Radio Script #618

Little Talks on Common Things

June 7, 1964

This is the last broadcast of Little Talks for the current season, ending the sixteenth consecutive year of this program. We plan to resume the broadcasts by starting the seventeenth year on September 13th.

As we close for the summer I want to call your attention to a new book that you will want to read. It is by our well known Maine writer, Louise Dickinson Rich, and is entitled “State 0f Maine”. Many of us were introduced to Mrs. Rich by her book “We Took to the Woods”, an account of her life in the Rangeley region a quarter of a century ago. We enjoyed her book “Peninsula” about the area around her present summer home near Winter Harbor. Now, with her marvelous gift of picturing Maine scenes and capturing Maine dialect, she tries to tell the world why Maine is distinctive.

How’s this for a picture of smug provinciality, told by Mrs. Rich: “To Mainiacs the world is divided into Maine and elsewhere. A native hails from Machias or Dover-Foxcroft or Trap Corners or some other specific place. The non-native simply comes from out-o’-state.” Then she has this for our contrariness: “Anywhere that isn’t Maine has no excuse for identity. The rest of the world refers to regions at the top of the map as up, and those at the bottom as down. But Maine goes down north to Nova Scotia and up south to Boston.”

Once Mrs. Rich pointed out to a Maine Yankee that individuals like him, proud of their independence, were getting more and more scarce. “Yep”, he said, “I guess we be. So’s God, come to that. Don’t seem to fret Him none either.”

Mrs. Rich pushes the historical account, with which she begins this book, back to the time of the glacial age, which is mighty hard pushing, for the records left by the glaciers, though definite and impressive, are rather more controversial than are writings. But, within a few pages, Mrs. Rich gets down to the visits of Lief Ericson and other Norse pirates, then blithely observes: “As far as the history of Maine is concerned, these early visitors might as well have stayed at home.”

It is the last half of the book, when Mrs. Rich leaves chronological history, to get down to Maine life as she observes it today, that makes this contribution to Maine writing especially valuable. That last half begins with a chapter entitled “Twentieth Century Maine”, an account of the way Maine became Vacationland. That is followed by a chapter on “The Workaday World”, which tells about Northern Spies, Aroostook potatoes and Washington County blueberries, as well as pulp and paper, shoes and electronics. Of course, being Mrs. Rich, she can’t resist taking us into a lumber camp where “a good, no-holds-barred. knockdown-clrag-out fight (is considered) one of the delights of getting drunk.”

In a chapter called “A Few to be Remembered” Mrs. Rich pays tribute to the independent folk of Loud’s Island, who were literally off the map, and hence refused to pay taxes to the State or to recognize the Civil War draft. She tells of the chivalrous attempt of Edgecomb’s Captain Clough to save Marie Antoinette from the guillotine. She gives deserved attention to Sarah Orne Jewett and Kenneth Roberts. as we 11 as to Longfellow, and gi ves a po lite nod to Edna Millay, Bob Coffi n and Mary Ellen Chase.

She pays respect to Maine artists, but has apparently never heard of Willard Cummings and his famous Skowhegan school, nor of the famous collection gathered more than a year ago at Colby College.

Mrs. Rich’s enthusiasm reaches its peak when she tells us about Margaret Chase Smith. She devotes four whole pages to our noted, gracious lady senator.

After telling about the many honors heaped upon Mrs. Smith, including honorary degrees from 36 colleges, Mrs. Rich says: “These distinctions are both flattering and deserved, but Mrs. Smith can claim another much harder to win than all the rest put together. In Maine, when anybody asks ‘What’s Maggie’s idee on the subject?’, nobody asks ‘Maggie who?’ In Maine there is only one Maggie with ideas worth listening to.”

Much of Mrs. Rich’s book will amuse you. Some of it will make you proud; some will make you mad. Anyhow, if you once start the book, you will finish it. Mrs. Rich is certainly one of our most accomplished and most readable Maine authors. We will even forgive her for including Waterville in her list of Maine towns where cotton cloth is still made.

Shortly before her death a few weeks ago, Mrs. A. F. Drummond, one of the most revered of Waterville’s elderly citizens, handed me an interesting bundle of papers, which have now been placed in the rapidly growing collection of manuscripts at the Waterville Public Library. They came from the home of the late Ella Graves, who was Mrs. Drummond’s neighbor on Morrill Avenue. The founder of the Graves family in this region was Joseph Graves, who came to Vassalboro in 1805. Among the papers is one that describes where Joseph Graves built his home in Vassalboro. Notice how the surveyor located the corners of Graves’ lot.

