Radio Script #1091

Little Talks on Common Things
June 13, 1976

Through the courtesy of Mrs. Richard Thompson of Fairfield, I have recently seen a letter written as a college student by a man who became a distinguished graduate of Colby. He was Percival Bonney, a noted Maine lawyer and jurist. Because of physical disability he was refused enlistment in the Union Army when war broke out near the close of his sophmore year at Colby, but upon his graduation in 1863 he was given employment in the Treasury Department of the U. S. in Washington. He was admitted to the Maine bar in 1866, and lived the rest of his life in Portland. From 1878 until his death in 1906, he was a justice of the Maine Superior Court. He served his college faithfully, being a trustee for thirty years, and college treasurer for nineteen.

The letter to which I refer, by young Percival Bonney, is dated Waterville College, October 8, 1862. Written to his uncle and aunt, it says: “Perhaps you will think it a strange freak of mine to write you, but as I wanted to know about one thing I might as well make a business of it and write a whole letter.

“What I want to know, is there a book or pamphlet in the cupboard as you go into the dining room entitled ‘David Copperfield?’ It is about the size of Harper’s Magazine. If it is there, please inform me. It is called Dickens’ best novel. I have a chance to read it now. If it is not there, I must postpone the pleasure, but I think you will find it on those shelves.

“It is lonesome enough here. Two years ago there were lots of students on the grounds. Now there are only 49, just enough to keep the institution going. It makes everyone here wish he had entered the army long ago. You will know that I tried and was not accepted. But I can’t help thinking that, unless I take some part in the great strife, I shall be socially and politically dead all my life. War makes all the heroes nowadays and will for forty years to come. I could never get up the brass to address an audience of my fellow men on the blessings of liberty and the influence of freedom. But let me go to war for these eternal principles, then precept, and example go hand in hand. Civilians will be at a discount for the next few years.”

The letter continues: “Here at the college we manage to get along after a fashion, studying as much as usual and reading more for it is as still as a mouse. My studies are quite easy – astronomy, Demosthenes on the Crown, and others. Prof. Lyford takes us out quite often to look through the telescope, because the college owns a very good one.

“The study of ethics is interesting. The book was written by President Champlin himself, and it is to that honorable gentleman that we recite in this subject. He is rather quaint in the recitation room and is full of fun.

“One outside source of contentment for some of us is a Shakespeare Club downtown, where two dozen ladies and gentlemen get together every Tuesday evening and read whatever is agreed upon. It furnishes very pleasant entertainment. The club contains half a dozen collegians and we expect considerable benefit from it.”

The letter then turns to another subject. “Uncle, tell me what you think of the President’s Proclamation. (He refered to the newly issued Emancipation Proclamation.) Will it do any good? Will it bring about the object for which it was issued? Will it shorten the war by a single day? Will it free a single slave? If it will affect even one black man in the smallest degree, we ought to say ‘Thank God.’ I believe Old Abe considered well every circumstance and knew just what he was doing when he signed this proclamation. Therefore the people ought to support him.

“Anytime it is convenient, please tell me about the book. Yours truly, P. Bonney”

Now for another letter of the mid-nineteenth century. On December 9, 1859 a young man with the resounding name of David Appleton White Smith, who would one day become a missionary to Burma, wrote to his mother in Waterville from Readfield, where he was teaching school. At that time, the college had a long winter vacation for the purpose of allowing students to teach the winter term in the old one-room schools. College students were in strong demand for that service because, while women conducted the schools in summer and fall terms, it was thought necessary to have men teachers in the winter when the older boys, some 20 and 21 years of age, attended.

So from Readfield in that winter of 1859, young Smith with the Appleton name, wrote as follows to his mother:

“I commenced school last Monday with 29 scholars, and I have so far succeeded first rate. There are some large boys who are quite free, and I may have to deal with them by and by. You know I have the ability to do it.

“I have a very good boarding place. We live high – chicken or turkey nearly every day. I have a good roommate named Morrill. He works in the gravestone shop, belongs to the Methodist Church, and is a good Christian.

