Radio Script #332
Little Talks On Common Things
February 17, 1957
A hundred years ago many an ordinary farmer kept a careful accounT rook, recording not only his sales of stock and crops, but his work for other farmers and his rental of animals. Such an accounT was kept in 1851 by Nathaniel Maxfield of South China. He did a lot of business with Elijah Newcomb. On numerous occasions Newcomb hired Maxfield’s mare as a driving horse. On SepTember 16 Maxfield charged him one dollar for rental of the mare to go to Watervi lie.
At another ti me it was fifty cents for The mare to go for Anne J udk i ns, and a week laTer another 50 cents to carry Anne Judkins home. Meanwhi Ie Maxfield charged Newcomb $1.50 for Anne Judkins’ board for one week. His fee for winteri ng six of Newcomb’s sheep was $6.00. Ouri ng the course of the year Maxfield sold Newcomb a cow, five lambs and a shoat. There is no record that Newcomb ever paid Maxfield any money, and aT the end of the year Maxfield recorded the 5 i tuati on th is way: “Now due me from Eli jah Newcomb $210.93. H Th is was in addition to two of Newcomb’s notes which Maxfield held.
However, as the year 1851 went by, month by month, a number of credit items appeared on Newcomb’s account. He was credited with $30 for two months’ work, 50 cents for a carpet bag and 42 cents for a belt, $1.50 for hinges and nai Is for Maxfield’s wagon house, $7.65 for 17 bushels of oats at 45 cenTs a bushel. Maxfield al lowed him $4.50 for a set of old wagon wheels, $1.20 for 5 gal Ions of molasses at 24 cents a gallon, $1.20 for a sheep carcass (40pounds aT three cents a pound), 80 cents for ten pounds of ta I low , $1.75 for a shovel, hoe and axe, and $4.20 for 14 pounds of wool.
In 1855 Maxfield was doing a lot of business with Edward Breck. Many of the items were farm crops, and the prices are interesting. Apples were 25 cents a bushel, barley was 87i cents, dried beans were two dollars. By this time Maxfield’s son Charles was old enough to be hired out by the day, and according to the custom of the time the wages went to the father. On May 10, 1855 the record has it: !’ToCharles and steers one day sowing wheat, $1.25. H When Charles worked without the steers, his wages were 75 cents a day, for on May 22 it was recorded: “To Charles, half day planting corn, 37t cents. H When Nathaniel himself worked out by the day, he got no more than son Charles. On June 5th he charged Breck 75 cents for one day hoeing corn, and a few days later another 75 cents for one day peeling bark. The next spring there was a charge of $1.88 for 2t days fencing, and 38 cents for half a day making bridge.
By 1857 another son Frederick was out at work, but apparently he was younger and less able than Charles, for his services brought the father only 50 cents a day. For Frederi ck and the steers he charged one do II ar, 25 cents less than Charles and the steers brought in.
In 1868, three years after the close of the Civi I War, wages in China for farm labor were a firm, standard one dollar a day_ That is what Maxfield charged Eli Jepson for picking apples, digging potatoes, and cutting wood. Jepson paid off most of this debt by using his horses and plow to do considerable plowing for Maxfield. One day Maxfield hauled 20 dozen shovel handles to the Outlet. On another day he sold 20 apple trees for 10 cents a tree, and he solemn I y set down th is item: “Buggy to Branch with Eli zabeth, 25i cents” •
Another record of interest is that kept by Benjamin Moody in the 1880’s. In 1887 he was getting $1.50 for a day’s work, was selling potatoes for 60 cents a bushel, butter for 40 cents a pound, and eggs for 18 cents a dozen. A chi.cken that dressed better than four pounds brought him 50 cents. Mi Ik, which had been five cents a quart for years, had in 1887 gone up to six cents.
Meanwhile Moody was making purchases, which the accounts duly record. He bought seven pounds of c linch na i Is at six cents a pound, and a ba I I of woo I twine for 14 cents. He paid 15 cents for a dozen herring, 35 cents for fishing tackle. Consider the odd combination of three articles which he purchased in May, 1888. They were a box of axle grease, a picture frame, and carbolic acid. He paid $1.40 for a pair of thick shoes, a dollar for a straw hat, and fifty cents for repairs on his rubber boots.
