One of the commonest things for all of us is pride in our own state. Let’s\u00a0begin tonight’s broadcast with a few facts about Maine. Do you know what is\u00a0Maine’s largest crop? It is trees. Forest trees occupy 84 per cent of the\u00a0land area of our state. From the days when they produced the best masts for\u00a0His Majesty’s ships down to the present day of sawed lumber and pulp wood, they\u00a0have been Maine’s abounding source of wealth.<\/p>\n
Did you know that nearly seven per cent of Maine’s total area consists of\u00a0lakes, ponds and rivers? To say nothing of the waters that comprise our incomparable\u00a0ocean front, we are near the top of all the states in respect to inland\u00a0waters. That’s why we’re the great Vacationland of the nation.<\/p>\n
Is Maine doing anything to preserve its wild life? Indeed, yes. Our state\u00a0has more than 50 game preserves and sanctuaries, varying from small, fenced\u00a0areas to the 141,000 acres of Baxter State Park. And in Acadia’s 28,000 acres\u00a0we have one of the few national parks in the East.<\/p>\n
When one fishes a closed brook or kills an animal in a game preserve, he is\u00a0of course breaking the law. But he is doing something else quite as reprehensible.<\/p>\n
He is stealing the property of every man, woman and child in Maine. In\u00a0this country our common law is based not only on British precedent, but also on\u00a0a fundamental document, the Magna Carta, which holds that all fish and game in\u00a0their natural habitat are public property, not the possession of whomever happens\u00a0to own the land.<\/p>\n
Every loyal citizen of Maine should take active interest in the persistent\u00a0attempts by state authorities to conserve our natural resources. Reforestation,\u00a0fire protection, game preserves, closed streams, fish hatcheries and fish stocking\u00a0are all important. It is a remarkable fact that, although Maine saw the earliest\u00a0settlements on the Atlantic seaboard, save only that at st. Augustine, our\u00a0state remains one of the few in the whole nation with natural resources that\u00a0can not only be maintained, but can actually be increased if all of us citizens\u00a0will get behind the plans for conservation.<\/p>\n
throUgh the courtesy of Mrs. Christine Hume of Fairfield I have had the\u00a0privilege of examining both the account book and the diary kept by her greatgrandfather,\u00a0William Bryant, a prominent citizen of Fairfield in the first half\u00a0of the nineteenth century.<\/p>\n
This man, who meant so much to our sister town, was born in Sandwich, Mass.\u00a0in 1781. He died in 1867 at the age of 86 at the home of his daughter, Susan\u00a0Totman, on Bunker’S Island. He came to Fairfield in 1817 and lived in the Emery\u00a0House at Nye’ sCorner, just south of the old cemetery. Nye’ sCorner, as I am\u00a0sure many of you know, is <\/em>where the road from Fairfield Center to Hinckley joins\u00a0the Fairfield-Skowhegan highway, just south of the present site of the Good Will\u00a0Homes and School.<\/p>\n William Bryant married Lydia Haley from Rhode Island. They had five children.\u00a0Mary, the oldest, born in 1810, married William Connor and was the mother of\u00a0Maine’s Governor, Selden Connor. Harriet, the second child, married into the\u00a0Drew family. Then came the twins, SUsan and Cyrus, born in 1818. Susan’s marriage\u00a0linked the Bryants with the Totmans, as her sister Mary’s had linked them\u00a0with the Connors, and the result was that her twin brother Cyrus was operating\u00a0the lumber interests of either Connors or Totmans most of his life. The fifth\u00a0child was Samuel. Every large family usually has one wanderer, a boy with\u00a0itChing feet who is <\/em>determined to see the world and seek his fortune far from\u00a0home.<\/p>\n William Bryant’s diary has in it the makings of a complete novel. What a\u00a0story could be written around its varied and picturesque items. And not the least\u00a0sparkling of those items concern young Samuel.<\/p>\n Up in the Moosehead region the Connors, Nyes and Totmans did a lot of\u00a0lumbering. One of those regions was called “the sapling”. On February 15,\u00a01842 Mr. Bryant wrote in his diary an item that showed that young Sam, or, as\u00a0his father more often called him, Haley, had a mind of his own. Though he was\u00a0apparently starting out on the usual occupation of a Fairfield youth of 19, his\u00a0way of doing it caused the anxious father to write as follows:<\/p>\n “Samuel Haley started for the saplin with William Connor about 8 o’clock.