During recent weeks I have said so much about the need for more attention to maThematics and science, both in high school and in col lege, that might easi Iy be accused of deserting the academic devotion of my life — the liberal arts. assure you no such desertion is intended. It is just as important that The scientist have broad training in literature and history and the behavioral studies as it is that non-scientists know something about science. But the fact is that it is not mere knowledge that is important, but rather breadth of understanding. This point is made exceedingly clear by Henry 8. DuPont, vice-president of the great DuPont company. Mr. DuPont might be expected to demand scientific specialists, devoting at I their education to the fields of science, engineering and technology. Instead he made, in a speech at Miami, Florida a few weeks ago, a strong plea for liberal education. Mr. DuPont said: !~he role of leadership in tomorrow’s world wi II be assumed’neither by those who know a great dea I about a very I itt Ie, nor by those who know a very little about a great deal. It wi II be discharged only by those whose thinking is broad and uninhibited, those with grasp and understanding — leaders, in short, whose horizons are wide enough to comp rehend the wor I din wh i ch we live.”<\/p>\n
As Mr. DuPont very well knows, that conception is The basic objective of the I iberal arts .. It is the conception of education which liberal arts col leges like Colby have maintained for many decades, and which they are constantly striving to adjust to the needs of changing society without sacrifice of the essential idea of breadth of understanding.<\/p>\n
Ton 19ht I et me say a f ina I word about those famous re I ati ves from Skowhegan, Madison and Norridgewock, who went to California in the 1850’s and became wea I thy ranchers, I and owners and traders.<\/p>\n
When we sTarted the story several weeks ago, I told you how the Flints and the Bixbys came to be related. Electra Weston married Wi II iam FI int of Anson; her sister Fanny married Amasa Bixby of Norridgewock. Fanny Bixby’s son Llewellyn was therefore own cousin to Electra Flint’s sons Benjamin and Thomas. The two Flint boys were also own cousins to Benjamin P. J. It\/eston, one of ~~adison’s most prominent citizens in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and whose beautiful home at the end of Weston Avenue is sti I I occupied by his daughter.<\/p>\n
Ben Flint was the first of the group to go to California, arriving at the mining town of Volcano, near Sutter’s Mi II, where had been discovered the gold which started The great rush. Ben reached the gold fields in 1849, the year when his brother Thomas took his medical degree in Phi ladelphia.<\/p>\n
Within a few months after Thomas and Llewellyn joined Benjamin in 1851; other relativps had brought the total to more than a dozen in the district around Volcano. fv10st of them engaged in mining, with varying success. But from the very first, the two Flint brothers and Llewellyn Bixby saw that profits came sooner and surer by catering to the miners’ needs. From trading they branched into ranching, and in a few years owned ranches in both northern and southern California. At one time they held title to six ranches, total inq a mi Ilion acres of land.<\/p>\n
The flock of sheep that Thomas and Llewellyn drove across the country in 1853 increased rap i d I y, unti I at the he i ght of the i r ooerati ons F I i nt., Bixby and Company were shearing nearly two mi 1\/ ion sheep.<\/p>\n
Thomas F lint lived to see one of his sons become I ieutenant governor of Ca Ii forni a, wh i Ie Benjami n’s son vii <\/em>II i am was for two terms a Ca Ii forn i a state senator.<\/p>\n Dr. Thomas FI int, wealthy and respected leader in Cal ifornia’s marvelous development, died in 1904, fifty-seven years after that grim September night in far-away Waterv i II e, r,,1a i ne. Oi d Thomas reca I I that night? Perhaps he de Ii berately put it out of his mind. At least, in her recollections of her uncle; Sarah Bixby Smith’s writings never mention it. Perhaps, unknown to his relatives and friends” the marvelously successful Thomas Flint did remember how close he came to wrecking his whole future when he helped the notorious Dr. Cool idge dispose of Ed MaThews’ bodv in a store cellar on \\1atervi lie’s Main Street. Perhaps he remained forever grateful to his wise, straight-thinking father, who persuaded him to tel I the whole truth at Coolidge’s trial in Augusta’s old Congregational Church in 1848.