When fire destroyed the big barns on the Augusta road, between the Colonial Inn and the foot of Oak Grove hi I I, on the farm now owned by Phi I Julia, no menti on was made i n the papers of the hi stor i ca I importance of that 0 I d farm. Let’s give it a little attention tonight.<\/p>\n
Two men whose fame extended beyond the State of Ma i ne have been owners of that farm, John Lang and Hal I Burleigh. But it was cleared and settled even before John Lang saw it fifteen years before the beginning of the Civi I War.<\/p>\n
Its first settler had been one of Vassalboro’s early Quakers, Jacob Taber, who cleared the land and erected a house there in 1780. One of Taber’s daughters married John Pope, and her sister married John’s brother, Elijah Pope. Both fami lies inherited together the Jacob Taber farm on the Kennebec. From the Popes, John D. Lang purchased the farm in 1846 and bui It a fine house that through the years entertained many distinguished guests. But long before that time, an earlier and more modest hour on the farm had seen the first wedding to take place in Vassalboro Friends Meeting. In that house, occupied by Jacob Taber, in March, 1786 Stephen Hussey and Rebecca Taber took the marriage vows after the custom and with the ceremony of the Society of Friends.<\/p>\n
John Lang was born in Gardiner in 1789 of a poor but industrious fami Iy.<\/p>\n
In spite of the fact that he attended school less than three months in his whole life, Lang became a man of genuine self-education, an omnivorous reader of phi 1- osophy, history and theo logy, a5 we I I as a successfu I bus i ness man. When he was only ten years old, John Lang was working 12 hours a day, six days a week, in a carding mi I I at Fryeburg. That was his introduction to the texti Ie industry, in wh i ch he made a cons i derab Ie fortune.<\/p>\n
John Lang was 31 years old when, in the year that r\u00b7\u00b71aine became an independent state, he married Ann Stackpole. They began their married life in North Berwick, where John not only developed a prosperous woolen mill, but together with Ann joined the Society of Friends, and from that time to the end of his life became a leader of the Quaker sect.<\/p>\n
The Friends recogn i zed him as an ab Ie speaker and a persuas i ve expounder of their faith. He was soon elected to the leadership of meeting and held that office for many years.<\/p>\n
In 1840 on a mission for the New England Quakers, Lang visited Indian tribes west of the Mississippi. On his return he made an exhaustive report to the yearly meeti ng of New EngJandFriends, which had much to do with the spread of the Quaker religion into Iowa and Kansas. Thirty years later Langfs knowledge of the Indian country was recognized when President Grant appointed him Commissioner to the Indians.<\/p>\n
It was Lang’s brother-in-law, Peter Stackpole, brother of Ann, who persuaded John Lang to come to Vassalboro. Stackpole, in partnership with the husband of another Stackpole sister, Alton Pope, was operating a wool carding and cloth dress i ng mill at North Vassa I boro. I t was a sma II bus i ness emp loy i ng about a dozen hands. Anxi ous to expand it into a fu II-f ledged woo len mi II, Stackpole and Pope needed capital. At that time their brother-in-law John Lang was reputed to be worth $100,000, and to Lang the Vassalboro men turned for he Ip.<\/p>\n
Lang’s money proved to be just the priming needed to start the pump. Within five years Lang had constructed a large\u00b7 brick mi I I. His method of doing it was ingenious. First he bui It a brick kiln to make bricks right on the spot.<\/p>\n
Then after the bri cks were burned, the wa lis of the mi II were put up ri ght around the spot where the .k i I n stood.<\/p>\n
Lang had al ready shown his abi I ity to manage texti Ie mi lis. He was never content merely with quantity production; he gave careful attention to quality_ At the World’s Fair in London in 1851, samples of Cassimere cloth from the factory in North Vassalboro, Maine won a gold medal for the best exhibit in its class.<\/p>\n
John ~ang ‘s interests were not I imited to the woolen industry. On the river bank of his farm just north of Oak Grove hi II, he erected a large wharf” from which longboats and even sailing vessels plied a trade up and down the river. He dealt in lumber, fish and grain. With Jacob Southwick of Getchell’s Corner, he controlled the huge potash industry of the centra I Kennebec.<\/p>\n
