Radio Script #266
Little Talks On Common Things
May 15, 1955
We talk a lot about the American Way of Life, about American democracy.
Does Ameri can democracy differ from other democracies of the worl d? Has it any peculiar characteristics? What is its special genius?
We an3 so likely to define it as government of, by and for the people that our thinking about our democratic ways is too often restricted to the functions of American government. There are other democratic governments in the world:
Britain, France, Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries, the South American repub I i cs, and many more. But none of them is qu i te like the Un i ted States not only in respect TO size, productivity, economic standard of. living, and na..,: tional wealth, but on the more important respect of how we do things together.
To come quickly to the point, I think the genius of American democracy lies in voluntary associaTions. It is not the things government makes us do or does for us that lies at The heart of the American way; it is rather the American habit, from the time of the Pi Igrim fathers, of banding together voluntari Iy into organizations and societies to accomplish definite aims. Let me give you just two examples. One concerns the first New England settlement at PlymouTh; the other is characteristic of the opening up of the West.
The Plymouth seTtlers \’V,ere ptain, conmon folk of England. They came to stay, burning their bridges behind them. They established on our shon3s both religion and government by common consent, by agreed contract. That was something new in the world. Let us see how this heritage of voluntary association, wh i ch means so much TO us 335 years later, actua Ily began.
As a group these people made a group decision to emigrate to the unknown land. The agreed church covenant they already had, a contract between members of the group and their God. But before one of them stepped foot on the new land they came to another agreement, made another voluntary association. Today history calls it the famous MayflOtier Compact. By it they agreed to combine themselves together into a body politic to regulate their common affairs. Plymouth became a voluntary community, the beginning of what was to become in 1776 the idea of a nation by act of common agreement among the Sons of Liberty.
The Plymouth idea offered a formula for social living. It used the instrument of voluntary association to regulate al I relationship among people -their relationship to church and God, to earthly government, to getting a livelihood, to marriage and fami Iy, to the ownership of land. Thus, at the very beginning of New England settlement, voluntarism stands out as the American Way.
Now let us look at a second example, the way our forefathers settled the West. Before the dawn of the nineteenth century settlers came from New England to what is now Ohio. Rufus Putnam, a Revolutionary War veteran from Massachusetts led a band of New Englanders in 1788 to a place on the Ohio River that became, in time, the City of Marietta, the first permanent settlement in Ohio.
Like the ~i Igrims in 1620, the settlers of Marietta found themse Ives without organized government. So they themselves formed a voluntary association cal led the Ohio Company. With apparently no need for formal government, they proceeded to run their community affairs, dividing the land, naming the streets, setting up iron and flour mi I Is, preparing for defense against the Indians, and going on to provide for schools, for preaching, for roads, and for care of paupers.
The frontier Cqbins were bui It by community effort, like the barn raisings in New England. The land was cleared by teamwork, the corn was husked at husking bees, the household bedding was prepared at qui Iting parties. A society that could develop the house raising, the husking bee, and the qui Iting party was scarcely devoted solely to rugged individualism. Its essence was certainly social and cooperative.
The same thing characterized those supposed rugged individualists, the Forty-Niners. In 1849 George Kimba I I, down near Ca I a is on our Ma ine coast, started cutting timber to bui Id a ship that would take him around Cape Horn to the California gold fields. Ready for launching in November, she was christened the “California Packet”. Off she sailed with a hundred in her company, a II of them sharehol ders. On board were ten wives, sixteen unmarri ed women and fifteen chi Idren — clear evidence that a permanent settlement was intended.
How were their affairs managed on the long voyage? Ho.-I were plans made for settlement? By the established American custom of voluntary association. When General Ri ley was sent out from Washington, he reported that local officers, elected by;the community which Kimball had establ ished near Sacramento, were preserving order and protect; ng the ci ti zens, a Ithough no forma I I aw backed up the i r authori ty. Bayard Tay lor, then a newspaper reporter out from the East to observe what was going on in the gold fields, wrote: ”When a placer is discovered, the first thing done is to elect officers.T!
There is much more to the story of America’s voluntary associations. They can be traced ri ght down to the present day. They are, in fact, a II about us.
And more power to them, for they represent the essential genius of American democracy.
Mr. D. E. Decker of CI inton is constantly call ing our attention to interesting items of Maine history. He says one of the constructions worth seeing in Central Maine is the suspension bridge across the Carrabassett River at West New Portland. Bui It in 1840, it is sti II in use, says Mr. Decker. The cables were made in England, shipped to Hallowell, whence they were hauled by oxen to West New Portland. The bridge, suspended on wire cables, is 200 feet long. Mr. Decker also mentions what has long been called the Red Paint Indian vault near The Forks. I have never heard of any finds in or near that stoneuui.
I ~1r’U(;lur~ ,naT Inolcated its construcTion by the Red Paint Indians. Furthermore there is no evidence that those strange people ever built anything of stone. The wa II of th is vau It, so-ca lied, aT The Forks is made of f I at stones laid up wiThout mortar or binding of any kind. No one knows when or by whom it was bui It, but most certainly, in spite of local legend, it was not by the Red Pa i nt I nd i ans •
Now leT me tell you the amazing s~tory of an old time minister. In 1763 Rev. John Schaeffer came from Germany to the a I ready estab I i shed settlement of Broad Bay, now the village of Waldoboro. There he established a German Lutheran Church. In time, outside the German speaking seTtlement, he became known as the Reverend Shepherd.
