Radio Script #1171

Little Talks on Common Things
October 1, 1978

My interest in words, so often expressed on this program, extends to names of persons. Recently I ran through the roster of National Congress, both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Altogether, in the two houses, there are 535 persons, 100 in the Senate, 435 in the House. What about Congressional surnames that represent common things?

Congress has two birds, a fish, a church, a tower, a baker, two brooks, and a stone. To keep members alert it has a bellman and a sparkman. The House recently lost its Rivers, but it kept its Fountain. It has both a Carr and a Waggoner. Of course it has to have a Butler, and to lift it out of the doldrums a Crane. Though we lost a Ford from the presidency, there are still two in the House. A few years ago we had a Gunn in the House, but he was replaced by a Cannon. In the whole Congress there is no one named Head, but it does have a Hart. There is no Short, but there are three Longs; no Black but one White; no one named House, but a lady member named Keys. Some years ago Congress had a Bloom, and it now has a Flower and a Rose. Congress may have lost its mass of 19th century whiskers, but now it has two Beards.

There is a long list of Congressional names that one mayor may not consider appropriate for the job. They include Joseph Early of Alabama, Philip Sharp of Pennsylvania, Harry Hyde of Illinois, Robert Nix of Pennsylvania, Larry Winn of Kansas, John Slack of West Virginia, and Harley Staggers of the same state. Perhaps most noticeable of all is the Representative from Guam, Antonio Won Pat.

If you want to think about welfare, there is Robert Dole of Kansas. If you dwell on inflation and taxes, there is Malcolm Wallop of Wyoming and Dale Bumpers of Arkansas. For an optimistic way out of today’s mess, turn to Orin Hatch of Utah, who may help us escape J. J. Pickle of Texas.

When one turns to the subject of most common American surnames, he is likely to find that in any group he examines, the commonest name may no longer be Smith. That is true of our Congress. Four of those 535 persons have the same name. That name is neither Smith nor Jones, but Evans. Congress does have three Joneses, three Edwardses, three Mitchells, three Browns, three Murphys, three Wilsons and three Youngs. In the Senate there are only two members with the same surname, both good fliers. That body’s only independent is Harry Byrd of Virginia, and the Senate’s majority leader is Robert Byrd of West Virginia.

Appropriately, women are steadily increasing their numbers in the House of Representatives, though after Maine’s distinguished Margaret Chase Smith left the Senate, there was no woman in that body until Muriel Humphrey of Minnesota was appointed to complete the term of her late husband, Hubert Humphrey. Each of five states has two women in the House: California, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Tennessee. Other states represented by the distaff side are Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts and Virginia.

There is no question that a lot of power in the Congress resides in Committee chairmen. Because of the seniority rule that was only recently a bit broken, it was long felt that the south held excessive congressional power because it had so many committee chairmen. That is no longer true. In the Senate there are fifteen standing committees. Of those fifteen chairmen, only six come from the south. There are two from Mississippi, and one each from Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and West Virginia. Three are from New England: Maine, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Three come from the Far West, two of them from Washington, the other from California. The Middle States have only one; he is from New Jersey. And there is only one from the Mid-West, a senator from Wisconsin.

Distribution of chairmanships in the House is much the same. In that body there are 22 committees, of which four chairmanships are held by the state of Texas. But the Middle Atlantic States fare better in the House than in the Senate. New York and New Jersey each has two chairmanships, and Pennsylvania one. New England fares worse. Its only chairmanship is held by Connecticut, but we should remember that the most important office in that branch of Congress, the speakership, is held by O’Neil of Massachusetts. The Far West has four chairmen, one each from Arizona, California, Oregon and Washington. Representing the Middle West are chairmen from Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Kentucky and Iowa.

We have now devoted a large part of this broadcast to a contemporary subject, the United States Congress. It is time now to turn to our more usual theme, happenings of long ago.

Just a little more than a hundred years ago, on October 5 to 7, 1875, there was held in Waterville what was called the Show and Fair of the North Kennebec Agricultural Society. That was long before the days of the more celebrated Central Maine Fair that we old timers knew so well. At the Redington Museum is preserved a large printed sheet on both sides of which is detailed the full program for those three days, with information about prizes.

