Radio Script #323
Little Talks On Common Things
December 16, 1956
There is much interest in the bui Iding in England of a rep lica of the Mayflower, sai ling her across the Atlantic, and presenting her to the society at Plymouth, Mas sach usetts • h ave the re fore been pie ased to rece i ve f rom Eng I and a copy of a publication called the Ht-1ayflower Mi II!”, the ship·s souvenir paper~ recording what it cal Is a journal of the new Mayfl~~er project to be carried out next summer.
The p I an was conce i ved about ten years ago by Warw i ck Char Iton;> a London public relations consultant. The result was the formation of a voluntary association which undertook the task of reconstructing the Mayflower and of presenting her to the Plymouth Plantation of Massachusetts.
Not much is actua Ily known about the ori gina I r,1ayf lower. About its hu II are only two general facts — that it was not as large as the Pi Igrims wanted, and its burden was about l’ni ne score!Y. Those two facts come from that authentic record of the Plymouth Colony, Bradford’s Journal. Now di d Bradford mean nine score British tons or Dutch lasts? Two Dutch lasts equal led one British ton. I n one case the j’Jlayf lower’s burden wou I d have been 180 tons; in the other case only 90.
That is a II the evi dence the reconstructors had about the r’,1ayf IO\,/er. How cou I d they dup Ii cate her? Di mens i on tab les are ava i I ab Ie for sh i ps of the Deri od, but they are most Iy for vesse Is of the Roya I Navy. Us i ng those tab les, the architect decided the proportions he wanted should be those of the average merchantman- warship of 1600; that is, a merchantman armed for possible naval use. He therefore concl uded the ~.1ayf lower cou Id we II have had a kee I length of 52 to 73 feet, a breadth of 24 to 27 feet, and a depth of 10 to 13 feet.
Considering the drafting methods employed in the early 17th century, the bu i I ders of the rep Ii ca deci ded on a th ree-masted ri g of the ti me, so lid bu 1- warks, and a keel of 58 feet. This gives a burden of 181 tons; so they accepted the supposition that 3radford, in his journal, meant nine score British tons. Nobody knows how old the original ~J~ayflower was when she made her famous voyage. But the Pi Igrim fathers were not wealthy, and they probably could get only an old ship. At any rate, she was a merchantman of the early 17th century, perhaps even of the late 16th. She was incredibly small for an Atlantic crossing with more than two hundred passengers.
It has been no easy task to get the kind of timber needed to duplicate the old Mayflower. The oak tree used for the stern of tv1ayflower II had a gi rth of 72 inches. Traff i c jus t had to stop wh i Ie that big log was trucked th rough the streets of Brigham, England. Wood for the masts came from Canada. Some of the tools used to reconstruct the Mayflower are centuries old. There are nippers for hauling hot, steamed planks from the steam boiler,: pod augers for long boring, usually 1/16 of an inch smaller than the bolt to be driven into the hole, so as to insure water-tightness; gimblets used for hollowing rudder cases and stern posts; the wood rasp to shape tackle blocks; and the maul for driving bolts.
AI I the tools used have not varied much for centuries, the chief difference being the sawing of the timber, which in 1600 was done by pitsaw, adze and axe. In a shipyard of that time there would be as many as a dozen sawpits, with the old pit sawyers, one on top and one below in the pit, sawing the planks and various timbers by hand.
Electric dri lis now in use are not entirely satisfactory in shipbui Iding, for they tend to wander up into the soft grain. Other modern machinery simply cannOT be used to construct this kind of ship.
The ship’s rigging presented many problems. The main problem was chafing, because all the rigging, to be true to the original ~J1ayflower, had to be of rope. Sai Is also had to be carefully studied, and research on them alone took more than a year. Bv searching the museums and The old documents, then piecing together the individual findings, like a jigsaw puzzle, the bui Iders were able to construct a working model of al I ropes, rigging and sai Is.
For the passenger list of Mayf lower II the idea I Pi I grim Number One is John \’Jinslow, a twenty year old cadet in Britain’s fleet air arm. He is a direct descendant, tenth in line, of John ~’Jinslow, who came to Plymouth in 1621 on the Fortune and marri ed fV1ary Ch i Iton, who had come the year before on the ~’1ayf lower.
John’s two broThers, Edward and Gi Ibert, had been [Vlayflower passengers, and it was the screw of Edward’s press that jacked up The sagging beams of the leaking f’·1ayflov/er and saved the ship from destruction in f’v1id-Atlantic.
So a leading passenger on the voyage of r,1ayflower II to America is a descendant of the same man from whom also was descended the commander of old Fort Ha I i fax, and for that commande r was named the town of \’1 ins low, tJ1a i ne.
I want to return tonight to that intriguing subject of squatters. It was a subject of Tremendous importance in our ear I y f”1a i ne towns. Let us see how iT worked out down in Samue I VJa I do ~ s German co lony of Broad Bay, now the town of \IJa I doboro.
