Radio Script #265
Little Talks On Common Things
May 8, 1955
In these days when there is so much confusion about the international scene, when it is so difficult for young men to plan their lives apart from the prospect of going into battle, some pretty straight thinking is demanded, no~ only of our leaders, but also of every American citizen. public opinion decides the destiny of any democratic nation.
I n the long run So we had bette r pay attention to the question which Norman Cousins asks in a recent issue of the Saturday Review: “Does anyone have time to think?T!
Mr. Cousins, distinguished editor and writer, author of that challenging book “Who Speaks for Man”, is no stranger to Watervi lie. He has been bere tw ice in the past ten years, once as the featured speaker at the important Colby convocation in 1953. Says Mr. Cousins on this subject of taking time to th ink: “We in Ameri ca have more food than we can eat. We have more money per person than any other peop Ie. We have bigger and better cars, theaters, school s, and te levi s i on sets. We have everythi ng we need except the most impor~ ant thing of al I — time to think and the habit of thought. We lack time for the one thing indispensible for the safety of an individual or a nation.
Civi lization is put together not by machines, but by thought. Man’s uniqueness is shown not by his abi lity to make objects, but to sort them and relate them~ Other animals practice communication; only man has the capacity for comp rehens i on •
“Everyone seems to agree, from the Pres i :Gent down, that we have to fi nd some way other than war to protect ourselves, support the cause of freedom in the world, and serve the cause of man. But who is giving any consecutive thought TO finding some other way? We are Told that there is no real defense aga in st aTom i c attack. Sure I y th is requ i res some thought. Be i ng busy is more than a naTional pastime. It is a national excuse. The paradox, of course, is that we are busy doing nothing. Never in history has so much leisure been avai lab Ie TO so many people. Yet we have somehow persuaded ourselves thaT we are too busy to Tnli.,,_ • i we ut::i It:lve Tna’t In ‘the American way we have something worth saving, somewhere in our national culture and economy we shaff have to find a place for thought.ff
recent I Y menti oned a Be I grade nat i ve, H. L. Ke I fey, long a res i dent of Boston and for many years an officer of the wholesale grocery fi rm of Silas Pierce and Company • Mr. Ke Iley has sent me severa I interesting sheets taken from old ledgers of that now defunct company, and I think some of the contenTs wi II inTerest you who are listen i ng ton i ght.
I,n 1868 the Pierce firm shipped to Hamblin and Farr of West Watervi lie 5 boxes of Premium Starch, 2 boxes of olive soda soap, and one box of Dobbins soap. Twenty-six years earlier, in 1842, they had shipped to S. S. Parker of Watervi lie 12 barre Is of New Orleans molasses. For carting The load to T wharf, where the 12 barre Is were p I aced aboard the schooner Edward Kent, They cRarged Parker 48 cents.
On December 8, 1853 the Pierce Company, by way of an unnamed steamer bound for Port I and, sh i pped the follow ing goods to B. P. Man ley of Watervi lie:
4 boxes of ra is ins, one of soap, one of gene ra I merchand i se, and one jar of snuff. Like many of the Pierce shipments, This one was marked “danger of the sea excepTed”, wh i ch means that the sh i pper Took no respons i b iii ty for loss of the sh i pment at sea. After the goods were loaded on a boat, they were someone else’s res pons i b iii ty •
I n May, 1852, on board the schooner Ames, bound for Augusta, the Pierces put a shipment for A. S. Hayward of Sidney, consisting of one barrel of rice, saleratus a bag of coffee, and a barre I of . The last, of course, is the old name for ~ s:::rla. ba rre I of ~ s::d::t. Think of a country dealer, in 1852, stocking a whole A year and a half later, in October, 1853, Hayward got a bigger shipment on the schooner Rochester from Boston to Augusta. This time there were two barrels of ~~tus I four chests of tea, a hogshead of sugar, a jar of snuff, and two boxes of tobacco.
Here are some of the items sold by the Pierce finn to reta-i lers in country stores in various parts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine during the year 1849: molasses, rock salt, nutmegs, pearl sago, citron, vermicell i, figs, wha leo ii, cotton tw i ne , tapioca in barre 1-5, currants in casks , and wi ck i ng in bales. In almost every shipment were casks of wine, barrels of New England rum and jugs of brandy.
The Pierce finm was doing business in the 1820’s. In 1829 they were doing a big business in imported nuts. In that year they delivered to Bowen Harrington, a Boston reta i ler, almonds, filberts and Eng I ish wa Inuts. I n the same year they showed their abi lity to supply the trade with the wherewithal for writing pens. On October 5 they shipped to Billings Smith 1,000 Russian quills.
A frequent item is a frail of dates. Do you knOll what a frai I is? Our old friend Webster tells us it is a basket made of rushes, for figs or raisins. Apparently the Pierces also used it for other things — not only for dates, but also for nuts, because in 1829 they sent toJ. W. Cummings one frail of almonds.
As I ate as 1831 the charges were in fracti ons of a do II ar. By that time the big wholesalers, like the Pierces, had abandoned charges in shi Ilings and pence — a pract ice wh ich some of the country storekeepers continued up to the Civi I War. But they did avoid cents as a unit charge, using instead fractions of a dollar. For instance~ Madei ra wine is listed at 3 3/8 dollars a cask, cigars at 16k dol lars a thousand. The barrel in which sugar was shipped was charged at 1/6 of a dollar.
