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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 ELLSWORTHI, 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.
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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.
In Farmington there was a normal school in a state of high prosperity. The average attendance was a little over one hun- dred. The object of this school is the thorough training of teachers for their professional labors. It had an excellent phil- osophical and chemical apparatus, and a good library. During the past ten years one hundred young men, and one hundred and ninety-eight young women, have graduated at this institu- tion.
At Castine there is another normal school. The attendance in the spring term of the year 1874 was one hundred and thirty, in five classes. The whole number in attendance during the year was three hundred and eleven. The regular course of study embraced three years. The diligent student in this time
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could become well qualified to teach in the common schools. In one of the late reports we read the following encouraging statement : -
" The earnest, able young men and women of Maine have never before had such inducements offered them to become teachers. The workers and the work are becoming appreciated. Wages, commensurate with the culture and industry of the teacher, are now offered for his services .. We have not been able to supply the demand for first-class teachers. The free high schools are calling for our best teachers, and the demand will increase."
This high standard of qualifications required in the teacher will have an influence on all grades of schools. The work of educating the children of the State will be in the hands of those who have been systematically trained to the calling, and who will enter upon it with an intelligent enthusiasm which will call forth the best energies of the pupils. The many interesting questions now engaging the attention of prominent educators - some of them of vital importance to the future welfare of the nation - will be treated by the graduates of these schools with a candid and far-reaching consideration, and the whole subject of education will be elevated to its proper position in the minds of the public.
Even from a material point, this attention to the cause of popular education will have its reward. In the close competi- tion for the commerce of the world now going on between the leading nations of Europe and America, every power of the mind is being cultivated, and brought into action; new schools are being founded, and old ones re-organized ; and the unedu- cated peoples will fall behind in the struggle for pre-eminence. This State, with its great facilities for manufacturing and me- chanical enterprises, and its educated population, will take a foremost position among the progressive communities of the day. It has certainly reason to congratulate itself upon the success which has attended the working of its normal schools. The thousands of young men and young women who have graduated from the schools at Farmington and Castine have gone into all parts of the State, and are now exerting an influ- ence, silent, but none the less effective on its school-system.
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The town of Castine presented the State with a fine lot of land, for the erection of a new building, about the year 1872. The school was then in successful operation. In the year 1873
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NORMAL SCHOOL, CASTINE.
the present beautiful edifice was completed. Gov. Perham and his council, with many distinguished friends of education, attended the dedicatory exercises. An audience of five hun- dred was assembled in the hall, and yet it was of capacity to
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accommodate one hundred more. Speeches were made by the governor, and by other citizens of Maine and of other States.
This is one of the best schoolhouses in the State. The region around is occupied by a religious, intelligent, industrious community, who can well appreciate the value of education. The building can accommodate two hundred scholars, and has already become a powerful instrument in the intellectual advancement of the thriving surrounding towns.
MAINE CENTRAL INSTITUTE, PITTSFIELD, ME.
In the prosperous village of Pittsfield, about twenty-three miles east of Waterville, there is a successful school, called the " Maine Central Institute." The regular course of study occu- pies four years, and young men and young women are alike admitted. A board of twenty trustees presides over the inter- ests of this seminary, and it is intended to make it a first-class institution. Latin and Greek, French and German, are taught, with the higher branches of mathematics, geology, astronomy, mental philosophy, and moral science. The terms of tuition are low, and board can be obtained in the village for about two dollars a week.
Thus an accomplished education is offered to the sons and
WASSE_L -FICAARESON. 6
Church.
Goddard Hall. Dining Hall.
Hersey Hall.
Seminary Building.
WESTBROOK SEMINARY.
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daughters in all the farm-houses of that rural district. The institute includes a college preparatory course, a normal depart- ment, and an academic department. There were in the year 1874, in the preparatory course, eighty-four pupils ; in the nor- mal, thirty-one ; in the academic, one hundred and eight ; mak- ing a total of two hundred and twenty-three.
And yet in the unbroken wilderness, which for countless gen- erations had covered these hills and vales, not a solitary white man had reared his cabin until the year 1794. In 1815, when about a dozen families had opened clearings in the forest, widely separated from each other, the region was elevated to the dig- nity of a plantation. In 1819 it was incorporated as a town by the name of Warsaw, which name was changed to Pittsfield in the year 1819.
At Vassalboro' there is quite a celebrated school, called the Oak Grove Seminary, to which a normal department is attached. The school year consists of three terms of thirteen weeks each. An elevated course of study is pursued. In 1874 there were eighteen pupils here preparing for teachers. In Bucksport there is an institution called the Conference Seminary and Commercial College. It has a faculty of five teachers, and about two hundred scholars.
