Radio Script #932

Little Talks on Common Things
May 7, 1972

Today we resume a discussion of the Samuel K. Smith diaries which we began last week.

All the time he was teaching at Colby, Professor Smith was preaching somewhere nearly every Sunday. By 1880, the beard he had started and kept carefully trimmed as a younger man, had become bushy and straggly, well down on his chest. He must have been as awesome a figure in the pulpit as he certainly was in the classroom. Letters and memoirs of many of his Colby students testify to the fact,that, of all the professors, he was the one most feared for his sternness and his unyielding academic demands.

When Smith preached in various churches, he was often called upon for unusual duties. Such a case occurred in Vassalboro, where a diary item of March 1, 1879, tells us: “Settled a matter about Mr. Richardson, who was troubling the church.” Those were matters usually handled by the board of deacons in Baptist Churches, who made recommendations to the whole membership, where a case that could not otherwise be reconciled was handled by vote of the church. Such a case occurred in the First Baptist Church of Waterville in 1873, when the deacons proved unsuccessful in reconciling the differences between C. F. Hathaway, the Shirtmaker, and Rev. Burrage, the pastor, and the chunch voted to dismiss Hathaway. Prof. Smith put no details of such cases in his diary, but he encountered several of them, one in Clinton, one in Bangor, and a number of others.

When out as substitute preacher, Smith was usually entertained by some leading family of the host church. One such place was the home of J. C. Perley in Vassalboro. Of one occasion there Smith wrote: “It was the 33rd anniversary of the Perley’s wedding. Some 70 people came from different parts of the town, bringing presents. There were a few short speeches and a poem written for the occasion. The Perley home is a pattern of neatness and comfort. The house is liberally furnished in excellent taste. There is a piano, magazines, newspapers and books. Mr. Perley is a successful farmer in a cultivated home.”

On April 1, 1879, there occurred a event of importance in Colby history. The college’s great benefactor, Gardner Colby, died at his hone in Newton, Mass. Prof. Smith attended the funeral and was greatly impressed by the number of important persons, both of church and state, who were there. Smith’s presence in the Boston area gave him opportunity, the day after the Colby funeral, to go to Trinity Church and hear Phillip Brooks.

Smith’s interest in farming is shown by the following items among his 1879 expenses: threshing oats 1.70; killing pig 1.00; setting trees .75. That was the year also that this traveling professor-preacher needed new luggage. He bought a carpetbag for $3.00.

Samuel Smith was a straight-laced Calvinist Baptist, though he often attended other Protestant services, as he did when he heard Phillip Brooks. The increasing acceptance of Darwin’s theory of evolution troubled him. In 1881 he commented: “The more recent theories of science are not inconsistent with the idea of an intelligent creator. Perhaps indeed the scientific processes are the processes of theology, showing that the work of the theologian has really been done for him by the scientists.” There you have evidence that, even in straight-laced Baptist circles, nearly a century ago, there was willingness to face up to the new Darwinian theory, if only in an attempt somehow to reconcile it with religion.

For many years the professors on the Colby faculty shared with the President assignments to conduct chapel. In the winter of 1881 Smith tells us he spoke to the students on right state of vdll, on consecration, on separation from sinners, on the mysteries of religion, and on the disciples all forsook.

The year 1881 saw the second assassination of our American president, that of Garfield. Smith tells us of a resolution passed in Waterville: “All opx good citizens resolve to reflect with deep abhorrence upon the crime of the man who aimed a gun at the life of the prominent citizen which was called by the vote of the sovereign people to be President of U. S. We tender to him and his family the sympathy of this convention and those we represent.” Eleven weeks later, Garfield was dead.

Samuel Smith was a thrifty man. He owned a large area of land between College and Drummond Avenues, parts of which he sold at considerable profit during the years. A bit back from the corner of what is now College Avenue and Abbott Street he built his commodious house in 1872. That house, called in those days a mansion, was finished masonry, carpentry, painting, and all for the total sum of $4991. Among the carefully itemized accounts are the cost of the solid walnut doors throughout, $332. It was one of few Waterville houses to have a furnace in 1872, and that cost $200. The installation of a cistern came to $ 60. Unlike most local homes, the roof was not shingled, but had slate tiles, for which Smith paid $275. The house had so many windows that the blinds cost more than all the glass, $143 compared to $ 120.

