The history of Colby College, Part 21

Author: Colby College
Publication date: 1963
Publisher: Waterville, Colby College Press
Number of Pages: 716

USA > Maine > Kennebec County > Waterville > The history of Colby College > Part 21

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

In his class history, Hall reminded the audience that the class was already represented on the battlefield. Amasa Bigelow had already paid the supreme sacrifice. Samuel Hamblen was a lieutenant in the Third Maine, and John Phil- brook was in the same regiment. Richard Shannon, who was later to rise to colonel, was on the staff of General Slocum. Six others members of the class responded a year later to the rallying cry of the North, "We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more."

Hall said that the custom of regular award of prizes had begun with his class, although occasional prizes had been known earlier. With the Class of 1862 began a long continued custom of junior parts. Hall pointed with pride to other achievements: "We have started the first gym and cricket club, and have been the first to find false orders in manuscript and identify the authors."

It was in the midst of war that there began to be published what are called class statistics. It was proclaimed in 1862 that exactly half of the twenty-six graduates were church members -- seven Baptists, four Congregationalists, and two Methodists. Eight intended to enter the ministry and an equal number planned to study law, while four were headed for medicine. Two of the graduates wore beards, three had side whiskers, and nine sported mustaches. Only six of the twenty-six men smoked, and only one chewed tobacco. The youngest man in the class was 19 and the oldest 30, with the average age 24. At Class Day in 1862 there was instituted the custom of smoking the pipe of peace, a ceremony that lasted well into the 1930's. Still preserved is the old Indian-style pipe used in that ceremony.

The Waterville Mail gave a vivid description of the graduating exercises on Wednesday of Commencement Week of 1862:

A pleasant day was Wednesday, with a clear sky and a cool breeze, making a place in the procession or a seat in the crowded church as com- fortable as one could reasonably expect at this season of the year. As usual, the church was crammed, large numbers being compelled to stand in the aisles, doorways and porch. Eight members of the class were in the Army and received their degrees in absentia. As for the orations in English, Frank Bodfish spoke on The Law of Labor, Adam Wilson on Government of the People, Frederick Hale on The Magic of Evil, William Stevens on The Influence of Historical Characters, George Hunt on The Unity of Mankind, and Edward Hall on Sadness in Joy. It was the largest class that ever graduated from the institution, and their performances, while exhibiting different degrees of merit, were highly creditable to the young gentlemen and to their alma mater. At the conclusion of the exercises, a long procession of hungry folk marched

156

HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE

to the Town Hall, where bountiful provision had been made for their wants.5 With apology for the cold collation, President Champlin called upon Deacon Deane to implore the divine blessing, after which the guests fell upon the food with a will. When eventually the clatter of knives and forks ceased, President Champlin called upon the second man in the nation for a few remarks. Vice-President Hamlin responded in a brief, patriotic speech, in which he showed himself fully up to the latest impulses of the people against the rebellion. Governor Wash- burn followed in an earnest war speech, and was succeeded by Hon. Lot M. Morrill. Professor Angel closed this last and best feature of the festival with some playful compliments to our state and its people, which for a time blotted out the harsh image of war. A concert by the Germania Band on Wednesday evening, followed by a levee at the President's, appropriately closed this season of enjoyment, and on Thurs- day morning the railroad trains were boarded with departing guests, who, bearing with them pleasant recollections of this literary festival of 1862, no doubt resolved to come again next year.

In the midst of war and its consequent stress on college finances, President Champlin had time to give attention to moral conditions in the community. On March 19, 1863, he sent this letter to the editor of the Waterville Mail:

The drunkenness that has been constantly increasing since the authori- ties of the town proclaimed that they would not molest the rum traffic now rolls like a flood over our village. Almost every night, boys not fif- teen years old are seen reeling down the street. Who for many years has seen such a town meeting as our last, when men were seen to- gether drunk and the doors of grog shops were thronged with bleary- eyed men? Scores of good men are laboring earnestly for the moral interests of this community, but that is not enough. The law must be enforced. Is there any doubt as to the way in which duty points?

Dr. Champlin also took a leading part in the freeing of Ticonic Bridge from toll, an event which took place on July 1, 1864.

