Radio Script #1044

Little Talks on Common Things
March 23, 1975

At the end of last week’s broadcast, we left Henry David Thoreau at the Grand Falls of the Penobscot on his way to Mount Katahdin in 1846. About 20 miles above the falls they came into the smooth water of Quakish Lake. There they got their first clear view of Katahdin and on the bank was a deserted logging camp which had been the last human habitation in the region. Beyond it there was no trail. Rivers and lakes provided the only route to the mountain.

Thoreau says: “We are now on the tableland between U.S. and Canada, the northern side drained by the St. John and the Chaudiere, the southern side by the Penobscot and the Kennebec. The country is a whole archipelago of lakes in the biggest lake country in New England. We are told that, at high water in the spring, the Penobscot and the Kennebec are so close together that you can lie down with your face in one and your toes in the other.”

The account continues: “We poled half a mile up the river beyond the logging camp, then rowed across a large lake stretching northwest for ten miles. A few miles on we came to Ambajejus, one of the most beautiful lakes we had seen. We had excellent views of Joe Mary, Double Top and Katahdin. To get here we had to make four portages.”

“The next day”, says Thoreau, “we started out on foot over a stretch of upland for Mount Katahdin. We saw traces of bear and moose. We made frequent pauses and covered only eight miles before noon. At length we reached an elevation sufficiently bare to afford a view of the summit, still distant and blue. I took advantage of the little daylight left to climb Katahdin alone. We were then in a deep, narrow ravine sloping up to the clouds at an angle of 45 degrees, hemmed in by walls of rock. Pulling myself up by the roots of birches, I then ascended, by huge steps, as it were, a giant’s stairway. Thus I began to work my way up the nearest but not the highest peak. I was soon beyond the tree line, and from successive shelves could look back on the vast forest. At last I reached the top of a kind of side mountain, replete with gray, silent rocks. Then I returned down to my companions.”

It is clear in that short time, between late afternoon and sunset, Thoreau could never have been on Katahdin itself, but on one of the lesser peaks.

The next morning the whole party set out to go up the big mountain. Thoreau himself turned out to be the best climber, for he had soon left the others behind. In a short time, he was in the clouds that covered the summit. When at last he reached the top, it was “like sitting in a chimney waiting for the smoke to blow away”. Knowing that his companions would be anxious to get back to the river before dark, Thoreau reluctantly left the summit just as the clouds were clearing sufficiently for him to see the land below. He found the rest of the party right where he had left them, on the side of the mountain.

He says, even from that partial elevation the view was magnificent, extending west and south for fully a hundred miles. All was the ancient forest, not a single clearing, not a house. There were lakes and mountains still unnamed, whose titles were known only to the Indians.

The next day the party began their return journey, down Murch Brook to an open meadow and across open land to the Penobscot. He says: “We debated whether we should go up river to Gibson’s clearing on the Sourdnahunk. Our provisions were getting low, so we skipped the area where McCauslin had previously logged. After several miles of open river and portages around three falls, we came to the long three miles of Rippogenus Portage. Even there we were a hundred miles from the source of the Penobscot, whose entire length is 275 miles.”

At length they were back at Uncle George’s farm, where they had been so well received on the way up. There they got a bateau with men to pole it, to take them back to Mattawamkeag. Concluding his account, Thoreau wrote: “Though railroad and telegraph have reached the shores of Maine, the Indian still looks out from her interior mountains. The City of Bangor stands 50 miles up from the Penobscot’s mouth. Navigable from there to the sea, the river permits the commerce of large vessels to make Bangor the state’s principal lumber port with a population of 12,000, but still being close to the forest, from which its buildings were constructed, though the buildings themselves overflow with the latest refinements from Europe. Yet only a few axemen have gone up the river into the howling wilderness.

“For twelve miles above Bangor there are towns and Indian islands owned by the Penobscot tribe. There are bateaux, canoes and the military road. But 80 miles above Bangor begins a country virtually unknown and unexplored where still exists the virgin forest of the New World. In this vast region, river and lakes in summer and their covering of ice in the winter, provide the only highway. Here, as no where else in New England, man can be alone with Nature and with Nature’s God.”

