USA > Maine > Kennebec County > Hallowell > Historic Hallowell > Part 3
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Many Hallowell people were more concerned with politics and the need Maine had to separate from Massachusetts. It had been under discussion for 35 years.
For political reasons, the wish to be independent, and economic rivalry, particularly in shipbuilding, the ocean trade and the fisheries, the District of Maine on March 16, 1820, became the State of Maine. The new State had nearly 300,000 people and $21 million in taxable property, no incorporated city and only four towns of more than 3,000 population. Hallowell was one of 11 towns in the 2,500 to 3,000 bracket. It had 2,919 peo- ple - a 40 percent increase in population since 1810 despite cold weather and emigration.
Hallowell was a busy port and market place at the time Maine became a state. Its business street had 71 stores, including three large bookstores, for the town was a publishing center. Its two printing establish- ments issued weekly newspapers and many books. The
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Coos trail ended at Hallowell. Up and down the Ken- nebec valley, and to both the west and east, were thriv- ing agricultural towns ready to ship a long list of prod- ucts, from cattle to potatoes and lumber. For example, in 1820 Winthrop orchardists shipped apples to Boston, New York, New Orleans and Halifax. To the cast, Union had 100 orchards.
The number of beef cattle in the Kennebec valley had increased substantially. William Whipple said in his Survey of Maine that exports to British colonies were important and that "the number of cattle raised near the Kennebec may equal that of any other part of the United States of the same extent." Early importers of beef cattle of the Hereford breed included the Vaughan farm and John Wingate Haines of Hallowell.
Expanding commerce had placed Kennebec river shipbuilding on a sound basis. As early as 1817, ves- sels were being built as far up the river as Vassalboro and Waterville, and in 1825 and 1826, 101 vessels were launched on the Kennebec. Earlier vessels listed as built in Hallowell include the Summer, 82 tons, 1799, by T. Fillebronn; the Industry, 91 tons, 1801, by Sol Taylor; the Charles Henry, 118 tons, 1810, by George Skofield; the Belle Savage, 138 tons, 1815, by Isaac Smith; the Gen. Ripley, 135 tons, 1815, by Joseph Speech; the Rapid, 137 tons, 1816, by Nemiah Hilton; the Kennebec Trader, 102 tons, 1816, by N. Hilton; the Telegraph, 87 tons, 1818, by H. Follansbee. Ac- cording to the maritime historian Rowe, the Florence of Hallowell, 449 tons, "was considered a monster in 1831."
Hallowell men were busy at other trades. Before 1822, Joseph Pope invented the first practical threshing machine, although it was shortlived because of im- provements made by other Maine inventors. Alton Pope opened the first oil cloth factory in the valley at Hallowell Crossroads, now Manchester, in 1831. Ten years later Jacob Pope made Maine's first spring steel hay forks at the same village, a small local industry which lasted for two generations but could not be com- pared with the Hallowell Cotton Manufacturing Com- pany mill, opened at the Hook in 1844 and enlarged in 1866, to employ 200 people.
About 1826 the great Kennebec river ice industry be- gan, giving employment to thousands of men for three- quarters of a century. Most of the icehouses were between the present Farmingdale and Bowdoinham, although two or more were built on the point at the mouth of Vaughan stream. Among those first to see the possibility that Kennebec ice might be shipped to warmer climates, were William and Frederic Tudor of Boston, whose sister Emma Jane Tudor married Robert Hallowell Gardiner, nephew of Briggs Hallowell.
Maine ships carried ice from the river bend where Briggs had lived to the southern states, the West Indies and to Europe, returning with cargoes of many sorts. In 1867 one firm which was engaged in the ice business on the Kennebec reported its shipping tonnage for ice to be double the tonnage used on the river for lumber and all other shipments. The company's assertion re- flected both prosperity in the ice industry and loss of other shipping, for the middle decades of the 19th cen- tury brought a transportation revolution to Hallowell and neighboring towns.
In 1840 the steamer John W. Richmond began twice weekly service between Hallowell and Boston. This was a new age, to be honored with a signal station on Chelsea Heights, where a ball could be hoisted when the Boston steamer was sighted below the bend in the river which obscured the view from Hallowell's water- front. By 1845 steamers from Kennebec points to Boston were said to be carrying more than 3,000 people a week. The sail packets were forced into the romantic past, and talk of steam on rails was already in the halls of the legislature, a not yet fully realized threat to Hallowell's prosperous commerce.
