I’M JUST CURIOUS: Words from Joey’s book

by Debbie Walker

Tonight, I am using one of my books, one of the many, authored by Joey Green. You might have seen him on The Tonight Show, Jay Leno, Good Morning America, and The View. When does he find time to write?

I have a few of his cleaning books. Next I will have to try: Last Minute Travel Secrets, Last Minute Survival Skills, The Electric Pickle (that has my curiosity bell ringing!), Dumb History, and Weird and Wonderful Christmas. It will take me a while to collect them all.

Tonight, I am using his book Clean It, Fix It, Eat It. I love to flip through a book first to see what attracts my attention. It never fails, something jumps out at me. This time it worked again!
Try this (maybe just for fun or let me know what your idea would be): Solar-Powered Water Heater: Clorox, Coca-Cola and Downy. Save the empty bottles and by dinner, the water is hot enough to use for washing dishes, puppies etc., With enough containers you can heat a child’s pool!

This book has chapters from Bathe It to Wear It. I can’t even pick a favorite chapter at this point.

For some reasons I am having trouble with flies, I am going to try:

FLIES: Alberto VO5 Hair Spray: As the book says, I can’t kill the things with a swatter, The trick here is to spray flies with Alberto VO5 hair spray. It freezes their wings and smells better than insecticides. I will try this one today.

MOSQUITOES: Joy dish detergent: Put two or three drops of Lemon Joy in a dinner plate, fill with water, and place the dish on the patio. They will fall in and die (with a little look).

CLEAN IT: Use Maxwell House Coffee grounds to scrub pots and pans that have a build-up of food and stains. Rinse well.

CLEAN IT: EGG: Clean a broken egg from the floor with Morton Salt. Poor salt over the broken egg. Let the salt blend with the egg and let sit for a minute. Then easily wipe up mess with paper towels.

FIX IT: Maybelline Crystal Clear Nail Polish: Paint clear nail polish over stones in costume jewelry to prevent them from falling out. Repeat when necessary. This also works if put on over screws of your eye-glasses.

FIX IT: PLEDGE: Spray Pledge furniture polish in the track of your sliding patio door. It helps keep dirt out and slides easier.

COOK IT (title of book is Eat It but the closest I found was Cook It) Coca Cola: Baked Beans cooked with a half can of Coca Cola will prevent flatulence. (Some families have used this for years but I never heard of it before).

COOK IT: ZIPLOC STORAGE BAGS: Fill a gallon size bag with cake batter ingredients then squeeze the bag to mix. {How neat is that!!}

I didn’t even make a tiny dent in this wonderful book tonight. I believe we need to visit this book often, hopefully Joey won’t mind. This book is accumulated hints Joey received from his fans. I hope he understands that I am a fan and I love telling people what I have learned. Enjoy! He has books to be bought and a website.

As usual I am just curious how these things work for you. I have tried some and will be trying more. Please contact me at DebbieWalker@townline.org with any questions or comments. Thank you for reading and have a wonderful week.

SOLON & BEYOND: Back when I did the community cookbook

Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percyby Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percy
grams29@tds.net
Solon, Maine 04979

Have been going through some of my old columns to find something to write about, and found some about when I was visiting people to get their picture to put in the paper. Found some interesting ones in the year 2004. (This was before Percy!) It was when I was visiting people to get their pictures and a recipe to put in this column. Back then my column was called “The Community Cookbook,” by Marilyn Rogers, and the first one states”Catching Up With Dale”. It was hard to catch up with Dale Redmond – she is a very busy person — but we finally connected at the Solon Congregational Church one cold day recently.  (The following article was on February 7, 2004.)

Dale was born in Jackman and graduated from high school there, then went on to get an associate’s degree in animal medical technology from the University of Maine at Orono in 1975. She has lived and worked in many places: She resided in Weld for 10 years. She worked for UNUM, in Portland, and then returned to college at the University of Maine, Presque Isle, where she received a lab technician degree. From Presque Isle she went to Greenville and worked at the Goodwill Veterinary Clinic, until she became ill and had to quit working.

She then moved back to Jackman to be near her parents and in August 1991 she received a liver transplant at New England Medical Center, in Boston. She was in the hospital for six weeks following the surgery and stayed in the area for a while for check ups, etc.

She returned to Jackman until 1995, when she moved to Solon, and Dale has been with Dana Hall ever since. Dale loves to cook and, in the past, has done lots of catering. She She now works at Williams General Store, in Bingham. She is very active in the Solon Congregational Church and serves as treasurer. She is a past Hospice worker and is still very interested in that work.
Dale enjoys oil painting, gardening, and has a passion for reading.

She shared her recipe for Dump Cake. Ingredients: Grease a 13 – x 9 inch pan, dump one can of sweetened applesauce into it. Dump one can of crushed pineapple on top of that. Spread one package of dry yellow cake mix over that. Melt one cup of butter or margarine and pour over the top of the cake mix. Sprinke 1-1/2 cups chopped nuts over all. Do not stir. Bake at 350° F for one hour. Top with whipped cream to serve.

Will now finish with these words from Percy who had done a column in January 2008. while I was in Florida. I am thrilled beyond belief that she is letting me write this column again, since so many of you have told her that you prefer my writing instead of hers. Since I don’t have any real news to share, I have been reflecting on what subject to write about. I think perhaps Happiness might be a good topic to delve into. Our bi-line each week being “Don’t Worry be Happy,” and she’s been using it for years, before I started here. Does that make you stop and think just how happy you really are ? Some quotes I can think of are, “Cheerfulness greases the axles of the world, “Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.” “True happiness consists in making others happy.” But the one I like the best is, “There are two essentials to happiness: something to do, and someone to love.” It gives me great pleasure to behold the sappy look on my human’s face when I lavish her with love, (I curl up in her lap and put my paw as far around her neck as I can and sing at the top of my lungs!) That is pure ecstasy, and makes me happy also.

