Radio Script #321
Little Talks on Common Things
December 2, 1956
When the average citizen thinks about foreign trade of the United States, especially about the world market for American products, I suspeCT he seloom TdK~~ inTO accounT a very important factor — the factor of foreign customs and ways of I ife quite different from our own. There are indeed many curious foreign customs which affect export sales from the United States. Let’s look at one occurrence.
A I i Ahmed Akri z was a profess i ona I mourner in an Arab country. One afternoon he jogged up to a camp where a group of American engineers were at work. He was a little fel low, scarcely bigger than the donkey on which he rode. Ali approached the boss on the job, and that boss was anything but easy-tempered. He had been driven nearly mad by the heat and the indolence of the Arab workers.
“I want job!!, A I i announced. r~Yeah, and what can you do?·1 asked the boss. ttl can cry”, sa idA Ii. !T I off i cia I mourner. I th ink maybe your company need of f i cia I mourne r .
It was too hot for the boss to summon enough energy to drive away this Moslem upstart, so instead of launChing his usual tirade, the boss asked of Ali: IlHow wou I d you like to work in the di spensary?” :’Di spensary, what that p lease?l; FWhere you dispense med i cines, where you hand out pi I Is. The idea of giving out anything appealed to Ali’s pride. He could feel like the great Agha Khan absent-mindedly tossing around diamonds, even if Ali’s diamonds were only vile tasting pills. So he said, nSure, I take job. make one big dispense.”
So the next day Ali tugged a camp-chair and a few empty cartons into the shade of a date palm. Then he displayed a tattered piece of canvas on which he had daubed the image of a human hand, using for paint iodine and mercurochrome from the dispensary.
When the Arab workers straggled in for the noonday meal, they saw the canvas with the hand, tacked to the palm tree. Presently each Arab accepted from Ali an envelope, bowed low and opened it, gulped down a pi I I, sealed the envelope and tucked it away. In that one day the dispensary put out and saw used more malaria preventive than they had induced the Arabs to take in the whole past month. Absenteeism — the plague of the whole project — was greatly improved, as day after day the Arabs came for AI i ‘s pi I Is under the sign of the hand.
Finally, after much coaxing, Ali explained, Hit is the hand of Fatima\:; he said. “She very holy: very good luck. She only dauqhter of Mohammed. When Moslem see her hand on tree and on pi I I envelope, he sure everything O.K. He not want mi ss her protecti on.!!
In America few people take their superstit.i:ons seriously. But 390 mi Ilion people in India, 450 mi I lion in China and 120 mi II ion in Latin America take them very seriously indeed. There are hundreds of places in the world where something like the hand of Fatima to the Moslems makes al I the difference between acceptance and rejection of American goods.
Just a few words more about Old Hal lowe II. The fi rst settlers were Pease Clark and his son Peter, who, with their wives and Peter’s one chi Id, bui It a cabin in that wi Iderness in 1762. Peter had become acquainted with the region when he served as lieutenant in the company of soldiers that guarded the building of Fort Western in 1754.
\~hen the Clark house was bui It at the Hook, and for severa I years afterward, the nearest sawmi I I was ha I f a mi Ie above Fort \~estern and the nearest grist mi I I was at Gardinerstown, now the site of the city of Gardiner. That grist mi I I on Cobbossee Stream was mighty important to early settlers in the Kennebec Va Iley. As one hi stori an puts it, HEven the i nhab i tants of !\Jorri dgewock and Canaan had to bri ng a II the i r corn down the ri ve r in canoes to the mi I I at Cobbossee. There was no grist mi II farther up the river.!?
Hal 1~/el I was incorporated as a town on the same day that saw the incorporation of ~”inslo”J in 1771. The town then included not only what is now Hallowei I, but all of Augusta and Chelsea, and most of Manchester and Farmingdale.
The present Ha I lowe I I city center was in the ear I y days ca I led the Hook; a contraction of Bombahook, an Indian name for the point extending into the Kennebec. A resident of Hallowell, writing in 1800 to a relative on Marthais Vineyard, said that the principal domestic manufactures of Hal lowel I were linen, soap, candles and samplers.
Once or twice on these programs I have referred to the Aroostook \1ar. That episode in fvlaine histopy had a humorous side, which was not obvious to the emot i ona I I Y sti rred Ma i ne ci ti zens 117 years ago, but in the light of time’s revealing perspective, can now be appreciated. As we look back upon it, the Aroostook ‘dar appears as a comic opera, and it is hard for us to understand why, even in 1839, it was not treated with the ridicule it deserved. The very idea that Governor John Fa i rf i e I d and his counci lors coul d sett:le by force of arms a boundary dispute between the United States and Great Britain iS 7 of course, utterly preposterous. Those r’1aine officials must have realized that, even though the nation was then only half a century old, the federal 90vernment in h/ashington would not allow any state government to embroi I it in war.
