Radio Script #1188

Little Talks on Common Things
January 28, 1979

As we closed last week’s program, I told you this week you would hear more from the remarkable diary of that store clerk in Bangor 130 years ago, Benjamin Brown Foster.

In October, 1848, Foster recorded a scene of consternation at a wedding in Orono. “There was a horrid scrap at Elizabeth Parsons’ wedding. Dr. Perry was expected to marry them. He indeed prepared the usual bond certificate and had written her name on it. The day came, Sam Parsons, the bride’s brother, upon Dr. Perry’s failure to show up, rushed to Bangor to get Dr. Shepherd. He could not be found. He tried Dr. Pond, who declined. Off Sam sped to Dr. Pomeroy, but he too could not be located. Meanwhile at the Parsons’ house there was great agitation. At last someone found Dr. Perry, who had forgotten all about his appointment. It is the custom to place the fee in the bride’s book, when it is handed to the minister for final endorsement of the marriage, and the book is usually handed to the clergyman at the start of the ceremony. Sam handed the book to the clergyman, who opened it and seeing no fee, insisted that without his fee he could not proceed with the ceremony. So Sam took out his wallet and gave the clergyman two dollars. Perry pocketed the money, made the couple man and wife, donned his beaver, and speedily departed. After the splice, the young people were serenaded by horns and tin pans in a good, old fashioned chivaree. It was throughout a disgraceful performance.”

In November Foster made reference to liquor. “Did $7.50 worth of trade with one man from Bradley, including a quart of rum. This liquor business causes great influx of customers, especially from across the river. The rum we sold today amounted to a full quarter of our whole day’s business.”

Early in 1849 Foster made a change of employment. For an uncle he agreed to manage a general store at Weston, about 100 miles northeast of Old Town. That B. F. Brown store was not a typical country store, even for that time. Its principal business was in supplies for lumbermen, much like a much more famous store known to many people still living – the Saunders store at Greenville. Nearby the Brown store in Weston was the owner’s huge house that he used as a tavern, where he put up not only transient lumbermen, but gave more permanent residence to hired men, teamsters, cooks, carpenters, and a swarm of relatives.

In a February item Foster refers to a man who became renowned in the lumber industry. He wrote: “Peavey with two teams arrived today, and loaded here molasses, oil, raisins, and two barrels of flour. This helped make our days business the largest for some time, over $350.” Peavey was the man who invented the implement that bears his name, a most useful tool on the log drives.

In March 1848 Foster had an experience with wolves. Driving from Weston to a nearby lumber camp, he met two workmen who said they heard wolves off in the direction Foster was driving. Foster thought they were playing a joke and trying to scare him, but as he approached the thickest part of the woods, his horse picked up his ears, gave a snort and started to run. Foster looked back and saw what he described in the diary as “two lank, long specimens of the genus lupus. Luckily my horse’s speed was faster than theirs.”

In April Foster recorded the death of one of America’s first millionaires in these words: John Jacob Astor is dead. His fortune was at least 20 million. He finally eked out his life a complete imbecile, childish, weak, amused with toys and rags. Now he is gone. Each of his executors, one of whom is Washington Irving, will be paid $5,000 a year until the estate is settled. I suspect they will take their time settling it.”

Foster describes a common business practice of the time – what was known as transferred accounts. He wrote: “The 275 accounts we had opened are now reduced to half that number, yet not a dollar has been received on any of them. A lumber operator may have as many as twenty hired men, each with a separate account at our store. When settlement day comes, they are all charged over to the employer. Private citizens also transfer accounts from one to another. It is also common custom for a man to bring us a written order to let him have goods and charge them to the employer’s account.”

I may have neglected to say that running a store came easily to Ben Foster. His father had long operated a general store in Orono. When Ben returned home from his stint at his uncle’s store in Weston, he wrote: “Father’s liquor license expired and his trade has dropped sharply. We all had to pool funds to prevent foreclosure on the homestead mortgage. Father finally settled with his creditors on a percentage basis and closed the store.”

