Information keeps springing up about Ten Lots. Mrs. Charles Heald of North\u00a0Fairfield has loaned me a copy of the Waterville Mail for September 30, 1881,\u00a0Which contains an account of the golden wedding anniversary of Asa and Azuba\u00a0Bates. In 1831 Asa Bates had married Azuba Sturtevant, and the newspaper reporter\u00a0pointed out that the couple had been known in Waterville longer than the\u00a0venerable Waterville Mail itself. A poem, written for the occasion by one of Mr.\u00a0Bates’ five sons-in-law, fills nearly a column in the old newspaper. The reporter\u00a0entered into the jovial spirit of the occasion, closing his story with these\u00a0words: “I will give the names of the couple’ s children. It is customary, I believe,\u00a0When doing so, to give also their ages. But your correspondent might get\u00a0his scalp into difficulty if he meddled with the ages of seven women in one family.<\/p>\n
So he must ask the reader to be content with the names and present residence of\u00a0the Bates children, of Whom nine are now living. They are Ellen, wife of G. A.\u00a0Mower of Dexter; Erastus of West Waterville; Lizzie, wife of W. A. Farr of Melrose,\u00a0Mass.; Martha, wife of S. T. Hersom of New London, N. H.; Mabel, wife of W. H. Fersenden\u00a0of Boston; Mary, wife of C. E. Whiting of Norridgewock; Henry of West Waterville;\u00a0Julia of Boston; Lillian of West Waterville.”<\/p>\n
Mrs. Heald has an old-time photograph taken at that golden wedding anniversary,\u00a0showing Mr. and Mrs. Bates and all nine of the children, in the costumes in which\u00a0all well-dressed folks appeared in 1881.<\/p>\n
My neighbor, Jerry Bridges, an executive of the Lockwood Mills, quite rightly\u00a0calls me to task for putting Ten Lots in Somerset County. He quite rightly points\u00a0out that the county line runs right through Ten Lots, and that most of the original\u00a0homes, as well as the beautiful Williams Chapel, are and always have been in Kennebec\u00a0County. Since that is true, I am more puzzled than ever to know Why Rufus Jones\u00a0mentions no Ten Lots Quakers in his chapter on the Friends in Kingsbury’s History\u00a0of Kennebec County.<\/p>\n
Christmas did not receive much attention here in the Kennebec Valley a hundred\u00a0years ago. Let us see how William Bryant of Fairfield, who kept a diary from\u00a01836 to 1865, recorded the annual events of Christmas Day.<\/p>\n
On December 25, 1836 Bryant wrote: “Rain and warm. High freshet. Ice\u00a0started down between 9 and 10 o’clock.” Other entries were as follows. December\u00a025, 1837: “Went to Waterville with Gideon Wells on business. The first thawey day\u00a0for a week past.” December 25, 1838: “Killed two small-boned hogs, very fat,\u00a0weighed about 300 pounds each.” Mr. Bryant tells us that on December 25, 1839\u00a0William Connor started for the woods, taking Bryant’s oxen among the many teams.<\/p>\n
The next year the only comment on Christmas Day is: “Very tough, northeast snow\u00a0storm”.<\/p>\n
On the next Christmas, 1841, Bryant evidently worked hard all day. He says:\u00a0“We have had a hard time breaking a wood road in my\u00a0swail\u00a0to get alders for wood.”\u00a0There is no entry for December 25 in either 1842 or 1843. But when Christmas came\u00a0in 1844 Sanmel Haley Bryant, the son who later went away to far-off Australia,\u00a0never to return, had then “started with William Connor’s two six-ox teams, to go\u00a010 or 12 miles above The Forks on 10,000 acres”. On December 25, 1845 Bryant\u00a0noted a “terrible southeast rain storm”. In 1846 there is no record for Christmas\u00a0Day, but five days earlier Cyrus and Olive, the oldest son and his wife, had gone\u00a0to Vassalboro, where Olive was to spend the winter. On December 25, 1847 the record\u00a0states: “Cyrus started for the woods for D. Chase and L. Webster on wheels.”<\/p>\n
In 1848 the day got this item: “Very little snow on the level, but slick sleighing.\u201d\u00a0On December 25,1851 Bryant wrote: “Very high northwester and cold. I returned\u00a0from Norridgewock with a bad cold.” On Christmas Day, 1852 William Connor’s\u00a0ox teams were again on the way to the woods, on a day of light rain and sloshy\u00a0traveling. Three days after that uncelebrated Christmas, Samuel Haley Bryant\u00a0left home for Australia.<\/p>\n
There was no wheeling and no slush on Christmas Day of 1853, for Bryant tells\u00a0us that “It began to snow last evening between five and six o’clock and snowed all\u00a0night and all the forenoon until twelve o’clock; the snow fell in heaps.” Five\u00a0days later he wrote: “Roads still drifted and full of snow.”<\/p>\n
