Radio Script #791

Little Talks on Common Things

January 19, 1969

Both on this program and in my book “Kennebec Yesterdays” I have told about an energetic publisher in Augusta more than a century ago. He was William A. Drew, who in the later 1850’s was publishing a general newspaper called the Intelligencer. One of his articles that I remember best was the attack he made on the use of stoves instead of the old fireplaces. Of course, in spite of Drew’s exposition, stoves had come to stay.

William Drew was originally not a journalist. but a minister of the Universalist faith. You may recall that denominational feeling was strong in the middle of the nineteenth century. and the evangelistic sect had little use for the free-thinking Universalists. A story that made the rounds in Waterville was that the Universalist bell sounded loud the peal “There ain’t no Hell”. to which the old Baptist bell replied. “The Hell there ain’t”.

Earlier in the 1850’s. before Drew took on general newspaper publication in competition with already time-honored Kennebec Journal, he was publishing in Augusta a paper which he said was “devoted to religion, morality, literature, general intelligence. agriculture and domestic economy”. Actually it was a paper devoted to the spread of Universalism. The entire front page of the issue of July 19, 1851 was concerned with Universalist Sunday Schools. Drew listed 52 Maine towns where the Universalists not only maintained preaching, but had also established Sunday Schools.

The largest was in Rockland. where 182 pupils were enrolled. Augusta had 160. Belfast 152, Bangor and Bath each 145, Calais 140, and Waterville 80. The largest Sunday School library was in Gardiner. where there were 730 volumes. Among dozens of news items concerning Universalists and their churches is this one of warning: “We have received word from Houlton inquiring about a Mr. Mace. who was once a Universalist preacher and is now preaching in Aroostook County. We can only say that he has been disfellowshipped by our denomination and is no longer connected with us. The cause of his dismissal we do not remember.

The paper did have two columns of Maine news. The dry goods store of Isaac Asiel in Augusta had been robbed. The Friends of Temperance in Maine had arranged for Dr. Jewett. the distinguished temperance advocate. to give a series of lectures in the state. In the U.S. District Court in Bangor a man had been convicted of stealing letters from the post office. His defense on grounds of insanity was not believed by the jury.

A Maine man had been robbed in Boston. The account said: “During the exhibition of fireworks on the Common on the Fourth of July. Daniel Rowe of Kennebec, Maine (that was the old name of what is now the town of Manchester) had his wallet stolen, containing $152. of which $40 was in bills of the Great Falls (N.H.) Bank. He is a poor man and a cripple and was on his way to Springfield to procure an artificial leg with this money, which had been raised by a subscription of his friends. The robbery leaves him without a dollar in the world.”

By far the heaviest taxpayer in Augusta was Reuel Williams,whose tax of $1,721 was more than three times that of the second largest, G.C. Child.

The warden of the State Prison got in a few cracks at aliens in his annual report. He said: “The general conduct of the prisoners has been good, but in a state so large as Maine, that has to take the offscourings of our adjoining provinces, many bad men will find their way into this prison. Three of that class have given me more trouble than all the rest during the past year.”

In Sangerville the Universalists had made special observance of the Fourth of July in the grove of Joseph Kelsey of Guilford on the bank of the Piscataquis River,

A table 270 feet long was laden with food. Program consisted of vocal and instrumental music. reading of the Declaration of Independence, speeches and toasts. Nearly a thousand people were present. While William Drew edited the Gospel Banner, its owners and publishers were Homan and Manley, whose printing office, also doing job print, was at the corner of Water and Oak Streets in Augusta. In 1851 the paper boasted a weekly circulation of 3,100. The masthead advised: “Be sure to pay in advance, and thus have the privilege of reading your own paper instead of the publisher’s.” In those days a newspaper did not stop coming when the paid subscription ran out. As the Banner put it, “We continue to send papers to subscribers after the time when they first subscribed has expired, unless otherwise ordered.” In fact, instead of forbidding publishers to send papers not paid for, the law then protected exactly the opposite practice. The Banner pOinted out, “The courts have decided that refusing to take a paper from the post office, or removing it and then leaving it uncalled for, is prima facie evidence of intentional fraud. If subscribers neglect or refuse to take their papers from the office to which they are directed, they are held responsible until they have settled the bill and ordered the paper discontinued.”

William Drew and the publisher intended the Gospel Banner to be acceptable all over the State of Maine. They had agents in more than a hundred Maine communities. In Waterville they were represented by C. Gardner, in Fairfield by H.S. Tobey. Others who represented the Banner in this part of Maine were R. Hunter of Pittsfield, A. Moore of North Anson, Asa Thurston of Athens, J.O. Emery of Guilford, C.S. Hussey of Canaan, A.S. French of Dexter, B. Smith of Bingham, and D. Churchill of Solon.