In July, 1848 Foster referred to the rising prominence of William Lloyd Garrison. “He shouted in Faneuil Hall that liberty and slavery cannot exist together, therefore the American Union is not one of liberty until slavery is abolished. I fear fanatics like Garrison do more harm than good.”

Evidently Ben Foster would not have approved of the heroic stand of a Maine man, Elijah Lovejoy, who twelve years earlier had been killed in Alton, Illinois because he persisted in printing in his paper articles demanding abolition of slavery.

That autumn Foster stated in the diary his reaction to a Somerset County man who was winning wide recognition, Dr. Mann of Skowhegan, a maker and distributor of remedies who also published a newspaper, about which I spoke on this program several years ago. Foster said: “For the first time I saw Dr. Angier Mann and heard his fearless attack on pepper sauce and calomel. He was not the raw, ignorant native I expected to see, but a well-dressed, fat, good-looking man. He may be a quack, but he is certainly original that Dr. Mann.”

“Nov. 7 – Father voted for Taylor instead of Van Buren. His call of self-service and independence speaks louder than Van Buren’s Free Soil. Van’s promised good times are a phantom ghost.”

In Maine, or elsewhere, people were always looking for the rainbow. In December Foster wrote: “There are reports of gold found near Katahdin. It is said that it has been assayed, that Veazie has bought 7,000 acres and will make a fortune without going to California.”

One of Ben Foster’s prejudices was his dislike for colleges. He wrote: “Deliver me from a collegiate course. How much precious time is wasted in committing useless absurdities in extinct languages. The company of one of those college men is a perfect bore. They can converse upon no subject but their studies.”

In April, 18.49 Foster made more direct mention of the gold rush. “The California fever has taken many from this community. Just to outfit them has taken a lot of money from these Penobscot towns. For one who finds gold, a dozen will find poverty.”

On another occasion, Foster deplored the poor farming soil of Maine. He wrote: “The lumber business is our total dependence. Maine is no farming country and has no other profitable resource except shipbuilding, and that does not affect our part of the state. We do have in our water power an undeveloped source of wealth, but we do not have the capital to make it profitable.”

Here is the entry for July 4, 1849: “Smell of powder, booming of cannon, snapping of crackers, rub-a-dub of drum, and blasting of a tuneless brass band, rockets and roman candles after dark.”

Many are Foster’s comments on the times in general that distinguish this diary from the more common kind that deals only with local events. In July, 1849 he wrote: “This is an age of change. Reform is the watchword. Dissatisfaction with all existing things is universal. . There is, however, one institution that presents a barrier to change in our nation. That is slavery. The Southern slaveholders have much political power, and they will, to the bitter end, oppose its abolition.”

In September, 1851, Foster tells of a journey. “Took the stage at 7:30 P.M. for Waterville, arriving there at 4 A.M. There I embarked on the nasty little steamer Baloon for Augusta, where I transferred to a better boat the J. D. Pierce for Bath, where I arrived at 1:30. Passed an hour in that dirty, seafaring place, then took the cars for Brunswick, which I reached at 3 P.M. Went to the Congress House, where the united literary societies of Bowdoin College provided an oration by Luther Bell, Supt. of the Vermont Insane Asylum. Bowdoin’s old president presided, wearing gown and square academical cap. The exercises were very ceremonious, interesting but not remarkable.”

Foster did not think well of the relatively new town at the falls of the Androscoggin, where he next visited. “Went to Lewiston, which seems hardly designed by nature for any great importance. With its five factories already built or under construction, anew railroad, and a canal being built, they expect wonders in fact another Lowell. But they will be disappointed. They are too far from the big markets.”

Let me close this account of Benjamin Foster’s diary with his single reference to Colby College. Written on July 19, 1852, it said: “Waterville students stole their college bell and sent it to Bowdoin’s president, with a note ‘Please exchange ‘. The president took it as a bonafide gift and paid the freight. Bowdoin students were human, suspicious. At night the freight house was entered and the bell was seized and shipped on to Jared Sparks, president of Harvard. A few days later the bell appeared again in Brunswick, but has now been restored to Waterville.”

And with this final reference to Colby’s Revere bell we must say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1979