<\/p>\n
During more than thirty years of this program I have seen many collections of old letters that passed between members of families, some of whom remained in the state while others moved far away. Those letters reveal much of what was happening, both at home and in the distant places to which relatives had gone.<\/p>\n
One such collection concerns the Benjamin Brown family of Berwick in the middle of the 19th century. About 1835 the appeal of the rich soil of the prairies, despite trouble with the Indians who inhabited them, was attracting people from Maine. A bit later, when settlers’ lots could be obtained cheaply from the developing railroads who had been given huge grants of land by the government, the migration increased. Then came the discovery of gold in California and large numbers of people were drained from the New England states. The experience of the Brown family of Berwick is typical of what happened to many Maine families between 1840 and 1860.<\/p>\n
Benjamin Brown had four sons and three daughters, and it is the experiences of those sons with which the letters are chiefly concerned. By 1855, when the correspondence began, two sons, Robert and Abner, had already left for the West. The other two, Martin and Horace, were still in Maine. Abner had gone all the way to Iowa, where he had bought a farm. Robert had stopped in Unadella, Illinois, where he. was employed by a tinsmith and dealer in stoves. Before leaving Maine, Robert had already learned the tinker’s trade. In 1855 he was undecided whether to stick to that trade or go into agriculture on the black soil of the prairies.<\/p>\n
Perhaps, for the benefit of the younger generation today we had better explain what a tinker was in 1855. He was a worker in tin, often called also a tinsmith and sometimes a whitesmith, to distinguish him from a blacksmith who worked with iron. The tinker made and repaired the numerous articles of tinware – pans, baking sheets, dishes, candlesticks, and other articles common to the mid-nineteenth century. Robert Brown’s employer in Illinois combined that trade with selling something rather new in the 1850’s – cast iron stoves that replaced the old-time fireplace spits and brick ovens.<\/p>\n
Though still toying with the idea of joining his brother Abner on a farm in Iowa, Robert wrote to his father back in Maine that he was considering going into the tinware business on his own, perhaps setting up somewhere further west. To do so, Robert needed a stake, and he asked his father for a loan, saying: “I am sure I can do better westerly on my own. Will it put you to too much inconvenience to let me have $250 and take my note for one or two years? That would enable me to obtain a set of machines and tools. Will you also give your name to let me obtain credit which I will need for stock? Please answer at your earliest convenience, and do not tell anyone outside the family.”<\/p>\n
Taking no chances, Robert at the same time wrote a letter to his brother Martin in Maine, saying: “I have told Abner that if he cannot get 80 acres for me in Iowa at my price, I shall establish a tinware and stove business, and this is how I propose to do it. I will furnish one-half of the needed $700 to start that business if you and Horace will supply the other half by putting up $175 each. We will conduct the business as R. J. Brown and Company. I will be allowed $10 a week and will board myself. Each of us will share the profits in accordance with his investment. I will also make Horace a good offer to come here and learn the trade with me for three years, but I will say nothing about terms until you and he agree to the instrument. Say nothing about this to anyone but Horace.”<\/p>\n
A month later, in February 1855, after Robert had received no reply to that letter to his brother, he wrote to Martin again:
\n“lt has been an inconvenience for me not to hear from you immediately, as I requested. I would rather set up a shop than take any Iowa land. I am convinced there is money to be made in the tin business, more than I possibly could make on a farm. I have rented a building in Lake Mills, Jefferson County, Wisconsin, of which I am to take possession on April 1. I shall this week send to Suttington for a set of tools that will cost $200, and I can probably get them on six months’ credit. If you and Horace will each invest $175 in the business, as I wrote you last month, I will make Horace an offer to come here and learn the business with me over a period of three years. In the first year I will pay him $50 and his board; for the second year $75, and for the third year $125. I now think we can get started with $600 instead of $700. So if you and Horace will each put up $150 instead of $175, we can get going. Now, in the very next mail after you receive this, please write me, saying definitely yes er no. The money may net actually be needed until May or June.”<\/p>\n
On February 11, Robert wrote Martin again, his last letter before leaving Illinois for Wisconsin. “I shall only be here three weeks longer before I leave in the middle of March for Wisconsin. Now I want you take careful note of the status of the business, which is as follows: You must have no fear of our success. Here in the west the tin business is even better than in the east, where you know it pays well. I will warrant a net profit of at least ten percent. At retail prices tinware sells anywhere from 25% to 50% above cost, with an average of 33%. The stove business is equally good, making rather more than 33%. Neither Horace nor I will be in any position to improve land in Iowa. Both of us can do better in my proposed business.”<\/p>\n
Martin and Horace did accept Robert’s offer, and Martin’s next letter came from Horace, who had joined Robert in Wisconsin. It was written on April 16, 1855:<\/p>\n