\u00a0It growed cold most all day, and was a terrible tedious day to ride against the\u00a0wind. I fear ~at Haley got frost bitten, for he had not any outside coat except\u00a0a short jacket, because he could not be plagued with any.”<\/p>\n Evidently Samuel Haley did not like it on the sapling with William Connor’s\u00a0half dozen six-ox teams, for he was home again in three weeks, though the Connors\u00a0crew stayed in the woods until April.\u00a0Six years went by, with Samuel coming of age, working at odd jobs for the\u00a0Connors and the Totmans, occasionally helping with a neighbor’s haying, and doing\u00a0what he had to do on the home farm. Although the father makes no comment about\u00a0it, we can read between the lines and picture hard-working, home-loving Cyrus\u00a0getting more and more put out with his younger brother, who was daily itching to\u00a0set off for distant parts.<\/p>\n On October 22, 1848 father William wrote in the diary: “Samuel left home\u00a0this evening to take the five o’clock boat at Waterville. He is going to the\u00a0State of pennsylvania with several young men, logging, running and sawing.”\u00a0Something went wrong, for on January 25, 1849 the diary recorded: “Samuel\u00a0returned from Pennsylvania.” Just that and nothing more. No hint as to why he\u00a0returned, or whether the fatted calf was killed, or how the elder brother greeted\u00a0him. But anyhow he was back home, with the itchiness apparently out of his feet,\u00a0ready to settle down on the Nye’s Corner farm.<\/p>\n Remember this was in January of 1849. Something happened in <\/em>that year to\u00a0stir the imagination and tickle the feet of every young man bitten by the bug\u00a0of wanderlust. Gold was discovered in California. On August 6, 1849 William\u00a0Bryant wrote in his diary: “We suppose that Randall Hall, Daniel Hall, John\u00a0Nye, Marquis Cayford, and John Hodgdon sailed this day from Bangor for California\u00a0in the ship.”<\/p>\n Why Samuel Bryant was not also in the party we do not know. Perhaps something\u00a0in the Pennsylvania experience made him reluctant to break away again so\u00a0soon. Perhaps an anxious mother persuaded him to stay \u2022. The father’s diary tells\u00a0us nothing about it except by its silence. Sam’s name is <\/em>not mentioned among\u00a0those who even planned to take ship from Bangor.<\/p>\n But on December 28, 1852 the father had something to record about young\u00a0Samuel Haley, who was then 29 years old. This is <\/em>what we read in the diary:\u00a0“samuel left home this day to sail in the ship Baltimore from New York to Port\u00a0Phillip, Australia, in quest of gold. The following went with him: Bartlett Nye,\u00a0B. H. Brown, Rodney Wyman, Briggs Emery, George Holland, Edward Philbrook, and\u00a0Thomas Judkins.” On the margin of the same page, opposite the appropriate names,\u00a0Mr. Bryant later recorded that Wyman returned home in 1856, Briggs died in Cali<\/em>fornia,\u00a0and Holland died in Australia. Of his own son, Samuel Haley Bryant, not\u00a0another word.<\/p>\n The diary continues until the spring of 1867, a few weeks before Mr. Bryant’s\u00a0death. Yet among all the remaining entries the only mention of Samuel is <\/em>a\u00a0touching reference to the dying mother calling for and embracing her son’s tintype\u00a0miniature.<\/p>\n Still preserved in the family is <\/em>an old envelope addressed to Mr. Samuel H.\u00a0Bryant, Melbourne, Australia, care of Adams Express, to remain till called for.\u00a0It is <\/em>postmarked Kendalls Mills, January 5. Unfortunately the postmarks of thattime seldom included the year, and it is <\/em>missing in <\/em>this case. In the upper right-hand corner is written in numerals “45”, which is apparently the postage.\u00a0Whether this envelope actually reached Samuel in Australia and somehow\u00a0found its later way back to Fairfield, whether it was returned unclaimed, or\u00a0whether it never went to Australia, we do not know. The name and address are in\u00a0the father’s handwriting, but the words “care of Adams Express” have been\u00a0written in by another hand.<\/p>\n Did Samuel Bryant ever return home? Does anyone of the many surviving\u00a0Fairfield relatives know the answer?