And now for a few quotes from some famous people , Benjamin Franklin once said, “The U.S. Constitution doesn’t guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.”

And now for Percy’s memoir, Old gardeners never die, they just lose their bloomers!

FOR YOUR HEALTH: Tips For Shedding Those Pandemic Pounds

Enjoying the abundant fresh fruits and vegetables of the season can help you emerge from the pandemic fit and healthy.

(NAPSI)—Living may be easier during the warmer weather seasons but that doesn’t mean your wellness goals should be swept under the rug. To help, GOLO, the pioneering wellness solutions company, has a range of healthy suggestions for the summer, whether you’re at home, road tripping with friends and family, or grilling in your backyard.

#1. Develop an action plan: Use this time as an opportunity to develop a nutritionally balanced meal plan that focuses on real, whole foods that charge your metabolism and help you feel energized.
A structured meal plan can help you lose weight and get healthier. For example, the company’s Metabolic Plan focuses on repairing metabolic health with whole foods that are affordable, simple to prepare and easy to find in a restaurant or convenience store.

It’s effective because:

• You stay fuller longer and don’t have to fight with hunger and cravings.
• You can eat delicious foods that you want to eat—you are in control.
• There’s no diet isolation. You eat the same foods as your family and friends

#2. Don’t be afraid to rock out at your cookout: The truth is everyone enjoys a good backyard cookout. The key is to make sure that you’re enjoying the tastes of the season without having a detrimental effect on your healthy eating plan.

#3. Burn off pandemic pounds: It’s essential to take advantage of the warmer weather to exercise away those pandemic pounds that many people packed on over the past year.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends adults do at least 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) to 300 minutes (5 hours) a week of moderate-intensity, or 75 minutes (1 hour and15 minutes) to 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity, or an equivalent combination of moderate- and vigorous-intensity aerobic activity. Preferably, aerobic activity should be spread throughout the week.

Adults should also do muscle-strengthening activities of moderate or greater intensity and that involve all major muscle groups on two or more days a week, as these activities provide additional health benefits.

Switching up your seasonal fitness regimen can be key to staying motivated and consistent when building new, healthier habits.

Learn More

Visit www.golo.com for further facts and tips.

LEGAL NOTICES for Thursday, July 29, 2021

STATE OF MAINE
PROBATE COURT
COURT ST.,
SKOWHEGAN, ME
SOMERSET, ss
NOTICE TO CREDITORS
18-A MRSA sec. 3-801

The following Personal Representatives have been appointed in the estates noted. The first publication date of this notice July 22, 2021. If you are a creditor of an estate listed below, you must present your claim within four months of the first publication date of this Notice to Creditors by filing a written statement of your claim on a proper form with the Register of Probate of this Court or by delivering or mailing to the Personal Representative listed below at the address published by his name, a written statement of the claim indicating the basis therefore, the name and address of the claimant and the amount claimed or in such other manner as the law may provide. See 18-C M.R.S.A. §3-80.

2021-150 – Estate of ERIK A WALTER, late of Madison, Me deceased. Paula Hughes, PO Box 223, Belgrade, Me 04917 appointed Personal Representative.

2021-154 – Estate of HAROLD VERHEY, JR., late of Hartland, Me deceased. Joan Heartquist, 190 Bagley Hill Road, Troy, Me 04987 appointed Personal Representative.

2021-155 – Estate of WILLIAM G. ANTHONY, late of Madison, Me deceased. Andrew W. Anthony, 722 Pendexter Road, Parsonfield, Me 04047 appointed Personal Representative.

2021-157 – Estate of CARL H. PERKINS, JR., late of Moscow, Me deceased. Carl H. Perkins, III, PO Box 262, Rockport, Me 04856 appointed Personal Representative.

2021-160 – Estate of PAULINE AYERS, late of Fairfield, Me deceased. Brett Ayers, 5983 SE Nelson Road, Olalla, WA 98359 appointed Personal Represenative.

2021-163 – Estate of WILFRED B. HINES, JR., late of Moscow, Me deceased. Carol A. Hines, 10 Bemis Street, Moscow, Me 04920 appointed Personal Representative.

2021-164 – Estate of JOYCE O. TRACY, late of Norridgewock, Me deceased. Patricia R. Lambert, PO Box 237, Norridgewock, Me 04957 appointed Personal Representative.

2021-165 – Estate of EARL D. WITTEN, SR., late of Skowhegan, Me deceased. Paul D. Witten, 103 Harvard Street, Auburn, ME 04210 appointed Personal Representative.

2021-172 – Estate of ARNITA M. JEWELL, late of Canaan, Me deceased. Lawrence Rugan, 27 Hummingbird Lane, Durham, Me 04222 and Angel Pesenson, 11313 Bastagne Loop, Austin, TX 78739 appointed Co-Personal Representatives.

2021-173 – Estate of ARLENE. NADEAU, late of Fairfield, Me deceased. Michael A. Nadeau, 274 Covell Road, Fairfield, Me 04937 appointed Personal Representative.

2021-175 – Estate of JAMES C. BELFLOWER, late of Bingham, Me deceased. Jamie Lynn Belflower, PO Box355, Bingham, Me 04920 appointed Personal Representative.

2021-176 – Estate of MARGUERITE R. GRANT, late of Skowhegan, Me deceased. David A. Grant, 19 Flagg Road, New Sharon, Me 04955 appointed Personal Representative.

