USA > Maine > The history of Maine, from the earliest discovery of the region by the Northmen until the present time; including a narrative of the voyages and explorations of the early adventurers, the manners and customs of the Indian tribes, the hardships of the first settlers, etc > Part 43
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THE HISTORY OF MAINE.
Ship-building ever has been, and for a long time will proba bly continue to be, one of the most important branches of indus try in the State. Notwithstanding it was a season of great com- mercial depression in the year 1873, there were two hundred and seventy-six vessels built in Maine, with a tonnage of eighty- nine thousand eight hundred and seventeen tons. The esti- mated value of these vessels was five and a half million dollars. It will appear from the above, that, from what may be consid- ered the agricultural products of Maine, the sum of the labors of the year 1873 was nearly fifty-seven million dollars. From manufacturing and other industrial products, the sum reached ninety-six million dollars ; making a total of one hundred and fifty-three million dollars. Surely the sons of such a State need not emigrate far away from friends and home, to other regions, to find remunerative fields of labor.
In the year 1850 there were two hundred and forty-five miles of railroad in the State. In 1874 these lines had been extended to nine hundred and five miles. There are quarries of excel- lent slate discovered, extending more than eighty miles from the Penobscot to the valley of the Kennebec.
Five miles from Skowhegan there has been opened what is called the Madison Slate-Quarry. The mine is not only one of wonderful promise, but already of great performance. Proba- bly there is nowhere to be found slate of more excellent qual- ity for roofing. It is very dark in color, and in toughness and elasticity unsurpassed. Its surface is so smooth that it appears almost polished. The quarry is apparently inexhaustible, yield- ing slate of similar rift and quality with that of the celebrated mine in Wales, which has now been worked fifty years. The slate has been subjected to experiments which have elicited remarkable results. A slab one-fourth of an inch in thickness will support a weight of four hundred and fifty pounds. It can be perforated to any extent without crumbling, so that the piece cut out can be returned and exactly fitted to the hole from which it was cut. It can be carved, or turned in a lathe, like ebony or ivory. When powdered it becomes an admirable arti- cle for the surface-painting of oil-cloths.
The toughness of the slate is marvellous. Nails may be
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driven through every square inch, without injuring the texture, or breaking the slate. A nail may be driven within an eighth of an inch of the edge. It is easily split into plates of exactly the same thickness, so that it will lie perfectly level upon the roof. An ample supply of water-power enables the proprietors to conduct their works with great efficiency. The plates have easy access to market by the Maine Central Railroad.
Several quarries, manufacturing roofing-slate, are in success- ful operation at Monson. The oldest quarries in the State are at Brownville. For more than thirty years these mines have been worked, producing a quality of slate which has given the slate of the State of Maine the highest reputation. It is safe to say that the world produces no finer roofing material than that which is to be found in Maine.
In Farmington, on the Sandy River, a quarry was opened in the spring of 1874. It is called " The Little Blue-Slate Quar- ry." The stone, in quality, very much resembles that obtained at Brownville. The tests usually applied prove it to be every way equal, for roofing purposes, to that celebrated variety. The most competent judges, including mineralogists, architects, slaters, and slate-dealers, award it high praise in respect to color, non-absorption of water, tenacity, and durability. There is good reason to expect that a section of this quarry, recently opened, will afford material for school-slates of superior quality.
The commercial facilities of Maine are unsurpassed by any State in the Union. The sinuosities of the shore are such, that there are between two and three thousand miles of coast-line. Its bays and inlets afford innumerable safe harbors. There is probably no other portion of the globe which exceeds or equals Maine in the magnitude of its water-power. There are one thousand five hundred and sixty-eight lakes within her borders, at an average elevation of six hundred feet above the level of the sea.
" These," says Gov. Dingley, " form the head waters of five thousand one hundred and fifty-one streams, which go rushing down towards the ocean, creating three thousand water-powers, which afford a force measured by not less than one million horse- powers, and equal to the working energy of thirteen million
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men. When it is remembered that not a thousandth part of the water-power of the State is as yet harnessed to machinery, some faint idea of the almost boundless extent of our manufacturing resources may be obtained." 1
The annual rain-fall of Maine, assumed at forty-two inches, would create a lake, covering eight hundred and seventy-one square miles, of the depth of Lake Erie. The inland body of water, including lakes and rivers, covers a surface of three thousand two hundred square miles.
