USA > Maine > A brief history of Maine > Part 22
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5. The supply of granite in our State is practi- cally unlimited, but those quarries only which are lear railroads or navigable waters have yet been operated to much extent. The granite islands of Penobscot Bay have unusually easy opportunities for shipping their product, and the industry has been carried on to a much greater extent than elsewhere. Gray is the principal color of our stone, but black granite is found at Addison and St. George, red and
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HISTORY OF MAINE.
1828-8-1
variegated at Jonesport and Calais; and the noted white granite of' Hallowell has long been used for monumental work. The number of men employed in this business is estimated at three thousand, to whom is paid, on an average, the sum of $1,500,000 annually. The product of our granite quarries has been used in the construction of public buildings, for monuments or for paving, as far west as the Missis- sippi, and as far south as New Orleans.
6. It was in 1828 that the first slate quarry was opened in Maine, and in 1884 there were eight com- panies operating quarries in Monson and Brownville alone, employing some four hundred men. The value of our annual product from these, and other quarries operated irregularly, is about $200,000. At the national centennial at Philadelphia in 1876, Maine roofing slate won the first prize for "strength, durability and permanence of color."
Though lime rock of various qualities exists in several parts of the State, it has not been found con- venient and suitable for quarrying and burning. except in Knox county, on the west side of Penob- scot Bay. The amount annually produced here, in the three towns of Rockland, Thomaston and Cam- den, is about 1,500,000 barrels.
While there is no sufficient cause for such expec- tations of wealth from deposits in Maine of valuable metals as were entertained a few years ago, the State really furnishes a large number of ores, of which several are found in such quantities as might yield a good profit for mining. Graphite, lead, iron, copper, silver and gold were mined in the State, in 1880, to the value of about 840,000; and there are deposits of other valuable metals still unworked.
7. According to the most reliable surveys, Maine contains 19.132,800 acres, - an area almost equal to all the rest of New England In 1880, 6,552.573 acres were embraced in farms,. leaving upwards of
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IS60-SS
STATE DEVELOPMENT.
12,000,000 in water surface and wild land. A large portion of the last is in forest, from which were cut the six or seven million feet of logs reported in the census of 1880. This product, when sawed into lumber in its various forms, sold at the usual rate to the amount of 87,933,868. This amount probably required something more than the annual growth of our forests; and, fortunately for them, our lumber product is less on the average by fifteen to twenty per cent. The amount of lumber sawed in 1860 was about sixteen per cent less; yet we had then nine hundred and twenty-six saw-mills, against eight hundred and forty-eight, in 1880,-showing a reduction in number compensated by an increase in capacity. Observa- tion shows, also, that the producing mills were those nearest railroads or navigable waters.
There are certain of our woods, which, within a few years, have acquired a new value by reason of their beauty as material for furniture and for the interior finish of buildings, a value which is certain to increase largely in the future. The value of our softer woods has also been increased by their use in the manufacture of pulp, for paper stock and other articles. There are five mills in various parts of the State which are devoted exclusively to the manu- facture of wood pulp, while some of the paper mills also produce it in limited quantity. The total capacity of our pulp and paper board mills is given, in the annual directory of the paper mills of the country for 1887-88, as forty tons of pulp daily. Four mills manufacture leather board, reporting a capacity of ten tons every twenty-four hours. The possible paper product is given as 101 tons daily, employing eleven mills, - of which two are devoted to manilla paper, the others to book and newspaper. The actual production is probably twenty-five per cent less than these figures indicate. The paper factory at Mechanic Falls (the largest but one in the
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HISTORY OF MAINE.
1608-1854
State) includes six mills, each devoted to its own special process in the manufacture. The Cumber- land Mills, at Westbrook, are said to form the largest paper factory in the world.
8. From the forest proceeds directly one of the earliest industries of enterprising "races. This is ship-building, and it is the earliest recorded manu- facture of Maine. If the readers of this statement will turn to the third chapter of this history, they will find that Captain John Smith, afterward of Virginia, while exploring our coast, in 1614, built here " seven boats." But Popham's colony had been before him in a larger undertaking, having, in 1607, built a vessel. Theirs was the first ship-yard on the Kennebec, which, in the modern period, has been a greater producer of wooden vessels than any other river in the world.
