The Courier
Volume 30, No. 2 (2006)
Bowler versus Chisholm,
and the
Ill-fated Bethel-Rumford Electric Railway
by Randall H. Bennett
In 1882, Canadian-born Hugh J. Chisholm (1847-1912), a lumber
enthusiast and successful partner in the Portland based Chisholm
Brothers Company—producers and distributors of the popular lithographed
view books of United States and Canadian scenery, and, in 1884, the
first picture postcards in the country—visited the “Great Falls” at
Rumford, Maine, for the first time. Looking back at this visit,
he later wrote, “To my mind there came a great possibility, and a great
desire to participate in the success and possible development of
Rumford Falls. From that moment I was seized with a desire to
develop this great water power and within myself made a solemn resolve
that no obstacle, be what it may, should stop me in what I was
determined to carry out.” Twenty five years later, Chisholm’s
determination to organize and control life at Rumford Falls met a bold
challenge, one which attracted state-wide attention to this busy
metropolis that a quarter century earlier had been not much more than
“the falls and a berry pasture.” The changes that led to the late
19th century development of Rumford Falls as a center for the
production of paper reveal the dramatic transformation of a town that
had long depended upon agriculture more than any other economic
activity for the livelihoods of its citizens. Beginning with the
first engineering study in 1883 of the Falls (the highest east of
Niagara), Chisholm initiated a strategy to acquire, through his local
agent Waldo Pettengill (1844-1926), over 1400 acres on both sides of
the Androscoggin River, thereby securing for his interests adequate
tracts for mill sites, along with locations for businesses and
residences. By August 1890, he and his associates had purchased
the necessary land, and they moved ahead to organize the Rumford Falls
Power Company with a half million dollar capitalization.
Initially, there was a great drive to introduce new businesses to
Chisholm’s “model town.” Dams were constructed, canals dug, and
an illustrated booklet authorized by the Power Company to attract
prospective business ventures (particularly in manufacturing) was
published. Although Rumford Falls never became a center for the
production of textiles, the Power Company brochure cited capabilities
in water power “to run over 1,800,000 spindles or more than 3,800 wool
cards.”
Hugh J. Chisholm
As the founder of the Somerset Fiber Company at Fairfield on the
Kennebec and, by 1881, of the Umbagog Pulp Company at Livermore Falls
on the Androscoggin, Hugh Chisholm was the dominant figure in a large
number of local concerns by 1900. They included the Rumford Falls
Power Company (of which he was a director), the Rumford Falls Sulphite
Company, the Rumford Falls Boom Company, the Rumford Falls Light and
Water Company, the Rumford Falls Woolen Company, the International
Paper Company, the Continental Bag Company, the Rumford Realty Company,
the Rumford Publishing Company, and, of course, Oxford Paper Company
(now NewPage), the last mill to be organized under his authority.
Moreover, the industrialist or one of his
“lieutenants,” as they came to called, also controlled the major
transportation facilities into Rumford—namely the Portland and Rumford
Falls Railway (derisively called by some at the time “two streaks of
rust and a right-of-way”), as well as a line from Rumford to Rangeley
which hauled passengers in the summer and pulpwood in the winter.
In addition, two banks fell under Chisholm’s control, while the Power
Company purchased lands and rented property within sight of the smoke
belching mills at increasingly burdensome prices.
These observations, of course, should not be interpreted as signifying
a general lack of appreciation for Chisholm’s efforts and
accomplishments at Rumford Falls. Hundreds of mill workers, many
directed north to Oxford County by paper company agents on the premise
that they would be steadily employed, could usually be counted on to
express their gratitude for all these benefits which came to pass under
his constant supervision. However, a certain degree of Yankee
skepticism regarding such a highly planned development engendered a
less favorable impression of Chisholm, particularly among Rumford’s
longtime residents, many of whom had sold land to Pettengill without
grasping the underlying plan. Complaints of fixed wages, along
with the high cost of rents or home ownership, led one critic to note
the feudalistic quality of the development: “Rumford Falls itself is
just that curious, jammed-together island full of tall city blocks,
with tall modern improvements, hemmed in by rushing water and wild
woods. It makes one think of those medieval garrison towns on
inaccessible islands; if its bridges were destroyed, it would be a hard
place to capture by assault.”
The organ for the Chisholm interests had been, since 1894, the Rumford Falls Times, under the
editorship of Edgar N. Carver and later Tracy Barker. This
newspaper, founded in 1883 as the Canton
Telephone, moved a few years later to Dixfield to become the Dixfield Telephone. Carver
had followed with particular interest the purchase of lands at Rumford
Falls and vicinity, and, seizing an opportunity, renamed the paper for
a third time and relocated it once more. For over a decade, the Times was the most popular
newspaper in the community. However, there must have been much
excitement when, in 1906, a brightly lettered sign appeared on the side
of Congress Street’s Strathglass Building with the title, The Rumford Citizen.
