Radio Script #345
Little Talks On Common Things
September 8, 1957
Wei I, here we are again, resuming these little talks after a respite during July and August. Tonight’s broadcast begins the tenth year of this program, and as you know, it has, since its start, had one continuous sponsor, the Keyes Fibre Company. Have you noticed that this is one of the few radio programs that has never been interrupted by advertising? It has never had one of those si Ily singing commercials. It has never urged you to buy anything. As the program opens, you are told that it is presented as a public service by the Keyes Fibre Company, makers of Chi net and Savaday plates and dishes and Keysite plastic tableware. Then at the end you are told that the program has come to you by courtesy of Keyes. That has been the complete extent of the sponsor’s statements on this program. I submit that, carried on continuously for nine years and now entering its tenth, that is a kind of radio advertising a lot of people commend.
Are you going to vote tomorrow? Of course there are no candidates to vote for, no offices to fi I I. So why bother to go to the pol Is? What difference does it make? It makes a lot of difference. The exercise of the referendum, the right of the people to give final approval or disapproval to certain acts of the legislature, is a democratic right which we must not take lightlv. If it turns out that few people care enough about the issues to vote, the time may come when none of the legislative measures wi I I be submitted to referendum, and we shal I indeed be subjected to government by the few regardless of the wi I I of the many.
I am not tel ling you how to vote tomorrow. I am simply urging you to vote as your conscience dictates on the five referendum items. The state is not te I ling you; it i s ask i ng you i f you app rove an eventua I borrowi ng of $24 mi II i on by the state so that we can be assured of federa I funds for interstate highways. You are asked whether the State’s credit shall be placed behind mortgage guarantees for new industrial plants. Do you approve a single, fouryear term for governor? Shall the election date be changed from September to November? Sha J I the State fi nance ferry servi ce to certai n Penobscot Bay i slands?
Finally, there is a local issue. Shall ~Jatervi lie have a full-time tax assessor? Everyone of these issues has been fully ai red in the .newspapers and over radio and television since the legislature adjourned last May. There has been a chance for every voter to make up his or her mind about them. If you stay away from the polls tomorrow, that in itself is your vote that you do not care about democratic government, that you don’t want the people to decide. So go to that extra bit of troub Ie to vi sit your po I ling p I ace, mark Yes or No on each of the questions on the ballot, and deposit it in the bal lot box. Have you got what our forefathers cal led the good old Maine gumption? Wei I, then, show it: vote tomorrow!
Last spring I devoted some time on this program to the Aroostook War of 1839. I want to tell you tonight about a Winslow family that took part in those troublesome days in Maines northernmost county. One of the early settlers of what is now the town of Caribou was Ivory Hardison. His son Jacob, some twenty years afterward, wrote an account of the whole experience. Let me now give it to you in Jacob Hardison’s own words. He wrote:
T’ln the spring of 1839 my father, Ivory Hardison, and myself, then a boy of 15, wi th a coup Ie of other men, left our home in Vii ns low to seek a new home in the wi I de rness of Northe rn A roes took. As the re was no road from Hou I ton to Presque Isle at that time, our only way was to take the Aroostook road leading from Mattawamkeag and go through Patten to Township 15, Range 5. From there to Ashland there was only a winter road. Over those roads we managed., with considerable difficulty, to haul our supplies. At last we reached ~·1asardis, the end of the road” having been five days on the way from Patten, 35 mi les.
!t\ve soon decided to go farther down the Aroostook River; so, sending our team back to Patten, we bui It a raft. Packing our supplies on it, we set adrift to seek a place that suited us for settlement. We reached the mouth of Presque Isle stream in one day. Here we met Mr. Cunningham, who was surveying on Letter H” Range 2, the area afterwards known as Caribou. So we landed at an old lumber camp, occupied during the previous winter by Canadian lumbermen, who had abandoned it on hearing news of the approach of Maine troops. They left tons of fine timber on the landings.
!fA fter the sign i ng of the \’/ebster-Ashburton Treaty, my father got c I ai m to a fine lot of this abandoned timber. By merely paying the stumpage, he was able to float it all down the river and sell it profitably at St. John.
“Going a mi Ie and a half west of this camp, we bui It a bark shelter. Then we joined a survey party to layout a road from Caribou to Presque Isle. In the fal I of 1839 we returned to \~inslow and in the spring of 1842 father and I returned to Aroostook. During our absence a road had been partly bui It between Houlton and Presque Isle, and we came that way. But we found that new road so bad that we had to leave our wagon and pack all our supplies, including corn and wheat, on our horses. Upon reaching the Aroostook River at Maysvi I Ie, we fol lowed it down to our new home. We burned and cleared the chopping we had cut in 1839, and on the cleared space we planted our wheat and corn. We then bui It a log house of squared timber, and placed in one end a huge stone fireplace.
