Let us return for a few minutes tonight to the old account book of the\u00a0Augusta trader, whose interesting sales we talked about a few weeks ago. In\u00a0his book I found frequent mention of a term I had previously seen only in one\u00a0\u00b7other place. The term is “Bohea tea”, which our Augusta merchant sold for 47\u00a0cents a pound. The only other place I ever saw that kind of tea mentioned\u00a0is in the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. When Franklin took on the job\u00a0of supplying provisions for General Braddock’s ill-fated expedition, he listed\u00a0among the needed items 20 pounds of good Bohea tea.<\/p>\n
When I mentioned rum as one of the three commonest items of sale in that\u00a0old store, I did not mean to imply that it was the only beverage sold. There\u00a0are several mentions of brandy, a few of gin, and in November and December the\u00a0item “1 mug cider” is almost as frequent as “1 glass rum”.<\/p>\n
OUr Augusta storekeeper sold a lot of horn combs. The charge was uniformly\u00a011 cents a piece. As all readers of Colonial history know, glass beads were\u00a0very much in demand for trading with the Indians. I had no idea how cheap\u00a0those beads were as late as 1802 until I read this item in the storekeeper’s\u00a0journal: “4 strings beads, 12 cents”.<\/p>\n
As I turned the pages of that old book it suddenly occurred to me that,\u00a0although I encountered many mentions of thread, I never saw the word “spool”.<\/p>\n
The unit is either skein or knot. Skein is still used, I believe, as a unit\u00a0for yarn, but does anyone remember ever hearing the word “knot” as the old\u00a0storekeeper used it in this charge: “Henry Bolster, 28 knots brown thread,\u00a050 cents” ?<\/p>\n
Nowhere in the account book is there any record of a small quantity of\u00a0salt. It is usually “1 bushel salt, 92 cents”. The smallest amount is one peck. What kind of salt was that? Certainly not modern, refined table salt\u00a0as we know it. Nor was it necessarily rock salt or mineral salt. It may well\u00a0have been what in my boyhood we used to call Liverpool salt, a some what powdery,\u00a0often soggy, unrefined salt.<\/p>\n
Sometimes a customer would get away with short payment. Then the storekeeper\u00a0would make a careful notation of the lapse or error. For instance, on\u00a0November 2, l804.he made this entry: “Jeremiah Richards of Fayette, to short\u00a0pay for knives and forks, 7 cents.”<\/p>\n
“Due on one gal. molasses, 4 cents.”<\/p>\n
In April, 1805 Jeremiah Towle was charged:<\/p>\n
Now let us take a fond, nostalgic glance at some of the sales seldom,\u00a0if ever, made in a store today. Our old-time merchant’S journal is filled with\u00a0such items as these:<\/p>\n
1 pair boot legs $ 1.50<\/p>\n
1 bed cord .50<\/p>\n
1 cow bell 1.17<\/p>\n
1 lb. ink powder .17<\/p>\n
1 pair specks .34<\/p>\n
1 clay pipe .02<\/p>\n
1 lb. brimstone .04<\/p>\n
1 string sleigh bells 1. 75<\/p>\n
1 pair ox bows .42<\/p>\n
7 flints .07<\/p>\n
1 snuff box .10<\/p>\n
1 slate and 2 pencils .27<\/p>\n
4 gallons soap 1.00<\/p>\n
Our Augusta merchant seems to have been a pretty good fellow, lending a\u00a0helping hand as need arose. Often in his records we find mention of money\u00a0loaned, always in small amounts, seldom more than a dollar at a time. Sometimes\u00a0it was as small as this item entered on October 10, 1806: “Henry DOW, cash\u00a0loaned, 20 cents”. It would be interesting to know what Henry was going to\u00a0do with that twenty cents. Perhaps he was going to buy a meal at Soule’s\u00a0Tavern, where you’will recall the merchant paid for the entertainment of one\u00a0man’s wife while the husband was being charged for three successive purchases\u00a0of rum at the store.<\/p>\n
Everyone my age is familiar with the expression “a dollar a day and\u00a0found”. It is not often, however, that one sees any form of this expression in\u00a0writing. But here, in this old book, is the entry on March 10, 1803: “John\u00a0Soule, credit, by finding Henry Babcock, 2 meals and lodging, 64 cents”. Incidentally\u00a0rates like that ought to make modern innkeepers ashamed of their\u00a0prices.<\/p>\n