There are in Maine four hundred and seventy-one cities, towns, and plantations, and one hundred and twenty-four town- ships. It is difficult to give with precision the number of water-powers, but from a careful estimate it is judged that there cannot be less than three thousand one hundred. More than half of these privileges are as yet unused.
If we subtract from the territory of Maine three thousand two hundred square miles for lake, pond, and river surfaces, and five hundred square miles for mountain tops and sides, ledges and heaths, and tracts too barren to support trees, there is left, of cultivated farms and forest surface, twenty-one thousand square miles. Of this region there is about fifteen thousand square miles of the primeval forest, whose silent depths have never echoed to the axe of the settler.
This vast expanse, destined eventually to afford prosperous homes to a large population, is seven times as large as the famous " Black Forest " of Germany. Indeed, it is larger than the States of Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island united. Maine seems to have been designed by nature as a great manu- facturing State. These water-powers are admirably located for access to our own great commercial centres, by river navigation and by railroads. The valleys admit of the extension of rail- ways far into the interior.
" The location of the State amid surrounding seas ; its extent of surface ; the disposition of its slopes; its geological structure ; its surface forms and extensive forests ; its grand system of lakes, with their uniform connection with the rivers, and susceptibility of reservoir improvement; the low annu- al temperature, and especially the low summer temperature, which at once
1 Address of Gov. Nelson Dingley, 1874.
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reduces evaporation, and contributes to vigorous labor; the winds of the State, as a whole maritime in character ; the copious rain-fall, with its uni- form distribution throughout the year, and diffusion over the whole State; the late lingering of the snow in spring; the small percentage of evapora- tion, resulting from the low temperature, from the number of rainy, snowy, and cloudy days; the consequent large residue of water for removal by rivers, and which our favorable surface forms determine to be removed by rivers, - taken together, constitute a sum of favorable conditions, which, it is confi- dently believed, no other equal area of the globe can surpass, or can, indeed, so much as equal. Other districts may have, and certainly do have, some one or more of the advantageous features more decidedly developed than Maine ; but none can parallel fully, as is believed, their combined series." 1
These facts seem to indicate that Maine is to become the great manufacturing State of the Union. When we add to the above considerations, that its climate is in the highest degree salubrious, and that, in point of economy, water-power is vastly superior to steam-power, it would seem to be inevitable, that eventually the hum of productive machinery will resound through all these valleys. This will afford a basis for the em- ployment of an immense population. And this will give new energy to all industrial pursuits, causing harvests to wave over all the plains, and cattle to graze over all the hillsides. This wonderful water-power is a grand resource of the State, which can never fail. It is based upon features of the country, and upon recuperative processes of nature, which must be permanent. Power is the creator of wealth. Wherever power is found, the ingenuity of man will utilize it. The power of Maine is worth more to the State than mines of precious metals or reservoirs of coal. The State is adopting an eminently wise policy, in en- couraging the formation of companies for manufacturing pur- poses, in exempting such infant establishments from taxation, and in allowing towns to subscribe to the stock of manufacturing enterprises.
In accordance with a recommendation to the legislature by Gov. Joshua L. Chamberlain, in 1869, commissioners· were appointed to explore the water-power of the State. The result is contained in an exceedingly valuable volume of about five hundred pages, issued by Walter Wells, Esq., superintendent
1 Water-Power of Maine, p. 64.
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of the Hydrographic Survey. From that volume I glean the following facts in reference to several of the most important rivers of Maine.
