What is more common or more useful today than the hundreds of gadgets that\u00a0lighten the work of the housewife in the American home? No one man was more\u00a0responsible for that relief to overworked wives than was George Landers of New\u00a0Britain, Connecticut. More than a hundred years ago, in 1842, Landers opened\u00a0a little factory to manufacture wardrobe hooks.<\/p>\n
In that year 1842 the housewife was a drudg~, spending af I day, day after\u00a0day, in hard labor. Washing was done by hand, and it took strong arms to scrub\u00a0the clothes and strong fingers to wring them. Houses were cleaned with brooms\u00a0and mops, and on hands and knees. Food had to be prepared often lest it spoi I.<\/p>\n
In 1854 Landers produced his first article to help the housewife. It was\u00a0a spring scale for weighing foodstuffs \u2022. In that era, when grocers sold almost\u00a0everything in bulk and there was no inspection of weights and measures, the\u00a0home had need for a fami Iy scale to keep a check on the merchant. Before the\u00a0coming of packaged foods, Landers’ fami Iy scale fi lied a household need.<\/p>\n
Landers followed his scale with a patent food chopper and sausage stuffer,\u00a0an apple parer, a coffee grinder, a potato slicer, and a lemon squeezer. In\u00a0twenty years he had produced nearly a hundred gadgets from magnetic tack hammers\u00a0to revolving ink wells. One of his most ingenious contraptions was the\u00a0sewing bird, a cast iron device that held needles and pins and a special method\u00a0of holding the thread.<\/p>\n
Among the best known of those early inventions were the bread maker, the\u00a0food chopper, and the coffee percolator. Then in the first decade of this century\u00a0came the vacuum bottle. AI I of these things preceded the common application\u00a0of electricity to household devices. When that application was made,\u00a0the day of the electric toaster~ the electric iron~ and the electric blanket\u00a0had at last arrived. But anyhow~ long before the vacuum cleaner salesman\u00a0knocked on anyone’s door ~ it had a II begun with a fe II ow named George Landers\u00a0down in New Britain~ Connecticut~ who was not content with just making hooks\u00a0for the clothes closet. ~<\/p>\n
wonder how many of you have ever known that a Maine man helped Benjamin\u00a0Franklin during his crucial years in France~ at the time of the American Revolution~\u00a0and in fact went on a secret mission for Franklin to the enemy heartland\u00a0of England itself. The fel low who carried out that mission was Jonathan Loring\u00a0Austin of Kittery~ Maine. Born in Boston in 1748~ Austin had graduated from\u00a0Harvard in 1766, had become a successful merchant at Kittery and a Major in the\u00a0New Hampshire mi litia.<\/p>\n
I n the spri ng of 1777 matters were ina bad way for the Reve I ut i onary\u00a0cause. The Continental Army~ after a bitter winter~ was in Morristown and was\u00a0apparently helpless to resist the obvious plan of the enemy to cut the colonies\u00a0in two. General Burgoyne was already on his way down Lake Champlain to join\u00a0Lord Howe’s fleet at Albany. Benjamin Franklin was in Paris, seeking help from\u00a0the French court — he I p that grew nore un like I y eve ry mon th with the i ncreasing\u00a0bad news for the colonial cause.<\/p>\n
Then in the summer came the turn in the tide. Burgoyne was defeated at\u00a0Saratoga and surrendered his entire army to avoid their anni lihation in the wi 1-\u00a0derness south of Lake Champlain. Here was news Franklin could certainly use\u00a0to advantage in his dealings with the French. A trusted messenger must be found\u00a0to carry it to him. Sending the message was the business of the Massachusetts\u00a0Board of War. Only a few weeks before Burgoyne’s defeat it had chosen a new\u00a0secret3ry~ young Jonathan Austi n of Kittery. To him was given the task of taking\u00a0the welcome news across the Atlantic to Benjamin Franklin.<\/p>\n
The ship Perch7 carrying our Kittery merchant7 crossed the Atlantic in 31\u00a0days7 an unusually fast voyage for those days, especially since it had to be\u00a0made through waters infested by enemy frigates intent upon picking up prizes\u00a0of war.<\/p>\n
