Radio Script #353
Little Talks On Common Things
November 3, 1957
Next week my new book, !lRemembered ~1ainelt, will be published by the Colby College Press. A sort of seque I to “Kennebec Yesterdaysf’, ~’Remembered Maine” is a series of separate sketches on the folk and folkways of Maine. A few of the sketches are expansions of material that has been used on this program, but others are enti re I y new. For instance, a sketch ca II ed “Sh i rts, Sai nts and S i nners’!
tells the amazing story of Charles F. Hathaway, founder of the famous Hathaway Sh i rt Industry. No stranger character ever wa I ked the Watervi I Ie streets than Charles Hathaway. I think you wi II find his story fascinating.
Like “Kennebec Yesterdays”, “Remembered Maine!! has a murder story, and it has not been told on this program. It is the story of a murder in the town of Poland a hundred years ago. I call it the “Heater-piece Murderl~, for its soluti on depended con si derab I y on what happened at a ce rta in heate r-p i ece i n that town. The story is remarkable also, because, at the trial, the expert witnesses were not physicians or chemists, but ox drivers. I think you’ll enjoy that murder story.
Another skeTch i s a study of the po Ii ti ca I maneuvers wh i ch den i ed Hann i ba I Hamlin a second Term as Lincoln’s vice-president, and thereby deprived Maine of the honor of the Presidency on Lincoln’s death.
The book also has something about squatters on Maine lands, about early doctors and thei r remedies, about wi tches and supersti ttons, about the Aroostook “Jar that people called Fairfield’s Farce, and a number of other subjects out of Maine’s intriguing past, including what those who know me well are sure, of course, I would do — give them another toot of the narrow guage trains.
We I I, anyhow, I hope you wi I I like !fRemembe red (v1a i ne n.
Did you know that what is said to be the oldest store to be operated continuously by one fami Iy is right here in f’..1aine’s Kennebec Valley? It is the Cates general store at East Vassalboro. For 127 years the Cates fami Iy has owned and conducted that store. The bui Iding in which it is housed was bui It in 1824 by David Hamlin, who sold it in 1830 to Wi lIiam and Charles Cates. Since that time it has been in the hands of four succeeding generations, of whom the representatives have been Charles Cates, George H. Cates, Harold Cates and Benjamin Cates, Jr., the present owner, who is a great-grandson of the founder.
I t was George Cates who had the longest tenure as the store’s proprietor, running it for 65 years, from 1873 to 1938. Even that record may yet be exceeded by one of the clerks, Aunt Nancy Barker, who has worked in the store for three generati ons of Cates proprietors.
Thi s venerab Ie East Vassa Iboro estab Ii shment now operates under the name of the Cates General Store, selling a varied and general line of merchandise, just as it did in 1830, but with modern methods and modern goods to meet today’s needs.
We find it difficult to see how anyone can possibly agree with a governor who wi I I use the National Guard not to protect the law, but to flaunt the law.
Peace-loving people of America have no sympathy with violence or those who stir it up. There is no excuse for a mob taking the law into its own hands, in Arkansas or anywhere else.
How much more difficult it is for us, looking back over the 120 years since Elijah Parish Lovejoy was ki lied by an angry nob in Alton, Illinois, whi Ie he defended his abol iti on i st press, to rea Ii ze that there were persons in Ameri ca 7 not in the southern states a lone, but in the north as we II , who defended the mob and condemned Lovejoy. On January 13,1838, a little more than two months after Lovejoy was ki lied, a man named Henry Nichols wrote from Lancaster, I I I i no is to his nephew, John Ni cho Is, i n Port I and, Ma i ne :
Ptvly dear nephew, I see by my papers that Dr. Chann ing and others in Boston have worked up in a great ferment because the people in Alton shot Lovejoy. I think it very foolish in so wise a man as Dr. Channing to trouble himself about such thi ngs. Lovejoy and his gang were the fi rst aggressors, fi red the fi rst shot, and ki I led the first man. Lovejoy deserved death. I-e knew before his press arrived what was the determination of the people. If he had acted up to his profession, and instead of heading a mob had endeavored to keep peace in the liTtle town of Alton, and had not landed his press, I don’t believe The people of thi s state more than in any other wou I d have shot him. ~Jhy di d he not take his confounded press to St. Charles in Missouri, where he says his family resided?
He knew it would not answer to go there. The abolitionists are learning that the feelings of the people in this state are not to be trifled with. I hope that if any more of that gang come here for the purpose of issuing seditious pape rs” they wi I I be disposed of be fo re they have been he re 24 hours. I can’t see any di fference between a person i nci ti ng the s laves to ri se on thei r masters and ki II them and these abolitionists inciting to mobs. I don’t approve of mobs more than anyone else, but the people of Massachusetts must not think, because we are a new state here in Illinois, that their abolitionists can come here and tamper wiTh our feelings. Your affectionate Uncle, Henry Nichols.”