But perhaps John Lang’s best remembered single achievement was his bui Iding of the Ocean Bird in 1848, just two years after he came to Vassalboro. Lang had been on his farm less than a year when he decided to construct a shipyard at Getche II’s Corner, in wh i ch he proposed to bui I d a II sorts of craft. No one suspected that he intended to bui Id an ocean-going ship as wei I as river boats, but that is just what he did.<\/p>\n
On a June day in 1848 there slid down the ways of the Lang shipyard into the Kennebec, not a river boat, not even a sloop or a schooner or a brig, but a real ship bui It to cross the Atlantic. Like the vessels bui It by the rvbors and other shipbui Iders at Watervi lie, the Ocean Bi rd probab Iy received her rigging down the ri ver at Ha I lowe I I or Gardi ner, because no fu I Iy ri gged sh i p cou I d get under the Augusta bridge, and would have difficulty enough getting through the canal around the Augusta rips. But anyhow the complete hull of the Ocean Bird was bui It at Vassalboro, and that town is rightfully her birthplace. In 1849, the year when so many r~1aine youth were starting to go in the opposite direction; in search of California’s gold, Captain Gustavus Dickman and his crew of Maine boys sai led from New York with a general trading cargo, bound for the mouth of the Zambia River in Africa. There, among other articles loaded for the return to the States, Captain Dickman took on 8,000 bushels of peanuts, and a few months later showed the astonished New Yorkers the first peanuts ever brought to the United States.<\/p>\n
Although the importation of Negro slaves had been prohibited before 1848, there was p Jenty of smugg ling go i ng on. There is no evi dence, hcwever, that John Lang’s Ocean Bird ever carried a black cargo. In fact the evidence is quite to the contrary. On that first return voyage from the Zambia River to New York, the log showed that a Negro boy agreed to serve on the Ocean Bi rd for one year at a monthly wage of 25 cents.<\/p>\n
More than thirty years after the Ocean Bird had slid into the Kennebec from John Langfs shipyard, and when even the longboats were disappearing from the river, the Lang farm came into the possession of Hall Burleigh. Like John Lang, Burleigh was a man wei I worth our attention on this program.<\/p>\n
A II of our many Kennebec Burle i ghs are descended from Queen Eli zabeth ‘s High Treasurer, Wi II i am Bur Ie i gh. The fami Iy had rep resentat i ves in Ameri ca by the middle of the 17th century, but it was 1816, only four years before Maine became a state, when Hall Burleigh’s father, John Burleigh, came to Watervi lie and bought a farm on the Ri dge Road, where the ci ty reservo i r now stands. There Hall Burleigh was born in 1826. As was the custom in those days, Hall had no money of his own unti I he was 21, all his prev\u00b7ious earnings going to his father.<\/p>\n
But immediately after his 21st bi rthday in 1847, he went to work for neighboring farmers, and with the money thus earned he bought five good Shorthorn heifers.<\/p>\n
He owned no land, but purchased standing grass and grain, which he cut to feed his stock.<\/p>\n
\\’Jhen his father decided to rrove the fami Iy to Pennsylvania in the spring of 1852, the son Ha II determi ned to stay in Ma i ne. He managed to borrow the money to buy the Ridge Road farm. The next summer he went over to Winslow to the farm of Thomas Garland looking for lambs. There he found at least one — the darling lamb of his life, the woman who became his wife and stood steadfastly by his side through the long years.<\/p>\n
Hall Burleigh’s daughter, Miss Nettie Burleigh, tells me that the principal crop of that Ridge Road farm was rocks. The more they were picked up, the more they multiplied. The farm yielded about 15 tons of hay, but Hal I Burleigh was so fond of live stock that from the beginning he had many more head than the farm could feed. So he kept up the practice he had begun before he had a farm of his own — buying and cutting stacks of hay and grain from other farmers! fields.<\/p>\n
Before 1860 Burleigh had gained local renown for his pure blooded Shorthorn bulls, and when the Civi I War broke out the Burleigh cattle had won prizes in the show rings, not only at the Maine fairs, but al lover New England.<\/p>\n
