From time to time on this program I have referred to the venerable and\u00a0honored society of Free and Accepted Masons. My library contains some treasured\u00a0books on Masonry~ several of them the gift of my friend Chester Hussey of East\u00a0Madison. Mr. and Mrs. Hussey, then living in Watervi I Ie, contributed frequently\u00a0to this program during the first year that it was on the air in 1948-49.<\/p>\n
More than once I have mentioned the influence of Masonry during the Civi I\u00a0War, how brotherhood in the same fraternal order caused more than one act of\u00a0friendship and personal aid between enemies of North and South.<\/p>\n
The father of our college physician, Dr. Clarence Dore, has recently loaned\u00a0me his copy of one of the most complete prison diaries of that war. There are\u00a0lots-of letters and short accounts of life in the Civi I War prisons, b:ht none\u00a0more detai led or coveri ng a longer~’ ti me than the day by day account of John L.\u00a0Ransom, sergeant of the 9th Michigan Cavalry, who was a prisoner of the Confederacy\u00a0from November 8, 1863 unti I a few days before Christmas in 1864.<\/p>\n
Later duri n9 th is season’s broadcasts I hope to te I I you more about Sgt.\u00a0Ransom’s experiences in Confederate prisons, especially his trying days in the\u00a0notorious Andersonvi I Ie. But tonight I want merely to give you his account of\u00a0Masonic influence~ even in the prison camps. Here it is in the very words of\u00a0the Ransom diary:<\/p>\n
‘~he boys were feeling rather more hungry than usual and were very despondent\u00a0when Corporal McCartin, an Irishman from Louisvi lie, Kentucky, spoke up:<\/p>\n
‘Boysn, he said, ‘I’ll go get us all something to eat’. He left our tent and\u00a0in twenty minutes came back with three or four pounds of bacon and two loaves\u00a0of corn bread. We asked him how he had performed the miracle. He then told us\u00a0that he was a Mason, as was also the Confederate lieutenant in charge of the\u00a0food supplies. We decided then and there that at the first opportunity we would\u00a0joi n the Masons.<\/p>\n
Ransom recorded that experience on January 20, 1864, when he was a prisoner\u00a0on Belle Isle island on th~ James River off Ricnmond. Nearly a year later,\u00a0after the racking experiences of Andersonvi I Ie, he was so worn down by\u00a0disease and malnutrition that he was removed to the prison hospital at Mi I len,\u00a0Georgia. There his diary again attested to the influence of Masonry. On November\u00a07 he wrote: “A man be longi ng to the Masoni c order need not stay here an\u00a0hour. It seems as if every rebel officer is of that craft, and a prisoner has\u00a0but to identify himself as a Mason to be taken care of. Pretty strong association,\u00a0I say, that wi I I stand the fortunes of war. That is another thing I\u00a0must do when get home — joi n the Masons.”<\/p>\n
The Civi I War ended 90 years ago. North and South are now a united nation.<\/p>\n
But al lover the world are tensions and strains between nations — iron curtains\u00a0and wal Is of partition. In our day there is even greater need than there\u00a0was in the 1860’s for a profound sense of brotherhood that crosses national\u00a0barriers and, as Norman Cous j ns puts it, speaks not for nati ons.; but for man.<\/p>\n
On this program we have said a lot about the old country stores, and I have\u00a0devoted two chapters to the subject in “Kennebec Yesterdays!!. It is time that\u00a0we devoted more attention to those who were both predecessors and contemporaries\u00a0of the country stores, the itinerant peddlers. I shall barely open the subject\u00a0tonight, waiting for you good listeners who have already helped so much with\u00a0this program to give me any information you have or can dig up about the travel.<\/p>\n
i ng pedd lers of the nineteenth century. P lease let me have any,th i ng you can\u00a0find on the subject.<\/p>\n
The first Maine merchants in the inland regions away from the coastal\u00a0ports were certainly peddlers traveling on foot with packs on the back or on\u00a0horseback with saddlebags. In 1793 Mark Andrews was the first such merchant in\u00a0the town of Turner. He sold spel ling books, mouse traps, jewsharps, fish hooks,\u00a0jack knives and tacks. Just as soon as there were roads for carts, the horseback\u00a0peddler was succeeded by the wagon peddler, because trade by barter required\u00a0space both for the goods sold and for the produce and farm articles taken\u00a0in exchange. Gradually the peddlers’ carts grew into great freight wagons,\u00a0drawn by sometimes as many as eight horses, though such wagons usually carried\u00a0goods to the country stores, rather than retai led. But we know that most of\u00a0them, like my great-grandfather, who drove such a freight wagon between Portland\u00a0and West Gorham, did some peddling at farmhouses along the way. It was one\u00a0of those big freight wagons that was used by Zadoc Long of Buckfield, father\u00a0of John D. Long, Theodore Roosevelt’s Secretary of the Navy, when he took four\u00a0tons of dried apples to Portland and peddled them to Portland housewives at 4t\u00a0cents a pound. The gol den peri od of the frei ght wagon was from 1:840 to 1850.<\/p>\n
I’m sure many of you know about the old forts at Pemaquid and Prospect.opposite\u00a0Bucksport, as wei I as Fort Popham, Fort Western and Fort Halifax, but how\u00a0many of you know anything about Fort Edgecomb? The Embargo Act of 1807 forbade\u00a0al I American vessels to leave any port of this country on foreign voyages. Congress\u00a0also closed our ports against al I nations. By that time no less than 32\u00a0ful I-rigged ships were owned at Wiscasset alone. In 1807 Henry Dearborn reported\u00a0a list of ports and harbors with situations exposed to enemy attack. He\u00a0recommended that a sma I I battery with two cannon and a gunboat stationed in the\u00a0river be provided for the mouths of the Kennebec, the Sheepscot~ the Damariscotta,\u00a0the St. George. and at Broad Bay ( the old name for Waldoboro).<\/p>\n
