Some of you will remember how Waterville was honored last June by the presence of Mrs. Gilbreth at the Colby Commencement. Mrs. Gilbreth, you know, was\u00a0the heroine mother of that very popular book “Cheaper by the Dozen”, written by\u00a0her son and her daughter. What I find unfamiliar to many Waterville people is\u00a0the fact that Mrs. Gilbreth’s famous husband, Frank Gilbreth, world-renowned industrial\u00a0counselor, came from Fairfield, Maine. To be sure, he left town when\u00a0he was a young child, but back in the 1870’s the Gilbreth family was very well\u00a0known in Fairfield.<\/p>\n
Through the courtesy of Mr. Stephen Wing of the Waterville Savings Bank, I\u00a0have had opportunity to examine several letters signed by Frank Gilbreth’s father,\u00a0J. H. Gilbreth. They are all on the Gilbreth printed letter-head, which\u00a0reads as follows: “J. H. Gilbreth, dealer since 1855 In Hardware, Farmers’ and\u00a0Mechanics’ Tools, iron, steel, stoves, paints, oils, varnishes, and building material.\u00a0Manufacturer of tin and sheet iron ware. Corner Main and Bridge streets, Kendalls MI J Is, Maine. Also proprietor of the Fairground Farm (130\u00a0acres) where can be seen Gilbreth Knox stock. Also pure Jersey stock, and Cheshire\u00a0and Yorkshire swine from the best families in the country.”<\/p>\n
These particular letters deal with Mr. Gilbreth’s attempt to clean up a\u00a0matter of land purchase. On May 5, 1871 he wrote to William Dyer, president of\u00a0the Waterville Savings Bank: up lease do me the favor to write me the amount you\u00a0and the trustees thought proper for me to pay to have a quit claim of the lot of\u00a0land and buildings east of the Main Street or County Road, as it is called, at\u00a0the Bodfish farm. If you forgot to present the subject to the trustees, please\u00a0think of it at your next meeting. ”<\/p>\n
On September 23, when Mr. Gf Ibreth was about to start on a journey, he\u00a0wrote to Mr. Dyer a letter which contains a final sentence that is typical of\u00a0the implicit honesty of business men of that time. He wrote: “I could not get\u00a0to Waterville this afternoon until after your business hours at the bank, so\u00a0am sending you the Winslow mortgage by mail as collateral with his notes you\u00a0haw. must leave on a trip early tanorrow morning. If this is not all satisfactory, of course I will do what is satisfactory.”<\/p>\n
The last of the three letters is dated December 12. It is signed “Solon\u00a0Bunker for J. H. Gilbreth” and reads: “Mr. Gilbreth has been quite sick since\u00a0you were here and wishes me to say that he needs the money very much.”\u00a0This is all a bit confusing, and we can only conjecture what it was all\u00a0about. We think, however, that Mr. Gilbreth succeeded In straightening out completely his affairs with the Waterville Savings Bank.<\/p>\n
It is a long time since I have seen any stationery like that on which the\u00a0Gilbreth letters are written, though I saw lots of it as a boy. It is folded\u00a0into four pages, like modern social stationery, except that it is ruled. At the\u00a0top of the first page is printed the letter head. And now canes the odd point\u00a0with which many of you may not be familiar. The entire fourth page is devoted\u00a0to advertisements. I know in Bridgton fifty years ago that was the way many\u00a0business men paid for their stationary — by selling advertisements to be placed\u00a0on it by other business men — I suspect that was done. in Fairfield, when J. H.\u00a0Gilbreth provided himself with this stationery about 1870.<\/p>\n
Who were some of the dealers who carried ads on the back of Mr. Gilbreth’s\u00a0letters? There were F. Kendrick and Brother, manufacturers of carriages and\u00a0sleighs; Frank P. Wing, dealer In furniture, feathers, and caskets; Tukey and\u00a0James, who made curtain fixtures; E. H. Evans, the druggist, who also sold books,\u00a0fancy goods, and jewelry; J. F. Dealy, the meat man; and S. S. Brown, counselor\u00a0at law. Since in 1870 Kendalls Mills was a famous center for lumber and wood\u00a0products, the ads of the lumber dealers and mill operators predominate. There\u00a0are no less than seven of them: N. Totman and Son; Newhall and Gibson; E. Totman\u00a0and Co.; John Philbrook. Woodman, Lawrence and Co.; Emery, Bradbury and Co.;\u00a0and C. and J. M. Fogg.<\/p>\n
But the most interesting ad of all is one printed upside down in the lower\u00a0left-hand corner. It was obviously placed there by Mr. Gilbreth himself. It pictures a trotter, harnessed to a high-wheeled sulky leading a heat of nine entries\u00a0to the wire in front of the judges’ stand at a race track. Beneath the picture\u00a0is printed: “Gilbreth Knox, 2:26 3\/4; best half in a race, 1 :10*; best\u00a0quarter, 34i seconds. The sire of Lothair, sold for $5,000 when three years old.\u00a0Gilbreth Knox was awarded the two highest prizes at the New Eng land Fair in 1869.<\/p>\n
