 Old Hallowell on the
Kennebec
The story of Hallowell is the
story of America, with science and industry--and not infrequently with
weather--dictating the pace of growth, the accumulation of great wealth,
and the loss of vast fortunes.
The city is named for
Benjamin Hallowell, a Boston merchant and one of the Kennebec
Proprietors, holders of land originally granted to the Plymouth Company
by the British monarchy in the 1620s.
First to settle
here was Deacon Pease Clark, who emigrated with his wife and son Peter
from Attleborough, Mass., in the spring of 1762; legend has it that
after disembarking on the west side of the Kennebec, near present-day
Water Street, the Clarks took shelter in their overturned cart. On a
riverfront lot measuring 50 rods (about 275 yards), the Clark family
raised corn, rye and other crops; land on which the fire department now
stands was first to be cleared.
Today, the city's
population, just over 2600, is only slightly smaller than it was in
1820, the year Maine seceded from Massachusetts and became a state in
its own right. Yet 180 years ago, Hallowell's inhabitants enjoyed
services of 71 stores along Water Street (by contrast, Augusta had a
population of 1,000 and just 20 merchants).
Thriving
industries included ship building (between 1783 and 1901, 50 ships were
launched from Hallowells's wharves), trading, publishing, and logging.
Two gristmills, five sawmills, and two slaughterhouses served the needs
of residents near and far.
In 1815, the
first granite quarried near the Manchester town line signaled the birth
of an industry that would support Hallowell until 1908, when cement
displaced stone as the construction material of choice. In 1826, the ice
industry began in earnest, employing thousands over the next 75 years;
frozen blocks loaded onto Hallowell's schooners traveled as far as Cuba
and the West Indies. Other local products exported via the Kennebec
(and, after 1857, by train) from Hallowell included sandpaper, textiles,
rope, linseed oil, oilcloth, wire, books and shoes. (A tallowworks
closed in 1900 after neighbors complained of the stench from rendered
fat.) While the Kennebec River sustained the
city from its inception, this mighty freeway also sometimes brought
commerce to a standstill. Worse still, citizens eager to cross the river
and unwary children skating and playing too far from the riverbank lost
their lives when ice turned out to be thinner than it looked. The cold
wreaked havoc in other ways, as well. On July 9, 1816, a freak frost
destroyed crops and forced hungry families to sell their farms for half
their worth. Through good times and bad,
however, Hallowell remained a center of learning and of intellectual
accomplishment. Private academies and music conservatories attracted
students from across the state, and publishers eager to join the city's
lucrative book trade migrated here, as did chemists, physicians,
politicians, artists, and inventors (Maine's first automobile came from
Hallowell, as did the first practical threshing machine).
Today, a walk through Hallowell's mansion-studded streets
provides clues to America's past and to a world all but
vanished. You can learn more about Old Hallowell by
visiting the Hubbard Free Library.
Produced by Row House, Inc. Sumner Webber, Hallowell
Historian;
Written and edited by Rebecca Sawyer-Fay.
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