Radio Script #1107

Little Talks on Common Things
January 2, 1977

During most of the 19th century the best known almanacs in Maine were the Maine Farmer’s Almanac and the Old Farmers Almanac that served all New England.

The Waterville Historical Society has many issues of both of those almanacs, but by no means a complete file of either. Recently the Society secured copies of the Old Farmers for the early 1890’s and of the Maine almanac for some of the years in the latter part of the same decade.

The Old Farmers Almanac had begun publication late in the 18th century, so that its 100th issue appeared in 1892. Its publisher a century earlier had been Robert B. Thomas, who was its publisher for many years. In honor of the almanac’s centennial the 1892 issue included a tribute to the founder. This, in part, is what it said.

“In the early days in New England the almanac was second in importance only to the bible. The earliest printed work, except leaflets and handbills, that came from any American press was an almanac, published at Cambridge in 1639.

“Robert Bailey Thomas was born in Grafton, Mass. in 1766. He was brought up on a farm that his father developed in West Boylston. Like most boys, after the age of 8, he attended school only in winter. But his father was an avid reader and had been able to acquire a number of books, among them James Ferguson’s Astronomy. Young Robert became absorbed in that book, and at the age of 12 began to make calculations of lunar and solar eclipses. For a number of years after 1785 he taught school in several towns and was married, but all the time he harbored the ambition to make an almanac, and publish it himself. So he devoted many leisure hours to the study of astronomy.

“In 1792 he came under the interest of a Boston teacher, Osgood Carleton, who was the publisher of an almanac. He made all the calculations and prepared the copy for an almanac in 1793 and persuaded the printing firm of Belknap and Hall of Boston to produce it. That was the first issue of the long-lived Old Farmer’s Almanac.

“Robert Thomas died in 1846, leaving a large estate, and he is buried in the cemetery at Sterling close to the West Boylston line.”

That same issue of the Old Farmer’s Almanac in 1892 contains a brief account of the century since its first issue in 1793. Headed, “Progress of a Hundred Years,” that account said:

“At the time of the first census, just three years before our first issue, the U.S. had a population of 3,172,000 white and 757,000 blacks. The census of 1890 showed a total population of 62,600,000, of which blacks numbered 7,000,000.

“lIn 1793, the national domain extended west only as far as the Mississippi, with an area of 827,000 square miles. In 1893 it extends to the Pacific, and exclusive of Alaska comprises more than three million square miles.

“In the second year of this almanac, 1794, came an important invention, the cotton gin, which removes seeds from that fibre, formerly a tedious process by hand. At that time there were no railroads. no telegraph. no friction matches, no India rubber, no waterproof clothing, no lighting either by gas or electricity, not even kerosene oil.

“Photography came into use, and with it lithography, stereotyping and and electroplating, the power press, and typewriting machinery.

“The threshing machine has superseded the flail, the mowing machine the scythe, the reaper has displaced the sickle and the cradle. The spinning wheel and the hand loom has given way to the spinning jenny and the power 100m. The sewing machine has given us cheaper wearing apparel. The Bessemer process has given us structural steel. Our coal mines, unknown in 1800, now turn out 130 million tons a year.

“Huge ocean liners have replaced the sailing ships that took weeks to cross the Atlantic. Some of the most wonderful discoveries are but of yesterday. Nor must we fail to mention the use of anesthetics, the greatest boon for surgical operations. We have destroyed slavery, have established asylums to care for the mentally ill, have given our people free education for all. All this has been done since the birth of the Old Farmer’s Almanac.”

That sketch, mind you, was published in 1892. Think of the discoveries and inventions that have come to us in the 85 years since that time: the internal combustion engine with all its uses, chiefly the automobile, that has changed and widened transportation in a way unthinkable to the people of 1892, and has affected many areas of living; radio and television that have not only revolutionized communications, but have standardized the language; radar and sonar and hundreds of other electronic devices; the diesel engine; and most potent of all, the use of atomic energy, in which lies both the hope and the peril of mankind.

When the Old Farmer’s Almanac is 200 years old in 1992, only 15 years away, there may well be other advances in technology that seem impossible today.

As for the Maine Farmer’s Almanac in 1895, Charles Nash of Augusta brought out its 77th annual issue. The cover carried this heading: “The Maine Farmers Almanac for the year of Our Lord, 1895; it being the third after Leap Year and the 119th after our Country’s Independence, the astronomical calculation being made by true clock time for Lat. 44-l6N, and Long. 69-48W, at the meridian nearest to the Capital of the State of Maine at Augusta. Area of the state 35,000 square miles; population in 1890 – 661,086.”

