I appreciate the kindness of anyone who points out an error or a significant omission in my book HKennebec Yesterdays”. made an honest a,ttempt to make the statements in that book accurate and in accor~ance with the factual occurrences~ just so far as those incidents could be checked. It is a\/most inlevitable, however~ that in such an attempt a few errors wi II slip by. A number of Winslow residents have called my attention to one which I certainiy ought to have noticed myself in the proofs before final printing.<\/p>\n
In connection with the flood of 1901, the book says, “The covered bridge over the Sebasticook was moved from its foundations, but did not go out.” Now I knew better than that. The bridge did go out, and washed down against the railroad bridge, where much of it broke up~ and as the waters subsided, a great deal of debris from the old covered bridge washed under the railroad bridge and out into the Kennebec. The error crept I nto the book by tak i n9 a statement made in the Watervi I Ie Senti ne I before the flood was over. The newspaper stated that on the same day that the Ticonic footbridge was smashed and a part of it carried away, the Sebasticook bridge was partially pushed off its foundations, but sti II stood. I t was the next day that saw the Sebasti cook b ri dge swept down against the railroad bridge.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Ethel Wight of Old Orchard sends me an interesting item about the old Oxford Canal that used to connect Sebago Lake with the ocean. Mrs. Wight says that when he r mother was a gi r I I i vi ng at South Wi ndham, it was a comrron si ght to see the powder boats go down the cana I. At a p I ace then ca lied Gambo, but now ca lied Newha II, gun powder was made for use in the Ci vii War. Loaded on canal barges, pulled along by eight yoke of oxen on the canal tow-path, the powder was taken to Stroudwater and then loaded on sh ips for transportation to ports nearer the batt I ef i e I ds.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Wight’s grandfather had a permanent lameness which, much to his disappointment, unfitted him for mi I itary service. Determined to do his part to preserve the Union, he obtained employment in the dangerous occupation of making gunpowder in the mil I at Gambo.<\/p>\n
We haven’t said much on this program about Readfield; yet we must not forget that it has long been an important town in Kennebec County, and one with an honorable history. So let us devote a few minutes tonight to the Readfield Union Meeting House.<\/p>\n
On June 12, 1828 forty-three citizens of the community, describing themselves as trowners and proprietors of the meeting house recently erected at Readfield Corners” petitioned a justice of the peace to call a legal meeting for the purpose of organizing a society cal led the Readfield Union ~~eting House Company.<\/p>\n
Now 1828 was a very early date for people with strong denominational convictions to be talking about a union meeting house. A meeting house without organic connection with any religious body and recognizing no ecclesiastical authority, standing forth in complete independence, was most unusual. Yet it should be borne in mind that our Maine pioneers were not so denominationally conscious as were their chi Idren and grandchildren. In all the old records one seldom encounters the word “church”, and never when referring to the bui Iding in which worship occurred. The term is always “meeting house” — the place where the people met.<\/p>\n
There is a second point about the Readfield Meeting House that is unusual.<\/p>\n
The petition used the words “owners and proprietors of the meeting house recent- lyerected l1 \u2022 These petitioners had actually bul It their meeting house before they set up a legal organization to operate it. They had done the work before they began to ta Ik about hand ling the resu It.<\/p>\n
The Readf i e I d records are comp lete Iy silent on the pat i ent toi I and determination that must have gone into the raising of more than $10,000 to bui Id the structure. We do not know what took place in the actual erection of the bui 1- ding.<\/p>\n
An unfinished wooden bui Iding that stood on the chosen lot was torn down.<\/p>\n
Deciding to bui Id the meeting house of substantial brick, the proprietors arranged to open a bri ck yard on the farm of Franci sHunt, about a mi Ie south of Readfield Corners, on the Winthrop Road. The corner stone was laid, believe it or not, by the Masonic Grand Lodge of Maine, not by any union of Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, or others. On May 24, 1827, with Rev. Ivan A. Drew of Augusta as orator, the stone was laid and a si Iver p late marked the names of bui Iders, bui Iding committee, and the masonic officers participating in the ce remon i es \u2022<\/p>\n
On the 52nd anniversary of American independence, July 4, 1828, the owners and proprietors formed their legal organization, and drew up a constitution which provided that !leach religious sect or denomination having individual members in the corporation shall forever have the right to supply the pulpit in this meeting house with preaching such portion of the year as shal I be equal to the portion owned in the meeting house”.<\/p>\n
From earliest New England days the colonial legislatures had approved and legal ized a regular tax on all property owners to provide preaching. It was that tax that led to the controversy in the town of Canaan in 1796 — a story which is recorded in “Kennebec Yesterdays”. The Readfield corporation put it into their constitution that lIno tax shall ever be assessed on the pews In this meeting house for the support of preaching in the samell. But not even this liberally established meeting house had free pews. In 1828 that simply was not done. So in the Readfield Union Meeting House the pews were sold and each purchaser found in his deed a statement of his right to occupy that particular pew not only a~ services of worship, but also at al I public or orivate meetings held in the b u i I ding.<\/p>\n
During the early years services were held chiefly by Methodists and Universal ists, although there is occasional mention of the Baptists and Congreqationalists.<\/p>\n
But whoever attended the services in the hard, straight-backed, uncushioned pews, was expected to be tough and hardy, for in 1836 the organization voted “not to admit of any apparatus being put into the Union Meeting House to warm the same ll \u2022<\/p>\n
