<\/p>\n
Fifty years ago in 1926, more than half of all Colby students lived in Maine, but for the past 35 years more than half of Colby’s students in anyone year had their homes outside the state. In 1926, only a very few students came from outside New England and less than half a dozen from foreign countries, and most of those non-Americans came through the exchange program of the Institute of Education. Colby can still proudly claim to be a college for Maine boys and girls.<\/p>\n
Although Massachusetts has led in number of Colby students for many years, Maine has never dropped below second place. This year 228 of Colby’s nearly 1,600 students came from Maine, but they are greatly exceeded by the 461 whose homes are in Massachusetts. In short, for every Maine student now at Colby, there are more than two from Massachusetts. In third place is Connecticut with 167. New York ranks fourth with 153, and New Jersey fifth with 108. Those five are the only states each of which has more than 100 sons and daughters at Colby, and those five account for 1017 students, about two-thirds of the entire student body.<\/p>\n
It is the remaining third who represent Colby’s wide geographical appeal. Of the nation’s fifty states, 35 are represented on Mayflower Hill. The increasing number from the far west is an interesting development: 25 from California, 17 from Minnesota, 11 from Wisconsin, 22 from Illinois, 5 from Colorado, 5 from Missouri, 7 from Michigan, 4 from New Mexico, 3 from Arizona, 3 from Montana, 2 from Washington, and one each from Kansas, Utah and Idaho.<\/p>\n
Until recently Colby has had almost no students from the south. This year there are 17 from Virginia, 9 from Florida, 7 from Texas, 5 from Georgia, 5 from North Carolina, 4 from Louisiana, and two each from South Carolina and Alabama. Four students come from the nation’s capital and from Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n
This year 19 foreign countries are represented on the Colby campus. Colby’s increasing appeal across the northern border is evidenced by the ten Canadian citizens now enrolled. Four students come from England, and three from the British island off the coast of China, Hong Kong. The other sixteen nations represented at Colby have only one student each. In Central America and the Caribbean islands, the nations represented are Costa Rica, Honduras, Guyana, and the Bahamas. South America is represented by Venezuela and Ecuador; Asia by Bangladesh; Africa by Ethopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania. European countries with students on Mayflower Hill, besides England, are France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland, Portugal and Turkey.<\/p>\n
It is thus clear that, while students from New England and New York still form the majority of Colby’s enrollment, the college is by no means the provincial institution it was a half century ago. On Mayflower Hill young men and women from allover the world share international experiences.<\/p>\n
Nor are those broadening experiences limited to campus life. Every year, a number of Colby students, most of them juniors, are taking a year of study in some foreign land. Colby’s annual directory of students gives both home address and college address. In this year’s directory, an amazing number of students have their college address noted by the one word, “abroad.”<\/p>\n
Now let us turn, as is more usual for this program, to some events of days gone by.<\/p>\n
An issue of the Waterville Mail in 1879 gives an instance of what was then too common a nuisance, the itinerant swindling salesman. The account in what was then Waterville’s weekly paper said: “The cheap jewelry man made a visit to Waterville last week, set up his rig in the town house square, and in less than two hours took in several hundred dollars. He is the same man who has victimized so many people in other places, and is under bond in Sagadahoc County.<\/p>\n
“The fellow hired a buggy at a local livery stable, and with his wife took a position on the corner of Main and Common Streets. He began by selling sleeve buttons and giving the first purchaser double his money back. Each subsequent buyer also looked for a rich reward. When that interest flagged, the shyster offered an imitation gold watch and chain. Then he tucked a $20 bill inside the watch case, with its first figure 2 still visible. Then he offered the whole thing for ten dollars, but the way he did it was to offer the watch chain for the ten dollars, then threw in free the watch and the $20 bill. While carrying on his high powered spiel, the fellow slipped out the $20 bill and substituted one for $2 with of course the figure 2 still showing. The result was that several gullible citizens paid $10 for a $2 bill, a brass button, a ten cent chain, and a paper dial. The victims dared not open their purchases because the sharper told them they would be laughed at. So off the fellow drove, leaving half a dozen red-faced Waterville citizens.”<\/p>\n
A well known barber in Waterville a hundred years ago was Samuel Cleave, about whom the Waterville Mail had this to say.
