<\/p>\n
During the coming week there will take place in Waterville an event of historic significance. Here, at the First Baptist Church on Elm Street, the United Baptist Convention of Maine will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. It was in that same church in 1915 that Maine’s two Baptist sects, the Baptists and the Free Baptists, got together into a single organization. For the United Baptist Convention was a merger of two groups that both held the same belief regarding baptism, but had separated on theological grounds.<\/p>\n
The fundamental Baptist position, distinguishing them from other Protestants as early as the end of the sixteenth century, was their belief that baptism should be administered only to persons old enough to understand its meaning and voluntarily submit to it. In other words, they were opposed to infant baptism. They did, of course, demand baptism by immersion, not sprinkling, but that practice they shared with a number of other denominations.<\/p>\n
The early Baptists believed in predestination, just as did most Protestants during the first century after the time of John Calvin. Hence they were called Calvinist Baptists. As time went on believers found it increasingly difficult to believe that from the beginning of the world God had chosen a few people to be blessed in Heaven and the great majority to be condemned for eternity to the fires of Hell.<\/p>\n
At the time of the American Revolution a man named Benjamin Randall organized a church in Durham, New Hampshire that rejected the belief in predestination, but was still Baptist. Other similar churches were soon formed and became the Free Will Baptist denomination, usually called simply the Free Baptists. Their unit in Waterville was the Getchell Street Baptist Church.<\/p>\n
Long before 1915 the theological difference between Baptists and Free Baptists had disappeared. Most of the Baptists no longer believed in predestination, and the few who did made no issue of it. One Baptist minister who had then been preaching for more than 40 years in Maine said he had never heard the subject mentioned at any conference of clergy or laity. While the two denominations had some differences in structure and procedure, there was actually very little to distinguish them from each other. Merger was natural. But people being people everywhere, and no person entirely free from prejudice, the union took time to effect — more than ten years of persistent effort by leaders in both camps.<\/p>\n
I am sure there are among my older listeners persons who remember some of the men who played important parts in that merger here in Waterville fifty years ago.<\/p>\n
Best remembered is Edwin C. Whittemore, pastor of the First Baptist Church and later a secretary of the State Convention. Long a diligent worker for both Coburn and Colby, Dr. Whittemore was the first historian of the college. He was an ardent supporter of the union of Baptists and Free Baptists. At his side was the Baptist secretary, I. B. Mower, whose home on College Place is fondly recalled by many who shared its hospitality. Another Waterville clergyman prominent in the merger was Charles E. Owen, father of Robert Owen of the Oak Grove School. A persistent voice for union had been that of Dr. Henry Burrage, official historian of the Maine Baptists and a former pastor of the Waterville church. On the Free Baptist side were such widely known leaders as Dr. Alfred Anthony of Bates College and Maine’s governor, Carl Milliken.<\/p>\n
Since that October day fifty years ago a number of Protestant bodies have united into some sort of common organization. Mergers and ecumenical movements are much in evidence today. They were not so common nor so popular in 1915. So, when this week the United Baptist Convention of Maine celebrates its 50th anniversary, the very fact suggests that among the religious sects today there may be more important things that unite us than there are things that divide us.<\/p>\n
So much is said about men who graduated from college well along in years a century or more ago, that the other extreme is worth mentioning. It is indeed true that many men, especially some of those bent on the ministry, got their college degrees after the age of 30, and some even after they had turned forty. But there were many others who were under 21 when they received their diplomas.<\/p>\n
Recently I decided to find out who was the youngest man ever to graduate from Colby College. It did not take long to discover that all through the first 150 years of Colby history someone as young as 19 was getting his diploma. One such man graduated as late as 1947. But, when one examines the college records for its earliest classes, he finds even younger alumni. During the years from 1827 to 1835, four men graduated from the college before their eighteenth birthday.<\/p>\n
One of Colby’s most distinguished graduates was the internationally known author, William Mathews, of the class of 1835. Mathews had been born in Waterville on July 28, 1818. He received his college degree on August 16, 1835. when his age was 17 years and 13 days.<\/p>\n