The only ads in the Banner were for patent medicines: Dr. Pettit’s Canker Balsam, Morse’s Compound Syrup of Yellow Dock Root, American Eye Salve, and Dr. Hart’s Vegetable Extract for fits.

The front page of the Banner for October 11, 1851 was devoted to a sermon at the Universalist National Convention in Boston, and it was a rousing exposition of the Universalist belief in the eventual salvation of all souls. The preacher called on those who believed in the endless punishment of hell fire to examine both the scriptures and their consciences. “The doctrine”, he said, “was not revealed by God to his chosen people. You will find it nowhere in the Old Testament. How improbable it is that Christ revealed this horrible dogma in the New Testament, if it was no part of the revelation of Moses in the old! St. Paul calls the Law the ministration of death and the Gospel the ministration of the Spirit. which giveth life. Does the latter teach a doctrine unspeakably more dreadful than the former? The Gospel is called a new and better covenant, established upon better promises. How, then, can the Gospel consign men to endless punishment, which the Law never did?”

Whether good or spurious reasoning. that was reasoning of a kind, and a hundred years ago men delighted in arguing about their religion. How cold that sort of thing leaves most people today.

In that fall of 1851 Editor Drew made a trip to England. From there he sent letters to the paper back in Augusta about the Crystal Palace, the Ragged School for pauper children, as well as the usual tourist sights of Windsor Castle, the Houses of Parliament, and the Tower of London. He was thrilled by the great Jewish synagogue as much as by Westminster Abbey, and he never tired of visiting the tiny shops on London Bridge.

Though a liberal in religion, William Drew was a conservative in other fields, as shown by his diatribe against the use of stoves. In the October 21 issue of his Gospel Banner he vented his views on deportment in church: “Better not go to church at all”. he wrote. “than to go without a sense of the broad eye of Jehovah fixed upon you. If you cannot leave off gaudy trappings, fit only for the gaze of simpletons, stay away from church. Pompous display and the exhibition of foolish pride are not for that sacred place. The church is no place for idle, worldly conversation. When you talk there with neighbors, talk only about holy things. The House of God is the place to listen to sacred instruction, not to sleep and snore. So let everyone remember, when they prepare for church. where they are going and what they are going for. Leave gaiety and smiles at home. Put on the serious demeanor of a true worshipper.”

In his October news column Drew told of the arrest of a fugitive slave in Syracuse, N.Y. “A slave named Jerry was arrested on the claim of Mr. Percy Lear of Missouri. When in the afternoon the case was recessed for half an hour, Jerry tried to escape and nearly succeeded. A hard scuffle with the officers ensued. Jerry, surrounded by friends. made his way to the street and the Canal Bridge where officers waylaid him and took him to the police station. When trial resumed, the judge demanded that evidence be produced to show that persons were legally held to service in Missouri. The excitement was intense and a number of the courthouse windows were broken. Court adjourned until the next morning. Jerry was taken to an apartment back of the police station. to be kept there until the crowd should have dispersed, then he would be removed to a place of safety. But an attack was made by persons carrying clubs. axes and crowbars.

“Using a plank as a battering ram, they broke down the wall between the police office and the apartment where Jerry was retained. The officers were overpowered and Jerry was carried away by his rescuers. He was hustled into a carriage and sped out of town. Then the irate citizens of Syracuse, friendly to the fugitive slave, demanded that the man from Missouri be arrested as a kidnapper. Editor Drew’s final comment on the incident was: “Jerry is now undoubtedly beyond the reach of the United States authorities. His successful escape has offered all liberty-loving people unmitigated satisfaction.”

Here’s another juicy item from Drew’s paper: “A man named John Dealy of Winthrop, Maine eloped recently with Miss Emily Huntoon, adopted daughter of Hon. Thomas Kimball of Hallowell. Dealy is represented as a worthless, dissipated fellow, without money, credit or reputation.”

The year 1851 saw the beginning of Maine’s famous prohibition of the sale of intoxicating liquor. Editor Drew commented thus on the situation: “Neal Dow, Mayor of Portland, tells the results of liquor law enforcement in his city. Before passage of the law there were 300 shops in Portland where liquor was sold. Now there are only a very few, and those only in small quantities, and mostly in the possession of foreigners. Three months ago there were several wholesale liquor dealers in Portland; now there are none. There was one distillery in the state and another in process of erection. Now both are gone. The city night police has comparatively nothing to do. whereas formerly every night there were numerous brawls to suppress. The law has been enforced with as little opposition as any statute in the state.”

It was too rosy a picture that Neal Dow painted and Editor Drew accepted. Reaction would soon set in and mob scenes would break out in Portland over the liquor issue. But the law held. and enforced variously in different places and at different times, it stayed on our statute books for more than eighty years, and made Maine the recognized leading state in the cause of temperance.

Year: 1969