Radio Script #1187

Little Talks on Common Things
January 21, 1979

Many interesting items that have appeared on this program over the years have come from the diaries of persons of no great prominence, but who had sufficient interest in public affairs and sufficient education to write intelligently about them.

One such diary that I have had a chance to examine was kept by Benjamin Brown Foster, who was a humble clerk working in a Bangor store in the middle of the 19th century. The diary covers the years 1842 to 1853. Much of it concerns religious disputes of the time between orthodox conservatives and biblical liberals. Brought-up in a conservative family of the old state established Congregational Church, with its firm belief in predestination to Heaven or Hell, Foster became a vociferous liberal, inclined to the Universalist faith, though he never joined that church. Instead of keeping his views to himself, he let everyone know that he had no belief in eternal punishment anyhow, to say nothing of people being predestined to it before they were born.

Foster’s father, Cony Foster, who had moved from Vassalboro to Orono in 1827, had married the daughter of one of Vassalboro’s wealthiest citizens, Benjamin Brown, trader, innkeeper and money lender of Brown’s Corner, now Riverside, in Vassalboro. Finding young Benjamin a child of remarkable intelligence, his mother taught him to read at the age of three. He became an omnivorous reader, had finished Franklin’s Autobiography at the age of seven, and later read every Dickens novel as they came from the press. During most of his adult life he contributed both prose and verse to Bangor newspapers.

At the start of the diary Foster wrote: “It is my intention to make this book my confessional. My love of talking leads me to talk on any subject that comes into my head.” That explains why this broadcast based on Foster’s diary may seem rather disorderly, for I shall simply give you some of the entries just as Foster set them down.

His very first comment concerned religion. “I believe in the Bible totally and fully, but not literally word by word. One must allow for the excessive, figurative style of Hebrew writing that makes it so redundant and often so obscure. I have no sympathy with those pedants who say we must take the Bible literally in order to believe its fundamental truths and its divine message. It may be heresy to some when I affirm that God is within the soul of man.”

Now for the diary items.

“May 23, 1847 – We all went to Methodist meeting to hear Mr. Hopkins. Father, mother, Lyman and Edna all went to sleep. I was the only one awake, but I too might just as well have slept for all the good the sermon did me.”

“May 25 – Attended a school lecture by Mr. Bartlett in the schoolhouse. He deplored young men spending leisure time playing ball and rolling ten pins, when they ought to be supporting a reading room. Much as I enjoy reading, I don’t see why it should exclude playing ball and bowling.”

“Sunday, May 30 – Returning from church, I found at our house for dinner a negro, Rev. Thomas James. He is a fugitive slave who will preach at the Methodist meetinghouse this afternoon and deliver a lecture on slavery this evening.” Bear in mind that this diary entry was made 14 years before the outbreak of the Civil War, and even seven years before the notorious Kansas-Nebraska Act opening slavery into the territory fomented the division that led to the great war.

Later on the same day, Foster wrote: “James’ lecture was very good, coming from a negro. Instead of giving gruesome details of the suffering of ‘Gods’ crushed and bleeding humanity, he talks about the injustice of making chattels of human beings.”

It was in January, 1848, that Foster, then living in his father’s home in Orono, went to work in Bangor. This is how he recorded that start. “I took the stage to Bangor with 16 other passengers. It took us 1-1/2 hours to reach the Exchange Hotel. Went to Bright’s home and deposited my trunk in the chamber assigned me. It is a small room but has a hot stove pipe running through it. Bright then took me to his store. Before night I was domesticated. We traded about $50 in cash today.”

It was young Foster’s job to open the store at 5 A.M., sweep the place thoroughly, trim and fill the lamps, and get ready to open for business at 6:30. His days were long, every day except Sunday from 5 A.M. to 9 P.M., with brief time out for noon and evening meals.

On Jan. 5 he noted that the price of flour had risen from $9.25 to $12 a barrel. “Mr. Bright gave me his private cost code, which is menopalist.”

