<\/p>\n
No more than half a century ago there were merchants who made a business of buying directly from New England farmers the skins of animals slaughtered on the farms. That was before the now more common practice of taking the animal to a commercial slaughter house and letting the slaughterer keep the hide.<\/p>\n
A price and instruction list issued in 1918 by the firm of Carroll S. Page of Hyde Park, Vermont shows how the business was then conducted. Conspicuously on their sixpage folder was this announcement: “Agents wanted in every village in the United States east of the Mississippi, and in all Canadian provinces, to buy hides, skins, pelts, tallow and bones, and to sell Page’s Perfected Poultry Products.”<\/p>\n
For beef hides the going rate at that time was from 10 to 15 cents a pound, according to quality. Calf skins went for between $2.00 and $6.00 per skin.<\/p>\n
When the Page firm issued this folder, the business was not good. Of cowhides they said: “The hide market is completely demoralized and any quotations today are entirely nominal. We reduce our prices on cow and steer hides one cent a pound. Horse hides are barely steady in price, sheep pelts quiet.” As for whole creatures the folder said: “Do not ship us any more beef or horse carcasses without first writing us. We will continue to take thoroughly dressed calves as long as they can be shipped frozen, and will pay for them as much as we can afford. Calfskins taken off without deep slaughter cuts and free from hairslips or other damage on the hair side, we will classify as Best No. 1. Any skin that is cut, grubby or damaged must go as a cull.”<\/p>\n
Page gave careful instructions about shipping: “Shipments to us should be carefully done up in bundles, sacks and barrels in such a way that they will reach us in good condition. Don’t fail to write us the day you ship what you are sending, so that we may be able to identify the stock on arrival.”<\/p>\n
Now I admit that all of this is of no importance to anyone today, but less than 50 years ago, even in the midst of the First World War, the sale of skins and hides was a source of no mean income on Maine farms.<\/p>\n
In the early days of banking in Kennebec County the banks were run on a shoestring compared with the heavy capitalization of modern banks. Because bank stock was taxable by the municipalities, along with any other intangible property the assessors could locate, we find bank stock and their owners named on many old-time tax lists. Bank stock was one asset the owner found it difficult to conceal, because Maine law then required that every bank must report to each town in which it had any stockholrler the name and amount held by each of its stockholders in that town.<\/p>\n
Sometimes among old papers is found a statement issued by a bank itself, showing all stockholders and their residence. Thanks to such a statement by what was then a new Waterville bank, the Ticonic, we know who were the owners of that bank in 1838. The bank’s total capitalization was only $75,000, and the stock was all held by fifty stockholders. Twenty of them lived in Waterville, six in Fairfield, five each in Sidney and Norridgewock. three in Winslow, two in Skowhegan, and one each in Vassalboro, Clinton, Athens, Augusta and Bath. The largest stockholder was Baxter Crowell, then the most prominent citizen of West Waterville (now Oakland). He held 61 shares with a par value’of $6,100. Waterville’s wealthy squire, Timothy Boutelle, came second with 47 shares and Simeon Mathews of the famous Mathews family had 45. Jediah Morrill, who ten years later would be a leading promoter of Waterville’s first railroad, had 40 shares, as did also the Revolutionary veteran and founder of a prominent Waterville family, Asa Redington. Persons in other towns who held several shares of that old Ticonic stock included Abel Hoxie of Fairfield, Nathan Weston of Augusta, Judah McLellan of Skowhegan, Calvin Seden of Norridgewock, and John Ware of Athens. Three shares were owned by the Waterville Lodge of Masons.<\/p>\n
Everyone knows that, while the population of American cities continues to grow rapidly, the rural districts are having fewer and fewer people. Most of us realize this as we journey about Maine and note the steady decline of rural villages and the increasing number of abandoned farms. To see just what has happened, let us take a look at the census figures for a few Maine towns just one hundred years apart, 1860 and 1960.<\/p>\n
Let us begin with Kennebec County. In 1860 Albion had 1,554 people; in 1960 only 974. During the same hundred years China’s population fell from 2,720 to 1,561; Fayette’s from 910 to 328; Litchfield’s from 1,704 to 953. Mount Vernon suffered an enormous loss, from 1,464 to 596; Rome suffered nearly as much, falling from 864 to 367. Sidney, by 1960, had lost nearly half the number of its population in 1860 from 1,784 down to 988. Hit hardest of all was the little town of Vienna whose 878 people in 1860 had dropped to 160 a hundred years later.<\/p>\n