2021-177 – Estate of LINDA S. BURTON, late of Ripley, Me deceased. Douglas A. Thomas, 306 Stream Road, Ripley, Me 04930 appointed Personal Representative.

2021-178 – Estate of BETTY ANN WYMAN, late of Moscow, Me deceased. Beverly Rand, 14 Ellis Lane, Moscow, Me 04920 appointed Personal Representative.

2021-179 – Estate of ROBERTA ANN BROOKS, late of Madison, Me deceased. Constance M. Sorg, 69 North Maysville Road, Greenville, PA 16125 appointed Personal Representative.

2021-183 – Estate of ROBERT V. ASHE, late of Skowhegan, Me deceased. Mark L. Fortier, Esq., 42 East Leavitt Street, Skowhegan, Me 04976 appointed Personal Representative.

2021-186 – Estate of WAYNE JOSEPH LIZOTTE, late of Hartland Me deceased. Nicole Lee Miley, 45 Higgins Crowell Road, West Yarmuth, MA 02673 appointed Personal Representative.

2021-187 – Estate of EDITH L. KNAPP, late of Palmyra, Me deceased. Winonah G. Sacks, 48 Spaulding Road, Palmyra, Me 04965 appointed Personal Representative.

To be published on July 22, 2021 & July 29, 2021.

Dated July 19, 2021.
/s/ Victoria Hatch,
Register of Probate
(7/29)

CRITTER CHATTER: Little stinkers at the Duck Pond Wildlife Care Center

Contributed photo

by Jayne Winters

Over the past month, I’ve had the unexpected pleasure to see skunk families waddling along the side of the road. Just watching them makes me smile, so voila – the topic of this month’s column! I suspected Carleen had written about skunks in the past and sure enough, I found an article, some of which follows:

“Delightful to behold – but little stinkers, literally! We have cared for many skunks over the years. Most have been weaned by the time they arrive at the Center. They have come in various sizes, from some that could fit in my hand to mature animals. This year [1996] I received a little one that needed to be bottle fed and I made a mistake I will not repeat. (If a young one chokes while nursing, don’t pat it on the back or you will wear skunk perfume!)

We have been asked many times if young skunks can spray. Yes, they can, and yes, we have been sprayed. The skunk will give warnings before it sprays – stomping its front feet while backing up, hissing, growling or running away, if possible. When these tactics fail, then it will resort to spray: it contorts its body into a “U” shape so that its head and rear face the enemy, contracts muscles and out comes the yellow, oil, stinky mist.”

I did some research on-line and found there are four species native to North America: Striped, Eastern Spotted, Hooded and Hog-nosed. While related to members of the weasel family, the skunk’s closest relative is the stink badger. Tail included, they average 20-30 inches in length and weigh 6-10 pounds; their life span in the wild is usually 2 – 4 years, up to 10 in captivity. Skunks are adaptable as long as food and shelter are available and thrive in different habitats. They rarely travel more than two miles from their dens, typically settling down within a couple of miles of a water source.

Skunks are most active at dusk or night and are generally solitary except during mating season and when raising litters of four to seven kits, from April through June. The young are born blind and deaf, but open their eyes after about three weeks and are weaned after about two months; they stay with their mother for a year, when she’s ready to mate again. The male plays no part in raising the kits. Skunks have strong front feet and long nails, excellent for digging up grubs, worms and insects (including bees and wasps); berries, nuts, fungi, bird eggs, salamanders and snakes are also on the menu as seasons change. Although they have poor vision, their sense of smell and hearing are excellent. They don’t hibernate, but are inactive during winter, often gathering in communal dens (tree hollows, brush piles, abandoned burrows and underneath porches or garages) for warmth. A group of skunks is called a “surfeit.”

That sulfuric spray skunks are known for? It has a range of up to 10 feet, can be smelled up to 3-1/2 miles away and is powerful enough to ward off bears! They carry enough “chemical” for five or six successive sprays, requiring up to 10 days to produce another supply, and usually don’t spray other skunks except between males in mating season. Most predators learn to not attack skunks, but I found it interesting the great horned owl is an exception: in one case, the remains of 57 striped skunks were found in one owl’s nest.

I asked Don about Petunia, a skunk Carleen mentioned in her article. Petunia was blind and could not be released, so he resided at Duck Pond for about a year. Sadly, he developed a cancerous growth on his neck and had to be euthanized. There are currently three skunk kits residing in carriers in Don’s kitchen, all under two months of age with an expected fall release.

The Wildlife Care Center continues to receive greatly appreciated assistance from other rehabbers to help with summer admissions while Don and Amy deal with health concerns. We ask that you check these websites to see if there is a rehabber closer to you to help make critter care at Duck Pond more manageable: https://www.mainevetmed.org/wildlife-rehabilitation or https://www.maine.gov/ifw/fish-wildlife/wildlife/living-with-wildlife/orphaned-injured-wildlife/rehabilitation.html

Donald Cote operates Duck Pond Wildlife Care Center on Rte. 3 in Vassalboro. It is a nonprofit state permitted rehab facility and is supported by his own resources and outside donations. Mailing address: 1787 North Belfast Ave., Vassalboro ME 04989; Tel: (207) 445-4326. EMAIL: thewildlifecarecenter@gmail.com.

REVIEW POTPOURRI: How Music Grew in Brooklyn

Maurice Edwards

Peter Catesby Peter Cates

How Music Grew in Brooklyn

Maurice Edwards; Lanham, Maryland; Scarecrow Press; published 2006; 380 pages.

This hefty book of at least 10 pounds could rightfully be considered a coffee table book. A history of the Brooklyn, New York, Philharmonic, it was also a labor of love for its author Maurice Edwards (1922-2020) who had been involved with the Phil­har­monic since its official beginning in 1954, later becoming executive director before retiring during the mid ‘90s.