On December 25, 1855 it commenced snowing at 10 A.M. No mention of any\u00a0Christmas observance, but a solemn announcement that “Charles Bradbury was killed\u00a0last Saturday by running foul of another wagon.”<\/p>\n
On Christmas Day in 1857 there was, according to Bryant, the first good\u00a0sleighing of the year, so good that William Connor could start for the woods on\u00a0runners. That was apparently noteworthy, for Connors’ start for the Moosehead\u00a0woods had for several previous seasons been on wheels.<\/p>\n
Not until 1865, after the Civil War was over, does William Bryant’s diary\u00a0make any mention of Christmas. On December 25, 1865 he wrote: “Christmas. Fair\u00a0and cold. I am very feeble, was taken bleeding at the nose for the third time in\u00a0one week.”<\/p>\n
Now how could a man keep such a journal for thirty years and tell us nothing\u00a0of Christmas trees and Christmas gifts, and most of all of Christmas home-comings?<\/p>\n
The answer is hard for young folks of our time to understand. For all the years\u00a0between 1835 and the Civil War, neither William Bryant nor anyone else in the Kennebec\u00a0Valley put up a Christmas tree or gave a Christmas present. In other words,\u00a0Christmas was not celebrated at all.<\/p>\n
How do we account for this? The answer is found in the long domination of\u00a0Puritan thought and customs over New England life. In 1664, soon after the Puritan\u00a0influence obtained control of the British government, an Act of Parliament\u00a0made the celebration of Christmas illegal. Even earlier the first settlers of the\u00a0Massachusetts Bay Colony had frowned upon all festivals. The May Pole at Merrymount\u00a0had met their stern disapproval. Only two special days did they recognize,\u00a0Thanksgiving and Fast Day, and both of these were solemn occasions. Games and\u00a0sports were strictly forbidden on those days, just as they were on Sunday. Such\u00a0things as Christmas trees and Christmas presents were regarded as devices of\u00a0the Devil to lure tempted souls to perdition.<\/p>\n
Although the Puritan influence was less strong in parts of the rural province\u00a0of Maine than it was on the shores of Boston Bay, it was strong enough for\u00a0the opposition to festivals to last well into the nineteenth century. Hence we\u00a0are not surprised to find William Bryant’s diary utterly without even the word\u00a0Christmas until 1865.<\/p>\n
Now let us see\u00b7 how Americans of olden times knew the Christmas story. That beautiful story, as Luke tells it with the shepherds and the manger, and as Matthew\u00a0gives it with the wise men and their precious gifts, was first brought to\u00a0America in Bibles printed in foreign lands. The Pilgrims brought copies of the\u00a0so-called Breeches Bible, which got its name because the verse in Genesis that\u00a0now uses the word “aprons” was translated: “Adam and Eve made for themselves\u00a0breeches. ” The Boston Puritans, at least those who came later than Winthrop ‘s\u00a0first little band in 1630, had copies of the King James Bible, which to this day\u00a0remains the most famous and the most commonly used of all English Bibles. It\u00a0was the great accomplishment of seventy scholarly translators, working under the\u00a0sponsorship of King James I, the earliest of the Tudor kings. It was finished in\u00a01611, which makes that date one of the most important in history. So it was not\u00a0long before the colonists in America knew the Christmas story in the words that\u00a0are familiar to\u00b71 ills’ today.<\/p>\n
Strangely enough, when the Bible was first printed in America, it was not\u00a0printed in English. The first Bible printed in the colonies was in the language\u00a0of the Massachusetts Indians. Product of the little print shop of Samuel Green\u00a0and Marmaduke Johnson of Cambridge in 1663, it was the famous translation by Rev.\u00a0John Eliot. His was a prodigious undertaking, for he not only had to make the\u00a0translation into a new and difficult language, but he had actually to create a\u00a0written form for that language which, like most of the Indian tongues, had never\u00a0before been reduced to writing. In spite of the fact that Eliot converted 11,000\u00a0Indians, organized 24 congregations, trained twenty Indian preachers, and saw\u00a0one of them receive a B. A. degree from Harvard in 1665, today no person living\u00a0can read the language of Eliot’s Bible.<\/p>\n
