THE 
 
 REMINISCENCES 
 
 OF 
 
 NEAL DOW. 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF EIGHTY YEARS. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 1898 
 
 THE EVENING EXPRESS PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 PORTLAND, MAINE.
 
 Copyright, 1898, 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERICK N. DOW. 
 (All Rights Reserved) 
 
 ICUTHWOHTH BROS, fSlKTERS AND E LECTROTYPERS.
 
 Nkal Dow at 87 Years.
 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 General Neal Dow was nearly seventy-five years of 
 age when lie began the preparation of the material 
 contained in this volume, "in the hope," to use his 
 own words, ' ' that a simply told story of the temper- 
 ance movement in Maine may stimulate some who fear 
 God and love their fellow-men to aid in securing the 
 protection of society from the infinite evils resulting 
 from the liquor-trafiic. " 
 
 The work, in some particulars, was far from agree- 
 able to him. The needs of the passing moment were 
 thought by him of more importance than indulgence 
 in reminiscences of past activities. He had set the 
 standard of complete success so high that he thought 
 little of what had been done when measured by 
 what remained to be accomplished. Moreover, he 
 had an almost morbid disinclination to talk of his 
 personal efforts and experiences, and it was with 
 reluctance that he yielded to the earnest solicitation 
 of others to undertake a work of which his personality 
 must of necessity be a feature. 
 
 How and why he was finally induced to record 
 some reminiscences of his life is best shown by the 
 following note, with which he commenced the 
 *' Reminiscences," December 18, 1879, here reproduced 
 in facsimile :
 
 VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 /-^ -"^-^ .d:.*-^^ 
 
 
 
 
 C'i.^^x.yfr' ^Ct^ £;^-,_^ ^y . Z^Z ^ii_<»— ^^'<2^ ^^ 
 
 
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 PREFACE. vii 
 
 No one appreciated more fully than did Neal Dow 
 the magnitude of the undertaking to which he 
 devoted his best energies during a period equal to 
 an ordinary lifetime. While he had the most com- 
 plete confidence in the ultimate attainment of the end 
 he sought, a habit of introspection made him exacting 
 in testing by actual results the wisdom and practica- 
 bility of the methods he used for accomplishing 
 desired ends. To a friend who was congratulating 
 him, on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday 
 anniversary, upon the success he had achieved, as 
 manifested by the world-wide recognition of the day, 
 General Dow said: "All this is nothing to me so long 
 as a liquor-saloon exists under the sanction of law, or 
 with the consent of officials in violation of law. This 
 celebration of my birthday is gratifying to me, cliiefly 
 as testimony of the wide-spread appreciation of the 
 magnitude of the evil I have antagonized, and as an 
 assurance that, although my personal efforts must soon 
 cease forever, the object for which I have labored will 
 in time be secured. " 
 
 Impelled by such considerations. General Dow 
 found little time to write of what had been done, but 
 in the brief and infrequent intervals of what he 
 regarded as more important work he wrote and dic- 
 tated, as opportunity served and strength permitted, 
 up to the closing months of the last year of his life. 
 The result was an amount of matter sufficient to make 
 two volumes the size of this, but his wish was 
 expressed, a week before his death, that the publi- 
 cation of certain portions might be delayed for some 
 years, if not suppressed altogether. The presentation 
 of that portion authorized by General Dow, in con- 
 nected form, after such eliminations as he desired.
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 lias necessitated some immaterial elianges in the text 
 in order to preserve continuity of narration, and also 
 a re-arrangement of chapters, as tliey were not writ- 
 ten in the order in which they now appear. 
 
 During the closing week of his life. General Dow 
 said: "If I have inadvertently so referred to any per- 
 son or event as to wound the feelings of the closest 
 friend of any with whom I have been in controversy, 
 it is my earnest wish that such reference be erased. 
 While the fight was on I sought to make my blows 
 effective, but in none of them was there unkind 
 intent. In return I have received many, but they 
 have not caused me to cherish personal ill-will for 
 those who gave them. In no instance have I varied 
 from the course which seemed to me right through 
 fear of making personal enemies, or in the hope of 
 gaining personal friends. I have no regrets, but it 
 will serve no useful inirpose to re-open old wounds." 
 
 It is proper to add that many of the incidents of a 
 purely personal character were not intended by Gen- 
 eral Dow for publication. They are given here, as 
 being relevant to the design of the volume, sidelights 
 on the character of one who was among the pioneers 
 in one of the greatest moral reforms the world has 
 ever known, as they were related by him during the 
 progress of the wcn-k in conversation with his amanu- 
 ensis. 
 
 The two supi)lementary chapters have been added 
 by tlie coiiiiiilcr at tlie suggestion of many friends, 
 upon whose request this volume is ])ublished.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MY ANCESTORS. REFEKENCE TO THEIK TIMES. MY PARENTS. 
 
 THEIR lURTII, MARRIAGE AND DEATH. 1-27 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MY BIRTH, BOYHOOD, SCHOOL DAYS. S03IE REFERENCE TO EARLY 
 
 PORTLAND. 28-55 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 LIFE AFTER LEAVING SCHOOL. EMPLOYMENTS AND INTERESTS TO 
 THE TIME OF 3IY MAJORITY. 3IY "GRAND TOUR." 56-80 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 MY EARLY BUSINESS LIFE. MY MARRIAGE. 3IY FA3IILY. SOME 
 INCIDENTS OF MY LIFE. 81-100 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE OLD FIRE-DEPARTMENT OF PORTLAND. MY CONNECTION WITH 
 IT. THE NEW ORGANIZATION. THE DELUGE ENGINE-COM- 
 PANY. CHIEF ENGINEER OF DEPARTMENT. 101 - 110 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MY OBSERVATIONS, VIEWS, AFFILIATIONS AND EXPERIENCE M'lTH 
 
 REFERENCE TO NATIONAL POLITICS. MY NOMINATION 
 
 BY THE NATIONAL PROHIBITION PARTY FOR 
 
 PRESIDENT. 1 20 - 1 'y2 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 MAINE. S03IE ACCOUNT OF WHAT IT WAS AND WHAT IT IS. THE 
 CONDITION OF ITS PEOPLE THEN AND NOW. l.")3 - ISO 
 
 CHAPTER YII I. 
 
 OPENING OF THE TEMPERANCE REFORMATION IN MAINE. FIRST 
 TEMPERANCE SOCIETY. GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE 
 
 WORK, HOW I BECAME INTERESTED. 181-220
 
 X TABLE OF COXTEXTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 I.IQUOR LEGISLATIOX OF MAIXE FROM 1820 TO THE SUGGESTIOX OF 
 
 A PROHIBITORY LAM'. THE MAINE STATE TEMPERANCE 
 
 SOCIETY. ORGANIZATION OF 3IAINE TEMPERANCE 
 
 UNION. PROGRESS TOWARD PROHIBITION. 
 
 GENERAL APPLETON'S REPORT 
 
 RECOMMENDING THAT 
 
 POLICY. 221-249 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MAINE TEMPERANCE UNION CONTINUED. IT DECLARES FOR PROHI- 
 BITION. ENACTMENT OF PROHIBITORY' LAW IN 1846. 
 
 FURTHER LEGISLATION. 250-264 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE AVORK OF CHANGING PUBLIC SENTIMENT. PROGRESS IN PORT- 
 LAND. THE WASHINGTONIAN MOVEMENT. FIRST POPULAR 
 
 TOTE ON LICENSE. METHODS AND INCIDENTS. 26-5-289 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 now SOME OF THE AVORK WAS DONE. ANNOYANCES AND ASSAULTS. 
 USEFUL AGENCIES. SOME PERSONS TO WHOM MAINE 
 
 IS INDEBTED. 290-312 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ELECTIONS AFFECTED BY PROHIBITION. SHARP CONTESTS IN REP- 
 RESENTATIVE DISTRICTS. MY NOMINATION AND ELECTION 
 AS MAYOR OF PORTLAND. REFERENCE IN MY INAUG- 
 URAL TO PROHIBITORY LEGISLATION. ACTION 
 
 OF CITY GOVERNMENT THEREON. 313-333 
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 PREPARATION OF THE MAINE LAW. ITS ENACTMENT. INCIDENTS. 
 THE TEXT OF THAT MEASURE. 334-358 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 MY DUTY AND INCLINATION TO ENFORCE THE LAW. NOTICE TO 
 
 LIQUOR-DEALEP.S OF MY INTENTION SO TO DO. THE FIRST 
 
 SEIZURE. INCIDENTS. LIQUOR-TRAFFIC DRIVEN OUT 
 
 OF SIGHT AND PRACTICALLY EXTINGUISHED. 
 
 SOME REFLECTIONS. 359-392
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XI 
 
 CHAPTEK XVI. 
 
 THE EFFECT OF THE ENFORCEMENT OF PROHIBITION. GATHERING 
 OPPOSITION TO IT. MY DEFEAT IN THE MUNICIPAL 
 
 ELECTION OF 1852. 393-428 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 DEMANDS UPON MY TIME OUTSIDE OF MAINE. EFFORTS TO SUSTAIN 
 
 GOVERNOR HUBBARD AND THE MAINE LAAV IN THE STATE 
 
 ELECTION OF 1852. PROHIBITION A DISTURBING 
 
 ELEMENT IN THE POLITICS OF MAINE. 429-452 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 EXTENSIVE SPEAKING TOURS IN BEHALF OF PROHIBITION. SOME 
 OF THE TERRITORY' COVERED. INCIDENTS AND EX- 
 
 PERIENCES CONNECTED THEREWITH. 453-474 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE STATE ELECTION OF 1853. BOLT OF MAINE-LAW DEMOCRATS. 
 
 THE TURNING-POINT IN THE POLITICS OF MAINE. ELEC- 
 TION OF AVILLIAM PITT FESSENDEN AS 
 
 UNITED STATES SENATOR. 475-495 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 SPEAKING TOURS IN DIFFERENT STATES. MY NOMINATION AND 
 
 DEFEAT AS A CANDIDATE FOR MAYOR. THE COMBINATION 
 
 RESULTING IN THE ELECTION OF ANSON P. MORRILL 
 
 AS GOVERNOR OF MAINE. 496-521 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 NOMINATION AND SECOND ELECTION AS MAYOR. THE JUNE RIOT, 
 
 522 - 544 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 PROGRESS OF PROHIBITION IN OTHER STATES. DEFEAT OF GOVERN- 
 OR MORRILL. ELECTION OF A HOSTILE LEGISLATURE. 
 REPEAL OF THE 3IAINE LAAV. DISSATISFACTION OF 
 
 THE PEOPLE. RESTORATION OF PROHIBITION. 545-560 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 INVITATION BY UNITED KINGDOM ALLIANCE TO VISIT GREAT BRIT- 
 AIN. RECEPTION AT HALIFAX. MY FIRST OCEAN VOYAGE. 
 AVELCOME IN ENGLAND. MEETINGS THERE. EXPE- 
 RIENCES, OBSERVATIONS AND INCIDENTS. 570-617
 
 Xii TABLE OF CONTEXTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIA\ 
 
 THE OUTBRKAK OF Tllf: "U'AR FOR THE UNION. HOPE THAT IT 
 WOULD RESULT IN THE DESTRUCTION OF SLAVERY. COR- 
 
 RESPONDENCE WITH FRIENDS IN GREAT BRITAIN AS TO 
 ITS CAUSE AND CONSEQUENCES. APPOINTED TO 
 THE COMMAND OF A REGIMENT. CAMP LIFE 
 OF THE THIRTEENTH MAINE AT 
 AUGUSTA. DEPARTURE FOR 
 
 THE FRONT. G18 - 643 
 
 CHAPTER XXY. 
 
 DIVISION OF MY REGIMENT IN liOSTON. I EMBARK WITH FOUR 
 COMPANIES ON STEAMER MISSISSIPPI. THE THIRTY- 
 
 FIRST MASSACHUSETTS. THE VOYAGE. A 
 
 STOR3I. AGROUND. 644 - 662 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 IN CAMP AT SHIP ISLAND. 3IY ANTISLAVERY SYMPATHIES AND 
 
 POLICY. EMPLOYMENT OF NEGROES AS SOLDIERS. HOSTIL- 
 ITY TO ME EXCITED BY MY OBSERVANCE OF ARMY 
 
 REGULATIONS AS TO LIQUORS. 663 - G85 
 
 CHAPTER XXYII. 
 
 ORDERED TO PORT HUDSON WITH MY COMMAND. RUMORS OF A 
 BATTLE. RAPID MARCHING. THE BATTLE OF PORT HUD- 
 SON. CHARGE OF 3IY BRIGADE. WOUNDED. 
 
 TAKEN PRISONER. 686 - 703 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 MV EXPERIENCES AND OBSERVATIONS AS A PRISONER OF W'AR. 
 
 AVHAT I SAW OF THE SOUTH AT THAT TIME. KINDNESSES 
 
 AND COURTESIES EXTENDED TO ME. ESCAPE OF 
 
 THE I'NION OFFICERS FR03I LIBBY PRISON. 
 
 MY EXCHANGE FOR GENERAL 
 
 FITZHUGH LEE. "04-737 
 
 8UPPLKMENTARY. 
 
 JENEKAL DOW S NINETIETH ANNIVERSARY. HIS LAST DAYS. 
 
 LOCAL 'JUIIiFTES TO HIS LIFE AND WORK. 
 
 THE FUNERAL SERVICES. 738-756 
 
 II. 
 
 SOME PRESS AND oilli:!: NOTICES OF THE DEATH OF GENERAL 
 
 dow. presentation ok portrait to the city. addresses 
 
 ok hon. .loseph w. svmonds and rev. dr. henry s. 
 
 bi"i:ka<;e. resolutions of the city 
 
 (jon'ernment. 7.57-769
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MY ANCESTORS. REFERENCE TO THEIR TIMES. MY PAR- 
 
 ENTS. THEIR BIRTH, MARRIAGE AND 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 I come from Englisli stock upon both sides. The 
 earliest ancestor in my father's line of whom I have 
 note, John Dow, was born in Tylner, Norfolk county, 
 England, in 1520. He died in July, 1561, as appears 
 from the date of the execution of his will and that of 
 its probate. From that document it is inferred that 
 he left two brothers and three children. 
 
 His eldest son, Thomas, my progenitor, after his 
 father's death, moved to Runham, in the same county. 
 From the first of his four children, Henry Dow, I am 
 descended. Henry died in December, 1612, or Jan- 
 uary, 1613. His second son, Henry, my ancestor, 
 was born in 1608. He married, February 11, 1631, 
 Joan, the widow of Roger Nudd, of Ormsby, Nor- 
 folk county, England; six years after, he obtained 
 a license to emigrate to America. That paper, which 
 was dated April 11, 1637, refers to him as "husband- 
 man," aged tAventy-nine years, to Joan his wife, aged 
 thirty, to four children, and to one servant, seventeen 
 years old, as "intending to pass into New England to 
 inhabit. "
 
 :1 REMINISCENCES 
 
 A\'itli the family mentioned in that license, Henry 
 Dow settled in Watertown, Mass. Here liis wife Joan 
 died, Jnne 20, 1G40. The next year he married Mar-' 
 .iraret Cole, of Dedham, Mass. About two years later 
 he moved to Hampton, N. H., where he had bought 
 a house and several tracts of land. This homestead 
 remained in the possession of his lineal descendants 
 for more than two hundred years, when in 1854 it 
 was disposed of by the family. 
 
 Henry died April 21, 1G59, being then fifty-one 
 years old. It appears that he was somewhat promi- 
 nent in the affairs of the town, and that he repre- 
 f?ented it in the General Court of Massachusetts, 
 1G55-5G. From this Henry, the first of the family to 
 settle in America, are descended, I believe, the numer- 
 ous Dows of New Hampshire, Massachusetts and 
 ]\Iaine. Of those of his children of whom I have 
 any record six lived over sixty years; four exceeded 
 the three score and ten limit by three, five, seven, and 
 eighteen years respectively, but the one among them 
 to whom I trace my lineage, Joseph, died at sixty- 
 four. 
 
 Joseph Dow was born at Watertown, Mass., March 
 20, 1G39. He was the third son of the last mentioned 
 Henry, and the first of the family born in this coun- 
 liy. He married, December 17, 1662, Mary Sanborn, 
 and settled in that part of Hampton now known as 
 Seabrook. He seems to have been active in the con- 
 troversies growing out of land-claims under conflict- 
 ing charters, liaving been appointed in behalf of the 
 town to represent tlie inhabitants of Hampton upon 
 tliat su]).ject before tlie Royal Council. He was also 
 ollierwise Interested in tlie jmblic concerns of the 
 little commuiiitv in wliich he lived.
 
 or NEAL DOW. 3 
 
 Although like his older brother, " Captain" Henry 
 Dow, Joseph was at one time connected w^ith the mili- 
 tary service of the colony, being a sergeant, he later 
 associated himself with the Friends, or Quakers. He 
 was then about thirty-four years old, and was among 
 the earlier converts of the mission to this country of 
 George Fox, the founder of the sect. With that 
 society my line of the family retained its connection 
 through several generations, or until it was severed 
 by my withdrawal, or dismissal — of which more later. 
 
 My ancestor, Joseph, was one of those who suffered 
 from the persecutions to which the Quakers of his 
 day were subjected, but his persistency in demanding 
 his rights not only led to his receiving some recom- 
 pense for his injuries, but to the discomfiture of the 
 governor of the province and the better treatment 
 thereafter of the Quakers of the vicinity. In 1701 he 
 was one of the trustees to whom the land was con- 
 veyed in behalf of "all those Christian people, called 
 Quakers, living in Hampton, to seat a meeting-house 
 thereon." Two years later, April 4, 1703, he died, at 
 the age of sixty-four years. 
 
 Of the twelve children of Joseph, the eighth, 
 Josiah, was my great-great-grandfather. He was 
 born July 2, 1679. He married Mary Purington, and 
 died April 18, 1718. He was then only thirty-nine. 
 His third son, Abraham, was my great-grandfather, 
 born May 2, 1715. He married Phebe Green. He, 
 like his progenitors, was a farmer, but became quite 
 prominent among the Friends as a preacher, and lived 
 to be sixty-nine years old, dying in 1784. 
 
 The second son of Abraham, Jedediah, was my 
 grandfather. He was born in 1741, being forty-three 
 years old when his father, Abraham, died. Through
 
 4 EEMI.NISCENCES 
 
 liiin, from his father. I heard in my youth, with the 
 interest they were likely to excite, stories of life in 
 New England, dating back into the first quarter of 
 the last century. 
 
 My grandfather moved to Weare, N. H., about 1772. 
 There he built a log house in what was then a wilder- 
 ness, where he cleared a farm. To this house, or 
 rather, near to it, for the road was not then suffi- 
 ciently cleared, I have been told, came the first 
 chaise, or covered private vehicle, ever seen in the 
 town of AVeare. It brought visiting friends from 
 Salem, Mass. Three years later Jedediah and his 
 older brother, Jonathan, built the first two two-story 
 houses erected in the town. 
 
 My grandfather added to the family vocation of 
 faiining that of a blacksmith. I doubt not that he 
 was a good blacksmith, as I know that he was an 
 industrious, prudent. God-fearing man, and a good 
 citizen. He lived until 1826, dying at eighty-five. I 
 remember him still as I was wont to see him when I 
 visited him occasionally in my youth. He was in the 
 vigor of his manhood when the Revolutionary war 
 broke out. His life, with that of his father, who at 
 the inception of that struggle was sixty years of age, 
 covered more than a century of New England history, 
 glimi)ses of which in story and tradition it was my 
 l>ri\ilege to enjoy when as a boy I made delightful 
 visits to the old homestead in Weare. 
 
 To-day. as I recall some of the incidents in grand- 
 father's experience, and in that of his father and 
 grandfather, as related to me, together with other 
 well authenticated tales which I received through 
 tlifiii tVoiii ilit'ii- elders, I seem to connect by my own 
 lift' Hit'sr latter days of the nineteenth century with
 
 OF NEAL DOW. O 
 
 the earliest settlements in New England. Those 
 times, though lacking in the rush, bustle, and excite- 
 ment which mark these later days, had their own 
 peculiar trials and dangers, joys and sorrows, suc- 
 cesses and disappointments, which must have left 
 their traces upon life and character for generations. 
 
 As I have said, my grandfather cleared a farm in 
 the wilderness. It was at a time when the forests 
 were infested with the wild beasts native to New 
 England. Neighbors were few and far away, and 
 each settler was obliged to rely upon his own skill, 
 industry and courage to overcome the obstacles to the 
 comforts of life. Nor were they at all times free from 
 danger. When a boy, visiting my grandfather, I lis- 
 tened, eyes, and I dare say mouth as well, wide open, 
 to his stories of the olden times. Some of these are 
 fresh in my memory as they were related to me by 
 him so many years ago. 
 
 One of my ancestors, whose name I cannot recall, 
 on the occasion of an Indian raid, in the absence of 
 her husband, was dragged from her home, which was 
 destroyed by fire, and, with hands bound, concealed 
 in the woods not far off in charge of a one-armed 
 squaw. While thus secured, her husband, with a 
 relief party, passed within sight and near enough to 
 have heard her voice had she dared to disobey the 
 command to be silent from the savage guard who 
 stood over her with uplifted hatchet, ready to brain 
 her upon the least outcry or movement. Some days 
 elapsed before she was rescued. This story, which 
 came to me directly through my own kin from her 
 who was its heroine, brought, in my boyish imagina- 
 tion, the days of Indian cruelty and tragedy down to 
 my own time. Indeed, they were not far distant.
 
 6 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 One day my grandfatlier was walking across a field 
 when his dog seized his coat and began pulling him 
 back in so strange and unaccountable a way that he 
 yielded' his will to that of the dog and returned to his 
 home. In making that retreat he turned and saw an 
 Indian, with a gun, move from behind a rock by 
 which he would have passed but for the strange con- 
 duct of his dog. He always afterwards believed that 
 the animal saved his life. 
 
 One evening, Avhen the shades of night were fast 
 closing around him, grandfather was returning from 
 the woods, walking with his head down, his ax under 
 one arm, and his hands in the pockets of his coat. 
 Suddenly his hat was snatched from his head, and he 
 saw confronting him in the narrow path a huge bear, 
 standing on his hind feet, displaying a wicked row of 
 glittering teeth. Retreat was impossil^le, had he 
 wished it, and there was nothing for it but to fight it 
 out with no quarter to either combatant. Grand- 
 father was a powerful, active man, and an experienced 
 woodsman, skilled in the use of the ax, but his quick 
 and powerful blows, delivered by that formidable 
 weapon, were for a time parried by the bear. At last 
 the edge of the ax disabled one of the brute's paws, 
 and instantly another blow on the head brought him 
 down. Afterwards the end was easy. 
 
 The following incident related to me in those days 
 has often seemed to me like a connecting link between 
 the days of my boyhood and those of the witchcraft 
 tragedies of an earlier date. The astounding trials 
 and cruel ijunishments of the "witches," the annals 
 of which fill such a sad, black page in New England 
 history, had ceased long before the date of this story, 
 but tlie superstitions in which they liad their origin
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 7 
 
 liad not all been eradicated at the time of the incident 
 which befell my Great-great-uncle Hussey. 
 
 He was riding on horseback after nightfall on a 
 road through the avoocIs with two comi)anions, boys of 
 his own age, when they heard a rushing, trampling 
 sound some distance in advance, accompanied with 
 what their excited fancies conceived to be laughter, 
 screaming, and unearthly yells. The very ground 
 seemed to tremble. Uncle Hussey's companions said 
 it must be witches and were much frightened. The 
 noise increased in volume, or seemed to grow nearer. 
 They stopped their horses, and it ceased; they moved 
 on, and it was renewed. Overpowered by fear, his 
 companions turned back and drove home as fast as 
 their horses could run. 
 