A few months earlier an enthusiastic audience, including most of the col- lege students, turned out to hear the famous Negro leader, Frederick Douglass. William Smith Knowlton, 1864, who became one of Maine's distinguished citi- zens, remembered well the impression which Douglass made.

He spoke to the reason of his hearers, not to their emotions, and he won them by the clearness and force of his statements. I was especially impressed by the compass and purity of his language. In his long ad- dress I did not note an expression nor even a word which would sug- gest that he had passed his childhood and youth as a slave. Never before or since have I heard, from any self-educated man, a speech equal to his.

A careful study of the Class of 1864 reveals the effect of the Civil War on the College. In the fall of 1860, thirty-one young men entered as freshmen. Before the following autumn, when they were sophomores, they had lost thirteen of their number, nine of them to military service. Four new men came to join them in advanced standing, so that there were still twenty-two enrolled in the

157

CHAMPLIN AND THE CIVIL WAR

class. In their junior year, which began two months after Gettysburg, they num- bered only sixteen, having lost six with no replacements. When they were seniors, their number was fifteen, because in spite of losing three members since the previous autumn, they had gained two men who had returned from service to complete their college work. When it came to graduation in August, 1864, how- ever, only nine men received the degree. Several men who were once in the class received degrees in later years. Of the total of 37 men who were at any time enrolled in the Class of 1864, sixteen saw service in the Civil War.

In late June of 1863, just before the decisive Battle of Gettysburg, Tutor Richardson wrote from the College to his former student, Francis Hesseltine, who was then captain of an infantry company at the front.

One who did not sense our anxiety about the war would discover here only signs of profound peace. The fields are green with growing crops; the sweep of the scythe begins to be heard; the college bell rings out at regular hours, and Commencement approaches. It has been dif- ficult to keep alive the interest in books, but the term has been fairly successful.

In the eyes of classmates, some of those students of the '60's changed a lot in later years. Writing to Col. Boothby, Col. Richard Shannon told about one of them who gained fame as a member of Congress and American minister to Japan, Alfred E. Buck.

Do you remember Number 13 on the fourth floor, back, of South Col- lege? It was the untidy den of 'Old Buck', as the future soldier, Con- gressman, and Minister to Japan was called with the utmost respect and affection. There, in the fall of our freshman year, that mighty senior sheltered this pale, timid freshman. The great man took the trembling youngster for that first terrible term under his wing-or rather, under his big shawl, such as most of us wore in those primitive times. In the adjoining room, front, you had your more elegant, or at least more tidy quarters.

The lowly tutor, Hobart W. Richardson, from whose letter to Hesseltine we have already quoted, came in for high praise from Col. Shannon. Richardson had graduated from the College in 1853, and from 1855 had served eight years as a tutor. He was not promoted to a professorship, but in the midst of the finan- cial stringency caused by the War was released and his place was not filled until 1865. Shannon had never approved of that administrative action, and many years later he put his opinion into these words:

It is doubtful if there was in the whole country another man who could condense into a short statement the meaning and essence of the news of the day with such precision and clearness as did our revered Tutor Richardson. He was indeed a remarkable man. Hardly out of college, he had mathematics enough to write an article on the calculus which was accepted by the North American Review. Later, as editor of the Maine Farmer's Almanac, he made his own astronomical calculations. So profound was his general learning and so wide his reading in various branches of knowledge that he would have brought fame to the insti- tution, had he been permitted to continue his labors there.

158

HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE

Col. Shannon's letter is the only written evidence bearing on Richardson's failure to receive promotion. Having no other testimony to support it, we can- not be sure that Shannon was right, but the Colonel did know rather well what went on in the College. He was sure that there was never any question of Rich- ardson's patriotism. The man was no Copperhead, but on the contrary was a vigorous supporter of the Union cause. He was turned out, says Shannon, "not because of any militant and aggressive heterodoxy, but on account of a some- what passive attitude toward formal and ceremonial observance, and perhaps some speculative questions in matters of doctrine."