“Our stock or tin has not yet arrived, neither have our stoves. This is very damaging because we have constant calls for stores, pipes, and boilers. We have a pile of orders for tin dishes and no tin to make them. We have sent several times to Galesburg for our stock, but to no avail. We were told our goods had been shipped from Chicago on March 29. Our driver learned it was directed to Wilson & Co. instead of us. When the driver returned without our goods, Robert got another team and himself drove to Galesburg. He found that the goods had instead been shipped to R. J. Brown & Co. in Watega, Ill. There Robert let Wilson & Co. take out two boxes of tin for themselves and ordered the rest to be sent on to us in Wisconsin. The two boxes turned over to Wilson were to repay for tin we had borrowed from them. Then somehow, stupidly, the shipment went to Galesburg, addressed to Wilson & Co. When Robert got there he found it had been sent on to Burlington. Robert sent word back to me that the stoves were not coming and I should order some from St. Louis. We had found that most Wisconsin merchants get stoves from St. Louis rather than Chicago. The Baptist congregation held their meeting in our shop last Sunday.”<\/p>\n
In the same month the farming brother Abner, out in Iowa, wrote to Martin in Maine. He said: “I am in very straightened circumstances and must ask you to loan me $25 if you can possibly raise that much. Remember that once you stood in need of a brother’s assistance and received it. If you can send me $5 or $10 now and let me know when I can have the rest, it will be of great service to me. I am now making fence, sowing oats, planting garden, putting in potatoes, setting out shrubbery and digging a well.”<\/p>\n
Besides financial trouble, illness had struck Abner’s family. Conditions were so bad that Martin made the long journey from Maine to Iowa to help his brother. He was back in Maine when Abner wrote him on December 11, 1855.<\/p>\n
“All has been done that is in my power to do. On October 9 I took 50 bushels of potatoes to Barrington, but could get only 40 cents a bushel for them. We got a man to work for a while, but he was no good. Most of the corn we left out until November before I could get help to harvest it. We lost a lot of it from frost. I fed our old horse Jim on pumpkins. The papers you asked me to send you are not here. You must have taken them with you when you left for Maine. Since you left, I have been very sick. We have no one to wait on us except rather distant neighbors who call occasionally. I was confined to the house for four weeks. Two days ago I was able to saw a little wood. I have just secured a carpenter at $1.50 a day. My wife is somewhat better, but her strength gives out after she has done only a little housework. I am really in hard circumstances. I can, of course, sell my place, which fast rises in value. I can now get $1,600 for it. But I do not want to sell. I am grateful for your kindness and brotherly affection.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, up in Wisconsin, Robert was having trouble of his own. Disappointed with the way things were turning out, brother Horace had packed up and left to join brother Abner in Iowa. On July 2, 1856, Robert wrote to Martin back in Maine: “I write you because of the frustration in our business caused by Horace. He has taken a course that is not only injurious to the business, but one that imposes upon you in the extreme. Not withstanding my friendly advice, he treated me with utmost disrespect. He would heed neither me nor his friends here. Today he left for Iowa, leaving at a most inconvenient time when we have two large orders to fill besides our regular work. Now I have to do it all myself. More and more Horace resented the instruction I gave him to make him a competent tinker. If he had been a mere apprentice, not a relation, I would have sought legal redress, for his agreement to stay with me for three years constituted a legal apprenticeship. But he is my brother and I must forget it. I shall have to dissolve the business unless you and I can find some other solution.”<\/p>\n
Only a month earlier Robert had assured Martin that Horace was doing well and that the business was booming. Robert said it was so good that they had to work early and late to keep up. Six months later, Horace himself wrote Martin from Iowa. “I can take criticism to a reasonable extent, especially from a brother. But there is a limit beyond which I cannot stand constant nagging. The word discharge had been sounded in my ear too often. I want to live in peace and harmony if I can possibly find it. When Robert proposed to me $75 profit in addition to my wages, I accepted his plan to dissolve the company. But when it came to making out the dissolution He said he was out of funds and I would have to wait a bit. I told him, if he so wished I would remain a partner, but give up the apprenticeship, and he agreed. I did not have to leave. I was not discharged. I left because his treatment of me became intolerable.”<\/p>\n
So the fact was that, when Horace arrived in Iowa and for some time afterward, he was still a partner in the business in Wisconsin, where he had indeed invested $150.<\/p>\n
We have no time for more on today’s program, but next week we shall see what happened among those separated brothers, especially when Horace married a girl of whom the rest of the family did not approve.<\/p>\n
Year: 1980<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #1230, Broadcast on February 17, 1980<\/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":[35324,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9950"}],"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=9950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9950\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}