<\/p>\n
Last week we told you how Waterville got three of its present streets, Silver, Sherwin and Front. Of course even before 1802, what are now lower Main Street and Water Street had practically become streets rather than roads, because they were so well settled in the heart of Ticonic Village. Tonight we resume our discussion of the old streets with what happened to the road from Silver Street out to Crommetts Mills (now Western Avenue) and its extension on to the old Norridgewock Road via Rice’s Rips and Ten Lots.<\/p>\n
An old paper at City Hall gives the date 1804 as the widening and improving of the road from Silver Street to Crommetts Mills and giving it the name of Mill Street. The name Mill Street was many years later changed to Western Avenue. This street is a good example of the fact that when one notes the present line of a Waterville street. he cannot be sure that was exactly. the way it ran 150 years ago. The description says Mill Street started at the dwelling-house of Alexander McKechnie on the Messalonskee. But it did not run on a straight line, as it now does from the southeast corner of Burleigh Street to Elm Street. Instead it took a curve to the left up along the brow of the hill. Why? Because the land now covered by Western Avenue between Burleigh and Pleasant Streets is nearly all artificially filled land. In 1802 it was either sodden marsh or quite covered by water, where the then plentiful torrent of Hayden Brook entered the Messalonskee and formed a wide pool that backed up along the low land and in the spring completely covered the area to the foot of the hill. The early surveyor who laid out Mill Street had to avoid that bog.<\/p>\n
Twenty-seven years later the situation was changed. Gradually much of the bog had been filled with earth removed from the side of the hill that then extended a considerable distance south of the present site of the Advent Church. That permitted straightening Mill Street, so that a resurvey made in 1831 shows just that kind of alteration. Furthermore it extended the street farther to the west along the old Norridgewock road. In fact the survey was made from west to east, that is from the outlying district toward the village, rather than the other way, as one would expect. In order to understand some of the old landmarks it is necessary to explain what we now glibly call the First and Second Rangeways. The old McKechnie survey laid out two so-called ranges of lots, each 40 rods along the Kennebec River and each one mile deep. The line marking the end of that first mile or first range of lots became the First Rangeway. The second range of lots extended another mile to the Second Rangeway.<\/p>\n
So, the description of Mill Street in 1831 begins with the words “from the second division”. That means along the second range of lots from the Second to the First Rangeway, running east toward the village. At the Second Rangeway, Mill Street was then laid out as beginning at a spotted fir stake, running to a spotted white oak tree, on to a spotted pine stump, then to Wheeler’s blacksmith shop, thence to a spotted elm tree and finally to a marked stone on Elm Street. In this description the frequent repetition of the word “spotted” refers to definite axe marks or blazes on the mentioned trees.<\/p>\n
In 1804 Mill Street ran right through to Silver Street, because at that time Elm Street had not been built. But when Mill Street was rerouted in 1831 its new terminus was given as Elm Street, because that street had then come into use. The rest of Mill Street, across from Elm to Silver, did not disappear. There is no mention of it in the 1831 record simply because it was left just as it had been for 27 years.<\/p>\n
In 1826 what had been called the Sherwin Road was improved and widened and given the name of Sherwin Street. About the same time came the laying out of a road that is now Cool Street, so-called because it passed the old home of the Revolutionary soldier, John Cool. Interestingly the description says that this road extended from the west end of Crommett’s Bridge (now the Western Avenue Bridge over the Messalonskee) to the road leading from Emerson Bridge to the West Meeting House. That calling the Oakland Road “the road to the West Meeting House”, reminds us that when it was decided that there should be public meeting houses in that part of Winslow that stood on the west side of the river, in addition to the one already built on the east side, those two additional buildings were called the East and West meeting houses. The East Meeting House stood on the common and held both religious services and the town meetings. The West Meeting House was in what is now Oakland Village. Before 1802 all three meeting houses were in the town of Winslow. After 1802 the two on the west side of the river were in the town of Waterville.<\/p>\n
Still later the three buildings, that had at first all been in one town, were in three towns: Winslow, Waterville and Oakland.<\/p>\n
At the same time that the Cool Road was built a short road was built from Mill Street east of the bridge down to the mills under the hill. Because the principal factory there was then a tannery, the road was called the road to Pearson’s Tannery. A part of that road later became South Street.<\/p>\n
Soon afterward, certainly before 1830, what is now Oakland Street was constructed, obviously to give more direct access to the village for farms on the then crude path known as the First Rangeway. This road is described as starting at a white oak stump on the Rangeway to a monument near E. O. Wheeler’s shop. In 1832 came the road to Emerson Mills. It extended from Silver Street at the bridge, down the stream to the several factories that had been constructed there, one of them the forerunner of the Waterville Iron Works.<\/p>\n