Not even the second Bible printed in America was in English. The German\u00a0Bible, the memorable work of Martin Luther, was reprinted by Christopher Saur of\u00a0Pennsylvania in 1743, in the original German because, said the preface, “so many\u00a0poor Germans come to this country who do not bring Bibles with them”. It was the\u00a0Luther Bible, either brought from Germany or purchased in Philadelphia, that the\u00a0German colonists of our own Maine town of Waldoboro so devoutly used.<\/p>\n
Another Bible printed in America came from the shop of Robert Aitken of\u00a0Philadelphia in 1782. In the midst of the Revolution the Continental Congress\u00a0took time to pass a resolution commending “the pious and laudable plan of Mr. Aitken to publish the Bible.” Aitken’s Bible of 1782 seems to have been the only\u00a0one ever sponsored by the Congress of the United States.<\/p>\n
There are many interesting facts concerning Christmas carols. A very old\u00a0carol, not one of those most familiar today, beginning in its English version\u00a0with “Now sing we, now rejoice; now raise to heaven our voice”, was originally\u00a0associated verbally with macaroni, for in its early form it was what is called a\u00a0macaronic, a mixture of two languages, in this case Latin and German.<\/p>\n
In the 18th century there were two distinct meanings of the word macaroni\u00a0the common meaning we retain today, a paste of Italian origin prepared from Wheat\u00a0flour in the form of dried hollow tubes ~ and another meaning, an English dandy\u00a0Who affected foreign ways, the meaning given it in one line of Yankee Doddle.<\/p>\n
Whether the two meanings ever had anything in common, no one knows. From the\u00a0latter meaning, however, we (Jet the word macaronic, Which means a mixture of\u00a0languages, though it was first used solely to mean a mixture of some other language\u00a0with Latin.<\/p>\n
“Come hither ye faithful, truumphantly sing”, is one of the most translated\u00a0of all the carols. Originally in Latin, it is now sung in 119 languages and dialects.<\/p>\n
A much more familiar carol, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come”, as we\u00a0sing it today in Waterville, is the combined work of four different nationalities:\u00a0David, or some other Hebrew psalmist ~ Isaac Watts, the English hymnologist;\u00a0Handel, the German composer ~ and Lowell Mason, the American hymn writer. The\u00a0beautiful carol, “It came upon a midnight clear”, is one of the few distinctly American\u00a0carols that have won wide fame in other lands. Its words are by Dr. Edmund\u00a0Sears and its music is by Richard Storrs Willis.<\/p>\n
In thousands of churches today congregations have listened to the words of\u00a0Luke’s gospel, “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly\u00a0host, praising God, and saying, -, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace,\u00a0good will toward men’ “. How ironical those words sound in this hour of a great\u00a0world crisis. Peace on earth. Anything but assured peace is the lot of all the\u00a0earth tonight. The threat of the hammer and the sickle stands in the way of\u00a0peoples who would have all men free.<\/p>\n
It is not new in world history, this crisis of 1950. I have just been reading\u00a0Will Durant’s gigantic book, “Age of Faith”. In it he shows us What happened\u00a0again and again to nations: to the once mighty power of Rome, to the sweeping\u00a0might of the Mongol hordes under Genghis Khan, to the once dominant might of the\u00a0Arabic world. Nations died, nations _were born, the tides of conquest ebbed and\u00a0flowed, but through it all the faith was triumphant. The angel voices on the\u00a0hills of Bethlehem could not be silenced.<\/p>\n
A better transl.ation of the Greek text of Luke’s gospel gives us not “peace\u00a0on earth, good will toward men”, but “peace on earth toward men of good will”.<\/p>\n
That is our supreme need in this hour of trial — <\/strong>men of good will in Tokyo_ and\u00a0Peiping, in Downing Street and-the Elysee, in the White House and the Kremlin.<\/p>\n Give us, we pray, 0 Lord, in this awful hour, in all the world’s nations, men of\u00a0good will.<\/p>\n And so, to all our listeners, up and down this old valley of the Kennebec,\u00a0we can and do sincerely wish you not so much a merry Christmas as a Christmas of\u00a0Christian Good Will.<\/p>\n Year: 1950<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #89, broadcast on December 24, 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\/7187"}],"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=7187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}