A complete run of the short-lived Rumford
Citizen exists in the Bethel
Citizen’s
archives (a microfilm copy is held by the Bethel Historical Society),
throwing light on a political struggle that developed between certain
factions at Rumford Falls and the neighboring town of Bethel during
this period. The founder and editor of the Rumford Citizen, Ernest C. Bowler,
came to Bethel from Palermo, Maine, and later was destined to assume
the post of business manager of the Portland
Herald, which merged in 1921 with the Portland Daily Press to form the Portland Press Herald.
Ernest C. Bowler
Twenty-five miles upriver of Rumford at Bethel, with its “neatly kept
homes and broad streets overarched with long lines of elms,” Bowler had
become part owner of the Bethel News—then
a four page local weekly—in September 1897. The following March,
he acquired the remainder of the business from Aked D. Ellingwood and
immediately began an ambitious program to enlarge the paper and add a
book plant. In an article in a special edition of the Bethel News, Bowler attempted to
emphasize his adopted town’s virtues in contrast to the larger
settlement adjoining Bethel on the east: “Although Bethel has several
manufacturing industries, yet it is not in the modern sense a
manufacturing town. There is no foreign element gathered on the
outskirts, no hideous row of corporation tenements, no sharp contrasts
between wealth and poverty; an Academy town, it has its own
appreciation of intellectual and social life.” No record exists
of Hugh Chisholm’s reaction to this indirect “assault” on Rumford, but
Bowler’s advocacy and strong endorsement in the Rumford Citizen of a proposed
electric railway between the towns of Bethel and Rumford obviously
posed a threat to the transportation monopoly already in place at
Rumford Falls. Chisholm therefore had no choice, but to become
involved in what from his view was a threat to his vision of the place
he wanted to create at Rumford Falls.
Three months after its first issue appeared, the Rumford Citizen carried an
editorial endorsement of an elaborate scheme to run an electric railway
along the Androscoggin River from Rumford Falls to Bethel Hill.
Citing the unusually high freight rates on the present railway that
passed through Mechanic Falls, Bowler noted that workers were being
forced into outlying areas to build their homes, while the mills,
lumber companies, the Power Company, and the Rumford Falls Realty
Company owned and controlled all the property at Rumford Falls.
Furthermore, Bowler made it known that success for the newly organized
“Rumford Falls and Bethel Street Railway Company” could only be assured
when certain “obstacles” had been overcome at the Falls. The
proposed route of the electric railway was to begin in Ridlonville, a
residential neighborhood in Mexico, and by heading west one would
travel through Rumford, Hanover, Newry and, finally, Bethel, where the
line would terminate at the head of Main Street near the Bethel
Common. In addition, a branch line was planned to serve Andover
Village. Such a public utility would naturally increase the value
of property in Bethel, as well as any along the line. It was also
promoted as a means of saving a considerable sum of money in
transportation costs by carrying mail, freight and passengers in the
smaller communities between the two railheads. Moreover, the town
of Andover, placed at a disadvantage as a stopping-off point on the
route to the Rangeley Lakes by the construction of Chisholm’s Oquossuc
branch of the Portland and Rumford Railroad, would regain its former
popularity with summer visitors were the electric railway built.
Hugh
Chisholm’s newspaper, The Rumford
Falls Times
During September 1906, the Rumford
Citizen began closely following the proposed railway
project. Incorporated that month, the Railway Company made
immediate plans for survey work. Of “regular steam road gauge,”
the tracks would pass by ten or twelve saw mills on their course along
the Androscoggin and its tributaries, and in doing so, would greatly
increase timberland values. Touted as the most significant public
utility venture since the arrival of the pulp and paper industry at
Rumford, the electric line had on its Board of Directors several
prominent merchants from the Falls, including Elliot W. Howe, Orville
J. Gonya, and, as president of the Board, Everett K. Day, whose
department store (the largest in western Maine) was housed in the
Strathglass Block ("Hotel Harris"). Although no direct financial
interest was reported between Bowler and the railway, one of his
editorials provides a clear idea of his position: “The Citizen will
champion this enterprise. It has been in touch with the various
moves which have been made during the past few months, but the best
interests of the project have seemed to demand that nothing be said
until the present time.”
Recognizing the unsettled atmosphere now created, one farmer who
supported the line declared, “Don’t you worry about getting help to lay
that road. We’ll all turn out and dig if necessary.”