“Nov. 21, 1805. This day I surveyed and run out a certain tract or lot of land for Mr. Joseph Graves, which is butted and bounded as follows: Beginning at an elm tree standing in the north line of the Seavey tract, so called, at the west side of Togus Stream, thence WNW on said line 140 rods, thence NNE 60 rods to a small pine tree, thence SSE 267 rods to a beech tree, thence SSW 60 rods to a fir tree in the north line of the Seavey tract, then NNW to the first mentioned bound; containing 100 acres, the corners marked J.G. for Joseph Graves, with a marking iron. Philip Bullen, sworn surveyor.”

Fuller Graves. son of Joseph, operated a long boat on the Kennebec. Before the coming of the railroad that was the way most goods were transported to all river points between Augusta and Waterville. It was the way Jeremiah Chaplin brought his wife and children, his seven theological students, and his household goods, when he came to Waterville in 1818, to open the college that is now Colby.

Among the Graves papers is one headed “Towing receipts for longboat”, dated Nov. 20, 1849. It reads: “Fuller Graves. To Steamboat Balloon, Dr. For towirig Longboat under bridges· .75 For towing Longboat from Augusta to dam 2.00 Rec’d Payment 2.75 Nathan Faunce.”

Another bill for towage came from the owners of the Steamer Bellingham, covering the period from July 27 to November 19 in 1849. Evidently Graves’ longboat was not confined to the river above Augusta, for the charges included $5.00 for towing from Hallowell to Bath, $4.00 from Bath to Augusta (probably lightly loaded), and $4.00 from a location identified only as “Ice House” to Bath.

In 1850 Fuller Graves had business with Hiram Pishon, a member of the family that operated Pishon’s Ferry at what is now Hinckley. “I, Fuller Graves, of Vassalboro, currier, in consideration of $600 paid me by Hiram Pishon, tanner, do sell and survey to said Hiram Pishon a certain piece of land in Vassalboro leading to his tannery.”

Pishon was a tanner. Everybody knows what that is. Though many Maine tanneries have long since been abandoned, a big and profitable one is still in operation at Hartland. But Fuller Graves’ occupation is less familiar. He was a currier. That was a man who dressed and colored leather after it had been tanned. It was natural that Pishon, the tanner, should have business with Graves, the currier.

Another of Graves’ papers refers to a popular organization a hundred years ago, the Sons of Temperance. The paper carries a seal which says: “National Division of Sons of Temperance, organized 1844.” The paper is a certificate of membership noting that George H. Graves had become a member of Neguamquam Division No.8, located in Vassalboro. on October 13, 1846.

Still another paper gives us information about commodity prices during the summer of 1861, just after the outbreak of the Civil War. C.F. Graves had been buying goods of N.H. Prescott. On July first he got a wool hat for $2.25 and a pound of tea for 56 cents. On August 10 he bought ten pounds of rye meal for 25 cents. But notice the price of kerosene oil. On August 13 a quart of it cost Graves 23 cents. But on the same day he was charged only 11 cents for 2t pounds of mackerel. The last items recorded against him at Prescott’s store that summer were a couple of barrel bungs at 8 cents each and a fine tooth comb for 13 cents.

Occasionally I run across an item that shows what a hard time people had with depreciated currency 150 years ago. Then one could never depend on the paper money issued by banks. For instance the earliest financial records of Waterville College in 1820 contain items like these: “Received of Joshua Roberts, $24.50, including $1.00 in Castine money, probably worthless. Discount on Machias bills, 88 cents. Counterfeit bills on hand, $8.00. Counterfeit Castine bills, $11.00. Discount on Augusta bills, $4.40. Exchanged several bills of various banks for good Hallowell bills, but took discount averaging 19 cents on the dollar.”

The college in Waterville certainly ran on a shoe string in its early days. In 1823, when a long awaited and badly needed $500 was received from the state, the college realized only $485, because it cost $15 to discount it at the Waterville bank. Most of the money to meet expenses was collected by President Chaplin personally. For instance, on August 2, 1823 he turned in $87.61. Aside from meager salaries to two professors, one of whom was the president, how did the college spend its hard collected money? In that year of 1823 A. Smith was paid $16.25 for diplomas. Erastus Willard got $1.50 for monitor service. It cost $5.74 to set glass, $3.92 for mending locks, and $4.50 to repair a chimney. They paid Jim Russell $2.50 for taking out the college ashes.

Today Colby College receives and disburses annually money well in excess of a million dollars. What a far cry it is back to 1823, when total current expenses for the year were less than $5,000, but even that modest outlay left the college two thousand dollars in debt.

I tell you, indeed, though we like to talk about the good old days, none of us wants to go back and live them.

And with that we must say goodbye until September.

Year: 1964