 Hussey, who had no belief in witches, pushed on in 
 the direction of the noise, to find at length a clearing 
 in which a number of horses were racing back and 
 forth, shaking the earth with their galloping and 
 making the night hideous with their mingled whinny- 
 ings, which had been excited by the approach of the 
 horses of the belated travelers. When Hussey subse- 
 quently told his witch-frightened companions what he 
 had learned, they would not believe it, and they, and 
 others to whom they related the secret, insisted that 
 the noise must have been made by witches, with 
 whom he was in league, and by whom he had been 
 induced to attribute it to the commotion of the beasts. 
 Somewhat earlier he might have been put to death, as 
 had others before him, for no better reason. 
 
 The contests, however, with the Indians and the 
 scarcely more savage animals were not a greater tax 
 on the courage and endurance of the early settlers in 
 those New England wilds than were their struggles
 
 8 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 witli the ^vilderness from wliich they were wresting 
 their sustenance. Even in my youth, I wondered at 
 the industry, prudence and ingenuity they manifested 
 in overcoming the difficulties of their position, and 
 my wonder has increased with the years. They were 
 compelled to depend upon their own handicraft for 
 most of their clothing as well as for their food, and 
 down to the days of my early manhood the spinning- 
 wheel and loom were important parts of the furniture 
 of every country house, and, indeed, of many a town 
 mansion in those portions of New England with which 
 I was familiar. 
 
 The children of my grandfather became useful, 
 respectable, and estimable men and women. By per- 
 sonal application and industry they obtained an edu- 
 cation far in advance of the average at that time 
 among those early settlers in the woods, securing it 
 despite difficulties that would have discouraged many. 
 It was only by prudence and constant exertion that 
 the commonest comforts of life could be obtained, 
 and only by frugality could savings be made to pro- 
 vide for the more comfortable mode of living they 
 enjoyed in later life. 
 
 Tea and coffee were for years entirely unknown 
 among them; bean porridge was upon the table every 
 meal, if indeed they were well enough off to indulge 
 in it so freciuently, and the bread was generally of 
 Indian corn, sometimes mixed with rye. There Avere 
 no grist-mills within reach, and they were obliged to 
 pound their corn in mortars, dug out of solid rock- 
 maple. These were out of use before my day, but in 
 my l)oyhood I saw them standing near the farm-houses 
 where they were put aside after a grist-mill had been 
 established at some reasonably accessible point.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 9 
 
 I never saw tlie log house my grandfather built. 
 Before my first visit to him it had given place to a 
 large and excellent farm-house, not long since owned 
 and occupied by lineal descendants of his. Here he 
 spent the evening of his days in the family of one of 
 his daughters, my Aunt Mary, whom I remember well 
 — she lived until 1853 — as one of the most charming 
 women I have ever known, though born and reared 
 as she had been amid the privations incident to early 
 New England backwoods life. I do not remember my 
 grandmother. Her maiden name was Dorcas Neal. 
 She was my grandfather's second wife, his first wife 
 having been killed by lightning a few days after her 
 marriage. 
 
 In my boyhood, while my grandfather lived, we 
 used to go every year, my father and mother in one 
 chaise, and my two sisters and I in another, to visit 
 him in the pleasant, hospitable country home he had 
 finally been able to establish. An incident of one of 
 these trips, which I recall as of yesterday, impressed 
 upon my youthful mind a lesson by which my horses 
 and those of some of my neighbors have ever since 
 profited. 
 
 The horse I was driving had his head checked up. 
 It gave him a more stylish appearance than that of the 
 animal my father drove, and perhaps for that reason 
 we young folks preferred it. The horse became fret- 
 ful and uneasy, sweating profusely, and manifesting 
 much discomfort, which I supposed to be evidence of 
 sickness. At the foot of a long hill he stopped and 
 refused to go farther. Just then a farmer drove by, 
 and, noticing the horse, advised me to let him have 
 his head. I unhooked the check, with the result that 
 the horse started immediately, cooled off in a short
 
 10 REMINISCENCES 
 
 time, and gave me no more trouble. Thus in my l)oy- 
 liood I learned, I do not know liow many years before 
 its publication, one of the lessons which the little 
 book, " Black Beauty," has so interestingly taught. 
 
 My sisters and I looked forward to those .journeys 
 to the old homestead with joyful anticipation for 
 months before we entered upon them, and after each 
 was of the past it was recalled in memories of many 
 youthful ]>leasures and in the valuable precepts and 
 useful examples it furnished. In many ways those 
 visits impressed themselves upon me, and my early 
 associations with my grandfather and his family had 
 an influence upon all my early, and doubtless much of 
 my later, life. Indeed, no intelligent, thoughtful lad 
 could fail to derive benefit from mingling with such 
 people, or to obtain advantage from the lessons taught 
 by their lives. 
 
 Those teachers, exem])lars, family friends of my 
 early years, have passed away. The country in which 
 they lived has greatly improved since their day. It is 
 more populous, the farms are better cultivated, the 
 peo])le richer, better educated, and it would seem that 
 their lives might be far easier than those of their 
 progenitors. But the present generation is not hap- 
 pier than its fathers were in their ruder homes, with 
 their simpler modes of life, Avhile in the midst of their 
 own difficulties they may well wonder how their 
 ancestors managed to live at all. 
 
 The first meeting-house of the Friends, was built 
 near my grandfather's home. There the members of 
 that society worshii)ed in their ])lain, but, we may 
 believe, acceptable way. There they assembled to 
 forget the perplexities and pleasures of this earthly 
 life, and to make preparation for that to come.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 11 
 
 I recall an incident related to me by one who wit- 
 nessed it Avliile attending' one of those meetings. 
 One of the worshipers brought with her one Sab- 
 bath her ]\oonday meal, bean porridge, in a gourd, 
 which was deposited under a seat to remain there 
 during service, or until she should need it at inter- 
 mission. During the morning the solemnity of the 
 meeting was l:)roken by a rude disturbance. It was 
 caused by a dog which had pushed his head into 
 the gourd to eat the porridge, and, unable to with- 
 draw it, was running about in meeting, alarmed by 
 his unwonted head-gear, and making the meeting 
 more entertaining than at any time before or after to 
 the young folk who were Avont to attend. 
 
 A more modern meeting-house stands on the spot 
 formerly occupied by that rude structure. Near it 
 are the graves of the men and women of the olden 
 time, marked only, as was customary with the early 
 Friends, by simple mounds and unhewn stones. 
 There were put to rest the remains of my grandfather 
 and grandmother, and others of my kin, to be scarcely 
 quieter in the repose of death than in their peaceful, 
 well-ordered lives. They were of those who, in the 
 early New England days, amid privations of many 
 kinds, were laying broad and deep the foundations of 
 civil, religious and personal liberty. 
 
 We have received from them a heritage of priceless 
 value, of the cost of which to our fathers we know 
 little, and too often, I fear, care less. If we of this 
 day would keep constantly before us the picture of 
 the plain, perhaps homely, but virtuous lives of our 
 ancestors we might the better inculcate for the benefit 
 of our children and our children's children, through 
 all coming time, a fear of God and love for man,
 
 12 EEMIKISCENCES 
 
 incite them to faitlifuliiews and activity in the dis- 
 charpre of their duty, and instruct them by precept 
 and example that "righteousness exalteth a nation, 
 but sin is a reproach to any people. " 
 
 My father, Josiah Dow, was the eldest of four sons, 
 and the second of seven children. He was born in 
 Seabrook, N. H., September 27, 1766, but when six 
 years old went to Weare with his father, Jedediah. 
 There, surrounded by such influences as may be 
 inferred from what has been written, he lived until 
 he was twenty-four. He was about nine years old at 
 the outbreak of the Eevolution, and to his last day 
 remembered well the excitement attending many of 
 the events of that war. 
 
 I have heard him say that a company of militia on 
 its way to Boston, and which afterwards participated 
 in the battle of Bunker Hill, camped near his father's 
 house. Some of his relatives were among them, and 
 they took from him some bullets he had been casting, 
 together with the bullet-mold and what uncast lead 
 he had. He never admitted to me that he was inten- 
 tionally furnishing ammunition for "carnal war- 
 fare," but Quaker, and son of a Quaker, though he 
 was, as a boy he regretted that he had not lost by the 
 militia a sufficient number of bullets to serve his 
 patriotic neighbors through the battle. 
 
 In my fatlier's earlier days game of many kinds 
 abounded in the forests, among such being the wild 
 turkey, to hunt which was his chief recreation. He 
 has told me that a turkey, concealed in a tree, would 
 keej) perfectly tiuiet, however close he might approacli, 
 until his eye caught sight of it, when instantly the 
 bird would be off, knowing instinctively that it was 
 discovered. As shooting on the wing was not easy
 
 JosiAH Dow AT 90 Years. Father of Neal Dow.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 13 
 
 witli the old lonio: flint-lock "queen's arm " of the day, 
 the proportion of turkey shot to turkey hunted was 
 always small. 
 
 The son of a farmer, on a backwoods farm, my 
 father's early life was rude and laborious, but he had 
 the requisite courage and determination to improve 
 his condition, and, the opportunity offering, being 
 fond of reading, he qualified himself to discharge all 
 the duties of a good citizen with advantage to society 
 and credit to himself. In summer he was an industri- 
 ous worker on the farm of his father; in winter he 
 taught a school, in which, however, were imparted 
 only those branches that country boys and girls of 
 that early day were expected to acquire. 
 
 An incident of his early life in Weare which he re- 
 lated to me may be of interest. There was an elderly 
 man, entirely blind, living somewhere in the vicinity, 
 who was accustomed to ride on horseback about the 
 country. One day my father was working in a clear- 
 ing by the roadside when the old man on horseback, 
 hearing him at work, stopped and inquired where he 
 was, saying that he supposed that he was at such a 
 point, but judged ' ' by the sound of his horse's steps " 
 that he was mistaken. Father explained to him that 
 a little tan bark had been spread upon the road at that 
 point some days before, and the old blind man rode 
 on, reassured that his hearing was yet a reliable 
 guide. 
 
 In 1790, soon after attaining his majority, father, 
 becoming satisfied that it would be wise for him 
 to seek another field of employment, left AVeare 
 and moved to Falmouth, Me. , a town then adjoining 
 Portland, and of which the latter had been a part 
 until set ofi: in 1786. Here he lived for about five
 
 14 EEMIXISCEKCES 
 
 years, in a lionse still standing on ihe banks of the 
 Presumpscot river, about five miles from Portland, 
 just beyond the covered bridge on the Blackstrap 
 road. 
 
 It may vrell be believed that my father brought 
 with him to his new home but little more than good 
 health, a strong constitution, and those industrious 
 habits and simple, frugal tastes which Avere the 
 natural outgrowth of parental and other influences 
 that had surrounded him in the home of his boyhood. 
 But with what he had he engaged in carrying on in a 
 small way, with a brother-in-law who had preceded 
 liim to Falmouth, the tanning business, his leisure 
 time in the winter being employed in teaching school. 
 
 A few rods south, on the Portland side of the river, 
 in full view of the home my father had chosen, stood 
 at that time a Friends' meeting-house. Long ago it 
 was taken down, but it survived until my day, and 
 there, in my boyhood, I frequently attended with my 
 parents the Friends' quarterly meetings. Its site is 
 still plainly indicated by grass-grown ridges, while 
 numerous neglected mounds and hillocks, in some 
 instances marked with i)lain, uninscribed field stones, 
 show the last resting-places of the earlier Quakers 
 of that vicinity, among them my ancestors on my 
 mother's side for three generations. 
 
 In that old meeting-house, or possibly in school as 
 one of his scholars, for she was seven years his junior, 
 ray father first met my mother. However that may 
 be, soon after he came to Falmouth he made her 
 accjuaintance. Her family, well-to-do members of the 
 society of Friends, lived in a liouse not a mile away as 
 ■Hie crow flies, and in lull \ lew of that Avhere my 
 father lived. That old mausiou at tliis writing is still
 
 OF NEAL DOAV 15 
 
 standing', tliougli somewliat modernized. It i« near 
 the Maine Central depot at West Falmouth, and is 
 now the home of Josiah Allen, a descendant in the 
 fourth generation from my grandfather, Isaac Allen. 
 
 Of this grandfather I remember but little, except 
 that he was fond of telling me stories, and of his 
 parents I know nothing. He died when I was not 
 more than fifteen years old. I recall him as a man of 
 slight physique, and apparently not in rugged health. 
 I remember to have seen him at my father's house at 
 dinner as well as at his own fireside. He wore knee 
 breeches, and, after the manner of the early Friends, 
 sat with his hat on at the table, its broad brim entirely 
 concealing his face as his head would be occasionally 
 bowed. 
 
 When I knew him. Grandfather Allen was a Quak- 
 er, and, as far as I have any positive information to 
 the contrary, may have been born and always lived 
 such. But in my early youth I was told that he was 
 once "a man of carnal warfare." He may have told 
 me so himself, I am not sure. I remember, however, 
 distinctly, that he told me stories about his having 
 seen many ships with many soldiers on them. Since 
 then, by putting together the fragments of my dim 
 recollection of his anecdotes, I have thought that he 
 may have been at one or the other of the sieges of 
 Louisburg, but I have never been able to verify this. 
 If such were the fact, it was not one of Avhich a 
 Quaker of the time of my boyhood would have spoken 
 save in terms of regret and repentance, and no mem- 
 ber of a Quaker family of the ])eriod would have more 
 willingly preserved data of that than of any otlier 
 sinning. 
 
 Mv mother's mother was Abigail Hall. She was
 
 16 KEMIXISCENCES 
 
 a descendant, tlirougli her father, Hate-Evil Hall, of 
 John Hall, who, born in England in 1617, came to 
 ]S'ew England, lived for a while in Charle^^town, 
 Mass., and in 1084 removed to Dover, N. H. He died 
 about 1690; He was a man of some importance and 
 influence in his day. His oldest son, John, my 
 ancestor, was born in Charlestown, in 1645. He kept 
 a tavern for a while at Dover, and was repeatedly a 
 member of the New Hampshire legislature. He mar- 
 ried Abigail, daughter of John and Abigail (Nutter) 
 Eoberts, her mother being a daughter of Elder Hate- 
 Evil Nutter. 
 
 Hate-Evil Hall, my mother's maternal grandfather, 
 was born in Dover, February 15, 1707, and married 
 Sarah Furbish of Kittery, April 1, 1738. He was a 
 man of great physical and mental vigor. He moved 
 from Dover, N. H., to Falmouth, Me., somewhere 
 about 1753-54, and located on a farm, quite recently 
 owned and occupied by the venerable John Wood- 
 bury, at the northerly end of the road called ' ' Shady 
 Lane," which winds with charming variety of curve 
 and view around the easterly base of Blackstrap Hill. 
 There Hate-Evil built his modest home and reared a 
 large family of sons and daughters, twelve of whom 
 married, each becoming the parent of from nine to 
 twelve children. He died in 1797, at the age of 
 ninety, leaving four hundred and ninety-five descend- 
 ants, the progenitors of some of the most thrifty, 
 respectable, and influential citizens of western Maine. 
 
 I remember a visit I made as a boy to the house in 
 which Hate-Evil had lived. A relative of the family 
 had come to my father's home, and, wishing to send a 
 note to the old homestead, offered to ])ay me for car- 
 rying it. I was a small boy, too small, it now seems
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 17 
 
 to me, to be trusted alone and on foot on so long a 
 tramp in the winter, but more was expected of boys 
 then, as money was scarcer with them than now, and 
 I was anxious to earn the sum offered. 
 
 On the way I was overtaken by a man in a sleigh, 
 who took me in to ride. When we reached Shaw's, 
 now Allen's, corner, he stopped at a store, I waiting 
 outside. After what seemed to me a long time, I 
 looked in, to find him with others before a great open 
 fire, drinking flip, a mixture of cider and other bever- 
 ages heated in a mug by the insertion of a hot poker. 
 I had already lost much time, and so took my way on 
 foot and delivered my note. Reaching home long 
 after dark, I found my mother alarmed by my delay, 
 but I received for my service seventy-five cents, which 
 to me was a fortune with which I was highly elated. 
 
 The fifth of Hate-Evil's children, Abigail, was my 
 •grandmother. She was born February 12, 1740, and 
 died February 12, 1825, aged eighty-five. I remember 
 her well as the kind donor to me, in my early youth, 
 of nut-cakes, when I was at her house, to which I was 
 wont to go on errands, sometimes riding with my 
 mother, and sometimes walking, though more than 
 eight miles by the road I was obliged to travel. On 
 these occasions my mother would fit me out with 
 clean collar and my best shoes and stockings, all of 
 which I was wont to remove as soon as I had got 
 out of the village, as Portland was then known, to 
 replace them when within a few yards of grand- 
 mother's home. 
 
 She lived until I was about twenty-one, and I fre- 
 quently visited her in my later teens. She was a 
 woman of strong mental characteristics. Perhaps my 
 lifelong abhorrence of tobacco is due in part to the
 
 18 EEMIXISCENCES 
 
 fact that I often saw lier smoking in the chimney 
 corner, as was the custom of many of the older 
 women of her time. The sixth of the seven children 
 of Isaac and Abigail (Hall) Allen was Dorcas, my 
 mother. She was born August 28, 1773. 
 
 Six years after my father's arrival in Falmouth, 
 when he had accumulated some property, he was 
 married according to the simple and impressive cere- 
 mony of the Friends. The event took place on the 3d 
 of February, 179(), in the old meeting-house before 
 referred to, which both had been accustomed to 
 attend. 
 
 It was usual among the Friends on the occasion 
 of a marriage between members of the society, to hold 
 a solemn meeting where there might be prayer or 
 exhortation if any one was moved thereto, and where, 
 after a fitting season of silent worship, the parties 
 arose, faced the audience, and made each of them a 
 declaration which was recorded in the certificate of 
 marriage, and entered upon the records of the meet- 
 ing. Such a certificate, not common now, may be of 
 interest, and that of my parents is here introduced: 
 
 " Josiah Dow, of Falmouth, in the county of Cumberland 
 and state of Maine, son of Jedediah Dow, of Weare, in the 
 county of IIillsl)orough and state of New Hampshire, and 
 Dorcas liis wife, and Dorcas Allen, daughter of Isaac Allen, 
 of Falmouth, in the county of Cuml)erland aforesaid, and 
 Al)igail his wife, having declared their intentions of taking 
 each other in marriage l)efore several monthly meetings of 
 the people called '(Quakers', in the count}^ of Cumberland 
 aforesaid, according to the good order used among them, 
 their proceedings, after due inquiry and deliberate considera- 
 tion thereof, were allowed l)y said meeting, they appearing 
 clear of all others and liaviiig consent of })arents and relations 
 concerned. 
 
 "Now these arc to certify to whcjm it may concern, ))eing 
 the full accomplishing of their said intentions, this third day
 
 OF NEAL DOW. V<) 
 
 of the second month in the Year of Our Lord, 179G, tluit 
 they, the said Josiah Dow and Dorcas Allen, appeared at a 
 l)u])lic meeting of the aforesaid people in their meeting-house 
 in Falmouth aforesaid, and each, the said Josiah Dow taking 
 the said Dorcas Allen by the hand, did openly declare as 
 foUowcth : 
 
 '"Friends, I take this Friend, Dorcas Allen, to be my 
 wife, promising with divine assistance to be unto her a loving 
 and faithful husband until it shall please the Lord by death to 
 separate us.' 
 
 " And the said Dorcas Allen then and there in like manner 
 did declare as followeth : 
 
 "'Friends, I take this my friend, Josiah Dow, to be my 
 husband, promising through divine assistance to l)e unto him 
 a loving and faithful wife until it shall please the Lord ])y 
 death to separate us,' or words of like import. 
 
 " And the said Josiah Dow and Dorcas Allen as of further 
 confirmation hereof have hereunto set their hands, she, after 
 the custom of marriage, assuming the name of her husband. 
 And we whose names are hereunto subscribed, being present 
 with others at the confirmation of their said marriage as 
 witnesses thereunto, set our hands the day and year above 
 written." 
 
 Then followed the signatures of twenty-five wit- 
 nesses, including Hate-Evil Hall, then nearly ninety 
 years of age, and other relatives, among them those of 
 men and women active and influential in those days 
 in all good works. 
 
 Upon their marriage my parents moved to Portland 
 and commenced housekeeping in a house bought l)y 
 my father on Congress street, near Green, on the site 
 where now stands a store, still owned in the famil.\'. 
 My father continued the tanning business in Portland. 
 Beginning in a modest way, my parents were able, 
 four years later, with increasing means, to build and 
 move into a more comfortable house, in which they 
 passed the remainder of their lives. 
 
 There were born to them three children, the eldest,
 
 20 REMINISCENCES 
 
 my sister Emma, in 1800, the youngest, Harriet, in 
 180(3, and I in 1804. Thougli of comparatively delicate 
 liealtli, Emma was a woman of unusual ability and of 
 marked strength of character. She married Neal D. 
 Shaw, of Baring, Me. She died in 1851. My sister 
 Harriet was an invalid from early youth to her death, 
 in 1869, but her trials were borne with patience and 
 resignation until relief came. Notwithstanding her 
 ill health, she was bright, witty, accomplished, and a 
 general favorite with a large circle of friends. It was 
 her will which decided in a family council that no 
 wine should be offered at a contemplated entertain- 
 ment, the first in our set given in Portland without it. 
 It was an incident, which, as might be expected, made 
 much talk in the little town at that time. 
 
 My mother was of slight frame, and apparently not 
 strong, but she was blessed with good health until her 
 last sickness. She died July 8, 1851, at seventy-eight 
 years of age. A few years before her death she met 
 with an accident, resulting in a broken hip and other 
 injuries, and she was thereafter a great sufferer, but 
 she bore all with heroic fortitude and Christian 
 patience. She was for her time well educated, fond of 
 reading, possessed of strong common-sense and sound 
 judgment. She was a trusting. Christian woman, 
 self-reliant and determined in all that she believed to 
 be right, impressing her character upon those with 
 whom she came in contact. For more than half a 
 century she proved to my father a faithful wife and 
 helpmeet, a wise counselor and trusted friend. 
 
 Two of my father's brothers, Jedediah and Jona- 
 than, followed him to Portland. Jedediah was for 
 several years in the town and city government, and 
 prominent generally in the affairs of the community.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 21 
 
 Jonathan was a sea-captain for years, but afterwards 
 settled down to life on shore. He was the second 
 mayor of Portland, was a man of some literary taste 
 and ability, and wrote the earlier chapters of the 
 "Jack Downing Papers," a book which was published 
 under the name of Seba Smith, as its responsible 
 author, but the title given to it came from my uncle's 
 name. I remember copying the first of the articles for 
 my uncle, at his request, because, as he said, he did 
 not care to have his handwriting seen by the jjrinter. 
 
 Uncle Jonathan was a most positive and determined 
 man. An incident of his boyhood may illustrate a 
 trait which he retained through life. He had been 
 sent on an errand which had detained him after dark, 
 and his path home led him through the woods. His 
 brother Jedediah, older than Jonathan, thought to 
 frighten the lad, and for the purpose prepared a 
 pumpkin shell, with eyes, mouth, teeth, etc., and 
 with that on his head, and otherwise disguised, he 
 placed himself where he could intercept Jonathan in 
 the lonely woods, expecting the latter to turn and 
 run. Instead, however, of the expected retreat, 
 when he saw the grinning spectre, Jonathan provided 
 himself with a stone, walked up to it, smashed it with 
 one blow, and with a second gave his brother Jede- 
 diah, whom he did not recognize, cause to remember 
 the affair through a scar for the rest of his life. 
 
 Father retained his interest in his chosen business 
 as long as he lived. In it he accumulated a compe- 
 tence sufficient for all his wants and tastes. His 
 judgment in matters of business was sound, and often 
 sought by his townsmen. He was for many years, 
 from its incorporation in 1824, a director in the Mer- 
 chants' bank in this city, resigning the position when
 
 22 ' REMINISCENCES 
 
 the infirmities of age made it impracticable for liim to 
 attend to its duties. He ^vas also in tlie directorate 
 of other business corporations. 
 