Apparently our storekeeper was not averse to doing errands. In June,\u00a01805 he entered these charges: “Jeremiah Glidden, to going to Vassalborough\u00a0on your business, 50 cents; to wine .07”. Correct interpretation is impossible,\u00a0but we’ll hazard a guess that the storekeeper, not Glidden, drank the wine, and\u00a0that the 7 cents is part of what we would today call an expense account.<\/p>\n
It is evident that some of the old customers were slow pay, and occasionally\u00a0the merchant had to swear out a writ, or bring suit. Whenever he did\u00a0that, he added the’ cost of the writ to the customer’s account. Whether he was\u00a0ever able to collect through these suits is not clear. The records show\u00a0scrupulous honesty, as when he credits Nathaniel Shaw with 6 cents overpaid.<\/p>\n
In May, 1806 he wrote this item: “Nathaniel Folsom, 45 lb. rush iron, $2.70;\u00a01 piece rush iron about 30 lb. The reason of this being charged in this manner\u00a0was he took the wrong piece.”<\/p>\n
An interesting feature of this old account book is the merchant’s amazing\u00a0spelling. The point is not his misspelling of common words; that was ordinary\u00a0enough in <\/em>1802, and isn’t particularly unusual today. But this storekeeper’s\u00a0spelling reminds us of what many Shakespearean scholars assert about the Bard\u00a0of Avon. Shakespeare, it seems, could not make up his mind how to spell his\u00a0name. One authority says it appears in <\/em>eleven different spellings. Likewise,\u00a0our Augusta merchant of 150 years ago could not decide how to spell the days\u00a0of the week. Saturday appears not only in <\/em>its correct spelling, but also as\u00a0Saterday, Satterday, Saterdy and Satdy. Monday is <\/em>sometimes Munday, sometimes\u00a0Mundy, and at least once appears as Moonday. Of course Wednesday was the old\u00a0fellow’s worst stumbling block. Interestingly enough he sometimes spells it\u00a0correctly, but more commonly it appears as Wensday, Wensdy, and once as Wendsday.<\/p>\n Thursday is <\/em>often written Thirdsday, which by any reckoning it could not\u00a0possibly be. Probably the writer never thought of it as actually the third\u00a0day of the week, because a few pages later he spelled it Thirstday perhaps\u00a0that was a day when he got in <\/em>a new barrel of rum.<\/p>\n When I first mentioned this old account book, I told you it is a valuable\u00a0historical record. Many of you are aware of my interest in old-time words and\u00a0sayings of our Maine dialect. Our good storekeeper’s fantastic spelling gives\u00a0us interesting clues to the old-time pronunciation. When he records the sale\u00a0of 1 arthen ware jug, it is clear that folks of that time pronounced earth as\u00a0arth. When he writes boot legs as “Boot laigs” I <\/em>we know he pronounced the words\u00a0eggs and legs just the way a lot of Maine folks still pronounce them, to the\u00a0amusement of people from other states. When he makes a charge for 1 yard narrer\u00a0tape and another 1 axle for wheelbarrer, we know how he and his neighbors pronounced the words ending in “ow”. “Mending chimley, 50 cents” shows that the\u00a0pronounciation of chimney still occasionally heard was common a century and a\u00a0half ago. But when he charges a customer 80 cents for “I cagg and brass lock\u00a0with same”, we cannot be sure whether he pronounced keg as kaig or kag. In my\u00a0boyhood I heard both pronounciations.<\/p>\n OUr final word tonight about the old-time Augusta merchant calls attention\u00a0to his practice of selling goods on trial and taking other goods on consignment.<\/p>\n On July 10, 1805 appears this item: “Samuel Babcock, 1 gunlock to\u00a0have to try and to take mounting if it fits, $3.00” On August 3 of the same\u00a0year is entered: “Joseph Ham, credit by 1 pair boyls boots, $3.33; to be returned\u00a0to him if no sale.”<\/p>\n Some people tell us that we live in a world where the fellow who shouts\u00a0the loudest gets the most. All around us we hear individuals and groups making\u00a0dire threats of what they will do to us if they don I t have their way.<\/p>\n It might be well if we occasionally looked to see how much substance lies behind a threat.<\/p>\n A man driving a buggy.down a steep hill met a farmer with a load of hay.