidently did a good business\u00a0in <\/em>bees and honey, but she also had a sideline, for in a separate ad she announced\u00a0the Novelty Slate Pencil Sharpener at 7 cents, two for 12 cents. The original\u00a0subscription rate of the Clarion had been 20 cents a year. Success had now permitted\u00a0an increase to 30 cents a year.<\/p>\n There were two full columns of locals in that issue of June, 1888, one of\u00a0which announced that Mr. Will Yates had again sailed for Africa, where he would\u00a0spend the summer. First strawberries of the season were on the market at 16\u00a0cents a quart. In fact a box on page 3 is headed “Vassalboro Market, Retail Prices\u00a0Current”, followed by “Potatoes, $1.00 a barrel; flour, $5.75 a barrel; corn,\u00a080 cents a bushel; eggs, 14 cents a dozen; butter, 20 cents a pound; dry hard\u00a0wood, $5.00 a cord; soft wood, $3.75 a cord.”<\/p>\n In 1888 the Burleigh brother and sister were eager to get news from surrounding\u00a0towns. They published an ad of their own, which reads:<\/p>\n “Wanted — correspondents in different parts of Vassalboro, China, Winslow\u00a0and Sidney, to send US news items. We will furnish writing material and stamps,\u00a0and will send the Clarion free.”<\/p>\n So, on through 1889, 1890 and most of 1891 the Clarion continued its monthly\u00a0peal. By that time Sam Burleigh was in college, and he launched a more ambitious\u00a0publication. On September 1, 1891 appeared’Vol. 1, No.1 of the Kennebec Valley\u00a0News, published at Vassalboro. Evidently Sam Burleigh had not thought of the\u00a0Clarion as a newspaper, but rather as a monthly periodical of literature, for his\u00a0announcement of the Valley News reads: “At last our dreams are realized and Vassalboro\u00a0has a newspaper. Here we are! Another literary infant thrust upon the\u00a0mercies of a cold world. We don’t propose to pander to the whims of anyone, be\u00a0they male or female, saint or sinner, prohibitionist, Democrat or Republican. We\u00a0shall try to help warm this cold world by turning into it the gulf stream of\u00a0charity and benevolence.”<\/p>\n The Valley News was no tiny monthly; it was a full-sized, four page weekly,\u00a0published every Tuesday. Evidently Sam Burleigh had good connections in Waterville,\u00a0for his first issue was full of Waterville ads. Sam Preble or rather\u00a0Preble and Jordan — offered life size crayon portraits at $6.00; Harriman Brothers\u00a0called attention to their fine collection of jewelry; S. A. Estes announced\u00a0that his store in the Plaisted Block was the place to buy boots, shoes and rubbers;\u00a0but on the same page the Loud Brothers printed a bigger ad, saying “Look here!<\/p>\n Why don’t you buy your boots and shoes at Louds?” Hanson, Webber and Dunham\u00a0wanted Vassalboro readers to try the new Royal Atlantic cooking range; F. A.\u00a0Robbins on Silver street wanted the Vassalboro folks to bring their furniture to\u00a0him for upholstering. Dolloff and Dunham at 40 Main Street offered men’s,\u00a0boy’s and children’s suits, odd pants and overcoats at greatly reduced prices\u00a0to close them out and make room for fall goods. H. B. Tucker and Co. asked:<\/p>\n “Did you ever know that there is a drug store in Arnold Block, waterville?\u00a0When you are sick do you have Mr. Tucker and Mr. Larrabee, both registered\u00a0apothecaries, put up your medicine? If not, you had better begin right away, and\u00a0get fair prices on all goods, not be robbed on goods you know little about.”<\/p>\n By 1888 the safety bicycle, as distinguished from its big front-wheeled\u00a0predecessor, had come to Central Maine. Sam Burleigh himself was agent for the\u00a0Columbia, which his pictured ad announced as the best wheel for business or\u00a0pleasure. He also offered two second-hand Columbias for sale cheap_\u00a0Such is a part, and only a part, of the fascinating story of Vassalboro’s\u00a0newspaper started by two very enterprising children 64 years ago.<\/p>\n Year: 1950<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #84, broadcast on November 19, 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\/7172"}],"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=7172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}