<\/p>\n Between 1875 and 1880 a whole series of county atlases were published in Maine. have referred more than once to those covering Kennebec and Somerset counTies, and I want to return to the Kennebec atlas again tonight, just to remind you what this town of Watervi lie was I ike three-quarters of a century ago.<\/p>\n Because the big atlas has a whole pa~e devoted to Watervi I Ie, with many bui Idings clearly marked, the volume tells us a great deal. The first unit of the Lockwood Mi lis had just been bui It. <\/strong>Just below it were two big saw mi lis of Smith and Meader, and close above the bridge was the grist mi” of Is3ac Bangs, which gave rise to the later name of Bangs Station of the Central Maine Power Company.<\/p>\n Back from Appleton Street, with an approach also from Front Street, was Charles Hathaway’s original bui Iding, only slightly enlarged. The atlas gives it the I abe I “C. F. Hathaway & Co., Sh i rt Manufactory Out on the Messalonskee, just downstream from what is now the pumping station, were the sash and bl ind plant of J. Furbish, the factory of Butterfield and Dow, and the tannery_ Sti II <\/strong>further downstream, beyond the Si Iver Street bridge, was the boot and shank factory of Roberts and Marston.<\/p>\n The fre i ght house of the Ma i ne Centra I Ra i I road stood about whe re its tands now, but the rai I road shops were in front of it, on the corner formed by the intersection of College Avenue end Chapl in street. Dr. Boutel Ie,. son of Squi re Timothy, sti I I lived in the old fami Iv home on Col lege Avenue near the lower rai I road crossing. Daniel \\I\/ing, one of the editors of the Watervi lie Mail ~ lived where I ater was the home of the DKE fraternity, oppos i te Getche II Street on Col lege Avenue. R. B. Dunn and R. W. Dunn had homes side by side on the opposite side of the avenue. Just below Getchell Street was the ancestral home of the prominent Phi Ibrick fami Iy,. later associated with the \\~atervi lie Iron Works.<\/p>\n The hotel on lower Main Street, across from the foot of Si Iver Street .\u2022 carries in this 1879 atlas the same name that it had when the murderer Coolidge I j ved there in 1847 — The Will jams House.<\/p>\n As for the vicinity of what is now my own Watervi lie residence near the corner of Winter and Pleasant Streets, E. R. Drummond, the banker, lived on Pleasant betwwen Park and Center. Mark Gal lert, prominent and respected merchant, lived on the south side of Center, just around the corner from Elm Street. The big house near the northeast corner of Pleasant and Winter: where Charles Crosby now lives, is marked on the atlas PM. C. Percivaf’~. The next house to the north is labeled nEe Piper”, and the one at the corner of Pleasant and Park, l!L. T. Boothby!!. My house had not then been bui It, but the adjoining brick house, now the residence of the head of this radio station, Mr. Carleton Brown, was then the property of a Mr. Whitney. Two doors below was a house owned by r.r1oses Lyford, although he actually lived at the corner of Main and Getche I I Streets.<\/p>\n The Town Hal I, which the atlas shows placed endwise to Front Street, was of course the original meeting house erected before ~Jaterville became a separate town in 1802; and wh i ch had on I y recent I y been removea T”Uili Il~ lOT on Tne Town common when this atlas was published.<\/p>\n Publ ic bui Idings which stood in 1879 just where they sti” stand in 1956″ and wh i ch are sti” used for the same purpose, are the Fi rst Bapti st Church, the Methodist Church, the Congregational Church, St. Francis Church, and the Universalist Church. The Unitarian Church has since been torn down, and in 1879 the church bui Idings of the Adventists, the Christian Scientists, and the Assembly of God, and the Notre Dame and Sacred Heart parishes had not been bu i It.<\/p>\n We hear a lot about how old and outworn are some of Watervi lie’s schoolhouses, but fortunately none now in use are old enough to be included in the 1879 atlas. The old high school at the corner of Pleasant and School Streets is gone, and in its place we have the modern Junior High School. The old schoolhouse at North and Pleasant Streets was replaced, eight years after this atlas came out, by the North Grammar School.