First prize, Maine State Agricultural Society, 1868. J. H. Gilbreth, his owner,\u00a0is also a dealer in hardware, stoves, agricultural tools, etc. and is agent for\u00a0the Clipper Mowing Machine for six counties. Comer of Main and Bridge Streets.”<\/p>\n
Inasmuch as we have started out with Kendalls Mills tonight, let us keep on\u00a0with some more facts about the tQl\/n of Fairfield. It was originally in both of\u00a0the same counties’;with Waterville. Did you catch what I said — both of the same\u00a0counties? For Waterville and Fairfield alike were originally In Lincoln County,\u00a0which covered at one time a huge tract of land noW divided Into six counties, and\u00a0parts of a seventh and an eighth. Kennebec County was formed in 1799, and from\u00a0that year until 1809, both Waterville and Fairfield were in Kennebec. Then\u00a0with the organizing of Somerset County in 1809, the county line passed between\u00a0Waterville and Fairfield, placing the latter in the new county.\u00a0Like Waterville and Winslow, the land titles of Fairfield go back to the\u00a0year 1661, when Artemas Boris, Edward Tyng, Thomas Brattle and John Winslow purchased\u00a0from the Plymouth Colony what is known as the Kennebec Patent. It embraced\u00a0all the land west of the Kennebec River between Topsham and Norridgewock and\u00a0certain lands on the east side of the river above Augusta.<\/p>\n
More than a century later, In 1781, John Winslow, a descenoant of one of\u00a0the four who purchased the Plymouth rights, granted, together with his associates,\u00a0heirs of the other purchasers, a certain tract of land to Joseph Nye of\u00a0Sandwich, Massachusetts, and Joseph Dirnmock of Falmouth, Massachusetts it was\u00a0described as “a parcel of land lying on the west side of the Kennebec River\u00a0above Fort Halifax and Tlconlc Falls, In the county of Lincoln, containing by\u00a0estimation 11,700 acres, exclusive of roads. For that tract, covering nearly\u00a0all of the territory now occupied by the town of Fairfield, Nye and mirriffioce”paid\u00a01,800 pounds, lawful silver money. One hundred and twenty years earlier, the\u00a0first John Winslow and his three associates had paid 400 pounds for the entire\u00a0vast tract from Topsham to Norridgewock. But of course that was only shortly\u00a0after the notorious purchase of Manhattan Island by the Dutch for $24.\u00a0Under the terms of the purchase Nye and Dirnmock were required to layout “a\u00a0road, eight rods wide, to be completed across the tract within five years, and\u00a0kept fit for trneling by carts. They were also required to divide the tract\u00a0into sixty lots and obtain settlers.\u00a0Nye and Dimmock proceeded to sell lots to acquaintances in Falmouth” Sandwich,\u00a0and other Massachusetts towns, at a price of thirty pounds per lot. Among\u00a0those first settlers were three Nyes, four Bowermans, five Tobeys, two Lawrences,\u00a0two Blackwells, two Atwoods, and such other well known Fairfield names as Wing,\u00a0Kendall, Shepard, Emery and Holway.\u00a0In the early days the largest settlement was not at what is now Fairfield\u00a0Village, but at Fairfield Center, with North Fairfield running it a close second.<\/p>\n
On what was later known as the Abel Hoxie farm, was born Alden Bowerman, the\u00a0first white child born in Fairfield.\u00a0There had been settlers near the river, however, not far from the present\u00a0Fairfield Village, as early as 1776, when one who is called in the records Peter\u00a0Pushard (was he actually the first of the Pishons of Pishon Ferry fame?) built\u00a0a log house not far from where the Fairfield railroad station now stands.\u00a0Fourteen years later, in 1780, general William Kendall built another log\u00a0cabin south of Pushards. He also built a bulkhead across the mill pond and\u00a0erected a small grist mill, bringing his mill stones up from Gardiner as far as\u00a0Ticonic Falls by boat, and from there to Fairfield by ox team.<\/p>\n
General Kendall is said to have been Fairfield’s first freemason, becoming\u00a0such in 1804. On his death in 1827 he was buried with masonic service in the\u00a00ld cemetery on Emery HiII. He was the first of Fairfield’s many mill operators,\u00a0not only grinding grain but also sawing lumber in considerable quantity. When\u00a0we remember that General Kendall had come to Fairfield in 1780, It Is remarkable\u00a0to note that his son, George Kendall, lived until 1900, dying at Fairfield in\u00a0that year, six months after he had passed his one hundredth birthday. He is one\u00a0of the few men I have ever heard of whose life spanned exactly all the years of\u00a0the nineteenth century.<\/p>\n