Because of the Mormon settlement that has endured to this day on Beals ls- I and near Jonesport, I suppose most of my I isteners are aware that a I itt Ie more than a hundre.d years ago the ~~ormons were very acti ve in Mai ne. Th is is what a Thomaston paper had to say about them in 1840:
TfThere is much excitement in Vinalhaven on the doctrine of Mormonism, as the religion of Joseph Smith is called. Vinalhaven was visited last summer by two Mormon preachers, who sti II remain there, disseminating their new religious p ri nci pies. They have bapti zed 50 in the tv1ormon fa i th and are encouragi ng others to embrace it. They have prophesied the destruction of the town and its inhabitants and are warning them to flee to the far ~’est. Many have sold their farms and stock and are gettj ng ready to move. H
The noteworthy poi nt about th is story concern i ng Mormons at Vi na I haven is that it was p ri nted seven years before the tvbrmons estab I i shed the i r permanent settlement in Utah and made the desert around the Great Salt Lake blossom like the rose. It was in 1847 that Brigham Young led the persecuted followers of the martyred Joseph Smith on the arduous overland trek from Counci I Bluffs, Iowa to the va Iley of the Great Sa It Lake beyond the Wasatch Mountai ns. Two th i ngs are therefore of speci a I interest about th i s story ina Ma i ne newspaper in 1840.
First, thaT Mormon missionaries were already at work on the Atlantic seaboard at the ve ry ti me when Mormons were be i ng persecuted in I II i noi s, Mi ssouri and Iowa; and second, that those Mormon missionaries on the Maine island of Vinalhaven advised their converts to go to the far West — exactly what the Mormons of the Mid-~’est would actually do seven years later.
I have recently run across another story about squatters on Maine lands in the time of the early settlements. Darius Brewster, son of one of Thomaston’s first setTlers, thought he had sound title to the land on which he had bui It a house and of which he had been in undisputed possession for several years. Suddenly he learned that Dr. Horatio Dodge laid claim to the same land. Dodge gave noti ce to Brewster that the I atter must not cut the hay on the p I ace because Dodge intended to cut it himself. Brewster, who had been a Revolutionary soldier,
informed Dodge that he would get shot if he tried to cut-the:-hay. This was in 1797 when the 0 I d muzz le-Ioadi ng muskets were sti I lin use. Defyi ng the threat, Dr. Dodge put a crew of men at work in the di sputed fi e Ids. \~e II supplied with provisions for both eating and drinking, Dodge’s gang of workers were starti ng to have a gay ti me when Brewster appeared on the scene. He ordered the crew to stop the i r work. When his demand was fl aunted, Brewster went back to his house to get his musket. Returning, he aimed the weapon at the legs of Dodge who, chanci ng to stoop cbwn at the moment, rece i ved the charge of s I ugshot in that part of the anatomy where parents administer spankings. Seeing Brewster about to reload, Dodge cried for quarter. But Brewster, not kno\ving how much damage he had done and fearing the worst, ran off into hiding. He hid in the woods, secretly fed by his family, until it was certain that the doctor wou I d recover. At length, however, Brewster was arrested, tri ed and sentenced to a brief time in prison. What was worse, he lost title to the land. On it Dr. Dodge erected large frame bui Idings, cleared many acres, and made it one of the leading farms in what is now Knox County.
Many Watervi I Ie peop Ie have spent summers at Ow I sHead, Crescent P.each or Ash Poi nt. There is a good war story that comes out of the 01 d tradi ti ons of Ash Point. It concerns an incident in the War of 1812. British ships constant~ Iy harassed Maine shipping throughout that war. Even the Maine coastal vessels carrying wood to Boston, were frequently stopped and their crews seized. Fishermen and even landsmen were sometimes captured. John Paul, who had settled at Ash Point, was taken prisoner by a British vessel whi Ie he was fishing in the Musc Ie Ri dge channe I. Hi s captors proceeded to questi on him about a certai n swivel gun kept at Owls Head for defensive purposes. The British knew it was under the general care of Capt. Nathaniel Merriman, but no one knew just where ~J1erriman kept it. When the prisoner John Paul was asked where the gun was located, he rep lie d: Hit may be i n Me rr i man’s ba rn; it may be beh i n d his ba rn; it may be in the guardhouse; it may be in the bushes. I don’t know where the devi I it is, and i f I did, I wou I dn ‘t te I I ye.”
Not long ago I saw a copy of an old newspaper published in Boston almost 175 years ago. It was the “Independent Chronicle!’, and the date of the issue wh i ch I chanced to see was January 1, 1784. I n one co I umn on the first page appears a modest head line, in the same size type as the story, except that the head line was in ita Ii cs. The head i ng sa i d : HAddress of K i nq George II I to ParI i ament, November 11, 1783, and just brought to Coston by packet from London. n
Then follows the text of the story. The Ki ng sai d: III have the satisfaction to inform you that definitive treaties of peace have been concluded with the courts of France and Spain, and with the United States of America. I have ordered these treaties to be laid before you, and I have no cause to doubt that all these other powers agree with me in my sincere inclination to keep the calamities of \aJar at a di stance.”
Now that smoothly sounds as if George III were wholly reconci led to the loss of his American colonies. But those of you who have read the third volume of \vinston Churchi II’s “History of the English Speaking People n , published this fall, know that there was no such reconci liation. Churchi I I says that the King was so shocked and disappointed by Cornwallis’ surrender and the subsequent necessity of making peace with the colonies that he threatened to abdicate and was persuaded not to do so only by the persistent pleas of influential Tory nobles.
So perhaps in 1784, as well as in 1957, one couldn’t believe all one reads j n the newspapers.
Year: 1957