In the Redington Museum of the Waterville Historical Society is one of the largest collections of old schoolbooks to be found anywhere in Maine. Some of them were published in Hallowell, which during the first twenty years of the nineteenth century was the largest publishing center north of Boston. Others of the books were published in various New England towns and cities. I want today to call your attention to an old arithmetic printed in Exeter, New Hampshire, but extensively used in Maine schools. This one was apparently owned in a family in Albion. The book’s title page says: “American arithmetic adapted to the currency of the United States to which is added a concise treatise on the measurements of planes and solids. Compiled for the use of schools by Oliver Welch. Printed and published by Samuel T. Moses, Exeter, N.H., and for sale by him at wholesale or retail. Sold by Harrison Gray, Portsmouth, and by Parker Sheldon, Gardiner, Maine, also by the author at Waterville, Maine, 1821.”

That last phrase is intriguing. It shows that in 1821 the author of this arithmetic, Samuel Moses, was living in Waterville, but I have been unable to find his name in the tax lists of that period. On the back of the title page appears another name with possible Waterville connections. The text says: “Be it remembered that on the 13th day of July, 1813, Oliver Welch of Exeter, N.H. has deposited at this office the title of a book, to which he claims the right of author, called ‘The American Arithmetic’, R. Cutts Shannon, Clerk of the New Hampshire District.

Now it happens that one of the most illustrious names in the history of Colby College is that of Richard Cutts Shannon of the Class of 1862, who became a famous builder of railroads in South America, and gave to Colby its most unique building on the old campus, the Shannon Physics Building and Astronomical Observatory.

But that Civil War colonel could not have been the R. Cutts Shannon of the N.H. court, because Col. Shannon was not born until 1839, and his birthplace was New London, Connecticut. Yet the almost exact identity of the two names is not likely to have been accidental. The R. Cutts Shannon who registered this old arithmetic may indeed have been a relative and perhaps the very man for whom Colby’s Richard Cutts Shannon was named.

This particular book is actually of the fourth edition, showing that the sale had been good between 1813 when the first edition appeared and when this one came from the press in 1821. The fourth edition preface says: “Three thousand copies of the first edition, 4,000 of the second and 4,000 of the third have been sold since 1813, and the demand is increasing. Now in this edition are a few problems in lawful money. The decimal tables of weights and measures and money tables of the old world have been expunged. A short and easy system of bookkeeping, suitable to the farmer, mechanic and trader has been inserted.”

What we call proportion was in those days called the Rule of Three, and explicit instructions were given in this book for solving those ratio problems. There was a special section called Rule of Three in Decimals.

One page gave a listing of N.H. tax assessments, including a poll tax of one dollar, from 20 cents to 50 cents each for horses, and 40 cents for each ox. Orchard land sufficient to produce ten barrels of cider was assessed 20 cents. This is all followed by problems in computing taxes.

A long section is called Reduction of Coins. To explain it, we had better quote it word for word. “The former currency of New England reduced to dollars and cents. When the sum is in pounds only, divide by three. The quotient is dollars. If there is a remainder, annex three cyphers and continue dividing. The quotient will be in dimes, cents and mills.

“When the sum is in pounds, shillings, pence and farthings, to the pounds annex half the number of the shillings and two cyphers in decimals, if the shillings are even; if they are odd, annex the greatest even half and five tenths and one cypher in decimal; if there are pence and farthings, raise the sum by one if it exceeds twelve, by two if it exceeds 27. Put all the farthings thus increased in the place of tenths and hundreds and divide the whole by three. The quotient is in cents.”

No wonder the children of 150 years ago had trouble with arithmetic.

Mixture of various units was called allegation. Here is a problem in that area: “A trader mixes 60 gal. of rum at 90 cents, 62 gal. at 80 cents, and 40 gal. at 40 cents, with 10 gal. of water. What is the cost of the mixture by gallon?”

We are, of course, familiar with the liquid measures gills, pints, quarts and gallons. But did you know, as this old arithmetic tells us, that 42 gals. makes a tierce and 63 gallons a hogshead? Over in the Fort Halifax cemetery in Winslow, an old tombstone refers to a rum puncheon. From this old book we learn that a puncheon was 84 gallons. And with that salute to common measures 150 years ago, we must say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1975