<\/p>\n
A good way to get a glimpse of how people lived in days gone by is to examine the account books of the old country stores. In my book “Kennebec Yesterdays” I placed two chapters, one telling about the stores of 1800 at the turn into the 19th century, and the other describing a village store of 1900, at the turn into the present century. The first of those chapters carried the title “Rum and Gingerbread”, because those were two of the commonest items charged. The other chapter was called “Woodenware, Wicks & Yeast”, in recollection of a traveling salesman who used to go through a long alphabetical list ending with those items.<\/p>\n
Through the courtesy of Mr. Norman Hinckley, long the business manager of the Good Will School and only recently retired, I have had an interesting time going through the hundred-odd pages of an old journal or daybook kept from March, 1846 to April, 1848 in a country store in the town of Clinton. The old daybook gives no clue as to the owner of the store, but it does give us the names of scores of his patrons. Among them we find family names long familiar in Clinton: Holt, Decker, Cain, Furbush, Keene, Eaton, Chase and Burrill. The store’s customers were not restricted to the vicinity of Clinton Village, where the store was probably located. There were patrons from what is now Hinckley, then called Pishon’s Ferry. Among them were Reuben and Sherman Pishon and John Noble. Even from as far away as Kendalls Mills — the place now called Fairfield Village — came persons to the Clinton store. Among them was William Connor, lumberman and toll keeper of the Fairfield Bridges; Sewell Nye of the Nye mills and his fellow millman Thomas Totman. From another part of the town of Fairfield, the Ridge Road and its vicinity, appear on the Clinton merchant’s books the names of Washington Joy, Edmund Joy, John Goodin and George Ellis. Apparently living in or near Clinton in 1846 was a man who had been well known in Waterville. He was Alexander McKechnie. Alexander McKechnie’s name appears at least fifty times in the old daybook, too often for him to have been a mere casual customer. So he probably then lived not far away.<\/p>\n
It has long been assumed that the items most often sold in the country store were concerned with food, although most people know the old stores sold almost everything then available. It is amazing, therefore, to discover how few purchases were for food items. The commonest item charged in that old Clinton store was indeed a food product. It was molasses, sold at 30 cents a gallon. Although there are numerous charges for saleratus (that is, baking soda) at 12 cents a pound, in the entire hundred pages of the daybook there are only two charges for cream of tartar at 8 cents a quarter pound. Sugar sold for 10 cents a pound, rice for five cents, and flour for $4.50 a barrel. By the way, how many of you know the number of pounds of flour contained in a barrel? It was 196 pounds. What came to be called a bag of flour, weighing 25 pounds, was even in my boyhood called an eighth of a barrel, weighing exactly 24t pounds.<\/p>\n
My greatest surprise from this daybook is the price the merchant charged for coffee. Apparently he had only one grade — not the half dozen kinds of at least three grades that we kept in the Bridgton store of 1900 and that Clinton merchant sold his coffee for the unbelievable price of ten cents a pound. As late as 1900 a black, bitter Brazilian coffee that we called Rio brought 20 cents a pound, and I tell you it was poor stuff. What in the world that ten cent coffee was like I don’t care to imagine. The merchant’s price for tea was nearly three times his price for coffee, 26 cents a pound. Most spices were sold for prices ranging from 4 cents to 10 cents a quarter pound. Not so with nutmeg. That was a scarce and expensive spice in the 1840’s. It was never sold ground, but in the form of whole nutmegs, and they cost 12 cents an ounce. A few other charges that occasionally appear are crackers at 9 cents a dozen, raisins at 10 cents a pound, cheese at 8 cents, and dried fish at three cents.<\/p>\n
Although most folks then churned their own butter, the Clinton merchant did sell a little at 14 cents a pound. Except in winter, when hens were not laying well. his price for eggs was ten cents a dozen, and even in the scarcest season they never exceeded 15 cents. Of course tobacco was a popular item in the old stores. The Clinton merchant sold it at 25 cents a pound, or in smaller quantity for what was called a fig at three cents. Not for many years after 1846 would cigar be spelled “c i g a rl!. The fellow who kept this old daybook spelled it just as did everyone else at that time “s e ega r”. 1 bunch seegars, 10 cents. For the ever-popular snuff he charged 10 cents a pound.<\/p>\n
Next to molasses the commonest sales were for salt — not the refined table salt we know today, but a coarser product — not quite so coarse as rock salt, but dark and lumpy — a kind called Liverpool salt. It was sold by measure, not by weight, at 4 shillings (67 cents) a bushel.<\/p>\n
No country store of the 1840’s was without its supply of liquor, and it found plenty of customers. Up there in Clinton rum was 50 cents a gallon, gin 63 cents and brandy one dollar. Wines were cheaper, good sherry bringing only 45 cents a gallon. Whiskey was called spirits, and it brought eight cents a pint. In those days nobody had ever heard of a fifth.<\/p>\n