“It is about a mile from here to the schoolhouse, just a good brisk walk. I come home at noon and it gives me good exercise.

“I am not studying much now. I have been reading ‘Paradise Lost’ and shall read it through. My school is not so far advanced that I have to study much to keep up with the recitations. All I have to do can be done right in the schoolroom.

“I have on the same shirt and collar that I left home with and I shall not change until Sunday. My courage is good and my spirits high. Yours truly, David Smith.”

On January 15, 1860, David wrote to his mother again. “I have had some interesting times in school. I chased one boy into his house, took him by the throat from his mother, and dragged him into the school house. I did not do it to hurt him, but because it was my duty as master of the school. Last Friday, I took another boy, the largest in the school and threw him out of the schoolhouse because he would not admit he did wrong. Such scares are growing very common, I expect it will be my chief occupation for the rest of the term, but it does not trouble me in the least. They tell me it has been that way here for many years and this is known as a tough school. If I were not able-bodied and capable of taking care of these big boys, I wouldn’t be here now. They would have ridden me out of town long ago.

“Well, my school will close in two weeks more. Then I shall be home. So I will see you soon. Yours truly, David.”

In this year of the National Bicentennial, I like to call attention more than once to those eventful years when we first declared independence from Great Britain 200 years ago.

Few people realize the suffering and privation endured by the people of Boston during the British occupation in 1775. Though driving back the British raiding party trying to capture provincial ammunition stored at Concord, on that fateful 19th of April in 1775, the Americans had been defeated at Bunker Hill. George Washington had taken command at Cambridge, but on the Boston peninsular itself, in the largest town in all New England, the British army was supreme.

What was actually happening was vividly described in a letter that Abigail Adams wrote on July 16, 1775, to her husband who was attending the Continental Congress in Phildelphia: “Distress among the people of Boston increases fast. Their bread is all spent, their malt and cider entirely gone. All the fresh provisions they can procure they must give to the sick and the wounded. Nineteen of our men who were wounded at Bunker Hill and then taken captive and put in jail, are now dead. No man dares talk to his friend in the street. Everyone must be in his house by ten o’clock every evening, and the curfew is strictly enforced by the soldiers. General Gage has ordered all the town’s molasses distilled into rum for his troops. He has taken away all merchant’s licenses. The British soldiers act with malice and vengeance. Meat is so scarce that a poor milk cow, all bones and hide, was sold for a shilling a pound.

“Here in Braintree, every article of West Indies trade is very scarce and very dear in price. It is impossible to buy any article of that kind. I wish you would let Bass get me in Philadelphia a pound of pepper and a yard of black calimanco.

“You can hardly imagine how much we want for many small articles which are not manufactured here. Not one pin is to be purchased for love or money. I wish you would send me 1000 pins by any friend travelling this way. Even if more West Indies articles were available, I could not get a single copper coin to buy them, and I will not run into debt.

“Although the crops are short, we have prospects of a good harvest of Indian corn and English grain,”

To Abigail’s appeal, John Adams soon wrote the following reply: “The other day after I received your letter, I let Mr. William Banell read it. The next morning he delivered to me a bundle with two great heaps of pins, accompanied by a very polite card requesting your acceptance of them. I shall bring them with me when I return.”

Now does that sound like a tall story, that at the outset of the American Revolution a Massachusetts housewife of the better families should be concerned about pins? From what I know about a much later war time, I can assure you that the story must be true.

For many years prior to Work War II, my wife and I had enjoyed the acquaintance of a gracious Norwegian lady. When the Germans occupied Norway, the lady’s family were under house arrest in Oslo. The lady herself, a resident of Ohio, did her best to send supplies to them through the Red Cross. She told us not once, but repeatedly, that the letters she received begged for one article above all others. They desperately wanted needles, completely unprocurable in wartime Norway.

And speaking of the national bicentennial, don’t forget to procure a copy of the Waterville Bicentennial book entitled WATERVILLE IN 1976. I am sure you will enjoy it and bear in mind it will itself be history a hundred years from now.

Year: 1976