Radio Script #101
Little Talks On Common Things
March 18, 1951
I had hoped tonight to finish the subject of Paul Revere bells. I can’t quite do that, because I am still trying to get hold of a copy of a very rare pamphlet published about 40 years ago, in which an investigator by the name of Dr. Arthur Nichols listed all the Paul Revere bells that minute search could uncover. As soon as I can get a look at that rare pamphlet I’ll tell you what bells Nichols was able to locate in Maine. Tonight, however, we can advance the subject a bit farther because of information supplied by interested listeners. Mr. Foster of the Redington Museum is sure there is a Paul Revere bell in the city hall at Bath. There is said to be another at Castine and still another at Machias. Some of these present bells attributed to Paul Revere are not originals, but later recasts of bells once made by Paul and his sons. Such a recast is the bell at Waterford Flat. When the old church there was burned, the bell was badly damaged though not completely melted. What was left of it was salvaged, new metal added, and the whole recast. The same happened to the bell in the Union Church at Solon. The story of that old bell comes to us through Mr. Lewis Whipple.
Early in the nineteenth century a Paul Revere bell was hung in the tower of Solon’s Union Church. The tragedy that overtook that old bell came in an hour of triumph. On a July day in 1863 Solon heard the news of the Union victory at Gettysburg. In joyous celebration all the church bells rang out. Now the ringers of the old Paul Revere bell in the Union Church were determined that the newer Methodist bell should not outdo their bell in loudness or in length of ringing. In their ardor the ringers cracked the Paul Revere bell. Somewhat muted and badly out of tune it clanged sadly on for thirty years. Then it was taken down and recast. Bung again in the church tower, its clear tones are still heard every Sunday in Solon.
The person, however, who has given me most thorough information about Paul Revere bells in Maine is F. L. Butterfield of China. Mr. Butterfield apologizes for his penmanship, but I assure you, in spite of his 82 years, his handwriting is much plainer than mine or that of half the students at Colby College or Waterville High School. Mr. Butterfield says there is a Paul Revere bell in Christ’s Church at Gardiner — the old Gardiner family church; another in the old Knox Meeting House at Thomaston; and a third in the old church at the corner of Park and Pleasant Streets in Portland – DOW the Gmek Church of that city; and a fourth was long ago taken from the ancient Congregationalist Church in Falmouth and set, up in the Advent Church in Westbrook.
Mr. Butterfield wants to know if we have learned the name of the last steamboat on our part of the river. Yes, as we said a few weeks ago, the last boat to make regular trips was unquestionably the City of Waterville. Mr. Butterfield also wants to know the name of the City of Waterville’s immediate predecessor.
‘Mr. Butterfield says he used to see that boat close to where the Lockwood Mill No. 2 now stands. Does anyone remember its name? Now to get back to the Paul Revere bells. My neighbor and former colleague at Colby, Professor George Parmenter, calls my attention to a fact which I should have remembered, but didn ‘t. It is that Esther Forbes, in her notable book “Paul Revere and the World He Lived In”, tells about that very Paul Revere bell in Farmington that I mentioned vaguely on this program a few weeks ago. I asked if there is a Paul Revere bell at Farmington. Paul’s best biographer says there certainly was one there when Paul himself was still aliw.
Paul seems to have been someWhat careless in the way he handled the business transactions regarding his bells. He seldom had a written contract or any payment in advance. In 1808 he went so far as to deliver a bell to a young man whose name. he did not even record or later remember. He had taken no receipt for the bell, but had simply let the young man cart it away. Six months later he began to wonder whether he was going to get his money. So on July 1, 1809 he wrote a letter to a man he knew in Farmington, Maine. That letter has been preserved, and this is what it says:
nOn the 24th of November last we delivered a bell to a young gentleman who said he was empowered to purchase a bell by the Trustees of Farmington Academy.
We delivered to him a bell weighing 495 pounds. At 42 cents a pound, the price was $207.90. Tbe young man did not leave his name, but said he would call again for the bill. As we have not seen him since, nor heard from the Trus tees, we will thank you to require them to write us whether they received the bell or whether they gave any person an order to purchase it.”The immediate result of that letter was what Miss Forbes calls a dignified, Sinister s:llenee. By this time Paul was really getting mad. He again wrote his Farmington friend, Mr. Supply Belcher: “Are any of those Academy Trustees gentlemen, or are they persons who care little or nothing for character?”
Neither Paul nor Hr. Belcher could get anything out of the Trustees, but apparently Mr. Belcher informed Paul that the bell actually had arrived and now called the Academy pupils to classes, and he gave Paul the names of the Trustees.
By this time two years had gone by and Paul had some excuse for writing the fo1low:1ng sharp letter:
“We think it extraordinary that gentlemen of your respectability will not so far respect your own credit as not to notice in any way our letters to you.
You know you have a bell, you know who it was purchased of, who purchased it and on what terms, and you hear that bell every Sabbath call you to the House of God, and you all J,tnow that bell is not paid for. lIlat am we to think of the gentlemen who compose the Trustees of Farmington Academy?”
Now we know those Academy trustees were not dishonest. They weren’t trying to cheat Paul Bevere. They simply didn’t have any money. Miss Forbes suggests that ”probably their flesh did creep as Paul’s unpaid-for bell solemnly called them to the worship of God and their children to academy classes”. At any rate they eventually paid the bill.
It is interesting to note how Paul Revere began to cast bells. His father was an iron founder, whose business came to be called ”Revere f s Furnace,”. Paul DOt only learned that trade, but was also trained as a silversmith. That led him to consider the foundry as a place for something more artistic than simple iron castings. Someone called his attention to a need at his own church in Boston.
