The Times Record just had a birthday, according to its Facebook page, recently celebrating its 109th year. But the Times Record is actually two newspapers, joined in 1967, from the Bath Times and the Brunswick Record. The Bath Times began life in 1853 and the Brunswick Record began in 1903, after the demise of another Brunswick newspaper, the Telegraph, which itself had begun in 1853.

William A. Wheeler was a columnist for the Brunswick Record. He grew up in Brunswick, and was a boy in the late 1800s. His column, “Brunswick Yesterdays,” was a series of gentle stories about his childhood in late 19th century Brunswick. Here is a part of one of his columns, called ‘ Hotels, Beaches — and other things’:

“ Brunswick was too small a town to attract the big circuses, but almost every year some little onering show would perform there for an afternoon and evening. Generally the lot was a field on Jordan Avenue, although I recall one circus which showed on Pleasant Street about opposite River Road. Today a small show such as these would travel over the road, with motorized equipment, but in my day they necessarily moved by rail. Circus day was a full day for us youngsters. Invariably we would be on hand when the circus train pulled in to watch the fascinating process of unloading. Then to the lot, where we‘d hang around until time for the grand parade to start. During this interval, those of us who were lucky got a chance to water the elephants and the horses, with an admission ticket as our reward. Probably a few of us were taken to the show by our dads, who paid the required admission fee; but it seems to me that the majority either worked and worked hard to earn free tickets or else sneaked in by crawling under the canvas.

“And the side-shows! Wild men of Borneo, snake charmers, tattooed women, fat women, living skeletons— the promises emblazoned on huge banners outside the tent were, to our minds, fully warranted by the attractions to be found inside.”

( text and photograph from a transcription by Richard F. Snow in 2008)

According to his obituary, published in the Brunswick Record, Wheeler died at the age of 83 in 1958, after a lifetime of working on the railroads in Maine. He was the author and publisher of two books — “ Brunswick Yesterdays” and “The Old Timer,” and also wrote a brief history of the Maine Central Railroad, as well as his feature articles for the Brunswick Record and the Portland Sunday Telegram.