As the colony grew and young men came of age, they would leave the paternaJ roof and selecT land that suited them back up the streams or off in the woods. There the new fami Iy would clear the land, bui Id a cabin, and found a home. That kind of squatTi ng took p I ace \-J i th a sort of vague unde rstandi ng that the p roprietor of the land would grant a title when the customary price per acre had been paid, and in fact a representative of the Waldo heirs visited the settlement from time TO time to collect money due on newly settled lands and to grant ti ties to them.
vJhen the Revolutionary \’Jar broke out, Toryism became a red-hot issue, and there was much talk about confiscating Tory property. Thus the belief spread that unoccupied land around Broad Bay was free land. There ensued in the 1770’s and 1780’s a wi Id scramble for that land. Even men in the older settled parts of the town sold their farms or squatted on new holdings, where they improved the land and bui It homes. Speculators staked claims on favored spots to hold them against rising values. Their procedure was to stake out a claim, then hire a su rveyor to run its bounds. The su rvey wou I d the n be recorded at \~Ii scasset. Of course the on I y va I ue of such a record was to gi ve the squatte r p ri ori ty rights, recognized locally, not any legal claim to the land.
Soon after 1780 Revolutionary soldiers carre fi Itering in from the westward” their pockets fi lied with worthless currency. Since they could not buy land, they simply squatted on any land they liked, and much of that land already had squatters on it. Now the squatter himself was being squatted on. So in December, 1781 the town voted that ~’no stranger shall encroach on any manTs land or meadow in this town H
• Obviously the majority intended that squatting should be restricted to local citizens.
Twelve years later, in 1793, the whole vast 1..I !aldo patent had come under the proprietorship of General Henry Knox. The squatters became greatly concerned.
They knew their possession of the land had no basis in law. But that land was thei rail — thei r very life. They had no money; all thei r I iving came from the land. ~’Jith their own muscles they had felled the trees and arduously raised the crops. Fortunately Knox proved no hard or miserly proprietor. His frankness and good humor and his natural kindness of heart made him a popular master, who offered fair terms to most of the settlers. But with a minority Knox had his difficulties. His surveyors were shot at, and handbi I Is were circulated to arouse people against him.
In 1793 a total of 101 settlers were declared by Knox’ agents to be in unlawful possession of their land. During the next ten years some settled with the General as individuals, others had established the legality of their claims to his satisfaction, and sti I I others had abandoned the land.
Taken as a whole General Knox’ treatment of his squatters was fair and even generous. The Waldoboro Germans held out against him nearly to the end of his days, and their stubbornness roused the old fighter’s wrath. With that minority the controversy lasted many years, but that too fi na Ily ended in the comp lete vindication of George Washington’s able general.
I like to share with you each new item pick up about the old canals. In the col tection of material owned by the Canal National Bank of Portland is this bit of information. The first boat to make the passage through Sebago Lake, the Songo River and Long Lake to Harr i son was named the George Wash i ngton. She was fitted to carry passengers as wei I as freight, and she had a bar where travelers could quench their thirst. She was decorated much like the lUxury river boats of the Mississippi. There were four cabins, and on the broad deck were settees and chairs. It was a boat designed for pleasure cruises. Many a fami Iy took their Sunday outing on these canal boats, bringing the chi Idren and a lunch for a leisurely day on the scenic waterway. The boat traveled only four mi les an hour at best, but the shores offered the city passengers agreeable g limp ses of back-country life.
My neighbor Charles Crosby, who was for many years a railway mail clerk, has given me a few samples of odd spel lings he and his fel low clerks had to contend with. “0: r”g u s t e, r!! is easy. That, of course, is Augusta. “L a re n chIT is not too different from Laurence. But what do you make of HC e n t – for d” and nu s t e rtf? Mr. Crosby worked those out and sent the letters to their intended destinations. Could you do it to Centiford or Uster, or even to “0 x c r 0 f “?
Do you know where Maine’s first state house was located? It was, of course, in Maine’s first capital city, Portland, before the capital was changed to Augusta. It was a modest two-story bui Jding with a hipped roof, erected on the site where Port I and’s Ci ty Ha I I now stands. The lowe r f Iocr had rooms for the state officers and the upper story housed the Senate Chambers as well as the Governor and Counci I. The House of Representatives met in the court room of the adjoining Cumberland County courthouse. In that bui Iding the Maine Legislature met for annual sessions from 1820 to 1830. In 1831 the move was made to Augusta.
Here, as we close tonight, is a story from a rural Maine community of fifty years ago. It was a time when old folks made a great deal of holding possession of the Boston Post cane, a cane held by each successive oldest inhabitant.
One year, when the cane changed hands in a particular town, a reporter asked “the new recipient, ~’To what do you attribute your long life?!! The old fellow repl ied, “Before my wife and I were married, we agreed that any time I nagged at her or picked a fuss with her, she would go out in the kitchen and knit unti I it was over. Whenever she picked a fuss with me, was to put on my hat, go outdoors, and stay there unti I the atmosphere calmed down. Yes sir, that’s what we agreed. fT
HBut”, asked the reporter, !!what has that got to do wi th your long life?”
H\Vhy’!, said the old man, “it’s got a lot to do with it. I’ve spent most of my life i n the open air.”
Year: 1956