\nEvery year since this program started in 1948 7 the broadcast on the Sunday before Christmas has been devoted to the subject of Christmas itself, and that is what wi I I be done ton i ght.<\/p>\n
I have frequently told you how casually our forefathers treated Christmas a hundred years ago. It was on Christmas Day in 1842 that Wi I liam Bryant, the Fairfield diarist,recorded that on that very day Wi I liam Connor had departed for the Saplin with twenty men and 30 yoke of oxen. Among the men was Bryant’s oldest son, Cyrus. What Bryant meant was that the lumberman, Wi II i am Connor. had started for his annual operation in the Saplin, the name 9iven to a hu~e lumbering area just south of Moosehead Lake. Bryant’s diary contains many entries on December 25 through the years between 1830 and 1865, but not once does he mention either gifts or gaiety on that day. He does use the word Christmas, however, referring to special church services on that day in the late 1850’s.<\/p>\n
It was as late as 1872 when a workman in Boston went to court in an attempt to regain a job from which he had been fired for fai lure to show up on Christmas Day. The court held the man had no legal redress, that Christmas was not a holiday and a workman was expected to labor on that day as wei I as on any other. He could claim it as a day of rest on I y i fit fe I I on a Sunday.<\/p>\n
In spite of scant public recognition given to the day~ we know that the giving of presents, especially to chi Idren, was common Christmas practice in New Enqland early in the nineteenth century. The gifts were simple, often home made, but they were given in the true spirit of Christmas 7 when God himself qave his greatest qift to man.<\/p>\n
When, a few weeks ago, I began to think about what I could say this year on this Christmas program, it occurred to me that something interestin9 might be found in the columns of the Watervi lie newspaper published during the Civi I War. Through the courtesy of Dr. Paine of Winslow I have had a chance to examine our old weekly paper, the Eastern Ma ii, for the years 1862 and 1863. I turned with eagerness to the December issues of that old weekly newspaper. discovered that, strangely enough, in both 1862 and 1863, the ~-1ail was published on Christmas Day itself. The reason was that in 1862 the paper appeared each Thursday, but in 1863 the publication date was changed to Friday.<\/p>\n
vs realize of course that both of those years found the nation at war. Some austerity had set in, but gaiety was not dead. The Mail carried news of parties; dances and soirees. But one finds it hard to realize that there is any such festival as Christmas, if he depends on the Eastern Mai I for information. Durin9 the whole month of December, 1862, the paper carried just one ad remindful at all of Chr i stmas. I t was an ad of George rv1erri fi e I d’s Par lor Shoe Store. I t sa i d “Buy something substantial in the shape of these nice fur-lined boots, rubber boots or overshoes for your wife, daughter or sweetheart. A present that will make her merry and happy the whole year.”<\/p>\n
In its news co I umns on December 18, 1862 the ~”‘a i I sai d: “The re are to be proper observances of the day, somebody says, by al lour religious societies. Of course we ought not TO te I I what is to be done, and we know a better reason sti II for keep i ng the secret.”<\/p>\n
Reading that~noTice 95 years after its publication, my curiosity was aroused. So I turned eagerly TO the issue of December 25 to find what the editor’s secret could be. And what a let-down I got. All I could find of any mention of Christmas in that issue of the r-v1a i I on Chri stmas Day in 1862 was The fo Ilowi ng si ng Ie paragraph:<\/p>\n
“Christmas eve made the usual call of ceremony at various localities, last night between 6 and 12 o’clock. In \\l\/inslow there was a Dub lic . reQ3ption at the Congregational Church, at which a great number of hearts, young and old, little and big, were made glad and sunny enough to last through another yearJ if nothinq turns up. This afternoon and evening the Congregational house in Watervi I Ie is to be brim ful I of joy, and there wi I I be a pleasant time at the house of Deacon Stevens, a gathering of the scholars and the friends of the Baptist Sabbath School ~ of which he is the superintendent.”<\/p>\n
If stores were open on Christmas Day, if work went on as usual, if the ads in the Eastern Mai I made almost no mention of Christmas, what did they advertise? What except the war was on peep Ie’s mi nds in Watervi lie in Chri stmas week of 1862?<\/p>\n
Wi I liam Brown announced that he had beautiful sleighs, the best to be found anywhere in the vicinity, for sale at his old stand on Temple Street. Merrifield, the shoe .dealer, pleaded: nCome to ~..errifield’s and get your ice spurs and creepers for wa I king on s Ii ppery s i dewa I ks. A sure preventi ve of broken hips and heads. H W.<\/p>\n
C. Davi s announced that his inn, the ~vatervi lie House at the foot of ~1a in Street, was now in thorough repair, and he hoped to secure a liberal share of the public’s patronage. Hilton and Doolittle, operating a meat market at the corner of Main and Temple Streets, advertised fresh and salt\u00b7 meats of al I kinds. They offered beef by the quarter at lowest pri ces, cut and de livered to any part of the vi II age.<\/p>\n
Already there was lively interest in war bounties and pensions. Drummond and Webb, counselors at law, stated that they were ready to help soldiers or their heirs secure bounties, pensions and arrears of pay. Dr. A. Pinkham, styling himself a surgeon denti st, boasted: “Teeth extracted without pain by a new process, benumbing the gums, which is entirely different from freezing and much safer.”<\/p>\n