Indeed, if Everett Day’s railway experience with a line he supported in
Hallowell was any indication of the Rumford-Bethel line’s future
prospects, things were about to turn for the better. But Hugh
Chisholm’s vision for the centralization of the bustling community was
now threatened with talk of “going into the country to get acquainted
with your neighbors” and of scenic parks in rural Rumford set aside for
the benefit of the working class. Without delay, Chisholm and
Charles A. Mixer, agent for the Power Company, called a meeting during
which the subject of the Falls as a residential village was
discussed. In an unexpected, but transparently calculated move,
Chisholm authorized Mixer to allow the heads of the Electric Railway
Company to sell twenty seven lots for home-building purposes.
Lots under the Power Company’s control would be sold with
“restrictions, which Mr. Chisholm thinks necessary to insure the
fulfillment of his purposes.” Among these qualifications was a
restriction on the building of homes deemed “not in keeping with the
neighborhood.” Mixer was also quick to come to Chisholm’s
defense, assuring his listeners by declaring that “Mr. Chisholm had
this or some similar plan in view from the beginning.” Initially,
both the Citizen and the Times appeared in agreement
regarding the advantages of the proposed railway between Bethel and
Rumford. After all, some fifteen years prior to this time, a
steamer on the Androscoggin had successfully made its way between the
two towns. However, the electric railway was considered a more
permanent addition to public transportation, and, realizing that the
Grand Trunk Railway already served Bethel, the Times soon began to waiver in its
enthusiasm for the project. Earlier, the same newspaper had
suggested that those traveling from Bethel to Norway (by way of the
Grand Trunk) to do business, might consider coming to Rumford
instead. What undoubtedly changed the Times’ sentiment was the knowledge
that people in the villages along the line would likely travel to
Bethel and then to the Oxford Hills area rather than to Rumford.
In September 1906, actual surveys of the railway were made under the
supervision of John A. Jones of Lewiston, who noted, “Not one locality
in Maine offers such inducements to the electric railroad builder, as
does this one.” Comparing the several hours of travel time by
horse or car to the swift one hour trip proposed by rail, Jones stated
that the location along the river would allow a higher rate of speed
than other Maine lines of comparative length. Soon, word spread
throughout the countryside of recreational parks, of new hotels (one
costing $20,000 was planned, but never built), and improved markets for
locally grown goods. During all this discussion, the Rumford Citizen continued to remind
readers of such benefits.
Ernest C. Bowler made a point in his editorials to emphasize the
dramatic increase in Rumford’s liquor traffic, the seemingly “fixed”
appointments of public officers, and the suggestion of moving the
county seat from South Paris to Rumford as an ill-conceived one.
To Mixer’s line in the Times,
“Mr. Chisholm’s ideas have not always been to his profit, although
beneficial to the town,” Bowler replied, “The Citizen hails with pleasure this
movement towards the amelioration of conditions that were creating such
uneasiness.” Throughout these challenges, Bowler liked to call
his product a “peoples paper,” and during the next two years he
continued to print in Bethel his columns attacking one-man rule at
Rumford Falls.
By early 1907, hearings had been held in most of the towns along the
proposed railway line, to allow a right-of-way to be granted for the
electric railway construction on property owned by the several
towns. In Bethel, crowds attended one large meeting in the Cole
Block’s Odeon Hall to proclaim the line and the nearly certain
possibility of finally having electricity in the town. As one
Bethelite noted later, “There were no kickers or cold water throwers in
evidence.” Meanwhile, back in Rumford, tempers were rising and
factions were obviously developing. Colonel George Bisbee,
speaking at one hearing on behalf of the Chisholm interests, wanted
nothing to do with the line and stressed an added cost to taxpayers for
new bridges, the repair of damaged water lines and general maintenance
of streets the railway would need to use. He was soon further
outraged when several lists of supporters were produced. In the
end, only a few businessmen refused to sign in favor of the line.
The next day, scores of people made their way to the Strathglass Block
to congratulate Bowler on his coverage of the hearing, for the voters
had, not surprisingly, approved the use of Rumford streets and bridges
late the night before.
Bowler’s
newspaper, The Rumford Citizen
In January 1907, a clear sign of growing trouble over the electric
railway idea made itself known when several local Rumford businessmen
resigned as officers of the Rumford National Bank in response to
pressure to refrain from further support of the railroad venture.
