<\/p>\n
Allover the nation in 1875 preparations were being made for the coming hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the great exposition that would open in Philadelphia in 1876. That reminds us that it won’t be long before the country will be preparing for the two hundredth anniversary of the Declaration, which will come only seven years hence in 1976.<\/p>\n
In preparation for the 1876 observance, local committees were set up allover the United States, and one of them that was especially active was in Skowhegan, Maine. We know about this committee because of a four-page sheet which the group published. It is headed “The Centennial, 1775-1875. Skowhegan, Maine, September 22, 1875.”<\/p>\n
The paper explained that a national group of thirteen women (the\u00b7 number representing the thirteen original states) had requested the Centennial Commissioners in each state of the Union in 1873 to send them the name of some patriotic and energetic woman in each large town in the state. Those ladies were asked to organize groups to further the centennial observance. That is how Mrs. J.H. Philbrick happened to head a women’s committee in Skowhegan. Mrs. Philbrick’s committee launched their movement by holding what they called a Grand Tea Party at Coburn Hall on the evening of September 22, 1875. The program was in six parts: first, an old folks’ concert; second, what was termed “a beautiful allegory, the Infant Republic”, prepared especially for the occasion and third, a reception by a couple impersonating General and Mrs. George Washington receiving prominent persons in colonial costume. Describing the other half of the long program, the paper said: “After the reception, the General and Mrs. Washington will appear on the stage in the large hall, where ‘The Guardian Goddess’, a musical idyl arranged expressly for the occasion will be presented. This will be followed by a minuet danced by sixteen couples in the curious costumes of 1775. while a council of staid and sober-minded old-time parsons and their wives will overlook the stately dance. All will end with a Washington Supper gotten up in old style, at which the General and Mrs. Washington will preside.”<\/p>\n
The paper called attention to the Relic Room. It said: “The large and elegant collection of antiques, mementoes, and curious relics of bygone days, which Mrs. Helen Hall Howard has with great labor assembled for the occasion, will be on exhibition.”<\/p>\n
The Skowhegan ladies were not going to miss such an opportunity to sell souvenirs. Their announcement said: “For Sale. At the tea booths, centennial cups and saucers of real china, handsomely decorated with appropriate designs at prices ranging from 75 cents to $2.50. Miniature hatchets. facsimiles of that historic one, 15 cents. Martha Washington fans, 25 cents. Earrings, made from oak joists taken from Independence Hall, Philadelphia.” Like everything else, amusement costs were very cheap according to today’s values. The whole show, put on by those Skowhegan ladies — all six parts of it except the supper, cost only 35 cents, and the price of the supper was 50 cents.<\/p>\n
One problem that always troubled such events as the Skowhegan ladies’ Grand Tea was who was to get free tickets. This is the way those patriotic ladies solved that problem: “By a unanimous vote of the Centennial Committee it has been decided that there shall be no complimentary tickets for any reason whatever.”<\/p>\n
One page of the paper was devoted to an historical sketch of Skowhegan. It contains a number of inaccurate statements, as any reader of Louise Coburn’s later definitive history of the town would observe. The writer of the sketch in 1875 said the information was obtained chiefly from Hanson’s History of Norridgewock. Allen’s Norridgewock and Canaan, and William’s History of Maine. With meticulous care Miss Coburn corrected many errors in those old accounts when she published her notable two-volume “Skowhegan on the Kennebec”.<\/p>\n
The way the Skowhegan ladies financed their four-page sheet, which of course was not a newspaper but just a single issue, was to sell ads. Some of these are especially interesting to us a century later. In 1875 the now almost non-existent town of Mayfield, just north of Athens, was a busy place, and the Centennial paper has an ad of the Mayfield Slate Company that declared them ready to supply anyone with marbleized mantles, shelves, pier slabs, table tops and bureau tops. Incidentally, one of their sales agents was Arnold and Meader in Waterville.<\/p>\n
One ad, taking advantage of the occasion given the name “Grand Tea” announced that the place to get the best tea was at the Japan Tea Store in Skowhegan.<\/p>\n
In 1875 every group of ads contain at least one for corsets. No one had then heard of a girdle. So Henry Plummer at No. 1 Coburn Block, saw to it that, by word and picture, folks should know he was in the corset business. His ad said: “Our old townsman and merchant, Mr. Plummer, has just received the sole agency for Skowhegan of the Champion and Jacqueline corsets. The Champion we understand to be the most desirable. It is well boned, has double steels, is sightly, and is the best fitting corset on the market. The Jacqueline is already too favorably known to need comment by us. Ladies should not fail to look over Henry’s stock of corsets before purchasing elsewhere. You will find him under those Italian awnings at No.1 Coburn Block.”<\/p>\n