The Saco River drains a valley seventy-four miles in length, and thirty miles in its greatest breadth. The area of this valley includes fourteen hundred square miles. Eight hundred of these are in Maine, and six hundred in New Hampshire. The upper half of the valley is still heavily wooded, with but few clearings. It is estimated that one-half of the entire dis- trict is still a wilderness. The length of the river, from its sources among the mountains to the sea, including its windings, is about ninety-five miles. At Saco, the stream is about six hundred feet wide. Even in the drought of summer, forty thousand cubic feet of water can be commanded per minute, for eleven working hours of the day, or eighteen thousand cubic feet for the whole twenty-four hours. There are seventy-five lakes in this valley. By means of these reservoirs, the volume of water may be greatly increased. The descent of the river, for about sixty-seven miles, is seven feet to the mile. The gross power developed is estimated to be equivalent to seven- teen thousand four hundred and ninety-three horse power. This is sufficient to drive six hundred and ninety-nine thousand four hundred and ninety-three spindles.
Five miles from Portland, at Westbrook, on the Presumpscot River, there is a very important water-power known as the " Cumberland Mills Power." There is a fall of twenty feet, containing two thousand and thirteen horse power. One of the most extensive paper-mills in the country, carried on by S. D. Warren & Co., of Boston, is in operation here, all the year round. Two hundred and twenty-five men, and one hundred and twenty- five women, are employed. The annual produce of the manu- facture amounts to over one million of dollars. The chief market is in Boston and New York, both easily reached by railroad and steamboat.
The valley of the Androscoggin is about one hundred and ten miles in length, and seventy miles in its greatest breadth. It extends from the northerly outposts of the White Mountains to the ocean. The territory drained by the Androscoggin and
JOHNANDREW-SON.
CUMBERLAND MILLS, NEAR PORTLAND.
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its tributaries embraces three thousand six hundred square miles. It is judged that one thousand four hundred and eighty of these square miles are still covered with the primeval forest. The number of tributary streams contributing to the flood of the Androscoggin is six hundred and sixty-nine. The length of the river from Lake Umbagog to Brunswick, where it meets the tide, is one hundred and fifty-seven miles.
The low run at Brunswick is about one hundred and twenty- five thousand cubic feet a minute for eleven hours of the day, or fifty-seven thousand for the twenty-four hours. The descent of the river, from Lake Umbagog to Brunswick, is twelve hun- dred and fifty-six feet, being nearly eight and a half feet a mile. There are one hundred and forty-eight lakes in this valley, fifteen of which are in New Hampshire. These lakes cover a surface of two hundred and thirteen square miles. . It is estimated that the power of the section of the river, between Rumford and the head of the tide, is equivalent to eighty-five thousand two hundred horse power. This would drive nearly. four million spindles. Not one-eighth of this is now used.
The basin of the Kennebec River is one hundred and forty- five miles in length, with seventy-five miles of greatest breadth. It covers an area of five thousand eight hundred square miles. There are one thousand and eighty-four tributary streams. The length of the river from Moosehead Lake to the ocean, includ- ing its windings, is one hundred and fifty-five miles. The average width of the river at Augusta is seven hundred feet. In the summer of 1866, Col. De Witt found that one hundred and thirty thousand cubic feet of water per minute passed Augusta for the whole twenty-four hours. It is estimated that the average will be two hundred ninety-six thousand six hun- dred and forty feet each minute, for eleven hours of the day. The depth of water on the dam is usually from five to seven feet. On one occasion it was ten feet.
There are three hundred and sixteen lakes in this basin, covering an expanse of four hundred and fifty square miles. Moosehead Lake is thirty-five miles in length by twelve in breadth. At the outlet of the lake there is a dam. Upon hoisting the gates, it takes the wave of accumulated water
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about forty hours to reach Augusta. A strong southerly wind will retard it nearly three hours. The river is navigable for small vessels to Augusta. The mean period of the opening of the river in spring is on the 6th of April, and of closing on the 12th of December.
We give a view of Skowhegan Falls on Kennebec River. The total fall is twenty-eight feet within half a mile. Much of
NORTH CHANNEL DAM, AT SKOWHEGAN, ME.
it is nearly perpendicular. The fall could be greatly increased by dams. A small island of rock divides the fall into two channels, and would serve a natural pier to the sections of the dam, and as sites for mills. The bottom of the river is a solid ledge, and so are the banks.
In the towns of Madison and Anson, on the Kennebec River, there is an important water-power known as the Madison Bridge Falls. There is, at this point, a fall of eighty-seven feet within a distance of two and a half miles. There are two principal pitches. The cut represents the upper one, and shows scarcely one-fourth of the descent. The bottom is a ledge, and dams can be located at any desired point.
