<\/p>\n
When the Civil War broke out 116 years ago, how did Maine stand among the states of the Union? Of course the several large volumes of the U. S. Census for 1860 would give us a mass of detailed and, I fear, somewhat confusing information. Sufficient for our purpose is a single volume of some 460 pages entitled, “Preliminary Report of the Eighth Census of U. S., 1860.”<\/p>\n
Maine then had 628,000 people, and was second among the six New England states, being exceeded only by Massachusetts. Before southern states started to secede in the following year, the nation had 34 states compared to its present. 50. In the war, 11 states seceded, leaving between 1861 and 1865 only 23 states loyal to the Union.<\/p>\n
Today people of California do not let us forget that theirs is now the largest of all the 50 states in population, exceeding even New York by a substantial amount. What about California in 1860? It then had only 380,000 people, just a bit more than half the population of Maine, and it stood 26th among the then 34 states.<\/p>\n
Besides the states, there were in 1860 eight territories – Colorado, Dakota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah Washington, and the Indian Territory out of which was later made the state of Oklahoma. In the far west, besides California, Oregon was already a state.<\/p>\n
The report in 1860 made this comment: “Thus far in our history no state has declined in population. Vermont has remained. nearly stationary. New Hampshire has gained very little, and Maine has increased by only 45,000. Massachusetts and Connecticut, however, have had such pronounced gains that New England as a whole shows good increase.”<\/p>\n
The report went on to say: “The old agricultural states of New England are filled up, as far as regards the resources adapted to a rural population. Their farms cannot sustain many more people. In those states, manufacturers and commerce are beginning to supply what the soil cannot provide. In all six New England states the maximum supportable by agriculture has been reached, but there is no way to estimate what may result from the many branches of industry that the demands of civilization have created.”<\/p>\n
At that time all six New England states together had 3,135,000 people. With the Civil War so imminent when this volume was published, it is surprising that it gives no hint of the coming conflict. Quite the contrary, it indicated that the issue of slavery was on the way to peaceful solution. It gave no indication that the election of Abraham Lincoln in the coming November would cause slave states to secede. What the report did say about slavery was as follows: “Slavery has been abolished in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New York and New Jersey, and importation of slaves is prohibited in Maryland and Virginia. In the states that have abolished slavery, every right consistent with their condition as a class has been granted to the Negroes. There is on foot a plan for gradual emancipation all over the nation.”<\/p>\n
One surprising fact is detailed in this report: The ownership of Negro slaves by Indians. The Coatanshad 3,000 slaves, the Cherokees 2,500, the Creeks 1,600 and the Chickawas 1,000. One Cherokee land owner who had made good in white competition owned 227 Negro slaves.<\/p>\n
We have always looked upon the so-called underground railroad that helped slaves escape to freedom as especially active in the 1850’s. But this report tells us: “It is apparently not so easy as it was ten years ago for slaves to become fugitives in the free state or get out of the country into Canada. In 1850 the annual rate of escape was one in every 3,000. By 1860 it had dropped to one in 5,000. However, in those ten years the population of free Negroes in the free states had increased by 13 percent.”<\/p>\n
In 1977 Maine had two Congressmen in the National House of Representatives. In 1860 she had five. Just note some comparisons. While Maine had five in the 1860 Congress, California had only three, and Florida, Kansas and Oregon had one each.<\/p>\n
In 1860 Massachusetts led all the states in fisheries, partly because of the prominence of the Gloucester fishermen on the Grand Banks, but even more because New Bedford was the major port of the big whaling fleets. But among all 34 states, Maine stood second in fishing, with the take being chiefly cod, haddock, mackerel and herring. The report made it clear that there was already concern about whale fishing. Petroleum was just beginning to be used for lighting, and whale oil was still in strong demand, while the use of whale bone was increasing. The report said, “A decline in whale fishing came from the scarcity of whales in their former haunts. The consequent lower yield of bone, teeth and oil caused those products to advance sharply in price.”<\/p>\n
Let us see what the report had to say abaut oil from the ground – our present immensely valuable petroleum. “An important development of our national resources and a valuable addition to our exports has been the discovery of natural resources of inflamable oil on the headwaters of the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania. In two years from 1858 to 1860 the annual quantity sent to market from that oil region rose from 325 barrels to 135,000 barrels. There is no doubt that the demand for this cheap material for illumination will rapidly increase.”<\/p>\n