Was Richardson too liberal in religion to satisfy President Champlin and the Baptist Trustees? If so, he could have been no more obnoxious to con- servative authority than President Sheldon had been many years earlier. Just how did Richardson oppose "formal and ceremonial observance?" Didn't he like the excessive dignity of Commencement? Did he fail to respect the severe formality of the classroom, where every student must stand to recite, even if his response was one single monosyllabic word? Did he want to break down the barrier between teacher and student? Was he, in respect to student-faculty relations, a man ahead of his time? Or was there, in fact, a very simple explana- tion for his non-promotion-that the College treasury just couldn't meet the cost of another professorship, and after 1863 couldn't even pay for a tutor?

When William Smith Knowlton, 1864, was a very aged man, in 1925, he wrote for the Alumnus® recollections of his college days that give us a picture of life on campus seemingly untouched by war. We know that the students were very much concerned about events on the battlefields, but it is reassuring to know that they were still ordinary, human young men.

Knowlton recalled the Mathews Bookstore, kept by Samuel Mathews, whose brother Edward had been Waterville's first murder victim, and whose older brother William had started the bookstore before leaving Waterville for an illustrious career as author and publisher. Sam Mathews served as a sort of banker for the students. They turned their money over to him and drew such overdrafts that at times their accumulated indebtedness reached as much as a thousand dollars. Years later, Knowlton asked the bookseller if he had lost much money by his transactions with students. Mathews replied that he had suffered loss in only two cases, and in each of those for small amounts. Three quarters of a century later the same sort of testimony was given by another Waterville merchant who had advanced credit to hundreds of twentieth century Colby students-Ludie Le- vine of the Class of 1921.

In our modern day, when relations between college and city are cordial and cooperative, it is not easy to visualize the difference a hundred years ago. Knowl- ton said the college students then called the town boys "yaggers," and fist fights were common. On one occasion a group of students seized a "yagger" and threw him into a mudpuddle. When he came out, he burst into violent profanity, whereupon one of the students shouted, "Look here, this is a Baptist institution. Wash the cursing out of him, boys." And into the puddle he went again.

There never was a time without student pranks, and the grim days of the Civil War were no exception. The 'exhibitions,' then as later, provided oppor- tunity for amusement. Knowlton recalled that, on the occasion of the Junior Exhibition in 1862, a group of students, mindful of the fine of ten cents exacted for non-attendance at such exercises, went down town and borrowed a big sign bearing the picture of an elephant. They nailed the sign over the chapel door

159

CHAMPLIN AND THE CIVIL WAR

and placed on it the words 'Big Show-10¢ Admission.' Knowlton said, "The juniors had to walk in under it, much to their wrath."

How different from undergraduate conditions today is Knowlton's comment that "about everyone had decided what his future profession would be." Equally surprising is it to learn that croquet was once an intercollegiate sport. "We played croquet at the college, sometimes in class contests, sometimes between the societies, and once a year we visited Bowdoin to play the game there."

Experienced teacher and administrator, as well as a preacher of note, Knowl- ton was all his life an unrepentant conservative. Of curriculum changes since his own college days he did not approve. He lamented the passing of Greek from the preparatory schools. "Better drop out French and put back Greek," he wrote. "The study of French in our academies is a farce. A modern teacher of French couldn't talk with a Madawaska Frenchman."

Knowlton describes vividly a typical college morning in the 1860's.

We had prayers at the unholy hour of six. My room was on the fourth floor. An old Frenchman was janitor. He stood at the chapel door ready to lock out late comers. We were fined ten cents for absence. When the bell stopped ringing, we jumped out of bed, pulled on trousers and boots, wrapped big shawls about our shoulders and rushed to the chapel. One would hold the door open for the next, and so we all got in, much to the wrath of the janitor. Then we read an hour before breakfast. No man would be allowed to treat his dumb animals so barbarously nowadays.

In the 1860's professors would not tolerate levity in the classroom. Knowl- ton recalled that in Professor Foster's class, when called upon to translate a pas- sage in Horace's Odes, he rendered it thus:

"Oh daughter Fulcrar, Handsomer than your mama, How could I such an onus prove To write iambics 'gainst my love. Burn those verses every speck, Dump them in the Kennebec."

"Sit down, sir," thundered Professor Foster. Knowlton says he got zero that day.

