A few weeks ago I asked if anyone knew what became of Samuel J3ryant, the\u00a0wandering son of William Bryant, the Fairfield diarist. Apparently Samuel Bryant\u00a0died in Australia. At any rate Nahum Totman, who married Samuel’s sister, recorded\u00a0in a memoir of his own, written in 1898, that Samuel was heard from in\u00a0Australia as late as 1890. Mrs. Gladys Totman Everett of Hallowell assures me\u00a0that her mother corresponded with Samuel through many years, and she is certain\u00a0that he never returned to the States. When Nahum Totman heard from him in 1890,\u00a0Samuel would have been 67 years old, for he had been 29 when he left for Australia\u00a0in 1852. With the well known Bryant longevity he might have lived into the twentieth\u00a0century, but as yet I have not been informed of the date of his death.<\/p>\n
We have recently been dealing with account books’ and diaries. What are called\u00a0memoirs by common folk of 19th century Maine are not so common, and it is a real find to get hold of a good one. Such was a sketch of his life written at the age\u00a0of 76 ‘by Asa Burnham, who for thirty years lived on and developed a farm in Winslow,\u00a0and to whom many of the Winslow Cushmans are related.Mr. Burnham wrote this\u00a0memoir on September 6, 1864.<\/p>\n
Born in New Hampshire in 1787 the son of a Revolutionary soldier, Asa became\u00a0a resident of the District of Maine before he was two years old. The town was Parsonfield,\u00a0which Asa’ s memoir tells us was then “in the forest”.<\/p>\n
You will recall how William Bryant, the Fairfield diarist, collected his son’s\u00a0wages until the boys reached 21. Likewise Asa Burnham wrote: “I lived with my\u00a0father and served my minority and, as I believe, faithfully. Then father gave me\u00a0and brother Noah an old farm which he bought of Dennis Newbegin for $1,000. He\u00a0also deeded to me one acre of land, on which I built a large, two-story house and\u00a0barn.”<\/p>\n
Directly in front of his Parsonfield house Asa set out apple trees. Are\u00a0there still farm houses where apple trees can be seen in the front yard in any\u00a0quantity? From his front yard trees Asa said he often made as many as twenty\u00a0barrels of cider and half a ton of dried apples, which he sold in Portland for\u00a0five cents a pound. He even sold applesauce, which he delivered as far away as\u00a035 miles at $5.00 a barrel. Like my own great-grandfather, who used to drive an\u00a0ox-team regularly between West Gorham and Portland, Asa Burnham made frequent\u00a0trips by ox-team from Parsonfield to Saco, Kennebunk or Portland, anyone of those\u00a0destinations taking four days for the round trip.<\/p>\n
I don’t recall any reference in the Fairfield diary to the old apprentice\u00a0system, familiarly called the “bound out” system. But Asa Burnham makes vivid\u00a0mention of it. He wrote: “I needed help on my farm. After taking a little boy\u00a0seven years old and keeping him, whose name was John Johnson, five or six years,I hired Asa Parks for a few years. Then I took B.enjamin Jordan, 14 years old of\u00a0Newfield. He was bound to me by his guardian. I engaged to give him 14 months\u00a0schooling and when he became 21 years of age, to give him $80. He served out his\u00a0time faithfully, was a good boy, and obtained a good English education in our school\u00a0district in the town of Parsonfield.”<\/p>\n
Asa Burnham, who was to gain quite a reputation as schoolmaster and school\u00a0committee member after he came to Winslow, had tried his hand at teaching before\u00a0he left Parsonfield. He records proudly that he was the first to introduce the\u00a0study of English grammar into that school district. Concerning his preparation for\u00a0teaching, Asa says: “When I was 17, I went to Brentwood, N. H., to attend for\u00a0three months a school kept by William Graves on sunny days. In 1808 I attended\u00a0Fryeburg Academy one term, likewise on sunny days.”<\/p>\n
Apparently Asa was much interested in penmanship, for he tells us he took\u00a0twelve lessons on the Rockwood system, and claims to have been so materially benefitted\u00a0that he gave lessons in the system himself, at one dollar a scholar. Then\u00a0he shifted to the Dunton system, and claimed even more marked improvement.<\/p>\n
Like most men of his time, Asa Burnham was deeply religious and staunch in\u00a0his churchly duties. He was instrumental in starting the first Sabbath School\u00a0in Parsonfield. Of that experience he wrote: “We were poorly qualified for\u00a0teachers or superintendents, but done the best we could, giving select portions\u00a0of scripture for the children to commit and recite, which they generally did in\u00a0a commendable manner. We also taught the ten commendments and the Assembly\u00a0catechism. For a while I catechised the scholars in my day school, until opposed\u00a0by Elder Buzzel, a Freewill Baptist minister, who said he wanted the children to\u00a0have religion but not learn it.”<\/p>\n
Although harassed by debt and even defrauded, Asa subscribed four dollars for\u00a0the support of the Gospel in Winslow in 1826. What is more, when Winslow was without\u00a0a minister, as too often proved to be the case, Asa took his turn with other\u00a0neighbors in what he called “assuming ministerial positions”. Minister or no minister,\u00a0he was one of those sturdy Winslow men who were determined to have the church\u00a0open every Sunday.<\/p>\n