<\/p>\n The homes we sti I I know as the Meader and Ware houses on Si Iver Street bore those same names in 1879, but what many of us long knew as the Terrv estate; now the home of a cloistered order, was then owned by E. K. Emerson. It had been bui It in the 1830’s by Simeon Mathews, father of Dr. Cool idge’s murder victim. South of the Emerson house (or, if you prefer, the Terry house), there was nothing but vacant lots on both sides of Si Iver Street unti lone came to the very end of the street, where were two houses owned by the Webber fami Iy, and just around the corner on Grove Street was the Havi land house.<\/p>\n On Sherwin Street were several pieces of property owned by the Redin9- tons, and at the other end of the town on Upper ~~ain Street the Boutelles owned many acres and several houses. Where the Esso Station and the First National Store and its parking lot are now located were three of Watervi fle!s most i mpos i ng res i dences, those of the Plaisteds, the fv1eaders and the Thayers. Nathaniel Gi Iman, wealthiest of Watervi lie’s early citizens, had been dead for 25 years bv 1879, but his widow sti I I lived in the bi g house wh i ch is now the S i I ver Street Servi ce Stat j on.<\/p>\n Edwin Noyes, treasurer of the A & K Rai Iroad, lived in the house on Temple Street which had come to him and his wife from her father, Squire Timothy Boute lie. That house is now headquarters of the Watervi lie Y.M.C.A. A building on Silver Street is still called the\u00b7HeytMxrl Apartments because in 1879 it was the property of a well-to-do widow called ~1me. H”eyWoc)(1. The post office was near the northeast corner of Common and r\\1ain Streets.<\/p>\n The atlas shows a vacant lot where the Sel Whitcomb store was later situated, but just north of that vacant lot, where the upper corner of the Montgomery Ward bui Iding now stands, was Watervi I Ie’s post office in 1879. The fire station was on Main Street, about where the Savings Bank is now located. In fact that is where the fire station stood in 1910, when I r\u00b7ushed across the street from Ma Jones’ Hanford boarding house to borrow a Sti llson wrench, and the fireman thought I was sounding a fire alarm. But that is another story. Letis get back to 1879.<\/p>\n The Ticonic Bank was just below where is now Ray Pape’s store. The bank was in a I ittle, one-story, gable roofed bui Iding, and a few doors farther south, in an equally unimposing structure:, was the Savings Bank. The Peoples Bank was on the other side of the street near the present site of Larry~s Drug Store. The ~Id bui Iding of Watervi I Ie Academy stood in 1879 exactly where was later bui It the big Coburn Institute bui Iding, which burned only a little more than a year ago.<\/p>\n Seventy-five years ago \\1aterville had two big livery stables, one on Silver Street where the factory annex of the Hathaway Company is now located~ and the other behind the stores on the north side of East Temple Street.<\/p>\n Let’s close tonight with a couple of old-time tJ:aine stories. Down in Knightvi I Ie, which is now a part of South Portland, they used to tel I about a preacher who was careful lest he give offense to any of his congregation.<\/p>\n His caution went to such extremes that my grandmother declared the oreacher once concluded a sermon by saying, ~?And so I say to you, repent your sins, more or less; ask forgiveness in a measure, or you wi II be damned, to some extent. H<\/p>\n A farmer up in Franklin County had the reputation of makinq the neiqhborhood’s worst cider, because he would never allow any good apples to go into the press. In an unusually generous mood after a hard day’s work in the wood lot._ he paid his neighbor helper the customary fifty cents for his day’s labor: then added a gallon of cider as a bonus, saying merely, !1vhen you bring back the jug, tell me how you I iked the cider.”<\/p>\n I n due ti me the jug was returned, and the fartTler as ked hON the ci der seemed to the othe r fe I low.<\/p>\n “Well, it was just exactly right.”<\/p>\n ‘!What do you mean by that?;’<\/p>\n nit was just exactly right. If it had been any better, you wouldn’t have given it to me. If it had been any worse, I couldn’t have drunk it.!?<\/p>\n Year: 1956<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #289, broadcast on January 22, 1956<\/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":[790,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7591"}],"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=7591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7591\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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