Westbrook is a beautiful town, which was a part of Falmouth until the year 1814. Upon Stevens' Plains in this town, there is located a literary institution of high order and superior accommodations. It is called Westbrook Seminary, and consists of three principal buildings, which will accommodate a large number of students. The institution is well patronized, and sends out yearly into the community many well-educated pupils prepared to be useful in all the walks of common life. The accompanying illustration shows vividly the progress the State has made since, scarcely a century ago, the Indians reared their wigwams on these plains, and pursued their game through the glooms of an almost unbroken forest.
A State College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts was opened at Orono, in the year 1868. It is under State patron- age, and supervised by a carefully selected board of trustees, of which Gov. Coburn in the year 1874 was president. The stu- 1 Now Deering, the town having been divided in 1871 .- ELWELL.
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dents represented every county in the State. The institution stands high in the estimation of the community, and is every year regarded with increasing favor the several branches of a practical education. The number of students in the year 1874 was one hundred and twenty-one. The institution is partially military in its character, though its principal object is to give the pupils the best'instruction in agriculture and the mechanic
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RESIDENCES OF COL. EBENEZER WEBSTER, MIRS. MARTHA (WEBSTER) TREAT, AND PAUL D. WEBSTER, EsQ.
arts. It proposes to do this by giving every young man an opportunity practically to apply the theoretical teaching he receives, by labors on the farm and in the shop. In this way he can also partially defray the expenses of his education. No student is admitted under fifteen years of age. He is subject to an examination in arithmetic, geography, English grammar, his- tory of the United States, algebra as far as quadratic equations, and five books in geometry.
The design of this important institution is not merely to pre- pare one understandingly to work upon the farm, but to give
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an education which shall aid the student in all industrial pur- suits. Gov. Washburn writes, -
AUSTIN SCHOOL 1873
DISTRICT SCHOOL HOUSE, KITTERY, ME.
" Considering the locality of the college in its relation to the whole State, its proximity to the broad and fertile region of the Aroostook, a county containing a larger number of acres of farming lands, of the finest quality, than any other five counties in New England; considering the dif- ferent kinds of soil on the college farms, furnishing opportunities for a great variety of experiments; and considering, finally, the surpassing beauty of
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STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. ORONO, ME.
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its site, and its proximity to what I have ever regarded as, beyond question. the most charming inland village in the State, so far as the outward setting of landscape and scenery is concerned, - I think it must be universally con- ceded that the location of the college was fortunate and wise."
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OSOB SC
GRAMMAR SCHOOL HOUSE, WINTHROP, ME.
There are many other literary and scientific institutions scat- tered throughout the State, to which we have not space to allude. In previous pages we have spoken of the principal col-
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leges, and of several of the more important private schools. In all the leading towns there is a high school for advanced pupils. These buildings, when contrasted with the schoolhouses of fifty years ago, may be called palaces. We give pictures of two of them, - the Grammar School House in Winthrop, and the District School in Kittery, to illustrate the general style of these structures.
In the interesting and very comprehensive little book by Hon. John Neal, entitled " Portland Illustrated," we find the following notice of an important institution called The Maine General Hospital : -
" This institution, established in love to that small part of the great human family of sufferers in whom we have a special interest, occupies what were known as the Arsenal Grounds, on Bramhall's Hill, of two and a half acres.
" More than fifty thousand dollars have been raised by private subscrip- tion among ourselves in the city ; while the State has contributed twenty thousand dollars conditionally, together with these Arsenal Grounds. These conditions having been more than fulfilled, the buildings are now so near completion as to make it sure that before long we shall have a magnifi- cent charity in full operation to be thankful for .*
" The central building is five stories, with a mansard roof; and there are, as you see, four pavilions, with an amphitheatre, a boiler-house, and a kitchen. From every window there is a wide, rich, and beautiful prospect of the whole surrounding country; and, from every part, either a view of the sea and the cove, or a view of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, sixty miles away, with all the intervening villages and elevations, woods and waters; and being always open to the sea-breezes on the one side, and to the winnowed atmosphere of our Switzerland upon the other, a store-house of health and vitality, the sick and languishing may be sure of nature's best and surest help at all seasons."
The writer is conscious, that, in the endeavor to give the his- tory of Maine in one volume, many important facts or events may have been omitted, which some will regret, and which per- haps he may regret when his attention is called to them. But he has, according to the best of his judgment, selected those inci- dents which he has thought would be most interesting and
* Since the above was written, the hospital has been opened to patients, and is now in successful operation.