His successor in the executive position suggested that Edwards write a history of the orchestra, its connection with the Brooklyn Academy of Music and its impact on the lives of so many music lovers in the surrounding communities. He responded as follows:

“Not being a musicologist, a historian, or even a music journalist, I was flattered but a bit humbled by the very idea. Was I qualified for the job? Would that be true retirement? Was I not rather ready for a respite?

“Yet, realizing that I could never fully sever all relations with the orchestra I had lived with for so many years and indeed helped develop, I decided that maybe it was not such a bad idea after all, and I accepted the challenge.

“I soon found myself turning into a veritable ‘Phantom of the Orchestra’, haunting the Brooklyn Academy of Orchestra where the Philharmonic was housed until seven years ago [1999], plowing through the orchestra’s irregularly kept archives (often mixed up with the Academy’s), refreshing my memory through the perusal of old programs, board meeting minutes, newspaper minutes, newspaper articles and reviews, and interviewing some of the survivors of the rocky journey of this nonprofit arts organization through the wiles, guiles, and hazards of the for-profit business world. All of this began to tell its own story to me, namely, How Music Grew in Brooklyn: A Biography of the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, and so I proceeded to record it.”

Prior to 1954, the classical concerts in Brooklyn were happening as early as the 1850s with the arrival of immigrants from Europe who were gifted performers needing a livelihood, the listeners who were eager to hear music and the wealthy patrons who bankrolled the concerts. Early conductors included the very colorful charletan Louis Antoine Jullien (1812-1860) and his protegé Theodore Thomas (1835-1905).

Jullien went to debtor’s prison after his return to France and rightfully for swindling would-be investors but was gifted as an orchestra trainer. Thomas was simultaneously music director of one of the earlier Brooklyn Philharmonics, the New York Philharmonic across the East River, and his own Theodore Thomas Orchestra; he provided ample work for his core players in all three groups, developed adventurous programs of works both old and knew and courted wealthy investors before he left for the Chicago Symphony position in 1890.

After 1954, the orchestra’s Music Directors were Siegfried Landau until 1971, Lukas Foss from 1971 to 1990, Dennis Russell Davies through 1996, and Robert Spano to 2004, each one of these Maestros gifted musicians and adventurous programmers who didn’t believe in playing it safe, unlike too many conductors of major orchestras in recent years who program the same 50 works over and over. From 2004 to when the orchestra disbanded , due to much less financial support, in 2012, its conductors were Michael Christie and Alan Piersen whose work I am unfamiliar with.

Edwards was not a great writer but he was thorough in his documentation of programs, the ups and downs of its history, and the almost ad nauseam quoting of media coverage. In conclusion the book depicted an important orchestra which contributed much to the appreciation of live classical music concerts among all age groups, not just those over 60.

Edwards was married to the wonderful Romanian poet Nina Cassian (1924-2014).

From RPT’S essay Kennebec Crystals

“Tramps, even, were coming. And all the black sheep of a hundred faraway pastures, beyond Maine, were swinging off the sides of freight cars in the chill gray of the morning. Drifters from far beyond New England.”

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Coburn Classical Institute

Coburn Classical Institute

by Mary Grow

The school that in 1883 became Coburn Classical Institute started in 1821 as the first of what later became four (according to Ernest Cummings Marriner) or five (according to an anonymous website author) college preparatory schools (also called grammar schools, academies, or institutes) associated with what is now Colby College (see box number 1).

Marriner wrote in his history of Colby College that for many years four schools served as feeders for the college: Coburn in Waterville, Hebron in Hebron (founded in 1804 and today a private school for grades six through 12), Charleston, later Higgins, in Charleston (apparently still in operation as a Christian school) and Houlton, later Ricker, in Houlton (founded in 1848, closed).

Colby’s first President, Jeremiah Chaplin (see box number 2), found a shortage of students prepared for college-level work. He therefore got approval from trustees to establish a “grammar school,” at no cost to the college itself.

Classes started in 1821, in the President’s House (also called Wood House, in the triangle where current College Avenue and Upper Main Street meet), at that time the college’s only building. The first teacher/principal was a sophomore named Henry Paine.

When the first campus building opened farther north in 1822, Waterville Classical Institute, also called the College Grammar School or the Latin School, was given space. Albion native and later anti-slavery martyr Elijah Parish Lovejoy (see The Town Line, Aug. 13, 2020), then a student at the college, was teacher/principal from 1824 to 1826.

The new school provided enough qualified college students to impress the trustees. On August 27, 1828, they voted to spend not more than $300 for a separate academy building.

Marriner wrote that Timothy Boutelle, treasurer of the college, had donated land for the Waterville Baptist Church, still standing at the intersection of Elm and Park streets (see The Town Line, June 24, 2021). On the south side of Park Street, where Monument Park has been succeeded by Veteran’s [sic] Memorial Park, was a cemetery. South of that was another lot Boutelle owned (now the site of Elm Towers).

Boutelle donated his south lot for the new building. College President Chaplin raised money to supplement the $300, and Marriner wrote that the final cost, $1,750, had been paid in full when the building opened in the fall of 1829.

During Coburn Classical Institute’s 75th anniversary celebration (June 19-25, 1904), historian and graduate (class of 1875) Edwin C. Whittemore quoted an editorial from the Nov. 4, 1829, Waterville Watchman describing the 42-by-34-foot (plus porch) two-story brick building with a cupola as “a beautiful orna­ment of our village, not surpassed, we believe, by any other Academy building on the Kennebec.” The editorial also commended the availability of local higher education for families who could not afford, or did not want, to send children away for schooling beyond the elementary level.