Thomas Briggs, another member of 1864, recalled a notable Waterville event of 1860.ª That summer Barnum's Circus appeared in the town. Its feature was the midget Tom Thumb, who rode down Main Street in a little gilded coach drawn by four tiny ponies, the gift of Queen Victoria. As the procession passed the Elmwood Hotel, Briggs heard one politically minded citizen say to another, "After the election you can put the whole Democratic party in that coach." The refer- ence was to the coming election in November, 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was elected President.

As the war progressed, the financial condition of the College grew steadily worse. In spite of the valiant efforts of President Champlin, Professor Hamlin, and other members of the faculty, who turned themselves into door-to-door beg- gars all over the state, very little money was collected. As early as 1862, the trustee committee appointed to consider the disappointing report of the Treasurer had advised:

160

HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE

As the deficiencies from year to year must be made up from the per- manent funds of the College, your committee feel the importance of keeping the expenditures at the lowest possible point, but cannot see where they can recommend any curtailment. They would urge that the subscriptions now in progress to endow the College be carried forward with renewed zeal, that this annual draft on our permanent fund may cease.

In October, 1863, the Waterville Mail proclaimed with satisfaction that the Baptists of Maine were at last awaking to the importance of sustaining Waterville College. The Mail stated:

A meeting of the friends of Waterville College, convened by the Maine Baptist Convention, met in this village on last Tuesday evening, to de- liberate upon measures to be adopted for securing a permanent endow- ment of the institution. A statement of the present condition of the College was made by President Champlin, and the meeting was ad- dressed by a number of gentlemen from various parts of the state in relation to public feeling toward the College in their respective locali- ties. Their reports, while hopeful, showed that the denomination, through ignorance of the institution and its importance to them, did not appreciate its claims nor give it proper support.

The meeting decided that part of the trouble was inadequate publicity. Al- though the time was almost exactly in the middle of the Civil War, there seems to have been no suggestion that the people's indifference was due in part to absorption in war activities and war anxieties. The final report said,

It is believed the people are at heart well disposed toward the College, but they must be enlightened and inspired. When their interest shall be thus aroused, it will be necessary to make personal effort with each individual, in order to obtain a suitable contribution.

When substantial relief came, it came not from the Maine Baptists, but from a Boston merchant, who as a fatherless boy in Waterville had seen his widowed mother befriended by the college's first president, Jeremiah Chaplin.

CHAPTER XVII

A New Name

O N August 10, 1864, Gardner Colby gave $50,000 to Waterville Col- lege. Concerning that fact all accounts agree. Whittemore1 says that at the commencement dinner President Champlin introduced Mr. Colby, who in a brief speech made his generous gift. Burrage2, quoting Dr. Francis Bakeman, 1866, who was present at the dinner as a student, says that Champlin made the an- nouncement, while Mr. Colby remained seated at his side. According to his brother, Rev. Henry F. Colby3, either at or just previous to the dinner, Mr. Colby handed President Champlin a note, and it was that note which Champlin read in making the momentous announcement.

Whittemore quotes the Gardner Colby statement slightly differently from its quotation by Henry Colby, probably because Whittemore took his wording from the records of the trustees, while Henry Colby had access to the original letter. The latter version is therefore probably more authentic. It reads:

Waterville, Aug. 10, 1864

Rev. J. T. Champlin, D. D. My dear Sir,

I propose to give Waterville College the sum of fifty thousand dollars ($50,000), the same to be paid without interest as follows, viz:

Twenty-five thousand dollars when your subscription shall amount to one hundred thousand dollars, independent of any from me;

Twenty-five thousand dollars when one hundred thousand is paid on your subscription, not including any from me; and upon condition that the president and a majority of the faculty shall be members in good stand- ing of regular Baptist churches.

If either or any of these conditions are broken, the entire fifty thou- sand dollars shall revert to myself, or my heirs or assigns. I remain,

Yours very truly, Gardner Colby

The records of the Trustees, made at the following annual meeting, on August 8, 1865, state:

The subscription of Mr. Colby is upon condition first, that the interest of his subscription only shall be used for college purposes; second, that

162

HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE

half, or $25,000, shall be paid when the subscriptions obtained by Horace T. Love and others shall amount to one hundred thousand dol- lars exclusive of his subscription, and $25,000 when $100,000 is paid in on said subscriptions; and third, that the President and a majority of the faculty shall be members in good standing in regular Baptist churches.

