\nAbout two years ago, when the plant of the Waterville Iron Works near the Head of the Falls was being dismantled, I gave a broadcast based on several old account books of the Iron Works, presented to the Waterville Historical Society by Ralph Desmond, the engineer in charge of final disposition of machinery and materials.<\/p>\n
Mr. Desmond has now presented another account book of a somewhat later period than the other volumes. This one covers the years 1882 to 1886, and it tells us a lot about Maine, especially Central Maine, industries in those years. As I tell you about some of the items, bear in mind that they were entered in the company accounts 85 to 90 years ago. Waterville and other Maine communities have seen many changes in the subsequent time that embraces nearly a full century.<\/p>\n
First, let us note some of the local industries for which the Iron Works made many castings and other supplies. There was the Cascade Woolen Mill, still in vigorous operation at the head of Messalonskee Cascade in Oakland. One of the first items in the book was a charge for 47 bottom plates for Cascade. The Vassalboro Woolen Mill gave the Iron Works a lot of business, but its orders were far exceeded by those of the Lockwood Company, which often bought as much as a quarter of a ton of castings at a time. Work had to be performed constantly for the Dunn Edge Tool Co., for the Totman Lumber Co. at Fairfield, for the Somerset Fibre Company at Shawmut, and for the Fairfield Furniture Co.<\/p>\n
A lot of small mills were experimenting with fibre products at that time, 20 years before Martin Keyes developed a way to make dishes from wood pulp. Sending orders to the Iron Works were the Kennebec Fibre Co., the Fibre Ware Co., Lawrence and Page, and Lawrence and Phillips.<\/p>\n
Even Colby College was one of the Iron Works customers. This was just about the time when in North and South College dormitories, the wood-burning stoves in student rooms were abandoned and central heating installed. That explains the Iron Works furnishing Colby with 230 lb. of grates necessitating 10 hours labor.<\/p>\n
However, by far the largest customer of that Webber and Philbrick Iron foundry was the Maine Central R.R. The various items turned out for the Maine Central by that foundry on the west bank of the Kennebec were so numerous I would not attempt to enumerate them. But here are a few: steps, brake heads, engine grates, hand car wheels, cylinder heads, stuffing boxes, piston heads, valves for tank pipes, valve seats, gears, spring saddles, and bunters. I need the help of some worker in our Maine Central shops to tell me what were followers, pipe blanks, lever centers, and miller hooks. I’m a bit puzzled too, about track dogs, but I’m sure they were not canines.<\/p>\n
Some well remembered persons of the 1880’s, were customers of the Iron Works. George Flood, whose 35 year long diary I discussed on this program several years ago, was repeatedly ordering work at the plant. Flood seems seldom to have paid in cash; he sold the Iron Works large quantities of old iron. Flood was indeed an old-type Yankee trader who knew how to swap one commodity for another.<\/p>\n
Like the Totmans, the Nyes had numerous business interests in Fairfield. A. Nye called on the Iron Works for 40 lb. cast, washers, shafting, couplings, flanges, pulleys, and rivets. Winslow Marston, who made matches in a plant near the present site of the water pumping station on Western Avenue, was charged $2.25 for what clearly reads “labor on humbug.” Can any listener explain that? Harry Harmon, the Main Street merchant, had to get stove grates. Elwood Wyman, the school man, needed sled shoes. P.S. Heald wanted 24 lb. slugs. W. B. Arnold (the first W. B., that is) had to have 50 lb. of cast washers, and on May 7, 1883, C. F. Hathaway, the shirtmaker, sold to the Iron Works 447 lb. old iron. Horace Purinton, Waterville’s renowned builder, was then a young junior partner in the firm of Norton and Purinton. In April 1883, they got a slip holder from the Iron Works for 50 cents.<\/p>\n
Churches were among the Iron Works customers. The Waterville Baptist Church paid $1.50 for screenings and planing, and 50 cents to repair the church pump.<\/p>\n
For Coburn Institute the Iron Works made twin door casings. That must have been for the new institute building, the gift of Gov. Abner Coburn.<\/p>\n
When we consider the cost of labor today, the Iron Works uniform charge seems amazingly low. They charged all customers 45 cents an hour for labor. That meant really substantial profit at a time when their own workers rarely got more than $2.00 a day.<\/p>\n
The surprising thing about this old account book is the spread of the Iron Works customers. Besides towns surrounding Waterville, where one would expect the company to serve persons and industries, they were doing business with people allover Maine – in Portland, Lewiston, Augusta, Bangor, Belfast, Houlton and Presque Isle. Orders came from Windham and Gray, from Kingfield and Phillips, from Guilford and Greenville, from Corinna and Dexter, from Wilton and Weld. Every year the Iron Works got orders from Boston, Providence, and from several places in the State of New York. For the Champion Card and Paper Co. of Pepperrell, Mass., they made a cider press screen, and in the same fall they made two of those screens for Kendall and Whitney in Portland.<\/p>\n