 Necessarily some^Yhat isolated during the latter 
 part of his life, because of his age, he nevertheless 
 retained his interest in current events until within a 
 few weeks of his death. Put in possession of the facts 
 bearing ui)on any given business problem, he drew his 
 conclusions from them clearly and with sound judg- 
 ment almost to the last. He held some offices, 
 accepted from a sense of duty as burdens of which he 
 should bear his part rather than from any desire for 
 place or notoriety, to which he was always averse. 
 He always took interest in political matters, voted at 
 every presidential election, and I believe at all others, 
 down to the first election of Lincoln. In his party 
 affiliations he was in turn Federalist, National Repub- 
 lican, Whig, Free-Soiler, and Repul^lican. 
 
 He was an earnest antislavery man and was actively 
 interested in the "underground railroad," by means 
 of which fugitive slaves, not a few of whom reached 
 Portland in vessels from southern ports and other- 
 wise, were taken to ])oints where they were not likely 
 to be captured. His home was always an asylum for 
 such of them as needed food and temporary shelter 
 while waiting to be escorted farther toward the north 
 star of freedom. During my l^oyhood I saw several of 
 these escaped negro bondsmen. Tliey were naturally 
 among the more intelligent of their race. 
 
 One negro girl, two or three years my senior, came 
 to our house when I was not far from fourteen 
 years of age. She had been brought to Portland in 
 a ship connnanded by an antislavery captain, having 
 escaped from a plantation in the vicinity of Rich-
 
 or NEAL DOW. 23 
 
 mond. Slie remained at my father's house for several 
 years, acquiring something of an education, and after- 
 wards she married and lived in Portland for the rest 
 of her life, dying after the close of the war of the 
 Rebellion. 
 
 She vras bright and intelligent, and became unus- 
 ually well informed. She had given her promise to 
 the captain who had brought her to Portland never to 
 reveal either his name or that of his ship, a pledge 
 which she kept until her dying day. Certain it is, 
 that, so far as I know, no member of our family ever 
 learned either.' As advised by the friendly captain, 
 also, she concealed the name of her old inaster, lest 
 its disclosure might tend to her recapture. This 
 advice she kept, as I believe, until after the proclama- 
 tion of freedom l)y President Lincoln, l)ut shortly 
 after that she called at my house and told my family 
 the name of her old master. It was the same name as 
 that of the father (she insisted that they were one and 
 the same person) of Captain Turner, the commandant 
 at Libby Prison, where, a few months thereafter, I 
 was to be confined a prisoner of war, a war which in 
 effect was waged to free the slaves. So, if her state- 
 ment was correct, it came to pass that the son of the 
 man who had given this poor negro girl a home in a 
 free land was for months a prisoner under the guard 
 of a son of her old master. 
 
 My father, though by no means a literary man, was 
 yet well-read. His favorite works were the Bible, 
 Shakespeare, and Pope's Essay on Man. AVith these 
 he was thoroughly familiar and always ready with apt 
 quotations from either. He was clear, concise, and 
 strong in conversation, and quick and bright at 
 repartee.
 
 24 REMINISCENCES 
 
 One day when over ninety years old lie offered, in 
 the temporary absence of the teamster, to drive in an 
 ordinary express vragon to a mill at Strondwater, 
 some two miles from his home, to obtain meal in bags 
 for his horses. While returning v^^ith his load, the 
 seat of his wagon slipped off at one side, with the 
 result that he fell on his back on the meal bags, from 
 which position, owing to his lameness, he could not 
 recover his seat. His horse was an old and steady 
 animal, of which I may yet have occasion to relate an 
 incident. 
 
 Some passer-]:)y, seeing him in this predicament, 
 stopped the horse, readjusted the wagon seat, and 
 helped him, on to it. Not recognizing him, whitened 
 all over with meal dust as he was, he said to him: 
 
 "It is a pity that you should get so drunk as to be 
 unable to sit uix" 
 
 "Drunk!" replied my father, "If when thou art 
 my age thou canst sit up, whether drunk or sober, 
 thou wilt be smarter than I think for. " 
 
 The kind Samaritan, then recognizing him, apolo- 
 gized for his suspicion, came to my house, told of the 
 incident, and so it reached me. 
 
 "When the troubles following upon the election of 
 Lincoln, in November, 1860, occurred, father was over 
 ninety-four years of age. He denounced Avhat he 
 called "the imbecility of the administration," 
 insisted that the president was too old, and con- 
 demned in strongest terms the policy which permitted 
 insurgents to erect batteries around Fort Sumter. 
 One day while lie was talking upon this subject, liis 
 housekeeper, interrupting him, said: 
 
 "Why, grandfather, Avitli thy peace principles thou 
 wouldst not have them fire shot and shell at tliem ? "
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 25 
 
 "Well," he replied with a Hiiiile, " perhaps I would 
 try first the effect of some hot water, but I would heat 
 it very hot," a remark which showed that the intensity 
 of the patriotic feelin,^- at the North had affected even 
 the most peaceful and aged Quakers quite as much as 
 it evidenced his ready wit. 
 
 He was a remarkably vigorous, active, and athletic 
 man. I remember to have seen him climb, hand over 
 hand, by the aid of the waterspout, to the roof of a 
 two-story building, (one by the way in which resided 
 the father of Simon Greenleaf, known to lawyers the 
 world over,) taking with him a rope, the occasion 
 being a fire on the roof, with no scuttle or ladder by 
 which to reach it. 
 
 With his physical strength father possessed also a 
 strong will and great self-control. One day he was 
 assaulted by a man in his employ whom he had just 
 discharged for some neglect of duty. The man struck 
 him, and father took him by the collar, backed him 
 into a corner and held him there, in spite of the 
 fellow's struggles, without striking him or otherwise 
 injuring him, though he himself received repeated 
 blows, until the man was tired out, begged pardon, 
 and promised better fashions. 
 
 My grandfather had had some cancerous trouble 
 about the mouth, and when father was a young man 
 he had what was thought to be a slight indication of 
 the same trouble, and a physician advised him to chew 
 tobacco as a preventive. He was about twenty-two at 
 the time, and continued the habit of chewing until 
 after he was seventy years old, when one day mother 
 called his attention to a tobacco stain upon the bosom 
 of his shirt, and father, removing the tobacco from his 
 mouth and pocket, said he would use the "nasty
 
 26 REMINISCENCES 
 
 stuff " no more. And lie never did. Habitual users 
 of the weed can appreciate the will power required for 
 that reform better than those of us who have had no 
 similar experience. 
 
 My father died on the first day of June, 1861, at the 
 age of ninety-four years and nine months. In all his 
 life neither his personal character nor his business 
 integrity was ever questioned by so much as a breath 
 of suspicion. He had always possessed sound health, 
 but after he was eighty years of age he fell on the ice 
 ancj broke a hip, and he was confined for several 
 months to his bed, and never so far recovered as to be 
 able to walk without lameness, though long after this 
 he was about, attending to ordinary affairs. 
 
 For two months prior to his death he lingered on the 
 outermost verge of time, seeming every day on the 
 point of passing away. He had no disease, but the 
 lamp of life, exhausted of its oil, simply ceased to 
 burn. He was always cheerful and hapi^y, though 
 weary with the burden of his years, and longing to be 
 at rest, but willing and trying patiently to await 
 God's good time to call him hence. 
 
 No more loving father, no more upright and honor- 
 able man, or truer Christian and patriot, ever lived. 
 A Friend, descended from a long line of Friends, his 
 life always conformed to their rules, which treat 
 this world as a vestil)ule to a future life. He never 
 for a moment wavered in his fidelity to truth, and the 
 consistency of his life and conversation was entirely 
 without stain. The following paragraph is taken from 
 a notice of him pul^lished Just after his death in the 
 columns of a local ne\vspai)er. It was written by the 
 late Hon. William Willis:
 
 OF XEAL DOW. Ii7 
 
 " Firm in principle, just and liberal in all his transactions, 
 he may be pronounced one of nature's true noblemen, an 
 honest man. He never soui^ht notoriety, nor desired public 
 office. Although he represented the town one year in the 
 legislature of Massachusetts, and was one year a selectman, 
 he preferred the quiet pursuit of his honorable calling to the 
 agitation and turmoil of public office. 'Along the cool, 
 sequestered vale of life, he kept the noiseless tenor of his 
 way.' "
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MY BIRTH, BOYHOOD, SCHOOL DAYS. SOME REFERENCE TO 
 EARLY PORTLAND. 
 
 I was born in Portland, March 20, 1804, in the house 
 mentioned in the previous chapter, where my parents 
 passed the greater portion of their lives, and in which 
 they died. That house is still standing, on Congress 
 street, opposite my present residence, though materi- 
 ally changed in outward appearance and internal 
 arrangement. 
 
 I come of a long-lived, healthy family. My father 
 was sick scarcely a day in his life of nearly ninety-five 
 years. His father lived to be eighty-five, his grand- 
 fatlier on his motlier's side to a very advanced age, 
 and his grandmother died at one hundred and two, in 
 full possession of all her mental powers, and active up 
 to the day of her death, as I have been told. On my 
 motlier's side my grandmotlier reached eighty-five, 
 while her grandfather, my great-grandfather, lived to 
 be over ninety. They were all Quakers. Industry, 
 frugality, and temjjerance, through several genera- 
 tions, distinctly imjjressed their effect ujx)!! the 
 physical characteristics of the family.
 
 Il^^^^, 
 
 
 \ 

 
 REMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. ■ 29 
 
 Years ago, before I had taken any special interest in 
 the subject of temperance, I saw an extract purport- 
 ing to have been taken from the ''Medical Intelli- 
 gencer,'' an English ])ulilication, I believe, in which 
 it was stated that the Friends' registers of vital 
 statistics in London showed that one in every ten 
 Quakers lived to be seventy years old, while of the 
 general population of London but one in fifty 
 attained that age. This great advantage in i)oint of 
 longevity enjoyed by the Quakers was attril)uted to 
 their temperate mode of life. 
 
 What is of more importance yet — as quality of life 
 is of more value than length — the Quakers as a whole 
 gave little employment to courts, constables or coro- 
 ners. Somewhere in the early "thirties"! heard 
 Chief Justice Mellen, of Maine, say that, in an 
 experience of more than forty-five years on the bench 
 and in practice at the bar, he had known of but one 
 Quaker brought to the criminal side of the court. 
 
 Inheriting a tendency to longevity, and a good con- 
 stitution, I had ro])ust health, improved by great 
 bodily activity, and ^stimulated by a fondness for all 
 reasonable athletic exercises, in which, as a boy, I was 
 generally equal to my school-fellows and later, to the 
 young men of my acquaintance. While my early 
 home was supplied with all the necessities and essen- 
 tial comforts of life, there was neither in it nor in the 
 mode of living there excess or luxury which might 
 tend to impair my heritage of physical strength. 
 
 My earliest recollection is of strict, though kindly, 
 discipline. Never, so far as I can recall, irritable, 
 excitable or impatient with me, my parents were 
 prompt, positive and firm in the correction of misdo- 
 ing. An instance or two will illustrate my ' ' bringing
 
 30 REMINISCENCES 
 
 up ■' ill this particular. One of my remembrances is of 
 an experience doubtless of benefit to me. When a 
 visiting seamstress, "Aunt Lucy," was making my 
 first "trousers," I was anxious that there should be 
 two pockets, but my mother decided that one would 
 be sufficient. When the garment was finished I so 
 manifested my dissatisfaction upon this point as to 
 merit and receive a rebuke from my mother. As that 
 did not stop my complaining, she quietly said, "Lucy, 
 thou niayest sew up the pocket thou hast made." 
 There was no appeal. 
 
 One of my playmates had induced me to purchase of 
 him, for three or four coppers I had saved, a whistle 
 he had whittled out of a piece of willow wood. My 
 incessant whistling led to inquiries by my father, who, 
 having shown me how simple was the process of 
 making a whistle, added: "Neal, I am afraid that 
 thou wilt come out of the little end of the horn if thou 
 spendest thy money so foolishly." I replied: "I'd 
 rather come out of the little end than stick in the 
 middle. " 
 
 The prompt confiscation of the whistle fixed in my 
 memory the parental admonition that children should 
 always be respectful to their parents. This incident 
 was called to my mind years afterwards by my father, 
 who, when over ninety, laughingly said when I told 
 him of my determination to accept an invitation I had 
 received to make a speaking tour in Great Britain: 
 "I am afraid, Neal, that thou wilt make as much 
 noise in the world as tlioii didst with the whistle I 
 took from thee. " 
 
 Idleness was regarded b.\' my i)arents as a dangerous 
 evil and a sin against one's self, and I was brought up 
 to look ui)on useful employment as not only tributary
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 31 
 
 to health and strength, but as a divinely appointed 
 safeguard from many otherwise inevitable misfortunes. 
 There were many ways in which a ])oy aliout a New 
 England home of my time, in such a community as 
 Portland then was, could make himself useful. My 
 parents sought to guard me from the mischief, which, 
 as I was made to believe, ' ' Satan always finds for idle 
 hands to do." If I ever had any natural disinclination 
 to be usefully employed, parental training soon cor- 
 rected it. 
 
 As soon as I was old enough I went to a " dame's " 
 school, as those taught by women were then called. I 
 remember it and my teacher well. The school was 
 kept but a few rods from my father's house, in a room 
 in a large, two-story house, at the corner of Congress 
 and Vaughan streets, where now stands the Eye and 
 Ear Infirmary. 
 
 Two roads crossed there, making the traditional 
 spot for the burial of suicides, and every youngster in 
 that school was wont to look with awe at a great stone 
 said to mark the particular place where had been 
 buried years before a man who had taken his own life. 
 Whether there was any foundation for the tale, I do 
 not say, but it was real enough to make the place a 
 gruesome one to all "Aunt Phebe's " scholars. 
 
 My next school was also a ' ' dame's, " on Congress 
 street, nearly opposite the head of Green street. There 
 I was advanced to reading in words of two syllables. 
 From that I was . promoted to another, kept also by a 
 "dame," at the corner of Congress and Pearl streets, 
 now the northwest corner of Lincoln Park. In this I 
 was supposed to be prepared for the " master's " school, 
 which I next attended, taught by Master Hall, one of 
 the large and prominent family of Friends, descend-
 
 32 EEMINISCEXCES 
 
 ants of Hate-Evil Hall, previously referred to. This 
 school was located on Spring street in a large, wooden 
 schoolhouse standing on the spot near State street, 
 now occupied by the city as a site for an engine-house. 
 
 That was a pn]:>lic school, and its teacher was a 
 famous one for those days. He "knew" geography 
 and grammar, and taught classes of older pupils in 
 those abstruse and difficult branches of learning, as 
 they were considered at that time. The scholars Avho 
 belonged to those classes were proud, and would hard- 
 ly consent to speak to those of us who were yet 
 plodding in the Columbian Oracle, and Simple Arith- 
 metic, or maybe in the spelling-book, where we read 
 the famous parable of the apple-tree, the naughty boys 
 and the tufts of grass and the stones. The lessons of 
 that parable sank deeply into the minds of some of us 
 who, in after life, while dealing with what we deemed 
 wrong, forgot the turf and resorted promptly to the 
 stones. 
 
 From the public school I went to a private one kept 
 by Master Taylor, the father of the Master Taylor so 
 well and favorably known to a later generation of 
 Portland boys as a teacher of the public Grammar 
 school. Master Taylor was faithful and kind to all 
 his scholars, but dignified, resolute and firm. Under 
 him, all who loved to study, and I was one of them, 
 made rapid jn'ogress. His words of encouragement to 
 his industrious pupils were a stimulus to even greater 
 diligence on their part. This school was kept in a 
 wooden building on Union street, often used also by 
 Master Taylor as a chapel on Sunday, and which stood 
 there until destroyed by the great fire of 1866. 
 
 Father Taylor lived many years, honored and re- 
 spected by all who knew him, and when I became a
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 33 
 
 man lie and I were great friends. That school was the 
 private school of the time, and its pupils were general- 
 ly from the most substantial families of the town. 
 One of the scholars, Horatio Illsley by name, was a 
 general favorite with us all. He was an exceptionally 
 active boy, but while attending school was attacked 
 by a disease of the knee which made amputation of the 
 limb necessary. There were no anesthetics then, and 
 his school-fellows conceived a great admiration for 
 him because he suffered the operation with a fortitude 
 hardly exceeded by the stoicism of the North Ameri- 
 can Indian, insisting upon being so placed as to be 
 able to watch the surgeon. He became a Congregation- 
 al minister, highly respected by all his acciuaintances. 
 Years afterwards, when settled as a pastor in Illinois, 
 his house was swept away by a great flood in the 
 night, while all of his family were sleeping. Mr. 
 Illsley, who, notwithstanding his physical infirmity, 
 was an expert swimmer, was the only one of his house- 
 hold saved. 
 
 From Master Taylor's school I was transferred to 
 the Portland Academy, of which at the time Master 
 Cushman was principal, and to which came pupils 
 from different parts of the state, and from other states. 
 The academy building was on Congress street, just 
 east of Temple street, and was also burned in 1866. 
 
 Master Cushman was not only a good teacher in the 
 branches of learning with which his scholars were 
 occupied, but by his deportment as a polished gentle- 
 man so influenced them that I do not remember one 
 of them who was vulgar, rude or coarse. 
 
 Among his pupils at the time were Henry W. Long- 
 fellow and his brother Stephen, Edward Preble, son 
 of the famous commodore, William Brown, who
 
 34 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 became prominent in tlie South, Sumner Cummings, 
 afterwards; one of Portland's most noted pliysiciany, 
 the brothers Erastus and James Brooks, prominent in 
 journalistic and political circles in New York, besides 
 others who became distinguished in business and 
 professional life. 
 
 It would be difficult indeed for the rising generation 
 of to-day in any ordinary New England community, 
 surrounded by the conditions generally prevailing in 
 the present, to conceive of those marking the time of 
 my boyhood, in the town where I was brought up. 
 Maine was then, compared to much of the rest of New 
 England, a new country. Most of the people in 
 coming to Portland from the surrounding country 
 rode on horseback. Those having produce to sell 
 brought it in saddle-bags. 
 
 Indeed, most of us who had occasion to go out of 
 town, except upon the established stage-roads, found 
 horseback riding the easiest, as it was the commonest, 
 mode of travel. Most of the roads off the main east 
 and west stage-lines were so poor as to be impractica- 
 ble for light- wheeled vehicles, which, for that matter, 
 most of the country-folk were too i)Oor to own, and 
 others who might perhaps have afforded the luxury 
 debarred themselves therefrom to avoid the special 
 war-tax imposed upon thein b>' the United States gov- 
 ernment. Occasionally were to be seen a farmer and 
 his wife mounted upon the same horse, the woman on 
 a pillion l^ehind the saddle, but this custom passed out 
 while I was cpiite young. 
 
 At that time saddle-making was cjuite an industry in 
 Portland, a large numl)er of men being employed in it. 
 Seals were caught in great numbers in Casco bay for 
 their skins, which were used, some of them, for
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 35 
 
 making saddles and saddlebags, and others by the 
 trunk manufacturers. 
 
 My youthful life was quite like that of all boys of 
 the time born into fairly c'omfortal3le circumstances, 
 with a parental roof for shelter and firm parental dis- 
 cipline and care for a guide. One incident may serve 
 to throw some light upon the local surroundings of 
 my boyhood. Ridiculous as it was, at the time it was 
 a serious enough affair to me to root itself deeply in 
 my memory. I was very much, or not much, of a 
 youngster, perhaps seven or eight years old, when for 
 some reason that I do not now recollect, I found my- 
 self one morning in a barber's shop on Fore street, 
 near the head of one of the wharves. In a yard 
 connected with the shop was a large monkey, and 
 some of the loiterers there arranged for a fight 
 between the monkey and myself. Not old enough to 
 realize the absurdity of such a match, or to under- 
 stand that there were only bites and scratches to be 
 had, and no good of any kind, or even so-called honor, 
 to be won from the scrimmage, I permitted myself to 
 be armed with a stout stick furnished by one of the 
 men and entered the territory where the monkey 
 intended to be supreme. The rest of the affair I 
 remember as if it were an occurrence of yesterday. 
 
 To such a monkey as I then encountered, it is wise 
 to give a wide berth. He opened the fight with teeth 
 and claw, jumping at my face, biting at me and tear- 
 ing my clothes with all his considerable might. I 
 kept him in front of me as well as I could, kicking 
 and striking him whenever I got the chance. How 
 long the folly lasted I do not know. For what 
 seemed to me a long time the monkey had most of the 
 fun and I most of the pain, but at length the brute
 
 36 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 got tired of it and knew enongli to give np. Corre- 
 sponding intelligence on my part would have kept me 
 out of the scrape altogether. 
 
 Before I had thrashed the monkey as soundly as I 
 wislied, I was called off, and came out of the yard 
 Mtten, scratched, bloody and dirty from head to foot, 
 and with clothes torn, but I was so petted and 
 rewarded with candy and round-cakes by the rascally 
 bystanders who had put me up to the light, that I 
 imagined myself quite a hero until, taking a great 
 deal of the dirt, some of the blood, and all of the 
 scratches home with me, I found, much to my dis- 
 comfort, that my parents took a very different view of 
 the affair from that held by the barber-shop loafers. 
 
 Parental correction and parental precepts were con- 
 currently so impressed upon my body and mind that 
 from that time I never saw anything to admire or to 
 interest in the exhibition of mere brute strength and 
 courage. A very ordinary mule can kick a harder 
 bloAv than the toughest bruiser can strike, and I have 
 never been able to account for the interest which 
 men, capable of higher concerns, sometimes manifest 
 in that kind of exhibition and rivalry in which brutes 
 of a lower order, and inferior ones at that, could 
 excel them. 
 
 When I was four or five years of age, a horse at- 
 tached to a wagon came up the street near my father's 
 house, running at full speed. I stepped into the road- 
 way in his path, with the absurd idea of stoi)ping him. 
 The horse, perhaps out of i)ity for me, turned out, 
 went by, and I escaped unharmed. More than fifty 
 years after that incident, the owner of that horse, 
 who at the time of the runaway was a next door 
 neighbor of my father, was living, an elderly and
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 87 
 
 retired merchant, in Bot>ton. In that city, while I 
 was at the South during the war, he called on my 
 wife, who happened to be visiting friends there, told 
 her of the above incident, which had entirely escaped 
 my memory, and charged her to write and remind me 
 of it, adding: "Tell him that I say that that act of 
 his boyhood foreshadowed the characteristics of his 
 after life. " 
 
 If he intended that for a compliment it was, per- 
 haps, to my supposed pluck at the expense of my 
 judgment. My position in reference to the liquor- 
 traffic has been deemed by many considerate people as 
 no more reasonable than was my stand in the days of 
 my untutored babyhood in the path of that runaway 
 horse. I have not, however, allowed myself to be 
 concerned as to what others may have thought of me. 
 He who swerves from what he believes to be his duty, 
 through fear of the ridicule or opposition of his 
 neighbors, can accomplish little or nothing. 
 
 My father once owned an old-fashioned silver 
 watch, too large to be conveniently carried, which he 
 often hung on a hook on the wall. One day, when a 
 little fellow, I climbed into a chair to get at the watch, 
 tipped the chair over, pulled the watch down, which, 
 falling with me to the floor, was broken. When 
 reproved for meddling with the timepiece, I urged 
 upon my father that the fault was altogether with 
 those who had left the watch within my reach. 
 Years afterwards, in relating the incident, my father 
 would laughingly say that he had heard me make 
 my argument for Prohibition, so far as it bore upon 
 the removal of temptation, before I was six years 
 old. 
 
 One of the playmates of my early boyhood had a
 
 ■38 REMINISCENCES 
 
 distressing experience in after life. He became a 
 drinking- man, and one evening "^lien intoxicated left 
 a rum.shoi) in company ^Yitll a friend, whose dead 
 body was found tlie next morning bearing evidence of 
 foul play. My wliilom comi)anion was charged with 
 murder, tried, convicted, and sentenced to he hung. 
 A peculiarity of our statutes, at that time ])rescribing 
 the penalty of death, left the time for the execution to 
 be fixed at the pleasure of the governor, and as it was 
 rarely pleasant for a governor to participate in such 
 an affair, hangings were seldom, if ever, ordered, and 
 convicted murderers waited in prison for the guberna- 
 torial appointment of the fatal day. 
 