Besides the usual advance information on daily sunrise, sunsets, tides, phases of the moon, and eclipses, the Maine Farmers, like most other almanacs, was filled out with all sorts of items. One pointed out that character is revealed in both a person’s economies and his extravagances – that to be a penurious miser was as bad as to be a reckless spender. Another item emphasized the distinction between instinct and reason. Another dwelt with choosing an occupation. A still more down-to-earth item extolled the keeping of cows. “One of the big advantages,” said the article, “is that it is a cash business to sell milk. A man who sells milk to creamery or cheese factory draws his pay in cash at the end of every month. There is no bartering with a storekeeper, as he must do with his vegetables and butter. Ready cash is a tremendous advantage.”

An unusual item is a column in praise of the despised skunk. Said the article, “Wherever he lives there is abundant evidence of his usefulness. He takes the white grub from its comfortable quarters in the sod; he destroys nests of mice. In the winter he visits the woodchuck holes. He is indeed the farmer’s helper.”

Another column urged people to get concerned in politics – something that has still to be urged on folks 80 years after than almanac’s appearance. “The strength of the Americans over the English people,” said the article, “resides not in constitutions, written or unwritten, but in the political chambers of the two peoples. If the people do not continue an active interest in government, either despotism or anarchy will ensue.”

When the 1892 almanac came from the press, the President of the U.S. was Grover Cleveland. Do any of our listeners remember the V. P.? He was the first Adlai Stevenson, father of the better known Adlai Stevenson, who in our own time was twice a candidate for the presidency, and who died in London while representing his country as ambassador to the Court of St. James. The Chief Justice was a Maine-born man, Melville Fuller. Maine’s governor was Henry B. Cleaves of Portland. His salary was $2100 a year. Maine’s Supt. of Public Schools, equivalent to the present Commissioner of Education, was N. A. Luce of Vassalboro.

Among Maine’s public holidays in 1892 was Fast Day.

Postage was cheap in those days. First class letters were two cents an ounce, post cards one cent. Second class mail, such as newspapers and magazines, cost one cent a pound. Third class, what we now call junk mail, one cent for each two ounces. In 1892, fourth class mail was described thus: “All matter not included in the other three classes, such as dry goods, paper, cardboard, articles of apparel, soap, pastes, and liquids not inflamable or alcoholic. Weight limited to four pounds. Rate, one cent per ounce.” In 1892 there was technically no such thing as parcel post, though a few articles, as just mentioned, could be mailed 4th class.

At the end of the almanac were two pages giving the population of Maine towns in 1890. Waterville then had 7,000. Winslow 1,800, Oakland 2,000, China 1,400, Albion 1,000, Vassalboro 2,100. Kennebec County’s largest place was Augusta with 3,000 more people than Waterville. Maine’s largest city, Portland, had 36,000.

Those two long-lived popular almanacs were by no means the only ones in the closing years of the 19th century. Many were published by manufacturers or distributors of patent medicines. The maker of Rumford Baking Powder put out in 1891 the Rumford Almanac and Cook Book. Dr. J. C. Ayer of Lowell, Mass. published as early as 1863 Ayer’s American Almanac for the use of Farmers, Planters, Mechanics and Mariners. In 1869 there appeared from the Soldiers and Sailors Publishing Co. in New York City a volume called the Soldiers and Sailors Almanac, containing a history of the Late Rebellion. It also advertised a weekly magazine called “Half-Dime Tales of the Late Rebellion.” Its title came from the fact that each issue cost five cents. On one page this unusual almanac carried a list of remarkable events, many of which even historians have now forgotten. The list began with the Battle of Brienne in 1814, the death of Lander, the African traveler in 1835. Other items were the marriage of Queen Victoria in 1851, the Great New York fire in 1855, and the expulsion of the French from Egypt in 1801.

Older people today remember Hostetters Bitters (and were they bitter!). Hostetter’s Almanac was in many homes at the close of the Civil War. After devoting pages to the value of the bitters for numerous ailments, it devoted one page to “Ailment without a name.” Hostetter’s was good for them all.

C. G. Clark of New Haven issued in 1865 the Farmers’ and Mechanics’ Almanac. Clark was a wholesale druggist who dispersed balsams and syrups carrying his guarantee.

In 1898 there was an almanac circulated by Century Liniments, in 1872 one called ‘Merchant’s Gargling Oil National Almanac’ and five years earlier, in 1867, the Horticulturist Almanac published by F. W. Woodward on Park Row in New York.

Not all the almanacs were of standard size. One as small as 6 by 4 inches was Rush’s Almanac, a Guide to Health, the work of A. H. Flanders of Boston. Its very fine print would defy most readers today.

Remember that in many a family that did not take a weekly newspaper, the Almanac and the Bible were long the sole bits of reading matter. To get a picture of the days of long ago, one need only peruse these old almanacs.

Year: 1977