He also practiced medicine as a doctor and gained much fame and wealth by letting blood and dealing out medicine. He made the Germans believe they had to be bled every spri ng, for wh i ch he got fi fty cents a head. As a mi ni ster he charged staTed fees for every funera I, marri age and bapti sm, and collected before he performed the rites. He engaged in navigation, took the lumber of the illiterate Germans, liquidating the sales to his own profit. Many a poor man had to work a week for him to pay for the annual fami Iy bleeding, and when considerable sickness occurred a whole sloop load of wood went to pay the doctor’s b i I I •
The man was very profane, grew intemperaTe, and, though a stirring preacher, gradually lost all influence as a minister. Rev. Alexander McLean of Perna,;,,; quid, leader of the Congregationalists in all the settlements east of the Piscataqua, considered Shepherd an ignoramus and a quack. Shepherd used to excuse his improper conduct by saying, ‘~hen I have my black coat on, den I am a mini ster; but when I have my green coat on, den I am a doctor. T! He conti nued to preach unti I 1789, Though his influence with the people was much diminished by his reck less conducT.
The region around Muscongus Bay seems to have been unlucky in its early ministers. A man somewhat of Shepherd’s stamp, but even more of a charlatan, John Urquart, came from Scotland to what is now the town of Warren in 1775 to preach in the vii lages of Warren and St. George. The people engaged him as thei r mi ni ster for a settlement fee of 100 pounds and ann,ua I sa lary of 80 pounds. He was handsomely welcomed by the Scotch setTlers at Warren. He came across the Atlantic without fami Iy, but announced thaT his wife would soon join him.
His meetings were wei I attended, people coming on foot through the woods and up the river in boats. He visited the cabins, catechised the chi Idren, and ma i nta i ned a ri gi d church disci pi i ne. ffHi s person was unga in Iy, his manner awkward, and his conversation not agreeable”, says an old chronicle. He bui It a home on the lot set aside for the first minister. But his wife did not come. His affection for her seemed to have waned. He told some of the local ladies that he was sorry he had married in Scotland, that he could suit himself better here. He spread word that he soon expe~ted a letter with a black seal, bringi ng news of his wife’s death.
It seems that the feminine catch of the time was a daughter of Captain McIntyre, a prosperous shipmaster of Warren. She was being courted by a young man of her own age, Isaac Wi ley. When she attracted the attention of the Rev. Urquart’s roving eye, he promptly spread malicious rumors about young Wi ley and succeeded in breaking up the match. Then the minister appeared in black mourning garb, exhibiting a letter with a black seal. Someone, possibly a friend of Wi ley’s, kept call ing the townspeople’s attention that Urquart had never shown anyone the contents of the Jetter. Urquart to I d them he had lost it. “How di d he fi rst recei ve it~l he was ~asked. i!From two strangers who crossed on the ferryH, he rep lied. But no one had seen any strangers.
In 1778 his parishioners were fed up, and the town voted not to pay Urquart any more salary. He married Miss Mcintyre and sued for his ministerial pay. Several times the court ruled against the town, with the result that in 1780 the town meeting voted to continue the man as minister and reached a settlement with him on the arrears of pay. Again in 1782 they tried to get rid of him, this time appeal ing to the presbytery. That group of fe Ilow clergymen., however, defended Urquart and censured the town.
The next year, in 1783, an unsea led I ette r reached Warren from London. Though addressed to Urquart, its unsealed condition al lowed it to be read by several persons before, in those informal postal days, it reached the minister.
It was from the wife he had left behind in Scotland and in recognition of whose death he had donned mourning garb. The lady was very much alive and fighting mad. She managed to get to Phi ladelphia, where she supported herself and her daughter by spinning cotton, then somehow came under the charity of President Witherspoon at Princeton University.
Correspondence fai ling to get any help from Urquart, the woman came in person to Warren. Four man of the church accompanied her to Urquart!s house. As one of them later reported, “The minister was thunderstruck, abashed, confounded”.
The angry woman drove the second wife home to her father, and herself took charge of the minister’s house. But she soon left him and threw herself on the hospitality of friends. The second wife returned, and the first then resorted to law. Reuben Tolman of Warren agreed to help her. He went to Castine and got himself appointed deputy sheriff. Returning with a warrant, he went with the estranged first wife to Urquart’s house. They found him up but his second wife and chi Idren sti I I in bed. The first wife went berserk, breaking furniture, tearing up clothes, and yelling wi Idly. Urquart, on pretext of changing his clothes, escaped out a window. He was soon caught and taken before a magi strate. The fi rst wi fe got his farm, wh i Ie he with his new fami Iy moved off to Canada.
Now don’t get the idea that all the old-time ministers were like Shepherd and Urquart. Quite the contrary, those men were start I ing exceptions. But they m~st have made life interesting down on Muscongus Bay in the eighteenth century.
And so we must now say Good Night for old times’ sake.
Year: 1955