 Years after the sentence, in the case referred to, the 
 rumseller, from whose shoj) the victim and the con- 
 victed went out together on the night of the murder, 
 was seriously ill, and. sending for a clergyman, con- 
 fessed upon his death-bed that he was the actual mur- 
 derer. The outcome was a speedy pardon of the poor 
 fellow who might have ]3een hung for the deed. 
 Broken in health and spirit, he came out into the 
 world again, with no legal right to recompense for 
 his lost time and ruined reputation and i^rospects, and 
 scarcely thankful, as he afterwards told me, that the 
 execution had not been ordered before his innocence 
 was established. His experience, however, thorough- 
 ly sobered him, and he lived thereafter a temperate 
 life. 
 
 When seven or eight years old. I was induced by a 
 young man residing in the vicinity of my father's 
 house to smoke a pii)e, by the suggestion that I never 
 would be a man until I had done so. After keei)ing at 
 it for some time, I was made so desi)erately sick that I 
 abandoned the ijii)e. and witli it all liopc of attaining
 
 OF NEAL DOW. '^\) 
 
 to man's estate. But the effect of the tobacco upon 
 me was such that from that day to this I have not 
 used it in any form, the memory of that sickness 
 restraining me until I was okl enough to appreciate 
 and to be controlled by higher considerations. 
 
 Portland, as a part of the town of Falmouth, had 
 borne its full share of trials incident to the settle- 
 ment of a new country. Twice its inhabitants, or 
 such of them as had escaped the tomaliawk and 
 scalping knife, had ])een driven away and the hamlet 
 blotted out in the Indian wars. In 1775, it was bom- 
 barded by an English fleet, and more than four 
 hundred buildings were destroyed. Shortly after the 
 close of the Revolutionary war it was set off from Fal- 
 mouth and incorporated under its present name. 
 
 At the time of my earliest recollection of Portland 
 there were no traces remaining that I now recall of its 
 bombardment, but as a commercial town it suffered 
 much in the troubles prior to and during the war of 
 1812, and during my boyhood had not recovered from 
 the shock to its business enterprise caused there]:)y. 
 Everything was on a small scale, and the i)eoi)le 
 seemed to he only waiting for better days. Prior to 
 the embargo, its shipping had been valued at a mil- 
 lion and a half, a very large item for so small a place, 
 and it had been profitably employed, but at the time 
 of which I am writing it was idle. 
 
 Grass literally grew upon our wharves, and in one 
 year in my early l^oyhood soup dinners were gratui- 
 tously distributed among the poor of the town. Its 
 houses were mostly small and unpretentious, though 
 there are even now in Portland some large and fine 
 residences ])uilt by the prosperous merchants of the 
 latter part of the last century, most of whom, how-
 
 40 EEMIXISCEXCES 
 
 ever, afterwards failed, because of the troubles 
 alluded to. 
 
 I recall very little of the war of 1812, though some 
 incidents connected with it are still fresh in my 
 memory. One day when recovering- from an attack 
 of sickness I watched the "Sea Fencibles" as they 
 were drilling near my father's house in a field in full 
 view from my chamber window. This was a company 
 of volunteers organized to man a battery erected on 
 Munjoy Hill, oijposite the main entrance to Portland 
 harbor, the remains of the embankment of which are 
 now included within Fort Allen Park. 
 
 By the way, that ]:>attery was more formidable in 
 appearance than reality. Its most dangerous looking 
 guns were "Quakers," great logs of wood, shaped 
 like cannon and painted black. They doul)tless 
 served a better purpose than the smaller, but genuine 
 iron, guns would have done had the hostile British 
 ships, so frequently seen in the ofiing, come within 
 their range. 
 
 There were people living in Portland who remem- 
 bered the destruction of the town by Mowatt, and 
 whenever a strange sail was seen off Cape Elizabeth so 
 much anxiety was manifest aliout town that even the 
 small boys noticed it. Well they might. The terror 
 of that bombardment lasted longer than the traces of 
 tlie ruin it wrought. My grandfather Allen had a 
 vivid recollection of his ol)servations and experiences 
 on that day, never to be forgotten by one who was on 
 the ground. He had come into town, or to "The 
 Neck," as Portland was then called, with his team, to 
 assist in the removal of furniture and goods to points 
 beyond the reach of the guns of the fleet. 
 
 Wliile walking beside liis loaded team, a shell
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 41 
 
 droi)ped jut^t in front of his oxen. He i)rostrated him- 
 self on the ground and waited for tlie explosion, 
 which did no other harm than to make quite an 
 excavation in the road and cover him and his team 
 with dirt. So clearly did he picture to me the scenes 
 of that day, of the groups of anxious women and 
 crying children in the pastures, of the men hurrying 
 to and fro, of the bursting shells and burning build- 
 ings, that after all these years it seems to me that I 
 saw with my own eyes an event which occurred thirty 
 years before my birth. 
 
 But to return to the "Sea Fencibles," whom we left 
 drilling. I was told a story relating to the selection 
 of the captain in charge of the company on the occa- 
 sion of that drill. In the canvass preceding his elec- 
 tion, Hon. Asa Clapp, one of the wealthiest, most 
 respected, and most influential merchants of Port- 
 land, who was a member of the company, objected, it 
 was said, to the choice of this candidate for the com- 
 mand, because the aspirant was a religious man and a 
 church-member, and, Mr. Clapp urged, being thus 
 prepared for death he would have no fear, and would 
 1)6 more likely, if chosen captain, to expose his men to 
 danger than would his irreligious rival for the epau- 
 lettes and sword, because the latter, as Mr. Clapp 
 suggested, not being ready to die himself, would, in 
 taking care of his own life, look out better for the 
 lives of his soldiers than would his pious rival. 
 
 I remember the great excitement in our little town 
 during the war following the arrival in our harbor of 
 the Enterprise with her prize, the English brig Boxer, 
 after the famous sea-fight just outside. The Boxer 
 was moored at the end of the wharf, while the Enter- 
 prise was out in the stream. With other boys of m>-
 
 42 REMINISCENCES 
 
 age I went on board the former, and with interest and 
 awe examined the t<hot-holes in her hull and what was 
 said to he the blood-stains on her deck. 
 
 In the fight, the captains of both ships, both young 
 men, were killed. The funeral procession which 
 escorted their remains to their last resting-place in our 
 old Eastern cemetery I was not permitted to see, for 
 my father did not wish my youthful mind to be 
 impressed by the music, uniforms and arms, the pomp 
 and general display of that occasion. 
 
 Quite a number of privateers were fitted out in 
 Portland during that war, meeting with varying suc- 
 cess. Some captured prizes, some were captured, and 
 some were lost at sea. With the master of one of 
 these. Captain Cammett, I became well acquainted 
 after I had attained to manhood. He told me of an 
 exciting adventure he had during our troubles with 
 France prior to the war of 1812. His vessel, a mer- 
 chantman, with the owner on board, had been cap- 
 tured by a French cruiser and taken into a French 
 port. There it was left alongside a quay, with a 
 squad of French infantry on board as a guard. Cap- 
 tain Cammett conceived the plan of taking advantage 
 of a favoring breeze to regain possession of his vessel 
 and put out to sea. 
 
 He obtained permission to hoist his sails in the 
 afternoon, on the pretense of preventing them from 
 mildewing. He made his main boom fast with a 
 temporary line and completed other preparations 
 which gave rise to no suspicion on the part of his 
 '"land-lubber" guard. At dusk, when all was ready 
 and his own crew properly stationed, the lines which 
 held the craft to the quay were cut, and an instant 
 later the main boom was set free by a blow from a
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 43 
 
 liatcliet, and, swinging* around, it knocked down and 
 overboard half a dozen French soldiers. The crew 
 disposed of two or three others, and the rest jumped 
 into the sea. Captain Cammett got his vessel out 
 safely, half a dozen cannon-shot failing to do any 
 damage except that one passed through a sail. 
 
 Friends were generally consistent in their walk and 
 conversation in all matters pertaining to war. Prizes 
 were brought into Portland at that time by privateers 
 fitted out here, and their cargoes were disposed of at 
 public sale. Among others was one laden with some 
 specially nice crockery ware. Much of that found its 
 way into the houses of well-to-do families of the day, 
 and some pieces of it are still preserved here in private 
 collections as mementos of the time. As a rule, the 
 Friends w^ould have nothing to do with any of these 
 cargoes, though the low prices at which such goods 
 were generally sold must otherwise have proved much 
 of a temptation to their proverbial frugality. 
 
 The w^ife and daughter of a family connection of 
 ours, the husband and father of whom was a leading 
 man in the business circles of Portland, as well as 
 among the Quakers, influenced undoubtedly by the 
 low price at wdiich it was sold as well as by the beauty 
 of the ware alluded to, bought a quantity of it and 
 packed it away in their attic, with the idea, perhaps, 
 that when peace should be restored they could con- 
 sistently use it. 
 
 One day, some time after the purchase. Friend 
 Hussey came home, and after a solemn look at his 
 wife, but without a word, went directly to the attic. 
 The mother and daughter listened. They suspected 
 that he must have learned of their purchase. Immedi- 
 ately they heard a crash of crockery in the yard, and,
 
 44 REMINISCENCES 
 
 looking out, saw piece after piece come smashing from 
 the attic window until all they had bought waa 
 destroyed. Then the sturdy Quaker came down, 
 looked over the debris in the yard, to see that nothing 
 had escaped destruction, sent for a team and had the 
 fragments carted away. The wife and daughter 
 expected reproof, but never a word was said to them 
 on the subject by the head of the family, who evi- 
 dently felt that he had sufficiently rebuked the 
 ^'weakness of his women folk." 
 
 When I was a boy a murderer was hung on Munjoy 
 Hill. He had been convicted of killing, in a town 
 adjoining Portland, an officer who was attempting to 
 serve some sort of legal document upon him. The 
 inhabitants generally from all the surrounding 
 country, as well as from Portland itself, flocked to 
 the scene, as to a feast, and a gala day was made of it, 
 the people picnicking on the hill near the gallows. 
 Boy-like, I wished also to view the horrible sight, as 
 some of the boys in my neighborhood were allowed to 
 do, with their parents, but my father forbade it. My 
 Uncle Jonathan, who was a sea-captain, was then 
 visiting our home, and he was about to give me a 
 glimpse of it through a spyglass from the scuttle of our 
 roof when I was summarily summoned down-stairs by 
 my father, to my great and unreasonable wrong, as I 
 then thought. 
 
 The pillory, the stocks, and the whipping-post were 
 out of use by the time I was old enough to understand 
 anything about such matters, but the two former, 
 after their disuse, were stored with other old lumber 
 near the jail, where I saw them, and where for years 
 they excited the interest and curiosity of those whose 
 attention was called to them. As to the whipi)ing-post
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 45 
 
 I have no recollection, but I have never tliought of a 
 punifc<hnient better adapted for one class of criminals — 
 wife-beaters— than whipping. Were that jn-omptly 
 administered in every known case of such outrage, I 
 am confident there would be fewer of them. AVell- 
 founded objections may be urged to public administra- 
 tions of it, and I would be willing to compromise on a 
 sufficiently severe private application. 
 
 One of the interesting, and, upon the whole, impres- 
 sive sights with which the youths of my day were 
 familiar was the ceremonies attending the oi)ening of 
 court, or rather the progress — for it was altogether 
 too majestic to be termed the walk — of the judge from 
 his tavern or boarding-house to the court-house. At 
 the appointed time, the sheriff, with several under- 
 officers, the former armed with a sword, the others 
 with staves, presented themselves at the domicile of 
 the judge to escort his honor through the streets. 
 Pending the pleasure of the court to commence the 
 march, a group in which small boys predominated 
 always gathered about the door, just beyond reach of 
 the tip of the longest official staff, which was liable 
 without warning to tap the head, to poke the ribs, or 
 to drop on the toes of some venturous urchin who 
 approached too near the sacred circle which was to 
 receive the " Jedge ". 
 
 AVhen the door opened and the awful presence of the 
 embodied majesty of law approached, stillness fell 
 upon the group. The boys doffed their hats, save the 
 little Quakers among them who had been taught at 
 home that to remove a hat to a mortal man was a grave 
 offense to Grod. The sheriff would approach the judge, 
 with his hat, a cocked one, in hand, and ask his 
 ' ' worship's " pleasure. Then after the exchange of a
 
 46 EEMIXISCEXCES 
 
 fe^x formal questions and replies tlie little procession 
 TTOukl form. 
 
 The slieriff . with drawn sword, placed himself in the 
 van: behind him two tipstaves took places, looking 
 more important than the sheriff himself: then the 
 judge, with a calm, stern countenance, impressing all 
 the boys about, and older people too, I dare say, with 
 a deep sense of the great amount of justice, righteous- 
 ness and wisdom the commonwealth had committed to 
 his keeping. Behind the judge in position. Imt not a 
 whit in pompousness of bearing, were two other officers 
 carrying staves. Then the march began its slow and 
 stately way to the court-house, perhaps a quarter to 
 half a mile distant. Behind, at a respectful dis- 
 tance — no one presumed to get near enough to be by 
 any chance mistaken for a part of the retinue of the 
 court — followed men and boys. Hats,- always except- 
 ing those of the Quakers, were lifted by the townsfolk 
 met or passed on the way to court. 
 
 Such ceremony now would be likely to excite ridi- 
 cule because we are so unused to anything of the kind. 
 I am not sure, upon the whole, but that the effect was 
 good. Certainly the men who are clothed with the 
 great powers of the judiciary, ought always to stand 
 so high, in learning, in official conduct and bearing — 
 and shall I not say, above all, in their i)rivate life and 
 conversation — as to justly command the respect of all 
 right-thinking citizens. 
 
 AVhen I was about twelve years old, I saw the first 
 elephant exhibited in Maine. It was a great wonder, 
 and the people thronged into Portland from many 
 miles around, on foot, on horseback, and in every con- 
 ceivable kind of conveyance, except Avhat would now 
 be regarded as convenient and comfortable for such
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 47 
 
 use. The animal was exhibited in the stable-yard of 
 a tavern standing near where now The Evening 
 Express Publishing Company is located. Besides the 
 interest which the first sight of such a beast would 
 excite, I have another reason for remembering it. 
 
 I saw a man wrap some tobacco in paper and 
 give it to the elephant, and. boy -like, was amused with 
 the "fun"' the act made for the bystanders. The 
 keeper, attracted by that, asked what it was all about, 
 and, upon being told, advised the man to get away 
 from the place immediately, because, as he said, the 
 animal would be sure to resent it if opportunity 
 offered, and if he happened to pass within its reach, 
 the elephant would certainly kill him. At first the 
 man was disposed to ignore the advice, but the keeper 
 was so positive that it would be dangerous for him to 
 remain that he concluded to go. 
 
 The elephant remained on exhibition for some time. 
 If I mistake not, it was the first ever brought to the 
 country, and was as much of a wonder to adult as to 
 youthful spectators. On its way out of Maine the 
 poor brute was shot in the town of Alfred by a farmer 
 who was incensed because its owners had taken so 
 much money from the farmers. 
 
 When about thirteen years old. after I had been 
 some time at the Portland Academy. I was sent with 
 my sister Harriet to the Friends" Academy in New 
 Bedford. The reason for this change was in part the 
 desire of my parents to assist the school, and in part 
 because they believed it would be to our advantage to 
 mingle with people outside our own home. 
 
 I went in a new and clean ship just built in Portland 
 for IS'ew Bedford parties engaged in the whaling busi- 
 ness, which thev had established at Havre. France,
 
 48 REMIXISCEXCES 
 
 attracted there by the bounty given by the French 
 S'overnment to whaling vessels employing a certain 
 proportion of Frenchmen in their crews. It was com- 
 manded by a Captain Winslow, a connection of the 
 family, and was bound to New Bedford to be fitted 
 and furnished as a first-class whaler, prior to her 
 departure for France. Her captain was an intimate 
 friend of my father, a gentleman of culture and refine- 
 ment, who had seen a great deal of the world, and 
 who had taken a great interest in me when visiting 
 our house, where I was always glad to listen to his 
 tales of the countries he had visited and the manners 
 and customs of the people in the various places he had 
 seen, all so strange to me. 
 
 Owing to unfavoring winds, the voyage to New 
 Bedford was much longer than was expected, but it 
 was an interesting and instructive one to me, and I 
 enjoyed every hour of it, as would any other strong 
 and active boy. The captain apparently found much 
 pleasure in explaining to me many matters about the 
 management of ships, and I am surprised that he 
 should have so patiently answered the many questions 
 suggested by my curiosity and my desire to understand 
 something about everything I saw. I was permitted 
 to go aloft with the crew to assist (?) in making or 
 shifting sail, as the case might be. On all such occa- 
 sions I was ])ut on the extreme yard-arm, but I had 
 next me a strong, active sailor charged to keep careful 
 watch over me. 
 
 In New Bedford, I was placed in a Friend's family 
 to board, where I was content from the first day, and 
 was made to feel as nnich at home as if under my 
 father's roof. A maiden lady in this family had me 
 under her special care. She took pleasure in intro-
 
 OF 2^EAL BO^V. 49 
 
 ducing me among cultivated people older than I, and 
 in that way I had the good fortune to come under the 
 influence of a circle in which my mind and manners 
 had opportunities for improvement. 
 
 Those were happy as well as useful days for me. 
 The Friends in New Bedford were numerous, and 
 because of their wealth, culture, and high personal 
 (qualities, were influential citizens. They endeavored 
 to make life pleasa,nt for all students from abroad in 
 their school, and consequently, with other scholars, I 
 was often at their houses, almost one of them in their 
 charming family circles. Some acquaintances and 
 friendships formed there, though none of my asso- 
 ciates of those days, as far as I am aware, are now 
 living, " seem to me fresh and warm to this day, having 
 been kept up by correspondence and interchange of 
 visits for many years. Among my schoolmates was 
 Moses H. Grinnell, afterwards a prominent New York 
 merchant. 
 
 While at school in New Bedford, during vacations, 
 I made excursions in the family carriage of the good 
 people with whom I l^oarded, to neighl:)oring towns, 
 going two or three times into Rhode Island, and 
 visiting there some of my schoolmates. The yearly 
 meeting of the Friends was held at Newport, R. I. , in 
 June of each year, and we found visits there most 
 
 * Among the greetings received by General Dow upon the occasion 
 of his ninetieth birthday, March 20, 1894, was tlie following, from an 
 old schoolmate, whom he remembered well, but whom he had supposed 
 was not living. 
 
 Xeav Bedford, Mass., March 18, 1894. 
 Gex. Xeal Dow, 
 
 My Dear Early Friend: 
 Your old schoolmate sends hearty greetings to you as you reach the 
 age of ninety. I shall be the same "next 28th June. Well do I remem- 
 ber you and your sister Harriet in our young days in New Bedford. 
 May God bless you. 
 
 Sincerel}', 
 
 Aeby Giffoed Bryant.
 
 50 EEMIXISCEXCES 
 
 delightful, associating, as we did, with the l^est people 
 of the society from every part of New England, among 
 them many of al)ont our own age. 
 
 The principal of the Friends' Academy, at the time 
 of my connection with it. was Thomas A. Green. He 
 was admiral)ly fitted for the situation, maintaining a 
 careful, fatherly discipline in the schooh We had a 
 great company of boys and girls at the academy as 
 students. They were from different states, and dur- 
 ing all the time I heard of no incident, and am confi- 
 dent there was none, which might not be freely spoken 
 of in any company. 
 
 The school was well equipped for the course of 
 studies pursued there, which included the classics as 
 well as all branches of English learning at that time 
 taught in New England academies. One special 
 attraction for me was a large philosophical apparatus 
 which was said to be of the best construction and 
 workmanship of its time. Through it I acquired a 
 taste for mechanics in all branches. As one result of 
 this, I may here add that I have been a subscriber for 
 the Scientific American from its first publication, I 
 think, to the ijresent time, and have never failed to 
 carefully read each number when I have been at home 
 with opportunity so to do. 
 
 And this reminds me of the interest I took in the 
 construction of the first steam-engine ever made in 
 Maine. It was a small, experimental affair, made by 
 my honored friend, Rev. Cyrus Hamlin, of Constanti- 
 nople fame. Tliis was in the early "thirties," when 
 steam-engines were more than novelties — wonders to 
 most people. Though I had seen steam-engines, and 
 had read and talked and written about them, they 
 were still objects of great interest to me.
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 51 
 
 Dr. Hamlin was then a student at Bowdoin college, 
 in tlie cabinet of which that masterpiece of his youth is 
 yet retained as a curiosity. It was a sort of locomo- 
 tive, large and strong enough to carry two men, and 
 would propel itself along a floor. Young Hamlin did 
 most of his work upon it in Portland, and I was 
 frequently with him, rendering such aid as I might. 
 That was little enough. But when it was finished, 
 Mr. Hamlin was in debt on- its account, and I 
 interested myself to secure for him an invitation to 
 lecture before the Portland Lyceum — I was then 
 president of that society — thus obtaining for him 
 some remuneration. What was a matter of great 
 personal interest to me, Mr. Hamlin has always 
 regarded as a favor and kindness to him. * 
 
 Continuing my digression, I may say that my 
 interest in this experiment of Dr. Hamlin led me to 
 urge my father, and finally to induce him, rather 
 against his own judgment, to sul^stitute steam for the 
 old horse and windmill power we were then using in 
 our tannery, with the result that we there put in 
 operation the first stationary engine ever built in 
 Portland. It was a wonderful machine in its day, 
 and did good service for many years, but to the 
 modern steam engineer it would appear to be a thing 
 wonderfully and fearfully, if not intricately, made. 
 
 But to return to New Bedford. The school had an 
 exceptionally fine library, the gift of a rich Friend in 
 Rhode Island. Among its useful and entertaining 
 
 *Aniong the books in the li1)rary of the late General Dow is one 
 by Dr. Hamlin, with the following inscription on its title page: "This 
 volume is presented by the author to his honored and beloved friend, 
 Gen. Xeal Dow, in memory of the aid and cheer rendered to him 
 sixty-two years ago while making under difficulties the first steam- 
 engine ever made in Maine. 
 
 Cyrus Hamlix, Lexington, February 5, 1894.
 
 52 REMINISCENCES 
 
 books I passed hours. There I eoiild gratify to my 
 heart's content my love for reading, already formed, 
 and which has remained with me until this day, in all 
 its early freshness and strength. Because of this taste 
 for books, I have had in all my life, few, if any, 
 lonely hours. When not otherwise employed, my 
 time has been occupied with reading or writing, and 
 has never hung heavily upon my hands. Even the 
 well-nigh unbearable confinement in a military prison 
 was made comparatively cheerful by the books which 
 were kindly given me. But more elsewhere of this. 
 
 We had athletic sports, not as a business, nor as 
 engrossing our time at the expense of our studies, but 
 simply as a I'ecreation. "Shinny" was the popular 
 game of the day. We also had football, but never 
 engaged in the game with the ferocity sometimes 
 exhibited in these later times. We had aquatic 
 sports, and there were many pleasant spots up and 
 down the shores of Buzzard's bay which we visited on 
 picnics or otherwise. 
 
 A large whaling fleet was owned in New Bedford, 
 and New Bedford boys generally were fond of the 
 management of boats and all sports al^out the wharves 
 and water, and looked forward to the time when 
 they should become masters of whaling ships. With 
 many others, I became an expert swimmer, and, 
 emulating them in the handling of sail-boats, became 
 skilled in this sort of seamanshii). Practice in this 
 line continued through my youth and early manhood, 
 and the knowledge and experience thus obtained has 
 on more than one occasion i^roved of value when 
 others, whose ijosition was such that they should have 
 been relied u|)on in tlie emergency, proved unequal 
 to it. Looking back ui)on my amusements in and
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 53 
 
 about the water at New Bedford, I wonder that I 
 escaped drowning, so many times was I in great 
 danger. 
 