The report noted the importance of new inventions for the farm. “The great exhibition in London in 1851 gave impetus to the use of agricultural machinery. A great variety of threshing machines were exhibited there, adapted both to horse power and to steam. One of the largest was capable of threshing and cleaning with 8 horses and 7 men, 250 bushels of grain in a day at a cost of five cents a bushel. Cost of that machine was $150.”<\/p>\n
The report shows that Maine shipbuilding was by no means finished in 1860. Of slightly more than 1,000 sea-going vessels built in the whole nation in that year, 172 were built in Maine. In respect to tonnage, more than a quarter of all made new in 1860, came from Maine yards.<\/p>\n
Now back for a moment to the subject of population. We have told you how Maine stood in New England and in comparison with some of the new states of the west. Let us now see how people were distributed throughout the 34 states.<\/p>\n
It is somewhat surprising that Illinois was even in 1860 the fourth largest state, behind only New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. The fifth largest state was Virginia. Massachusetts was seventh, and Tennessee was tenth. Maine ranked 23rd among the states. Connecticut was 24th, New Hampshire 27th, Vermont 28th and Rhode Island 29th. In 1860 Maine had more people than either Texas or California.<\/p>\n
One strange figure is given about Maine population. It says that in 1860 Maine had 628,947 whites and 1,327 free. Negroes. Then it added “Indians- 5.” The only explanation I can think of is that for some reason five educated Indians had been granted citizenship, and no attention whatever was paid by the census to the tribes that were wards of the state.<\/p>\n
There were certainly a lot of slaves in the south in 1860. Each of five states had more than 400,000 slaves: Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina. North Carolina and Louisiana each had more than 300,000, while in Missouri, a state that did not secede, there were 115,000. More than 2,000 were held in slavery in the Indian Territory.<\/p>\n
Quite naturally Maine led New England in the lumber industry, and was exceeded in the whole nation by only three states: New York, Pennsylvania and Michigan. In 1860 the great lumber industry of the Northwest had not begun. Maine then produced in value five times the lumber of Oregon. The Maine prohibition law had been passed in 1851, but surprisingly this census report tells us that in 1860, Maine had five breweries producing 7,230 barrels of beer. In textile manufacturing, Maine then had 61 woolen mills and 19 cotton mills, all together accounting for products valued at $9 million. Maine ranked second in New England in products from its tanneries with $2 million. The boot and shoe industry also prospered in 295 Maine plants. A lot of people in 1860 used neither whale oil nor petroleum for lighting. In that year Maine produced $60,000 worth of candles.<\/p>\n
It is interesting to note what were the leading manufactures nation-wide in 1860. In terms of dollars, first place went to flour and meal, second to cotton goods, third to lumber, and fourth to boots and shoes. The value of spirituous liquor exceeded either furniture, bar and pig iron, or paper.<\/p>\n
As for public information, Maine had in 1860 seven daily newspapers, 37 weeklies, and three published three times a week. There were also in the state six weekly religious journals. In 1860 the Maine Central, combining a number of Maine railroads, had not been organized and 14 different railroad companies operated within the state on two different gauges, the 4 ft. 8 inches that later became standard gauge, and the wider 5 ft. 6 inches, which was the gauge of the line from Portland to Bangor via Lewiston and Waterville. That line, by the way, ran over the tracks of three different roads: the Atlantic and St. Lawrence from Portland to Danville Junction; the Androscoggin and Kennebec from Danville Junction to Waterville; and the Penobscot and Kennebec from Waterville to Bangor. Some of the 14 railroads were very short. The Bangor, Old Town and Rutland ran only from Bangor to just across the river at Old Town. The Great Falls and South Berwick ran only the few miles from Salmon Falls to South Berwick village. One of the newest lines of importance was the York and Cumberland, the road that would later become the Portland and Rochester and would be chiefly responsible for the growth of the town of Sanford.<\/p>\n
As for population distribution by counties, Cumberland with 75,000 was only 3,000 ahead of York’s 72,000. Kennebec was in third place with 55,000. Aroostook barely squeezed out Sagadahoc, having 22,000 people to the Bath county’s 21,000. Smallest county was Piscataquis with 15,000 people.<\/p>\n
And with that summary of what the census of 1860 had to say about Maine, we must say goodbye until next week.<\/p>\n
Year: 1977<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #1133, Broadcast on October 2, 1977<\/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":[27136,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9729"}],"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=9729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}