Radio Script #461

Little Talks on Common Things

May 29, 1960

The way old time newspaper publishers encountered trouble is revealed by the experience of a Lewiston publisher 106 years ago in 1854. In that year a man named Arthur Young started in Lewiston Falls a small four page paper called the Touchstone. The masthead carried this announcement: “The Touchstone is published every Wednesday morning at Lewiston Falls, Maine. Devoted to home interests and the popular explanation of medicine, pharmacy and the useful arts, and indeed everything pertaining to the wisdom of the people that its editor may feel called upon to inculcate. Terms: 50 cents a year, two cents a copy.”

At first the Touchstone simply gave innocent spread to the news. On October 11, 1854 it proudly announced: “The gas works are rapidly nearing completion, and before November has expired, Lewiston will be illuminated with gas. All the stores on Main Street, the factories, and the DeWitt House are ready to receive the new lights.”

The paper valiantly took the side of Lewiston against Auburn for site of the county seat of newly organized Androscoggin County, and the editor made the following caustic remarks when the prize was finally awarded to Auburn: “Lewiston gave a heavy vote in consequence of the great number of newly naturalized Irish. But Auburn cast an unusual number of ballots. Many minors over there suddenly became of age and all the old people turned out. Auburn beat us all to nothing. The jail will be built on their side of the Androscoggin, and now we sinners have got to pay toll to go to jail.”

Two items in that statement are worthy of comment. Note that the bridge between Auburn and Lewiston was then a toll bridge, just as was that between Waterville and Winslow. Note also that Lewiston’s newly naturalized citizens in 1854 were Irish, not French. What gradually got editor Young into trouble was the same thing that tripped up his newspaper contemporary, Editor Mann of Skowhegan. Both Young and Mann were what were called medicine men, not registered physicians, yet not quacks. They were of that numerous tribe allover the country in the 1850’s, who distributed their own concocted medicines and had a medium to advertise their wares and promote their actions without either the expense or the formality of paid ads. If they could get subscribers enough and enough ordinary advertising of merchants to break even, the many columns devoted to their own remedies would be all free.

From the Touchstone it is hard to tell whether medicine or publishing was the author’s favorite vocation, for he did have a flare for news. Yet he never let his readers forget his marvelously concocted remedies for every disease mankind was heir to. There was Young’s Remedy for Dysentery and Cholera Morbus; Young’s Hive Syrup, neatly put up with full directions; and Young’s Cod Liver Oil Candy. He was distributor for two remedies put up by the Shakers at Sabbath Day Lake in Poland: the Shaker Catholicon, for dozens of ills and the Shakers’ Fir Balsam Candy, which we suspect was more appetizing than Young’s Candy of Cod Liver Oil.

It seems that several children were made violently ill when parents gave large doses of that cod liver oil candy, and indignant citizens began to boycott Young’s whole line of remedies. Just before Christmas in 1854 he decided he had better find a more responsive public. So he published the following announcement: “We design moving to Portland. When we have made all arrangements and are ready to go, we shall state our particular reasons. Those reasons will convince the people of Lewiston that unfortunately mixed in her population are some of the smallest specimens of humanity in existence. We have been enterprising and generous, ready to meet everything designed for the interest of our village. When a few children became sick because of decayed food, our enemies blamed their sickness on our proved and celebrated pure remedy. Despite those influences to quiet us, we are no man’s property, and we shall continue to speak out. Wherever we live, the Touchstone will be published and will continue to spread the light.”

But Young did not propose to leave Lewiston without collecting what people owed him. So the following week he published this statement: “All persons indebted to us are requested to make immediate payment. We have dunned some forty or fifty debtors long enough, and we shall not take any more promises. We believe it would be one of the best things that could happen in this village to publish the names of those rascals who get in debt to our merchants, then run away without a word. Publish them, we say, and keep their names before the public until they mend their ways. So here we go with the first list of names. Hezekiah Smith, who works at the Bagging Mill, owes us $4.68 and has told lies enough about this and other debts to send him to purgatory. Another is S. F. Tarr, who owes us $2.00 for more than a year. We shall publish more names next week. Some of them are men who work in our Lewiston factories and do nothing but promise.”

Before the next week’s Touchstone appeared on the Lewiston streets Young had apparently met with some personal encounters. Whether because of citizens’ threats or for some other reason, an additional list of his debtors did not appear. Instead Young published this statement: “Some of our friends want to know if we meant them when we took our stand last week for the payment of honest debts. Our answer is ‘Yes’. We want everyone who owes us a cent to pay up, and we are not giving any more credit — not to anyone.”