 Wonderful yarns were spun in New Bedford then of 
 the adventures of men in hunting whales, of their 
 hairbreadth escapes from drowning and from attacks 
 of Avhales upon boats, and sometimes ships, that were 
 struck and sunk by the monsters. There was a 
 whaleman in New Bedford who told us he was in a 
 "boat smashed by a whale's tail, setting the crew afloat 
 in mid-ocean; that he was taken into the whale's jaws, 
 which closed upon him, holding him fast and pincli- 
 ing him a little, but with no wound; then, the mouth 
 slowly opening, the man quickly escaped, and was 
 picked up by another boat. 
 
 I remember a Captain Parker, especially, a small 
 man, of great activity and bodily power. He was 
 lame in one foot, and told this story about it. He 
 was steersman in a whale-boat. A large wliale was 
 struck and "sounded." The line caught Parker's 
 ankle, carrying him overboard, and down, down, 
 down, with tremendous velocity. He did not lose 
 presence of mind, and endeavored to cut the line with 
 his sheath-knife, but could not manage it until the 
 whale lessened its speed and he was able to reach the 
 line and sever it. He remembered no more until he 
 recovered consciousness, surrounded by his fellows, 
 who had seized him, drowned, as they supposed, as he 
 came up close to the boat. 
 
 Such men were regarded as heroes by all young 
 New Bedford then, greater, doubtless, in the minds of 
 the young Quakers at the Friends' Academy than if 
 as soldiers they had exposed themselves on a hundred 
 battle-fields.
 
 54 REMINISCENCES 
 
 111 dit^C'liarsin.i^' tlie cargo of one of those wlialerni at 
 a New Bedford wharf, it was found that a cask was 
 firmly fixed to one side of the vessel. It was an^bject 
 of great interest to the people who visited the ship in 
 crowds to see it. AVhen finally the cask was taken 
 down, it was found to have been fastened there by the 
 sword of a swordfish, which it was alleged had passed 
 through the hull of the ship between the timbers, and, 
 puncturing the oil-cask, held it in position. 
 
 I was relating this incident not long ago to my old 
 friend, Cai)t. Benjamin J. Willard, of this city, the 
 well known pilot and fisherman, and he told me that 
 some forty years i)rior to the time of our conversation 
 he was in a museum in Philadeli)hia, and there saw 
 some planks from a ship containing part of the sword 
 of a swordfish which had passed completely through. 
 He was told that the specimen was taken from a 
 whaling-ship, that the sword had pierced an oil-cask, 
 and that the incident had occurred many years before 
 his visit to the museum. Upon my suggesting that it 
 might liave l3een taken from the same ship which I 
 had seen in New Bedford, he replied tliat it was possi- 
 ble, but that occurrences of the kind were not at all 
 uncommon, that he himself on two occasions had been 
 in ships which had thus been injured by swordfish. 
 
 In those days there were no railroads, and steam- 
 boats had not begun to run along our coasts. Travel- 
 ing was by stage or private conveyance. Wlien my 
 sister and I were to return from Now Bedford, my 
 father dro\e from Portland to take us home in the 
 family chaise. First we Avent from New Bedford to 
 Newport, where we attended the yearly meeting sev- 
 eral days, then to Providence the first day, next to 
 Boston, to Portsmouth, N. H. , on the third day, and
 
 OF NEAL DOAV. 55 
 
 tlience to Portland, consuming four days of what was 
 good traveling then, to cover a route which may be 
 now traveled in less than half a score of hours. In 
 the same way I went with my sister the next year to 
 New Bedford, and again the year after to Newport 
 to attend yearly meeting, no better mode of travel 
 offering. To children of our age such journeying 
 afforded perpetual delight as well as instruction. 
 
 I may as well say here that in the earlier days of 
 railroading in New England, or at least in Maine, not 
 long after the railroad between Portland and Boston 
 had been constructed I went over it with an excur- 
 sion party. We left Portland between four and five 
 o'clock in the morning, expecting to arrive in Boston 
 in the early forenoon, but although our train was no 
 longer than the ordinary e very-day train of to-day, 
 the engine was so absurdly inadequate for the work 
 (and it was probably as good as any of that time) that 
 it was impossible for it to haul the loaded cars up over 
 several of the grades of the road, and it was necessary 
 for the passengers to alight, and many of them, prob- 
 ably by way of sport, assisted in pushing the train up 
 over some of the grades. We did not reach Boston 
 until about four o'clock in the afternoon. Those who 
 are familiar with the magnificent railroad equipments 
 of the present day will find it difficult to credit this 
 story.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 LIFE AFTER LEAVING SCHOOL. EMPLOYMENTS AND IN- 
 
 TERESTS TO THE TIME OF MY MAJORITY. 
 MY "grand tour." 
 
 Upon leaving the Friends' Academy at New Bedford, 
 I again entered the Portland Academy, and after a 
 year there my school-life terminated, in 1820, when I 
 was sixteen years of age. I much desired to go to 
 college, for which I had fitted, bnt my parents were 
 strongly opposed, and I was constrained to conform to 
 their wishes. Their opposition to my taking a colle- 
 giate course was partially due, no donbt, to the dread 
 of the possibly bad influence upon me of associations 
 that I might form while absent from home. 
 
 It had happened that one or two families of our 
 acquaintance had experienced much wretchedness 
 from the dissipation of sons, dissipation resulting 
 from habits said to liave been contracted at college; 
 but the opposition was largely owing to the impression 
 at that time prevailing to some extent in the religious 
 society of Avhicli my i)a rents were members, that a 
 college education was a device of the adversary, and 
 was to be obtained only at great ])eril to the immortal 
 Boul. Their o]).jection, based probably u|)on tlie latter 
 reason, prevented also the gratification of my desire to
 
 EEMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOAV. 57 
 
 study law. And so, perforce, after a month or so cf 
 vacation, I went into my father's tannery to make 
 myself generally useful about his business. 
 
 At the same time, however, I formed the determina- 
 tion to supi)lement my school acquirements by a 
 regular course of reading. This resolution, because 
 of my great fondness for books, I was glad to make, 
 and found easy to keep. Indeed, my difficulty was 
 rather so to limit the time given to them as not to 
 permit interference with the practical duties and 
 responsibilities which from this time on began to con- 
 front me. The means for gratifying my desire for 
 reading were at hand. Father had, perhaps, more 
 than the usual number and variety of books to be 
 found in the average family library of those days, and 
 when these had been read, and some of them re-read, I 
 had recourse to those of our family friends who were 
 among the cultivated and intelligent people of the 
 community, and to such other accessible collections 
 as the little town afforded. 
 
 My spare pocket-money was also expended from time 
 to time for books, and I began thus early to lay the 
 foundation of a library which at this writing com- 
 pares favorably in number, variety, and quality of con- 
 tents with most private collections in Maine. Again 
 my business was such that much of my leisure from 
 youth to manhood could be given up to books and pen, 
 and to diversions of a collateral kind without risk to 
 my health from confinement, and my reading covered 
 a wide range. A friend of mine was studying medi- 
 cine, and I found myself frequently with him, keeping 
 up with him in the perusal of medical works. The 
 doctor with whom he was studying, said to me that 
 there were some in practice (this was long before the
 
 58 REMIXISCEXCES 
 
 days of medical registration) wlio had read less about 
 medicine tlian I— a statement, by tlie way, far from 
 discreet, as it was not calculated to inspire me with 
 that confidence which in health is most comfortable, as 
 in sickness most important. When I was quite a 
 young man, I think not twenty-five years old, I was 
 associated with many of the older professional citizens 
 of Portland in a literary society, known as the 
 Portland Athenaeum, which established and main- 
 tained for many years the leading library in town. I 
 think I was its first secretary. 
 
 I derived some inspiration in my efforts at self- 
 culture from the Constitutional Convention prepara- 
 tory to the separation of Maine from Massachusetts, 
 that along in my early teens assembled in Portland. 
 I attended its sessions as constantly as possible, and 
 was not by any means the only Portland boy whose 
 interest in public affairs was there stimulated. Our 
 young lawyers and law students attended these 
 gatlierings in force, and the Solons of the embryo 
 state found numerous and interested auditors, and, I 
 dare say, more or less competent critics among the 
 youth and young men of Portland. 
 
 Tliat convention was held in the First Parisli 
 church, an old-fashioned wooden structure, occupying 
 the site, opposite the head of Temple street, where the 
 more modern stone edifice now stands. Its high 
 pulpit, overhanging sounding-board, and its old-fasli- 
 ioned s(iuare ijews gave a more than ordinarily somlier 
 and impressive character to the grave assemblage it 
 then entertained. Tliat cliurch edifice antedated the 
 Ke volution. It escaped material damage from the 
 bombardment by Mo watt, though a shell was tlirown 
 into it, which is still preserved as a curiosity.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 59 
 
 I was present in the old chnrch, some time later 
 than the days of which I am writing, when a panic 
 occurred, in which, as I now remember, though 
 several persons were injured, no lives were lost. It 
 was on the occasion of the delivery of a sermon by the 
 Rev. Dr. Pay son, I think, before the Seamen's Bil^le 
 Society. The church was crowded, every foot of space 
 being occupied by those who had flocked to hear the 
 famous divine, then in the height of his ])opularity and 
 power as a preacher. The galleries were supported 
 by round pillars of oak. These had apparently been 
 warped by age until they seemed to be bending under 
 the weight above them. 
 
 The large crowd which thronged the galleries had 
 attracted the attention of the people in the body of 
 the house, and, together with the distorted pillars, 
 caused, evidently, some apprehension. I was standing 
 in one of the galleries near the center of the building 
 from front to rear. I had noticed the size of the 
 crowd, and had also observed the apparent distrust on 
 the part of those in the body of the house as to the 
 strength of the gallery supports. Suddenly some one 
 in the gallery accidentally broke a pane of glass in my 
 immediate vicinity. The noise created a stampede, 
 and instantly almost everyone in the body of the 
 house, and in the galleries as well, was rushing for 
 the doors. 
 
 From my position I could see men and women in the 
 aisles struggling for exit. I had no fear of serious 
 injury to the building, knowing the cause of the 
 alarm, but I was crowded and pushed and carried 
 until brought near a window at the front end, through 
 which I partly forced my way, and was partly pushed, 
 to a position on the outside of the lintel, where, free
 
 60 REMINISCENCES 
 
 from pressure and danger, I watched the crowd as it 
 emerged below. One man in particular attracted my 
 attention, and from my vantage-point I observed him 
 with surprise. He was hysterical with terror, and as 
 he was ])ushing and fighting his way through the 
 crowd Just outside the doors he was alternately crying, 
 swearing or praying, all at the top of his voice. As 
 soon as he was outside the crowd, he turned and with 
 upraised arms shouted in a sort of delirium: "Now 
 
 it, let the thing fall! " I wondered how one 
 
 so solicitous for his own safety as that man had been, 
 could be, after he had himself escaped danger, so 
 indifferent to that which threatened others. My con- 
 tempt for such cowardice was burned deep into my 
 consciousness by the exhil^ition made by that fellow. 
 I have often thought of him in his unutterably 
 unmanly attitude when in after life I have found 
 really good men unwilling to lend a hand to remove 
 great evils with which society is threatened, and 
 therefore to all appearance indifferent to them. 
 
 The legislatures of Maine assembled in Portland 
 until I had passed my majority, and, whenever possi- 
 ble, during my youth, I was present, always interested, 
 and doubtless profiting by what was there to be seen 
 and heard. Indeed, I had but just passed my majority 
 when I appeared before the legislature to urge, with 
 successful result, a law relating to municipal fire- 
 departments, which I believe has remained from that 
 day to this the basis of legislation upon that subject. 
 
 In Portland then, as everywhere else, the boys and 
 young men had their debating-societies, and with one 
 I was connected, trying to bear my part with the 
 others. Among the meml)ers I recollect were James 
 Brooks, William Pitt Fessenden, and Francis O. J.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 61 
 
 Smith, all of Avlioni became men of mark, serving in 
 Congress, and the latter two especially, in those early 
 days gave promise of the forensic abilities which in 
 mature life made them prominent. 
 
 I was not behind any of my associates or acquaint- 
 ances, the boys and young men of my age, in a 
 reasonable taste for the proper pleasures and indul- 
 gences which have attractions for youth. I was fond 
 of music, and acquired proficiency in playing the flute, 
 indulging that taste to some extent until convinced 
 that the time thus taken could be more profitably 
 employed. I was fond of chess, also, and other games 
 depending more on skill and thought than chance, but 
 in those in which mere luck predominated I never 
 took an interest. 
 
 Everybody rode horseback in those days, because it 
 was the principal mode of travel of those not obliged 
 to go on foot. An old cavalry ofiicer residing in 
 Portland instructed a class of young men, of whom I 
 was one, and he made no holiday affair of our course 
 under his direction, which included racing, leaping, 
 and whatever else would help us to a mastery of the 
 horse and to entire ease in the saddle. From him, 
 also, Ave learned to fence and to use the cutlass. 
 
 Horseback excursions were frequent then, and I 
 remember many, among them especially one through 
 the White Mountain region. My friend Charles B. 
 Abbott, a son of Dr. Abbott, the princii)al of the 
 famous Exeter academy, came to Portland on a visit 
 on horseback, and wished me to join him in a journey 
 to the top of Mount Washington. It was thought to 
 be a formidable undertaking for those days, espec- 
 ially for boys of our age. Here is substantially what 
 I wrote of it many years ago :
 
 62 REMINISCENCES 
 
 Starting in the mornin,^-, our first day was ended at 
 "Squire" Pierce's, in Baldwin, thirty miles away. 
 The Pierces were intimate friends of my family, keep- 
 ing open house for all friends, as did rich farmers and 
 lumber oi)erators of that day. It was one of the most 
 prominent families in the western part of Maine. 
 George, the youngest son, about our age, joined us 
 here. From this point onward our way was not as 
 easy. Our second stage was at Bartlett, where we 
 arrived at General Hall's tavern, very late at night, 
 having traveled for two or three hours through a wild 
 country, in almost Egyptian darkness. For much of 
 the way one of us was obliged to walk, leading his 
 horse, and feeling, rather than seeing, the path. 
 
 This General Hall was a character. He had been a 
 member of Congress, was a rich farmer, an active and 
 enterprising man, known through all that country. 
 He prided himself upon keeping, with the aid of his 
 bright, intelligent daughters, the best tavern in all the 
 country. 
 
 Our next day's travel brought us to Ethan Allen 
 Crawford's, where we were to stop before our ascent 
 of Mount Washington. The passage through the 
 Notch was very wild, and few persons attempted it 
 except men from upper New Hampshire and Vermont, 
 farmers coming down to Portland in winter to 
 exchange their butter, cheese and other farm prod- 
 ♦ucts for such articles as were needed for their families, 
 and for some supplies which would have been better 
 for their families if left behind. As these journeys 
 were always in winter, the road at the season of the 
 year when we passed over it was little better than a 
 bridle-path. 
 
 The only house in the vicinity was that of Crawford.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 63 
 
 It was a small, old, unpainted farm-lioiise of one story 
 wliicli had been occupied by his father before him. 
 It was a tavern, accommodating all travelers, who 
 were few except in winter, when the snow made the 
 road passable to the farmers. We had a warm and 
 most hospitable reception from Mr. Crawford, named 
 for the renowned Ethan Allen, of Revolutionary 
 Ticonderoga fame, who, I believe, was some con- 
 nection of the family. 
 
 If the original Avas like his namesake in the White 
 Mountain notch, the commandant at Ticonderoga 
 might well have been pardoned for a shiver or two 
 when his quarters were suddenly invaded in the early 
 dawn by Allen, calling upon him in a voice of thunder 
 to surrender in the name of the Almighty and the 
 Continental Congress. Crawford was six feet and 
 two or three inches in height, with broad, deep chest 
 and stout limbs, without a pound of superfluous flesh, 
 a Hercules with such an eye as the Greek demi-god 
 may have had, and a bearing which plainly indicated 
 the absence of all fear. 
 
 This was our first trip to the White Mountains, to 
 us as wonderful and mysterious as the Himalayas, the 
 Andes, or indeed, the mountains of the moon. Excur- 
 sions to them for pleasure were rarely made in tliose 
 old days, and then only by adventurous people, who 
 seemed to their wondering neighbors almost to take 
 their lives in their hands, their love of excitement 
 overpowering all prudential considerations. 
 
 In the early morning our host made the necessary 
 preparations for the ascent of Mount Wasliiugton. 
 There were to be provisions for two days, and there 
 was also a very pretty keg of small dimensions and 
 fancy workmanship, about which we made no inquir-
 
 64 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 ies. We set off, each of iis with a strong staff, our 
 host with a pack made up of the necessary eatables, 
 and with the mysterious keg upon his back. We had 
 a tramp l)efore us of nine miles to the foot of the 
 mountain, the path leading through the original 
 forest, where to our inexperienced eye there were few 
 signs that human foot had ever stepped before. We 
 were looking about constantly for the sudden api^ear- 
 ance of a bear, or possibly the spring of a catamount, 
 the leopard of the northern forests. But no wild 
 beast came to make our trip more exciting. 
 
 At the foot of the mountain we found a camp made 
 expressly for travelers. We had never seen one 
 before, and examined this with great interest. The 
 framework was of poles, securely planted and fixed, 
 each in its proper place, and the whole covered with 
 large sheets of bark from the white birch-tree, making 
 it perfectly secure against water and weather, except 
 on that side open to the south. Fastened to the 
 rafters were rolls of blankets, kept there for the use 
 of all travelers. Under the direction of our guide, we 
 set to work to gather hemlock boughs, of which to 
 make our Tjecl. 
 
 When this work was accomplished, Mr. Crawford 
 called us to a dinner prepared by him in the very best 
 backwoods style, in which he was an adept, having 
 had many years' experience. It is no matter about 
 our l)ill of fare. It is enough to say that it was 
 aljundant, and of such material and cookery as to 
 tempt appetites far more difficult to please than ours. 
 Here tlie mystery of the little keg was solved. Our 
 host took it up tenderly and poured out carefully what 
 was, in his eye, a nectar for the gods. It was old 
 Jamaica rum. ' ' You never saw the like of it before,
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 65 
 
 boys!" No, we liad never seen any before. "Come 
 boys, take hold, lielp yourselves! No? No? No?" 
 were tlie exclamations made to each of us as we 
 declined the precious fluid. He could not believe his 
 ears and eyes. Mr. Crawford did not know what to 
 make of us, and to our persistent declination only 
 added, "Well, well, well! I never!" 
 
 One might suppose that our host was a slave to 
 old Jamaica, like many others. But, no; he never 
 exceeded the bounds of moderation, and was admir- 
 ably qualified for the presidency of a moderate drink- 
 ing society. But, unfortunately, such had not been 
 heard of in those days. 
 
 We slept soundly that night in our birch-bark 
 camp, on our fragrant bed of hemlock boughs, 
 wrapped in our blankets, like so many Indians upon 
 the war-path. In the early morning we were on our 
 way to the summit of Mount Washington. From 
 thence, after passing an hour or two, we returned to 
 our camp, and then to our tavern, a feat which Mr. 
 Crawford said had never to his knowledge been 
 accomplished before, the ascent of the mountain and 
 the return to the house in the same day. 
 
 Among my amusements was gunning. Wild pig- 
 eon and other small game abounded, giving plenty of 
 sport and practice. Two of our neighbors made a 
 business of hunting wild pigeons in the season, and I 
 was often permitted to accompany them. Their 
 general method of capturing the birds was with a net, 
 so arranged that it would drop over a flock that had 
 been induced to alight to feed upon buckwheat or 
 other grain spread out to attract them. 
 
 It was interesting to watch the tame pigeons which 
 were often used to decoy their wild relatives. They
 
 G6 REMINISCEI^CES 
 
 seemed to miderstaiid tlie game admirably, and 
 almost invariably dodged out from under the net at 
 the right instant to free themselves without unseason- 
 ably alarming the wild birds. After the net had 
 fallen, the poor pigeons would squat on the ground, 
 Avith their heads sticking up like so many pegs 
 through the net, and the hunters would then pass 
 around, breaking each neck with a pinch. I will not 
 say positively how many would be caught at a time, 
 and perhaps to me there seemed to be more than there 
 really were, but I think it is within bounds to say 
 that three or four dozen was not an unusual catch 
 with one drop of the net. 
 
 One of these pigeon hunters had been a Revolu- 
 tionary soldier, and he occasionally loaned me a gun 
 which he said he had carried in the army, and it was 
 with that old flint-lock musket that I did my first 
 gunning. "When I was about fifteen years old, my 
 Uncle Jonathan gave me a double-barreled gun, of 
 French manufacture, which he had bought when 
 abroad somewhere on one of his sea voyages. It was 
 a flint-lock, the best of its kind for the time. 
 
 A gymnasium was located in the "court end" of 
 the town, then a long walk from my father's house. 
 I was often there early in the morning, and fre- 
 quently in the evening, and under competent instruc- 
 tion became reasonably proficient in various athletics 
 retjuiring activity and strength, and tending to 
 develop agility, nerve, muscle, and presence of mind. 
 My employments in the tannery tended also to ])re- 
 serve health and promote vigor, and a rowing clu):) 
 with which I was connected, proved of great benefit 
 in these particulars, with the result that I was 
 stronger than the average man of my size.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 67 
 
 An incident connected with the gymnasium served 
 me well at the time, and doubtless helped to give me 
 a reputation among my townsmen of being quite able 
 to defend myself from ordinary assailants, a rei)uta- 
 tion, by the way, which, whether well founded or 
 not, in more than one instance, I am confident, saved 
 me from attack, and prevented assaults upon other 
 friends of temperance temporarily under my protec- 
 tion, who had made themselves obnoxious to the 
 liquor-element, the rougher portion of which was 
 always ready to resort to violence, especially when 
 incited thereto by drink. 
 
 A particular friend of mine came to the tannery one 
 day (I was somewhere from twenty to twenty -five years 
 of age) and asked me to go with him to a select boxing 
 exhibition that evening. I was fairly expert for an 
 amateur in that sort of exercise, and was quite willing 
 to go. A considerable company of our townspeople 
 gathered to be entertained by a ' ' professor " in that 
 line visiting Portland. One after another of our 
 young men tried their hands with the stranger, and 
 after a time there was a call for me to go to the front, 
 (instigated, as I afterwards learned, by my friend) so 
 loud that it seemed to me wiser to yield than to 
 refuse, and, putting on the gloves, I did as well as I 
 could. 
 
 On my way from the exhibition my friend disclosed 
 to me the reason for his urgency to have me take part 
 in the affair. He had learned that a man about town, 
 who had taken offense at something I had said or 
 done, was waiting for a favorable oj^portunity to 
 punish me, and it seems that my friend had induced 
 him to be present also, with the hope that what he 
 would see would lead him to abandon the under-
 
 68 REMINISCENCES 
 
 taking. I told my friend that if my little exercise 
 tliat evening should lead to the result he hoped for, I 
 should be much gratified. I never heard from the 
 threat afterwards. 
 
 My earliest business venture upon my own account 
 was in 1821, when I was but seventeen years of age. 
 At that time a cousin of mine, twenty-one years old, 
 the late Hon. John Hodgdon, who passed the latter 
 part of his life in Dubuque, Iowa, had inlierited some 
 land in eastern Maine. Adjoining this tract was 
 another which he desired to control, and he pur- 
 chased one-third, my Uncle Jonathan another third, 
 while my father bought the remainder for my benefit. 
 The purchase consummated, my cousin and I under- 
 took the work of surveying and plotting it into farm- 
 lots and disposing of it to settlers. We gave some 
 months to the work, whicli was interesting and 
 instructive as well as remunerative to me. Our lands 
 included, I think, the present thriving towns of 
 Hodgdon and Linneus, in Aroostook county. 
 