That last item may need a bit of explanation. As late as my own experience in the Bridgton store early in this century, every merchant was accustomed to mark items, not only with the sales price, but also with his cost price in coded letters. The code key was usually some word composed of ten different letters, and it is not easy to find ten-letter words in which no letter is repeated. So many of the words were artificially made up like Bright’s menopalist. In the Bridgton store my father did not have to make up a word. He simply took the name of the county in which the store was located Cumberland. That word was our cost code – C standing for 1 and so on to d, which stood for zero. X was also used to designate a repeated number.

The diary explains what Foster called his boss’s peculiar method of keeping accounts. “Bright keeps a sales book in which all cash sales are recorded and his profit on each sale. From this, every morning, he makes up his cash situation. He also keeps a barter book, in which he enters all sales paid for in whole or part by merchandise. Besides these he had an invoice book for his own purchases. He keeps no ledgers, but rather keeps each person’s account in a day book. Most of his stock is in groceries and wooden ware. He has a few dry goods and a little crockery, but intends to discontinue those items.”

It is interesting thus to note that, 130 years ago, the general stores, so common allover Maine, were in the larger cities beginning to specialize. In 1848 that Bangor store was gradually becoming devoted only to groceries and wooden ware.

The year 1848 was the time of the great potato famine in Ireland, when impoverished Irish immigrants were coming by ship loads to New York and Boston. We can thus understand why Foster heard a lecture in the Bangor Congregational Church against this large immigration. He wrote: “Went to Congregational Church to hear Mr. Pomeroy deplore what immigration is doing to our country. Thousands of illiterate paupers are daily landing on our shores. All the refuse, scum, poverty and crime of Ireland and England are infiltrating our cities with corruption and putrefaction, and of course are filling our jails.”

In July 1848 Foster recorded the coming of a new business to Bangor. “A man named Wakefield is taking daguerreotype likenesses in a room over our store. My sisters Caro and Emma had theirs taken on one plate. It looks quite natural. Mother has sat five times for hers. She has one with her head uncovered, dressed in black, and another with a figured dress and wearing a cap and curls.”

On August 4, 1848, a circus visited Bangor. This is how Foster described it. “It was in a large tent lighted by three squares of 73 lamps each. Almost 1000 people attended. The performance began with a ride on horseback by the whole company. The clown sang a patriotic song, followed by the performance of a sailor boy. The ponies showed amazing skill, dancing and leaping over each other, jumping through hoops and finally joined the clown in eating a sheet of gingerbread. Sands and his children performed marvelous feats of gymnastics. Then Mr. Mosley appeared in various characters from Pickwick Papers. Final act was the celebrated dancing horse.”

Not a word about wild animals, either in trained acts or in cages, and no mention of an elephant. As described by Foster, that performance sounds more like a vaudeville show than a circus.

In September Foster could record a memorable event – the coming of Tom Thumb to Bangor. He wrote: “After the famous midget landed, I caught a glimpse of him in a hack. Then I saw his carriage, a beautiful, tiny vehicle with two prancing ponies, a coachman and a footman in blue greatcoats and large, flowing capes. The carriage proceeded to the Bangor House. At his performance, Tom Thumb made his appearance at the hands of Barnum, and said in a shrill voice, “How do you do, ladies and gentlemen.”

An annual event in every Maine town of any size in the mid-nineteenth century was the militia muster. Listen to Foster’s description of one in Bangor in the fall of 1848. “Every man was equipped with gun, ramrod, bayonet, cartridge box and knapsack. They took slow, solemn, stately steps in their military evolution, officers continually warning the spectators to stand back. There were numerous booths for the sale of rum, beer, apples and candy. All the splendor was interrupted by drunken rows.”

As late as the mid-century there were some people still not satisfied with American democracy. Foster wrote: “I had a dispute with Purinton who says he wishes we had a limited monarchy like England. He contends we might as well have a king, for the people have no real part in making a president. He is always chosen by a clique of politicians.”

This old diary is so rich and varied in its contents, that I shall tell you more from it next week.

Year: 1979