Archaeology at Colby Presents: Mayflower Hill
Introduction
In the 1970's there was an active archaeology club at Colby College that conducted
a number of excavations at early farmsites which populated Mayflower Hill before
the College was built. Since 1981 the excavation of these sites has been under
the professional oversight of Professor Thomas R. W. Longstaff of the Department
of Religious Studies. Reports of these excavations will be available through the
World Wide Web for the information of those interested. Questions about these
excavations should be addressed to Professor Longstaff (tlongst@colby.edu).
Settlement Archaeology on Mayflower Hill, c1800-1930:
The Prospects of Oral History
by James Merrick
Colby Archaeological Society (1975)
This project was designed to investigate the historical settlement patterns on Mayflower Hill
(Waterville, Maine) by means of a three-fold inquiry involving legal-historical land title research
and genealogical information, archaeological excavation of 19th century domestic sites and material
culture, and the oral traditions of select contemporaries within the local population. The purpose
of this paper is to evaluate the prospects of oral history as a means towards attaining the
objectives of this study, and to present an overview of the oral, historical, and archaeological
evidence relevant to the inquiry.
The persons interviewed for the oral aspects of this study were Mr. George Costley, age 78, former
RFD mail carrier whose route included Mayflower Hill for eight years between 1923 and 1931; Mr.
Walter Kershner, age 73, former Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds at Colby College and
resident of Mayflower Hill from 1939 to 1944; and Mr. Ernest Cummings Marriner, age 83, Colby
College Historian. All three respondents were interested in the study, and freely willing to assist
in an academic project of this kind. The questions they were asked centered around the locations
and descriptions of early 20th century farm sites on Mayflower Hill. Land titles, photographs, and
archaeological evidence suggested that there were six major homesteads on Mayflower Hill when the
College aquired the property in 1931.
George Costley, the mail carrier, was the primary respondent as he had once delivered mail to most,
if not all, of the farms on Mayflower Hill during the 1920's. He could recall the locations and
owners of five homesteads which existed along Western Avenue and Maple Court, even though the farms
and the roads themselves no longer remain, and the hill itself has undergone radical transformation
within the past 40 years due to extensive landscaping and construction of the College's physical
plant, athletic fields, and grounds, and access roads. Walter Kershner was very helpful in
recalling various aspects of the early construction on campus, the locations of the old roads, and
specific details of the house in which he lived on Maple Court from 1939 to 1944. Dean Marriner,
who recently began his own study of the Mayflower Hill lands (Marriner, 1973) was able to provide
considerable information and verification for the locations of property lines and two of the farms
on the campus property, and was the primary contact and source for the other respondents.
The oral, land title, and archaeological information was corroborated by several early photographs
of Mayflower Hill taken during the winter of 1930-1931 for publication in the 1931 Colby College
Oracle, and by a 1932 architect's map showing the campus construction plans and the original
property lines of the lands purchased on Mayflower Hill. On the basis of this evidence, six major
homesteads (c. 1925) were approximately plotted on the two-foot contour map of the college
properties produced by the James W. Sewall Company in 1965 (see map). The property lines depicted
are approximate since many of the various deeds refer to landmarks indistinguishable on the
topographical map, such as individual trees and wire fences, but scattered remains of stone walls
and lines of vegetation have permitted fairly reliable extrapolation of boundary lines and the
former road beds of Western Avenue and Maple Court. These lines are further substantiated by recent
aerial photographs of the campus area in which the former roads and homesteads are still
distinguishable. The evidence for each farmsite is presented below in relation to its location on
the map.
The Wilfred LaPointe Homestead-Federal Site No. 2
The LaPointe homestead was "quite a large operation" (Marriner, personal communication) in the
1920's, known locally as the Haines Orchard Farm from its previous owner, Governor William T.
