<\/p>\n
A hundred years ago political campaigns had real issues to stir the voters. When it came time for the presidential campaign of 1848, the abolitionists had made considerable headway in Maine. In February of 1848 that group sent a printed circular allover the state, a copy of which is preserved in the Drummond Farnsworth collection owned by Miss Meroe Morse.<\/p>\n
The circular said: “We believe a vigorous and systematic effort must be made by the friends of God and humanity to abolitionize this country. We propose to employ an intelligent and energetic lecturer as a traveling agent for 3 or 4 months, distributing anti-slavery publications. We shall take collections in several towns and shall seek other contributions. The Slave Power, as exhibited in Congress, is growing weaker and weaker. Now is a favorable time to strike hard for our cause.”<\/p>\n
Thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Paul Julia, now of Fairfield, but formerly owners and operators of the famous Lang Farm on the Augusta Road in Vassalboro, I have had an opportunity to examine a promotion book about Maine — a book that preceded the Maine Development Commission by more than half a century.<\/p>\n
You have heard me speak more than once about Hall Burleigh, father of Miss Nettie Burleigh, who still resides in the old Burleigh place at Vassalboro, and who was honored only last summer with special recognition by the Maine Cattle Breeders Association, Miss Nettie’s father, Hall Burleigh, introduced<\/p>\n
Hereford and Polled Angus cattle into America, and had an international reputation as a judge of those animals. Many of them once grazed on the pastures of the Lang Farm where the Julia family recently lived.<\/p>\n
In 1892 the State of Maine decided to have a significant exhibit at the World’s Fair in Chicago. The State erected an impressive building on the Fair Grounds, a building that was later moved to Maine and still stands on the hotel grounds at Poland Spring. To carry out the details of the Maine exhibit at Chicago, the Governor appointed a Board of World Fair Managers and made Hall Burleigh of Vassalboro its chairman. Mr. Burleigh’s board published for free distribution at the World’s Fair a book of 100 pages, with text and pictures about Maine.<\/p>\n
Prof. Webster Chester informs me that the collection of Maine minerals exhibited in the Maine building at Chicago in 1893 was afterward kept for many years by Colby College in Coburn Hall on the old campus, and that later the director of the State Museum moved them to Augusta, where presumably they still are. Perhaps when the museum at the State House is reopened, as is now planned, that beautiful and extensive collection of Maine minerals will again be where they can be seen by all who go to the State House.<\/p>\n
A sample of the flowery rhetoric in that World’s Fair book is in this paragraph: “Our natural beauties, combined with the brilliant atmosphere and the convenience of railway and steamer service, have made Maine what Herculaneum was to Rome, a place where the wealthy of the great cities build their elegant summer homes, on the coast or on the beautiful islands, or inland on the sparkling lakes where, during the summer solstice, they can breathe the pure air, drink the healthful water, and linger among the rugged roads and sylvan paths.” That was quite a flowery boost for Maine, but the ecstatic writer in his classic comparison forgot to say that Herculaneum got buried into 1800 years of oblivion by the ashes of Vesuvius.<\/p>\n
That book tells us that four great railroad lines entered Maine from the west. I wonder how many of you can name those four lines of 1893. Of course you can name two, the Boston and Maine and the Grand Trunk, now called the Canadian National. But what were the other two? They were the Portland and Rochester and the Canadian Pacific. The latter enters our state so far to the east that people in western and central Maine forget all about it. But Maine folk up around Brownville Junction will tell you that for many years the Canadian Pacific Railroad furnished the economic life-blood of their region. The book did apologize a bit for including the Portland and Rochester, adding by way of explanation: “It has western connections”.<\/p>\n
I was pleased to find in the book a picture of the steamer Portland, as she was in 1893. Five years later she went down with more than a hundred lives on the fateful Thanksgiving sailing from Boston. The steamship lines were, in fact, very important routes of transportation to and from Maine in 1893. It was the Portland Steam Packet Company that operated the Portland and the Tremont in daily runs in both directions between Portland and Boston. The International Steamship Company ran three big steamers between Boston and St. John, New Brunswick, stopping at Portland and Eastport. Their boats were the Cumberland, the State of Maine and the New Brunswick.<\/p>\n
The Maine Steamship Company operated between Portland and New York with, as the book put it,”steamers replete with every luxury of travel”. The Casco Bay Steamboat Company ran a fleet of steamers among the islands and ports of that bay. Most of the steamers, including the Portland, the Tremont, the Forest City, and the Cumberland, were side-wheelers, but the newer Cottage City of the New York line was a propeller craft.<\/p>\n
On two full pages of the book are listed the principal hotels and summer resort houses in Maine. Some of them have been long forgotten during the 65 years that have passed since this World’s Fair book was published. Among those that have gone are the West End Hotel and the Preble House in Portland, the Angler’s Retreat at Rangeley, Young’s Hotel at Orono, the Andrews House at South Paris, the Railroad House at Belgrade, the Central House at Belgrade Lakes (then called Belgrade Mills), the Bridgton House at Bridgton, and the Revere (now an apartment house) at East Vassalboro. The book lists two Waterville inns, the Elmwood with a capacity of 150 and the Bay View with 125. Oakland had the Oakland House for 40 guests and the Bricket House for 25. No hotel is listed for Fairfield, because that was before the luxurious Gerald, with its ornate dining room ceiling, was built. But Vassalboro had both the Murray House and the Dow House.<\/p>\n