~Jell, such was Watervi lie’s recorded recognition of the Christmas season in 1862. What about 1863? The war was then at its height, but the Union was then no longer depressed by the defeats of 1862. It rejoiced in the victory of Gettysburg and the opening of the Missi ssippi, causing President Lincoln to say, jThe Father of \\~aters now flows unvexed to the sea~’. v,! But week by week, a lmost day by day,. the casualty lists had been coming in. Now more than a hundred homes in Kennebec County would never see again some husband or son or father who had marched off to war. It was hardly a year for a gay Christmas, but we might expect some liftinq of spirits as people contemplated the day commemorative of the Savior’s birth. This time we find two ads in the Eastern Mai I remindful of Christmas.<\/p>\n
Again it is Merrifield, the shoe man, who first speaks out. His ad said: r:’Merrifield is looking for the present-making part of the community. Gents’ and ladies’ slippers, boots and shoes of al I kinds wi I I be found at the Parlor Shoe Store. Give your friends a sensible present, one that wi I I do them 900d and keep their feet warm.n<\/p>\n
But this time Merrifield’s ad was not alone, as it had been in 1862. Another, shorter ad said: HFor the Holidays! Lewis has just received a larqe lot of toys, candies, etc., suitable for Santa Claus presents.!!<\/p>\n
\\t~e I I, anyhow, there ‘tIe <\/em>have p roof that the name Santa Claus was not unknown in 1863, and that he was associated with presents of toys and candy -p resents for ch i I d ren \u2022<\/p>\n Maxham and Wing, editors of the Eastern Mai I, took occasion to brinq Christmas into an editorial in which they regretfully announced an advance in subscription rates. This is what that editorial said: H’vJe are finally compelled by the rise of paper; as wei I as everything else used in printing, TO <\/em>raise the price of the Mail from $1.50 to $2.00 a year. We promise our best efforts to increase the value of our paper. As a prelude of our liberal intentions, we\u00a0 wish every man, \\Voman and ch i I d who reads the ~~a i I a Me rry Chri stmas . ?P On Christmas Day itself, December 25, 1863, the Mail made it pi ai n just what character the ce lebrati on of Chri stmas assumed in \\AJatervi lie in that year.<\/p>\n It said: T:Good times, with the sanction of Santa Claus, are to be had in connection with Christmas al I around us. At Benton they have a Union Tree and levy a tax on each present to go to Christmas missions. At Winslow they meet for soci a I greet i ngs at the house of Rev. Mr. Oi nsmore. In Watervi I Ie, the Congregational Society entertains the juveni les with a tree in the afternoon~ and the adults with refreshments and agreeable exercises in the evening. The Unitarian Society had arranged to meet at the house of their pastor, Dr. Sheldon, for a social visit, but his unexpected absence has rendered adjournment necessary. It is in the fol lowing week’s issue of the Mail , that for January 1~ 1864~ that we get an intimate picture of one of those Christmas parties. We find it described in a public letter of acknowledgement, which the ~l\/inslON pastor, r~r.<\/p>\n Di nsmore, wrote to the ed i tors of the Mail . The good c lergyrnan sa i d: !?Chri stmas was not forgotten in Wi ns low., and one fami Iy, at least, enjoyed it very much. We had invited the Congregational Sabbath School to come to the parsonage\u00a0 on that day. A merry group of 36 chi Idren came in the afternoon and returned home highly delighted with their visit. But in the evening~ not only the members of the Sabbath School, but also the whole parish, decided to cause their minister to have a merry Christmas by replenishing his larder with full rations and his purse with that which answereth al I things. They came one after another unti I they had nearly fi lied the house. At nine o’clock devotional exercises were held” and the people with joyful countenances, returned to thei r homes, leaving behind them $30 in money, and in the larder provisions to the amount of over $20, including a barrel of flour. Furthermore, the minister was promised that his woodpi Ie would be replenished during the winter free of expense.<\/p>\n Even Mr. Maxham and Mr. \\ving, the editors of the Eastern Mai I: were remembered on that Christmas Day in 1863, for on January first they published the following card of thanks: lTThrough the generosity of Mr. James Freeman of Portland and the courtesy of Mr. E. A. Hi Iton, our attentive and faithful express agent, we and our households enjoyed a treat of luscious oysters on ‘Christmas Day. Both Freeman’s heart and his oysters are unusually large.”<\/p>\n How qua i nt and simp Ie ita I I sounds near I yah undred years afterward. In this day of gaudy and raucous commercialization of Christmas, is it possible the only attention then paid to the day was a few presents to the chi Idren and a cal I at the minisTer’s? Yet let us not be too hasty in our judgement. Can we be sure that we are any happier than they were? Do we really find life more worth living than They found it? Because we can see our Dickens’ Christmas Carol on television, or can hear a loudspeaker blast our carols from a store front, because apparently we make so much of Christmas, can we be sure that we know any better than those folks of 1863 what ChriSTmas really means? In the midst of the frivolity and commercialism of Christmas, it is today much too easy to forget thaT there is sti I I meaning for our generation in what happened in far-away Bethlehem on a long ago Christmas, when shepherds watched their flocks by night.<\/p>\n Year: 1957<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #360, Broadcast on December 22, 1957<\/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":[761,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7804"}],"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=7804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}