<\/p>\n We have said that William Bryant was a prominent man. In January I <\/em>1889,\u00a0twenty-two years after his death, the Fairfield Journal said the followin \u00a0about him: “William Bryant, Esq. was a very prominent citizen at Nye’ sCorner\u00a0for many years. He kept a hat store and manufactured hats. He was chairman of the<\/p>\n Selectmen, also a very correct accountant. It was said of him that he could tell\u00a0the financial standing of the town any day of the week and any hour of the day.”<\/p>\n In 1865, two years before he died, Mr. Bryant recorded in the diary a statement\u00a0of his public offices. He wrote: “I attended the General Court (that is,\u00a0the legislature) in Boston two sessions, 1819 and 1820. I was chosen to the\u00a0Maine Legislature in 1826 and 1828. I was elected selectman of Fairfield nineteen\u00a0times.”<\/p>\n Historians like to cull the old diaries for record of great events. They\u00a0are usually disappointed. These Maine farmers and traders were not unmindful of\u00a0national affairs. Some of them were indeed deeply immersed in politics. But\u00a0they were first of all intent on getting an honest living and getting their children\u00a0comfortably started on useful, worthy lives. They were folks who very\u00a0strictly minded their own business, and minded it well.<\/p>\n Knowing this trait of the rural diarists, we did not expect to find mention\u00a0of many national events in William Bryant’s book. But one thing did surprise\u00a0us, and it has surprised us in the case of at least three other diaries that\u00a0cover the years of the Civil War. From 1861 to 1865 you can read these diaries\u00a0including William Bryant’s and scarcely know that a war was going on. Yet many\u00a0young men of Fairfield served in that war. Somehow it wasn’t so important as\u00a0the weather, the crops, the winter lumbering, and the family happenings.<\/p>\n Mr. Bryant makes just two references to the war. The first is when he notes\u00a0in 1862 that Selden Connor has left for Fort Monroe. The other is dated May 10,\u00a01865 and reads: “General Lee, the rebel, surrendered his army this day.”<\/p>\n In contrast to this brevity and silence about the great war between North\u00a0and South, Mr. Bryant wrote on March 4, 1857: “This day Mr. Buchanan enters upon\u00a0the duties of his office as President of the United States. We shall soon know\u00a0what to depend upon respecting his stand between freedom and slavery. We cannot\u00a0remain muCh longer as we are now. It belongs to the free inhabitants to choose\u00a0whom they will serve, Freedom or Slavery. I say no union with slavery as thingsgotime. No more slave states north or south hereafter. What will Buchanan\u00a0do about the great question? Let us wait and see.”<\/p>\n Eighteen years earlier, in 1839, Mr. Bryant’s pen was stirred into action\u00a0about another incident which hit Maine muCh closer than did the opening weeks ofthe Civil War. Let us have that 1839 occurrence in Bryant’s own words:<\/p>\n “February 23, 1839. All is bustle here respecting the northeastern boundary.\u00a0Two hundred men started about a fortnight ago to drive off trespassers. The\u00a0Governor informs us that other militia to the amount of 1,500 have marched for\u00a0the boundary line, and he has called for a draft of 8,000 more. My wife is fixing\u00a0Cyrus’ stockings and washing them with tears. But Cyrus has returned home and\u00a0got clear of the draft this time.”<\/p>\n This reference is, of course, to the Aroostook War, a bloodless but exciting\u00a0matter while it lasted. The Hay-Ashburton Treaty settled the boundary peaceably\u00a0and it has remained unfortified by either Canada or the United States to this\u00a0day.\u00a0There is much more of interest in William Bryant’s diary, and a lot to be\u00a0gleaned from his account book — the only accounts of an old-t~e hatter that I\u00a0have ever seen.<\/p>\n But that’s all we have time for today, so you shall have more of it next week.<\/p>\n Year: 1950<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #85, broadcast on November 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\/7175"}],"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=7175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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