This is the final broadcast of the season of Little Talks on Common Things.\u00a0Incidentally, it is the 269th broadcast since this program began in 1948. We\u00a0plan to be back with you again in September.<\/p>\n
Not long ago, looking through an old almanac of the year 1798, I noted\u00a0certain fees fixed by the 1796 legislature for the whole commonwealth of Massachusetts,\u00a0including its district of Maine. Each justice of the Court of General\u00a0Sess ions was to recei ve $1 .00 for each day of court attendance. The court _.cri-er was pa i d 80 cents for ca II i ng a jury, 15 cents for announci ng a judgment\u00a0or verdict. The jai ler got 20 cents for turning the key for each prisoner committed\u00a0or discharged. What did it cost to get married in 1798? This is what\u00a0the almanac says: “To every minister or justice of the peace who shall lawfu\u00a0Ily so lemni ze a marri age and certi fy the same – $1 .25. H You have heard me\u00a0say — and I mention it in !’Kennebec Yesterdays!! — that for many years after\u00a0the eSTab I\u00b7ishment of the U. S. Consti tut i on the sh i II i ng as a money des i gnati on\u00a0remained common in Maine. Although U. S. currency knew no coin equivalent to\u00a0the British shi I I ing, articles .and services were long priced at one shi I ling,\u00a0two shi Ilings, three. shi I lings, etc. And al I the old account books show that\u00a0the way this was computed in Maine was at six shi I lings for a dollar.<\/p>\n
The almanac of 1797 shows that this arrangement was actually official. One\u00a0of the almanac pages is headed by the words ‘~he several currencies of the U.\u00a0S. compared with do I I ars and cents!!. Then we discover that there was no un iformity\u00a0about it in the various states, for here is the list:<\/p>\n
New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Virginia, Kentucky,<\/p>\n
Vermont – 6 shi Ilings to $1.00.<\/p>\n
New York, North Carolina – 8 shi I lings to $1.00<\/p>\n
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland – 7 shi I lings 6 pence to $1.00.<\/p>\n
South Carol ina, Georgia – 4 shi Ilings 8 pence to $1.00.<\/p>\n
Then follows the I ine !~Official U. S. exchange in Maine”.<\/p>\n
shilling 16.7\u00a2<\/p>\n
2 shi I lings – 33.3\u00a2<\/p>\n
3 S h i I lings – 50\u00a2<\/p>\n
S tranges t of a I I, to us i n 1955, is th is tab Ie:<\/p>\n
k of a Pistareen or half dime<\/p>\n
Four pence half penny<\/p>\n
Half\u00b7Pistareen or dime<\/p>\n
Nine pence piece or 1\/8<\/p>\n
Hal f a crown, French<\/p>\n
Hal f a crown, English<\/p>\n
Crown, French<\/p>\n
Crown, Engl ish<\/p>\n
dollar<\/p>\n
5\u00a2<\/p>\n
10\u00a2<\/p>\n
12i\u00a2<\/p>\n
55\u00a2<\/p>\n
55i\u00a2<\/p>\n
$1 \u2022 10<\/p>\n
$1 \u2022 11<\/p>\n
I n that year 1797, the very one wh i ch was to see the estab Ii shment of 8011-\u00a0doin College, when the almanac came out at the year’s beginning, there were ‘-,\u00a0only five col leges in al I New England: Harvard, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth and the\u00a0newly established Wi Iliams. Evidence of the neglect of Christmas Day at that\u00a0ti me is shown by the fact that every one of those five co I leges was listed as\u00a0being in session on December 25.<\/p>\n
In 1797 Massachusetts levied di rect state tax on houses, land and slaves.<\/p>\n
This was, of course, in addition to local taxes. There was not a fixed rate on\u00a0property va I uaTi on. The rate was on a s Ii di ng sca Ie. with the va I ue of property,\u00a0starting at 20ft <\/em>on a hundred dollars for properTy not over $500 and rising by\u00a0steps to one do II ar on a hundred on property over $30,000. Th is, of course)’ applied\u00a0in 1797 TO all property in the District of Maine, as did also the unusual\u00a0item, “Upon every s I ave wh i ch sha I I be en umerated, there sha II be assessed 50\u00a0cents. ”<\/p>\n Several times during the years of this program we have referred to Sylvester\u00a0Gardiner, founder of the community of that name down the river. Most\u00a0of you know that he was a steadfast Tory who was opposed to the American Revolution,\u00a0and that after that war he never returned to Gardiner, Maine. He did\u00a0not, however, as many people think, spend the rest of his life abroad. It is\u00a0time we got the facts straight about this remarkable man.