<\/p>\n
At this time when the March town meetings are well over, it may be of interest for us to take a look at how Waterville operated as a town just before it became a city and then compare it with the operations a few years after it adopted its city charter. So let us first examine the Waterville town report for the year 1883. In that year the three selectmen were E.L. Getchell, L.E. Thayer and G.E. Shores. The town clerk was Leonard Carver who would later be the State librarian. The treasurer and tax collector was E.H. Piper. At that time three persons, rather than seven, constituted the school committee. They were l.G. Soule, J.A. Bellows and D.N. Sheldon. The police were under the charge of H.G. Tozier,and the fire department was under Charles Shorey.<\/p>\n
It cost $63.065 to pay all expenses of the town, including schools, in 1883. Since the receipts were over $68,000, there was a tidy balance. The town valuation was $1,898,000, and the tax rate was 15 mills.<\/p>\n
Now just note what it cost to run the Waterville schools 87 years ago. For the common schools the total expense was $7,111, of which $4,758 went for teachers’ salaries and $2,353 for all other expenses. Receipts totaled $8,760, of which $2,852 came from the state mill tax, $1,900 from other credits, $889 left over from 1882, and $5,000 appropriated by the town. The common school account thus showed a surplus of $1,648. All expenses to operate the high school amounted to $1,750. Since the town appropriated $1,500, got $250 from the state, had $12 in other credits, and in 1882 carried over a balance of $129, the total receipts for the high school were $1,941, leaving a balance of $190. To run all the schools of Waterville in 1883, thus cost the local taxpayers only a little more than $5,000.<\/p>\n
Now note the salaries received by the Waterville teachers in 1883. The highest paid was principal of the high school E.H. Stanley, who got $965. He had two assistants, E.F. Lyford, who was paid $309; Nellie True, who got $222 for two terms, and Minnie Smith, whose pay was $168 for one term. In the common schools the highest paid teacher was Carrie Fuller at $346, and Vesta Flagg was a close second at $330. The other salaries ranged from Florence Drummond’s $293 down to Ella Maxwell’s $250. Altogether 25 teachers received some pay in 1883, but several of them taught for only part of the year, so that the town did not have as many as 25 teachers at anyone time.<\/p>\n
In 1883, it cost Waterville $1,985 to support its poor. On the town farm were nine persons, and by no means were all of them aged. One was 22, another 29, and a third 45. Only six were over 50, the two oldest being 70 and 79. It cost the town 68 cents a week per person to feed those nine paupers. Of course that did not pay for their food even at the low prices of 1883. The difference was made up by sale of produce and animals raised on the farm. Since the products sold brought in $1,715, the actual cost of the poor farm to the taxpayers was only $270.<\/p>\n
It was the poor who did not live on the farm that really cost money to the town. The largest single amount paid thus in 1883 must have caused some griping, for it was $102 paid to the town of Pittsfield for their care of a Waterville legal resident. For local paupers the largest amount paid for anyone was $44. Apparently that pauper lived in one of the Lockwood tenements, because the $44 was paid to the Lockwood Company. Nearly half of the poor who received any town assistance got less than $15 during the whole year.<\/p>\n
Waterville may have had an unusual number of fires in 1883, because the fire department exceeded its $1,500 appropriation by more than $500. Among the expenses was rental of horses to haul the engines, filling the cisterns along Main Street and College Avenue, bricks for the hydrants, lamp chimneys, repairing rubber coats, and alcohol for the fire engines, not for the drivers.<\/p>\n
In 1883 electric lights had not arrived in Waterville. To light the streets by oil lamps cost $684, most of which went to pay the lamplighter, Joseph Mathieu. In August the town paid $27 for four barrels of oil for the street lamps, and in October $28 for another delivery. Manley and Tozer collected a bill of 92 cents for wicks.<\/p>\n
H.G. Tozier, as chief of police, got $50 for his year’s work. There was no full-time officer on duty in the day time, but there was, as there had been for many years before 1883, a regular night watch. That officer, C.H. Weeks, got $400 for his year’s work.<\/p>\n
In 1883 the Liquor Agency, that handled all of the town’s legal liquor sales, was doing a thriving business. The agent, P.L. Irish, paid out $1,090 for his year’s supply and took in $1,204. It was the same year after year. The Liquor Agency invariably made a small profit, but the police records show that the cost of arresting and convicting drunks far exceeded any profits from the Agency. All rents were low in those days. The town paid Samuel Appleton $50 for a first-floor location for the Liquor Agency, and A.L. McFadden got $13 for coal to keep the place warm.<\/p>\n
Some items in the general account that now appear unusual were locks for the jail $1.65, rent for the lot on which stood the town pound $10, and $2.25 to L.H. Soper for a quilt for the lockup. Thomas Smart got $2.40 for repairs to the town hearse, and H.G. Tozier was paid $13 for his year’s care and winding of the town clock.<\/p>\n