T he most promi nent members of the corporati on in the 1840 IS were Ti mothy O’Howe and Lot M. Morri I I. Both became prominent in state and national affairs, one serving as governor, and both as U. S. Senators and members of the presidential cabinet.<\/p>\n
Such was the beginning of Readfield’s Union Meeting House.<\/p>\n
That constant friend of this program, One Eleven, says that he recently ta I ked with a col lector of i nformati on aboutra i I roads, who confi rms my own opinion that it was the Clvi I !lIar which started Sunday trains. It is the often repeated confl jct between two duties. Religious duty lay heavy upon our grandfathers.<\/p>\n
That duty forbade on Sunday any work which could possibly be avoided.<\/p>\n
Then in 1861 the nation was at war. More than that, those sternly relig i ous New Eng I ande rs found the very life of the Un i on at stake. TrooD movements compel led the passage of trains on Sunday. After four years of such common practice, without apparent harm to the cause of religion, Sunday trains gradua Ily came to be customary and unquestioned.<\/p>\n
Even before the comi ng of Sunday tra i ns, there were ra i I road men who worked on Sunday. Accord i ng to our informant, that was the day when the locomoti ve was made ready for another week’s work, and the job required a fairly large crew.<\/p>\n
Not only the hostlers, as the locomotive cleaners were called, by analogy from the horse and carriage use, but also a crew of women was kept busy sweeping out the coaches and wash i ng the wi ndows, to have what everybody then ca lIed the “steam ca rs” in read i ness for Monday morn i ng .<\/p>\n
Everyone down near the mouth of the Kennebec, and a lot of peop Ie a II over Maine, know that one of the great New England figures of the later 17th century was Sir Will i am Ph i P”, the conqueror of Nova Scoti a and governor of the Provi nce of Massachusetts Bay. For him the Maine town of Phippsburg is named. Born in 1650 on what one historian called “a despicable plantation on the river Kennebeck ,t, Ph i P was one of the great men of co I on i a I Ma i ne. The story of how he came to be knighted by his king is worthy of a place on this program. and here it is.<\/p>\n
In 1683 Phip, who was always looking for adventure that could be turned into profit, heard that in the West Indies there had been wrecked a Spanish ship richly laden with si Iver. He persuaded the British government to supply him with a vessel, for which he would recruit a crew to try to secure the treasure.<\/p>\n
Cleverly suppressing a muti ny, the p lot of which was disclosed to him by the loyal ship’s carpenter, Phip made a fruitless search for the Spanish wreck and had to return to England without success.<\/p>\n
But Wi II i am Ph i P was not a man to be eas i Iy defeated. Securi ng the patronage of the Duke of Albermarle, he fitted out another ship, secured a more loyal crew, and returned to the Caribbean. He made a canoe large enough to carry eight men, and with the help of an old Spaniard, continued search for the treasure.<\/p>\n
One day, as the canoe was return i ng to the sh i p after repeated di sappointments for Phip, one of the men looking into the water saw what looked like a feather growing out of the rock. Anl.ndian diver was sent down~ who returned with a big lump of silver and reported seeing many guns. The find was certainly a sunken ship.<\/p>\n
Phip now set to work, with the instruments prepared before he left England, to bring to the surface the contents of the wreck. In a comparatively short time he brought up the immense quantity of 22 tons of si lver. The ship was a Spanish gal leon~ lost in 1637, returning from South America, from which Spain was then securing rich hauls of si Iver. In 1687, just half a century after the wreck, William Phip arrived in London with salvage from that old carao which reached the prodigious value of a mi I lion, five hundred thousand dol lars. The largest portion went to the patron, the Duke of Albermarle; a goodly part went to the Crown; generous shares were received by the crew of the British ship; and Phip himself got about $75,000.<\/p>\n
It was probab Iy the Duke of AI bermar Ie who preval led upon the king to bestow knighthood upon Wi I I <\/em>iam Phip for bringing such rich treasure into England.<\/p>\n And that is how Wi I I i am Ph i p, born “on a desp i cab Ie pI antati on on the ri ver Kennebeck” became Sir William Phip, a knight of England.<\/p>\n How did the city of Augusta get its name? In 1714 the so-called Pejepscot Purchase fell into the hands of several men who formed the Pejepscot Company to develop settlements around and above Merrymeeting Bay. Brunswick and Topsham were settled, then Georgetown and Arrowsic near the river’s mouth. At Small <\/em>Point in 1716 the company started a fishing vi I lage at the head of tide, and named it Augusta in honor of the English queen. Its patron and founder was one of the Pejepscot proprietors, Dr. 01 <\/em>iver Noyes. The vi Ilage <\/em>lasted only six years, for in 1722 it was completely wiped out by hosti Ie Indians.<\/p>\n At Cushnoc, the site of modern Augusta, the Pilgrims had established a trading post as early as 1628. It was abandoned in 1666 because of Indian troubles, the effects on the fur trade of the eivi I War in England~ and the influx of French traders from Quebec. For nearly a hundred years the place saw no permanent settlers. Then, with the building of fort Western in 1754, settlement was revived. By 1770 it had become actually larger than the older settlement at the Hook,. the old name for Ha I lowe II Vi Ilage. I n fact, when the tOtin of Ha I lowe II was incorporated in 1771, the first town meeting was held, not at the Hook, but at Fort Western.<\/p>\n As time went on, division of the town became inevitable, and in 1797 the section around Fort Western was set off as a separate town called Harrington, in honor of lord Harrington, minister in the cabinet of George II. Within a year the name had been changed to Augusta, t n rememb rance of Dr. Noyes’ fish i n9 settlement\u00a0 of 1716.<\/p>\n Year: 1954<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #244, broadcast on December 12, 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\/7470"}],"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=7470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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