 It was no easy task to reach that wilderness at that 
 time. While from Portland to Bangor, and thence to 
 Oldtown, the way was over established stage-routes, 
 beyond that for most of the distance we depended 
 upon the Penobscot and Mattawamkeag rivers for a 
 highway, and a bateau for a conveyance. We were 
 literally comi)elled to paddle our OAvn canoe, or, 
 ratlier, pole our own boat. This was a large, flat- 
 bottomed affair, constructed so as to float in as shal- 
 low water as possible. In, or ratlier on, this we stored 
 our provisions, surveying-implements, guns, and what- 
 ever else was necessary for camj^ing out, and, with an 
 ex[)erienced surveyor and guide, and another man to 
 help, began to push our winding, watery way.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 69 
 
 The guide we employed, in addition to liin other 
 accomplishments, had acquired a controlling taste for 
 liquor, and made it a condition previous to enlisting 
 with us that a supply of intoxicants should be added 
 to our stores. To this we consented, (remember that 
 1 was not then eighteen) but I must confess that we 
 kept the promise in the letter rather than in the spirit, 
 for to the great disgust and temporary indignation of 
 our assistant, he learned too late, as he imagined, for 
 his own comfort, that we had furnished but a quart of 
 the ardent for the entire trip. 
 
 We endeavored to mollify his indignation and to 
 justify our action by the plea that, in our youth and 
 inexperience in matters pertaining to liquor, we had 
 no idea of how much an able-bodied drinker could 
 consume. For a while he suffered, or pretended to 
 suffer, great inconvenience and hardship for want of 
 his accustomed beverage, but his enforced abstinence 
 during the time we were in the woods worked a won- 
 derful change in his general appearance, and he was 
 obliged to admit, when we came out into civilization, 
 that he was in better health than he had been for 
 years. 
 
 Our only motive power in this excursion was trans- 
 mitted by our arms to the poles by means of which we 
 forced our way, sometimes against swift currents, for 
 I cannot remember how many miles, or our legs when 
 we were obliged to resort to the portages. In this way 
 for many miles, probably seventy or eighty, we made 
 our journey. The picturesque wildness of the country 
 afforded ever-changing attractions to the eye. Fish 
 and game in abundance were easily added to our 
 larder, and our rustic table at night and morning was 
 in this way amply provided with that which served to
 
 70 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 satisfy our liealtliy, work-invigorated appetites, such 
 as no mere epicure can ever know. If by chance gmne 
 failed us, we were always hungry enough to fall back 
 without complaint uijon salt pork and hard-bread, 
 which constituted the main portion of our stores. 
 
 At one point we came upon a party of Indians fish- 
 ing for eels. They had caught great quantities of 
 them, which they were curing by a mixed process of 
 drying and smoking for future use. They had split 
 what seemed to be a large number that were si)read 
 out on poles and protected by birch-bark roofs or 
 coverings for the curing process. 
 
 We met one day a solitary Indian after we had been 
 for weeks out of sight of civilization, save such as we 
 carried into the wilderness with us. He passed us at 
 a distance without a word, although we repeatedly 
 hailed him. Our guide said that was characteristic 
 of the redman, who preferred to be speechless for 
 months at a time to exchanging a word under those 
 circumstances. 
 
 Once on this trip my cousin made what seemed to 
 me a remarkable shot. We saw a duck floating on the 
 stream at a long distance, a mere point on the water it 
 appeared to me. Taking my gun, one barrel of which 
 was loaded with ball, my cousin fired, and, when we 
 reached the spot to pick up the bird, we found to our 
 surprise, two, each Avith its head shot off, where only 
 one had been seen. We concluded that they must 
 have been exactly in line, one beyond the other, the 
 same ]:)ullet decapitating both. 
 
 I had what sportsmen would call the good fortune 
 to shoot a l)ear on tins trij), in what is now known as 
 the town of Houlton. A bear had been committing 
 some dei)redations in the vicinity, and we made
 
 OF NEAL DOAV. 71 
 
 arrangements, the three of us, to kill the animal if 
 possible. We had found three paths in which it was 
 apparent the beast had walked, and each of us one 
 evening mounted guard over one of these. We were 
 out of sight and gunshot of each other, and to avoid 
 all danger of shooting one another it was agreed that 
 neither should move from his post until after he had 
 fired, should the bear put in an appearance. 
 
 I seated myself on one end of a fallen tree, project- 
 ing into the path where I was to watch, and waited. 
 It was a dark, lonesome, forest road. The wind was 
 blowing toward me from the point from which I 
 expected the bear, and I had reason to believe that it 
 would get near enough, if it came at all, to afford me 
 an easy shot. I was armed with a double-barreled 
 flint-lock foAvling piece, the best of the kind extant at 
 that time, and a large butcher's knife, which our 
 guide had reassuringly suggested to me would be use- 
 ful in close (juarters. 
 
 After an hour or more of silence, I thought I heard 
 a slight noise at some distance down the path. My 
 waiting and watching became immediately painfully 
 intense. The noise drew nearer, then became inter- 
 mittent, as if the approaching object, which I doubted 
 not was the bear, paused occasionally in its progress to 
 satisfy itself that all was safe. Happily, just at this 
 moment the moon shone through the clouds so as to 
 casta dim, flickering, uncertain light through the tree- 
 tops upon the path. After what seemed a long time 
 I made out a dark body at some distance shambling 
 toward me. 
 
 As noiselessly as possible I cocked both locks of my 
 gun. Though in doing this I raulfled the sound with 
 my cloak as well as possible, I thought the animal
 
 i'2 REMINISCENCES 
 
 heard it, for the shadow in tlie i^ath instantly became 
 inotioidess. It remained thus for some moments, and 
 then came slowly toward me. Nearer and nearer it 
 approached. I could see it but could not hear it, for 
 the sound of my heart-beats was loud enough to 
 engross my entire sense of hearing. My knife was on 
 the log before me, as the guide, with the idea of dis- 
 tui-l)iiig my nerves, perhaps, had cautioned me to be 
 sure and have that ready. It was probably but a brief 
 interval, though it seemed some time, before the bear 
 was within gunshot, but I waited for a surer aim, and 
 a more deadly result, as my gun, though loaded with 
 balls in each barrel, was not intended for game of that 
 kind. 
 
 The bear was now in full sight, and it was a large 
 one. Suddenly it stopped, threw up its head, and 
 snuffed the air. It was now full in such light as the 
 half -obscured moon afforded. I was confident that it 
 had at last scented danger, and saw, or perhai^s 
 imagined that I saw, the gleam of its teeth. Satisfied 
 that its next move would be to retreat, unless, indeed, 
 to rush at me, I took aim. My slight movement 
 arrested its attention, but its liead was still elevated, 
 and instantly it received the contents of both barrels 
 in the throat. Its only movement was to sit back upon 
 its haunches. It seemed to me to be only astonished, 
 not hurt. 
 
 For my part, with one eye on the l^ear and the other 
 on my knife, I commenced to reload. The recharging 
 of old-fashioned muzzle-loading flint-locks with powder 
 and ball was quite a different matter from slipping a 
 cartridge into a modern breech-loader. While I was 
 thus engaged, for a moment or t\\o — they seemed long 
 moments to me — the great brute sat there, api)arently
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 73 
 
 motionless. Then it commenced to sway irom side to 
 side, to nod its head as if dozing, when at length, with 
 a lurch, it fell over upon its side, lying there with 
 only a convulsive twitching, until all was still. I 
 finished loading, and, hallooing to my comrades, 
 awaited their arrival before I approached poor Bruin. 
 The shot had evidently severed a great artery, and he 
 had bled to death, as a hog dies under the knife of the 
 butcher. Though he did not prove to be quite such a 
 monster as he appeared to my intensely interested 
 gaze, he was, so I was told the next day, above the 
 average in size and weight. At my age then the affair 
 was to me a great event, and, years afterwards, to 
 listen to my relation of the incident was the great 
 delight of my children as they successively became old 
 enough to be interested in such stories. Each evening 
 as the little ones mounted my knee their first demand 
 would be, "Bear! more bear!" 
 
 All that region through which we passed has greatly 
 changed in the more than seventy intervening years. 
 Where then was the primitive forest, with scarcely 
 other mark than the paths trodden by their former 
 Indian denizens, are now to be found as fine farming 
 lands and as prosperous communities as the country 
 affords. 
 
 In June, 1825, shortly after I became of age, I 
 started for what was, at the time, considered among 
 Portlanders as a "grand tour." My route took me to 
 Dover, thence to Boston, where father had charged 
 me with a matter of business. I can fix the date 
 because of the oration of Webster at the laying of the 
 corner-stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, which I 
 heard. I went to Boston on horseback, the trip con- 
 suming three days.
 
 74 REMIXISCENCES 
 
 An unexpected turn in the business T^ith which I 
 was charged made it necessary that I should retrace 
 my steps to Portland, thus postponing my tour for a 
 few days. I did not regret this, however, as it gave 
 me an opportunity to participate in the reception 
 which a day or two after I reached home was 
 accorded by our citizens to General La Fayette. My 
 share in the ceremonies was confined to riding with 
 the citizens' cavalcade, which met the distinguished 
 guest as he entered the town, and escorted him to the 
 place where he was to be formally received by the 
 authorities. That was a great event to the men 
 prominent in our little community, as well as to many 
 of us who bore only a very humble part in it. At 
 various points in the town, arches bearing appropriate 
 inscriptions had been erected, under which the proces- 
 sion passed. It is to be hoped that General La Fayette 
 enjoyed the occasion as much as our citizens did. 
 
 Probably there was no one taking part in that 
 procession less known than I, and certainly none 
 better known to our citizens than the governor of the 
 state, Albion K. Parris, on whom ai)plause was 
 bestowed in only less measure than that given to the 
 guest of the occasion by our citizens and the crowds 
 of i)eople from the country who had come into town 
 to witness the affair. I little dreamed then that more 
 than a quarter of a century later Governor Parris and 
 I Avere to be rival candidates in the uiost exciting 
 political contest in the history of Portland, which 
 indirectly involved an issue that was to attract to a 
 local municipal contest the attention of a large por- 
 tion of our country. But of this, more later. 
 
 A few days after the reception of La Fayette, I 
 started again on iiiy tonr. going on horseback directly
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 75 
 
 to my grandfather's home in Weare, N. H. It way 
 not what would to-day be called an extended journey, 
 and is worthy of note only as showing what was in 
 those days a matter of interest and comment. 
 Though covering but a small portion of territory, 
 with the facilities of the day for travel it consumed 
 as much of time and strength as a journey over our 
 entire country, and perhaps Europe, would now. 
 The trip was made in part on horseback, in part by 
 private team, or stage, in part by canal-boats, and for 
 some portion of the way by steamboats, which had 
 recently come into limited use. Kailroads were then 
 unknown. One would not obtain from the modern 
 steamboat much idea of those in which I traveled so 
 long ago; nevertheless, for the time, they were quite 
 imposing and sumptuous affairs. 
 
 After passing a few days at my grandfather's, in 
 company with a cousin, Abram Dow, I went on horse- 
 back into the White Mountain region, and, crossing- 
 over to Vermont, came down through that state into 
 Massachusetts and thence to Boston. We were 
 accompanied by a lad in a wagon carrying a rude 
 camping equipage, and for most of our trip lived like 
 gypsies, camping in the woods or by the roadside, 
 depending upon the farmers on our way for such 
 provisions as we did not take with us, and often help- 
 ing out our larder with gun and line. 
 
 My experience two or three years before in eastern 
 Maine served me well on this occasion and put me in 
 the lead, because my Cousin Abram, though older by 
 several years, knew little of that kind of life. 
 He was a strong, muscular man, no weakness find- 
 ing place in his frame, as in his spirit there was no 
 fear. He gave me proof of both one afternoon.
 
 76 IIEMIXISCEXCES 
 
 We were walking on some planks laid down on one 
 of the streets in Boston, where the way was exception- 
 ally muddy, and were about half way over, he a step 
 or two in advance, when we were hailed by three 
 smartly dressed young men — ^they would now prob- 
 ably be called dudes — with orders to turn back and 
 let them have the right of way. We were roughly 
 dressed in our country traveling toggery, and doubt- 
 less were taken by the "chappies" as good subjects 
 for sport, perhaps for something more serious. I was 
 for turning back, but Abram said " No! " 
 
 There was just time for me to see the leader of the 
 three raise a cane or Avhip and strike my cousin, and 
 then to see a mixture of light coats, hatless heads, 
 heels, legs and arms in the mud by the side of the 
 walk, as Abram had caught up one after the other of 
 his assailants and thrown each out of his way. I 
 expected more trouble, l)ut none came. Each felt 
 that he had been in the grip of a giant — I had before 
 that seen Abram lift a barrel of pork with as much 
 ease, apparently, as I could take up a bucket of water, 
 — and neither of them cared to encounter again the 
 countryman they had expected to easily drive into the 
 mud, in which they had been with so little effort 
 rolled. 
 
 Returning to Weare, I stopped a week or two, and 
 then, crossing Vermont, i^art of tlie way by private 
 conveyance, and part by stage, I reached Saratoga and 
 Ballston, N. Y. At Poughkeepsie, I took a canal- 
 boat, (it was the year the canal was opened) eighty 
 miles to Utica. Those boats, drawn by four horses, 
 ran night and day, and had sleeping accommodations 
 for passengers, bunks at night being put up in the 
 cabin where by day the table was spread for meals.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 77 
 
 TliiB canal was then commonly called derisively 
 "Clinton's Ditch," by those who had opposed it 
 because of their hostility to Governor Clinton, or wlio 
 were opposing him because they did not approve of 
 that stupendous undertaking. But this was Governor 
 Clinton's year of triumph, and the canal was opened 
 all the way through to Buffalo. At one point along 
 the line I was shown a toad which it was claimed was 
 found living beneath ten feet of solid rock, excavated 
 when the canal was in process of construction. 
 
 At Utica, I was fortunate enough to fall in with 
 a Mr. Vischer, a young Swiss gentleman of rank 
 and fortune, a few years my senior. He wrote and 
 conversed correctly in English, and, as far as I was 
 able to judge, in French also, with an equal command 
 of Spanish, Italian, and German. He was what 
 might be called an amateur civil engineer, that is, 
 without any intention of following the profession for 
 a livelihood. He had taken it up as a matter of 
 interest and recreation, and had come to this country 
 with the intention of making a careful examination of 
 the great canal. 
 
 Mr. Vischer had letters of introduction to one or 
 more important functionaries, and these secured for 
 him a most cordial reception upon the part of all 
 having anything to do with the great work. He was 
 able to make arrangements Avhereby I had better 
 ■facilities for sharing in the festivities than I other- 
 wise could, but in some of them I declined to partici- 
 pate, as involving more expense than I could prudent- 
 ly incur. 
 
 At one point along the line of the canal I heard 
 Governor Clinton make a short address, and after- 
 wards, almost compelled to it by Vischer, allowed
 
 78 REMINISCENCES 
 
 myself to be one of a large number who shook hands 
 with him. It seemed to me an unpardonable intru- 
 sion on my part, but Vischer insisted. 
 
 My friend was greatly interested in many details of 
 the work which I would have ignored had I been 
 alone, but under his guidance and instruction I came 
 to examine them also, as though my judgment, after 
 knowledge of them, would be of worth. Obtaining 
 through my friend as I did a good opportunity to see 
 and get near some of the dignitaries connected with 
 the ceremonies attending the opening of the canal, 
 my trip was extremely pleasant to me. 
 
 My interest in the canal thus aroused, helped by the 
 fact that I had heard the Governor speak, and had 
 shaken hands with him, led me to conceive a great 
 admiration for Clinton. Entertaining that feeling, 
 and having no other way of manifesting it, the next 
 year, having bought a valuable horse of a member of 
 the legislature, then in session in Portland, I aston- 
 ished my family and associates generally by naming it 
 "Governor Clinton." It was a fine horse, reflecting 
 no discredit on the statesman whose name it bore, as 
 it was a roadster of remarkable endurance, serving me 
 well on many trips between Portland and Boston. 
 
 Vischer and I continued traveling companions dur- 
 ing the remainder of my journey. To his other 
 accom])lisliments he added those of an artist, and 
 could rapidly, with the greatest facility, and as far as 
 I could judge, with great 'excellence, draw catchy pen 
 and ink sketches of places and persons that we saw. 
 We became great friends. At the conclusion of the 
 tour he came to Portland, making a visit of several 
 weeks at my father's house, which he repeated a few 
 months later. Afterwards he went to Mexico, where
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 79 
 
 he passed several years. We kept up our acquaint- 
 ance by correspondence until the late forties. 
 
 In 1848, I sent him, at his request, a daguerreotype 
 of my family, then numbering seven. He had written 
 to me, sending a list of the pictures he had in his 
 gallery, and telling me that he would send me my 
 choice of them in exchange for such a group, but 
 after sending the daguerreotype I never heard directly 
 from him. While in Europe in 1857 I learned from 
 members of his family that he had died between the 
 date of his request and the forwarding of the memento 
 he desired. 
 
 His was a strange case, I judged, from what one of 
 his relatives said. He took the teetotaler's pledge, she 
 told me, and was killed by the water he drank. She 
 said that to me in all seriousness, not knowing that I 
 had always been much interested in promoting what 
 she evidently really believed to be the cause of the 
 death of our mutual friend. 
 
 From Utica we went to Buffalo. Four miles out of 
 the city, as I remember it, was the Indian reservation, 
 which we visited. There we saw the famous Indian 
 chief. Red Jacket, who was an old man at that time, 
 and somewhat undersized. We talked with him, and 
 my friend, Vischer, put on the old chief's head-dress, 
 with its plume of feathers, much to the pleasure of the 
 redoubtal^le old warrior. 
 
 From Buffalo our journey continued to Niagara 
 Falls, thence down the St. Lawrence to Montreal and 
 Quebec, back to Montreal, across Lake Champlain to 
 Albany, down the Hudson to New York, — through 
 the streets of which, by the way, hogs, pigs and 
 poultry were roaming as freely as dogs, — afterwards 
 to Philadelphia, from which point we went by stage to
 
 80 REMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 
 
 Providence, E. I. , and from Providence to Boston, and 
 thence liome. 
 
 On this trip I visited with intense interest many of 
 the places made famous and interesting because of 
 their connection with the comparatively recent war of 
 the Kevohition. On the boat I made the acquaintance 
 of a Revolutionary veteran who particii)ated in the 
 captTire of Stony Point. Hoav the place was captured 
 is a matter of history, but I insert here a brief account 
 recorded by me in my journal at the time, exactly as it 
 was related to me by the soldier, who was one of the 
 assaulting party. 
 
 " Wayne was encamped at some distance, and on one cold, 
 dark, rainy night he ordered us under arms, and we com- 
 menced a lon<>; and fatisuino; march, but at length reached a 
 small creek which crossed our track, a few rods from the 
 Point. He halted us, and told us that ho intended to surprise 
 the fort on Stony Point. He said the undertaking was 
 dangerous and that any one of us who was afraid to follow 
 him had leave to step out of the ranks and return, but not a 
 man left. We forded the creek and began to ascend when we 
 were discovered. Some one who had seen us marching had 
 got ahead and warned the British of our coming. We pressed 
 on, however, entering the fort, some of us scaling the walls, 
 some climbing into the embrasures, and some going in by the 
 gates, which were opened by those who had already got in by 
 other ways. We did not fire a shot ; it was all done by the 
 bayonet.*' 
 
 My journey, Avhich could now bo performed in less 
 than ten days, consumed two months. Then that part 
 of the territory it covered in the United States was no 
 inconsiderable portion of the country. Now it is but 
 the ante-room to the greatness and magnitude attained 
 by the nation after trials and vicissitudes, a growth 
 and progress all unanticipated then.
 
 CHAPTER ly. 
 
 MY E.A.RLY BUSnfESS LIFE. MY MARRIAGE. MY FAMILY. 
 SOME INCIDENTS OF MY LIFE. 
 
 For a number of years after I was twenty-one my 
 interests and employments were varied. My father 
 took me into partnership with him in his tanning 
 business immediately after my return from the 
 "Grand Tour," referred to in a previous chapter. 
 This business was fairly profitable, and I was at once 
 in receipt of an income sufficient for my current wants, 
 which were not extravagant, and to permit me to lay 
 by something for the future. My passion for books 
 was about all that tempted me to expenditures beyond 
 what was necessary to enable me to properly fill my 
 station in life. 
 
 It would be quite as difficult for the business man of 
 to-day to adapt himself to the methods prevailing 
 when I first went into lousiness, as for one who was 
 acquainted only with the old ways to conform to 
 modern systems. But integrity, industry, economy, 
 thrift, good judgment, were elements important then 
 as now, and possessed in as large measure, and 
 examples set then might in many particulars be 
 safely copied in these later days. One day, in the
 
 82 REMINISCENCES 
 
 ''twenties," I was in our court-liouse, and desired to 
 change a bank-bill for those of a smaller denomina- 
 tion. The county treasurer, a venerable man, was 
 sitting at a table upon which were several piles of 
 bills of various denominations. I knew him well, as 
 he did me. Approaching him, I asked him to change 
 my bill. 
 
 "I am sorry I cannot accommodate you; I have no 
 money. " 
 
 '"Have no money?" said I in surprise. "Why, 
 there," pointing to his table, "is a great quantity." 
 
 "Ah! but that is not my money; it belongs to the 
 county," was the reply, which taught in a word 
 volumes about the care of money belonging to other 
 people. 
 
 When not quite twenty-six years of age, having 
 secured sufficient means to justify the establishment 
 of a home for myself, I married Maria Cornelia Durant 
 Maynard, on the 20th of January, 1830. My wife's 
 father, John Maynard, was born in Framingham, 
 Mass., in 1766, where his family had lived for two or 
 three generations, the first John Maynard having come 
 from England alwut 1660. Four of the family were at 
 the ])attle of Bunker Hill. My wife's grandfather, 
 William, a lieutenant in Colonel Mckerson's regiment, 
 was wounded there, carrying to his grave the bullet 
 he received in his hip. He was afterwards made a 
 captain. He was a school-teacher, and subsequent 
 to the Revolutionary war, through which he served, 
 went to South Carolina, where he died in 1783. 
 
 My wife's father went to St. Croix when a youth, 
 and there met, and in 1789 married, her mother, Mary 
 Durant, born in the island of St. Croix in 1771, who 
 was a daughter of Thomas Durant, then in business in
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 83 
 
 St. Croix. He was a lineal descendant of George 
 Durant, who came to this country from England and 
 settled in Connecticut in 1633. He was of Huguenot 
 descent, the family having originally gone to England 
 from France. After their marriage, my wife's parents 
 remained in -St. Croix until 1800. Returning to this 
 country with his wife and several children, Mr. 
 Maynard, who had in the meantime accumulated a 
 fortune, took up his residence in Bulfinch street, 
 Boston, where his youngest child, Maria Cornelia 
 Durant, was born June 18, 1808. When she was four 
 years old her mother died, and she Avent to Framing- 
 ham and lived there some time in the family of a 
 great-uncle, Jonathan Maynard, Esquire, as he was 
 always called. 
 
 Great-uncle Jonathan was a man of means and influ- 
 ence. A graduate of Harvard university, he had 
 served in the Revolutionary war in the several grades 
 from private to captain. In the summer of 1830, 
 following my marriage in January of that year, my 
 wife and I, in our own chaise, made a tour among our 
 relatives in New Hampshire .and Massachusetts. 
 Among them we visited Uncle Jonathan Maynard at 
 Framingham, then a man of seventy-eight. His hair 
 was as white as snow, ]3ut that was not due to age, but 
 to an incident in his army life, which is related here, 
 though it has already found its way into print : 
 
 When a lieutenant, Jonathan Maynard was out with 
 a scouting party near West Point, and with his com- 
 mand was captured by a party of Indians. The 
 private soldiers were all tomahawked and scalped, but 
 as he wore a sword he was reserved for worse treat- 
 ment, which he barely escaped. He was taken before 
 Brandt, the famous half-breed Indian chief, and con-
 
 84 KEMmiSCENCES 
 
 demned to be burned. He was bound to the stake and 
 the AYOod piled around him ready for the torch, but 
 just as this was to be applied he gave the Masonic sign 
 of distress, and Brandt, who had somewhere been 
 made a Mason, recognized it and ordered the execution 
 deferred. He was subsequently sent to- Quebec and 
 exchanged. It was said that his hair turned com- 
 pletely white Avithin a very short time after his narrow 
 escape from torture l3y flames. 
 