The school became Waterville Academy. Mariner wrote that it remained “an adjunct to the College,” dependent on college faculty and on college financing to supplement “very low tuition fees.” The Watchman said tuition was $2.50 for each of the four terms in a year. By 1831 it had risen to $3 a term, and French classes were being added, Whittemore wrote.

Waterville Academy admitted girls from the beginning. Then-Principal Franklin Johnson wrote in his chapter in Whittemore’s 1902 Waterville history that the first class had 63 students, 47 male and 16 female. The 1830 catalog listed two teachers and 61 students, 25 of them girls. One of the girls was Jeremiah Chaplin’s daughter Marcia.

In 1831 college trustees hired a new head man for the academy, the same Henry Paine who had been its first head. In the interim, Marriner said, he had earned a good reputation as head of Monmouth Academy for four years.

Marriner wrote that after Paine left in 1835, Waterville Academy was unable to keep a permanent principal, and, Whittemore wrote, most of those who tried the job were young and inexperienced. College officials lost interest in the academy.

The Waterville Universalists opened the Waterville Liberal Institute, which Whittemore said attracted “many” would-be Waterville Academy students. He wrote that the academy was “wholly suspended” for most of 1839 and 1840. By the winter of 1840-41, Waterville Academy had so few students it closed and let a district school use its building.

Waterville residents were not pleased to lose the school, and an “aroused citizens’ committee” (Marriner’s description) reacted by asking the college to hand over the academy. On Feb. 12, 1842, the state legislature rechartered Waterville Academy with a new town-based board. The new board ran the school, but the college kept title to the real estate, Marriner wrote.

After Nathaniel Butler’s one year in charge, in September, 1843, James Hobbs Hanson, of China, Waterville College ’42, became Waterville Academy principal (see box number three). Marriner wrote that the trustees promised they would have the building repaired, but they offered no salary and guaranteed no students.

Hanson started with six students, increased enrollment to 28 by December and spent $40 more than he took in during his first term, Marriner wrote. Over the next 11 years, enrollment rose to a high of 308 in 1852; but income never sufficed to pay staff and maintain the building.

Whittemore said the first preceptress, Roxana Hanscom, of Waterville, was hired in 1844 and the second story of the building became the girls’ classroom.

Constantly struggling to keep the school solvent, “Hanson broke under the strain and resigned in 1854,” Marriner wrote.

The next 11 years saw Waterville Academy decline steadily, partly because of the Civil War, which, Marriner wrote, was the death of many other Maine private high schools.

In August 1864, the Academy Board of Trustees had many vacancies, and Colby President James T. Champlin suggested the remaining members return the lower school to the college. The college trustees agreed to re-assume control of the preparatory school, which in 1865 they renamed Waterville Classical Institute, and handed the responsibility to the faculty.

According to Whittemore, Champlin further persuaded James Hanson to return as principal, a post he held until he died April 21, 1894.

In 1874, former Maine Governor Abner Coburn (1803-1885) offered $50,000 to Waterville Classical Institute as part of a plan that saw Colby establish official ties with Houlton and Hebron academies (Charleston was added in 1891). He required the school to match his gift, and directed that $40,000 become a permanent endowment fund, with only the interest to be spent.

In 1883, Coburn gave the Institute a new building to replace the one built in 1829, as a memorial to his younger brother Stephen and his brother’s son Charles, Colby ’81, who had died July 4, 1882.

On July 3, 1883, Colby trustees voted to change the Institute’s name to Coburn Classical Institute, to recognize Coburn’s generosity. The formal dedication was part of the 1884 college commencement.

In all, Marriner wrote, Coburn donated or willed more than $200,000 to the school.

The family generosity did not end there. During the 1904 75th anniversary celebration, Principal Franklin W. Johnson’s summary of the events included the announcement of a $25,000 matching grant from the family of Stephen Coburn, to strengthen the school’s endowment.

The 1904 principal further commented the Institute had until recently been in sound financial shape. But he, said, in recent years a combination of increasing expenses – he mentioned more and better-paid teachers and more equipment, especially for science classes – and decreasing income due to low interest rates placed Coburn and similar schools “in a precarious position.”

The Coburn family’s gift was therefore vital, Johnson said. Others had been generous during the anniversary, and he and a colleague were in charge of matching the gift within a year.

Back to 1882: The new building on Elm Street was brick. Marriner referred to “spacious rooms, “high ceilings” and an “impressive tower.” It cost more than $50,000, Whittemore said; he added that it took over the site of the 1829 building, which was moved to the back of the lot and later taken down.

An undated on-line photograph shows a three-story building on a basement. Its entrance is from Elm Street, beside a protrusion with two-story columns under a peaked roof at right angles to the main roof.

Two smaller extensions break the front façade on either side of the larger one.

On the south end of the building is a four-story tower with windows in the basement as well as the three stories. A round cupola has either six or eight large arched windows under a round dome.

The smaller central dome on the main roof suggests the photograph was taken after 1893, because, Whittemore wrote, a dome was added that year, after Massachusetts resident Mary D. Lyford and her son donated “a six-inch equatorial telescope” in memory of husband and father Moses Lyford, who taught astronomy at Colby for 30 years.

By the early 20th century, the campus included Libbey field. The City of Waterville owns a poster advertising a Saturday, May 7, baseball game between Coburn and Hebron Academy. Admission was 50 cents.

(This poster creates a minor puzzle. The Waterville website listing this and other historic posters says they date from 1924, 1925 and 1926; but May 7 did not fall on Saturday in any of those years. It did in 1927.)