<\/p>\n Sylvester Gardiner wasn’t born in England, as I have heard many people say.<\/p>\n He was born on this side of the Atlantic at South Kingston, Rhode Island in\u00a01707, which made him about 25 years older than George Washington and already\u00a0nearly 70 years old when the Revolution broke out. Educated for the medical\u00a0profession by studies in England and France, he returned to settle in Boston,\u00a0where he \u00b7;gained fame as a doctor. He established a firm for the wholesale import\u00a0and distribution of drugs, and that business became the basis of his large \u00a0fortune. He became one of the proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase, and in the\u00a0distribution of those lands his holdings lay south of those assigned to Benjamin\u00a0Ha I lowe I I \u2022<\/p>\n Sylvester Gardiner never set up a permanent home on his Maine lands. Unti I\u00a0the Revolution he continued to live in Boston, but often visited his holdings on\u00a0the Kennebec, and through resident agents directed settlement and improvements.<\/p>\n He leveled extensive tracts of forest, bui It several mi lis, erected a church,\u00a0and became known as the father of the Kennebec lands.<\/p>\n The Revolution changed the tides of his fortune. An unflinching Loyalist,\u00a0devoted alike to his king and to his Church of England, Sylvester Gardiner left\u00a0Boston when the British Arrrryevacuated it, leaving behind all his possessions,\u00a0save only $400. To the patriots of Boston, he was a traitor. His Boston pro-\u00a0perty was confiscated and sold at auction. His library of nearly a thousand\u00a0valuable books was ~-scattered among many purchasers, defeating the intent of\u00a0his wi I I that it was to go to the town of: Gardiner in Maine. His Kennebec estate\u00a0was also confiscated. Proceedings for its sale were held up by the troubled\u00a0times, and before any sales could be concluded, the war was over, peace was\u00a0declared, and finally the Gardiner heirs came again into possession of the property\u00a0Although he did not come again either to Boston or to the Kennebec, Sylvester\u00a0Gardiner did return to America. He went back to the region of his birth\u00a0and made his home at Newport” Rhode Island, where he resumed the practice of\u00a0medicine and surgery.<\/p>\n The man who i <\/em>nheri ted and rehab iii tated those Kennebec I ands was, as I\u00a0tol d you severa I weeks ago” Robert H a I lowe II Gardiner, grandson of Sy I vester\u00a0Gardi ner. I t was he who had that live Iy, but blood less, quarre I wi th the squatters,\u00a0a story that was made the chief theme of one of these broadcasts. In his\u00a0journal R. H. Gardiner wrote this interesting sentence: “It is a I ittle remarkable\u00a0that the only three grandsons of my paternal grandfather, Benjamin\u00a0Ha I lowe II, who left descendants changed the i r names to Boynton.; Carew and Gardiner,\u00a0so that there is no descendant of his that now bears his name”. Let us\u00a0see how it happened that all three of those grandsons changed their names.,\u00a0The 0 I dest son, Ward Ha I lowe I I, was made the he i r of an un c Ie, a notori ous\u00a0Boston miser, Nicholas Boynton. How the benefactor uncle managed to save his\u00a0Boston fortune during the Revolution, whi Ie Sylvester Gardiner had lost his, has\u00a0never been told. One thing we do know, instead of taking out of Boston only\u00a0four hundred dollars” as Gardiner had done, Boynton got away with a hundred\u00a0Thousand. His miserly ways persisted to the end. As he lay dying, the day began\u00a0to end and the room became dark. A servant lighted cand les in the bedroom.<\/p>\n “Put them out”, cOlTl’Tlanded old Nicholas. !TBut sir”, protested the servant, !lit \u00a0is geTTing quite dark”. ”\\~hat of it!!, yelled Nicholas. “stop wasting candles.\u00a0Nobody needs light to die by.”<\/p>\n The story of a second change of name in the Ha 1 lowe II fami Iy is more romantic.