In 1836 Maine legislators had granted a charter to the Kennebec and Portland Railroad to build a line from Portland to Augusta. The original plan, with Robert Hallowell Gardiner as one of the promoters, had been to construct a railway from Portland to Gar- diner, and then establish either a canal or railway to Winthrop. The merchants of Augusta had opposed this plan, insisting on a terminus at Augusta, and when the charter was given, active control of the company was taken over by Ruel Williams of Augusta.
In 1844 John A. Poor of Andover, a key figure in the state's railroad history, who believed in Maine as a shipping corridor for Canada and the Great Lakes, proposed a railway from Portland to Montreal. He also suggested another line from a suitable junction on the first to Lewiston and Gardiner, then up the Kennebec to Waterville, Bangor, St. John and Halifax.
The resulting conflict among railroad interests and communities lasted for 25 years. Portland wanted a main line through the state to connect with Canada's Grand Trunk Railroad. Waterville and Augusta each wanted a terminus and Augusta wanted a Boston con- nection.
The Androscoggin and Kennebec railway ignored Augusta and built the present "back road," from Dan- ville Junction to Lewiston, Winthrop and Waterville, which it reached in 1849.
The Kennebec and Portland Railroad, built north- ward to reach Brunswick in the same year, reached
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BAKERY
Water Street in the 1890's - Ladies at right: Alice Judkins and Lizzie Walker
Hallowell and Augusta late in 1851. The railway con- struction cost Hallowell one street and several early houses, and when the Portland-Montreal railway was completed in 1853 and leased to the Grand Trunk for 999 years, Hallowell began to lose both export and market-town traffic. Branch lines were constructed and, as the histórian Day says, "Instead of the long, haul x x x forty miles from Farmington or Skowhegan to Hallowell x x x they now had a market outlet at their doors." In all of southern and central Maine, the products of agriculture could now move conveniently by rail to Boston.
The new railways seem to have encouraged a move- ment of people from small New England farms to grow- ing cities in other states but Hallowell was less affected by that trend than by loss of land through the creation of new towns.
In 1850 all of Hallowell east of the Kennebec river was set off and incorporated as the town of Chelsea, and in the same year the southern part of Hallowell was used in creating the new town of Farmingdale. Two years later a western section of Hallowell became
a part of the town of Kennebec, which was renamed Manchester in 1854.
Hallowell's participation in the golden age of ship- building ended in 1856, with the launching of the ship Sarah Judkins, built by Rufus K. Page and Henry Reed. During the first half of the 1850's, Hallowell yards had built 22 vessels, 12 of them square-rigged. At least one was a clipper, in terms of performance: the Dashaway, by J. Rideout.
Hallowell farms lost some young people to far cities during the 1850's, but they did not leave because their home community lacked vision. About three months after the first steam locomotive passed through Hallo- well, a city charter was adopted. A few years later a bridge charter was obtained, and construction across the Kennebec to Chelsea was completed in 1860. One immediate result of the bridge action was that Augusta made its bridge free of toll, a situation which endured longer than the Hallowell-Chelsea structure, lost during floods in 1869 and 1870.
In the 1860's the Civil War was of course the great- est influence bearing on Hallowell. Its young men went
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into military service, instead of seeking jobs in larger cities, or adventuring on a western frontier.
One major industry, with unusual social and eco- nomic influence spanning more than a century, remains to be considered in the story of Hallowell's past. The quarrying of granite began as early as 1815. Small crews of 6 or 7 men were employed at such jobs as cutting the cornice stones for a Boston market. One of the earliest buildings to be built entirely of Hallowell granite was the State Capitol at Augusta, begun in 1829. The industry grew, with some hesitations, and the spectacle of powerful teams working their great loads down Winthrop hill became a legend. In 1897, 500 men were employed in the granite industry at Hallowell, 260 of them in the quarries.
In 1904-06 there was a boom, and artisans came to the Granite City from the British Isles, Scandinavia and other European countries including Italy, France and Portugal. A carved statue sold for $100.00 a foot, and Hallowell granite was ideal for such work. Some of the distant cities where work in Hallowell granite can be seen today are listed in the pages of this book which deal with the industry, in detail and picture.
From 1910 to 1930, the granite industry of the city declined. There were various causes, one of them that
an item in good demand, paving stone, could be stripped more economically from Maine quarries where the granite was layered differently.