<\/p>\n Both stopped their teams and the man in the buggy shouted, “Turn out — turn\u00a0out — or I III treat you the way I did a man I met a mile back.” The farmer,\u00a0deeply concerned, pulled his team out into the ditch, endangering his whole\u00a0load. Then as the buggy drew past, he timidly asked, “What did you do to the\u00a0fellow you met back there?” nOh”, came the reply, “I turned out for him”.<\/p>\n Ed Chase, the well known legislator and business man of’Portland, calls\u00a0pertinent attention to some good sized holes in the social security bag. He\u00a0points out that a great illusion of. our times is the notion that future security\u00a0can be assured by paperwork and bookkeeping. We have created a system\u00a0by which the government extracts a percentage of our wages in return for a\u00a0promise that when we reach a certain age we shall be paid so much per month.<\/p>\n No one has any idea whether, when the time comes, the amount will buy what\u00a0it buys today. The plain fact is that what we have really done is to hire a\u00a0horde of bookkeepers whom the rest of us must support. Under such a system\u00a0social security has no reliable security in it.<\/p>\n What Mr. Chase is trying to make us see is that, just as it used to be\u00a0alleged that a country can have a sound economy if all the people took in\u00a0each other’s washing, so our country now seems to be moving toward a state\u00a0of paper prosperity based on taking in each other’s bookkeeping.<\/p>\n A lot of us are too indifferent to the destructive forces at work on the\u00a0American system of economy. It reminds us of the story about the ant hill on\u00a0the golf course. A round, white object came rolling along one day and stopped\u00a0on top of the ant hill. A hundred ants quickly assembled to inspect this object\u00a0at close hand. Suddenly a terrific blow fell. When the dust settled, the\u00a0object was still there, but half the ants were dead. The remainder reassembled\u00a0to continue the inspection. A second blow fell, leaving the white object still\u00a0in place, but killing all but two of the ants. Then one of the survivors said\u00a0to the other, “If we want to stay alive, maybe we’d better get on the ball.”<\/p>\n Tea is a very common thing, though with us it is less common than with\u00a0our British friends. Although, a hundred and fifty years ago, the merchant in\u00a0that cld store in Augusta sold very few articles for human consumption, compared\u00a0with the numerous articles today, one of his few commodities was tea.<\/p>\n Nevertheless tea as a drink known to the western world is not very old\u00a0probably Shakespeare never tasted it. In the very year when Charles II restored\u00a0the monarchy after the interruption of Cromwell’s commonwealth — the year \u00a01660 — Samuel Pepys wrote in his famous diary: “I did send for a cup of tea\u00a0(a China drink) of which I had never drank before.”<\/p>\n Those of my generation who worked in the grocery stores of half a century\u00a0ago were familiar with not only the China teas, but with the thin, wiry\u00a0leaves of Ceylon tea, and the coppery green leaves of Japanese tea. In those\u00a0days we hadn’t heard much about the now common India tea.<\/p>\n It is a fact, however, that until the time of our own Civil War, tea\u00a0was produced exclusively in China and the island of Formosa. Since 1860 the\u00a0plant has been introduced into India and Pakistan, Java and Sumatra, Japan\u00a0and East Africa.<\/p>\n Tea experts insist that the finest tea is grown at the highest altitudes\u00a0and that if the leaves are picked 24 hours too early or 24 hours too late,\u00a0its flavor will be inferior. Many of them also maintain that the finest\u00a0flavored tea is produced in Darjeeling in the foothills of the Himalayas. To\u00a0this day many British people, when they provide for an important social occasion,\u00a0insist on serving Darjeeling tea.<\/p>\n Year: 1950<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #61, broadcast on March 26, 1950<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1153,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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