In neighboring Somerset County we find a similar situation. Athens had 1,417 people in 1860, only 602 in 1960. Canaan had dropped from 1,860 to 802; Cornville from 1,142 to 585; Mercer from 1,059 to 272; Smithfield from 873 to 382; Solon from 1,345 to 669; and Starks from 1,341 to 306. Hardest hit of all were the two adjoining towns of Mayfield and Brighton. Once a prosperous town, Mayfield had gone out of existence long before 1960. Brighton, incorporated as a town in 1827, had 732 people in 1860. It had dropped to the status of a plantation by 1895, and in 1960 had just 62 persons living in its whole area.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, some of the larger, factory villages had prospered along with the cities. In Somerset County Fairfield, Pittsfield and Skowhegan all had many more people than they had a hundred years ago. In Kennebec County it was not merely Augusta and Waterville that had prospered, but other towns that did not hold city charters.<\/p>\n
Oakland had in 1960 as many people as Waterville had had in 1860, when Waterville then included Oakland. In 1860 Winslow had only 1,739 people. With the coming of the Hollingsworth & Whitney mill near the turn of the century, its population began steadily to increase. By 1910 the town had 2,700 people. By 1950 the number had risen to 4,413. Then note what happened. A building boom in Winslow, making it a residential section for many workers in Waterville, as well as a fast-growing poultry industry and the rise of new shopping areas, brought the town its greatest increase in any single decade of its history. From 4,413 in 1950, its population ten years later had grown to 5,891, and the 1970 census will likely show nearly 8,000.<\/p>\n
In substance that story is repeated allover Maine. There are a few exceptions, such as the decline of Hallowell and the plight of several cities and larger towns in the far eastern part of our state. But in general we see the cities and factory towns getting larger, and the rural towns, whose industries were small and often family owned, getting smaller and smaller. Does this mean that, America over, we are becoming, as some analysts tell us, a nation of city dwellers and suburbanites, that the small farmer is rapidly disappearing, and that fifty years from now all agriculture will be conducted by huge syndicates? Perhaps such change is inevitable, but if it happens, America will have lost something strong and persistent in value judgments that sprang from rural life. The people on Maine farms learned to be independent, yet always ready to help a neighbor in trouble, they believed in hard work, not in as little as one can get by with; they paid their bills when they had anything to pay with; and when they did not have anything to pay, they honored the debts they had to assume. On their sound virtues was built our nation. They felt it no disgrace to consider themselves poor; but to be labelled as a public pauper was a disgrace. When they needed money, they expected a job, not a government hand-out. I realize that it is old-fashioned and perhaps even futile to talk this way,but I still believe there was much to be said for the rural way of living we now see passing from the scene.<\/p>\n
From several sources, including personal reminiscences of older people and certain diaries, I had known that the old Congregational Meeting House in Vassalboro was once sold, but I had not realized that it happened so long ago as 1841. That I discovered while looking for something else among the records of the Maine Legislature for the period from 1836 to 1842. I discovered that in the spring of 1841 the Legislature passed the following private act: “Samuel Redington, John Hall and Thomas Carlton, with other owners of the First Congregational Meeting House in Vassalboro, are authorized to sell or dispose of said house in such manner as they shall lawfully determine; the proceeds to be deposited in the hands of a committee composed of three discreet and judicious men, to be disposed of as the owners of said house may direct. Provided, if any person have a right in the above named house, separate from the owners named above, the committee shall appraise the value of the pews, previous to the sale, and shall cause to be paid to such persons their just proportion of the amount of the appraisal, after deducting all necessary expenses, if called for within one year of the sale of said house.”<\/p>\n
Now perhaps some one can tell me what happened to that old meeting house in consequence of that legislative act of 1841. I know the Vassalboro Historical Society is very alert about such items. Was the meeting house actually sold? Was it moved and used for another purpose, or was it torn down? And with those questions we must say goodbye until next week.<\/p>\n
Year: 1965<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #640, Broadcast on February 7, 1965<\/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":[792,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8470"}],"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=8470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}