Haines, who initiated cultivation and commercial harvesting of several orchards on the property in
addition to operating a dairy creamery. In its earliest historical reference, the site is
identified on an 1856 Kennebec County map as the home of Joshiah Morrill II, and some 20 years later
is referred to in his will as part of his step-daughter's dowry. A 1930-1931 photograph, taken at
some distance to the southeast, reveals at least five structures on the site: two barns, a
farmhouse, a shed, and a small outbuilding-possibly a privy. Archaeological and geophysical
exploration on the site has produced evidence of one definite and two possible subsurface structures
(Belt, Curtis, and Merrick, 1974), particularly an early foundation which may or may not pre-date
the 1820's that is filled with burned rubble and architectural materials from the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. The chronological disparity of material culture could be an indication of a
destruction of the original structure and a later construction of another building on the original
foundation, but this is yet unclear.
George Costley could not remember a Wilfred LaPointe, nor could he recall with any certainty a farm
complex in that area, even when shown the photograph of the buildings themselves (the photograph, it
should be mentioned, was poor and indistinct, and taken from an angle on the hill foreign to his
established mail route). A respondent is normally accurate only in information directly related to
his own personal or role behavior (Gorden, 1969: pp. 18-20), and Mr. Costley was concise in his
recall of his mail route, so much so in fact that he could recall nothing of consequence on
Mayflower Hill except the farms to which he had delivered mail. LaPointe may have not received mail
directly at his homestead, but at another point of distribution, possibly the local post office in
downtown Waterville. If his farm was "quite a large operation," it may have required him to
maintain close connections in the city, perhaps even a local produce outlet, although this has not
been determined.
In an interview with the College Historian in the Spring of 1973 (Marriner, 1973a), Mrs. Luke
Morrill, a former resident of Mayflower Hill (who was unavailable for interview at the time of this
project), described the Haines-LaPointe farm complex as consisting of a farmhouse and two barns
located in the site area, although she was uncertain as to their relationship to Western Avenue and
the actual location of the road itself. Dean Marriner and Walter Kershner had no first-hand
knowledge of the farm, and Mr. Kershner testified that there were no structures standing in that
location when he arrived in 1939.
The Phillippe Poulin Homestead-Federal Site No. 3
The 1931 Oracle photograph shows at least three structures on the Poulin homestead: a
farmhouse, a shed, and a large barn with multiple additions. All three respondents verified its
location as directly behind the present site of the President's house: Mr. Costley recalled seeing
the complex intact, while Mr. Kershner indicated that the barn was gone before 1939. There is a
large depression in the ground just west of the Presdient's house that corresponds with this
information; this site and all the others described below have yet to be tested by archaeological
and geophysical field methods.
The College Historian has hypothesized that the Poulin farm may be the location of the original
Joshiah Morrill homestead of 1799 (Marriner, 1973) but he and the authors involved in this project
has no certainty of that fact (Marriner, personal communication). The Poulin house was moved in
1941 to the other end of Maple Court behind the present area of the tennis courts where it is
currently the residence of Mr. Stanley Palmer, the Plant Supervisor of Colby College (Marriner,
1973). [Editor's note: This building is now known as the "Hill House" and serves as the College's
guest quarters.] Standing on a modern foundation, the house is a mixture of architectural styles,
the earliest of which dates to the early 19th century (Palmer, personal communication).
The Roy L. Page Homestead-Federal Site No. 4
In the Oracle photograph the Page homestead has two structures: a farmhouse on the right of
Maple Court and a barn on the left. Mr. Costley remembers the buildings and their locations on the
old road, but the most specific details come from Walter Kershner, who lived in the Page house from
1939 to 1944 while he was in charge of Buildings and Grounds. He tore down "the tough old barn"
which had rather small dimensions of "about 20 by 24 feet" and was constructed of thick wooden beams
connected with "tongue and modess" joints and wooden pins that were so well jointed that it was
difficult to tear the barn down. The house was white with a wood frame, and had a root cellar under
the 2nd period ell; the 1st period house had no cellar hole, but Kershner pick-axed a coal storage
bin out of the shale outcropping beneath the main part of the house so as to supply coal for the new
steam heating system they had to install that first winter. Mrs. Kershner commented that the house
on Mayflower Hill "was the coldest, draftiest place" that she had ever lived in. The house was
demolished shortly after the Kershners left in 1944.