For the next two weeks Young said little on the subject and nothing about any more lists of debtors. But in his first February issue in 1855 he paid his respects to certain unnamed Lewiston citizens. That blasting statement said: “We expended a full day last week visiting subscribers, intending to collect what we could. Among the liberals, the bona fide men of the place, we were kindly received and whatever they owed us was cheerfully paid. Some church members went pious on us, pleading poverty while solicitous for our spiritual welfare. We gather that men are necessarily of two kinds — one kind happy, free, cheerful, and liberal; the other kind haughty, proud, vain, bombastic, and bigoted. The former are upright, honorable, high-minded citizens; the latter would steal the pennies from a dead man’s eyes.”

Although we are not told why he changed his mind, by the middle of February Young had decided not to go to Portland, but to remain in Lewiston. There were apparently enough people who believed in him and his remedies so that business in the sale of his concoctions had begun to revive. His new announcement in the Touchstone said: “There are many people who want Catholicon and our own several remedies, the preparation of which consumes most of our time and has made us popular with the masses, if not with a few evil-minded critics. We must therefore devote all our attention to this business for a few weeks, but within two months we promise to revive the Touchstone, though it may be necessary to make it a monthly rather than a weekly publication.”

The paper did indeed re-appear in June, somewhat larger in size, but still of only four pages. Editor Young said of it: “Well. here we are again. We shall not brag, not even call attention to our larger sheet. The weeks that have elapsed since our last issue have not been promising for the future. The times have been hard and we have felt almost broke. But through Catholicon we have found relief. The Dandelion Bitters are pills much sought by the Fusion Party, and our Worm Killer has done much to relieve hungry politicians out of office.”

When Young returned the Touchstone to weekly status in the fall of 1855. he published an item that reveals a change that had recently taken place in postal regulations. In the days before postage stamps. postage was usually paid by the receiver, not by the sender of a letter, although prepayment by the sender was always possible. Although stamps to be posted on prepaid letters had been issued by some local offices earlier, the first use of U. S. postage stamps was in 1847. but they did not receive general acceptance until the 1850’s. Finally legislation was passed making their use and the consequent prepayment of postage mandatory.

Hence the following statement in Young’s Lewiston Falls Touchstone on October 22, 1855: “By arrangement with the postmasters we shall soon publish the list of letters dropped into the post offices at Lewiston and Auburn without postage stamps. The public will recollect that no letters can now be forwarded to their places of destination without prepayment of postage.”

Editor Young didn’t like some aspects of Maine’s new liquor law. In November, 1855 he commented: “Last week Bangor had its first case under the new liquor law. Edward Flannagan was convicted of selling three glasses of rum, and was sentenced to pay $20 fine and costs on each glass sale, with thirty days imprisonment for the first offense, 60 days for the second, and 90 days for the third. That makes a total of 180 days, and the double penalty which the law inflicts for failure to pay the fines makes the jail sentence a total of 360 days, only five days short of a full year. That is a long sentence for selling three glasses of rum. But, when we remember it was not long ago that the penalty in England for petty larceny was death, we suppose we ought to consider the Maine penalty for rum-selling as very merciful. ”

Last winter we heard a lot of complaints about Waterville streets. Such complaints are not new in any American community. Listen to what Editor Young of the Touchstone had to say about Lewiston streets in the spring of 1856: “You can’t find another town in Maine with such impassable streets as Lewiston. In olden times Bangor took the lead in bad pedestrian going, but now she is real clean with a sidewalk before every man’s door. Here in Lewiston mud is knee deep and even the most successful jumps cover your ankle bone. The girls hold up their skirts so high that we men are blushing all the time. Chapel and Albion streets are the nastiest places in town. Improvements have only made more mud. Every time a street is fixed it is worse. Cannot our town fathers do something before half our population disappears in the mud holes?”

By the middle of the summer the Touchstone editor felt better. The mud had apparently dried up, birds were singing, bees were humming, and contentment was in the air. Everything in Lewiston was now rosy, and he wrote: “In our fair village buildings, both residences and stores, grow up like Jonah’s gourd. The Baptist Church has a new set of inside blinds. Sidewalks are increasing in length, leading in every direction. A fence is going up around the common opposite the DeWitt House. No factories in the country are more elegantly built than ours. N. W. Dutton has just returned from Boston, bringing one of the largest and best assortments of dry and fancy goods ever seen in this village. Lewiston is a fine and prosperous town.”

Year: 1960