(Athletics were not new at the institute, though this writer has found few records of organized sports. In a paper prepared for the 1904 anniversary celebration, 86-year-old William Mathews, Class of 1831, remembered snow forts and snowball fights, swimming in the Kennebec River and Messalonskee Stream and running games [a reference to goals suggests football or soccer] on the grounds and, more dangerously, over and around the headstones in the adjacent cemetery.)

In 1901, Whittemore wrote, the Maine Legislature approved separating Coburn from Colby again, organizing the Trustees of Coburn Classical Institute. The main reason for the change was to give the school’s board, instead of the college, control of financial management.

Coburn’s building housed Coburn Classical Institute until it burned on Feb. 22, 1955. After the fire, Marriner wrote, Coburn gave up all but its college preparatory classes and became a private day school. Ancestry.com offers a 1968 yearbook, which it says has 36 pictures of 345 students (an unusually high number for a single year), and lists yearbooks from 1957, 1964 and 1965.

A website says the Institute’s graduates included three United States Senators, eight U. S. Representatives, five governors of Maine, ten justices of the Maine Supreme Court and eight college presidents.

The five governors were Alonzo Garcelon (No. 36); Sebastian Streeter Marble (No. 41); and three other men who served as governor and as a member of Congress: Israel Washburn, Jr. (No. 29), Nelson Dingley (No. 34) and Llewellyn Powers (No. 44).

Whittemore listed four of the college presidents: Colby’s Nathaniel J. Butler, Jr. (1896 to 1901); Colgate University’s George William Smith (1895 to 1897; Colgate is in New York State); Shaw University’s Charles Francis Meserve (1894 to 1919; Shaw is in North Carolina); and Yokohama Theological Seminary’s John Lincoln Dearing (1894 to 1908; Yokohama is in Japan).

In 1970 Coburn Classical Institute merged with the well-housed Oak Grove School, in Vassalboro (see last week’s issue of The Town Line). The combined co-ed school served students from sixth grade through high school until 1989.

The Oak Grove-Coburn student body included day students from Waterville, Vassalboro and other area municipalities and up to 50 boarding students. Boarders came from other parts of the United States and from foreign countries, including Germany, Japan and Spain.

Central Maine newspapers reporter Greg Levinsky quoted former student Jennifer Briggs as appreciating the opportunity to meet people from different places and cultures.

Oak Grove-Coburn was not a religious school, despite its beginnings. Wikipedia says it was noted for “its diversity, community atmosphere and close student-faculty relationships. It was also known for its innovative curriculum.”

The latter included the Wednesday Program, which featured interdisciplinary courses, and Project Week, “offering opportunities for non-academic learning experiences.”

During its 19 years it had four headmasters, whom Wikipedia lists as Andrew C. Holmes (1970-9173), Fred B. Steinberg (1973-1979), Dan Fredricks (1979-1981) and Dale Hanson (1981-1989).

Oak Grove-Coburn’s highest enrollment was 175 students, Levinsky wrote. By the late 1980s enrollment was down to around 100, not enough to pay the bills. Financial failure forced the school to close in 1989.

1 – Colby College

Original Colby Campus on College Ave., in Waterville

The school that is now Colby College on Mayflower Hill (and, returning to its roots more than 300 years ago, in downtown Waterville) received its original charter as the Maine Literary and Theological Institution in the spring of 1813, from the Massachusetts legislature. It is Maine’s second oldest college, after Bowdoin, chartered in June 1794.

Most of Colby’s founders were Maine Baptists. However, from its beginning the Institution was non-denominational in practice, accepting other Christians as faculty and students.

In the spring of 1815, Ernest Cummings Marriner wrote in his history of Colby College, a legislative committee gave the Institution a land grant – Township Three, west of the Penobscot River, north of what is now Old Town. By September, the school’s trustees had visited the area and found it unsuitable for building an educational institution.

They invited towns closer to what were then European-inhabited parts of Maine to offer sites, and in October 1817 chose Waterville. Having decided on the town, they next decided on a site: the west bank of the Kennebec on the road running north from Waterville to Fairfield.

Earl Smith, another historian of the college, said the site was about half a mile north of what was then downtown Waterville. The original 179-acre plot was later reduced as land was sold to raise money.

In those days, Marriner wrote, much of the road to Fairfield ran through woods. He described volunteer residents cutting down trees to make space for the first two college buildings in 1821 and 1822; and quoted from a letter describing the “candles in the students’ rooms…glimmering on the dense forest.”

Meanwhile, the Institution had been re-chartered by the new legislature after Maine became a state on March 15, 1820, and authorized to grant degrees. Legislators also promised $1,000 a year for seven years, on condition that at least a quarter of the grant be used to reduce tuition. On Feb. 25, 1821, Marriner wrote, the Maine legislature renamed the Institution Waterville College.

The first brick building, South College, was finished in the fall of 1821, and the first two students graduated in August 1822.

Marriner listed three significant changes during Jeremiah Chaplin’s presidency, from 1818 to 1833: Waterville College opened a medical school, discontinued the theological branch and started a student aid workshop.

The medical school, in conjunction with a similar Vermont school, was dissolved in 1833; Marriner said no explanation was provided.

The theological department lost students steadily, as Baptists who resented the post-1820 emphasis on a secular curriculum sent their sons to the new Newton (Massachusetts) Theological Institution, founded in November 1825. The last five theological graduates completed their studies in 1825.

The workshop was just that, a place where students earned part of their tuition by building wooden house fittings and furniture to be sold. Started in 1828, it consistently operated at a deficit, and was discontinued in the spring of 1841. Chaplin favored it, and his support might have been one reason it lasted as long as it did.