 My wife's father, having met with financial reverses, 
 was obliged to break up his home in Boston, and came 
 with his family to reside on a farm which had been 
 the property of his wife, in Scarboro, Me. Maria 
 Cornelia went to live with an aunt, for whom she was 
 named, and by whom she Avas brought up and edu- 
 cated. This aunt was a daughter of Cornelius Durant, 
 and the wife of Andrew Kitchie, then a wealthy 
 merchant in Boston. By her aunt she was provided 
 with all the advantages of wealth, position, refine- 
 ment, and loving care. Subsequently, upon the death 
 of Mrs. Ritchie, Maria Cornelia, being then sixteen, 
 went to the family home at Scarboro, but soon came 
 to Portland to pursue her studies in a private school 
 for young women. 
 
 In Portland she lived for a time with another rela- 
 tive, a Mrs. Frothingham, whom I remember well as a 
 most refined and captivating woman, then quite 
 advanced in years. I do not recall her maiden name, 
 but she told me that it was at her father's home in 
 Boston, that the famous Eevolutionary Boston "Tea 
 Party " assembled prior to its dumping a cargo of tea 
 into the harbor. She was at the time old enough to 
 understand something of what was going on 
 
 Subsequently, uijon the marriage of her sister Sally,
 
 Makia Cornelia Durant Maynard.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 85 
 
 Maria Cornelia went t(3 reside with her. Sally May- 
 nard was the senior of Maria Cornelia by thirteen 
 years. She was her father's housekeeper in Scarboro, 
 and after his death married Henry Smith, a respected 
 citizen of Portland, whose first wife, an intimate 
 friend of hers, had died, leaving him with three young 
 boys, the youngest an infant in arms. Her three 
 step-sons all attained distinction in their chosen pro- 
 fessions, and all paid to her through their lives (she 
 survived them all) the deference and respect an own 
 mother might have expected. The eldest of them, the 
 • late Prof. Henry B. Smith, of Union Theological 
 seminary, New York, remarked to me that it was her 
 influence which had put him when a young man on 
 his upward path, and kept him there. 
 
 At one time during her married life Mrs. Smith 
 resided in Windham, where her husband was the 
 superintendent of some mills. Among their neighbors 
 was the father of John A. Andrew, afterwards the 
 "war governor "of Massachusetts. As a lad, young 
 Andrew carried milk to Mrs. Smith's house and 
 borrowed books from her to read. Years afterward, 
 when he was governor of Massachusetts, Mrs. Smith, 
 who happened to be in Boston, went to hear him speak 
 one evening in James Freeman Clarke's church. 
 After the meeting the Governor pushed his way 
 through the aisle to where she was sitting, having 
 seen and recognized her from the platform where he 
 was speaking. Greeting her most cordially, he said to 
 her that it was by her advice that he first began to 
 read, and he could not forget his great obligation to 
 her. 
 
 Mrs. Smith lived in Portland not far from my 
 father's home, and it was there that I first met Miss
 
 86 REMINISCENCES 
 
 Mayiiard. I called one evening with my sisters, who 
 had invited her to attend with them an entertainment 
 in the "village," as "down town "was then called. 
 When Miss Maynard appeared to get into the sleigh, 
 I excused myself from dismounting to assist her 
 because of a lame ankle from which I was suffering. 
 When we. returned after the entertainment, despite 
 my infirmity and her remonstrance, I insisted upon 
 helping her from the sleigh and escorting her to her 
 door. My sister Harriet remarked as I re-entered the 
 sleigh, ' ' Neal, I am glad to see that thy lame ankle 
 appears to be much improved! " 
 
 About two years after this we were married, and on 
 our wedding day went to live in the house built by me 
 directly opposite the home in which I was born, and 
 where my father resided. There our nine children 
 were born, and there my wife died on the 18th of 
 January, 1883, fifty-three years, less seven days, after 
 our marriage. 
 
 Of our children, Edward, Henry, Josiah and Rus- 
 sell Congdon died when about two years of age, and 
 Frank Allen died in 18()5, when eighteen years of age, 
 at St. Paul, Minn., whither he had gone in quest of 
 health, with his mother to care for him. Louisa 
 Dwight, our eldest child, married the late Hon. Jacob 
 Benton, of Lancaster, N. H., where she yet resides. * 
 Our third child, and second daughter, Emma May- 
 nard, married William E. Gould, of Portland, and is 
 now living in Boston, Mass. The only surviving son, 
 Frederick Neal, our fifth child, lives in Portland. 
 The youngest daughter, and youngest surviving child, 
 Cornelia Maria, is unmarried, and upon her mother's 
 death succeeded to the care of my house. 
 
 * Deceased.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 87 
 
 Wliile ill Boston, when sixteen years of age, my 
 wife became a member of tlie Old South CongTega- 
 tional church. From that church she was dismissed 
 to that of Dr. Payson in Portland, from this to the 
 High Street, from there to Union, and finally to the 
 State Street church in Portland, of which she was a 
 member at the time of her death. 
 
 A devout Christian, her daily walk and conversa- 
 tion was consistent with her profession. AVhenever 
 her health would permit she was regular in attend- 
 ance upon all the ordinances of the church with 
 which she was connected, obtaining there inspiration 
 and strength for the consecration of her life to the 
 service of her Master through rendering assistance to 
 the least of His children. Though these labors were 
 not substituted for those of her own household, but 
 added to them, she never wearied in well-doing. Her 
 sympathetic nature led her to constant charities, in 
 which she was aided by her sound and discriminating- 
 judgment to extend her help where it was deserved. 
 Suffering and sickness among the poor within the 
 range of her observation were never left unnoticed or 
 unrelieved by her when her assistance would avail. 
 
 A true wife and noble woman, she bore with pious 
 fortitude and patience the many trials, great sacrifices 
 and even dangers, of which the world could know but 
 little, that she was obliged to encounter because of 
 the nature and unpopularity of the work in which her 
 husband had enlisted. Naturally retiring in disposi- 
 tion, and averse to excitement in every form, she met 
 without complaint that which now was forced upon 
 her. Convinced that it was her duty, she obtained, 
 and inspired other women to assist her in obtaining, 
 the influence of a large number of the good women of
 
 88 REMIXISCENCES 
 
 Portland in favor of tlie cause to the service of which 
 she cheerfully devoted herself, and which she aided 
 in many suitable ways. 
 
 Later, when I felt that duty called me to enter the 
 military service of our country, she bade me God- 
 speed. When my confinement in Libby Prison cut off 
 my correspondence with the English press, through 
 which I had tried to aid in the creation of a senti- 
 ment in England favorable to the Union, her letters 
 to my friends in Great Britain were widely published 
 in the same interest. 
 
 A devoted mother, with love and earnestness she 
 gave herself unreservedly to all that could make for 
 the happiness of her home and for the welfare of her 
 children. Surrendering those little ones Avho were 
 taken hence, in humble resignation to His will, she 
 longed for the lives of those spared, in the unfaltering 
 hope that they might learn to love and serve God. 
 
 Bearing always with her the burden of our large 
 family, she was never so wearied with its cares and 
 responsibilities as to prevent her activity for any good 
 work that she could promote. Wlien at length God 
 called her she passed from the earthly home she had so 
 highly blessed in full, strong faith that there was 
 ready for her "an house not made with hands eternal 
 in the heavens." Her children and her children's 
 children may well revere her memory. 
 
 The nature of my business during the earlier years 
 of our married life, and the demands upon me of a 
 more public character later, took me much from home. 
 On these occasions I made it a rule never to permit a 
 day to pass, if I could possibly avoid it, without writ- 
 ing at greater or less extent to my wife, and, except 
 when actually incapacitated by sickness, as sometimes
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 89 
 
 liappened, or prevented by circumstances beyond my 
 control, I think I can say that I was never absent 
 forty-eight hours at a time without thus writing. 
 
 Subsequent to my wife's death, I found that she 
 had preserved substantially all my letters, which, 
 covering a period beginning with the date of the first, 
 in August, 1830, and terminating in November, 1882, 
 the date of the last, and written, some from towns not 
 twenty miles from Portland, others from distant 
 states in this country, on shipboard, from other con- 
 tinents, or from camp, hospital, and military prison, 
 and covering almost every variety of topics of current 
 interest, besides merely personal matters, have been at 
 my disposal to refresh my memory in the preparation 
 of these memoirs. 
 
 My copartnership with my father lasted until his 
 death in 1861. The style of the firm was "Josiah 
 Dow&Son," and, in 1861, my son, Fred., became a 
 partner, the firm name, however, remaining the same. 
 In 1874, owing to the illness of my son, upon whom 
 the general care of the business had devolved for 
 years, the affairs of the copartnership were closed, and 
 it was dissolved. At that time, the firm name was 
 the oldest in the city, the business which it repre- 
 sented having been carried on by some member of the 
 family for more than seventy-five years, during which 
 period it had successfully weathered every financial 
 crisis, always paying dollar for dollar. 
 
 Besides my general business, that of the tannery, I 
 had time, means and credit for outside matters of 
 more or less local importance, and some of them 
 proved fairly profitable. A few years after my mar- 
 riage I became again interested in some timber lands 
 in eastern Maine, and occupied considerable time in
 
 90 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 exploring tlieiii, in wliicli exploration my early experi- 
 ence in similar matters with my Cousin Hodgdon 
 proved useful. Among others concerned in those 
 lands with me at different times Avere my friend, 
 William W. Thomas, already referred to, and the late 
 Eben Steele, of Portland, whom I had known from 
 boyhood, and between whom and myself the closest 
 personal, social and business relations existed as long 
 as he lived. 
 
 Success attended those operations as a whole, 
 though at one time we were confronted with immi- 
 nent danger of great loss, only averted by the 
 strength of our combined credit. My last investment 
 of the kind was with Mr. Steele. The profits of this, 
 amounting to about five thousand dollars, were all, 
 at his suggestion, appropriated for the benefit of a 
 family in the comfort and happiness of which we were 
 both interested, the husband and father l^eing my 
 cousin, and the wife and mother his sister. 
 
 Mr. Steele was a keen, sharp, but, withal, honor- 
 able, business man. He liked to "make" money, 
 perhaps, as well as any one, but he had no desire for 
 accunuilations of wealth beyond the reasonable figure 
 he early fixed as the limit of the fortune he should 
 seek, and when he had secured that' he retired from 
 business. Meanwhile, as in the instance above cited, 
 he found his chief pleasure in doing with what he 
 could sijare the most good to those he deemed worthy 
 of assistance. That portion of the world within reach 
 of his benefactions was much better and happier foi- 
 the life and labors of Eben Steele. 
 
 Unless such interest in timber lands may be so 
 regarded, I never indulged in mere speculations, 
 though always ready to invest to the extent that
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 91 
 
 prudence would permit in enterprises, manufacturing, 
 etc., projected in Portland, wliicli appeared to be jus- 
 tified on sound business principles. Among my 
 satisfactory reflections is the recollection that I have 
 been able, by the loan of means and credit, to assist 
 several to a business start who saw no other way 
 open. While I have thus met with losses, they have 
 not exceeded the gains others have been able to make 
 through the assistance and encouragement obtained 
 of me. These latter instances have afforded satisfac- 
 tion sufficient to more than balance my regret for 
 losses resulting from efforts equally well intended. 
 
 When twenty-nine years of age I was made a bank 
 director, and filled the position by successive elec- 
 tions for over forty years. For years I was trustee of 
 a savings bank, and for a while president of the 
 Portland Gaslight company. I served also in the 
 directorate of railroad, manufacturing and other cor- 
 porations. In the early days of the Maine Central 
 railroad company I was actively interested in its 
 promotion, pledging to the success of the enterprise a 
 large portion of the means and credit at my command. 
 At its inception I was solicited to accept its superin- 
 tendency, but did not feel inclined to tie myself so 
 closely to business as such a position would demand, 
 and declined the offer pressed upon me by my associ- 
 ate directors. 
 
 I gradually relinquished interest in business affairs, 
 and retired from active connection with corporate 
 management as my time and thought became more 
 and more engaged in the subject with which my name 
 has been so closely connected, and to which I have 
 given so much of time and strength. Indeed, after 
 1851, my attention was largely diverted from business,
 
 9l> EEMINISCENCES 
 
 as I was absent from lioine inncli of the time subse- 
 quent to that date, including more than three years at 
 different times in Europe, and two during the war 
 for the Union. Hence my connection with general 
 business has never l^een, since 1857, much more than 
 nominal. 
 
 Quite early I began to understand how useful to 
 one likely to be interested in public affairs would be an 
 ability to express himself clearly before an audience. 
 As far back as I remember I was accustomed to attend 
 the town meetings with my father, when too young 
 to go alone, and kept up the habit when old enough 
 to go unattended. I tried to ol3tain practice myself in 
 the village lyceums and del)ating-societies, and before 
 I was of age was ])ravely over everything like ' ' stage- 
 fright," though it was years before I could take the 
 floor without a degree of nervousness trying to me, 
 until fairly under way with my remarks. 
 
 After attaining my majority I took an interest in 
 general town affairs. Living in the outskirts of the 
 town, or at some distance from the major i^art of the 
 population, there were frequent occasions for me in 
 the town meetings to speak for the country, or out- 
 lying ' ' deestricks, " as the word was so commonly 
 pronounced, which sections Avere often overlooked in 
 the expenditure of approiniations. Among my first 
 pu]jlic efforts, I successfully led the opposition in our 
 town meeting to an appropriation for a Latin school. 
 This was shortly after my majority, and though 
 antagonized by several leading ijrofessional men of the 
 town with whom the project was a special pet, I came 
 off with tlie honors of victory in the vote, if not in the 
 argument. 
 
 It will be und(n'st()od tlint I pnrticipated in the
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 93 
 
 debates in our town meetings involving temperance, 
 and in one way or another that subject was in con- 
 troversy at almost every annual meeting and at some 
 special meetings for a series of years. Those occasions 
 were frecjuently preceded by ])reliminary gatherings, 
 or caucuses, in which the del^ates, always earnest, 
 were sometimes personal in character, and to hold his 
 own in them with any degree of success one was 
 obliged to be ready in speech and quick at repartee, 
 with the natural consequence that hasty, inconsid- 
 erate, and freciuently uncalled-for remarks were made. 
 I received there and elsewhere my full share of wordy 
 blows, and doubtless tried to give as many and as 
 hard in return. 
 
 It certainly is to be said that much took place upon 
 both sides in those early days of the temperance move- 
 ment far exceeding the bounds of courtesy, and 
 possibly hal)its thus contracted in early life led to a 
 seeming disregard for personal feelings in the con- 
 troversies of more mature years. I can truthfully say 
 that in none of those encounters, either of my younger 
 manhood or my maturity, has attack made by me upon 
 any individual been the outcome of personal ill-will on 
 my part toward the ol^ject of such criticism. It was 
 my intent, rather to combat the idea advocated, to 
 assault the position occupied, to condemn the evil 
 seeming to me to be defended. This I felt called upon 
 to do with all the sharpness and force necessary to 
 command public attention, remembering that such 
 assaults were more likely to l)e effective in the con- 
 crete than in the abstract. 
 
 However those subjected to animadversions from me 
 may have felt, in my own thought and apprehension 
 the difference between the thing assailed and the
 
 94 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 individual, wlio, for the time being, seemed to be 
 defending that thing and in the path of my attack, 
 was always clear; and though some have made a 
 personal matter of my assaults, on my part there has 
 been no more antagonism toward them than a soldier 
 in the ranks entertains for the emlmttled foe upon 
 whom he must fire with deadliest aim. As to some of 
 those whose unkindly feeling, developed in those early 
 contests, led to long estrangements, a subsequent 
 change of opinion on their part touching the liquor- 
 traffic resulted in reconciliation. Much as I have 
 regretted the severance of friendly relations because 
 of such differences, and much as I could have desired 
 a restoration of cordiality, it has never been sought 
 nor accepted by me through any sacrifice of my convic- 
 tions upon intemperance or whatever contributed to it. 
 
 My position in these particulars has never changed, 
 save as with my increasing years I have been uiore and 
 more impressed with its terrible nature and extent, and 
 more and more convinced that my duty as a good citi- 
 zen compelled me to oppose with the strength and 
 means at my command the nefarious trade in intoxi- 
 cants as fatal to the highest progress, prosperity and 
 hapi)iness of mankind, I have always had a l)lind eye 
 for any signal to cease fighting that evil, have always 
 opposed compromise or truce with it in any form, 
 and have n(>ver taken i)ains to cultivate patience with 
 propositions looking to that end. 
 
 Many who have differed from me as to the nature 
 and extent of the evil of the li(iuor-traffic, and have 
 always combated my methods, have had full confi- 
 dence in my sincerity, and, in my later years more 
 especially, even some of those engaged in the unlawful 
 trade have on more tlian one occasion gone out of
 
 OF Nf:AL DOW. 95 
 
 their way to manifest a kindly personal feeling. This 
 is in marked contrast to tlie bitterness which has been 
 cherished by others. 
 
 Not long ago a rumor obtained currency in Portland 
 of my sudden death. The next day I met upon the 
 street a man of some means, the son, by the way, of a 
 strong temperance man, and a friend of mine, but 
 whose personal habits had led him to wander far from 
 the example of his father. He approached my 
 carriage, and, as I waited to hear what he had to say, 
 
 he remarked : ' ' General, I was glad to hear 
 
 yesterday that you were dead ; I am sorry to see 
 
 to-day that you are yet living.'" I suppose the poor 
 fellow imagined that he had hurt my feelings, but the 
 nature of his attack was so mild compared to those 
 received from others of his kind in my earlier days 
 that his rudeness was scarcely a matter for surprise. 
 
 After my hair was whitened by years and my form 
 bent with the infirmities of age, while stepping from 
 my carriage one morning, I had a severe attack of 
 coughing. A well-known rumseller, who was passing, 
 stopped and said, "Ah, General, look out; you will 
 not last much longer ! " I replied, ' ' But I hope to 
 stay long enough to run you off the track ! " " But 
 you won't, General, if you do not take care of that 
 cough," he good naturedly said as he passed on. 
 
 During my earlier and middle manhood, the police 
 of Portland, or "watch," as it was called, was no 
 more efficient than is apt to be the case in places of 
 small size. Individuals often had to take, or imag- 
 ined that they must take, prompt measures in their 
 own behalf, as the only means of securing adequate 
 protection. The following incident will serve to 
 illustrate this.
 
 96 REMINISCENCES 
 
 One morning', in the liank of wliicli I was a director, 
 the cashier called my attention to a little particle of 
 wax clinging to the old-fashioned lock of the vanlt. 
 We concluded that some one had entered the building 
 the night before and obtained an impression of the 
 lock. No director thought it of use to notify any of 
 the authorities of the circumstance, but for several 
 nights, until a new lock could be obtained, I, with 
 two trusty companions, members of the fire-company 
 of which I was foreman, was in the bank, hoping for 
 an opportunity to arrest the would-be burglar should 
 he make a second attempt. But he did not come, 
 though Ave took special pains to prevent the fact of 
 our readiness for the occasion being known. 
 
 More than once I felt compelled to take the law in 
 my own hands, leaving the other party to recover 
 what damages he might if he saw fit to resort to the 
 courts. One day as I came out of a directors' meeting 
 at the bank, the messenger at the door pointed to a 
 crowd on the street near by, saying that a well- 
 known horse jockey, just driving away, had cheated a 
 poor country l^oy out of his horse. I pushed into the 
 crowd, including among others, the mayor of the city, 
 and several prominent citizens, and found in the 
 midst a country lad, eighteen, or nineteen years old, 
 crying, holding by the bridle an old, broken-down 
 nag. The poor fellow, who had been drinking a 
 little, told me, that he had allowed the jockey to 
 harness his horse into the wagon to try him, and 
 that the jockey had driven off, leaving that old one 
 and saying it was a trade. 
 
 I told him to come with me, and we started for 
 the sta])le of the jockey, lialf a mile or more away, he 
 leading the old horse. There I told him to leave the
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 97 
 
 animal. Out on tlie street again, I saw the jockey 
 driving a good horse, which the lad said was his. I 
 stepped into the street and took the horse by the 
 bridle, and just then a man in my employ happening 
 along, I called to him to unharness. He did so. The 
 jockey kept his seat in the wagon, swearing, making 
 all manner of threats. 
 
 Looking then for the country lad, I saw him peer- 
 ing around the corner, afraid to come near the irate 
 jockey. I beckoned to him, and, placing the horse in 
 his care, went back with him to his wagon. After he 
 had re-harnessed, the grateful boy, now thoroughly 
 sobered, said: "What shall I pay you?" "Well, my 
 good fellow, you had been drinking, had you not ? " 
 "I had, a little." "Promise me that you will never 
 drink again, will you ? " "I promise. " ' ' That is all I 
 want. Good-by." 
 
 Three or four years later I was standing on the 
 street when some one touched my elbow. Looking 
 around, I saw a countryman, grinning and i^ointing 
 to a horse. "That's him." "What do you mean T' 
 ' ' That's the horse you got back for me, and I ain't 
 drunk a drop since, and I won't ever again." 
 
 However grateful that country boy may have been, 
 it will be easily believed that the jockey, and others 
 of his stripe with whom I came in contact for equally 
 reasonable causes during a period of twenty or more 
 years, honored me with persistent dislike, and that 
 wherever such as he congregated, denunciations of 
 Neal Dow were as common and vehement as potations 
 were plentiful and strong. 
 
 Indeed, there was an element always ready to vent 
 its spite upon me whenever it could be done without 
 risk. During several years I found it prudent, after
 
 98 REMINISCENCES 
 
 two or three attacks upon me, when walking at night 
 about the city, generally very poorly lighted, to keep 
 the middle of the street to avoid any disposed to 
 spring upon me from behind a tree, out of a doorway 
 or around a corner, as I had learned from experience 
 that there were those who, though shunning an open 
 encounter, were willing to strike if they could take 
 me at a disadvantage. I do not recall, however, being 
 attacked twice by the same person. 
 
 One story is apt to suggest another. My father 
 owned a horse, the pet of the family, which, when 
 over twenty-eight years old, was sent into the country 
 to pass the remainder of his life with a farmer who 
 promised the best of care, and to send information at 
 regular intervals about the old animal. Some months 
 after, I saw "Old Charlie" in town in charge of two 
 rough fellows, who said they had bought him. I 
 stopped them and told a l^oy standing near to unhar- 
 ness the horse and take him to his old quarters in my 
 father's stable, where he remained as long as he lived. 
 Suit was brought against me, and the case was finally 
 decided in my favor after a disagreement of two 
 juries, each of which included a rumseller. My 
 lawyer charged me seventy-five dollars, but "Old 
 Charlie " was saved from the abuse he certainly would 
 have suffered, and all trouble for the rest of his life, 
 and I thoTight it cheap at the i^rice. 
 
 I was walking down Exchange street one day, the 
 principal street of the city, and met the late Chief 
 Justice Whitman, his face in a broad smile. His 
 Honor, by the way, was a Proliil)itionist, and one of 
 my personal friends. On my asking him what had 
 pleased him, he {jointed down street to a crowd col- 
 lected in front of a rumshop. Passing along I lewrned
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 90 
 
 that the wife of a well-known teamster was inside, 
 breaking' the bottles and smashing the bar furniture 
 generally. 
 