\n“As we stepped into the barber chair, we glanced about the room while Sam, with an artistic flourish of tonsorial apparatus, began work. Hanging on the wall we noticed a banjo that has brought Sam considerable notoriety at minstrel shows. On the opposite wall was a huge, old-fashioned pistol which looked more like a piece of artillery than a sidearm. Under it was a sign, “No trust!” We inquired about the pistol, saying it was quite a curiosity. ‘Yes,’ said Sam, ‘that gun belonged to General Stark. Let me show you one of his papers.’ And out of his wallet Sam extracts a time-yellowed slip that said: ‘Greenwich. November 8, 1779. Deliver 28 pounds of flour for my family to W. West Army Commissary. Signed, John Stark, B.G.’ The editor of the Mail explained that John Stark of New Hampshire was the renowned Revolutionary General, and that the family referred to in the note was probably his military staff, not his own immediate family.<\/p>\n
Murder trials go far back in Maine history. Here are a few that occurred before 1800. In 1772, three years before the start of the Revolution, John Goodwin was convicted of throwing a man overboard from his boat in Casco Bay. Because there was some doubt about his guilt, he was reprieved three times, but was eventually executed by hanging. Portland’s first minister, Parson Smith, recorded in his diary that the public execution attracted the largest crowd that was ever assembled in that seaport town, people coming from as far away as Gorham, Biddeford, and even Brunswick. It was not the new young minister Smith, but the older clergyman, Rev. Clark of Cape Elizabeth who preached the usual sermon at the gallows.<\/p>\n
In 1789 in the town of Otisfield, George Pierce was one day at work mending a harrow when Henry Macintosh came into the barn and asked Pierce to go to Pierce’s cornfield to see what damage had been done there by Macintosh’s horse. Apparently Macintosh came in good faith, seeking to see what damage he ought to pay Pierce. But Pierce got uncontrollably angry, refused to go to the cornfield, and swore he would hail Macintosh into court. Then Macintosh also got mad and advanced on Pierce with clenched fists. According to Pierce’s later story, he lifted his own hands to resist, and in one of those hands was a mallet with which he was working on the harrow. With it he struck Macintosh on the head causing death. Although there were no witnesses, the jury believed enough of Pierce’s story to refuse to convict him of murder, but they did hold him guilty of manslaughter, and the judge sentenced him to 20 years in prison.<\/p>\n
The next year, 1790, saw a case of piracy tried in the Portland court, but with the piracy was the even more serious charge of murder. Thomas Bird and Harry Hansen were seamen on the sloop Isabel that had just come into Portland Harbor. The two seamen were trying to do business with people at Cape Elizabeth. Naval officers in Portland picked up an ugly rumor, investigation of which caused the arrest of the two seamen on the charge of having killed the sloop’s captain off the coast of Africa. The men were arrested and tried in U.S. District Court in Portland.<\/p>\n
So great was the interest that there was not enough room in the Court House, and the trial was moved to Portland’s venerable First Parish Church. Bird was convicted, but the other seaman, Hansen, only 19 years old, was acquitted. Bird was executed on Portland’s Bramhall Hill before an immense crowd of 4,000 people.<\/p>\n
As has been the case for centuries, liquor was involved in many a homicide in the old days. In 1798, Jeremiah Potts of Falmouth was convicted of killing his wife with a shovel while he was intoxicated. He was hanged at a public spectacle.<\/p>\n
In the Portland court before 1800, there were many other cases besides murder, and some of them we would today regard as unusual. One such concerned Isaac Skinner in 1792. He was convicted of the slave trade. He had fitted out a ship at Cape Elizabeth, sent it to Africa and brought back 13 Negro slaves. Even with the conviction he got no jail sentence, but had to pay what for those times was a stiff fine of 200 pounds for the ship and 50 pounds for each slave, or a total equivalent of about $3,500.<\/p>\n
An issue of the Waterville Mail more than a hundred years ago tells about necktie parties. The only use we remember of that term from our boyhood days is that it usually referred to a hanging, especially lynching performed by a group of volunteer vigilantes in the wild west. But it seems that in Waterville in 1870, a necktie party was something different. The Mail said: “Necktie parties are the latest innovation in social life. Each lady attending makes a bowtie of the same material as the dress she wears to the party. The bows are placed in a big bag. Each gentleman draws a tie from the bag, and he becomes the evening escort of the lady whose tie he gets. He discovers her by matching the tie with the dress. The result is not always satisfactory in this lottery scheme. As in matrimonial lotteries, not always the most congenial couples get together.”<\/p>\n
And with that bit of social trivia, we must say goodbye until next week.<\/p>\n
Year: 1976<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #1089, Broadcast on May 30, 1976<\/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":[35493,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9636"}],"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=9636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}