The Rumford Citizen carried
the story with praise for the resignations. Under the heading,
“Fierce Gale,” the paper also provided an account of how one evening,
soon thereafter, a window of the E. K. Day store was blown in and the
resulting current of air soon “blew” two more out on the opposite side
of the building. Hinting of damage due to something other than
”natural causes,” another news item recounted the destruction of a huge
window in the Gonya Brothers Store. It seems the store sign had
made its way through the window on the same gust of wind! Future
issues of the Rumford Citizen
included similar commentaries, while the Times remained strangely
silent. A. J. H. McKeeman, a strong railway supporter in the
town, while riding with one of Chisholm’s mill managers in a sleigh,
was struck by a log and knocked to the ground, receiving serious
injury. Of the incident and Chisholm’s employee, a fellow named
Palmer, the Citizen recorded,
“Mr. Palmer escaped without injury except he seemed to have lost his
senses, for he was sought out by the Citizen
man and for some reason seemed decidedly tongue-tied. We trust he
will regain his speech.”
Under the name “Commoner,” one writer in Bowler’s paper issued
declarations weekly against everything from high postal rates to the
horror of tenement life, and always with the finger of guilt pointed
squarely in Chisholm’s direction. Bowler himself warned of the
possibility of the Railroad Commissioners denying a charter for the
electric railway under “guidance” from certain factions. As 1907
waned, it was only too apparent that little actual work on the line
would be done as long as Rumford remained in such turmoil. One of
the major issues of that year had been the election of selectmen for
the town of Rumford. As there, again, were those in favor of the
electric line and those against, speeches and political leaflets were
very much in vogue. In the end, it was made known (in every
possible manner) to mill laborers exactly how much they might “pay” to
have the railway built and also what Hugh Chisholm’s sentiments were in
the matter. As a result, the anti-railway forces were victorious
in the municipal elections.
Though articles describing work on the electric railway survey and
continued efforts to purchase land along the route appeared
sporadically in both Rumford papers, perhaps the circumstance that
doomed the chances for the line—and possibly spelled out a final
warning to Bowler and his paper—was the destruction by fire of a part
of the Bethel newspaper plant. Following this event, the Bridgton News announced, “Rumford,
the big city metropolis, is getting large enough, with the population
big cities attract, to be wicked.” The News continued, “The reports of
murder, arson and vice of all varieties, indicate that it is keeping up
to the requirements!”
Despite the fact that the fire was a direct blow to Bowler and his
adherents, support for the electric railway was still much in evidence
during the winter of 1907-08, especially with those living along the
proposed route. Yet, Rumford Falls remained a tumultuous pocket
of distrust and argument. One of the more interesting byproducts
of the controversy appeared in the form of a postcard (see below) of
the street railway that soon was advertised as available at one
Congress Street store at Rumford Falls. “It shows a car of the
proposed railway,” the ad stated, “stalled in front of the store.
Then in plain sight is the elevated train from Andover . . . then also
there is a flying machine "Bemis" floating majestically above the tops
of the blocks.” For many, the railway to Bethel must have seemed
nothing but a scheme, but few on either side stood on solid enough
ground to accuse the other of deception or fraudulence. And, no
doubt, the many benefits the citizens of Rumford did receive through
Mr. Chisholm’s benevolence helped in the long term to sway more to his
side. It probably came as no surprise, therefore, when, in April
of 1908, E.
C. Bowler announced that henceforth the Rumford Citizen would attempt
to cover more evenly all of Oxford County and in this quest change from
a six to a twelve page paper that would be known as The Oxford County
Citizen. Most importantly, the paper would move back to
Bethel
permanently. At least for the moment, the confrontation appeared
over.
Rumford’s Congress
Street as it might have been
During the next four years The
Oxford County Citizen’s pages continued to include Bowler’s
hopeful praise of attempts to get the Bethel-Rumford electric railway
proposal off the ground. In some of his columns, it was projected
to connect onto small lines in Norway, South Paris, Fryeburg, Lovell,
Stoneham, or Berlin, New Hampshire, but little action was ever taken.
In Rumford, things were reasonably quiet after 1908 on the railway
issue, and few opposing Mr. Chisholm’s activities sought to indicate
their sentiments in print. And for Bowler, who left Bethel for
Portland in 1912, remaining to fight for the ill-fated railroad meant
“standing still would be going backward.” Many years later,
writing of his battle with the powerful monopoly at Rumford Falls,
Bowler set down the following in his usual facetious style: “This is
the History of Oxford County until the period when Hugh J. Chisholm
looked upon the Great Falls at Rumford, and said, ‘Let there be power,
ten years hence,’ and said to this man, ‘Goeth thou up the River,’ and
to another man, ‘Goeth thou down the River and buy ye all the land of
whatever sort ye can bargain for. I, Chisholm, will supply the
funds wherewith to pay. Yea, there will be Power here, and I will
be It!”