“Having harvested our small crops, in early December we started for China._ Maine, where the fami Iy was then staying. On February 14, 1843 we again set off for Aroostook, this time with all members of the fami Iy — Father, Mother, and seven chi Idren. As no road had yet been opened from Presque Isle to Caribou, we drove down the Aroostook River on the ice. On February 23 we reached our Aroostook home. Although we had no neighbors within four mi les, we were al I content, for we were indeed monarchs of al I we surveyed.
ilSoon after our arr iva I, the snow became so deep that we cou I d not get out of the clearing, because we had no snowshoes. Our supplies began to run short, but fortunately we sti I I had the corn we had raised the year before. For six weeks al lour bread was made from corn ground in a sma I I coffee mi’ I. But we got through the winter somehow.tf
That is the story of how one fami Iy settled in Northern Aroostook, right at the time when Daniel Webster and Lord Ashburton were going through the long arguments that finally settled the disputed boundary line. The Hardisons made their new home right where the thriving business section of Caribou vi I lage now lies, and they settled there when, as Jacob put it, there were no neighbors within fou mi les. This was in the early 1840’s, when Winslow, the place which they left to go to the northern wi Iderness, had been an incorporated town for 70 years and Watervi lie was a thriving business community of 3,500 people. We think of al I of Maine being settled by folk from Massachusetts and other parts of the Atlantic seaboard. Jacob Hardison’s account shows that some of our Maine settlements were made by people who moved into~hem from the older towns within Maine itself.
Did you ever see an unprinted newspaper? Well, there are such, done by hand in just a very few copies, to be circulated among a select group of individuals. They thrived in the middle of the nineteenth century, and a few specimens of one of them were recently presented to the Colby Col lege Library by Howard Mott of Sheffield, Massachusetts. They carry the title nThe Chatham Seed, and were probably the work of a group of young men or older boys. The place of publication, the fictional Chatham, is not identified, but the contents of the paper make it clear that it was some town on the Kennebec River above Bath. My guess is that it was Hallowell.
Of the three copies now at Colby, only one is dated — January 12, 1848, but since that one has no volume and number designation, we cannot tel I how old the paper was at that time. Another of the copies is designated as Volume I, Number 4, but it carries no date. The third copy has neither date nor volume number.
To -some extent the paper was a burlesque. It had a lot of fun with some things and people in town, especially through its made-up, boisterous adverti si ng.
The paper’s masthead dec I ared that the pub I i cati on was “devoted to temperance, science, the arts, I iterature and news; advertisements inserted at usual rates. Pub I i shed at No.3 Larboard Row. G. Shepard & F. Crosby, pub I i shers. C. Drummond, editor.”
The ki nd of jolly writi ng that fi lied the Bee’s pages is shown by the foiI owi ng Pub I i c Noti ce: “The Reverend Bi shop Crosby (we i denti fy hi m as one of the publishers) is now in the city and wi I I be very happy to attend marriages, christenings, parties, etc. free of charge. re wi II lecture before the Lyceum, preach on Sundays, and go to the theatre in the evenings. Next Tuesday he wi II deliver a lecture on Chatham Academy, its uses, the memorable day it was fini shed, its exhibitions, etc. Then he wi II close with a very pathetic address upon the difficulty and dangers the founders confronted in bui Iding it, and upon the lives of the first young gentlemen who left that school and are now settled in different parts of the wor Id as DO’s, MD’s, I awyers and sadd Ie makers.”
Here are some of the shorter ads:
“For sa Ie at great barga ins: leather meda Is, 3 boot legs, 19 chai r bottoms. Purchasers are i nvi ted to ca II at Coo, Drummond & Company.”
‘~Lost! A pair of nice elastic drawers, slipped off as I was promenading on Main STreet. Please I~ave at No.4 Tin Pot Alley.ff
HFourid! A pair of damaged ladies si Ik gloves, also a black gentleman’s coat. I nqu i re at No. 3 Chatham Row.
“Found! An old pair of black stockings without any heels. Looked as if they had been well worn. For further particulars inquire of the editor.~’ tTF i r_s t rate oy ste rs for sa I e at No. 3 Ch atham Row. They wi I I save the purchaser much troub Ie, as they have been killed three weeks. They wi II not jump abouT in the fryi ng pan. A I so a good lot of parti a Ily chewed tobacco.”
uThe undersi gned has lost a va I uab Ie horse. The fi nder wi II be handsome Iy re\a{arded. The horse is brindle colored with white feet and has the spring halt slightly in the nigh hind leg. If left at Timothy Doolittle’s it wi” greaTly ob I i ge the ri ghtfu I owner, I chabod Crane.”
Next week I shall give you the Chatham Bee’s more serious account of what it ca lis a Water Excurs i on and sha II then let you know how I deduce that th is hand-writTen burlesque of a newspaper was produced at Hal lowe II. And now, as we close ton i ght I want to te I I you how the famous Siamese Twi ns of more than a century ago appeared in one Maine town. Some of you, from your reading about them, wi I I remember that those physically united twins from Siam were named Engand Chang. On July 13, 1838 a newspaper in Eelfast, the Waldo Patriot, printed the fol lowing advertisement:
“The united brothers, Eng and Chang, respectfully inform the ladies and gent lemen of Be I fast that they will be in that p I ace on Fri day and Saturday, July 13 and 14. They wi II receive visitors at the Eagle Hotel from 2 to 4 in the afternoon and from 7 to 9 in the evening. Admission 25 cents. Pamphlet containing an historical account of the twins, with many particulars never before published, can be purchased at their room. Price, with an engraved like- ness, 12t cents, with a lithograph, 18* cents. No readmission into the room.ll And with that solemn reminder, we bi~d you good night for old times’ sake.
Year: 1957