Radio Script #1228

Little Talks on Common Thing
February 3, 1980

Most of the listeners to this program know that, in the first half of the 19th century the largest and most important community in Central Maine was Hallowell. To its wharves came the largest sailing vessels that crossed the world’s oceans, and it was second only to Portland as Maine’s most important trading port. For some time, its export and import trade exceeded that of Bath.

Long ago on this program I told about the establishment in Augusta, early in the 19th century, of that town’s first newspaper by Peter Edes, son of the publisher of the Boston Gazette, in whose family office had been organized the party that dumped British tea into Boston Harbor in 1773. Peter Edes left Augusta for Bangor in 1810 because he said he could not make a living in a town like Augusta that was so overshawdowed by its big neighbor, Hallowell, and Hallowell already had a printer.

Thanks to the courtesy of Melvin Flood of Fairfield, I have seen a bound volume of the Hallowell newspaper of those early days. It was called the American Advocate and was published by Nathaniel Cheever. It was a weekly paper costing $2 a year, half of which had to be paid in advance. The bound volume which Mr. Flood kindly let me examine contains the issues of August 30,1812 to July 2, 1814, a period of almost two years.

Like most newspaper offices, the Advocate’s did job printing. Its notice said, “Printing in its various branches, executed
with neatness and dispatch.” The Advocate was a four-page paper, 18 by 11 inches, printed on the hand-made rag paper customary at that time. In the bound volume, the first issue is dated August 30, 1812, but the paper had been in existence at least two years before that date. It is very gratifying to find so old a newspaper in a bound volume. Carefully preserved and as clearly readable as it was on the day when it came from the press. It makes for Mr. Flood, in 1980, a valuable possession. The reason why this paper is especially valuable is because it contains, for the two years that the bound issues cover, a running, contemporary account of the War of 1812, as it was viewed by people far up in the Massachusetts District of Maine.

We learn that Maine’s chief interest in the war concerned Maine ships, the privateers that preyed on British shipping. A
privateer was not a naval vessel, but was under private ownership to whose owners the government issued what were called letters of marque, allowing the vessel to seize ships of the enemy, turn them in at an American port and receive prize money in accordance with the value of the captured ship and its cargo.

On August 30, 1812, the Hallowell paper published this story: “A gentlemen arriving in Hallowell from Halifax informs us that the Maine privateer, Curlew, was captured by a British frigate and brought into Halifax, where its crew was imprisoned. That is bad news, but offsetting it we learn that the following enemy vessels were captured by American privateers during recent weeks: Brig Elizabeth and Esther with cargo of 20,000 pounds. Ship Henry bound for St. Croix, W.I., from Boston, with 700 hogsheads of sugar and 500 pounds of lignum vitae, (the ship itself was valued at $150,000); British schooner Providence, outside Boston Harbor, with cargo of linens and other goods valued at $40,000; Brig. Lady, with molasses and rum from the West Indies worth $22,000.

In September the Advocate proclaimed a naval victory that became famous in American history – the sea battle that made the Constitution the most famous of all American naval vessels. This is what the Hallowell paper said: “The U.S. Frigate Constitution anchored in Boston Harbor on Sunday morning after a short but brilliant cruise. The news of her splendid victory over His Majesty’s frigate Gueriere has thrilled all Americans. On August 2 the Constitution sighted the Gueriere and soon brought it into action. After a running fight of an hour, the two ships closed. Fire from the Constitution was so heavy that the Gueriere struck her colors in surrender. So badly damaged was the British ship that she could not be towed into port. So she was blown up at sea, but her crew was first put aboard the Constitution and taken into Boston as prisoners of war. The Gueriere was one of the largest of His Majesty’s ships, mounting 40 guns, a dozen of them the new, monstrous 32s. In the engagement she lost 15 men killed and 64 wounded. Not a single American was injured in the action, and the Constitution itself suffered very little damage.”

When this issue of the Hallowell paper appeared, the government was paying bonuses for men to enlist in the War of 1812. The paper noted, “Every able bodied man who will now enlist in the U.S. Army will be paid $20 as a cash bonus. Signed, James Varney, Captain, 21st Regiment, U.S. Army.”

Another item said: “Governor Strong of Massachusetts has proclaimed a fast day for April 8, 1813, to honor the state’s soldiers and sailors in the present war. All residents of the state are requested to refrain from unnecessary labor, and from any recreation on that day.”

On April 1, 1813, the Advocate told of attempts to end the war. Its account said: “Three times since the war commenced, President Madison has proposed to Great Britain an armistice and negotiations for peace, on the condition that Great Britain shall cease to impress American seamen into the British Navy and restore those she has already impressed. The British government has persistently refused this fair and friendly offer. We are therefore determined to prosecute the war to a result favorable to the interests and honor of the United States.”