Not this river alone. but almost all our num- erous streams emptying into the ocean have been the scene of this industry. In the year 1884, the num- ber of sailing vessels and steamers owned in Maine was 2,868, with a carrying capacity of 628.954 tons. The estimated value of these was $19.415,675. This was an increase over 1880 of two hundred vessels, a tonnage of 120,614, and a value of 85,995.275. Were it not for the extensive use of iron ships in recent years, the ship-vards of Maine would doubt- less now be sending out shipping in largely increased quantities.
9. In the year 1880 there were engaged in the fisheries six hundred and six Maine vessels, having a tonnage of 17,632 tons; and above eleven thousand persons were engaged in catching, canning and ship- ping the fish The value of the products of the fisheries in that year was estimated at 83,614.172. There is a large fluctuation in this industry, some years exceeding, others falling short of these figures. In this business Maine ranks fourth among the
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1810-80
States in the number of persons, and third in capital invested, value of products and tonnage of vessels.
A necessity of manufactories is the iron machinery for the various processes in forming the product, whether this be stately ships or cotton sheeting. Though producing but small quantities of iron, Maine sends out from her machine shops great num- bers of implements, varying in size from a nail to a ton anchor, and machinery, from apple-parers to cloth-looms and steam engines. The value of the farming tools, made chiefly in the factories of Oak- land, would reach nearly a million dollars annually.
10. Workmen having been found in America who could construct the machinery to manufacture cloth by the vast and untiring power of our water- falls, the hand-looms, which had so long furnished the clothes of the world, rapidly went out of nse here. Naturally, the first cloth mills in Maine were woolen factories ; though, in the early days, farmers raised flax rather than wool, since wild animals were too numerous for sheep-raising to be profitable. At first, the good housewife only carried her wool to the factory to be carded into "rolls," which she had before done with her own hands; but she still, for a long time, wove the family flannels and full cloth, carrying the latter to the mills to be " dressed."
There was a census taken in 1810, by which we learn there were then in operation in Maine seventy-five carding machines, carding into rolls 450,255 pounds of wool per annum, and fifty-nine fulling mills, dressing 357,386 yards of cloth annu- ally, while the household looms turned out, in the same period, 453,410 yards of woolen cloth. This census also gave Maine the credit of making 811 .- 912 yards of cotton cloth annually. Compared with the total manufactures of the country, Maine ex- ceeded its proportion in the quantity of cloth pro- duced. In 1850 the number of woolen mills was
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HISTORY OF MAINE.
1812-80
only thirty-six, while in 1880 they numbered ninety- three, employing 3,095 persons; and the value of their annual product at wholesale prices was stated as 86,686,073. They are now very generally located in small villages ; while cotton mills, employing a larger number of operatives, usually cause a large municipal growth.
11. Cotton factories, almost from the first had a capacity for producing a much greater number of yards of cloth than the woolen factories, and soon became the more numerous. The earliest of the present cotton manufacturers of the State appears to be the Cabot Company of Brunswick, which was the successor of the "Maine Cotton and Woolen Factory," which was incorporated in 1812. In 1831 the York Manufacturing Company, of Saco, and the Portsmouth Company, of South Berwick, were started, and in 1844 the Hallowell Company was organized. Biddeford followed in 1845; and in 1846 was built the first cotton mill 'in Lewiston, which has now become the chief cotton manufacturing city in Maine. In the same year cotton manufacturing was commenced in Augusta, and Saccarappa entered the list in 1858. Waterville followed in 1874, Lis- bon in the next year, Sanford in 1877, and Richmond in 1881.
By the census of 1880 it appears that the annual production of cotton cloths in Maine, at that period, was 144,368,675 yards, weighing 44,352,698 pounds. and having a value of $13,319,363. The number of persons employed was 11,864
12. No large industry, in recent years, has shown such a marked change as the manufacture of boots and shoes. Still carried on to a very limited extent as formerly, when all the shoes worn in a village were made in the village, it has also passed nearly out of the intermediate stage, when a large central establishment sent out its leather and linings to
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1550-80 STATE DEVELOPMENT.