As a veteran of the 19th Maine Infantry in the Civi I War, Benjamin Moody was proud of his part in bui Iding the GAR Hall at China in 1885. His account conta i ns such items as these: “hau ling I umber. from Branch Mi lIs with two horses, two trips”; “from steam mi II to South China wiTh two horses, four tripstl;”work on hull seven days”; “six trips to Fairfield with one horse after laths and clapboards Ft
• Apparently it took nine weeks TO complete the job, during which time Moody worked six days a week on the bui Iding, except when he took time out, as the record has it, “to make trip to Fairfield”” or Hone day to go after Mason”. AT long last the job was done to Moody’s comp lete satisfaction. Now let us turn from account books back to a favoriTe topic, the old-time newspapers. A hundred years ago almost al I of the many weekly papers published in New England were eiTher political or religious, deliberately designed to promote the interests of a political party, or a particular denomination. One of the more unusual of those political papers was recenTly brought to my attention by Mr. Bugbee of Benton Stati on. It is ca lied “Wh i P and Spurff, and was published almost exactly a hundred years ago in Newport, New Hampshire. The particular issue which I had a chance to read was No. 10 of Vol. 5, published on Saturday, November 1, 1856. The paper was a vigorous organ of the Democratic Party, and was That year supporting James Buchanan for President of the United States, and John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky for Vice-President.
The year 1856 saw the first entrance of the Repub I i can Party into a na-tional campaign. Its candidate was the mi litary commander and western explorer, General John C. Fremont, husband of the glamorous Jessie Benton. The only illustration in the four-page Whip and Spur is a cartoon drawing at the top of the first page. It rep resents a sh i p marked !TFremontH, wrecked on the rock of the Constitution, whi Ie an old line Whig is struggling ashore by c Ii ngi ng to a log. Out of the mouths of three heads b low the winds that wreck the boat. One head is marked “Give ’em Jessie TT
; another “Down with the Consti tut ion n; and the th i rd HCovenant with Death l’ • I n the background stands the national capitol bui Jding in Washington from the dome of which waves a big banner with the one word fTBusiness”.
Whip and Spur openly avowed its temporary purpose. The statement at its masthead reads: “The Wh i P and Sp ur wi II be pub I i shed week Iy from the 30th of August until after the Presidential election in November”.
That year the Pres i denti a I e lecti on fe I I on November 11, ten days after the printing of this particular issue of Whip and Spur. The editor was so confident of the election’s outcome, however, that he published this announcement on November 1: f’l tis our des i re to take leave of the numerous readers of Whip and Spur in the clear sunshine of victory, and to enable us to do so, we must defer the next number unti I the smoke of the contest has cleared away, or at least unti I statistics of the Black Republican defeat can be gathered up. We sha I I, therefore, pub I ish no paper next week, but sha I I defer our last number unti I the week follow ing, when we expect to announce one of the most sweeping victories ever yet achieved by the American Democracy. n
Wei I, anyhow, the Whip and Spur proved to be on the winning side. Buchanan got 174 electoral votes to 114 for Fremont, and the popular vote showed a plurality of 600,000 for Buchanan. Maine, however, went strong for Fremont, the Republican Party’s first presidential candidate.
The term B,lack Repub I ican arose over the Repub I ican Party’s opposition to slavery. The party was not out-and-out abolitionist, but it strongly opposed the extension of slavery into new territory. It was the party Lincoln joined because he considered the Whigs, with whom he had been affi liated for 20 years, as altogether too indifferent to the s lavery issue; and he couldn’t go over to the Democrats, because he considered them pro-slavery. It is interesting to see how Whip and Spur, published in anti-slavery New England, explained the Democratic position in 1856. It said: ‘~he Black Republicans continue to make daring and utterly untruthful assertions about the ~mocratic party and its candidates. The career of this party of discussion, that calls itself Republican, has exhibited in their lying accusations only an exact reflex of their own rotte’nness and want of principle. Think of the glaring contradiction of a group of men claiming that the Democratic party is determined to extend and legalize slavery, whi Ie at the same time by their own votes in Congress, those accusers vote to lega I i ze s lavery in Kansas. n
The language of political publication a hundred years ago was less refined and more blunt than the newspapers use today. This is the way Whip and Spur closed its principal editorial in that issue of November 1, 1856: HReeling and stupified Fremontism now feels on its brazen face the rebound of acts which could not fai I to damn any party, no matter how loud its bombastic pretensions.
When these Black Republican apostates to human progress prate about the defects of the only national party now existent, let those citizens who love the Union and the Constitution mete out to braggart treason and murderousfolly its merited reward. N
I n another co I urnn Wh i P and Spur sa i d: “The Fremont demagogues charge that the Democrats mean to restore the African slave trade. The demagogues who utter th is are more knave than foo I. The i r mock so lemn express i ens of i ndignation are seated no deeper than thei r mouths. They no more believe there is any such-danger than they believe that Fremont is a statesman.”