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In the towns of Embden and Solon, on the Kennebec River, there is a fall of twenty feet perpendicular, called " Carratunk Falls." A dam can easily be built ten feet high. This would give thirty feet fall, equal to that at Lowell. Thus there would be obtained five thousand five hundred horse-power, which would drive two hundred and twenty thousand spindles. The
MADISON BRIDGE FALLS, ANSON AND MADISON, ME.
facilities for canalling, by the falls, are very good. The ground is admirably graded. An extent of about one hundred acres is well adapted for the erection of buildings sufficient to accommo- date a large population.
The valley of the Penobscot River lies east of that of the Kennebec. It is entirely within the boundaries of the State.
" The Penobscot is the only great fluviatile district in Maine which illus- trates, in its actual configuration, the geographical idea of the river basin, - appearing as a mere point at the mouth of the stream, thence, interior- ward, expanding symmetrically on both sides of the central channel, presently embranching into subordinate basins, themselves disposed likewise symmetrically about tributary streams, and themselves yet further breaking
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up into still smaller basins, located upon still smaller tributaries, until the whole takes on the similitude of a mighty tree, that from one trunk ramifies into innumerable branches, and from one grand aorta divaricates into num- berless arteries and veins, by which, upon occasion, its entire volume of fluids is conducted to and poured into a common channel of circulation and discharge." 1
CARRATUNK FALLS, EMBDEN AND SOLON, ME.
The greatest length of the valley of the Penobscot, from' north to south, is one hundred and sixty miles, and its greatest breadth one hundred and fifteen miles. It includes an area of eight thousand two hundred square miles. The highest portion: of the basin, at the head waters of the main river, is about two thousand feet above the sea-level. The State map represents one thousand six hundred and four streams in the Penobscot system. The river from its extreme head waters, including its windings, is about three hundred miles in length. The chief water-power is between Lake Chesuncook and Bangor, a dis- tance of one hundred and twenty miles, where the fall is about
1 Water-Power of Maine, p. 100.
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nine hundred feet. It is one of the most highly favored streams in the State, presenting, without any artificial aid, remarkable uniformity in the volume of water throughout the entire year.
There are four hundred and sixty-seven lakes in this basin, covering a surface of four hundred and sixty-two square miles. Many of these lakes are large, and can be used to almost any amount for reservoirs. The river can thus meet immense man- ufacturing demands.
UPPER DAM, AT ELLSWORTH, ME.
At Ellsworth, on Union River, a few miles east from the Penobscot, there is a fall of about eighty feet within two miles. Above the Upper Dam, the water is level for a long distance. The dam throws back the water ten miles. A town of five thousand inhabitants has sprung up around these falls. The power, for fifty years, has been employed almost exclusively for the manufacture of lumber. The annual product has been about thirty-five million feet of long lumber, two hundred thousand sugar-box shooks, two million laths, five million shin- gles, two hundred thousand clapboards, and a large quantity of
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smaller stuff. The annual value of these productions is esti- mated at nearly a million dollars. The principal markets are Portland, Boston, New York, and Cuba.
The valley of the St. Croix is seventy miles in length, and fifty in greatest breadth. It embraces an area of one thousand one hundred and seventy-five square miles. Eight hundred of these are in Maine; three hundred and seventy-five are in the adjacent British Province. Almost the entire flow of the river is from lakes, and these may be easily converted into reservoirs.
The lacustrine aspect of this valley is very remarkable. It can hardly be paralleled by any country on the globe. The northern branch of the river is almost a continuous lake of vast extent, and of wondrous eccentricities of windings and form. The western branch is also mainly a lake, broken into many small sheets of water. "The river," says Mr. Wells, " might almost justly be described as a lake in motion." The total of lake surface is estimated at not less than one hundred and fifty square miles.