binders and bottomers, who, in many instances, lived in the midst of farming communities hundreds of miles away. By the invention of machinery for lasting, sewing, pegging and other operations, the work of making a shoe, which was formerly done by three persons (the cutter, the binder and the bot- tomer), is now divided among a large number. By this method there is a great reduction in the cost of making, so that the manufacture has been almost wholly brought into great factories, generally in cities or large villages. In accordance with this movement, we find that in 1870 there were in Maine eighty-five shoe-making establishments, while ten years later, there were but fifty-two. Yet, in the former year, the number of persons employed was but 2,105 against 3,919 in 1880. At the first date, the capital invested was 8667,300, with a product valued at $3,155,221, which, at the last, had increased to a capital of $1,369,000, and a product of $5,823,- 541.
13. Several other industries have undergone sim- ilar changes, while the kinds have multiplied ; the number mentioned as now established in the State being nearly one hundred and fifty. There is a difficulty in fixing the date of the beginning of nearly all the industries, from the lack of public record; but by going back to the year 1810, when some partial statistics were compiled, we may make a radical start; but in the census of 1850 we have a much nearer approach to completeness. From the report of the latter date it appears that our manufacto- ries then numbered 3,974, employing 28,020 persons, and had a yearly production valued at $24,661,057. By the still more satisfactory statistical work of 1880 it is shown that our manufactories had increased to 4.481, employing 52.954 persons, and yielding an annual product of 879,829,793. The individual indus- tries had, in the intervening years, suffered many
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HISTORY OF MAINE.
fluctuations, the leading industries being sometimes affected to an extent very perceptible in the general finances.
14. The total amount of power used by the man- ufactories of this State in 1880 was 100,476 horse- powers, of which 79,717 was from water, and 20,750 from steam. The latter is more costly than water power, and is used chiefly because economy of transportation of the material and the product, or the supply of labor, has induced location of the fac- tory at a point where water power is insufficient.
An immense amount of power is running to waste in Maine, because it is not yet sufficiently accessible. Our solid land holds more than 1,600 lakes, at a mean elevation of 600 feet above the sea, kept full and flowing by rains and mists and winter snows. These lakes cover more than 2,300 square miles of surface ; their streams, in their course toward the sea, supplying a power greater than that of 6,000,000 horses. Properly utilized, this is equivalent to great wealth. The chief means to make these powers practically useful to our citizens are our railroads. The opening of one at once gives an additional value to property along its line. Maine has now twenty-four railroads, varying in length from one mile up to 645 miles, - the last being the length of the Maine Central Railroad system.
15. The first railroad for steam cars operated in New England was the Boston and Lowell, in Massa- chusetts, completed in 1835; the second one was put in operation in Maine in 1836, and connected Bangor and Oldtown. It was equipped with cars brought from England, and these were drawn by locomotives made by the earliest engine builder, George Stephen- son. The track was made of flat iron bars, three- fourths of an inch thick, laid on wooden stringers. Yet this was not the road from which our present railroad system grew, nor about which the new roads
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STATE DEVELOPMENT.
clustered. In 1869 it was purchased by the European and North American Railway, to escape the competition of a line parallel to its own, and has finally been discontinued.
The Maine Central Railroad Company, whose roads constitute the great trunk line of the State, was organized in 1862, and commenced business by consolidating two railroads, - the Androscoggin and Kennebec and the Penobscot and Kennebec, -both chartered in 1845, but the first not completed until 1848, nor the last until 1855. In 1871 the consoli- dated line was extended from Danville Junction, its former southern terminus, to Cumberland, where it formed a junction with the Portland and Kennebec Railroad, which it had leased. The latter, having previously built a branch to Bath, completed its line to Augusta in 1852. With this road was also added, by virtue of its lease. the Somerset and Kennebec Railroad, extending from Augusta to Skowhegan. In 1871 the new trunk line leased the Androscoggin Railroad -extending from Brunswick to Leeds Junction and Lewiston .- also the section of road from Leeds to Farmington, since extended to Phillips.
16. All these roads in 1873 became consolidated into one piece of property bearing the name of the corporation which had united them. A further extension of the Maine Central system was made by the acquisition of the Belfast and Moosehead road, extending from Burnham Junction to Belfast; of that from Dexter to Newport ; of the Eastern Maine Railroad, connecting Bangor and Bucksport ; of the European and North American Railway, from Ban- gor to Vanceboro, on our eastern border; by the building of the Mount Desert branch from Bangor, through Ellsworth, to Mount Desert Ferry. com- pleted in 1884; and by a perpetual lease of the Portland & Ogdensburg road, in the present year.