By the Pierce accounts it looks as if customers sometimes waited eagerly for goods. For instance~ on September 30~ 1834 the firm shipped to nine different customers various quantities of hemp seed from L. A. Coolidge’s three barrels to lona Merriam’s single bushel.
These old records show that casti Ie soap was in the market as early as 1832, when the Pierces sold a box to George Carlton and half a box to J. H. Everett. Do any of you remember what we ca lied pure casti Ie soap fi fty years ago? It came in bars about 18 inches long, and in the old Bridgton store we used to cut it on order and sel I it by weight. It is the only store soap I can remember that di d not come in ready-to-se II bars. There was other soap that came unwrapped, however, a Ithough” the wrapped ye liON ears of Lenox, We I come and Good Wi I I soap had become fami liar by 1900.
Are you in·terested in some of the prices charged by Silas Pi.erce more than a century ago? Remember these are wholesale prices. Retai I prices would have been somewhat higher. Bourbon whiskey was 90 cents a gal Ion; whale oi I was expensive, at 85 cents a gallon; vinegar brought 10 cents a gallon; rock salt was 3 cents a pound; wh i te f lour $11 a barre I; brown sugar 14k cents a pound.
Some of the Pi erce sh i pments went a long way. In 1857 -. il~y 5’=’111 OUT one oraer amounting to nearly four thousand dollars. It was consigned to John Giro at Malaga, Spain. It included 8~300 barrel staves, 10 bundles of laths, 150 barrels of resin, 160 barrels of rye flour, 200 of Southern flour, 200 of Brandywine corn meal, 50 bags of beans, 50 of white flat corn, 10 barrels of pork and 50 bushels of peas. Charges for carting amounted to $37, and wharfage to $27. Insurance, charged to the consignee, was $23, but he was credited with $4 .00 for short we i ght on the rye f lour.
Li steners ki nd I y respond to my many requests. You will reca II that one of ‘those requests was for more information about Maine men who went to California at the time of the gold rush. Arthur Dutton of East Vassalboro has sent me a very i nteresti ng letter wri tten by one Anson Den i co from San Franci sco to Zaki n BUTterfield in Maine. Dated October 26, 1851, the letter says:
HThrough mud and rain, heat and cold, I arrived at this city on October 17. I had lost all my clothing on the isthmus. Wh-atclothes I wore from there I bought in Panama, and when Ie ft I had on Iy ten dol lars in my pocket. By good I uck I fe II in with Samue t Sou Ie from Skowhegan. He is dea ling pretty largely in lumber, taking it out of ship and carrying it to different parts of the city. I hi red with him in his lighter. He pays me six dollars a day. Aside from board, I can live as cheap here as I can at home.
UAbout 16 men from Skowhegan came through with me. Not one of them had money enough when they arrived to take them to the mines. Soule lent them money to go with and offered me the same to go with them, but two of them fel I sick and there was no one to take care of them but me. Then too I can get my six dollars a day all winter, so I shan’t go to the mines. I saw John Page night before last. He came down from Sacramento and was going back the next day_ He has been I ame ever since he got here, and has not done any work at a I r:l but was forTunate enough to fall in with friends from Augusta, who helped him. There is more friendship here in one day than there is in Maine in seven years. A man need not go hungry and, as for clothes, I can pick up better in the street then half the people wear in Vassalboro, with some few exceptions, like the Sons of Temperance. You know why I came out here. It was to raise money to make up loss and damage which befell Albert and his fami Iy througn rrry fault. I think at six dollars a day I sha II soon be ab Ie to pay him. Te II Charles McFadden not to be alarmed about what lowe him, for if God spares my life and health for one year here inCa Ii forn i a, every man I owe in Ma ine sha J I have thei r pay. I hated to come away owing so many, but I couldn’t help it. I am not quite sure of all of my debts, because my memorandum book was lost with the rest of my th i ngs on the isthmus.
“I musT now close my letter to take care of the sick for the night. Tell Andrew one of my patients is the old gentleman I thought once would be his father- in-Iaw, Mr. Tickman, Esq. of Skowhegan. Give my best respects to’al I the folks in Vassalboro. Yours, Anson Denico.”
Anson Den i co was not the on I y Ma ine man inCa Ii fom i a who remembered his debts to Zakin Butterfield and others. Nine years after Denico’s letter, John Page, one of the men mentioned by Denice, wrote to Butterfield on November 20, 1860:
“Friend Butterfie Id. I received your letter last mai I and was glad to hear from you. wi II enclose a draft of fi fty dollars and wi II send you another soon. I suppose you will say to yourse I f when you rece i ve th is, why d i dn ‘t he send me more. have enough due me in California to pay you twice as much, but I can’t get it at present. California isn’t what it used to be. It is what I owe you thaT keeps me he re • As soon as I get you pa i d up, I sha I I be getti ng home. never knew what it was to be from home before. God only knows the lonesome hours that I spend here thinking of the comfort that I once had that now lays in yonder graveyard. can’t do it. Answer this that J. O. Page.”
wi sh I cou I d express my fee lings to you, but may know you received it. Give my love to all.
Year: 1955