AI I of the American Commissioners to France, with Franklin at their head 7\u00a0were at the Hotel de Valentinois when the post chaise from Nantes, drawn by\u00a0three horses abreast, clattered into the inn yard. To the arriving Jonathan\u00a0Austin, Benjamin Frankl in had just one question: “Is Phi ladelphia taken?f! ‘ryes,\u00a0sir”, was Austin’s reply. In despair Franklin clasped his hands together and\u00a0turned to enter the inn. But Austin called after him, “Never mind Phi ladelphia,\u00a0Dr. Franklin. Burgoyne’s surrendered.” The announcement threw Franklin and\u00a0everyone else in the company into jubi lant spirits, and the American cause got\u00a0renewed support in France.<\/p>\n
It was whi Ie Austin was sti I I in Paris that Franklin decided to send the\u00a0young man on a secret mission to London. The plan was to have Austin visit certain\u00a0of Franklin’s friends in London, appraise them of the true nature of American\u00a0resistance, and persuade them to use their influence on members of Parliament\u00a0to have the government offer the Americans acceptable terms of peace.<\/p>\n
Franklin certainly had influential l.ondon-,friends who opposed the government’s\u00a0oppressive stand toward the American colonies. Lord Shelburne 7 Wi I liam Pitt,\u00a0and Edmund Burke had come actually to accept the American cause as their own.<\/p>\n
To these and lesser men, Jonathan Austin reported in London. The historian\u00a0Parton says about it: t~he strange spectacle was then afforded of the most eminent\u00a0British statesmen associating with, and entertaining in their homes, a commissioned\u00a0emissary of their King’s revolted subjects, the King’s own son and\u00a0heir not disdaining his society. The secret was wei I kept, however, and few persons,\u00a0even to this day, are aware that such an audacious mission was undertaken. H\u00a0As a preparatory measure, before leaving Paris, Austin was required to burn,\u00a0in Franklin’s presence, every letter the young man had brought from America. In\u00a0their place Franklin gave Austin two letters which he assured the Kittery man\u00a0would open the way for him in the highest circles in London.<\/p>\n
When Austin reached London, he became a house guest of the Earl of Shelburne,\u00a0whose chaplain was the celebrated Dr. Priestly, scientific friend of\u00a0Frankl in. He was actually introduced to the Prince of Wales, the future George\u00a0IV.<\/p>\n
Austin was making some headway with the plan to influence Parliament when\u00a0exciting news from France reached London. What had happened is thus recorded\u00a0in Aust in’s own journa I: “Saturday it was reported that France had recogn i zed\u00a0the independence of America. On Monday the same was announced in the papers.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday Lord North told the Commons that a message would soon come from His\u00a0Majesty. Stocks fe II two poi nts today. I rece i ved a message from the French\u00a0ambassador that if I intended to leave England, the sooner I did it, the better.”<\/p>\n
The French ambassador knew that his government’s action surely meant war\u00a0with England and that in a short time all travel from London to Paris would be\u00a0forbidden. So he warned Franklin’s messenger to get out of London at once. Jonathan\u00a0Austin heeded the advice, crossed the channel to rejoin Franklin, and\u00a0stayed in France with the old gentleman for two more years. But finally, in\u00a01780, Austin did come back to America, bringing important messages from Franklin\u00a0to the Congress at Phi ladelphia. On the tenth anniversary of the Declaration\u00a0of Independence, July 4, 1786, the town of Boston cal led as their orator\u00a0for the occasion Ben Franklin’s one time messenger to enemy London, Jonathan\u00a0Austin of Kittery, Maine.<\/p>\n
A few weeks ago I told about the frogs which infested the farms of Union\u00a0after a heavy thunder shower early in the nineteenth century. Tonight I want\u00a0to te II you about a plague of grasshoppers. We have a II heard of the great\u00a0locust swarms that ruined crops in the West. One of the memorable features of\u00a0Temple Square in Salt Lake City is the tall pi liar with the figure of a seagul I\u00a0on its top. It is a memorial to the relief of the Mormon settlement from devastation\u00a0by the locusts. When it looked as if al I the crops would be ruined\u00a0by the mi II ions of re lent less insects, there sudden Iy appeared huge f locks of\u00a0gul Is, which devoured the locusts and saved the crops.<\/p>\n