Among things they made for blacksmiths and farmers were rake teeth, wagon tires, plow shares, and shelf irons. For Sam Philbrick they did four dollars’ work on his toothpick packer, and once for Colby College they made 50 arm rests for classroom chairs.<\/p>\n
I’m not quite sure about a sale to I.S. Bangs, Waterville prominent Civil War veteran, in 18~6. Bangs was charged $1.25 for three mouthpieces.<\/p>\n
The last item in the book was entered on December 23, 1886. Horton and Purinton – making chimney top pattern, $6.00; making the chimney top $14.00.<\/p>\n
Mr. Verzoni of Burleigh Street, recently showed me an interesting memorial volume that I suspect few of my listeners ever saw. Published by the federal government 87 years ago, it is an account of the dedication of the Washington Monument in the capital city on February 21, 1885. An interesting political aspect of that occasion was its dedication in the middle of the winter, when the monument grounds were covered with snow. The reason for the date was political. The Republican administration and Congress wanted to have the dedication before the newly elected Democratic president, Grover Cleveland, was inaugurated on the fourth of March. James Garfield, the president elected in 1880, had been assassinated and it was his vice-president who succeeded to the presidential chair on Garfield’s death, Chester A. Arthur, who was principal figure at the ceremonies. In fact, Cleveland,was so peeved at the Republicans’ haste to do the dedication that he refused to attend. In the back of the published volume are letters from various distinguished persons. Cleveland’s letter says: “Many engagements and occupations, which permit of no postponement, oblige me to forego the pleasure of taking part in the exercises.”<\/p>\n
This particular copy of the dedication was owned by Joseph Williamson, to whom it had been given by Hon. Horatio King. Joseph Williamson was a descendant of William D. Williamson, author of the History of Maine, published in 1832, and Joseph was somewhat of an historian himself. Besides writing a history of Gardiner, he compiled for the Maine Historical Society a very comprehensive bibliography of Maine, a list of writings about Maine by Maine authors from the earliest times to the book’s publication in 1896.<\/p>\n
Chairman of the monument commission was John Sherman of Ohio, the leading U.S. Senator of the time and actually the President of the Senate, because since Garfield’s death the country had no vice president, the Senate’s constitutional presiding officer.<\/p>\n
In those days nearly a century ago, people were accustomed to putting up with long winded ceremonies. The dedication of the Washington Monument was no exception. First the program out of doors, in the cold February wind beside the Monument, kept folks standing there for two hours while they listened to an oration, equally lengthy Masonic ceremonies, and President Arthur’s dedicatory address. Then followed the mile-long procession from the monument to the Capitol, passing the White House. Prominent in that procession were the Grand Commandery of Knights Templar, mebers of George Washington’s masonic lodge of Alexandria, Virginia, the GAR Department of the Potomac, and the Valley Forge Memorial Association. When the head of the procession reached the Capitol, the President of the U.S., in a carriage drawn by four horses, passed the military groups and halted at the Capitol steps. The President then took his place on a reviewing stand, where he was joined by the Cabinet, senators, representatives and diplomats. The whole column then passed in review. Then came three long hours of exercises in the House of Representatives, with the Senate also attending, just as they still do, to hear messages by the President of the U. S.<\/p>\n
The principal oration was by Robert Winthrop of Massachusetts, Speaker of the National House of Representatives, and a descendant of Governor John Winthrop of the Old Bay Colony of 1630. Speaker Winthrop had in 1881, delivered the centennial address at Yorktown, in recognition of the hundredth anniversary of Cornwallis’ surrender. Virginia had to get into the picture ,with a long speech by John Daniel. There was a long prayer by the Chaplain of the Senate, another address by John D. Long of Massachusetts, and benediction by the Chaplain of the House. One who could not attend was the most famous Union general in the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant. After two terms as the nation’s president from 1868 to 1876, Grant had been strickened with cancer of the throat, and was already a dying man when he wrote to the Monument Commission as follows: “I regret very much that my physical condition prevents my accepting the invitation. My throat requires the daily attention of a physician, though I am encouraged to believe it is improving.”<\/p>\n
And with that note of regret from the nation’s great soldier, we must say goodbye until next week.<\/p>\n
Year: 1973<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #954, Broadcast on December 31, 1972<\/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":[42945,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9303"}],"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=9303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}