An interesting feature of our times is the attention which manufacturing\u00a0companies and business institutions give to matters of local history. If you\u00a0are not fami liar with the adverti sements of the Cana I Nat i ona I Bank of Port I and,\u00a0you ought to notice them some time. That bank has a marvelous collection of\u00a0pictures and recorded items about Portland and vicinity covering many years.\u00a0By a remarkable coincidence, a few days after I talked on this program about\u00a0the old canal that made navigation possible from Portland to Sebago and its\u00a0tributary lakes, there appeared a Canal Bank ad, showing a drawing of one of\u00a0those cana I locks.<\/p>\n
The newest item of this kind to come to my attention does not come from\u00a0Portland, however, but from central Maine. It is a neat little pamphlet, describing\u00a0and showing cuts of the historical murals which I ine the walls of the\u00a0lobby of the Livermore Falls Trust Company — the bank with which the Sturtevant\u00a0fami Iy — three generations of Colby graduates — have long been associated.\u00a0One is the fami I iar picture of Washington Crossing the Delaware, displayed\u00a0in the Livermore Falls bank in order to call particular attention to one man in\u00a0the boat, Adj utant Eli sha W I II i ams, first school teacher I n the town of Li ve rmore.<\/p>\n
Another picture is the earl iest known photograph of Livermore Falls.\u00a0Another, called “Main Street Crossing”, shows a locomotive of the Androscoggin\u00a0Ra i I road in the 1 850 ‘s \u2022 Othe rs dep i ct the 0 I d cove red b ridge across the Androscoggin,\u00a0a six-ox team on Depot Street, and the growing vi 1 I age in 1860,\u00a0One picture of the Battle of Gettysburg calls attention to the particlpation\u00a0of twenty Livermore men in that crucial battle. Another shows Abraham\u00a0Lincoln walking “through the Washington station with EI ihu Washburn of Liver,.,\u00a0more, Congressman and close friend of the President. A copy of the well-known\u00a0picture of Lincoln and his cabinet shows Vice-President Hannibal Haml in, son\u00a0of livermore’s first physician, Or. Cyrus Hamlin. There are more than twenty\u00a0other pictures, showing local scenes at the Falls and other livermore vi I I ages\u00a0through the past century. Two pages of the pamphlet are appropriately devoted\u00a0to that remarkable Washburn fami Iy, about whom we talked on this program several\u00a0weeks ago. That one family furnished two governors of two different states,\u00a0four representatives to Congress from four states, one U. S. Senator, two foreign\u00a0ministers, a secretary of state, a major general of the Army, and a captain\u00a0In the Navy.<\/p>\n
We congratulate Mr. Reginald Sturtevant and his associates of the Livermore\u00a0Falls Trust Company on such sp lendld recogn I tion of thei r loca I history. Mr.\u00a0Sturtevant says that any of our listeners can obtain a copy of this booklet by\u00a0simply writing to the livermore Falls Trust Company.<\/p>\n
Have you ever cons i de red what anxieties and heart-rendlngs must have been\u00a0caused when the gold fever struck Centra I Maine in 1849 and the early 50 ‘s, and\u00a0stalwart sons left home for the gold fields? One such lad was James Green of\u00a0North Fairfield, and I know of no better way to help you understand what those\u00a0departures meant than to read you a letter written by James Green’s father to\u00a0a re lati ve in Nord dgewock in June, 1852.<\/p>\n
“J une the 27, 1852. I take th I s opportun I ty to wrl te a few Ii nes to let\u00a0you know that we are a II we II at present. We rece I ved your lette r the 25th.\u00a0We was g I ad to hear that you were a II we II. You wi sht to hear about James. I\u00a0suppose that you have not heard about the ship North America that James went\u00a0on was cast away on the 27 of February in the night. They went on the shoals\u00a04 days sal I from the Isthmus about .100 mi les from Axapulco In Mexico. We have\u00a0received 3 letters from him since he has been there. They all had to go on\u00a0mules and afoot to Axapulco. They were three days going, with 40 women and\u00a0children with nothing to eat. There were 1,000 passengers on board. James writes\u00a0he was on deck asleep when she struck. A dreadful confusion on board. The last\u00a0letter we received was dated 20 of Apri I. There was a sailing ship there that\u00a0was sent from San Francisco by government to take them to California. James\u00a0wrote they expected to sa i I that week. That is the I ast we have heard from him.\u00a0Old John Robins that I ives on Oak Hi II by your uncle John Holbrooks went with\u00a0James. He has returned home sick. He brought a letter fran James. James has\u00a0had the meas les and a run of the fever wh lie at Axapu Ico in Mexi co. But he\u00a0wrote in the last letter that his health was good.<\/p>\n