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HISTORY OF MAINE.
1837-SS
These form a powerful corporation ; but so far from being oppressive or injurious to the people, the consolidation has been of general advantage; for it has placed the control of these several roads in the hands of a single company, with a harmony of management that has afforded greater convenience to patrons than formerly, has kept the roads in better condition, and by avoiding the expense of so many sets of officers, has been able to earn dividends for its stockholders without exorbi- tant transportation rates.
17. Connected with this road, by means of a ferry, is the Knox and Lincoln Railroad --- opened in 1871,-extending to Rockland on Penobscot Bay. Another connection is the Somerset Railroad, opened in 1875, and extending from the junction at Oakland to Anson on the Kennebec. Another important road is the Boston and Maine Railroad, which con- nects with the Maine system at Portland, and by means of numerous lines between that city and Bos- ton and in southern New Hampshire, affords easy communication in all those directions. This great road has grown from two and one-half miles of road. built from Salmon Falls in New Hampshire to South Berwick in Maine, under a charter granted in 1836. After two acts of legislature, each authorizing some change of location or of name, and a new charter in 1871, the line was completed to Portland in 1873. The Portland, Saco & Portsmouth Railroad (next to the oldest of our roads), was chartered in 1837, and on its completion in 1842, became part of a through line from Portland to Boston. In 1871 it was leased to the Eastern Railroad for nine hun- dred and ninety-nine years, but in 1884 came under the management of the Boston & Maine Railroad. by the consolidation of the two latter.
18. Another road of the Portland system is the Portland and Ogdensburg Railroad, which was
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1851-SS
STATE DEVELOPMENT.
opened to Conway, N. H., in 1871, and to Lunen- burg in 1875; when, by means of its connections, it became one of the trunk lines to the West. It was leased to the Maine Central Railroad in 1888. There is probably no railroad that excels it in the beauty and grandeur of the views afforded along its line.
The Portland and Rochester Railroad was opened to the Saco river in 1851, and then, by a perpetual lease, became a part of the Boston and Maine Rail- road system.
A great event for Portland transpired in 1853, when that city was connected with Montreal by means of the completion of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad. This road purchased wharf property in Portland, upon which has been fitted up as good terminal facilities for a line of ocean steamers as can be found on the Atlantic coast. In the year of this road's completion it was leased to the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada for nine hundred and ninety-nine years. Connected with the Grand Trunk road is the Rumford Falls and Buckfield road. extending from its junction with the Grand Trunk at Mechanic Falls to Canton Point on the Androscoggin.
19. One of the most important roads of the Ban- gor system is the European and North American Railway, extending from that city to our eastern border, where it connects with the New Brunswick system of railroads. In aid of its construction through an unsettled region, the State gave the tim- ber on ten of its townships, and claims on the national goverment from which were realized 8824.956. The line was completed in 1871. and eleven years later became the property of the Maine Central Railroad by a perpetual lease.
The valuable slate quarries and the noble lakes, no less than the lumber tracts and the rich farms of Piscataquis county, demanded communication with
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HISTORY OF MAINE.
1856-56
more populous regions, and this was found in 1869, when the Bangor and Piscataguis Railroad was com- pleted to Dover, extended to Blanchard in 1877, and to the foot of Moosehead Lake in 1884.
20. Eastern Maine also had a local road as carly as 1856. now extended so as to connect the Seb sodie River towns with Calais. In 1873 the nucleus of an Aroostook system of railroads was begun by a line connecting at the State boundary with the New Brunswick Railway, and extended to Caribou in 1875, and to Presque Isle in 1882.
The total number of miles of railroad for steam- cars in Maine in the year 1886 was 1,167, while the entire length of lines, a part or all of which are within the State, is 6,316.
In Portland, Auburn, and Lewiston, street rail- roads have for some years been in operation; the cars being drawn by horses.