When we remember Lincoln’s victory in 1860 and the subsequent success of the Repub I i can Party in repeated e lecti ons, it is easy to see that the Democrats, whose praises Whip and Spur sang so loudly in 1856, made a mistake when they tried to smear the whole Republican Party with the abolitionist brush.
But how hard they tried to do just that in 1856 is shown by some political verses set to the fami I iar tune of “0 Susannah”. This is the way Whip and Spur printed those verses the week before Buchanan’s election:
“Oh, my dea r Jess ie, don’t you cry for me! I fm afra i d that longed-for Wh i te House I sha I I never, never see. I love the Black Republicans, and for the blacks, r sigh; But though I fear ‘twi II do no good, please, Jessie, don’t you cry.”
Then came The resounding chorus:
nOh, my dea r Jess ie, don’t you cry for me; I fm going up Sa It Ri ver wi th ani gger on my knee.”
Now let us take a brief look at what was happening in Watervi lie 75 years ago, as revea led in the issue of the Watervi lie Mail for Apri I 8, 1881.
A new brick store was being bui It on Main Street, which led the Mail to make the fo I low i ng comment: “The Jed i ah Morr i I I store, recent Iy removed to make room forC. M. Barrel’s new brick store, was built in 1821, and because the lot was a bed of muck, the foundation wal Is were laid on timber — long and SUbstantial logs, two feet in diameter, halved lengthwise, and laid flat side up. The old bui Iding, being of wood, stood very wei I, but pi les wi II be driven to furn ish a foundat i on for the new one.”
The Mail had on that date, three quarters of a century ago, a number of interesting short items, each printed as a single sentence. Here are a few of them:
HC. M. Pri est of Wi ns low sh i pped 150 barre Is of shoe pegs to Li verpool the other day.
“Mr. W. O. Fuller, editor of the Rockland Courier, Maine’s funny paper, spent the Sabbath at the Elmwood, with his sister, Mrs. Veazie.
“The pol ice of AugusTa, where rum is not so strong in high P laces as it once was, now pour out freely their seized and condemned liquor.
“Dr. Roberts of Vassalboro has sold a half interesT in his valuab Ie stallion to Boston parties. I!A number of our ciTizens were summoned before the Grand Jury at Augusta this week, to tell what they know about the liquor traffic in our village.”
Local events of thaT Apr; I week in 1881, recorded in the Mai I, were the death of Watervi lie’s respected merchant and carriage maker, Major Joseph Marston; a state convention of St. John the Baptist Benevolent Society; the sale of the Rice homestead in Winslow to George Spring; the removal to Chicago of the music dealer, B. M. MiTchell; and the coming of Rev. J. M. Bates to take permanent charge of st. Mark’s Episcopal Mission.
The Watervi lie Mail may we II have been a profitab Ie paper in 1881. That issue of Apri I 8 contained a total of 28 columns on its four pages, and 15 of those columns were devoted TO advertising. Let’s see who some of those advertisers were 75 years ago. E. L. Veazie featured black si Iks at prices never heard of east of Boston. L. A. Moulton had yard-wide bleached sheeting for seven cents a yard. Small’s Dry Goods Store offered Garibaldi Kid Gloves for 50 cents a pair. Peavy Brothers had men’s ulsters for $5.00, and Japanese wolf robes at a discount of $3.50 from the original price. Hendrickson’s announced a spri ng openi ng of wa I I paper and wi ndow shades. Mrs. Mark Ga Ilert advertised for a young girl 13 to 15 years old to take care of chi Idren.
But The one ad that aTTracted my speci a I attention in that Watervi lie paper of 75 years ago concerned the place closely associated with the Coolidge murder’case,the story of which I have told in “Kennebec Yesterdays”. You wi II perhaps reca I I that Dr. Va lorous Cool i dge, the murderer, lived at the \Vi II i ams House, and it was there that the body of his victim, Ed Mathews, was brought for autopsy.
Well, in 1881, rumor got around that the venerab Ie Wi II iams House was going to be closed. The proprietor at that time was D. W. Simonds. He put th is ad in the Waterv i lie ~-‘1a i I :
“The Will i ams House in WaTervi I Ie is not closed as a hote I, but is open to the accommodation of travelers as before the recent change in management. It has been newly furnished, and whi Ie guests wi II find everything done for thei r convenience, prices have been reduced. Free hack beTween Rai I road Stati on and the House. A I i very stab Ie owned by A. o. Smi th is connected \11 ith the House. n
Year: 1957