Much more common than food products were the clothing and sewing items that passed over the counters of a country store. Let’s take a look at some of the cloth from which garments were made. Calico and gingham were eight cents a yard, twill 11 cents, red flannel 40 cents, duck 20 cents, velvet 50 cents. Some of the goods many of us have long ago forgotten were ticking, buckram, Saxony and Linsey.<\/p>\n
Don’t you remember the expression ilL; nsey-woo 1 sey”? All wool cloth brought 42 cents a yard. The most expensive cloth that the Clinton merchant ever sold was broadcloth at $2.50 a yard. He had many charges for cloth I never heard of -celeshia.<\/p>\n
Does anyone know what it was? In warm weather he sold a lot of what he called summer stuff. It must have been a light cloth, but not gingham, because that he always charged by name. He sold ribbon for four cents a yard, sheeting for eight cents, and lace for 20 cents. He also had edging and bordering, and something he called delaying. He sold both stockings and footings. One charge read: “Bonnet for Mother, $1.75”. A paper of needles brought three cents, but a paper of pins (a bigger package) brought 12 cents. Thread was sold not on spools, but by the hank, and it usually cost a shilling, 17 cents. A stick of whalebone cost three cents, a handkerchief 12 cents. a skein of silk three cents, and a stick of twist four cents. One charge is very surprising. It reads: “1 pair Knitting Pins, four cents.” Is it possible that what were later called knitting needles were called in the 1840’s knitting pins?<\/p>\n
I have previously mentioned on this program the tenacity of the old time computations in money. The British computation in shillings and pence, though not in pounds sterling, lasted long after the American colonies had gained independence.<\/p>\n
The computation appears again and again in the old Clinton daybook: ticking, one shilling a yard; plaid. three shillings; oil, t per quart; cashmere, 8 shillings a yard.<\/p>\n
Unbelievable is the low price of boots and shoes. A pair of men’s high boots cost $3.00, but a pair of lady’s shoes could be bought for five shillings, or 84 cents. Baby shoes were 38 cents a pair, and $1.25 was considered a lot to pay for the best dress shoes one would want.<\/p>\n
Even more revealing of the way people lived 125 years ago are the old daybook’s charges for household goods. The oil sold usually in one quart quantities for 25 cents was whale oil, because petroleum products were then unknown. Though most people still used candles, which unless made at home were bought by the pound, they did have a few lamps. The merchant had a lot of charges for wicking, but that was not used entirely in the lamps. Much more of it was used in the making of homemade candles.<\/p>\n
As for dishes. plates were four shillings (67 cents) a dozen; spoons sold for four to eight cents each; a knife and fork (but not silver) cost 14 cents; a stew pot 20 cents; and a bean pot 16. A pudding pan would set you back one shilling. Glass tumblers were three cents each. Just once in those hundred daybook pages did someone splurge two dollars on a tea set.<\/p>\n
Some of the things almost forgotten by us today, that were common charges in that old store, were firkins and palm leaves, wash bowls and chamber pots, bed cords and bees wax. And of course by 1846 no one was depending on flint and steel to start a fire. The old, vile-smelling sulphur matches had already come upon the scene. They sold for one cent a bunch or one dollar a gross. Those matches were formed in what was called a card, consisting of ten matches stuck together. Four cards formed a bunch, and 18 bunches made a single package, or what was always charged as 1\/8 gross, because 18 is 1\/8 of 144. And I fear I have to remind some of you that a gross is twelve dozen or 144. Despite the matches, merchants then still sold brimstone, and up in Clinton it brought eight cents a pound.<\/p>\n
Equally as revealing as the household goods are the tools and supplies used on the outside. Red paint was five cents a pound, showing that it came in solid, not liquid form. When the haying season got under way, the merchant’s book had many references to scythes, sneaths. rakes, pitchforks and whetstones. He also sold hoes, shovels, nails, screws, saws, axes and awls. He sold a lot of powder at 25 cents a pound, and shot at three cents. He had whips for 67 cents (4 shillings) and whip lashes for ten cents.<\/p>\n
For medicine, even as late as 1846, people depended chiefly on home remedies. But that Clinton store did dispense a lot of castor oil at 13 cents a bottle, logmal at five cents an ounce, and vermifuge for 25 cents a bottle. Vermifuge was supposed to cure stomach worms.<\/p>\n
Finally let us see how the old store handled items of education. Spelling books were ten cents; a volume called “The Young Reader” was nineteen cents; while a bigger book, “The National Reader”, was 50 cents. A quire of paper cost 20 cents; a bottle of ink six cents; and a slate 25 cents. And of course there was the inevitable writing book, for which the charge was twelve cents.<\/p>\n
On a future program we’ll have more to say about this old Clinton store, including the system of credits, the charges for postage, and the curious method of cross charges.<\/p>\n
Year: 1967<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #730, Broadcast May 14, 1967<\/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":[752,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8718"}],"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=8718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}