With these conveniences of transportation, the telegraph and telephone seem more than ever a necessity. Many short lines of the latter are in use in the State; while no less than seven telegraph companies operate lines in Maine. At every station along our numerous railroads, and at half a hundred villages beside, the potent little instruments are heard ticking out their messages from all parts of the world.
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1865-77
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CHAPTER XXXVIII.
1. Following the War of the Rebellion, the spirit of enterprise, with sanguine expectation, and a certain recklessness attending the prevalence of the " green- back " fallacy, Jed to pledges of town and city credit in aid of railroads and other public improvements. Most towns were already burdened by soldiers bounties and other indebtedness, and the further straining of their credit was in many instances damaging to their prosperity. Therefore, to re- strain their action in some degree and thus to pre- vent the ruin of municipal credit, an amendment to the Constitution of the State was adopted in 1877, prohibiting cities and towns from creating any debt or liability which, in the aggregate with any preced- ing debt, should exceed five per cent of the last regular valuation. The good effects of this amend- ment have been increasingly manifest.
With the building of the first railroads in Maine began the influx of laborers; and the peasant from Erin wielded the pick and shovel, and built his cabin of slabs and turf along the line of the growing road- beds,- so that the elderly Irishmen of to-day are war- ranted in the boast that they were the builders of our railroads. Later they might well assert that their children ran our factories and our kitchens. There has also been a considerable influx of English and Scotch, confined chiefly to our cloth factory towns : while in our slate regions, and among our iron workers, the Welsh people are found in fair propor- tion.
2. In the later years of the civil war. there came a change in the immigration. The French Canadians from the Madawaska region and from Lower Canada
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began quietly, one by one, to come in - to till our farms and run our mills; and they now form a numerous portion of the inhabitants of our manufac- turing towns, and are rapidly becoming good citizens.
Widely different was the coming of our latest immigrants. the Swedes. The first of these came as a colony, and their arrival was an interesting event to the whole State. In 1869 a commission was appointed by the State to promote the settlement of the public lands, of which those remaining were in Aroostook county. From various sources several of our public men had received favorable impressions of the qualities of the Swedish peasantry; there- fore, early in 1870, Hon. William W. Thomas, jr., of Portland, was sent to Sweden to recruit a colony. He was successful; and they sailed from Sweden in June, 1870, reaching Halifax on the 13th of July. On Friday, the 22d, they drove across the border into Maine.
3. The colony numbered twenty-two men, eleven women and eighteen children,-in all, fifty-one per- sons. They presented an excellent appearance: and among them, after paying the expenses of their pas- sage, they brought into the State 83,000. On Sat- urday, July 23d, they reached their new home, to which they promptly gave the name of New Sweden. The colony was well pleased with the country, and their messages to friends were so favorable that large numbers of their countrymen have followed them, and have also prospered; so that now no less than three towns are chiefly populated by Swedes. They have brought into Maine more than one hun- dred thousand dollars in coin, beside the vastly greater value of their character, skill and strength.
In 1880 we had, out of a total population of 648,936, a foreign element numbering 58,853, while there were in other States of the Union 182,257 natives of Maine.
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In the first period the inhabitants of Maine were almost wholly Protestant, and in general there was unanimity in matters of religion so far as concerned the public schools. With the present conditions, the educational question has become more diffenle. not only on account of religious differences, but from the ignorance of the new element, and the difficulties caused by our large factories, which too readily receive children as operatives when they should be in school.
4. Previous to 1846 no special means existed for obtaining information about our schools, nor for qualifying their instructors. Teachers were isolated from each other : schoolhouses were neglected and frequently unfit for their purpose. and furnished with seats that were utterly uncomfortable. Neither wall maps nor blackboards were found, and the discipline was generally defective, often brutal. In the year mentioned the Legislature established a State board of education and provided for holding a teachers' institute annually in every county. The effect of this was very great, and rapid improvement was made in our schools until 1852, when this whole val- uable system was swept away by another legislature. and county school commissioners appointed by the Governor were substituted. This system proved a failure; and two years later it was followed by a State superintendency, formed by a single officer appointed by the Governor for a term of three years. Yet the retrogression in the schools still continued. until 1857, when the institutes were re-established. Not being properly sustained, these did not succeed as formerly; and in a few years they were discontinued. The only real progress was the introduction of graded schools, and the establishment of a normal school at Farmington for training teachers.
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