Radio Script #155
Little Talks On Common Things
September 28, 1952
Almost every day we see some reference in the press to the vast amount of money in circulation. For every dollar the average adult had in 1940, he has $2.64 now and will have $2.80 by the end of this year. In 1940 the nation’s total supply of currency and bank deposits stood at 70 billion dollars. By the end of the war in 1945 it had risen to 150 bill ion. In another five years by 1950 it was up to 170 billions. Last July it had reached 185 billion and by next January will be close to 200 billion, an increase of 185 percent.
That all sounds very fine, but it takes no account of how much or how little a dollar will buy. The question really is, how much purchasing power does the average man have compared to what he had thirty years ago? You recall the remark of the fellow who first questioned the story about George Washington’s throwing a silver dollar across the Potomac, or was it the Rappahannock? The fellow first declared it an impossible feat, pondered a minute, then said: “Well ,it may be true. A dollar would go a lot farther in those days.”
Now it is time to keep my promise of last week and start the story of an astounding journey on horseback from Maine to Virginia 160 years ago. That journey was made by the ancestor of a Waterville woman, the distinguished historian of the First Baptist Church. Mrs. A. F. Drummond of Burleigh Street is a member of the famous Prince family, whose members are scattered far and wide over the land. Hezekiah Prince, a member of that family long ago, came to Thomaston, Maine when he was 21 years old. Except for a few clothes, his only property was his chest of tools. He first lived at the home of Isaiah Tolman in the first licensed tavern in what is now the city of Rockland.
That first winter Hezekiah burned a kiln of lime and took the product to Boston for sale. He became a prosperous and influential citizen. He was selectman for many years, and for three years represented the town of St. George in the Massachusetts legislature. He was noted for his interest in mathematics and astronomy. After Maine became a state he served in the legislature at Portland, then became a member of the Governor’s Council. He is said to have been the man who did most to get rid of the state lottery. He died at Thomaston in 1840. Hezekiah Prince was only 22 years old and had been only a year in Thomaston when he decided to pay a visit to his many relatives between Maine and Virginia.
There may have been nothing unusual about that decision; but what was unusual was his determination to make the whole journey on horseback. The common mode of travel between Penobscot and Chesapeake Bayst in those days, was by water. But several of Hezekiah’s relatives lived some distance from the sea. Perhaps there were other motives. Anyhow, by horse Hezekiah made that 1,200 mile journey. He left Thomaston on Sunday morning, November 3, 1793 and fortunately kept a diary of the whole Journey. On that first day he recorded: “At Mill River met Jr. Dunton, the contractor, and went with him to see the mansion being erected at St. George’s River by General Henry Knox.” Then Hezekiah rode on to Warren and Waldoboro, where he stayed the first night. Early the next morning he passed through the German colony, which he found thriving. It was on the third day, however, before he reached what he calls Noble’s Bridge in Dam” ariscotta.
Why was Hezekiah’s progress so slow? Because there were very few roads, even what we have in the back country today — narrow, unpaved highways. Only near the larger towns were there any roads at all. Not until four years after Hezekiah took this Journey were wheeled vehicles able to run between Boston and New Bedford. Land communication was on foot or horseback over bridle paths marked out by spotted trees. In Maine’s newer settlements the old tndian trails were the only overland routes.
From Damariscotta Hezeklah says he rode seven miles to the head of Sheeps gut. Now, strangely enough, Hezeklah says not a word about how he crossed the Kennebec, but he did cross it, for we next find him in Gardiner which he calls !~ba~y_”. “There are saw rn1 “s atCobasy owned by Mr’. Gardiner”, he wrote. ”They are carried on by Benjamin Shaw at whose house we stopped. In the evening quite a party gathered! We had dancing, singing anr:;t games, quite a lively time, which we enjoyed in spite of our fatigue!”
The next day he rode four miles up the river to Hallowell, mentions the fact that an academy started’ there ‘two years before was now nearly completed, then rode on to Chandler’s Tavern in Winthrop for dinner. From Winthrop he tells us his route. ran almost directly south. ”The farmhouses”, he wrote, “mostly buT It ofl09S, sometimes were within neighborly distance of each other, but more often several miles intervened between nearest neighbors. Beside cornfield or potato patch the ruddy~faced man and boys would hold me for a moment’s chat or a word of news. The apple orchards were loaded with fruit, and I was treated to mug after mug of cider and apple jack.” He says he crossed the Androscoggin at Bakertown. Since that is the of name for Poland, we might suspect Hezekiah’s sense of goegraphy if we did not know that in 1793 the town of Bakertown included all the land that is now in the three towns of Poland, Minot and Auburn.
Hezekiah was bound for Hebron where he had a sister. He writes of this little Oxford town which this broadcaster knew so well 35 years ago: “Hebron was settled mostly by people from Plymouth Colilnty. It was Incorporated last year and was formerly called Shepardstown from the proprietor Alexander Shepard of Plymouth. Here’ kept Thanksgiving with my sister, her husband and their eight chiidren.” He says that he and his sister then went to Bucktown to see another brother. That would be what we know as Buckfield. “These people”, wrote Hezeklah, “appear to be contented and happy in their forest homes”. Then he proceeds to set down his sentiments about the life of those backwood settlements. “I much admire”, he wrote, “the kind neighborly feeling that exists. They are like one large family. They assist each other in all their heavy work, uniting their labor in husking bees, house building, and woods clearing.