Now let us see what happened to highways in the heart of Waterville. East Temple Street between Main and Front is so old that we have no record of its original construction, but we do have a record of West Temple Street in 1808, only six years after Waterville became a separate town. It is described as extending from the main highway through the village west to the east side of the burying ground. Since the old cemetery was located at what is now Monument Park, that road was obviously West Temple Street. It seems to have been built even earlier than Elm Street, which as nearly as we can determine, came about 1810, extending from Silver to Main.<\/p>\n
Long before the building of Pleasant Street came a road later developed into the east end of Winter Street. It was at first a private, dead-end way for the use of Moses Dalton, but became a town road with the building of Pleasant Street in 1835. The description of Pleasant Street contains one interesting item. The desire apparently was to build the street without curve or deviation, in a straight line from Mill St. to Main. Originally the curve near the G.S. Flood Company did not exist. In order to maintain that straight line, it was stated the road must “just clear the northwest corner of Peter Getchell’s barn.”<\/p>\n
New streets came rapidly in the 1830’s. They included. in chronological order Spring Street, Chaplin Street, Church Street, Union Street and North Street. In 1820 a street had been laid out from Main to the college buildings and was soon given the name of College Street, later changed to College Avenue. Therefore Union Street is described as extending from College Street to Front Street. Chaplin Street was built to connect Upper Main Street, the old road to Fairfield Meeting House, with College Street. Note that Chaplin Street was built long before the coming of the railroad and was not caused, as many people have supposed. by railroad needs. Of course Spring Street became obvious as soon as houses began to be built along Elm Street, because it provided a more direct access to the wharves and shipyards than did Temple Street, Church Street is now Park Street. It got its original name because it was laid out between the Baptist Church and the cemetery to connect Elm and Pleasant Streets.<\/p>\n
It is generally supposed that Center is one of our oldest streets. but such is not the case. North Street is actually 12 years older than Center, coming in 1835, while Center was not built until 1847. The entire area from the intersection of Main and Elm to North Street was woods, except for a cleared field that had been part of the farm of Abial Wood, owner of the house where the Elmwood Hotel now stands. That field was for many years the drill ground for the local militia. When Center Street was built it cut across the south side of that militia field.<\/p>\n
At some unknown date, perhaps as early as 1810, but more probably nearer 1820, had come the road across Emerson Plain. That area should not be confused with what was called more simply The Plain, which meant the section along Water Street, which many people now living remember by the term “down on the Plains”.<\/p>\n
The stretch of land on the plateau west of Water Street, to distinguish it from the similar stretch below,was given the name of the man who owned the big mill and was thus called Emerson Plain. It is now Summer Street.<\/p>\n
In 1850 a new road was built in that area. listen to the description: “Beginning in the west line of the road across Emerson Plain at a stake near the fence, three rods from the southeast corner of Daniel Moor’s land, thence to the top of the hill, thence to the west line of F.P. Haviland’s house lot, thence to the county road leading across Emerson Stream to the West Meeting House”. That road, you see, was the beginning of Grove Street. It was built at just about the time when the decision was made to open the Pine Grove Cemetery, although it was not until 1855 that further burials were prohibited in the old cemetery on Elm Street.<\/p>\n
It is well known that not until the time of the Civil War was there any street west of Pleasant. Not only was it woods and fields, but the then rather formidable Hayden Brook, following the wide gully that had been gouged out by the ancient bed of the Kennebec River, presented an obstacle.<\/p>\n
In 1860 it was decided to build a road from Pleasant Street at the head of Center Street all the distance to the First Rangeway. That road necessitated the construction of a bridge across the Messalonskee and the taking of land owned by well remembered citizens, Johnson Williams, George Gilman, and Robert Pray. That new road became Gilman Street. Incidentally it provided access to what for many years became the circus grounds near where Waterville High School now stands. Later, as dwellings increased in that area, the circus moved across the stream to Pray Field.<\/p>\n
That completes our story about Waterville’s oldest streets. Next week we shall take up other topics from the old papers at City Hall.<\/p>\n
Year: 1963<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #568, Broadcast on March 10, 1963<\/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":[796,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8266"}],"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=8266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}