In the course of the years I have found many cynical people when you mention\u00a0to them the public philanthropies of modern industry. They too often consider\u00a0such good works as all bearing the spectacular marks of the elder Rockefeller’s\u00a0distribution of dimes, forgetting the enormous benefit to humanity of the Rockefeller\u00a0Foundation. These cynics are sure that when any industrial firm today\u00a0gives away money, there is either a string attached to it or the company has some\u00a0axe to grind.<\/p>\n
One of the commonest distribution of grants by big business today i~ to colleges\u00a0and universities for scientific research. Of course, say the cynics, these\u00a0companies are interested in letting the scientists find ways for the company to\u00a0make more money by selling more products to more people who can’t afford them.\u00a0That opinion is grossly unjust. One of America’s biggest businesses, still\u00a0largely under control of the family in which it originated is the E. I. du Pont de\u00a0Nemours and Company, the company which, is sometimes said to be the State of Delaware.<\/p>\n
For many years Du Pont has made unrestricted grants to universities for\u00a0scientific research. For the coming academic year 1951-52, in spite of the nation’s\u00a0absorption in defense production and Du Pont is one of the big defense\u00a0producers — <\/strong>they will provide $400,000 to more than twenty universities.<\/p>\n As long ago as 1918 Du Pont began to make these grants to encourage graduate\u00a0research in chemistry, and through the years has extended the grants to other\u00a0fields of science. The grants are given outright to universities for unrestricted\u00a0use in scientific research. The universities themselves select the projects\u00a0and maintain complete freedom in the publication of results. Whatever is discovered\u00a0belongs to the whole scientific world through the university; it is not the\u00a0property of Du Pont.\u00a0The Delaware company is only one of many large industrial firms in America\u00a0which by suCh grants are keeping scientific researCh at top quality in our universities.<\/p>\n Such a policy Shows that industria11eaders are well aware of the\u00a0nation’S need for independent, unrestricted researCh.<\/p>\n Mr. and Mrs. A. F. Drummond have made to Colby College a gift in whiCh I know\u00a0many of my listeners will be interested. It is a map of Waterville in the year\u00a01853, and it is now on exhibition in the main foyer of the Miller Library on Mayflower\u00a0Hill.<\/p>\n Strangely enough the map was not printed in Maine, but in New York City by\u00a0the engraving firm of Prescott and Edwards at 71 Wall Street. It contains somethingI have never before seen on these old maps — the subscribers’ names printed\u00a0on the map itself, with eaCh subscriber’s occupation after his name. Many of those\u00a0names will ring the bell of memory among the older people who hear them mentioned\u00a0tonight. Among those map subscribers of a century ago were Samuel Appleton, postmaster;\u00a0Timothy Boutelle, counselor at law; N. R. Boutelle, physician; W. M. Bates,\u00a0ornamental printer; J. T. Champlin, professor at Waterville College; Nathaniel\u00a0Gilman, opposite whose name is set no occupation, but simply the words “New York”.\u00a0Mr. Gilman had left Waterville for the big city some time earlier, but his continued\u00a0interest in our town was Shown not only by his large real estate holdings here\u00a0but also by his willingness to subscribe for this map.<\/p>\n Other subscribers were D. J. Leighton, West India goods; Daniel Moor, saw\u00a0mills and steam boat; E. Noyes, superintendent of the Androscoggin and Kennebec\u00a0Railroad; W. A. Stevens, marble manufacturer; S. Wing and Brothers, daguerrean\u00a0artists; and C. K. Mathews, book seller, brother of the Edward Mathews whom Dr.\u00a0Coolidge had murdered six years before.<\/p>\n As for the map itself, it is very revealing. In the course of the past two\u00a0years I thought I had come to learn a lot about old Waterville, but this map held\u00a0many surprises — plenty of information of which I had not been aware. For instance,\u00a0I had no idea that Winter Street did not always run all the way through\u00a0from Elm to Pleasant streets. Both are very old streets, and I supposed of course\u00a0that Winter was from the first a short connecting street between two long streets.