Sometimes it’s what you don’t see that makes all the difference.

Long ago, William C. Ladd of Minot made a lasting mark on international efforts to achieve world peace. He was known as “the Apostle of Peace.”

Ladd was born in Exeter, N.H., in 1778, and he came to Minot where he had a large farm on Center Minot Hill. Across the country road from the farm was a church where Ladd preached a philosophy of peace to his neighbors.

The church is now known as the Minot Center Congregational Church.

Ladd wrote and published many essays in the cause of peace, and his ideas were as controversial in his day as they would be today. He carried his views to the extent of denying the right of defensive war, and he opposed the construction of the Bunker Hill Monument.

Ladd’s message went far beyond Maine. His views were important precursors to the League of Nations and to the United Nations.

He was one of the first to propose a Congress of Nations and a World Court, and his American Peace Society was instrumental in bringing about many peace congresses at The Hague, beginning in 1843, and in the United States in 1907-1915, as well as the Pan American Congress, out of which grew the Pan American Union.

Ladd founded the Minot Peace Society, and it was just five years after that when he brought together the first meeting of the American Peace Society on May 8, 1828, in New York City.

That’s the kind of foundation for peace that began in Minot and endures today throughout the world, but there is another foundation to Ladd’s efforts that lies out of sight at the front lawn of that white country church. It’s beneath a boulder that bears a bronze plaque honoring Ladd.

It was mid-July in 1928 when the townspeople of Minot were preparing for ceremonies marking the 150th anniversary of Ladd’s birth.

A committee of citizens was charged with finding a suitable stone on which to mount the memorial tablet. It was Hiram W. Ricker, founder of the famous Poland Spring Inn, who selected the seven-ton boulder in a field of Ladd’s farm. A news article in the Lewiston Evening Journal said a team of eight horses had pulled the huge stone only about a dozen feet from the original resting place, but the reporter said better progress was expected in the next week leading to the July 21 ceremonies.

A caisson, which is a pit with retaining walls, had been dug beside the road into which concrete would be poured as a base for the boulder. It’s the remarkable composition of the stones that would go into that concrete which made this foundation so special, because it was to be a truly international foundation which would memorialize Minot’s “Apostle of Peace.”

Granite from every state in New England was to be incorporated in the concrete. It would include the famous “golden pink” granite of Niantic, Conn.; granite from Barre, Vt.; granite from Brookline, N.H.; and even stone from St. Cloud, Minn.

Other stones in the mix were brought from Germany, Russia and Czechoslovakia, as well as “half a dozen other nations in Europe, the North and the Near East.” The story said, “Four of these countries are now republics and regencies born of the World War.”

Albert E. Como of Auburn was named as the person responsible for overseeing the foundation construction, and the international stone for the “underground mosaic” came from his collection.

The boulder and its plaque are readily visible today beside the picturesque church. The concrete foundation hasn’t been seen since that celebration of Minot’s champion for peace, but the work of William Ladd provided a solid base upon which people continue to build in the elusive search for world peace.

Dave Sargent is a freelance writer and a native of Auburn. He may be reached by sending email to [email protected].