For most of the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s, while preparatory school and college were separate, the college struggled with low enrollment, unpaid tuition and mounting bills. By 1864, as the Civil War ended, there was talk of closing Waterville College, Smith wrote.

One Sunday that winter, Gardner Colby, a Boston-area man who had made a fortune selling the woolen cloth his company made to the Union Army, heard his preacher recall a meeting 40 years earlier with President Chaplin, who was trying to raise funds for Waterville College.

Colby had lived in Waterville as a youth, in extreme poverty, and Chaplin had helped him and his mother and siblings. When the first college building opened in 1821, Colby was there, and he never forgot the celebratory candles glowing from the windows, lighting up the woods.

At the 1864 college commencement, Colby announced that he would donate $50,000 to the school if the school would match it with $100,000. Smith described the announcement as a total surprise to all but the college president: “The audience sat in stunned silence and then erupted into wild cheering and stomping.”

The matching money was raised, Colby became a college trustee and on Jan. 23, 1867, the state legislature rechartered the school as Colby University.

In 1871, trustees voted to admit women, in an effort to increase enrollment. The school remained coeducational until 1890; by then, Smith wrote, “growing uneasiness over the academic dominance of women students” led the trustees to retreat to what Smith called “a coordinate university.”

When Nathaniel Butler, Jr., came from the University of Chicago to become Colby President in 1896, Smith wrote that, “he knew a university when he saw one. Colby was no university.” Butler promptly started a campaign to change the name, with the result that on Jan. 25, 1899, the Maine legislature renamed the school Colby College.

The move from the closely-hemmed-in College Avenue campus to Mayflower Hill began after Colby graduate Franklin Winslow Johnson became President in 1929. Interrupted by the Depression and World War II, it took more than 20 years to finish.

Smith wrote that teaching continued on the College Avenue campus until May 1951, and the Class of 1956 was the first whose members had spent all four years on the Hill. Robert Frost was their commencement speaker.

2 – Jeremiah Chaplin

Jeremiah Chaplin (Jan. 2, 1776 – May 7, 1841) was born into a Baptist family in Rowley, Massachusetts. He graduated in 1799 from Brown University, which Ernest Cummings Marriner wrote was “the only Baptist college in New England,” studied theology in Boston and in 1802 began preaching and teaching would-be preachers in Danvers, Massachusetts.

Marriner surmised that one reason the trustees of the Maine Literary and Theological Institution invited Chaplin to become its first Professor of Divinity was that he had seven students in Danvers – seven new students for the Waterville school.

Marriner described in detail the June 1818 trip Chaplin, his wife Marcia and their five surviving children, aged from five months to 11 years, made from Boston to Waterville. As far as Augusta the family traveled up the Kennebec on a sloop named “Hero”, whose replica tops the tower of Miller Library on Colby’s Mayflower Hill campus.

The last miles, from Augusta to Waterville by longboat (half an hour by car when Marriner wrote in 1962), took from 2 p.m. one day to 10 a.m. the next. The family spent the night in a farmhouse that Marriner thought was likely at Getchell’s Corner in Vassalboro.

In Waterville, welcoming residents escorted them to college treasurer Timothy Boutelle’s home. Later they moved into the house formerly owned by the late James Wood, rented by the college for the family and the seven students. The house was on the north edge of town, where Elmwood Primary Care now stands, at the junction of College Avenue, Upper Main Street, Elm Street and Main Street.

Chaplin’s early responsibilities included nagging the trustees to raise money for current expenses – including his promised salary of $600 a year; in the first year he was paid $490, and generously offered to forget about $100 of the arrears – and for the planned college buildings. He was also eager to get a literary professor on staff, a position filled in October 1819.

When Waterville College was chartered in February 1821, the trustees realized they needed a college president. After one man turned them down, they elected Chaplin president in May 1822.

They further authorized the new president to take as much time off as he wanted to solicit funds for the college, and appointed one of their own board members to serve as Professor of Theology while Chaplin was away.

In 1829, in a vain effort to resurrect the studentless theology department, the trustees appointed Chaplin Professor of Divinity again. He taught no courses and resigned the title in 1831, remaining college President and Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy.

The events that led Chaplin to sever his Waterville College connection started on July 4, 1833, when a noisy student gathering created the Waterville College Anti-Slavery Society.

Chaplin was not pro-slavery and he was not anti-organization, Marriner wrote; but he objected to “anything which marred the sober decorum that must be observed in any institution of which he was the head,” especially one educating future ministers. On July 5, therefore, he publicly dressed down the students in terms that infuriated them. He also expelled two students and gave half a dozen others long suspensions.

After heated exchanges and a failed attempt by the trustees to reconcile Chaplin with the students and the faculty members who sided with them, the trustees accepted Chaplin’s resignation as professor and president on July 1, 1833. They promptly elected him a member of the board, a position he held until 1840; and Marriner wrote that he remained a Colby supporter the rest of his life.

In addition to organizing the Literary and Theological Institute, Chaplin founded the First Baptist Church of Waterville and led what Marriner said was “a vigorous but unpopular temperance movement” in the town.

After leaving Waterville, Chaplin preached in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He died in Hamilton, New York.

3 – James Hanson & wife

James Hobbs Hanson (June 26, 1816 – April 21, 1894) was a China (Maine) native who came from China Academy to Waterville College, where he graduated in 1842. Kinsgbury wrote that he began teaching in 1835, while still at China Academy, and taught the rest of his life. He took over the management of the Waterville academy in 1843, resigned in 1854, and returned to hold the post from 1865 until he died.

Between 1854 and 1865, an on-line source says he spent three years as Eastport High School principal, six more years as Principal of Portland High School (Boys’ High School, according to Edwin Whittemore) and two years running a private boys’ school in Portland.