The Hallowell granite industry, while carving monu- ments for many cities and states, left one of a special sort to the Granite City - the people it had brought to Hallowell. Other industries which developed here on the Kennebec left their monuments: the people who came here to lumber, to farm, to build and sail ships, to trade ice for spices, to make sheeting and oil cloth.
At Hallowell are families descended from craftsmen, managers and proprietors who came here from many different countries to establish and develop a prosper- ous community. The families have seen times of boom and times of depression, and in some poor times the clock has seemed to tick so slowly that it might be slowing forever. Each time the clock of prosperity seemed about to stand still, some new opportunity - a new industry or a new market for an old product -- came to Hallowell.
Because men of vision and varied inheritance have al- ways been around to take and expand the opportunity, the history of Hallowell has included more periods of prosperity than of depression.
-Hildreth G. Hawes
HALLOWELL TRUST & BANKING CO.
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Young Men of Hallowell About 1900
L. to R., Clyde Cottle, Leo Carey, Norman Gray, Harold Jordan, Joe Prout, Arthur Grimes, Smith Gilley, Bay Woodside, un- known, Willie Erb, Jim Leighton, Ted Shepherd, Doc Niles, Arthur Grondin, Milton Aldrich, Billy Beauchaine, Ray Chadburn, Manley Patterson, Dan Harrington, Coley McGowan, Bob Grover.
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Hallowell Newspapers
T 'HE literary life of Hallowell began with its material existence and such an enterprising settlement was not long without its weekly newspaper.
The first paper to be published in Kennebec County was printed in Hallowell. It was called the Eastern Star and its first issue was dated August 4, 1794. The publisher was Howard S. Robinson. It was short-lived, unfortunately, and July 28, 1795 ended its publication.
This paper was quickly followed by the publication of The Tocsin, edited and published by Wait and Baker. Copies of this newspaper were issued from April 16, 1796 to June 9, 1797. In September, 1796, it was transferred to Benjamin Poor and, in 1797, its publica- tion was discontinued.
The first paper in the part of Hallowell that is now Augusta was the Kennebec Intelligencer, published by Peter Edes. It was established Nov. 14, 1795. In 1800, the name was changed to the Kennebec Gazette, and in 1810, it became the Herald of Liberty. It was published under this name until 1815, when Edes dis- continued its publication and moved to Bangor.
A democratic-republican paper, the American Ad- vocate, was begun in 1810 and was first published by Nathaniel Cheever. Samuel K. Gilman was its next publisher. He sold it to Calvin Spaulding after pub- lishing it six years and Spaulding, in turn, sold it to Sylvanus W. Robinson and Henry K. Baker. The
Henry K. Baker, Editor of the Hallowell Gazette, Editor and publisher of the American Advocate
Judge Samuel K. Gilman, editor of the American Advocate, 1819-1825
paper was united with the Free Press in 1835 and was called the Free Press and Advocate. It was sold to the Kennebec Journal in 1836. The Free Press was pub- lished by Anson G. Herrick and edited by Richard D. Rice. This was a violent anti-Masonic paper and, be- cause of the great prejudice against the institution of Masonry at that time, the Free Press had a large circu- lation during its short career.
The Hallowell Gazette was established by Ezekiel Goodale and James Burton, Jr. in January, 1814, and was published until 1827. It was federal in politics.
The Genius of Temperance, devoted to the cause of temperance, was printed semi-monthly beginning in January, 1828. It continued only about two years be- cause of lack of patronage.
The Liberty Standard was printed at the Hallowell Gazette office about 1840 and was published by the Rev. J. C. Lovejoy. Later the Rev. Austin Willey con- ducted the paper. Its name was finally changed to Free Soil Republican, the free soil party having become a political factor. As a business enterprise, it was a fail- ure and it was printed only about seven years.
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A Hallowell newspaper that had a longer life than its predecessors was the Maine Cultivator and Weekly Gazette. This paper made its appearance on Sept. 28, 1839, established by T. W. Newman and R. G. Lincoln. It continued under various publishers until Dec. 9, 1871. In 1850 the headings were transposed to Hallo- well Gazette and Maine Cultivator, and beginning in September, 1853, the second heading was dropped and was called the Hallowell Gazette.
Henry Chase, who was its last publisher, changed its content from local news to a story paper and it was called the Saturday Gazette but such a paper was not well received and the last issue went to press Dec. 9, 1871.
Two other papers that were short-lived were the Kennebec Courier, published by T. W. Newman in 1861 or 62, and The Northern Light, published for a few months by J. W. May and A. C. Currier.