In May 1813, the Advocate said: “Several companies of men, one year volunteers, have passed through this village during the last week, all recruited in the District of Maine, now on their way to Boston. As they passed through town, the conduct of these citizen soldiers was admirable. Not a single deplorable incident occurred.” The significance of that newspaper item is that it reveals the fact that good conduct was unusual when new recruits in the War of 1812 stopped in a village. Looting and assaults were often expected. Those troops’ exemplary behavior in Hallowell was therefore news.

In June 1813, the Hallowell newspaper mentioned a Waterville man, Col. Elnathan Sherwin, Commander of the Second
Brigade, has written from Waterville the following letter to his commanding officer, Major General Small: “That you or Major Sawtelle arbitrarily assumed certain power you readily admit. You consider that I am in command of the Second Brigade, and you sent orders to Major Sawtelle so confirming. Why were not those orders sent to me? I challenge you to produce a single instance where a division order has been directed to a brigade major rather than to his commanding colonel. Never have I neglected the duties of my office nor delegated its powers to another officer.” It would be interesting to know what response Col. Sherwin’s angry protest elicited, but later issues of the newspaper do not mention the incident.

In July 1813, the Advocate said: “People here from Bath and Wiscasset tell us that heavy cannonading was heard off those towns last Wednesday, supposed to have occurred when an American ship sailing into the Kennebec was cut off by a British naval vessel. We await further news of the events.”

It was two months later before the Advocate gave an account of the Naval engagement about which later the poet Henry W. Longfellow wrote his recollection as a boy of four years, as he listened to the distant boom of guns as he stood on Portland’s Munjoy Hill. It was the fight between the Enterprise and the Boxer. This is the way the Hallowell paper described it.

“On Monday, September 6, there arrived in Portland Harbor the Brig Enterprise, bringing in as a prize His Majesty’s Brig Boxer, captured on the previous day after an hour’s action. At 5 p.m. on September 5, eight miles west of Pemaquid, the Enterprise sighted a brig at anchor near the shore and steered toward her. At 7:30 that ship weighed anchor, approached the Enterprise and asked her identity. An hour later the British ship bore down upon the American vessel. The Enterprise tacked to the south and cleared for action. At 9:30 a calm fell over the sea with the two ships four miles apart. Two hours later a stiff breeze sprang up, allowing the two vessels to maneuver toward each other. At two o’clock in the morning the Enterprise was near enough to the enemy to shorten sail, and by three o’clock within pistol shot. Then close action began. Quickly a shot fell the commander of the American ship. As he lay dying, he exhorted his crew never to surrender, but carry on without him. Getting behind the other ship, the Enterprise brought down the Boxer’s main mast, then on a starboard tack proceeded to rake the British deck with devastating effect. As the enemy’s mast came down, men from the Enterprise leaped aboard the Boxer with sabres flashing. The Boxer’s guns were silenced and their captain himself mortally wounded, surrendered. The Boxer’s crew was put aboard the Enterprise as prisoners and brought to Portland. Whereas the Boxer was cut to pieces, the Enterprise is eager for another encounter at sea. Today in 1980, more than a century and a half after the event, the bodies of those two commanders, British and American, lie side by side in the old cemetery on Portland’s Congress Street.

In its issue of October 22, 1813, the Advocate celebrated another naval victory. one that got into all schoolbooks of American history. It was Commander Perry’s famous victory on Lake Erie. The Hallowell paper said: “It has pleased Almighty God to give the arms of the United States a signal victory over the enemy. Commander Perry sent this message to the Secretary of the Navy: The British squadron of two ships, two brigs, a schooner and a sloop have this day surrendered to the force under my command after a sharp conflict.'”

Publisher Cheever of the Hallowell Advocate was a stout defender of what people called “Madison’ s War.” He was a Jeffersonian Democrat, a member of the party that had put Mr Madison. in the White House. It was also the party of William King, then a senator in the Massachusetts Legislature, who seven years later would become the first Governor of Maine. The Massachusetts government in 1813 was, however, controlled by the opposing party, the Federalists, the party of the Adams family. Jefferson’s Embargo Act of 1807 had been so disastrous to the merchants of Boston that they opposed all acts likely to lead to war, and when the War of 1812 did come, they showed their disfavor as strongly as many Americans 160 years later were opposed to the war in Vietnam.

There were, however, merchants and ship owners in New England who were so distressed by the imprisonment of American seamen on British ships that they were willing to take financial losses to defend American rights. One of those shipowners was Maine’s William King, and it was his view of the War that the Hallowell newspaper strongly supported.

Today I have told you some of what this old Maine paper had to say about the War of 1812. Next week let us see what other items, more closely related to Maine, it also contained.

Year: 1980