This Is our last broadcast of the season. Again we want to express sincere\u00a0thanks to the many II steners who have provl dad us wi th Information. We especfa Ily\u00a0want to apologl ze for our fai I ure to use so many items. We assure you they are\u00a0not lost or forgotten, but are stored up for future use. Ourl ng the summer we\u00a0shall Investigate a dozen subjects which we have as yet not touched. In this Kennebec\u00a0Valley we assure you there is a wealth of unmined ore about the old days.\u00a0But it is good for both of us, both broadcaster and listener, to have a change.\u00a0So after tonight we leave the air for the summer. We expect to resume the series\u00a0on September 16.<\/p>\n
Most of the newspapers to which we have referred on this program went out of\u00a0existence long ago. It is not so with the Republican Journal of Belfast, fran\u00a0whose fascl nati ng pages of the 1850 ‘s we gave you severa I Items a fortnl ght since.\u00a0That newspaper is sti II published — has, in fact, enjoyed continuous publication\u00a0for 122 years. It first confronted its readers on January 4, 1829. Its latest\u00a0issue, that of June 14, 1951, is Volume 123, Number 24.<\/p>\n
I t is qui te a paper today — thl s Repub I ican Journa I of Be I fast — one of the\u00a0best weeklies In the nation. Whi Ie many of these weekly papers are only four page\u00a0sheets, and few of them run to more than eight pages, the Republican Journal often\u00a0exceeds twelve pages. Its issue of June 7 of this year, for instance, came out in\u00a0two sections, with a total of fowrteen pages. Its make-up is that of the dai Iy\u00a0papers, and its news items are unusually well written. It contains surprisingly\u00a0little “boi leI'” plate”, the old-time publishers’ name for fi lIer material provided\u00a0by the syndicates. Almost every bit of the reading matter is home made and of\u00a0hane interest. It makes no attempt to duplicate the dai lies with national and\u00a0foreign news, but it covers Waldo and adjoining counties coq>Ietely and interest-\u00a0I ng Iy. Although I am acquainted wi th very few i ndi vi duals named I n the col UIIlS of\u00a0June 7th, I found the stories of absorbing interest. Roger Brace and Harold Todd,\u00a0Jr. c1eserve highest praise for turning out such a fine paper.<\/p>\n
Our brief talk last week about the old race horses stirred up a lot of interest\u00a0and has brought in a lot of new Information, at least new tome. A man still\u00a0living In Watervll Ie was one of the old time breeders and trainers of race horses.\u00a0He is Mr. Thomas BurleiJgh of Roosevelt Avenue. He was the owner of a famous horse,\u00a0St. Croix, the first horse to lower Nelson’s three year old record from 2:26 3\/4\u00a0to 2 :26*- Mr. Burletgh assures me th,a’ both Ne Ison ‘s Grand Rap ids record of 2: 10\u00a0and his Rigby Park record of 2:09 were made with the old high-wheel sulkies. Some\u00a0professor of physics ought to figure o,u t what Nelson could have done wfth~one of\u00a0the modern, low-wheeled, pneumatic tire sulkies.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Burleigh has among her many keepsakes of old days In Vassalboro a mostInteresting newspaper account of the homecoming of that famous horse, General\u00a0Knox, from a tri umphant tour of the MI dd Ie West. As I to I d you last week, General\u00a0Knox was the most famous of the three horses with which Col. Thomas Lang started\u00a0his stud farm at Vassalboro in 1859.\u00a0It was Just after the elvt I War in 1867 that General Knox went on his great\u00a0western tour. When the train bringing him back to Vassalboro arrived at the\u00a0rai I road station near Getchell’s Comer, a huge crowd was on hand to we I come the\u00a0hero. A school holiday had been declared. Arches had been erected and decorated,\u00a0and the whole length of the triumphal proceSSion from Getchell’s Corner to North\u00a0Vassalboro was lined with carriages that had come from the whole surrounding area,\u00a0and ind~d from as far away as thi rty to forty mf les. The school chi Idren marched\u00a0all the way between the two vi II ages, as did two brass bands. Seldom did any human\u00a0hero from the wars receive such a mlgh1y welcome as greeted that horse on\u00a0that day.<\/p>\n
E. P. Mayo, then the editor of Turf, Farm and Hone, put into print in 1902\u00a0an Interesti ng story about Genera I Knox. Mr. Mayo then sal d that the most remarkabIe race ever trotted over the Watervi lie track was the contest between\u00a0General Knox and another celebrated horse, Hiram Drew. It occurred on October\u00a022, 1863, when the elvi I War was at its height. Contemporary reports tell us\u00a0that people aTtended from every one of Maine’s sixteen counties. It was a conventional\u00a0three heats out of five battle. It looked as if the Vassalboro horse\u00a0was badly beaTen when the Drew horse won the fi rst two heats. Then General Knox\u00a0ShOtted his meTtle by winning the next two. The fi fth heat was preceded by feverish\u00a0arguments and more feverish betting. Great was Col. lang’s pride when\u00a0his famous General came hone the victor.<\/p>\n
Col. Lang was a I ibera I patron of the Kennebec fai rs. In 1859 the North\u00a0Kennebec Agri cu Itural Society, wh I ch had been incorporated in 1847 wi th headquarters at Watery) lie, passed a vote of thanks to Col. lang for his I iberality in\u00a0always giving to the society all purses won by his horses.\u00a0I be I ieve Watervi lie’s ti rst regu latlon ova I race track was constructed at.\u00a0the south end of the city in 1854. It was there for many years that the Watervi\u00a0lie Horse Associ at ion he Id 1 ts annua I exh I bi ti on.\u00a0Watervi lie was indeed quite a horse town. As late as 1900 Mr. Mayo could\u00a0wrl te: ”Watervi lie has for more than a century been prominent as a center for the\u00a0breeding and ownership of valuable horses, and it seems appropriate that she\u00a0should have within her limits today (remember this was In 1900) one whose name\u00a0is known not only through the length and breadth of this country but even across\u00a0the sea. We refer to the veteran Nelson, now in his twentieth year, with his\u00a0world’s record of 2:09.”<\/p>\n