Fairfield was incorporated as a town in 1788, thus making it 17 years\u00a0younger than Winslow, but fourteen years 0lder than Waterville.\u00a0The first town meeting was held at the home of Seth Fuller on August 19,\u00a01788. The first selectmen were Josiah Burgess, Elihu Bowerman and Joseph Town.\u00a0Samuel Tobey was both town clerk and treasurer. Lemuel Tobey and Daniel Wyman\u00a0were elected tithingmen. The importance of lumber to the tewn was shown by the\u00a0choosing of James Lawrence, Daniel Shepard, Jonathan Emery, and John Nobel as\u00a0surveyors of lumber. Gideon Holway was constable, and Thomas Blackwell was\u00a0elected to an office common in old England but less common in American towns,\u00a0that of hog reeve. James Huston was appointed to see that “the snares were not\u00a0made waste of”. Does anyone know what that meant?<\/p>\n
The records of that first town meeting in Fairfield show that the custom\u00a0of letting out the collection of taxes to the highest bidder goes back at least\u00a0as far as 1788. For at Fairfield in that year Joshua Blackwell offered to\u00a0collect the taxes at ten pence upon the pound, and the tam voted to accept\u00a0his offer, although the clerk wrote it “except”. That clerk was authorized\u00a0to provide himself with books for the town and to bring in the charge at some\u00a0future meeting for the town to pay.\u00a0We have some knowledge of what taxes Collector Blackwell had to round up,\u00a0for ten years later taxes were assessed on 90 Fairfield residents. The highest\u00a0tax paid by anyone of the 90 was $3.23.<\/p>\n
As we have said the first houses were log cabins. The first frame house is\u00a0said to have been built by Gideon Holway near what was called the Moosehorn, and\u00a0the first frame house in Fairfield Village was the William Emery house, where\u00a0Benedict Arnold spent several days waiting for his bateaux to be tarred before\u00a0his expedition continued up the river.\u00a0It was five years after incorporation as a town that for the first time\u00a0Fairfield raised money to support schools. The amount was 25 pounds to be paid\u00a0in grain and produce.<\/p>\n
After General Kendall’s mills there were several small saw mills erected,\u00a0and between 1820 and 1830 developed the big block of saw mills for which Kendalls\u00a0Mills became famous. These were completely destroyed by fire in 1853 at\u00a0a loss of $100,000. They were rebuilt, even expanded, as photographs taken in\u00a0the 1870’s clearly show. Another devastating fire in 1895 wiped them out, and\u00a0only a few were ever rebuilt.<\/p>\n
The first store in the village was run by that giant of all trades, General\u00a0Kendall, and the first post office was in the store next north of Lawry Brothers.\u00a0From 1848 to 1873 the toll bridge was operated by Captain William Bodfish.\u00a0Did you know that Fairfield once had an academy? In 1857 a school called\u00a0Bunker’S Seminary operated in a brick building at the comer of Lawrence Avenue\u00a0and Newhall Street.\u00a0lowe so much to Mr. Stephen Wing for a large part of this information about\u00a0old-Time Fairfield, that I want to conclude this program by paying respects to\u00a0his family line, which goes back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.<\/p>\n
Only two years after Winthrop had founded that colony in 1630 a widow, Mrs.\u00a0Deborah Wing, came to Boston the ship “William and Frances”, with her four Sons and her father. They settled at Saugus and founded the Wing family in\u00a0America.\u00a0As time went on, one of the Wings moved to Sandwich, where he became a\u00a0neighbor of the Nyes. By 1700 some of the fami Iy had come to Maine, settling\u00a0chiefly in the general area of Liveriypre, Wayne, Canton and Peru.\u00a0Stephen is a name that frequently appears in the Wing genealogy. From one\u00a0of Deborah’s sons, Stephen, born in England in 1621, down to the present Steve\u00a0Wing of Fairfield, there are nine generations and five of the nine names are\u00a0Stephen. The present Stephen Wing’s father was named for a president of the\u00a0United States, for he was called Franklin Pierce Wing.<\/p>\n
And with that salute to the wings I bid you good night.<\/p>\n
Year: 1951<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #126, broadcast on December 9, 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\/7267"}],"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=7267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}