Radio Script #281
Little Talks On Common Things
November 27, 1955
Should Congressmen be permitted to have business interests whi Ie they are in Congress? Should members of the House and Senate continue as partners or directors of companies doing business with the government, whi Ie cabinet officers are prohibited from such associations? In other words, if Congress is going to request a man who, at considerable sacrifice, sets out to serve his country, to eliminate al I direct contacts with business, of the kind in which Air Force Secretary Talbot engaged, then should not Congress apply the same principle to its own members?
Discussing this question a few months ago, U. S. News reported that one Congressman who had made a fortune in oi I led the move to exclude import of oi I from Venezuela. Business itself doesn’t like the present situation. In a speech inCh i cago I ast summer Clarence Randa II, stee I manufacturer, sa i d: !iAsk Congress to eliminate the double standard. Let them walk up to the barrel-head, divest themselves of their private holdings, or disqualify themselves from voti ng on issues that affect the i r own pocketbooks.!!
A I I that appears sound sense to me.
Car I Shorey, descendant of one of Watervi lie t sol dest fami lies ~ who has contributed often to this program, would like to hear from old friends at his present address in the South. Carl is now located at 705 13th Avenue, Vienna, West Virginia.
Ever since I first talked about the Coolidge murder case on this program five years ago, and when I was writing the two chapters which deal with that case in “Kennebec YesterdaysH, I have often wondered what happened to the principal witness in the Coolidge trial, Thomas Flint.
You wi I I perhaps recal I that Thomas Flint, son of State Senator Flint of Anson, was studying medicine in Dr. Coolidge’s office.~ that Cool i doe had led him to believe Ed Mathews had died by his own hand or accidental IV, and he help~ ed Coolidge carry the body down into the cellar. He had told al I of this frankly and convincingly at the trial, and his testimony had certainly done much to convict the wi Iy doctor.
Little did I know that a relative of Dr. Flint’s lives onlV a few mi les away from this station, in Madison. She is a orominent woman of Somerset County, who has kindly let me read the diary of her father!s own cousin. Dr. Thomas Flint. This woman’s grandfather and Thomas Flint!s mother were brother and sister.
Although the gracious lady has not asked me to refrain from giving her name in this account, I shal I not do so. Yet, as tell the story~ some of you who are listening wi I I not find it hard to identify her. Thanks to this new information I now know what happened to Thomas Flint. After the conviction of Coolidge, the young man went to Phi ladelohia where he graduated from medical school in 1849. In that vear his older brother Benjamin was one of many Maine youths who made their way to the California gold fields. Where Dr. Flint practiced during the next two years we do not know, but in 1851 he and his cousin Llewellyn Bixby of Norridgewock fol lowed Benjamin out to Cali forni a.
Let us see how the two young men were related. Benjamin and Anna Weston of Mad i son had two daughters, Electra and Fanny. Electra marri ed Wi I I jam F lint and became the mother of Dr. Thomas Flint; Fanny married Amasa Bixby, settled in Norridgewock, and became the mother of Llewellyn Bixbv. A daughter of Llewellyn, born inCa Ii forni a and spendi ng most of her life there, pub I i shed at Los Angeles in 1923 the diary of her father’s cousin and companion to California, Dr. Thomas Flint. The original had been preserved in the fami Iy for 68 years before Mrs. Sarah Bixby Smith took it to a printer. Two years later, in 1925, Mrs. Smith wrote a book of her own. Called HAdobe Days”, it narrated the events of her life as a girl on a California sheep ranch and in Los Angeles when it was a sma II, spraw ling town. She te lis de I i ghtfu Ily of her infrequent but memorab Ie vi s its to her re lat1ves in Ma i ne. On future programs I p Ian to te II you more about the delightful accounts in this woman’s book, but tonight we must conf i ne ourse I ves to the cous in of ~1rs. Smi th ‘s father, Dr. Thomas F lint}l star witness in Watervi lie’s fi rst murder case.
Dr. Flint and Llewellyn Bixby, after a tough journey across the Isthmus of Panama, finally arrived at a place in California called Volcano, a characteristic mining town not far from Sutter’s Mi I I, where had been made the discovery that started the gold rush of the Forty-Niners. Volcano was the point on the overland trai I to which the famous scout, Kit Carson, was accustomed to conduct emigrants, leaving them there to find their own way on to Sacramento or other towns.
