Radio Script #117
Little Talks On Common Things
October 7, 1951
Government spending, which I talked about last week, is really getting pretTy bad, when one of the outstanding leaders of the administration for·ces in the Senate demands a halt. That Senator is the veteran Tom Connally of Texas, cha i roon of the Senate Commi ttee on Fore I go Re I at Ions. He says the recent I y passed Foreign Aid Bill ought to have been cut by at least a bIllion dollars.
Logically and wisely Connally contends that we cannot abandon foreign aid altogeTher, for it is only a form of insurance for our own defense against the Soviet menace. But with equal logic the senator shows hOil much of the socalled economic aid has been wasted and how some of it has actually been chan.”. neled to help Russia. Mind you this is not the opposition party – … men like BrewSTer and Wherry and Bridges — speaking, but that hardened old war horse of the party in power, Tom Conna Ily of Texas. Perhaps he can at last beat some sense into the free-spende rs in the executi ve departments.
It is a thri Iling experience to read the original, hand-written diary of a Forty-Niner, one who took the long over-land journey across the continent a hundred years ago to the gold fields of Cal itornia. It is even more thri II Ing toknow that the diary was written by a man who later became one of Waterv! lie’s most prominent lawyers and most loyal citizens. Through the courtesy of Mr. Walter Heath” it has been my unusua I p r I v i I ege to read the da i I Y record kept by his greaT-grandfather, Solyman Heath. Walter’s descent from Solyman comes through Solyman’s son Francis, a Colonel in the Civi I War, and whom some of our oldest residents remember driving dally to his mill at Benton, accompanied by his two beaUTiful dogs. His son, Edward, Walter’s father, carried on the Benton business for many years.
Solyman did not live In Watervi lie when he followed the lure of gold to California. He was then a resident of Bel fast. He had been born at ClaremonT, N. H. in 1804 and, after graduating from Dartmouth College, entered the profession of law. He was already 45 years old when he started to cross the continent, the father· of several children, some of them already in their teens. For some reason Solyman Heath decided to take his son Wi Illam with him on the long journey. What an experience for a 15 year old boy! That boy, though destined to die a hero’s death at an early age on the field of battle, did survive the rIgors of that terrIble trip across plains and mountains, worked a while In a San Francisco store, then sl ipped off to China, from which distanT land the anxious father soon had him returned by the intercession of the U. S. government.
When The fami Iy came to Watervl lie in 1951 — Solyman having meantime returned to Belfast via the Isthmus of Fa nama — William went to Colby College and was graduated I n the famous c I ass of 1855 I a c I ass that lost th ree men on the battle fie I d and that boasted such prominenT fi gures as Reuben Foster, Water vi lie attorney who served both as Speaker of the House and Pres i dent of the Senate in the Maine Legislature; 01 iver Gray who served with distinction as a colone I In The Confederate Army and I ater founded Arkansas’ fl rst school for the blind; John lamb, professor of Mathematics at Bates College; Joseph Pettengi II, judge of the Kansas Supreme Court; and Larki n Dunton, renowned head of the Boston Norma I Schoo I for 30 years.
Wi /liam Heath, like his father, became a lawyer and practiced in Minneapolis from 1856 to 1858, served as U. S. Consul at M:>ntreal the next year, then set up his law practice in Rockland. That practice was Interrupted by the Ci vi I War. Company H of the 3rd Maine Volunteers was recruited In Waterville, with William Heath as its captain and his brother Francis as its first lieutenant. Both brothers rose rapidly in the service, William becoming Lt. Col. of the 5Th Maine. He was killed In action, gallantly leading his men, at the battle of Gaines’ Hi II, Virginia in June, 1862. “After the war the Waterv’ lie Post of GAR was named the WI II jam 5. Heath Post in his honor.
Now let us geT Wi Illam and his father started on thei r toilsome Journey to the gol d fie Ids. The diary i tse I f does not begl n unT i I 50 lyman Is beyond the Mississippi. But on the first Inside page of the liTTle book is the following undated passage:
“I n Ba Itlmore stopped at U. S. Hote I, where found a we II-kept house wi th pol ite and attentive servants. At Harper’s Ferry, where darkies cut antics, played on cymbals and shouted lusti Iy, all because an opposition eating house had been established at half prices. At Cumberland nothing very striking but a want of accomodations in Two stages. Agents of the di He rent stage I ines to Pittsburgh vied for passengers, which is exceedingly foolish inasmuch as both I I nes are actua II y one and the same th I ng. The trave Ie r does not II ke to be treated ike a dog or a villain. Over the Allegheny Mts. we were transported at a rapid rate. The road is In tolerable order, but since the nation has given up the charge of it, i-t Is not much cared for.”
Then appear Three single line items, reading:
“14th left Baltimore for Cumberland.
“15th reached Pi ttsburgh.
“16th -to Whee ling.”
Then follows s t lence unti I the dai Iy Journal begins on May 5, 1849. The first entry reads: “Arrived at Waynes Landing, Independence. Overflowing with people, our company stored away in the attic with thirty others. We found our bedding and lodged on the floor.”