It was in 1824 that Asa Burnham settled in Winslow, having found the Parson-\u00a0field farm inconvenient, as he puts it. The most interesting part of his memoir\u00a0concerns the hard luck of his business dealings before he finally cleared the\u00a0farm of debt and could truly call it his own. Because those dealings concerned\u00a0two of the wealthiest men of the upper Kennebec in those days, they are somewhat\u00a0revealing. The two men were Nathaniel Gilman of Waterville and Benjamin Brown of\u00a0Vassalboro. But let’s have the story in Asa Burnham’s own words:<\/p>\n
“In June, 1824 I went to Winslow to purchase a farm of Jacob Hardon, who\u00a0said he had bought the farm of Nathaniel Gilman of Waterville and paid for it in\u00a0money. This I afterwards found to my sorrow was not true. On the contrary, Gilman\u00a0had Hardon’s note for $500, secured by a mortgage on the place. On June 16 I\u00a0paid Hardon$600 and gave him my notes amounting to $1,350.<\/p>\n
“When I later learned of Gilman’s claim and charged Hardon with unfair and\u00a0unkind treatment, he said: ‘You shall not suffer. I have fine timber on the farm,\u00a0and have agreed with Gilman to take it to Augusta to pay my notes and take up the\u00a0mortgage. ‘”<\/p>\n
Here let us interrupt Asa’s own narrative to say that he seems not to have\u00a0been too smart in dealing with men like Hardon, for he actually helped Hardon get\u00a0out the timber and market it at Augusta, only to see Hardon make off with the\u00a0money without paying Gilman. Though Asa reprimanded Hardon again, doubtless more\u00a0sharply this time, the best he could get was the promise of 50 additional acres,\u00a0which he did not want, and which he later found was likewise mortgaged. “Hardon”,\u00a0Asa wrote, “also turned over to me two old lame horses and an old wagon, and several\u00a0notes against poor men from which I finally realized a little in stock and\u00a0money.”<\/p>\n
The memoir continues dolefully: “In consequence of all this I had to go beyond\u00a0my means. I used all my skill and energies to meet these unforeseen difficulties.\u00a0I made up quite a raft of lumber, which Mr. Gilman engaged to take delivered\u00a0at Augusta, which he did at a low price, so that I paid a considerable part of my\u00a0notes. Gilman was a hard ticket. Finally my brother Rice befriended me, took a\u00a0transfer of the mortgage and paid Gilman the remainder. Meanwhile the mortgage on\u00a0my purchase of Jacob Hardon was assigned to Benjamin Brown of Vassalboro.<\/p>\n
“Being disappointed in obtaining money of Huckins and Lougee, I was sued by\u00a0Brown and all my property attached. The officer with the writ arrived before the\u00a0dun. So I went down to Augusta and gave a confession note with costs amounting to\u00a0ten dollars. Had to deal with another hard, oppressive man, even harder than Gilman.\u00a0Brown done this purposely to give his son business. Son Theodore was a lawyer,\u00a0a chip off the old block, and it hurt to be obliged to pay his fee in the suit.\u00a0Brother Rice again assisted me, paid the balance due Brown and loosed me from the\u00a0grasp of the tyrant. After paying Brother Rice annual interest for several years,\u00a0by untiring exertion and by selling part of the land, I finally succeeded in\u00a0getting out of debt.<\/p>\n
It seems to me Asa’s opinion of both those prominent men may\u00b7have been unfair.\u00a0I don’t know much about Brown, but I do know that Nathaniel Gilman had a\u00a0reputation as a fair, honest, public-spirited citizen.<\/p>\n
I had always supposed that a hay rack, or what some part of New England\u00a0called a hay wagon, was a very old and very common vehicle. So I was surprised to\u00a0ead in Asa Burnham’s memoir that he and John Pease made the first hay rack ever\u00a0seen in Winslow. He comments: “Old men denounced them, saying we would never get\u00a0the hay out of them once we got it in. We showed how wrong they were and hay racks\u00a0soon came into general use.”<\/p>\n
Asa claimed that he and Jonathan Garland made the first horse rakes ever used\u00a0in Winslow. This was before the days of the revolving rake, and had teeth on one\u00a0side only.<\/p>\n
More than a third of Asa Burnham’s memoir is devoted to the Coolidge-Mathews\u00a0murder case, in which Asa himself was a witness. On the Whole, the facts as he relates\u00a0them coincide with the testimony before the court, but in a few instances his\u00a0memory was faulty, or he gave way to the rumor of the times. In all fairness we\u00a0mgst note that the memoir was written 17 years after the murder, during which time\u00a0legend and hearsay had perverted some of the facts. Asa is mixed up about the amount\u00a0of money involved and where Mathews got it, about Coolidge’s attitude when the autopsy\u00a0was performed, about who saved the contents for Professor Loomis’ examination. \u00a0He goes much faz~er than did any of the reporters who commented on the ladies at\u00a0the trial, for Asa wrote: “The ladies in the galleries sent down bouquets on the\u00a0criminal’s head, for Coolidge was handsome to behold, Which attracted their attention\u00a0and admiration. With many of these ladies, if such they can be called, Coolidge\u00a0had been particularly, if not criminally, intimate.”<\/p>\n
In 1854, thirty years after he had come to Winslow, Asa Burnham moved to Bangor\u00a0where, with his sons, he took over a place on Ohio street a mile northwest of\u00a0the County courthouse. During his thirty years in Winslow he had been town clerk,\u00a0justice of the peace, and member of the school committee — <\/strong>a worthy citizen of\u00a0worthy days.<\/p>\n Year: 1950<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #88, broadcast on December 17, 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\/7184"}],"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=7184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}