When the British troops occupied Boston during the early part of the Revolution, they tore down the Old North Church for firewood, but they did not destroy the bell. That bell, recovered when the British evacuated Boston, washung in the tower of the Second Church, where Paul was a member. In 1792 the bell cracked, and bad to be recast. Every one thought it would have to be sent to England; no workman on this side of the Atlantic could do the job. But Master Paul Bevere was determined to recast that bell. He succeeded, and in the fall of 1792 into the tower of Second Church went a bell marked: “‘!he first bell cast in Boston, 1792, P. Revere”.
That set Paul up as a bell-maker. He and his two SODS, according to the investigator Nichols, cast 398 bells in the 34 years between 1792 and 1826. A good many of those bells mus t sooner or later have reached Maine.
The most famous of Paul’s bells is not, however, in Haine, but where it ought to be, right in his own city of Boston. In the tower of King’s Chapel on busy Tremont Street, right around the corner from the Parker House, bangs Paul Revere fS largest and most famous bell – a huge bell weighing 2,437 pounds, and with a tone so completely individual that it can be recognized many miles _81.
Close as it is to the bell of the Old Park Church, no listener on a Sunday morning would ever confuse the two, as that biggest of Paul Revere bells calls worshippers to the service of a liberal religion, while the. Park Street bell calls them to the hell-fire sermons of Brimstone Corner.
Is spite of all the excuses that come out of Washington, SODle of us are still old-fashioned enough to believe that one way to reduce the expense of non-defense items in government is to stop the senseless waste caused by conflicting agencies. A Missouri famer asked the Department of Agriculture for advice on fertilizer. He got aDSwers from five bureaus in the department, all the answers conflicting with each other. More than fifty federal agencies have a hand in transportation, while our traditional transportation system puts up a continuous fight for survival. Twelve different agencies deal with hOUSing, 37 with public health, 16 with preservation of wild life.
We are indeed the richest nation on earth, but even we cannot afford to keep on· playing tag among the conflicting agencies that all claim jurisdiction over the same field. Every loyal American should question the vast waste in peace-time departments of government, the mounting proposals for new schemes to spend more money.
Even if there wem no waste in these departments, there is another truth we had better get firmly in our heads. It is this: We simply cannot have all of everything we want while we spend billions for bullets instead of for butter.
And, as long as the threat of cODlDlUl1ist-doainated world looms over us, those billiODS for bullets must be sp~t.
As the town’ meetings go merrily on during this month of March, it is interesting to note what the town of Oakland was considering in town meeting 70 years ago, or rather 69 years ago, to be exact. In 1882 Oakland was officially the Town of West Waterville. The warrant for their town meeting of that year contained the following items: Article 9, to see if the town will vote to raise a sum of money for the support of a free high school; Article 10, to see if the town will authorize the several school districts to choose their agents for the enSuing year, in district meetings lawfully assembled; Article 12, to see if the town will raise a sum. of 1Iloney to improve the fire department; Article 14, to see if the town will vote to tax dogs; Article 16, to see if the town will vote to assess the property of any cotton manufacturing establishment to be located in West Waterville, at a named sum only, until said company commences manufacturing; Article 19, to see if the town will vote to furnish school books to pupils at cost; Article 20, to see if the town will vote to sell the old hearse and buy ruDDers for the new one.
. Of those articles, probably 19 and 20 strike most strangely on the modern ear. In 1882 free text books had not reached the schools. It was really quite an advance over the old method of requiring each parent to purchase his child’s books where and how he could to the proposal in Article 19 of the 1882 meeting to have the town buy the books at wholesale and sell them. to the pupils without profit. Many a year was to elapse before Oakland or any other town was to furnish textbooks free.
Article 20 reveals a CODIIlon practice in Maine towns three quarters of a century ago. Not the local undertaker, but the town, owned the hearse used for all burials. Some of those old town hearses were elaborate affairs with plumes on each corner and fine carving on the panels. Even in the smallest towns the driver usually wore a tall silk hat.
What did it cost to govern the Town of Oakland in those days? Well, in 1881, exactly 70 years ago, the total appropriaticma were $13,527. The total valuation was $615,000, of which $433,000 was real estate and $187,000 personal property. The tax rate was twenty mills.
The town had eleven school districts, the biggest of which was of course· Dist nct No.1, in the heart of the village. Its cost exceeded that of all the other tea districts together, for lts expenditures were $1,418, whlle all the others together spent only $1,177. Apparently the high school had only one teacher, A. P. Soule, who received the munificent sala1:Y of $165 a term for three terms a year, annual pay of $495. To operate all the schools of Oakland -all eleven elementary districts plus the high school — cost in 1882 a total of $3,090.
Even in those days Oakland had its paupers. Their support cost nearly half as much as to run all the schools of the town, $1,295. Back there 70 years ago it was very unusual to find a town that spent more for schools than it did for roads, but Oakland could claim that proud distinction. Compared with the three thousand for schools, only $2,200 went for roads.
Thanks to a tabular statement in the town report of 1881, we know just what wages each teacher received. Here are a few samples. Nellie Ham, at upper pr1ma1:Y, got $3.00 a week and board computed at $2.00; Grace Dudley, at the Intermediate School, got $5.00 a week and board; FaDIlie ~ton at the Grammar School got $7.00 and board. The highest paid teacher was, of course, Allen Soule at the high school, who got $14 a week.
Year: 1951