Hallowell was without a newspaper from Dec. 9, 1871, until Dec. 22, 1877, when the Hallowell Register was established by Walter F. Marston. This paper was transferred to George Snow Fuller in January, 1908, who published it through 1911. This was the last news- paper printed in Hallowell. Since that time, the city has been served adequately by area papers.
In Hubbard Free Library are files of Hallowell's early newspapers. This is considered by experts in the field to be the finest collection of early newspapers north of Worcester .- By Grace Blake Maxwell
Maj. Eliphalet Rowell, connected with the Cultivator and Gazette, as employe or editor and publisher from 1839-1865
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Charles E. Nash, Publisher with E. Rowell of the Hallowell Gazette from 1859-1862, Publisher of Hallowell Gazette from 1865-1869
Walter F. Marston, editor and publisher of the Hallowell Register for thirty years
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Present site of Depositors Trust Company
Tuck's Corner 1905
On the corner was the store occupied by Clement Bros. grocers, and before that by the Jewell Barber Shop. Across the street in the old days Tuck had a smoke house where he cured hams; that was on the site now occupied by the City Hall. In the building next to Clement Bros., Fred Clement conducted a candy and cigar store; and before his time, Noah Pack- ard ran a peanut stand there.
In the rear of the corner block on Winthrop Street can be seen the John Densmore house. Densmore was a well-known horseman and drove a coach in the old days between this city and outside points. Next was Stackpole's blacksmith shop, a great center for political gossip.
In 1898
Historical Lot and Building
The corner lot where the new City Building is to be erected has a history; 75 years ago James M. Ingra- ham had a successful grocery store and liquor shop where the Fire Department building now stands, and farther west of it stood a large dwelling house. It is thought that Ingraham built the brick store; he left town soon after its completion. Afterward T. B. Brooks and Co. did a prosperous hardware business in this store. They were succeeded by Franklin Hathaway. The sec- ond and third stories were occupied by the printing office and reading room of the American Advocate. In those days people did not buy the Boston and other papers, but became subscribers to the reading room and its privileges by paying $5 each year, and there read the papers. Afterward the Library had rooms there. When the first library building was to be built, the ladies wanted the corner lot, but the owner asked $2000 for it. In the end the present Library cost $2000, but that was not foreseen at the time. John Dorr, late of Au- gusta, also occupied the brick store a year or two be- fore Mr. Brooks took possession.
The dwelling-house on the west side of the lot was burned in 1824. When the fire took place the only ap- paratus in the town was buckets of which each member of a fire company owned one. Water was brought from the river, and passed from hand to hand by a row of people, some of them women. In more recent years an iron foundry plant occupied the west part of the lot. This property was twice gutted by fire, once in 1855, again in 1860. From the latter date to the present, this west part has been a deserted tract.
--- From scrapbook of Marguerite Fitzsimmons
H ILLOV
Winthrop Hill from Water Street in the late 1800's
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FAMOUS MEN OF EARLY HALLOWELL
Marion B. Stubbs
JACOB ABBOTT
The first Jacob Abbott to be connected with Hallo- well came here in November 1800 from Wilton, New Hampshire and opened a country store. He subse- quently had five sons and two daughters - all but two of whom were born in Hallowell.
All five of his sons attended Hallowell Academy, graduated from Bowdoin College, studied theology at Andover Seminary, all were ordained to the Congrega- tional ministry, all became teachers and all but one authors.
The oldest of the five brothers, Jacob, was born in Hallowell November 14, 1803. He attended Hallowell Academy and entered Bowdoin College when he was not quite fourteen years of age. He graduated in 1820 and spent the next four years in teaching at Portland, Maine, Academy and in Beverly, Massachusetts - and in the study of theology at Andover Seminary. He was appointed, in 1824, professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Amherst College. In 1828 he was married to Harriet Vaughan, daughter of Charles Vaughan, of Hallowell.
In 1833 Jacob Abbott became principal of the Mt. Vernon School for Ladies in Boston, and ten years later he and his four brothers founded Abbott's Institute, a school for young ladies in New York. This grew into
the Spingler Institute and the Abbott Collegiate Insti- tute - the pioneer of women's colleges in this country.
By this time he had started to write and before his death he was the author of one hundred and eighty books and the co-author or editor of thirty-one more. The Rollo books for boys and the Red Histories are the best known and are still entertaining reading.