In 1883 Waterville used an interesting method to finance the town when tax money was slow to come in. Except for a bonded debt of $35,000, the town did not then go to the banks for temporary tax anticipation loans. Instead the treasurer issued what were called interest-bearing orders. The method by which a town paid any bill in those days was by town order. If a town was in good financial condition, its orders would be accepted by banks at par value. But if a town was slow to redeem its orders, they were likely to be discounted, often as much as ten percent. To prevent that situation, Waterville practiced the method of interest-bearing orders. They were usually taken up by a few individuals as investments. In 1883 Waterville issued $10,950 of those orders to just seven individuals at 4%.<\/p>\n
Now let us see what value the town placed on its own property in 1883. The town hall and the big common were set at $12,000, the town farm at $4,500, and all fire apparatus at $6,200. The latter included three hand engines, all valued together at $2,000. The worth of Monument Park was placed at $8,000, and all of Pine Grove Cemetery, including the tomb, at $6,000. All the school houses together were valued at $19,000, and the town gravel pit at $500.<\/p>\n
Now what were the voters asked to decide at the town meeting in 1883? The warrant asked what action the town would take regarding sewerage, whether they would raise money to improve Monument Park, whether they would tax dogs and whether they would build a stone pier to replace the rotting wooden pier under the west end of Ticonic Bridge. A hot issue was to decide whether the town would take any action to obviate the inconvenience of railroad trains blocking the town highways.<\/p>\n
So much for Waterville officialdom in 1883. Now we will turn to the report three years after Waterville had become a city. That report of 1891 was issued when Nathaniel Meader was mayor, Charles Johnson was City Clerk, and the belligerent Benjamin Bunker was the city marshall or chief of police.<\/p>\n
In his report the Mayor said: “The frequent complaints about drunkenness in our city remind us that the Mayor and Aldermen should give more earnest and constant support to the police in performance of their difficult but manifest duties.”<\/p>\n
The tax list committed to the Collector in 1890 had totaled $74,000, of which $11,625 was uncollected when the fiscal year ended. That was nearly 15% of the entire commitment. In other words, 15 cents of every dollar of taxes went unpaid.<\/p>\n
During the year the buildings at the town farm had burned and the city had received $1,350 insurance. In the town farm account was a credit item of $100 for exchange of horses with the fire department. As I mentioned when talking about the 1883 report, Maine towns were always having trouble about the care of paupers whose legal residence was in another town. In 1891 Waterville, for such non-residents, billed Fairfield $45, Benton $80, Troy $21, Lewiston $33, Augusta $10, and the distant town of Frenchville $41.<\/p>\n
The town physician was paid for numerous visits to the poor, but when they died, they were buried cheaply. Redington and Co. got six dollars for a coffin for an adult pauper and two dollars for a child’s, and of course all were buried without markers in the pauper’s field in Pine Grove Cemetery.<\/p>\n
That fire at the town farm was described as follows in the report of the Overseers of the Poor: “Another large item of expense was caused by the burning of the City Poor Farm on February 4, the house, storehouse and contents being entirely consumed. This necessitated the purchase of new furniture, bedding, clothing and stores. In the fire one of the inmates, a partially demented girl, lost her life, but a woman and two small children sleeping in the same room escaped. Had it not been for the heroic efforts of Supt. Richardson, more would have perished, because many, owing to their mental condition, did not realize the danger.”<\/p>\n
In 1883 there had been fire engines, but no horses. In 1891 there were two fire horses valued at $700, and a new steam engine that cost $3,500.<\/p>\n
Although the 1883 town meeting passed over the article about a sewer system, Waterville did get sewerage when it became a city in 1883. During 1890 the system had been extended to include Ash and Oak Streets, Ticonic Street, Getchell, Appleton, Redington, Nudd, Gold, Alden and Summer Streets.<\/p>\n
That familiar Liquor Agency was still open in 1891. Its report contained one startling item: “Alcohol furnished the high school $8.43.” A little investigation reveals that the alcohol was for instruction in chemistry.<\/p>\n
By 1891 all Maine towns had become subject to the free textbook law. For more than 75 years Waterville parents had to supply their children’s school books. But in 1891 the City itself spent $713 to put books into the hands of pupils.<\/p>\n
School janitors were certainly not overpaid in 1891. For the entire school year Timothy O’Donnell got $75, Fred Hoxie $65 and George Hoxie $40. Except for the high school principal, whose salary was $1,200, no other teacher in 1891 got more than $600, and most of the women received less than $400. The mayor himself got no extravagant salary, only $200. In fact one of the highest paid municipal officers was the Liquor Agent at $500.<\/p>\n
But our time is up, and we must say goodbye until next week.<\/p>\n
Year: 1970<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #846, Broadcast on March 29, 1970<\/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":[1205,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9025"}],"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=9025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9025\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}