Historians of the academy uniformly credit Hanson with all its successes, and do not blame him for its financial difficulties. Whittemore wrote in his chapter in the history of Waterville that Hanson headed the school for 41 of its first 65 years: “in fact, he was the school.”

In addition to teaching – “When other men wrought six hours in the classroom, he wrought twelve,” Whittemore quoted from George B. Gow’s address at the 1879 semi-centennial celebration – Hanson was continuously involved in fund-raising. Whittemore quoted more of Gow’s words:

“Too poor to employ the needed assistance, too conscientious to lave anything undone that might be of use to the most ungrateful pupil, he toiled on seeking no reward but the satisfaction of doing his whole duty.”

In 1854, after the death of his first wife, Hanson married Mary E. Field, from Sidney, who had been preceptress since 1852. When the Hansons returned to Waterville in 1865 she became one of the Institute faculty, reportedly popular and, like her husband, willing to take on whatever job needed to be done.

Hanson somehow found time to write the “Preparatory Latin Prose Book” (1861) that the on-line source says was widely used. He was one of the editors of a “Handbook of Latin Poetry”, published in 1865. Whittemore wrote that his reputation as a classical scholar brought “large numbers” of students from other preparatory schools to spend their senior year at the Waterville institution.

In 1862 Hanson was elected a trustee of Waterville College. In 1872, Colby University gave him an honorary L.L.D. Kingsbury commented that Colby “honored itself” by conferring the award.

Main sources

Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892).
Marriner, Ernest Cummings, The History of Colby College (1963).
Smith, Earl H. , Mayflower Hill A History of Colby College (2006).
Whittemore, Rev. Edwin Carey, Centennial History of Waterville 1802-1902 (1902).

Websites, miscellaneous

Taste of Waterville Brew Punch Cards available

New this year at the Taste of Waterville are Brew Punch Cards – on sale now.

What better way to sample some tastes of Waterville? Be sure to purchase your brew samples punch card – good from 3 – 6 p.m., at Taste of Waterville, Wednesday, August 4 – Head of Falls. You will receive a punch card redeemable for 16 2-ounce samples at the nine breweries represented.

You must be 21 years of age or older to purchase your punch card, to be picked up at the entrance on the day of the Taste. IDs will be required for pickup.

You will get 16 brew punches for just $20. Limited quantities, so get yours today! Order online at www.tasteofwaterville.com.

China LakeSmart Program: Let’s Talk Lawns

photo by Eric Austin

The Challenge As a general rule, lawns don’t provide lake protection equivalent to other highly vegetated areas. Rainwater easily flows over lawns, and the tiny grass roots cannot hold soil together. Substantial erosion often occurs over lawns, even if no soil loss is noticeable. When nutrient rich soil reaches our lakes, there can be major consequences to lake health. However, with proper maintenance and design, landowners can have lawns while mitigating these lake-harming effects.

A lakefront property can maintain a beautiful lawn, while still being Lakesmart. These property owners include a large natural buffer between the lake and the lawn, add a defined narrow path, and strategically slope the lawn to avoid erosion. Additionally, they avoid fertilizers, and leave lawn clippings in place.

What to Do? Protecting your lake from lawn runoff requires quick infiltration into the ground. There are several ways to infiltrate lawn runoff effectively. Read on to learn more about what you can do.

Love your lakeshore buffer: There is no substitute for an effective vegetated buffer lakeside of the lawn. A multi-tiered buffer infiltrates runoff while holding the lake shore in place. Encourage native vegetation in the buffer and allow pine needles and leaves to accumulate.
Maintain your narrow, meandering path: The footpath from your lawn to the lake should not become a channel for water flow. Keep your footpath narrow and be sure it quickly diverts water off the path and into the buffer. Allow pine needles and leaves to accumulate on the path.
Where the slope is moderate or severe, consider infiltration steps as part of the path: Infiltration steps will stop water flow down a slope when fast-running runoff would otherwise cause havoc. It will also make walking your path safer.
Slope your lawn strategically: Keep lawn runoff away from the footpath, if possible, by sloping the lawn so water flows directly into an adjacent vegetated buffer.
Mow your lawn using the highest mower setting and leave clippings to mulch in place: Both techniques stimulate turf development, making your lawn more drought resistant. Clippings feed the lawn, eliminating any need to use fertilizer. (Maine soils contain enough phosphorous to sustain lawns without fertilizer in any event.) And longer grass maximizes its resistance to flowing water.

For more information about making your property more lake-friendly, contact Christian Oren at the Lakes Environmental Association. Christian can be reached at 207-647-8580 and christian@leamaine.org.

If you would like to have a trained China LakeSmart volunteer visit your lakefront property to give you ideas that would help to protect the lake from harmful runoff, please contact us at ChinaLakeSmart@gmail.com. The Youth Conservation Corp can offer assistance to help with any Best Management Practices!

Mid-Maine Chamber names vice president of operations

Brandi Meisner

Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce, located in Waterville, has named Brandi Meisner as its new vice president of operations. This is a new position for the Chamber, with plans for Meisner to focus on member growth and retention, marketing, social media and website development.

A graduate of Skowhegan Area High School, Brandi went on to study locally at Thomas College, earning her Bachelor of Science in Business Management. She also holds a master’s degree in business from Thomas College. Brandi formerly served as Community Banker for Skowhegan Savings Bank, a position she held for three years.

Brandi serves as vice-president of Main Street Skowhegan’s board of directors and is a member of its Community Engagement committee.

Meisner lives in Skowhegan with her husband and daughter where they help operate family businesses, Maine Cedar Hot Tubs and the Skowhegan Wooden Rule.