Although very little of his life after college was spent in Hallowell we can claim him as a native son and take pride in his achievements as teacher, preacher and au- thor. In fact he himself said "that the influences that moulded his life were in a marked degree traceable to his youthful associations and surroundings in old Hallo- well." The last few years of his life were spent in quiet retirement at "Fewacres" in Farmington where he died October 31, 1879.
JOHN S. C. ABBOTT
John Stevens Cabot Abbott was born in Brunswick September 18, 1805 while his parents were temporarily in residence there, but his boyhood was spent in Hallo- well. His book Reminiscences of Childhood gives en- tertaining accounts of the customs, home life and amusements of those days. He had a ministerial record of forty years and was also the author of more than fifty books. Perhaps the most famous was his Life of
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Napoleon. He wrote ten of the Red Histories series, and his brother, Jacob, wrote twenty-two. His his- torical works were translated into many languages so that his reputation internationally was much greater than that of his brother Jacob.
He was a member of the famous class of 1825 at Bowdoin College which included Longfellow and Hawthorne and was present at the fiftieth anniversary of their graduation when Longfellow read his poem Morituri Salutamus. He gave the invocation on that occasion.
His death occurred June 17, 1877.
HENRY KNOX BAKER
Henry Knox Baker was born in Skowhegan Decem- ber 2, 1806, and the story of his childhood is one of privation and hardship. His father died when he was ten years old. When he was about fourteen Henry came to Hallowell and entered the printing office of Colonel Masters as an apprentice. He wrote for news- papers when seventeen and before he was twenty-one was editor of the Hallowell Gazette, later becoming edi- tor and one of the publishers of the American Advo- cate. He began the study of law in 1836 in the office of Samuel Wells and was admitted to the bar in 1840, practicing his profession in Hallowell for fourteen years. He represented Hallowell in the legislature in 1842, 1844 and 1854, in 1855 becoming clerk of that body. In the same year he was appointed Judge of the Probate Court in Kennebec County, serving twenty-five years.
On November 15, 1855 Mr. Baker was married to Sarah W. Lord of Hallowell. One daughter, Martha Baker Dunn, became the author of three novels, a vol- ume of essays and many poems.
Meanwhile he had been one of the founders and the first treasurer of the Hallowell Savings Institution, hold- ing that office from 1854 to 1901.
At the age of ninety-five, Mr. Baker wrote The Hallo- well Book which carries this inscription: "To the Sons and Daughters of Hallowell among whom I have made my home for eighty-one years, this little book, written at the age of ninety-five to while away the weary hours of illness, is affectionately dedicated." He died June 28, 1902.
JOSEPH R. BODWELL
The second Hallowell man to become governor of Maine was born in Methuen, Massachusetts June 18, 1818. Joseph R. Bodwell came to Maine in 1852 and in company with Moses Webster opened the Vinalhaven granite quarries. In 1866 he moved to Hallowell and later organized the Hallowell Granite Works, of which he was made president and treasurer. He also had large interests in lumbering, agriculture, and stock rais- ing, in the ice business on the Kennebec, in railroad development, and in other extensive enterprises.
Mrs. Nason in her Old Hallowell on the Kennebec writes as follows:
As a citizen of wealth and influence, Governor Bodwell had it in his power to do much for the welfare of Hallowell; and he never failed to re- spond to any worthy call. In his private life, he was a man of the highest character, revered and beloved in his family, spotless in integrity, bound- less in charity, a delightful friend and neighbor, a benefactor of the working man, a patriotic and public-spirited citizen who used his wealth for the benefit of the community and the good of the State.
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Governor Bodwell was not a politician. He never sought the emoluments of office, but was one of those rare men who have the honors of official position thrust upon them. At the unani- mous and importunate request of his fellow citi- zens, he served Hallowell as mayor for two terms [1880, 18841, and also twice represented Hallo- well in the Maine Legislature [1877, 18781.
It was with great reluctance that he consented to have his name presented as candidate for governor of Maine. He was elected and began his term in 1887. He died in office December 15, 1887, and is buried in the Hallowell cemetery.
The Bodwell house at 15 Middle Street is now occu- pied by Dr. Clarence E. Allen.
MELVILLE B. COX
Melville Beveridge Cox was born in Hallowell No- vember 9, 1799. At the age of ten years the family was broken up by the death of his father, so that Mel- ville and his twin brother, Gershom, went to live with friends of the family. Later he worked for awhile in a Hallowell bookstore where his literary tastes began to develop, for he had the opportunity to read the contents of the books as well as to sell them.
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