The Fair opened on Tuesday, October 5, with an exhibition of cattle, sheep, swine and poultry, and pulling by oxen and horses. The program tells us “The Exhibition at the Hall will open in the evening with a Family Levee, for a pleasant social time. The program for Wednesday included examination of horses and colts, and a plowing match. There was no horse racing on Tuesday, but Wednesday saw three trotting classes. A purse of $20 to mares or geldings four years old; one of $15 for three-year old colts; and a purse of $35 for stallions owned within the limits of the Society. The climax of horse racing came on Thursday. A purse of $20 to the best gentleman’s driving horse in a carriage; and the grand $100 prize race for horses wherever owned – the bang up race that later fairs called the Free For All.

We all know that fairs long offered prizes for best animals and poultry, for vegetables and fruits, for displays of flowers. But did you know that prizes were once given for farm implements? At that 1875 Fair there were prizes for the best sward plow; for the best harrow or other implement for pulverizing the soil; for the best corn sheller, the best stump puller, the best rock lifter, the best ox yoke, and the best hay fork. Of course there were prizes for household manufactures – the best woven cloth of wool and the best one of flax, the best hearth rug, the best wool shawl, the best bed quilt and the best knit stockings. One unusual prize offered was one dollar for the best display of dentistry, although about as unusual and probably more odorous was the best display of manure.

Members of the Agricultural Society were admitted to the grounds without charge. Non-members had to pay 15 cents each day, and 25 cents for a seat at the races.

The officers of the North Kennebec Agriculture Society a hundred years ago were Ephratm Maxham, editor of the Waterville Mail, President; Obiah Emery, vice-president; J. M. Garland, secretary; Joseph Percival, treasurer. The trustees were John Ellis, H. L. Garland, Nathan Perry and George Shores.

Very few persons now living remember the once well known Colby College janitor, the black Samuel Osborne. He was a colorful figure in more ways than one, and was probably better remembered by students who attended Colby between 1870 and 1900 than was any member of the faculty. I have mentioned that gracious, friendly black citizen of Waterville several times on this program. Today I want to close this broadcast with what Sam’s daughter, Marian Osborne Matheson wrote about him in 1950, nearly half a century after his death. Here it is in Marian’s words: “A boy was born in an Osborne family on October 20, 1833, in Lanesville, Virginia, on the plantation of Dr. William Wellford. He had two older brothers and a sister. This fourth child was named Samuel. A few years later, in the nearby Iverson family was born a girl named Maria, who later became Mrs. Samuel Osborne. At their birth, both were slaves. While Sam was a small boy, his owner Dr. Wellford moved to Fredericksburg, where he took both the Osborne and the Iverson families. After the doctor’s death, Mrs. Wellford showed her devotion to those black families by stating in her will that both should always remain in the possession of the Wellford family, and never be sold. She further left money for the education of Sam Osborne, of whom she was especially fond, but the war changed all that.

“Sam was trained to be a cook, and Dr. Wellford leased him to a boy’s school, where Sam got his first acquaintance with young white men receiving an education. Soon Wellford recalled Sam from the school and made him the overseer of the plantation, in which position he remained until the Civil War broke out.

“When war ruined the Wellford finances, Sam Osborne was on his own. He found employment in the office of Col. Stephen Fletcher, Provost Marshall at Danville, Virginia, and after the war Col. Fletcher brought Sam to Waterville on May 22, 1865, only six weeks after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.

Sam worked in the Maine Central Shops from June to October 1865. Then he returned to Virginia to get his family, as well as his aged father and mother. He could not at once locate his mother, who had been taken away by one of the Wellford daughters, and not until two years later did Sam finally locate her in Washington, D. C.

“It was Sam’s father who first became the Colby janitor in 1866, but when he died in the next year, Sam succeeded him.”

And that is the interesting account of her father written by the daughter of Colby’s picturesque colored janitor of a hundred years ago.

Year: 1978