”We shall expect a letter from James as soon as he gets to Cal i fornla.\u00a0A. Varney and all the rest of the crew that went with James got off in a\u00a0steamer (200 was left with Janes) and have got to Cal itornia and wrote back .\u00a0Elbridge was sick on board with the measles. They settled in his legs so thathe has lost the use of them, but was getting better. Your Uncle Joel’s Stephen\u00a0and your Uncle Jonah’s John, that went out in December last, got there well.\u00a0But John has since died. Soon after he got in the mines he left $200 to be\u00a0sent back to his mother. It has almost ki lied his folks. fvbther and I was up\u00a0to Mercer last Sunday. They sent for us to come up. Your grandfather is sick\u00a0and he does not expect to Ii ve long. His sickness is dropsy. We shou I d have\u00a0come over but we have had no horse that we could go with. Both have got\u00a0colts but one week old, and we shall not be able to come out this summer. We\u00a0want to see you a II very much. M:>the r says if you will come out she w I I I do\u00a0your sew Ing for you. So do not fal I of coming. Mark and I have bui It a barn\u00a0and have finished it all off pretty much alone. We are poor as to money. It\u00a0has cost all that I can nake and scrape to build and rig James off with $300\u00a0James took with him. don ‘t expect I sha II be ab Ie to pay anyth i ng on that\u00a0note. I am in debt $100 now more than I can pay. S. Green.”<\/p>\n
In spite of the father’s hopes, James Green was never heard from again.\u00a0Probably he never reached California; otherwise some of the many boys who\u00a0went there from Central Maine would have heard from Mm. Did he die of dis …\u00a0ease In Acapulco (the elder Green spells it Axapulco)? Was he lost at sea between\u00a0Mexico and San Francisco? Or was he murdered? We know ‘that many of those\u00a0young men who left New England for the gold fields, especially those who went\u00a0by way of the Isthmus of Panama, were murdered for the money they carried.\u00a0Others met death by violence in the tough mining camps In the gold fields.\u00a0Think of those anguished months and years during which Farmer Green and\u00a0his wife up in North Fairfield waited day after day for a letter from James\u00a0or fran someone who could at least tell them what had happened to him. But both\u00a0father and mother went to thel r graves without any word from the boy.<\/p>\n
I am decidedly in favor of consolidated schools, where education can have\u00a0the same modern conveniences we all expect in our homes. I have no sympathy\u00a0with people who want to cut the school cafeterias, the assembly rooms and the\u00a0gymnaSiums, who see no place for art and music and home economics. They are\u00a0the very peop Ie who want electric stoves, deep freezers, and te levis I 00 sets\u00a0In the i r own homes.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, I am all for reasonable economy in the building of these new\u00a0school houses, and I can appreci ate a good yam I recent Iy heard about such a\u00a0bui Iding. A Maine town had voted a certain amount of money to build a consolIdated\u00a0school and had authorized a committee to employ an architect to submit\u00a0a plan. He seems to have been an extraordinary architect, because he held\u00a0strictly to the budgeted figures.\u00a0The committee Instructed him that the school must have the latest features\u00a0for comfort and convenience, as well as for instruction in subjects beyond the\u00a0three R’s.<\/p>\n
Came the day when the architect’s\u00b7 plan was displayed in the town hall for\u00a0all the citizens to see. It showed a visitor’s reception room, a principal’s\u00a0office, a supply room, a health clinic, a cafeteria, a kitchen, a locker room”\u00a0and a comb i ned gymnas i um and assemb Iy ha II. I t was a won de rfu I p I an unt i I an\u00a0old citizen, inspecting it mrefully through his spectacles, said: “It’s sur;:e\u00b7\u00a0I()ve I y, but where are the cl ass rooms?”<\/p>\n