Whe’n one farmer kills a cow or hog, the others take the parts that can be spared, and the butchering is thus timed for the convenience of the whole community. Farm hands are paid from eight to ten dollars a month, and female help gets fifty cents a week. There are no regular mails or post offices, except in the larger towns, and letters are carried by private parties and delivered as opportunity offers. Spelling schools and singing schools are the indoor sports; ·the outdoor amusements are gunning parties, sleigh rides and coasting on bobsleds.”
The next day after leaving Hebron he records: “Travelling being very bad, we put up at Gray, having come but 28 miles. It the next day he went on through Portland and Westbrook all the way to Wells. He writes: If we arrived at Wells at 7 P.M., having rode 40 miles. This town was incorporated many years ago. A Baptist Church under Elder Lord was organized this year.” Let me interrupt the diary here to say that I remember that Old Baptist meeting house. It stood on what is now the road between Wells Corner and Sanford, about a little east of the little village of High Pine. When I first saw it, the building had been closed for many years and was already going to ruin. It finally burned or was torn down about twenty years ago, and now only the stone foundation remains.
Hezekiah Prince adds in his diary the pertinent information that it was in Wells that Rev. John Wheelwright had settled in 1643, when he and his sister-in-law Anne Hutchinson were banished from Boston because of their religious belief. From Wells Hezekiah pushed on to Dover, Durham, Newmarket and Exeter a good trip of 42 miles. Here he ran across the trail of other members of the Prince family, for on a window of the aid house built by Peter Gilman in 1650 he found these words scratched by a diamond: HHon. Peter Gi Iman, Esq. and Mrs. Jane Prince were married September 1761; Chandler Robins and Janice Prince were married October 1761; Thomas Cary and Deborah Prince were married September. Apparently he crossed the Merrimac at Haverhill, for he speaks of dining at the Haverhill ferry. His next stop was Wilmington, from whence he started at daybreak and made the sixteen miles to Boston in three hours, going through Woburn, Medford and Charlestown. In Boston Hezekiah stopped with his cousin, James Prince, who was a U. S. marshal.
James and another cousin, Thomas, showed Hezekiah the sights of the city, which already in 1793 boasted a population of 20,000. He visited the site of the new state house on Beacon HiII, though work had progressed only so far as digging away the top of the hill. The new bridge to Cambridge caused enthusiastic comment. “This famous bridge”, says the diary, “is over 7,000 feet long and about 40 feet wide; it stands on 180 pj€rs; when finally complete it will cost $116,000.”
At Cambridge Hezekiah visited the Harvard buildings, talked with President Willard, and called on a man named Craigie, who lived in an elegant house surrounded by t’r:ees and beautiful shrubs. This was of course Craigie House, a mansion to be made even more famous long after Hezekiah died by a man who was not born until 14 years after Hezekiah had his talk with Craigie. That man also came from Maine. His name was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
There in historic old Cambridge let us leave Hezekiah Prince tonight.
Next week we shall see him forward on his journey to Virginia.
This week marks a great event in the history of religion. Next Tuesday all over the English-speaking world , will be celebrated the most important English translation of the Bible in the past 341 years. The Bible with which most Protestants are familiar was translated by a group of seventy scholars under a commission from King James of England in 1611. That is the King James Bible, not what is sometimes wrongly called the St. James Bible. An American revised version appeared in 1881 and other versions attempting to put the Bible into modern English have come from private sources. But not since 1611 has all EngIish-speaking Protestantism united in an attempt to secure a Bible in modern English.
The local celebration of this great event will take the form of a union service conducted by the Waterville Area Council of Churches in the Congregational Church. Catholics too are interested in this occasion, for their church has selected the date to recognize the 500th anniversary of the first printed book, the Latin Bible from the press of Johann Gutenberg of Germany.
Actually no one knows exactly when that first printed Bible appeared, or whether it was the work of Gutenberg or one of several other claimants. But historical research shows Gutenberg is the most likely person to be acclaimed the inventor of movable type and the printer of the famous Gutenberg Bible, today the most expensive book in the world. $0 few copies, about twenty, are still in existence that no private book collector can afford one, and most of the copies are already in libraries and museums. The most perfect copy in this country is in the Library of Congress, and here is a good copy at Yale. If you would like to buy one as a gift to the Treasure Room at Colby College, I am sure it would be welcomed, but the gift would cost you at least a quarter of a million dollars.
The date fixed by most historians for the appearance of the first printed Bible is 1456, which would make this year four years too early for the 500th anniversary. But letters of indulgence were certainly printed on the Mainz press by Gutenberg or one of his fel low workers as early as 1454, and it is not improbable that some parts of his Bible had already been set and run off by 1452, because he is known to have contemplated the great task as early as 1450.
At any rate Catholics and Protestants alike are thinking of the Bible this week~ Catholics of the printed version of the Latin Vulgate text, from which are derived all modern Catholic Bibles in any language; Protestants of the new English version of 1952, which derives from the great tradition of Wyclif, Tindale and the scholars of King James.
By the way, how long is it since you have read any part of the Bible? Why not open the great book at random and read a passage tonight?
Year: 1952