At the same time the Trustees voted:

The thanks of this Board are expressed to Gardner Colby, Esq. of Bos- ton for his generous and timely benefaction to this college, which we do hereby accept to hold, employ and use in accordance with the several terms and conditions thereof, each and every one of them, by us and our successors forever.

There is no doubt that the announcement of Mr. Colby's gift by President Champlin was dramatic. This is the way Dr. Bakeman told the story to Dr. Burrage:

Dr. Champlin arose and stood silent, as if to command the unreserved attention of the company. How pale he looked! When he spoke, how strangely his voice seemed to shake! There were no tears in his eyes, but there was in his utterance what makes tears. As long as I live I shall recall the grand old man in that historic hour, which was to him the victor's crown after years of hardest warfare. And now he an- nounced that the gentleman at his side, a short, plump little man with a benevolent appearing face, had made the definite and formal proposition to give the college $50,000 as a permanent fund, on condition that the friends of the institution should add $100,000. The announcement ran through the company like a kindling fire. Mr. Colby was known to few; his intention was known to fewer still. The rumor had not got abroad. It was a genuine surprise. For a moment there was stillness, as in the hush before the breaking of a tempest, then a wild demonstration of joy such as I have never since witnessed. Hands, feet, voices, knives and forks rapping on the tables, all bore part in the concert of applause. Men shook hands and fairly hugged each other in their transports of joy. The hall rang again and again to their cheers. It seemed as if they would never stop. The fountains of affection had been broken up, and their tor- rents could not be easily checked.

The scene of that memorable incident was the old Town Hall of Waterville, situated then on the town common near where the City Hall now stands. In it commencement dinners were held until the erection of Memorial Hall. The old building had been erected in 1798, when the west side of the river was still a part of Winslow, so as to make it unnecessary for settlers on the west side to cross the river to attend meeting in the original church on the east shore. After Waterville became a separate town in 1802, the new meetinghouse had served also as a town hall. It was in that building that Jeremiah Chaplin had delivered his first Waterville sermon in 1818. In it had been held the town meeting that voted $3000 of public money to bring the college to Waterville. In the very year of Mr. Colby's gift, it had been the scene of rousing patriotic meetings. Upon the erection of the present City Hall, the building was moved back and faced upon

163

A NEW NAME

Front Street. Used for many years as a National Guard armory and for occa- sional sports events, it was finally torn down in 1950.

Gardner Colby often told how he happened to make his splendid gift. He said that in the spring of 1864, on the evening of the annual day of prayer for colleges, the speaker at the service held in Mr. Colby's church, the First Baptist of Newton Centre, was Dr. Samuel B. Swain, who, forty years earlier, had been a youthful pastor in Portland. Dr. Swain told the Newton congregation that one day as he entered the house of a Portland parishioner for a pastoral call, he met Jeremiah Chaplin, the President of Waterville College, leaving the same house. Chaplin had apparently been unsuccessful in his attempt to secure a subscription from the householder. Swain heard the disappointed man groan out, "God help Waterville College." Dr. Swain said that the picture of the self- denying and earnest servant of Christ, standing in that doorway, giving vent to his over-burdened heart, had remained indelible in the pastor's memory.

Often in later years Mr. Colby told what an impression Dr. Swain's words had made upon him. A flood of memories crowded in. He barely remembered his father, though he could recall one trip down the river with him from the family home in Bowdoinham to the bustling port of Bath. Losing a comfortable fortune as the result of the Embargo Act and the War of 1812, the father had left his wife and four small children wholly dependent upon the mother's labor for support. He remembered his mother's little store at Bath, then their re- moval to Waterville. His boyhood had been one unceasing round of poverty and hard work. Suddenly he remembered something else --- how a tall, spare man, who was president of the college, had helped his mother move to Boston, an event that was the turning point in the boy's life and set him on the road to fortune.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

The history of Colby College, Part 21

Author: Colby College Publication date: 1963 Publisher: Waterville, Colby College Press Number of Pages: 716

Author: Colby College
Publication date: 1963
Publisher: Waterville, Colby College Press
Number of Pages: 716