Why then was the bold plan of settling the boundary on Maine’s terms by Maine armed forces undertaken? The answer is politics. Governor Fairfield staged the farce to gain prestige and strengthen his party. But he fai led. The ,t}ext year-, in 1840, Ma i ne, as the slogan of the time had it, “went he I I bent for Governor Kent”, and Fairfield went down to defeat at the hands of the voters.
Typical of scenes al lover the state, when Governor Fairfield cal led for troops, was one that occurred in the town of Norway_ One Sunday, when a religious service was under way in a Norway schoolhouse, the sound of a trumpet interrupted the meeting and caused the congregation to rush out of .doors to see what was up. They saw an officer in uniform on horseback. He rose in his stirrups and shouted, t~To arms! To arms! The Bluenoses are coming!t1
A scene of great confus i on fo flowed. Screams of fear rent the air. Women fainted. Settl ing back in the saddle, the officer took out a paper and began to read. It was an order for the local company to assemble at Paris Hi I I, there to start a draft of men to march against the enemy who were invadin9 the state.
The draft was made, though under considerable protest from angry wives, and the men marched from Paris Hi II to AU~lUsta on March 6, 1839, going by way of Buckfield, North Turner and Readfield. But that was as far as they got. They never saw the enemy, never got anywhere near Aroostook. Before they could leave the Kennebec, Governor Fairfield!s farce had rung down its curtain.
Somehow I can’t keep very long away from the subject of ra i I roads. I·n :rKennebec Yesterdays” I have tried to give impartial attention to both rai 1- roads and stage coaches. So I am happy tonight to tell you how stage drivers actually helped Maine get one of its early and rrost important railroads.
As many of you know, there was stiff rivalry between Portland and Boston for rai I road connection with Montreal, and you have heard the thri I lina story of how John Poor and Commodore Preble won the victory for Portland. Now I want to tel I you about the part played by stage drivers in that victory.
When Preble arrived in Montreal with the charter granted by the Maine Leqislature for the rai I road that was to become the Grand Trunk, he and Poor almost convinced the Canadians to commit themselves to the Portland route, but the Canadians would not quite agree. They insisted that their principal interest was in the Quickest winter route from Montreal to the sea. So it was finally agreed that at a given hour teams of horses hitched to slei9hs would start respectively from Portland and from Boston, and that the winner would prove which route was faster.
The Portland interests selected one of Maine’s best known stage drivers to meet th is test for Port I and. He was Grosvenor Waterhouse of Pari s Hill. He was driver and owner of the stage from Paris Hil I through Norway to Portland. He went over the route and arranged for changes of horses at Gray Corner., Picher Hi II, \A/elchville, Norway Center, Greenwood City, Bethel Hi II, Upton, Dixvi lie NOTch, Colebrook, Canaan, Vermont, and several places in Canada. WaTerhouse chose Addison Latham and Orin Hobbs, both of Norway, as relay drivers. ;ivuu~ WCi!:) TO ori ve The fi rst hundred mi les, Latham the second hundred, and Waterhouse himself would finish the route.
The day selected for the contest was March 29 .. 1844. At 5 P.M. the race started. Hobbs reached Brown’s Hotel at Gray Corner .. 16 mi les from Portland, in a little less than an hour. On he sped to Picher Hi II, where a fresh horse awaited him. On the way to Welchvi I Ie the sleigh was upset and both shafts broken. In order to assure fair play, both the Portland and the Boston drivers were requi red to carry mai I properly postmarked.
V/hen the acci dent occurred to Hobbs 1 team, he se i zed the rnai I bag .. unhiTched and mounted one horse, which he rode bareback into Welchvi I Ie. Soon, with a fresh horse and another sleigh, he was off for Norway, which he reached in 2 hours 45 minutes from Portland. At Noyes Tavern in Norway Center he found awaiting him a highly spirited horse held by two men. Quickly changing horses, Hobbs wound the reins around his arms, stood up in the sleigh, and ordered the men to release the fiery animal. Off went the horse on the dead run, with the result that the time from Norway to Greenwood was the fastest of the whole journey.
At Bragg’s Tavern in Upton, Latham relieved Hobbs. He drove through Dixv i I Ie, Co I eb rook and Canaan to the Canad i an borde r, whe re he was in turn relieved by Waterhouse. That master driver raced on with four white horses hitched to a freshly painted carriage mounted on runners. In his fox skin cap and wolf skin overcoat, and over his lap a bearskin robe, he presented a striking appearance. Driving across the St. Lawrence in the ice, he reached MontreaI abOUT 6 P.M. on March 30, on I y 25 hours afte r Hobbs had Ie ft Port I and. Four hours later the Boston team arrived. The Maine trio of stage drivers beat their Boston rivals so badly that no Canadian had any doubt that Portland offered the faster route.
Now comes the interesting sequel. When the Grand Trunk finally went into operation, all three of those stage drivers — Waterhouse, Latham and Hobbs -went to work as conductors on the rai I road.
Year: 1956