The Alonzo B. Morrill Homestead-Federal Site No. 5
The homestead of the last Morrill on Mayflower Hill was quite large in size, but George Costley
revealed that Mr. Morrill was "an elderly man in his 60's" with rapidly failing health, and that
accordingly he had only a small household garden planted during the time in which Costley delivered
his mail. Both Costley and Marriner recalled that Maple Court reached a dead end at A. Morrill's
barn, and that his house stood off to the right, approximately near the end of the modern workshed
that served as the College's Little Theater until in burned down in 1968. Mr. Kershner corroborated
this, adding that "a split granite foundation" of the house was all that remained in 1939. Mrs.
Luke Morrill once lived in this, her step-father's house, and could possibly offer a more detailed
description of the Morrill homestead when she is available for interview.
The Ralph E. Stanley Homestead-Federal Site No. 6
Among the 1931 Oracle's photographs is a close-up of the Stanley farm showing a large
farmhouse, two barns, two large sheds, and a privy-six or seven structures in all. Other
photographs on file in the College's Public Relations Department and in the Colbiana collection of
Miller Library show the Stanley farmhouse alone behind the foundation of the library with a large
speakers' platform attached to its east end for the library's dedication ceremonies in 1938. Most
of the Stanley farm was apparently destroyed in the construction of the buildings in the Quad, but
archaeological remains of parts of the farmhouse and one of the barns may be relatively undisturbed
underneath the Common. Costley verified the location of the farm, and testified that the Stanley
homestead was "a big spread," in fact, the largest farm on the hill (Marriner, 1973). Shortly after
those dedication ceremonies the house was torn down and the construction of the library began.
The George Wheeler Homestead-Federal Site No. 7
George Wheeler's large barn and farmhouse had burned down by 1931 and his property was owned by
Elmor Hustus when the College purchased it, but George Costley recalled that the two structures were
connected by an ell or a service wing, and that "it all went up together" in the same fire. The New
England connected farm plan is a regional folk architectural form confined almost exclusively to
northeastern New England due to its adaptability to the climate (Glassie, 1968: pp. 185-187). The
large split granite foundation and cellar hole of Wheeler's house was never filled in after the fire
and it remains open amid dense overgrowth on a rise near the former intersection of Western Avenue,
Marston Road, and Rice's Rips Road. There is a brief description of the Wheeler site and Mayflower
Hill at the turn of the century in The Colby Alumnus, Winter 1974 (Morse, 1974) by Dr. Marston
Morse, a former resident of Mayflower Hill who, like Mrs. Morrill, was unavailable for an
interview.
Conclusions
The prospects of oral history as a means of determining the historical settlement patterns on
Mayflower Hill have been found to be significant in the period of the early 20th century; six
homesteads were located, identified, and to some extent described, creating a preliminary model upon
which to base future archaeological and socio-historical research. Increases in the number of
respondents and improvements in interviewing techniques will enable a more expansive emergence of
oral traditions and the collection of a larger, more complete corpus of oral data. Coupled with
further historical research and archaeological excavation, oral history may provide us with new
insights on the patterns of settlement on Mayflower Hill and on the ethno-archaeological processes
by which those patterns occurred.
Bibliography
Belt, M., Nancy Curtis and James Merrick (1974). "Archaeological Application of Geophysical Field
Methods." Unpublished Project Paper Prepared for Geology 241, Colby College, Waterville, Maine.
Glassie, H. (1968). Pattern in the Material Folk Culture of the Eastern United States.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Gordon, R. L. (1969). Interviewing: Strategy, Techniques, and Tactics. Homewood, Illinois:
Dorsey Press.
Marriner, E. C. (1973a). "The Mayflower Hill Lands." Unpublished Manuscript in the Colbiana
Collection of Miller Library, Colby College, Waterville, Maine.
Marriner, E. C. (1973b). "Notes on the Mayflower Hill Lands and Roads." Unpublished Research Notes
in the Colbiana Collection of Miller Library, Colby College, Waterville, Maine.
Morse, H. M. (1974). "Marston Road and the Ten Lots." The Colby Alumnus, 63, 6-7.
Hypertext version by Professor Thomas R. W. Longstaff, April 1994
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