" A proportion so remarkable places the St. Croix at once, and without controversy, in the foremost position among the large rivers of the State, as a manufacturing stream, so far as regards natural reservoirs, and in propor- tion to its magnitude and its area of basin. The power on the main river, from below the junction of the west and north branches, is already, for the greater part, well accommodated with railroad communication." 1
The upper waters of the St. John constitute, in the extreme northern part of the State, the boundary between Maine and the British possessions. In this region, the right bank of the river belongs to Maine; and, still farther up, the whole stream is within our territory. The greatest length of the river in Maine, measured along its southern border, is about two hundred and eleven miles. The greatest breadth of the valley, in these upper waters, is ninety miles. The St. John constitutes, next to the Androscoggin River, the most elevated drainage in Maine.
The stream flows through the glooms of a dense but almost unbroken wilderness. The total length of this important river, from its sources to the sea, is four hundred and fifty miles. The
1 Water-Power of Maine, p. 120.
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area of the lakes in the St. John basin is three hundred and fifty square miles. In the upper waters, the slope is so gradual that the stream is navigable through nearly the whole length of its flow in Maine, being comparatively of little value for the purposes of power.
We have thus given a brief account of the primary, or interior river systems in Maine. When it is remembered that there are represented, upon the State map, five thousand one hundred and fifty-one streams in Maine, and that there are over three thou- sand valuable water-powers, it will be seen that a minute detail of these privileges is impossible.
There is a general impression that Maine is too far away in the North, and too severe in its climate, to invite emigration. Mr. Blodgett writes, in his Climatology of the United States, -
" The Mississippi Valley has been pre-eminent as the theatre of malari- ous fevers, which have been the scourge of emigrants from nearly all parts of the world. To the natives of the North of Europe, and the British Isles in particular, the change has been extremely trying; and prostration by some one of its forms, mild or severe, has been almost certain to attend the new-comer. India itself has not been more certain to break the health of the emigrant, than the Mississippi Valley, though the American forms of disease were always attended with a much smaller ratio of mortality."
Fever and ague, yellow fever, and cholera are never known as epidemics in Maine. Many a farmer has emigrated to the malarious regions of the West, with a family of ruddy boys and girls, to see them, one and all, wilt down, pale, emaciate, with all their energies paralyzed, beneath the scourge of fever and ague. And as he himself, now shaking with the chill, and now burning with fever, has looked upon his desponding household, he has wished, with yearnings which cannot be expressed, that he and his family could again breathe the invigorating atmos- phere even of a Maine winter.
It is often said that health is the greatest of blessings. This consideration will doubtless influence the young men of Maine to remain at home, and improve the wonderful resources which God has placed in their hands. And it will doubtless invite emigrants from Northern Europe, from Scotland, Germany,
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Holland, Belgium, Norway, and Sweden. Here they find a climate essentially the same with that to which they have been accustomed from childhood, and which their ancestors have enjoyed for centuries before them.
It is a great mistake to suppose that a cold climate is unfavor- able to prosperity and happiness. There is unquestionably far more enjoyment in St. Petersburg, Russia, than in Calcutta. The homes of Norway and Sweden are more attractive than those of Italy and Southern Spain. I once asked a group of thirty boys at school in Farmington, Me., " Which do you like best, summer or winter?" The spontaneous and universal response was, " Oh, winter, winter !" There were some boys from Cuba there. No words can express the delight with which they enjoyed the magnificent snow-storms, the sleigh-rides, the snow-forts, the "sliding down hill," and the skating. Even now, in my seventieth year, I feel a thrill of pleasurable emo- tion in contemplating the blissful winters which I passed in early youth upon the banks of the Kennebec.
CHAPTER XXIX.
POPULAR EDUCATION.
Normal School in Farmington - Normal School in Castine - Maine Central Institute - Oak Grove Seminary - Commercial College - State College of Agriculture - Winthrop Grammar School - Kittery District School - Intel- lectual, Social, and Physical Advantages of Maine.
T THERE is probably no State in the Union where more attention is paid to the education of the masses of the people, or where better schools are maintained, than in Maine. In the report of Hon. Warren Johnson, superintendent of public schools, for the year 1874, it would appear that the whole num- ber of scholars, between the ages of four and twenty-one, was. two hundred and twenty-five thousand two hundred and nine- teen. There were four thousand one hundred and ninety-nine schoolhouses. The estimated value of school-property was a little over three million dollars.
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