Preserved, word for word, is Smith’s contract with Amos Proctor for building the cellar, for which Smith was to pay Proctor $265. This is the contract: “Proctor is to furnish the stone, lime and sand, and to dig the cellar and build the wall so that the cellar shall be seven feet deep below the sill, the mortar to be one-third cement and two-thirds lime. The wall shall be 20 inches thick at the bottom and 16 inches at the top. Proctor is also to build a brick wall between the porch and the main cellar, to set the underpinning and point it, and to line up the wall back of the underpinning, all in a substantial and workmanlike manner. Smith is to furnish the brick needed for lining up and the stone in the cellar except the underpinning. Proctor is to build a roll way under the bay windows. Smith is to furnish steps for the roll way. Smith agree s to pay Proctor $ 265,”

Elsewhere Smith records that his expenses on that contract, as specified, came to $85, added to the $265 in the contract, that Beans that Smith got his whole cellar, completely finished, for $350. Smith made another deal with Proctor to plaster the whole house for 23 cents a square yard.

Nearby was the old house on another big lot, and it was that house that Smith vacated to occupy the new one in 1872. Thereafter Smith rented the old house to tenants.

Samuel Smith had other property besides real estate. By 1883, he had money in three savings banks, bonds of the Wisconsin Central R. R., stock for the Lockwood Mills, and several personal, promissory notes.

Each fall, for several years, the Smith diary is concerned with what folks used to call pickling eggs; that is, putting them in brine to be kept for winter use when the hens did not lay so well. For a part of about a month in the early autumn, the Smith Family, put down, as Smith called it, from 60 to 130 eggs a day. He doesn’t say how many hens were in his flock.

October was too early for pig killing, so when on a late October day Prof. Smith let Morrison the grocer have 15 lb. pork at 9 cents a pound, we know he meant salt pork out of the barrel Smith had salted the year before.

Small amounts were never too little for careful Sam Smith to save. The diary entry for Nov. 3, 1883 says: “Deposited three dollars in savings.”

In the 1880’s the old system of grading students that had started in 1840 was still practiced at Colby. Instead of the later percentage system based on 100 for perfect that was COlBIlon for most of us who attended Colby later, the older system marked students from one to eight, with decimals permitted. Let us see how a few persons who later became prominent fared with Prof. Smith in 1883. Randall Condon, who later gained national fame as an educator and who, among other achievements started the modern school system of Puerto Rico, got a mark of 7 in one term; George Phoenix, famed as teacher of Negroes at Hampton Institute in Virginia, got 6.5; John Cummings, well known missionary to Burma, who received a medal from the British crown, got from Prof. Smith only 5. His classmate, John Deering, missionary to Japan, did better, with 6.2. I should have told you that 4 was the lowest passing mark, and that is what Smith gave to Willard Clement, who of all ironies later taught Professor Smith’s own subject of English at the University of Idaho. Smith did give a mark of 7 to Charles Estes, who later won a Ph.D. degree and was a professor at Furman University. Two men of later accomplishment left Smith that spring with low marks respectively of 4.5 and 5.3. One was Charles Merrill, who became a judge in the state of Washington; the other was Alfred Thayer, founder of a tuberculosis sanatorium in New York State.

As long as he was physically able, Prof. Smith did some of the work on his land. He hired most of his wood cut in the winter and he never owned haying equipment, except for one rack. So he always hired a man with a mowing machine and several helpers to get in the new hay. But many things he did himself. “April 14, 1884 – Grafted 30 trees. Good grafting. Used four pounds resin, one pound beeswax, one pint linseed oil.” “April 18 – row of peas north of the house on east side of the garden.” “Oct 19 – Threshed beans. Cleaned the stable and the cellar.”

In 1884, both Samuel Smith and his wife had many years ahead of them, but, preparing for the future, they paid $25 for a big lot in Waterville’s Pine Grove Cemetery. But Smith prepared also for a living future. That year he sent $ 500 to a correspondent in St. Paul for investment in Minnesota lands.

The Smith family were close to the Coburns of Skowhegan. Both were Baptists, both had close connection with Colby, and both had grown children of about the same age. Miss Louise Coburn was a frequent visitor in the Smith home, and once !i1r. & Mrs. Stephen Coburn, returning from abroad, stopped at the Smith’s on their way home to Skowhegan. Year after year, various members of the two families were visiting each other. On January 7, 1885, Smith recorded in his diary: “Went to funeral of Gov. Coburn at Skowhegan. I gave the prayer at the house. Dr. Pepper gave address at the church.” That refers to George Dana Boardman Pepper, who in 1885 was President of Colby.

Next week we shall conclude this account of the Smith diaries with happenings during the last twenty years of the professor’s life. But for today we must say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1972