At Volcano there awaited the two travelers Flint’s older brother Benjamin who, as we have already related, had come to California two years earlier. Within a few months other relatives arrived from Maine, unti I in the spring of 1852 there were at least a dozen uncles and cousins of the two Flints and Bixby living in the region of Volcano. They al I dabbled a bit in mining except Dr. F lint and L lewe llyn Bi xby, who ear Iy saw that prosperi tv I ay more sure Iy in supplying the miners than in taking the risky chance of getting a living as panner or prospector. The two had been in Volcano less than a week when they got jobs in a butcher shop. Within two months they owned the place. Ben Flint soon joined them. Another relative, Charles Stone, purchased the beef in Southern California and fattened it for market on the Buena Vista Ranch.
Because Dr. Flint owned a very accurate pair of apothecary scales and had a high reputation for honesty, miners came to him for weighing their gold dust.
He laid aside The money paid for that service for a carefully devised plan. In 1853 the plan came to fruition. Flint returned to Maine, then started west again, buying sheep and catTle on the way. Some Sunday evening I want to tell you how Dr. FI int and two other young men drove a big flock of sheep and some catt Ie a II the way from I I Ii noi s to Ca I i forn i a.
This venture enabled the two Flints and Llewellyn Bixby to buy the huge San Justo Ranch near Los Ange les. A I I three idffli t I~~ — ano eacn naa meanwh i Ie married a Maine girl — lived together on the ranch unti I 1870, when the Ben Flints moved to San Francisco and the Bixbys to Los Angeles. Dr. Thomas Flint remained in sole occupancy of the ranch unti I his death in 1904. But even before the three fami lies separated they had al I become prosperous. In 1862 they bui It an immense ranch house containing three separate sets of living quarters, a community parlor, office, dining room and kitchen.
It was the Civi I War that brought a boom of prosperity. There was tremendous demand for wool. The flocks increased, the wool brought higher and higher prices, and the three made so much money that they bought several other ranches.
Through the years the three partners operated as a bus i ness firm. Ch i efly interested in land and wool, they were the first to introduce Spanish Merino sheep into California. For eight years they operated the Coast Line Stage Co., which carried rnai I, express and passengers between San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Oi ego.
Flint, Bixby and Company was the first firm in California to undertake the manufacture of sugar from beets and established a factory at Alvarado in 1872. The death of Llewellyn Bixby in 1896 dissolved the fi rm~ the Flints taking over the northern properties and the Bixbys the southern. Dr. Thomas FI int’s oldest son,. Thomas Jr., became I ieutenant governor of Ca I i f 0 rn i a •
So it turned out that he who began his study of medicine with a murderer, then earned his degree aT a medical college (a rare disTinction in 1849) never practiced medicine regularly and professionally at all. Instead he became a bU~iness man and a rancher, made a lot of money, lived to the ripe age of 80, and died a wealthy man. And that, my friends, is what happened to Thomas Flint who, at the age of 23, had helped Dr. Valorus Coolidge dispose of Ed Mathews’ body ina ce II ar on WaTervi I Ie’s Ma i n Street.
In tTKennebec YesterdaystT I have to J d how Dr. Ambrose Howard of Sidney had a uniform charge of 17 cents for pul ling a tooth. I w~Te that this was the nearest amount tb the 16 2/3 cents that represented one shi I ling in New England.
Tt-e old account books show that common prices :were three shi II ings and six shi I lings, representing respectively 50 cents and one dollar.
The Thomas Almanac of 1797 shows that this valuation was not uniform throughout the fourteen states that then formed our nation. Here is the almanac’s table for Massachusetts, of which Maine was, of course, then a part: One shilling equals 16.7 cents; 2 shi Ilings equal 33.3 cents; 3 shi Ilings equal 50 cents. That was the rate also in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, Virginia and KenTucky. New York and North Carolina valued 8 shi Ilings for a dollar; New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland, 7 for a dollar: while South Carolina and Georgia had the low rate of 4s 8d for a dollar. The English and the French crowns were of equal value in American currency, 110 cents. In 1797 our own money had some coins that have long since disappeared. One was the s i I ver pi stareen or Twenty cent piece. There was The ha I f-p i stareen or dime, and the quarter-pisTareen or half-dime. There was a piece called “four’n hay”, four pence half penny, which represented one fourth of a quarter dollar;- or 6t cents. There was also a nine pence piece or 12t cents. It took a long time for our money to jel J down into its present denominations. Long after the nine pence piece,which in the Mississippi Valley was called the :tbit”, had disappeared, Westerners continued to cal I a quarter two bits and a half dollar four bits.
That same old almanac of 1797 contains a saying that few youn9 men have ever heeded and which today it is not quite cricket to fol low. But in the days when every girl was expected to bring her husband a dowry, it was a saying good enough to make its way into the a I manac . I t says, ‘fA fa i r wife without a fo rtune is a fine house without furniture”. And with that outworn saying we bid you good night for old times’ sake.
Year: 1955