From the forego i ng items it is not hard to work out 50 I yman Heath I s route to the poi nt where The Journa I begi ns. There is some evl dance, from other sources, that he sa i led from Be I fast to Boston, from whence he took one of the regular packet boats to Baltimore. The 14th, the date he records as leaving Baltimore, must have been ~he 14th of April, for the Intervening time Is about right to bring him to Independence on May 5th. From Baltimore, as his brief pre-Journal passage makes clear, he went by stage coach intervals to Wheeling in what Is nat West Virginia, passing over the Alleghenies to Pittsburgh on the way. At Wheeling he mUst have taken a boat down the Ohio River and ~hen a short distance down the Mississippi to St. louis. There he would take one of the many boats going up the Missouri to Independence (President Truman’s home ~own), not far from Kansas City a~ ~he western extremity of the state. The route taken by Hea~h ‘s party — he had evl dently Joined a bi g wagon train of emigrants at Independence — was by no means through unexplored country. I t was a we II-marked and we I I-known tra I I th rough the South Pass of the Rocky Mauntal ns. It struck out from I ndependence across northeast Kansas, crossing the Kansas River, the Big Vermillion, and the Big Blue before going into what Is now Nebraska. Then the route followed the valley of the’Platte River northw.est to Fort Kearney, now the cl ty of Kearney, Nebraska.
Where the north and south forks of the Pj.atte unite to form the main rIver, the trail crossed the sou~h fork and continued west along the bank of the north fork. It crossed the Nebraska-Wfomlng border near Scott’s Bluff, where Is now the famous Scotts Bluff Na~ional Monument. From there it went on to one of the most famous trading and cavalry posts in the whole western country, Fort laramie, which readers of Parkman’s Oregon Trail wi II remember as one of the most vivid of the many frontier scenes depicted by that gifted New England writer. In western Wyoming, near the Utah border, is the South Pass, the discovery of which In 1836 had enabled the first reasonably safe crossing of the Rockies by wagons.
Pass J ng just north of GreaT Salt ‘lake, the route runs down a fork of the Humboldt River in Nevada, across the desert In the northwest part of that region, along the rim of the great Carson Sink, and onto the Carson River 9Ft the NevadaCa I I forni a border. Then comes the last c limb across Call foml a mountains to the po I nt where the wate rs run I nto the Pac I f I c. The re I t was on I y a few days’ Journey to what men called “the diggins”, the rich new gold fields east of Sacramento.
Health left Independence on May 5; it was October 13 when he reached the gold fields. A Journey that a person In an automobile can now make in three days and that an airplane can cover In five hours had taken Heath’s par-tyflve months and o.i ne:days, nearly ha I f a year.
It was a Journey where death constantly stalked thetraLI. I n fact the most corrmon words in Solyman Keath’s carefu Ily kept Journal are the words dted and dead and death. As every reader of western literature knows, there were the dangers of Indian raids, of the loss of food and eqUipment when crossing the hundreds of streams, of maddening thirst In the desert, of failing into mountain chasms or being crushed by giant s I I des of snow and rock. But the enemy that c I a imad most Ii ves, as the wagons made thei r tedious way westward, was not the I nd I an, was not hunger nor th I rst. I t was an enemy se Idom ment loned In the sTories of the pral rie schooner days. It was the dread cholera. Heath’s party was only nine days out of Independence when cholera struck them. Heath writes: “Bob, our only teamster who had been through before to California, died today of cholera. Sick only a few hours.” The next day he records: “Passed a new grave of some emigrant, then two dead bodies left unburied, with a feather bed ripped open and feathers scattered all aroll1d.”
On the 18th they left two of their number behind with one team’s crew to care for them. The next day Heath wrote: “The team left behind yesterday with two sick men came in at ten 0′ clock at night with the report that both men had died and were immediately burled. Five of our company are already dead, and we have come less than 50 m lies from Independence. Yet it has not had a parti c Ie of Influence on the great body of the camp. No one thinks of turning back.” On May 20th Heath makes It cl ear that the ravages of the dread dl sease did affect some of the parties. He wrote: ”While we were at tea, a six-ox team with a fami Iy drove up from the Kansas Ri ver, bound for the States. They had gone 15 mi I es beyond the Kansas, bound for Ca II fom I a, but the man and leader had died of cholera, and the wi fe deci ded to return.”
Heath says that the extreme ravages of the disease were attributed to the almost consTant rain. They had no completely fair day for weeks on end, and streams were frequent Iy so swo lien they had to waf t severa I days before they cou I d cross. On May 25th they encountered another returning party, this time a train of’ three teams, Flot Just a single famll’y. They had turned back because the leader had died of cholera. After that the returning teams became almost a dally occurrence unTil they reached Fort Laramie, many days’ Journey from Independence. On the 27th he recorded: “~ath a II around us. I n the Kentucky tra in a few rods south of ours and in another camp a few rods east, death entered and took from each a viCTim. They were buried this morning without coffins. They were sick only a few hours, and without preparation were launched into eternity. With what feelings they left I am not infonned, but these things seem to have little Inf I uence on The I i vi ng.” On the last day of May, Heath’s train suffered its seventh death from cholera, and on the next day Heath’s own teamster succumbed to the disease. HeaTh ends his day’s acCX)unt with his oft repeated mournful line: “Slow progress because so weT.
On June 4 came a cheeri ng remi nder of home, for they were vis I ted by a man from a neighboring camp who, It turned out, was born in Belfast. But he brought no cheerful news. He said that one of his company had been stricken with cholera, and They were so short-handed they had to leave h 1m by the sl de of the road. The man had suffl cient strength to craw I two mi les to a creek. of emigrants passed, but refused to take him along. After two days, company did pick him up, but he died that night.
Two trains a th i rd Heath’s own “train seemed to have a high regard for a man whom he calls simply Mr. Smith. He is, In fact, the only man in the whole journal to whom Solyman 91 ves the ti t Ie of Ml ste r. He was, says So lyman, a Presbyteri an and a Mason. So, when cholera claimed Smith as the train’s tenth victim, Heath was able to write: “Mr. Smith was one of very few men who were buried In a coffin. The break-down of a wagon furnished the wood. He was given full Masonic burial.” And at that Mason i c funera I we leave Sol yman Heath ton I ght. Next week we shall follow him further on his westward way.
Year: 1951