<\/p>\n But the 1853 map tells us that such an assumption is wrong. Winter then was a\u00a0dead-end street, running from Elm to a point almost opposite where my own house\u00a0now stands at Number 17. Between the dead end and Pleasant street was a vacant\u00a0lot. Of course I knew, as many of my listeners do, that West Winter Street, from\u00a0Pleasant to Burleigh came much later, but how many of you ever suspected that originally\u00a0the east end of Winter Street didn’t go all the way through to Pleasant?<\/p>\n Park street was then called Church Street, and Western Avenue, of course,\u00a0was Mill Street. The site of the present Monument Park is shown simply as an\u00a0unmarked green patch. Just about the time this map was made the old cemetery on\u00a0that spot was abandoned, the bodies moved to the new Pine Grove Cemetery, and the\u00a0place converted into a park, where some 15 years later .the Civil War monument was\u00a0erected.<\/p>\n I have often wondered where the original Androscoggin and Kennebec Railroad\u00a0joined tracks with the Portland and Kennebec. The A and K, you will recall, I have\u00a0mentioned several times on these broadcasts, for it was the first railroad to\u00a0reach Waterville, opening here in 1849. Not until six years later did the P and K\u00a0reach Waterville. Why the promoters of that road built two expensive covered\u00a0bridges, one at Augusta and the other at Waterville, instead of coming straight up\u00a0the Sidney side of the river is not entirely clear. Legend has it that one of the\u00a0prominent backers was a bridge builder who sold the new railroad a bill of goods,\u00a0but the more probable explanation is that Vassalboro was then an important and thriving\u00a0village, with at last three prosperous manufacturing plants, and with easy access\u00a0to the growing inland villages to the east.<\/p>\n At any rate the railroad bridge at Waterville was finally built in 1854, exactly one hundred years after the building of Fort Halifax, and early in 1855\u00a0the first train from Augusta crossed it into Waterville. The old station of the\u00a0P and K was near the Head of the Falls at the foot of Temple street, while the\u00a0older station, that of the A and K, was not far from the site of Waterville’s\u00a0present railroad station.<\/p>\n Now anyone who goes down on the riverbank back of the old college buildings\u00a0can plainly see the road-bed, where once ran the tracks of the extension of the\u00a0Portland and Kennebec to Bangor — a road known as the Penobscot and Kennebec. It\u00a0had always been clear to me that the tracks of the A and K must have joined those\u00a0of the P and K somewhere in Waterville, for before 1860 there are records to show\u00a0trains going through from Lewiston to Bangor.<\/p>\n Mr. Drummond’s 1853 map gives us the answer. It shows just one railroad crossing\u00a0over College Avenue, exactly where the present upper crossing now is. Just\u00a0beyond, in what are now the Maine Central yards, the A and K tracks, having crossed\u00a0College Avenue, joined the P and K tracks that came up the river bank from the\u00a0bridge. Years afterward the riverbank tracks and the Temple Street station were\u00a0abandoned, the lower College Avenue crossing was built, and Waterville got a union\u00a0station.<\/p>\n Where Coburn Institute now stands was an older building marked on this map as\u00a0“The Academy”. Farther down Elm Street at the corner of School Street, where the\u00a0D’Orsay house now stands was another school building marked “The Institute”. All\u00a0this calls for an explanation.<\/p>\n What is now Coburn Classical Institute was founded in 1829 as waterville Academy.\u00a0It flourished for a time, but declined in the 1830’s so that in 1840 it suspended\u00a0operations, without teachers or pupils. A rival school had already sprung\u00a0up, called the Waterville Liberal Institute, and is said to have attracted many\u00a0students away from the Academy. The rivalry was doubtless enhanced because the\u00a0Liberal Institute was sponsored by the Universalists as the Academy had been by the\u00a0Baptists. Friends of the older school were determined, however, that it should\u00a0not die. In 1841 they obtained an Act of the Legislature, incorporating Waterville\u00a0Academy under a board of trustees, of whom the best remembered were Samuel Plaisted,\u00a0Edwin Noyes, Harrison Smith and Stephen Thayer.