William Evans of the class of 1827 had been born on August 23. 1810. He graduated on August 18, 1827 one week before his 17th birthday. But in 1831 there was a fellow who graduated younger than either Mathews or Evans. Samuel Glidden, who became owner of a New York shipping line and sent his vessels to the Orient as well as to European and African ports. had been born in Newcastle, Maine on January 5, 1816. Colby’s first president, Jeremiah Chaplin, handed Glidden his diploma on August 16. 1831, when Glidden’s age was 15 years and 7 months. But Samuel Glidden was not the youngest man ever to graduate from Colby. That honor belongs to President Chaplin’s own son, Jeremiah Chaplin. Jr. Born in Danvers. Massachusetts on November 22, 1813, five years before his father came to Waterville to start the first classes at the college, Jeremiah Chaplin, Jr. was one of twelve men who stepped up to the platform in Waterville’s old meeting house on the common on the morning of August 20. 1828, and received from the hands of his own father the sheepskin that declared him a college graduate. He was 14 years and 9 months old.<\/p>\n
What afterward happened to that youngest graduate of Colby? At first he was professor of Latin and Greek at the New Hampton Literary and Theological Institution in New Hampshire. Then, after studying theology at Madison University, he became professor of Hebrew at the Theological Seminary in Winsboro, South Carolina. He later served pastorates in Maine and Massachusetts before going to New Orleans in the Reconstruction Days immediately after the Civil War. Chaplin spent the last twenty years of his long life in Boston, where he engaged entirely in writing and where he produced ten books including “Life of Charles Sumner”, “Life of Franklin” and “The Riches of Bunyan”.<\/p>\n
All Colby people remember the name of the first president of the college, Jeremiah Chaplin. But I suspect few ever heard of Jeremiah Chaplin, Jr., who also had a claim to Colby fame, as the youngest man to graduate from that college in more than 150 years; who, in fact, received his degree when he was only 14 years old.<\/p>\n
Last week, when talking about a share in the schooner Jennie Flood Kreger held by Edward Heath, I mentioned that he was the son of Francis Heath, an officer in the Civil War. On previous broadcasts I have had much to say about Francis Heath’s brother William, who formed Waterville’s first Civil War company and became its captain while Francis was first lieutenant. I have told about William Heath’s earlier crossing of the continent by prairie schooner with his father Solyman Heath, about William’s travel alone around the world before he was 17 years old, about his graduation from Waterville College and his Civil War activities, ending in his death on the battlefield in 1862.<\/p>\n
It is time this program gave attention to the surviving brother, Francis Heath.<\/p>\n
Even before William’s death, Francis had been promoted to company captain in their old regiment, the Third Maine. In the summer of 1862 there was recruited from Sagadohoc, Waldo, Knox and Kennebec counties a new regimant, the 19th Maine, commanded by Col. Frederick Sewall of Bath. Transferred from the Third Maine to be second in command of the Nineteenth’ was Francis Heath, and he was then promoted to Lt. Colonel. Two of the new regiment’s companies were commanded by men of this region — Co. C by Captain George Rowell of Fairfield, and Co. H by Captain Joseph Eaton of Winslow.<\/p>\n
In October, 1862 the regiment went to Harper’s Ferry and was attached to the First Brigade, Second Division, Second Corps of the Army of the Potomac. In February, 1863 Col. Sewall resigned because of illness and Francis Heath became commander of the 19th Maine. He led the regiment in the terrible battle of Chancellorsville and in the futile attempt to stop Lee’s march into Maryland. Then came Gettysburg.<\/p>\n
Let us see what a war historian wrote about that: “When, under terrible fire, the line wavered, Col. Heath gave the order to charge, and the men rushed forward. Though their ranks were decimated, they drove the enemy back within his own lines and captured 400 prisoners.”<\/p>\n
In that desperate fighting on July 2, 1863 Col. Ward, the brigade commander, had been killed, and Francis Heath was given the brigade command.<\/p>\n
“On July 3, when a sharp rebel attack hit the brigade’s right flank, Col. Heath again gave the command to charge.<\/p>\n
“During the first two days at Gettysburg the 19th Maine lost 12 officers and 220 of its 450 men. Col. Heath was himself wounded and carried from the field, but he recovered in time to join in pursuit of the retreating confederates. He led the brigade across the Potomac and went into camp near Manassas Gap to await reinforcements from Maine.”<\/p>\n
Col. Heath’s wound had been more serious than at first suspected. His health was so badly affected that he was honorably discharged in November, 1863, whereupon he returned to Waterville and became one of the leading business men of Central Maine.<\/p>\n
Year: 1965<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #660, Broadcast on October 3, 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\/8532"}],"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=8532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}