“We haven’t forgotten them”, rep lied the archi tect. “Look in the four\u00a0comers of the plan and you will see In each comer a square marked 10′ x 10\u00a0feet. Those little squares are the classrooms. That’s all the space you have\u00a0left after you’ve put in the features you told me to be sure to include. You\u00a0insisted on the features and also demanded I stay within the budget. You Just\u00a0can ‘t have your cake and eat it.”<\/p>\n
A few weeks ago I heard an interesting incident about the old ice industry\u00a0of the Kennebec. I had supposed that every summer those huge ice houses along\u00a0the river were completely emptied, cleaned and readied for a new c~.p the next\u00a0winter. Such seems not to have been the case. When the large ice houses of\u00a0the American and Knicke.rbocker Companies from Gardiner to Ric;hmond were abandoned\u00a0and finally torn down, they still contained a bottom layer of solid ice,\u00a0melted together by the enormous weight of layer upon layer pi led above it to the\u00a0very eaves. That had happened year after year, and it is said to have been as\u00a0much as twenty years in some instances that the sol i d bottom layer had been\u00a0left untouched.<\/p>\n
Tradition has it that school houses and barns were once painted red because\u00a0red paint was cheap. Why was that so? How could one get red paint any\u00a0more cheaply than any other color? Throughout New England there are deposits\u00a0of reddish earth resembling red oxide of lead. In very early times somebody\u00a0discovered that the earth from these deposits would make an ingredient for very\u00a0cheap red paint. We are told that Squi re Brown of BrCMn’s Corner, now called\u00a0Riverside, in Vassalboro, discovered such a deposit on his farm, with the result\u00a0that in the early 1800’s red barns dotted the Vassalboro countryside.<\/p>\n
Here’s more in formati on on that word “scant II ng”. I have been approached\u00a0by dozens of people with at least half a dozen different interpretations. Some\u00a0lumberman insist a scantling, in their usage, was a small outside strip of\u00a0wood with the bark still on, something like a small slab. Others say it was a\u00a0kind of studd Ing; others thati t was the litt Ie brace put up aga inst the studding;\u00a0others that it was just any slat, wider at one end than at the other.<\/p>\n
That very helpful listener, One Eleven, who asked the question about\u00a0scantling in the fi rst place, now comes up with information gleaned in his recent\u00a0conversation with a carpenter-contractor of the old school, a man nOtl well\u00a0past the allotted three ;score years and ten. This old carpenter said: “By\u00a0golly, I don’t hear that word scantling on a house job any more, or at a saw\u00a0mill either. Fact is, they don’t get ’em out these days. Time was, though, when\u00a0they were as necessary as cedar shingles, on new work,that is. They came 8 or\u00a010 feet long and wider at one end than at the other. A I I tied up wi th tarred rope\u00a0I ike laths. About 24 to a bunch as I recall it. In bui Idlng a 2t story house,\u00a0we used to criss-cross the uprights with scantling on the inside of the studs.<\/p>\n
Once we had the outs i de boarded in, we knocked off the scant lings so the lathers\u00a0could go to work. Often we had to take off the scantlings in a hurry and split\u00a0a lot of them so they were good for nothing but kindling. HCMever, we sanetimes\u00a0found a use for even the broken ones. We used them as wedges to true up open-\u00a0I ngs and door jambs. I n the 0 I d days we never used wide boards care less Iy, even\u00a0though they were plentiful. Scantlings, instead of wide boards, were used for\u00a0bracing and propping all through a job. They were rough s.awed, and often the\u00a0bark of the spruce was left on In <\/em>p laces where the saw ‘ran out’. That’s the\u00a0way it used to be, but today if you can’t fi;nd a board, don’t look for a scantI\u00a0i n9. There just at n ‘t any nowadays.”<\/p>\n Year: 1954<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #216, broadcast on February 28, 1954<\/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":[749,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7385"}],"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=7385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}