No such invasion of locusts ever came to Maine. But in 1749, five years\u00a0before the bui Iding of Fort Halifax, when the Kennebec settlements were few, bad\u00a0luck struck the coast settlements from Falmouth to Machias. That bad luck came\u00a0in the form of grasshoppers. They were especially ruinous at Pemaquid and the\u00a0settlements along Muscongus Bay. The settlers had to fight the pests with bare\u00a0hands. There were no i nsecti ci des in those days. The iron Iy a II i es were the\u00a0birds, but those came not in relieving hordes as they came to the Mormons. Down\u00a0in Falmouth (now Portland) Rev. Thomas Smith, whose diary is a mine of information\u00a0about the early days, wrote the following record: “June 24, 1749 – The\u00a0grasshoppers do more spoi I than the drought. June 29 – They have eaten up en~\u00a0tirely an acne of potatoes. July 3 – I reckon my poultry, about 100, eat\u00a010,000 grasshoppers every day. July 13 – As many grasshoppers as ever, but they\u00a0are a new growth. J u I Y 24 – The ground beg ins to look green, but the re are many\u00a0grasshoppers yet. N<\/p>\n
The inseCTS had struck just when the growing crops were wei I under way, and\u00a0to many settlements they brought suffering hunger the following winter.<\/p>\n
People inTerested in Maine history have long known that, before the Revolution,\u00a0a large number of German immigrants had settled on Maine lands. Just\u00a0how they happened to do so has not been clear. But that they came to old Pownalborough,\u00a0now Dresden, is wei I attested by the German place-names that dotted\u00a0the region. Even better known was the German settlement at Waldoboro.<\/p>\n
One of the finest and best documented local histories we have ever had in\u00a0Maine is a new work published in 1956 in two large volumes. It is “History of\u00a0Broad Bay and Wa I doboro” by Jasper J. Stah I, hi mse I f a descendant of those German\u00a0immigrants. In this important historical study, Stahl explains the large\u00a0influx of German migration at that time.<\/p>\n
The two chief motives were economic betterment and religious freedom. The\u00a0Protestant Reformation in Germany had given rise to various Protestant sects,\u00a0many of them minority groups dominated by the majority faith of the Lutherans.<\/p>\n
These lesser sects rejected the old doctrine of infant baptism and other majority\u00a0beliefs. Hence they were severely persecuted. Their only recourse was to\u00a0get away. And alluring land with plenty of room in which to be free was in the\u00a0American colonies across the sea.<\/p>\n
From 1618 to 1648 a II Germany was laid waste by the Thi rty Years War. For\u00a0three decades the armies of Western Europe ravaged and looted a II over the German\u00a0I and. Some areas were comp lete Iy depopu I ated. Everywhere were destructi on\u00a0and famine. In those thirty years the population of the German states was reduced\u00a0from 16 mi II ion to 6 mi II ion. The soi I was vi rtually abandoned. After 1648 the taxes imposed by the landlords were nearly as bad as the destruction\u00a0of the armies. By the dawn of the new century in 1700 more and more peep Ie were\u00a0maki ng every effort to get away.<\/p>\n
“That”, says Stahl, “is the background which explains the early German immigrations\u00a0to America, to the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts,\u00a0and to Dresden and Waldoboro in Maine. Our forefathers who settled at Waldoboro\u00a0and their fathers’ fathers before them had lived in an area perennially wasted.\u00a0For decades poverty and suffering had been their lot. They had lived under the\u00a0constant shadow of destruction. And so from 1685 to the time of the Revolution\u00a0an unending stream of those Germans poured across the Atlantic to find new\u00a0homes whe re they cou I d be both fed and free.”<\/p>\n
The fi rst Germans reached Broad Bay, near where the vi Ilage of Waldoboro\u00a0now stands, in 1739, and they have been there ever since; for some of the finest\u00a0citizens of present-day Waldoboro are descendants of Germans who came during\u00a0the subsequent years before the Revolution.<\/p>\n
Year: 1956<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #305, broadcast on May 13, 1956<\/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":[790,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7638"}],"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=7638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}