<\/p>\n Old B~injamin’s oldest son and namesake, Benjamin Hallowell, Jr., became\u00a0an admiral in the British Navy. As a young naval officer, he had fal len\u00a0in love with a cousin who was wi Iling to marry him. But he had no means of his\u00a0own except his meagre earnings as a navy man, and she was entirely dependent\u00a0upon her mother, a poor widow. The mother persuaded the gi rl to marry a rich\u00a0man, old enough to be the gi rl ‘s father. That gentleman’s older brother left\u00a0his large fortune to the younger, and on his death the latter left it al I to\u00a0his wife, the girl who had once been in love with Benjamin Hal lowe I J. Apparently\u00a0she had not forgotten him through the years, for on her own death her will\u00a0was found to decree that al I her wealth should go to her early lover, Benjamin\u00a0Ha II owe I I, on condi ti on that he change his name to her own marr\u00b7ied name of\u00a0Carew; so Benjami n Ha II owed I Carew.<\/p>\n The th i rd grandson of the Ha II owe II patri arch to change his name was the\u00a0Gardiner squi re and great landowner whom hi story knOtis as Robert Hall lowe II Gardiner.<\/p>\n Dr. Sylvester Gardiner’s daughter Hannah had married Benjamin Hallowell’s\u00a0son Robert, and they named their oldest son Robert HallQlell, Jr. When\u00a0the old doctor died he left his great estates in Maine, though their Revolutionary\u00a0settlement was sti I I in the courts, to this grandson, Robert Hal lowell,\u00a0Jr., on The provision that the young man would change his name to Robert Hallowe\u00a0I 1 Gardiner, which he at once proceeded to do.<\/p>\n BUT Dr. Sylvester Gardiner had a son of his own. HOH did it happen That\u00a0he disinherited that son and left his Maine fortune to his daughter’s boy? The\u00a0answer I ies in the doctor’s unforgiving stubbornness. Just as he wouldn’T give\u00a0an inch on his Tory principles, his loyalty to King George 1 I I, he was just as\u00a0stubborn about his religious views. That his oldest chi Id and his natural heir,\u00a0John Gardiner, should turn into a Whig follower of William Pitt was bad enough,\u00a0but when he forsook the Church of England and became a Unitarian, that was just\u00a0too much.<\/p>\n One who has written most appreciatively about the Gardiners was another\u00a0famous Gardiner resident of not so long ago — Laura E. Richards, famous daughter\u00a0of a famous mother. Daughter of J u I i a Ward Howe, author of the Batt’le Himn\u00a0of the Republ ic, Mrs. Richards became herself a nationally known author, writer\u00a0of more than sixty books. I n one of those books, “stepp i ng Westward’!, pub-\u00a0I ished in 1931, Mrs. Richards says of the disinherited John Gardiner: “I have\u00a0always had a warm feeling toward John; not only because I am of the Unitarian\u00a0fold — or sha II I say rather open pasture? — but because my OlIn peop Ie were\u00a0patriots. Whi Ie John’s father was, in fiery loyalty to church and king, turning\u00a0his back on America and cutting off his eldest son with a legacy of one\u00a0lone guinea, one of my great-grandfathers was throwing tea into Boston Harbor,\u00a0another was fortifying Bunker Hill, and a third was a lieutenant in Washing;…\u00a0ton’s army.<\/p>\n As Mrs. Richards pointed out, it was a pity that stubborn old Sylvester\u00a0could not have lived to see his revenge, for John’s own oldest son re-entered\u00a0the Church of England, was ordained a minister of it, and eventually became Rector\u00a0of Boston’s famous Trinity Church. The story goes that the Unitarian father,\u00a0who had been cut off from his own father’s wealth with a paltry five dollars,\u00a0would every now and then say on a Sunday morning, HI must go and hear Jack\u00a0preach.” Taking his Unitarian prayer book under his arm, the book then used\u00a0in the services at Kings Chapel on Boylston Street, he would march off to Trinity\u00a0Church. There, when the congregation made their responses from the Book of\u00a0Common Prayer, old John Gardiner would shout out in sonorous tones the heretical\u00a0responses from the Kings Chapel liturgy.<\/p>\n And so, for old times sake, we say good-bye unti I September.<\/p>\n Year: 1955<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #269, broadcast on June 5, 1955<\/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":[755,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7531"}],"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=7531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7531\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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