It takes a strong man to change his mind after he has held a fixed conviction for many years, but-Hal I Burleigh was that kind of man. Reluctantly, but\u00a0 with new conviction based upon his own experience, he changed from Shorthorns to Herefords. At first he bought only a few of the latter breed, but careful study of the characteristics and the results of Herefords in comparison with Shorthorns persuaded him to switch completely to the former. In company with George Shores of Waterv i I I e he bought an ent ire Canad i an herd of Herefords and moved them to his new farm at Fairfield Center. The prize creature of Burleigh’s new herd was the famous bul I, Compton Lad, who took more first and champion prizes than any other bul I in the world. Only once did Compton Lad miss first prize in the show ring, garnering 74 first premiums out of 75 appearances.<\/p>\n
In those days when ordinary calves were sold to the butcher for a dollar, Hal I Burleigh had some handsome offers for his Hereford calves — not for meat, but to help bui Id up other herds. In 1870 he refused an offer of $200 for a calf from one of his best cows, Verbena. During the succeeding 12 years he did sel I Verbena’s calves — eleven of them for more than $4,000. Verbena’s last calf he sentimentally kept in his own herd, although he was offered $600 for the an i ma I.<\/p>\n
Hall Burleigh was one of a very few Maine cattlemen who exhibited his stock at the Centennial Exhibition in Phi ladelphia. A lot of Maine people attended that exhibition, as numerous diaries and letters attest, but they went to see the sights exhibited there to honor the hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. There, against world wide competition, Burleiqh won five first pri zes, inc I ud i ng that for the best herd. I n a I I\u00b7 his years of stock exhibiting, Hal I Burleigh’s Herefords won more prizes in the show rings of America than did any other cattle.<\/p>\n
In 1879 Burleigh went into partnership with Governor Bodwel I for the importation and breeding of Herefords on the largest scale ever attempted in the United States. Determined to know at first hand every likely Hereford creature on this continent, he visited everyone of the principa I herds in the United States and Canada. Sti I I he was not content. He must see the Hereford animals of England. So off he went to the British Isles.<\/p>\n
Returning with 67 breeding animals selected on his own judgement from Britain’s finest herds, he sold them not only to Eastern farmers, but to the rapidly expanding western trade. On five voyages he imported no fewer than 900 Herefords, a II of them blooded, breed i ng an i ma Is.<\/p>\n
By 1890 Hal I Burleigh had become president of the Indiana Blooded Stqck Company, which under his supervision became what stock journals called r’one of the largest breeding companies in the world \u2022<\/p>\n
It was after he formed the important partnership with Governor Bodwel I that Burleigh settled in Vassalboro, purchasing the John D. Lang farm of 400 acres. There he bui It the big barns which were burned only a few months ago.<\/p>\n
Hal I Burleigh was more than a farmer and breeder of blooded cattle. He was a leader in many public movements, especially those designed to improve agriculture. When tuberculosis threatened to wipe out whole herds of Maine cattle.<\/p>\n
he spent months of his time and hundreds of his dol lars in a successful attemp, t to stem the ti de of the disease. He served his town as se I ectman and as its representative in the legislature. When the great Columbian Exhibition was held in Chicago, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America, Hal I Burleigh, as president of the Maine Board of Farm Commissioners, worked untiringly to make Maine’s exhibits there outstanding. Long interested in tax problems, he served in 1890 as a member of the state valuation commission, and led the movement for a ful I-time board of State Assessors. He was its first elected member and continued in its service unti I his death in 1895.<\/p>\n
There are still men in r.,,1aine who believe that there is a future in this state for beef cattle — for noble herds of Herefords. If anything like that does occur, it will be because a man who claimed l~~aterville, Fairfield and Vassalboro — al I three — as his home, paved the way. For the greatest breeder and trader of Herefords Maine ever knew was Hal I Burleigh.<\/p>\n
Year: 1956<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #325, broadcast on December 30, 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":[1],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7699"}],"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=7699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}