The islands were very popular in 1893, and most of them had one or more landings where steamers regularly stopped. Peaks Island had 15 listed places, each accommodating from 20 to 100 guests. There were four inns at Orr’s Island, two at Bailey’s. The Islesboro Inn accommodated 100 people and the Sunnyside House on Great Chebeague held 50.<\/p>\n
There were in 1893 only three hotels in Maine holding as many as 500 guests and neither of them was in Portland. They were the Redick House at Bar Harbor, the Old Orchard House and the Poland Spring House. Several Maine hostelries accommodated 400 guests. Among them were the Falmouth at Portland, the Augusta House, the West End at Bar Harbor, the Ottawa House on Cushing Island, the Ocean Bluff at Kennebunkport, the Mt. Kineo House at Moosehead, the Imperial at Old Orchard, and the Marshall House at York. The largest number of hotels for any single place, 21, was listed for Bar Harbor. Twelve of them took more than a hundred guests each.<\/p>\n
Some other well remembered hotels now no longer with us were the Stoddard House at Farmington, the Central House at Olamon, the Elmwood at Readfield, the Elms at Mechanic Falls, the Turner House at Guilford, the Stage House at Bingham, the Lincoln House at Cornish, the Border House at Phillips, and the Hotel Coburn at Skowhegan.<\/p>\n
It is surprising that, while this 1893 book has a lot to say about the Rangeleys, including a page of pictures, it is completely silent about the Belgrade Lakes. Is it possible that this famous summer resort near Waterville had not been developed as early as 1893? We know the big Belgrade Hotel was built later than that, but were none of the smaller places then operating? As I have already said, the only inns and boarding houses which this World’s Fair book lists for the whole Belgrade region were the Railroad House at Belgrade Depot and the Central House at Belgrade Lakes village. The former held 25 guests, the latter 40.<\/p>\n
The book proudly announces that Tally-ho coaches meet all trains both of the Grand Trunk and the Maine Central at Danville Junction, to transport the traveler to Poland Spring “with its world-renowned mineral water and the Palace Summer Hotel of New England”. Then the writer launched into rhetorical brilliance about Poland Spring water. He wrote: “The fame of this water has gone out to all the earth. The great medical specialists of Europe, as well as those of America, have given it pre-eminence among the noted mineral waters of the world. The multitudes that owe to the drinking of it deliverance from disability and pain are numbered only by the count of those who have given it a fair trial. The time will come when all people afflicted with ills that come from impurity of blood will seek no other cure than this celebrated water, the very water of life.” That old writer did pretty well, didn’t he? But what a pity he had never heard of tired blood!<\/p>\n
Of Waterville the World’s Fair book had this to say: “Waterville, situated at the junction of two lines of the Maine Central Railroad, and on the bank of the Kennebec River, is one of the most beautiful cities in Maine. Its streets are broad and tree-embowered. Its residences are handsome and environed by artistic surroundings. The captivated fancy of a visitor has given to Waterville the name of one of Maine’s brightest jewels, and at its principal hotel the welcoming host who leads the stranger through the trim portieres, with wealth of foliage and profusion of flowers, across the hospitable threshold, fixes the colors of the charming picture with all the refinements of cultured home life.” Wow! Wasn’t that a mouthful of rhetoric!<\/p>\n
A page of pictures in the book is devoted to the Waterville Trust and Safe Deposit Company, which had recently opened offices in the new Masonic Block on Common Street. There is a picture of the block, two of the interior of the bank, and photos of six of the officers: Hon. I. C. Libby, President; Dr. L. C. Thayer, Vice-president; R. E. Atwood, Treasurer; William T. Haines, Clerk and attorney for the corporation and C.G. Carleton and Col. W. A. Boothby, directors. Another page depicts two views of the Lockwood Mills.<\/p>\n
The year 1893 saw two industries that have now almost vanished from Maine, then at their height. Those industries were ice and granite. To the latter, the World’s Fair book gave a lot of attention, especially to the Bodwell Granite Company of Rockland, which had quarries at Vinalhaven, Spruce Head, St. George and Jonesboro. Granite from the Bodwell quarries had gone into the War and Navy Department buildings in Washington, into the Pennsylvania Station in New York, into the Custom House and the Post Office in Cincinnati, into the Auditorium at Chicago, into the big Brooklyn Post Office, and into the new store of Jordan Marsh Company in Boston.<\/p>\n
As for ice, the book says: “This annual harvest is enormous, averaging 1,700,000 tons a year, valued at $1,600,000. There is invested in ice houses along the Kennebec a capital of $1,400,000. One year’s crop of ice makes about 2,500 cargoes for good sized vessels, or in other words, it furnishes business for 400 vessels six months in the year.”<\/p>\n
Year: 1958<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #385, Broadcast on September 14, 1958<\/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":[744,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7884"}],"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=7884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7884\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}