MAINE GENERAL HOSPITAL, PORTLAND.
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instructive to the general reader. And he is sure that this nar- rative truthfully presents Maine in an attitude of which all her sons and daughters may be proud.
Life is everywhere a battle. It is in vain for any one to escape toil and trouble. But, all things considered, there is probably not on this globe a more favored, comfortable, and happy population than that of Maine.
It is true that cold breezes sweep its surface in winter; but these blasts, with healing on their wings, drive all malarious exhalations from the land, give elasticity to the mind, buoyan- cy to the spirits, and invigoration to all physical energies. The soil is certainly not so rich as in some of the renowned prairies and valleys of the West ; but the water is cool, and pure and clear as crystal. The forests afford an abundance of every variety of valuable timber; and the streams, born among the mountains, and rushing over their rocky beds, invite to all the branches of manufactures.
The flood of foreign immigration is not pouring into Maine as into some other parts of the Union. But this saves the State from a vast amount of inebriation, vagabondage, crime, and pau- perism. And those who do select Maine as their home gener- ally come from those countries of Northern Europe where intel- ligence and piety prevail.
This renders the community in Maine in a remarkable degree homogeneous. The society is in a high degree intelligent, moral, and social. And thus it is that Christian churches arise in every village, that intemperance can be arrested as scarcely anywhere else, that schools and colleges are multiplied, and intelligence and morality are widely diffused. It would be difficult to find in any portion of our land more happy homes than are found in Maine.
SUPPLEMENTARY HISTORY
TO 1890
By EDWARD H. ELWELL
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EXPLANATION.
THE fifteen years which have elapsed since the publication of the first edition of this work have been marked by events of importance in the history of Maine. The State has increased in population, and has made good progress in the development of its resources. It is the purpose of the following supplementary chapters to bring the narrative of events down to the year 1890, to treat briefly cer- tain topics necessarily omitted in the body of the work, and to give a summary of the institutions and resources of the State at the present time.
Some corrections of the original narrative have been thrown into notes appended to the original chapters.
E. H. ELWELL.
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CHAPTER XXX.
POPULATION.
Homogeneous Character of Early Settlers - German Colony Settled at Waldoboro - The Irish - French Canadians - Swedish Colony - Immi- gration of Native Element - Growth of Population Since 1790 - Frag- ments of Aboriginal Tribes.
"THE population of Maine has always been largely of a homogeneous character. There has been here no such ad- mixture of races as immigration has brought about in the western States. The early settlers of Maine were of the English race, loyal to king and church, having little affinity with the Puri- tans of Massachusetts. After that province acquired possession of Maine there was a considerable immigration. from Massa- chusetts into the District (as Maine was then called), and under the influence of Puritan institutions, the differences between the two classes of population largely disappeared.
The earliest foreign element introduced was the German colony brought in by Samuel Waldo, who in 1739 founded the town of Waldoboro, where German names still linger. These were of the Lutheran sect, but they were gradually absorbed by the Puritan churches, and today their descendants are without a Lutheran church in that whole region. They did not, therefore, introduce a diverse element in religion, and their descendants have become thoroughly assimilated with the native population.
The Irish came in largely with the introduction of railroads. They came as laborers along the line of track, and gravitated to the cities on the sea-board. In the city of Portland the Irish-American element forms from one-quarter to one-third of the population. They introduced the Roman Catholic form of worship, which now has its churches in many of the large interior villages, as well as the cities of the State. . The Irish have re-enforced the industrial element of the State, and have prospered in their new home.
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The French Canadians, following the track of their ancestors down the Kennebec, and also along the railroad lines running into Canada, have found employment in the factories of our manufacturing villages; and in Waterville, Lewiston and other river cities and towns, form a large and increasing element of the population, not without its influence in determining munici- pal elections. This element of our population is a growing one, and does not readily assimilate with the native element. It promises to form a distinct class of the population.
On the other hand, the Swedes introduced, as stated in a previous chapter, into the county of Aroostook, in 1870, readily assimilated with the native population, a hardy, thrifty, and industrious people, forming a valuable re-enforcement of its waning strength. They have spread from New Sweden into adjoining townships, and now number about fifteen hundred, while they have drawn into the State a Scandinavian population estimated at near ten thousand. In Portland they sustain two churches, and in the country towns adjoining, they are taking up exhausted farms, and getting a living off them, thus taking the place of the native population who go West to more fer- tile lands. The demand for skilled labor in our factories has also brought in a sprinkling of English, Scotch, and Welsh people.
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