<\/p>\n It was not the act of incorporation, however, which gave the old Academy the\u00a0vigor to make it a great and lasting school. It was rather the coming of a new\u00a0principal, James H. Hanson, whose name and fame were to be identified with the\u00a0school long after Abner Coburn had built the new building and seen the name changed\u00a0in his honor.<\/p>\n There was not room in Waterville for two college preparatory schools. One of\u00a0them had to go. That it was the old Institute that died and the Academy (the new\u00a0Coburn) that lived is no reflection on the Universalists and no special credit to\u00a0the Baptists. Unfortunately the old Institute had no genius like Dr. Hanson to\u00a0assure its success and perpetuity. While the old school at the corner of Elm and\u00a0School Streets lasted, however, the Universalists had the satisfaction of saying\u00a0that while the Baptist society in waterville had the college for its mother, the\u00a0Universalist society had the Liberal InstitUte for its child.<\/p>\n The old map gave me another surprise; in 1853 the entrance to the Universalist\u00a0Church and the church tower faced across Silver Street to the east, not south toward\u00a0the triangle between Silver and Elm Streets.<\/p>\n I got a thrill when I saw plainly marked on the map a building I have mentioned\u00a0several times on this program — the old brick schoolhouse on College Avenue, directly\u00a0across from the end of Getchell Street, where the north end of the American\u00a0Legion building now stands.<\/p>\n Here’s another surprise. In 1853 the part of water Street that extends from\u00a0Bridge Street to Main Street did not exist. That was a closed lot. Teams coming up later Street went around the lots where Lockwood Park is now, just the way the new\u00a0rotary traffic now takes automobiles. In those days it was a more gradUaJ.:1 curve,\u00a0not a sharp turn from.Bridge Street into Lockwood Street as now.<\/p>\n A glance at that old map of 1853 reveals at once how, in Waterville’s very\u00a0early days when the town was a part of Winslow, the one road came up the river\u00a0bank over the plains and on into. Front Street before lower Main Street was ever\u00a0constructed. By 1853 when this map was drawn, Main Street did show all the way\u00a0from Lockwood Street to the Main Street railroad crossing, but it is <\/em>easy to see\u00a0how the direct route once ran from Water to Front Streets.<\/p>\n Surely many of you know that until fairly recent years there were buildings\u00a0on Lockwood Park. The largest faced the end of Main Street and was visible all\u00a0the way down that business thoroughfare. Part of it was once a hotel, and it always\u00a0contained stores.<\/p>\n Where the James Hotel now stands were the shops of the A and K Railroad. I\u00a0shall have an interesting story to tell about those shops on a later program.\u00a0What was known for years as the Noyes house, the present home of the YMCA\u00a0and earlier quarters of the BOyS Club, on Temple Street is <\/em>marked on the 1853 map\u00a0“T. Boutelle”. It was indeed the old home of the famous Squire Timothy Boutelle,\u00a0and became the inheritance of Squire Boutelle’s daughter, Mrs. Edwin Noyes, whose\u00a0husband, starting as a law student in the Boutelle office, had become in 1853, as\u00a0the list of map subscribers shows, superintendent of the Androscoggin and Kennebec\u00a0Railroad.<\/p>\n On that old map the house where Harvey Eaton now lives is <\/em>plainly marked “C.\u00a0Mathews”. This was, of course, Charles, the brother of the murdered Edward Mathews.\u00a0Since Edward had lived with his brother, Mr. Eaton is <\/em>quite right in <\/em>saying that he\u00a0lives at the same residence once made famous by Waterville’S first victim of\u00a0murder.<\/p>\n Year: 1951<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #95, broadcast on February 4, 1951<\/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":[786,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7200"}],"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=7200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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