Mrs. Bickford of App leton Street has let me examine some old letters that\u00a0have been in her fami Iy for many years. They are letters addressed to Seth Webb,\u00a0Esq., most of them to him at Knox, Waldo County, Maine; but a few of them carry\u00a0the address Freedom, Ma I ne.\u00a0The letters were all written by Samuel Webb, andhow the correspondence\u00a0started is explained in the letter of October 17, 1848. Writing from Baltimore\u00a0to Knox, Maine, Samuel addresses Seth in these words: “Allow me to introduce\u00a0myse I f as Samus I, the sl xth of that name of the Weymouth b ranch of the Webb family.\u00a0I haw heard of your visit to Weymouth and regret I was nat there to\u00a0greet you. My father heis often spoken of our distant relatives, the descsndarits\u00a0of the fi rst Samue I,. who left Weymouth for Maine. I have often resolved to\u00a0visit some of you and hope stili to ~o so.”<\/p>\n
Samue I asked Seth many quest Ions about the fami I y and re I ated one touch Ing\u00a0Incident. It seems that, when the first Webb to come to Maine left Weymouth, he\u00a0left behl’nd in the care of relatives two sons, the chi Idren of his first wife. The\u00a0new wi fe apparently didn’t care to take them along to the Maine wi ldemess.\u00a0According to the account In Samue I ‘s fi rst letter to Seth, twenty years af-\u00a0ter the father~,s departure for Maine, those two sons went to Gorham .. to.see him.\u00a0Think of i.ltr From Gorham to Weymouth Is only a few hours’ Journey by modern\u00a0automobile. But It took the Webb sons several days to make the trip, and so in ..\u00a0frequent wascommun icatlon in those days that they had not seen thei r father for ,\u00a0a II of the twenty\u00b7 yea rs \u2022\u00a0Now let us have the story in the very words in which Samuel told It to Seth:<\/p>\n
“As the sons approached the I r father’s res I dence in Gorham”, wrote Samue I ,. “they\u00a0met with one of the I r half-brothers, told him who they were, but asked him not to\u00a0let the i r father knOllr of the I r coming. The hal f-brother went on before them. It\u00a0was nearlytwiJlght, and their father was standing In the door as.Samueland\u00a0Thomas came up. .They wished to see I f their father would recognize them. They\u00a0spoke to him as I. f they were strangers, asked him questions about the farm and\u00a0the town. He obviously had no idea who they were. Finally the half … brother could\u00a0hold In no longer, but burst out: ‘Father, don’t you know them? They are Samuel\u00a0and Thomas.’ ‘Oh, Samue I and Thomas’, cried the 01 d man, as he threw h Is arms\u00a0around them and wept I I ke a ch lid,! How the stepmother greeted the young men whom\u00a0she had left behind in Weymouth 20 years before the letter does not say.<\/p>\n
Already, when he wrote Seth from Baltimore, Samuel Webb was on his way to\u00a0new fields of adventure, just I ike many another New Englander In 1848 and ’49.\u00a0For only four months after that first letter Samue I wrote Seth from New Orleans.\u00a0Samuel explains what he is doing: Ifl am on ‘rtf way to upper California over land by way of the City of Mexico. As the journey Is long and dangerous, I could not\u00a0leave without expressing to you my heart-felt Interest in yourself and family.Since I last heard from you, a son has arrived to bless us, and agreeable to universal\u00a0usage in our family, he too is called Samuel. This boy, who has just opened\u00a0his bright eyes upon me, I leave behind with his mother. These are no small\u00a0trials, but I go in the hope that I shall, in a few years, return to pass the\u00a0rest of rrtf <\/em>days on the dea r 0 I d homes tead I n Weymouth. ”<\/p>\n What Samue I wrote Seth from San Franci sco, how he dl d I ndeed return to Weymouth,\u00a0and how after silence of eight years the correspOAdence was resumed in the\u00a01860’s, we must reserve for a later broadcast. For tonight let us remember\u00a0merely that these are samples of neny such letters of their days, letters that\u00a0show the closeness of famt Iy ties spanning the breadth of a continent and making\u00a0life richer for-the I r endurance.<\/p>\n It hardly seems possible that tonight completes 113 of these little talks on\u00a0common things. They have been very, very common. None of them has had any lasting\u00a0Significance, yet they have all had a purpose. By this time you know pretty\u00a0we II what that purpose has been — to ca II repeated attent i on to the fact that\u00a0what we ca” our Ameri can way of II fe comes out of a herl tage we must not Ignore\u00a0— that here In Maine, yes right here in the Kennebec Valley men and women long\u00a0ago laid the foundations of integrity, kindness and sympathy; of zeal, ambition\u00a0and hard work; of fami Iy loyalties and religious devotion — in short, the things\u00a0and the only things thaT can keep America strong.<\/p>\n So we bid you good-bye unti I September 16.<\/p>\n Year: 1951<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #113, broadcast on June 17, 1951<\/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":[786,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7239"}],"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=7239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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