In 1808 the government decided to build a fort on the Sheepscot at Folly\u00a0Poi nt. Cannon were mounted there in February, 1809, and on March 4 they were\u00a0fired to announce the inauguration of President Madison.<\/p>\n
The existing blockhouse — al I that is left of the old fort — is eightsided,\u00a0wiTh two stories and a basement. The first story was pierced for muskets,\u00a0and The second had portholes like a warship. It was al I surmounted by a\u00a0watch towe r \u2022<\/p>\n
Originally the east front of the fort was a long row of barracks, near\u00a0which was a brick bake-house. On the wesT was a long row of low rooms for storage,\u00a0at the foot of which was a wharf. Around it al I was a heavy stockade,\u00a0painted red and guarded by great timber gates. The brick magazine was about\u00a0six feet in all dimensions, with its floor 16 feet below the top of the bastion.<\/p>\n
Fort Edgecomb was one of four forts bui It on the coast of Lincoln County\u00a0in 1808-9. One was at the mouth of the Kennebec, one on Fort Island in the\u00a0DamariscotTa River, and another on the eastern bank of the St. George River in\u00a0the town of st. George.<\/p>\n
War with Britain was declared on June 18,1812, and upon receipt of the\u00a0news, the colors were hoisted at Fort Edgecomb and al I guns were fired.<\/p>\n
During the summer of 1814 the British warship Bulwark harassed the coast\u00a0off the Sheepscot and the Kennebec. On June 20th she attacked the fort at\u00a0Georgetown, but was beaten off. The next morning she attacked a small party of\u00a0Wiscasset mi I itia stationed on Squam Island. The Bulwark’s barges approached\u00a0within a short distance of Fort Edgecomb and avowed the intention of burning al I\u00a0shipping. When alarm guns and bells warned the settlers, the attackers decided\u00a0the fort was too well prepared, and barges withdrew.<\/p>\n
The mi litia assembled on Edgecomb Heights and encamped. On the day after\u00a0Christmas, Captain Perry in command of Fort Edgecomb laid out an additional battery\u00a0on Jeremy Squam Island and equipped it with six l8-pound guns. He named\u00a0the new forTification Fort MacDonough in honor of Thomas MacDonough, who had\u00a0commanded the American fleet in the victorious naval battle on Lake Champlain\u00a0in 1814.<\/p>\n
Fort Edgecomb rema i ned garri soned unti I 1816. Then her guns were removed\u00a0to Fort Independence in Boston Harbor. For a brief time the fort was again garrisoned\u00a0in 1861 when the Confederate warship Tallahassee threatened the Maine\u00a0coast. But before the Ci vi I War was over the fort was aga; n di smant led and\u00a0never renewed.<\/p>\n
Do you know where ‘laS made the first permanent sett lement in Ma i ne? I wi sh\u00a0could say it was at the mouth of the Kennebec, but f cannot, because the settlement\u00a0there in the first decade of the 17th century was abandoned after only\u00a0one year. Maine’s first permanent settlement was, as you would naturally suppose,\u00a0near the New Hampsh ire border on the Pi scataqua Ri ver. I twas actua Ity\u00a0on the Newichawannock, a little tributary of the Piscataqua at the foot of Litt\u00a0Ie Johns Fa II s, laTer ca lied Lower Landi ng or Pi pe Stove Landi n9. Th is was)\u00a0of course, in what later became the town of Kittery. On an elevation a short\u00a0distance north of the mouth of Great Works River, Ambrose Gibbons bui It his\u00a0house of hewn logs in 1630 and enclosed it with a high log pal lisade. There\u00a0deve loped the sett lement ca lied Great Works, the firs t permanent sett lement in\u00a0what is now Maine.<\/p>\n
One of the Kennebec towns which we have neglected on this program is Vienna.<\/p>\n
Bought from Massachusetts and named at firsT Wyman’s Plantation, it was\u00a0the property of Nathaniel Whittier and Jedidiah Prescott, who divided it into\u00a0lots and persuaded settlers to bui Id cabins. The part of the tract that is now\u00a0Vienna was called Goshen unti I 1802, when it was incorporated as the town of\u00a0Vienna. In 1808 it got its first post office.<\/p>\n
One of Vienna’s early merchants was Levi Bradley. In 1837, when he started\u00a0business, he invited the neighbors to come and take a free. drink at his bar, for\u00a0like most country stores of The time, Bradley’s had a public bar. Bradley, however,\u00a0had apparently been affected by the temperance movement, which in the next\u00a0fifteen years would make such headway that its leader Neal Dow would persuade\u00a0the legislature to adopt prohibition in 1851. After dispensing the free drinks\u00a0in celebration of opening the store, Bradley took a saw and cut away the bar,\u00a0say i ng that thereafte r his sTore wou I d se II no liquor. Good for Levi Brad ley,\u00a01~8 years ago. The country stores no longer have bars, but a lot of them dispense\u00a0beer in bottles. We would be a lot better off if they fol lowed Bradley’s\u00a0examp Ie.<\/p>\n
And with that closing of Levi Bradley’s Vienna bar, let us say good night for\u00a0old times’ sake.<\/p>\n
Year: 1955<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #272, broadcast on September 25, 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\/7539"}],"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=7539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}