Other information as to what people were wearing in 1875 comes from other ads in this paper. Besides the corsets, Henry Plummer called attention to black silks and and paisley shawls. Hall and Wildes announced the town’s largest stock of Alpacas, Brilliantines, Cashmeres and Drap d’Etes. The Colbys on Madison Street (now Madison Avenue) offered millinery, dress goods, silks, shawls and cloakings. As for the men, they could pick up ready-made garments, hats, caps and haberdashery at J.B. Boies, or they could have a custom-made suit cut and finished for them by Smith and Dinsmore in the Leavitt Block.<\/p>\n
In those ads the horse and buggy days were recognized by William Tucker, who sold harness, robes, blankets and whips. Although pianos had long been in fashion, the year 1875 was not too late to advertise melodeons, and that is just what Dinsmore’s Music Rooms did. Dinsmore announced that his melodeons spoke for themselves “in notes of triumph over all others”.<\/p>\n
For more than a century the family name of Blunt has been associated in Skowhegan with hardware. And sure enough, there was one of their ads in that Centennial paper of 1875. It said: “J.P. Blunt & Son, successors to Blunt and Coffin, dealers in hardware, iron, steel. cutlery, nails, glass. paints, oils, varnishes and a general assortment of carriage stock. No.2, Coburn Block. Skowhegan”<\/p>\n
And that is the story of the patriotic ladies of Skowhegan, in their support of the hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.<\/p>\n
Many times on this program I have referred to the weekly paper published by the students of Colby College, the paper called the Colby Echo. Today I want to mention the student newspaper of another college, the Bowdoin Bugle. Among the items recently shown me by Miss Lucille Kidder of long House in Larone. was the issue of the Bowdoin Bugle for June, 1863, in the midst of the Civil War. Less than a month after that issue came from the press, the man who would later be President of Bowdoin, Joshua L. Chamberlain, would win lasting fame at the Battle of Gettysburg.<\/p>\n
In that summer of 1863 the Bowdoin president was the Reverend Leonard Woods. The Bowdoin Medical School was then strong. and three members of the college faculty were listed in that area: William Robinson, Professor of Materio Medica; Amos Nourse, Professor of Obstetrics; and John Tenny, Professor of Medical Jurisprudence.<\/p>\n
Although absent on military service, Joshua L. Chamberlain himself was listed as Professor of Modern Languages. Only a few years earlier there had left the Bowdoin faculty the husband of a woman who became much more famous than he, for good Professor Stowe had to dwell in the shadow of his wife, Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”.<\/p>\n
In those days every chapter of Phi Beta Kappa was officered by graduate members and in 1863 the president of the Bowdoin chapter was Maine’s United States Senator, William Pitt Fessenden.<\/p>\n
Although enrollment was depleted by the war, Bowdoin was in 1863 by no means bereft of students. The academic undergraduate list had 42 seniors, 39 juniors, 44 sophomores and 51 freshmen — a total of 176. In the medical school there were 72 students, giving a complete enrollment of the entire institution as 248.<\/p>\n
One page of that issue of the Bugle is devoted to Bowdoin men serving in the war. The range of classes represented was astounding, stretching over 43 years, from the Class of 1823 to the Class of 1866.<\/p>\n
The paper comments on only one athletic activity — wrestling. There is not a word about baseball or track or gymnastics. all of which had gained some attention in American colleges by 1860. Much, however, is made of the Bowdoin Cornet Band and of the Singing Club, whose principal members were listed as Guitar and Air, Tuning Fork and Air, Tambourine and Tenor, Accordion and Baritone, Triangle and Bass. Castanets and Chorus Man.<\/p>\n
The Bugle’s editorial in that issue in 1863 did indeed give attention to the war. The editorial said: “It may be thought that the standing of Old Bowdoin is impaired by the war. When disloyalty is abroad in the land. it is not strange to find academic institutes doing their part to check it. Bowdoin is justly proud of her many sons who are fighting the battles of our country. She gives professors to the cause and suffers from their absence. Two of our professors are now with the Army of the Rappahannock, both serving in elevated positions. In consequence the labors of the remaining professors are increased. We do not enroll as many students as we did before the war, but for the explanation one has only to note our Roll of Honor in the Army.”<\/p>\n
Another editorial did comment on athletics. It said: “Health and strength of body is essential to vigor of mind. So we see the need of physical training. and it is with sorrow that we see so little interest manifested by Bowdoin students in athletic sports. We have a good ball ground, a well stocked gymnasium, and a capital professor who delights in muscle well brought out. What we need is attention to physique proportionate to the literary requirements. Until this is effective. we despair for future innocents. Bowdoin’s behind the times in this respect.”<\/p>\n
How the writer of that lament would have enjoyed Bowdoin’s athletic record achieved by Adam Walsh, Jack Magee and Mal Morrill.<\/p>\n
Year: 1969<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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