 She had Avarned the keeper not to sell rum to her 
 husband, and, not being heeded, she had just horse- 
 whipped him and was sacking his shop. Such irregu- 
 larities could not be permitted, and she was arrested 
 and tried. Appearing in court without counsel, she 
 asked that I be assigned as such, evidently preferring 
 an advocate on whose full sympathy she could rely 
 rather than one more learned in the law and trained 
 in the trial of causes. The judge consenting, I under- 
 took the task. While not vouching for my law, I 
 remember that my argument, or exhortation — it was 
 my first and only appearance before a jury — was 
 earnest. 
 
 My client was found guilty, however, with a recom- 
 mendation to mercy, and got off with a slight fine, 
 which I paid. It was little enough for the oppor- 
 tunity I had secured in defending her to present in 
 that temple of justice, to the assembled lawyers as 
 well as to the jury, some positive views upon the 
 temperance question in general and the liquor-trafiic 
 in particular. The poor woman was fully compen- 
 sated for her trouble and notoriety by the sympathy 
 of almost our entire community, a fact which perhaps 
 had something to do with the subsequent alleged 
 reformation of the rumseller whom she had flogged." 
 
 Years later, after the enactment of the prohibitory 
 law, that rumseller closed his shop and removed his 
 liquors to a private house. It was soon ascertained 
 
 * On the day of tlie funeral of General Dow a letter was received in 
 Portland from this ex-rumseller, in which he had written: "I am glad 
 to have lived to know that my natural enemy, Neal Dow, is dead,"
 
 100 REMINISCENCES OF XEAL DOW. 
 
 tliat lie was selling liquor there. Officers, with a 
 searcli warrant, went to this house one morning, and 
 saw the runiseller put a bottle into a large new safe, 
 which he closed and locked. He was ordered to open 
 it, but refused. One of the officers came to me (I was 
 then mayor) to ask instructions. I told him to get a 
 machinist and force the safe if the owner persisted in 
 a refusal to open it, and that I would stand between 
 him and harm. 
 
 My orders were obeyed, the safe forced, and found 
 filled with an assortment of liquors, which were 
 seized. The newspapers opposed to Prohibition rung 
 the changes on "High-Handed Proceedings" and 
 everything else to create prejudice and hasten the 
 reaction they were anticipating against the law. But 
 the runiseller, whose safe was ruined, concluded, 
 after consulting counsel, not to spend money in a 
 useless suit for damages. Not long after that he put 
 up a "notise" in his window, " Gorn out of Bisness."
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE OLD FIRE-DEPARTMENT OF PORTLAND. MY CONNEC- 
 TION WITH IT. THE NEW ORGANIZATION. 
 THE DELUGE ENGINE-COMPANY. 
 CHIEF ENGINEER OF THE 
 DEPARTMENT. 
 
 When eighteen years of age I joined the Volunteer 
 fire-department of Portland, and retained connection 
 with it for more than twenty -five years. Some notice 
 of this is appropriate, as it had something to do with 
 the temperance movement in Portland in the earlier 
 days of that reform. The laws of Massachusetts con- 
 tinued to be those of Maine for some time after the 
 separation. Among them was that requiring every 
 citizen between the ages of eighteen and forty-five 
 to perform military duty in the militia. There were 
 exemptions from this, among them members of the 
 society of Friends and members of any fire-department. 
 
 Although born and reared a Friend, I did not care 
 to claim exemption on that account, as my objection 
 to serving in the militia had otlier foundation than 
 that obtaining with the Friends, from which society I 
 was already, in fact, drifting. Indeed, I may as well 
 pause here to state that about this time my views as 
 to the propriety of resorting on occasion to "carnal
 
 102 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 ■weapons," and especially as to war, under certain 
 conditions, becoming known, the quarterly meeting of 
 Friends, in which I had a birthright, appointed a 
 committee to deal with me. 
 
 I remember, as if a recent event, the call of the 
 thi-ee elders upon me for the purpose. They found 
 me at my father's house, and we had a private session 
 in the parlor, the three sedate old Quakers sitting 
 with hats on, more amused, probably, by my persis- 
 tency than disturbed by my departure from the faith. 
 After a half -hour or more of pleasant intercourse upon 
 various subjects, they departed to report me as incor- 
 rigible. My dismissal from the society followed. 
 
 Our musters, attendance at which was obligatory 
 upon all the enrolled militia, were little else than 
 burlesque occasions or days for drunkenness, and 
 much that was worse. Position in line was by no 
 means confined to uniformed companies. These were 
 on hand, to l^e sure, in all their finery, with much 
 fuss and parade, their commanders resplendent in 
 feathers and epaulettes and whatever else of glittering 
 tinsel they could attach to their persons. But how- 
 ever credital)le their appearance, it served only as a 
 foil to the mass of the militia gathered from far and 
 near in every conceivable garb, often purposely made 
 up to excite amusement and ridicule. 
 
 I recall a laughable incident in connection with one 
 of those occasions. In the band, on the right of the 
 column, was a little, short-legged bass drummer, 
 whose head and feet were visible respectively above 
 and below his big drum, wliich absolutely concealed 
 from those in front the rest of his jjerson. In those 
 days hogs ran as freely through the streets as dogs do 
 now, and were more numerous. One of these
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 103 
 
 animals, frightened by sometliing, running from one 
 side of the street to the other, dashed between the 
 legs of the little drummer, and, taking him ofl his 
 feet, carried him, drum and all, until he threw him 
 off at some distance in advance of the procession. 
 
 This incident was hardly more ridiculous than 
 some of the evolutions performed in good faith at 
 these musters, which did nothing to fit those who 
 participated in them for soldiers, but much to dis- 
 qualify many for good citizenship. They were often 
 the occasion of most disgraceful exhibitions of 
 drunkenness. When not more than twelve years of 
 age, I pulled a boy, not older than myself, to the 
 sidewalk from the street where he had fallen, drunk 
 with liquor obtained from one of the sutler's tents, at 
 that time invariably surrounding muster-fields. At 
 another muster, to my intense horror and disgust, I 
 was fallen on and held down by a drunken man. 
 The feeling then engendered was ever after associated 
 in my mind with those gala-days of the old-time 
 militia. 
 
 Musters, however, furnished fun and military titles 
 in great profusion. "Generals" and "Colonels" 
 abounded in every county, and "Majors" and "Cap- 
 tains " were to be found in every town. Those with 
 no desire for that kind of fun, or for titles earned 
 through such Falstafiian commands, sought exemption 
 from service in the militia, and I was one of them. 
 For these and other reasons, many of our most 
 enterprising and influential young men were attracted 
 to the Volunteer fire-dei)artment of Portland. They 
 were not averse to military duty, had real occasion 
 called, for I was authorized by a large number of 
 them at the time of the northeastern boundary excite-
 
 104 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 inent, or what is commonly known in Maine as the 
 "Aroostook war," to write to the governor to say, 
 ' ' The firemen of Portland can be depended upon for 
 a regiment if necessary." The rolls of the depart- 
 ment when I became connected with it, and for years 
 thereafter, bore the names of many who became lead- 
 ing citizens of Portland in various walks of life. 
 
 'The exemption of firemen from military duty was 
 not approved by the general ofiicers of the militia, as 
 it kept from under their command much good material 
 for training. Some officers ineffectually tried to have 
 the law changed in that particular. So long as I was 
 connected with the fire-department, I was always on 
 hand before legislative committees, or elsewhere, to 
 opi^ose such changes, and on that ground, if no other, 
 incurred the displeasure of some of the "generals." 
 
 When I joined the department in 1822, it was a 
 purely voluntary and largely a social and mutual pro- 
 tection organization. The members of the various 
 companies bound themselves to protect each other's 
 property. In case of fire they hastened to the scene, 
 each provided with a bucket, a bag and a bed-wrench, 
 (the latter for taking down old-fashioned bedsteads) 
 prepared to render what service he could to his fellow- 
 members, if by chance their property should be 
 threatened by the flames. Once at the fire, however, 
 members could generally be dei)ended ui)on to heli) 
 even if the property of an associate was not exposed to 
 danger. All, in any event, expected, and generally 
 had, " a good time." 
 
 Such engines as the department had were of cheap 
 construction and little power, and were generally out 
 of order when their services were needed. They were 
 equipped with from ten to fifteen or twenty feet of
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 105 
 
 small leading-liose, bad no suction facilities, and their 
 supply of water was passed from wells in buckets by 
 lines of men, frequently assisted by women and boys. 
 For lack of leading-hose the engines were necessarily 
 placed very near the fire, whence, if unable to control 
 it, they were usually driven away by the heat, leaving 
 the burning building to be destroyed, unless torn 
 down to protect contiguous property. 
 
 One engine imported from England in 1802, I think, 
 for many years was not known to be a suction-engine, 
 able to draw its own water. This fact was not ascer- 
 tained until the old engine had become so obsolete 
 that it was set aside as a curiosity. It ended its 
 career in the great Portland fire, being ignominiously 
 destroyed by the element it had for years combated. 
 To the present generation, familiar only with modern 
 appliances for fighting fire, the old-fashioned methods 
 to which we were obliged to resort would appear 
 absurdly inadequate and grotesque. 
 
 That old fire-department did not last long after I 
 became connected with it. Shortly after my majority, 
 I prepared a bill which was enacted by the legislature, 
 then in session in Portland, under which our fire- 
 department was remodeled. The first engine procured 
 for the new department came from Philadelphia, the 
 others from Boston, and all were of nearly equal 
 power. The numlier of men connected with the 
 department when at its best was about seven hundred. 
 The engine, hose, and hook-and-ladder companies took 
 great pride in their machines, and spent considerable 
 money in their adornment and in keeping them in 
 perfect order. One of them was called the ' ' Deluge 
 company." Its engine was a large, double-decked 
 machine, weighing nearly two tons, of considerable
 
 106 EEMIKISCEKCES 
 
 power for tlirowing water, but witliont suction facili- 
 ties, ill lieu of Avliicli tliere was a companion engine to 
 supply the water to be thrown upon the fire. 
 
 The first meeting of that company was on the 3d of 
 April, 1827. I was chosen clerk. The three directors 
 were prominent citizens. Among the members whom 
 I now recall were such well-known citizens as John B. 
 Brown, afterwards understood to be the wealthiest 
 man in Maine; Andrew T. Dole, for a time postmaster 
 of Portland, under President Lincoln, and William 
 Seiiter, afterwards mayor. There were a number of 
 others, perhaps equally prominent, whose names have 
 escaped my memory. 
 
 I served as clerk of the company four years, when I 
 was chosen first director, or captain, acting in that 
 capacity until April, 1837. I must have been quite 
 impressed with the dignity and importance of that 
 position, judging from a letter written by me from 
 Augusta to my wife, nearly sixty years ago: 
 
 "I called to see Miss , the elder, and Avent with 
 
 Colonel Keddinoton over the river to where she was si)endinii- 
 the evening. To our sur})rise, we found twelve to fourteen 
 persons, one reverend and grave senator and a Conscript 
 father, all on the floor playing ' Goose,' in which I was 
 importuned to join. Not knowing anything of the noble 
 game of ' Goose,' I declined at first, hut after a time the 
 beautiful liostess l)ecame fatigued, and I was politely and 
 earnestly requested to relieve her by taking her })lace, which 
 of course I could not refuse to do. So I, a deacon-like over- 
 seer of the i)oor, a school-committee man, and captain of the 
 never-sufficiently-to-l)e-praised and admired Dcduge company, 
 commenced hoj)pinu- al)out with all the agility of a l)oy of 
 fourteen, crying 'Goose,' and tagging my com])anion boys 
 and girls. After we all got fairly tired out with this exceed- 
 ingly captivating game, we went to work with great zeal in 
 playing ' Hunt the Thiinl)le,' which we pursued witli great
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 107 
 
 energy and spirit. I declare I felt myself carried back in the 
 stream of time at least eighteen years." 
 
 Ill anotlier letter to my wife, written about the same 
 period from Boston, I find the following: 
 
 " Before I returned to my hotel the bells rang for fire, 
 which you know is a very ' solemncholy' sound to me. 
 Instantly the streets were filled with firemen and their appara- 
 tus, among which I noticed Engine ' Xo. 18,' like mine, only 
 she is not so handsome, though she makes more noise, for she 
 has mounted upon her eighteen bells, all large, which make a 
 terrible racket. But my engine, though perfectly conscious 
 of her beauty, is quite modest withal. But the fire turned 
 out to be only a sham, after all. If you ask me if I was sorry, 
 I shall not answer." 
 
 Every old volunteer fireman in the country can see 
 by that extract that the spirit which filled the craft 
 had possession of me — quite willing, if there must be 
 a fire, to have it occur when and where one could 
 attend it. 
 
 While captain of the Deluge engine-company, an 
 incident occurred of some local import that may be of 
 interest here, and serve to further illustrate the 
 general lack of reliance upon the "watch " of the day. 
 In the heat of the earlier antislavery excitement, a 
 meeting had been announced to be held in the Friends' 
 church, to be addressed by some antislavery si)eakers 
 from Massachusetts, and it became known that an 
 attempt would be made to "mob" it. The mayor 
 asked me to be present and to assist in preserving 
 order, the watch being entirely inadequate to cope 
 with the impending emergency. 
 
 I immediately suggested a plan through which I 
 could guarantee the protection of the meeting, and 
 obtained his approval. I sent messengers to summon
 
 108 KEMINISCEIs-CES 
 
 to the engine-house at an early hour some thirty or 
 forty of the menil^ers of my engine-company upon 
 whose pluck, discretion and loyalty to myself I could 
 fully rely. At the hour appointed I met them there, 
 and liriefly stated my intention to prevent a crowd of 
 roughs from interfering with the contemplated anti- 
 slavery meeting. They decided to a man to sustain 
 me, and I led them quietly to the meeting-house, and 
 into the aisle, where we arrived in good season, and 
 formed in two lines, leaving a passage between, so 
 that everybody disposed could pass to take seats. 
 
 The house was soon crowded, the would-be rioters 
 evidently mistaking some of my men for their sympa- 
 thizers. I sat at the head of my " column " of firemen, 
 near the speakers. Next me were two of my company 
 whom I had selected for the head of the line, men of 
 unusual physique, strength and agility, of undoubted 
 pluck and determination. By this time half a dozen 
 of the roughs had worked their way to the front, close 
 to the speakers, ready to open the "fun "they were 
 there to enjoy. 
 
 The first speaker had not occupied the floor more 
 than a minute before one of these "toughs " shouted, 
 with an oath, "Don't tread on my toes! " " Take care 
 of that fellow!" was my order. My two stout file- 
 leaders seized him by the collar, and he went down 
 that aisle and out of the door like a projectile from a 
 catapult. "Number Seven, do not hurt any man who 
 behaves himself! " was the next order, and everything 
 was as quiet and orderly throughout the remainder of 
 the meeting as at a religious gathering. At its close 
 the company furnislied a guard for the speakers to 
 their respective domiciles, and what threatened to be 
 a disgrace to the city was suppressed by the foresight
 
 OF NEAL DOAV. 109 
 
 of the mayor and the good discipline and love for 
 order of my old Deluge engine-corn i)any. 
 
 In 1837 I was made chief of the department. I took 
 great pride in making it thoroughly efficient, and was 
 so far successful that I think there was none in the 
 country, in proportion to numbers and extent and 
 tiuality of apparatus, superior to it. Its members 
 were picked men, so that the department as a whole 
 cheerfully sul^mitted to a rigid discipline, priding 
 itself upon the fact that its evolutions were performed 
 with the rapidity and precision of a military drill. 
 Disobedience to orders, or other insubordination 
 amounting to ' ' conduct unbecoming a gentleman, " 
 rendered the offender liable to expulsion. 
 
 My connection with the department, and especially 
 my service as chief engineer, had something to do 
 with my acquiring a measure of local influence and a 
 personal following of young, reliable men, then and 
 afterwards made to serve the promotion of temperance, 
 in which subject I was already taking an interest. 
 The fire-department, orderly, well-disciplined, efficient 
 and respectable in its personnel, was far from being a 
 total abstinence society, and included many men 
 whose views upon the general question of temperance 
 differed widely from mine. I found therein, there- 
 fore, a useful field for labor, which the confidence 
 and respect entertained for me by its meml)ers, almost 
 without exception, enabled me to improve to further 
 the cause. 
 
 During my connection with the department, my 
 influence was constantly exerted to develop a senti- 
 ment which should exclude liquors from the engine- 
 houses and prevent their use upon public occasions. 
 This was no easy task. The various companies were
 
 110 REMINISCENCES 
 
 accustomed to celebrate their anniversaries and other 
 events with dinners, more or less formal, according to 
 the tastes of the committees in charge, or the means 
 at their disposal. These were sometimes held in the 
 engine-honses, sometimes in the town hall, and some- 
 times at hotels. My first speech upon temperance was 
 made while I was clerk of the Deluge company, in 
 opposition to a motion to instruct the committee in 
 charge of a proposed celebration to provide liquors. 
 The company adopted my views. 
 
 So far as I am aware, it was the first affair of the 
 kind in Portland from which liquors were excluded, 
 and naturally attracted attention and excited a great 
 deal of comment, favorable and otherwise, — at first 
 largely otherwise — among the firemen. As a result 
 of the example then set, and the co-operation of 
 members of the department entertaining similar views 
 with myself, after a while it came to be the rule to 
 exclude liquors from the entertainments of the various 
 companies, with the possible exception of one noted 
 below. This required, perhaps, as much tact as perse- 
 verance, but in time the arrangement was submitted 
 to with good grace, all a])proving it with ostensible 
 cheerfulness, although occasional pleasantries at these 
 gatherings suggested that there were those, probably 
 many, who preferred what they called ' ' the good old 
 way." 
 
 One of the companies considered itself a very 
 genteel organization indeed. It was equipped with 
 apparatus as good as the best, and was, in fact, a fine 
 body. It included many so-called "society" men, 
 who occasionally aitpeared in full evening dress at the 
 scene of a conilauration, to which they had hurried 
 from some social function. This led sometimes to the
 
 OF NEAL DOW. Ill 
 
 jocular remark by meml^ers of other companies that 
 the men belonging to thia company could not appear 
 at a lire unless neatly shaven. Its members were 
 always promptly on hand, nevertheless, and always 
 ready and able to do their full share of work. At 
 social entertainments of this particular company, 
 there were great "spreads," and what they called 
 "right-down good times," often participated in by 
 prominent citizens, as invited guests. I think this 
 company was the last to dispense with liquors on such 
 occasions. At one which, as chief engineer, I 
 attended, the toast-master, a member strongly opposed 
 to my views upon temperance, offered a toast to be 
 drunk in cold Tvater, "for want," as he said, "of any- 
 thing more appropriate and acceptable to him who is 
 to respond to it." Holding his glass of water aloft, 
 and attracting attention not more by his stentorian 
 voice than by his towering figure (he was two or three 
 inches over six feet in height) he turned to me and 
 said : ' ' Mr. Chief, I ask you to respond to this toast : 
 'Brandy and water — water for the fire, and brandy 
 for firemen.' " Naturally there were loud shouts, and 
 amid the vociferous cheering, largely ironical, a small 
 minority, I dare say, sympathizing with my views, I 
 rose to respond. I tried to keep the company in good- 
 nature that it might listen, as it did with respect, 
 while I improved the opportunity to enable me 
 naturally to close with another toast as follows: 
 "Brandy and water, — water extinguishes fire, and 
 brandy extinguishes firemen. " 
 
 As intimated, the department included many whose 
 positions, business and social, enabled them to exert 
 considerable influence. They generally had confi- 
 dence in my ability as chief, and many of them.
 
 112 REMINISCENCES 
 
 altlioiiuli by no means temperance men, as the term 
 was then understood, became my personal friends, 
 and therefore more or less naturally inclined to give 
 attention to my views. 
 
 The liquor dealers, and some who patronized them, 
 or perhaps better, those whom they controlled, were 
 displeased that at the head of so large and influential 
 an organization should be one constantly exerting his 
 influence against their trade, and consequently I Avas 
 exposed to many little annoyances in the discharge of 
 the duties of my position. 
 
 One fire involved a wholesale liquor-store, and I 
 happened to be standing near one of the fire-engines 
 when, by the bursting of a cask of liquor or some 
 other cause, a large sheet of flame of seemingly 
 various colors broke out, making for a few moments a 
 most brilliant and beautiful spectacle. There was an 
 involuntary and general exclamation among the men, 
 and I said to the captain of the company something to 
 the eflect that it was a magnificent sight. Some one 
 overheard it and, perhaps misapprehending, perhaps 
 intentionally misrepresenting me, charged me with 
 expressing pleasure at the destruction of the building 
 because rum was sold there. That was made the 
 occasion of many and bitter complaints. 
 
 At another fire, it was necessary to change the jjosi- 
 tion of an engine, to prevent the flames from crossing 
 a street and reaching a nest of wooden buildings, 
 which would threaten a conflagration. To prevent 
 this a store was sacrificed, which was a liquor-shop. 
 Although every officer of the department justified the 
 step as a wise precaution that saved an immense 
 amount of property, it was insisted that I had made 
 the change to permit the destruction of a rumshop. I
 
 OF NEAL DOW. ' 113 
 
 do not wonder so mucli, now, that some people really 
 thouglit so for a time, until it was shown that the 
 disposition I made of my available force saved two 
 liquor-shops that must otherwise have been destroyed. 
 
 My services for temperance frequently took me out 
 of town, and if a fire occurred in my absence it was 
 always made a subject for complaint that I was 
 neglecting my duties. Those gentlemen did not com- 
 plain if I was absent from home to sell leather, or to 
 buy land. That was my business. But to preach 
 temperance was quite another thing — that was intol- 
 erable; that was meddling witli matters that were 
 none of my concern; that was fanaticism which ought 
 to be stopped by my removal from the position of chief 
 engineer. There were some people in Portland who 
 believed that some buildings were set on fire during 
 those absences of mine, purposely to make a point 
 against me, and I find by reference to my letters 
 written home at the time, that I was not entirely free 
 from such an impression. 
 
 I accord such complainants the credit to believe 
 that they were not actuated by jealousy as to my 
 compensation. I was allowed one hundred dollars a 
 year, generally enough to pay my bills for hack and 
 horse hire incurred in getting to fires. It was not 
 paid or received upon an agreement, express or 
 implied, that all my time Avas to he given to the city. 
 Finally, my friends of the liquor-interest would put 
 up with the matter no longer, and, basing charges 
 upon those and other grounds to be mentioned, organ- 
 ized a formidable movement for my dismissal from the 
 position, taking advantage of a time when the city 
 government was in the hands of the Democrats, while 
 I was a Whig.
 
 114 BEMINISCENCES 
 
 Petitions asking for my removal were prepared and 
 posted for signature at all the hotels and liquor-sliops 
 in town. They were numerously signed. A day was 
 appointed by the mayor and aldermen for a hearing. 
 The instigators of the movement had engaged one of 
 the ablest lawyers in town, a man of great native 
 ability and brilliancy as an orator, but whose oppor- 
 tunities for usefulness were cut off by his untimely 
 death. I was charged with being arbitrary and des- 
 potic, as being unskilled in the management of men, 
 and generally incompetent for my position. A num- 
 ber of witnesses had been selected from among those'in 
 the department best known to differ from me in theory 
 and practice as to the use of intoxicants, it having 
 been taken for granted, without a preliminary exami- 
 nation, that they would testify against me. One put 
 upon the stand was a jolly good fellow, the toast- 
 master formerly referred to, — who professed little 
 sympathy for temperance. He was connected with a 
 most respectable family, the influence of which was 
 inimical to the developing reform-movement. Be- 
 cause of this the liquor-interest depended upon him as 
 a valual^le witness for its purpose. 
 
 With that particular manner assumed by some 
 lawyers when they call an important witness, with a 
 pose and an adjusting of the waistcoat, a smile and a 
 benign look upon the audience, and an air seeming to 
 say, ' ' Now see what I am going to do, " the counsel 
 for the petitioners, after the preliminary questions 
 and replies tending to show his witness qualified to 
 
 testify as an expert, said : ' ' Now Mr , state 
 
 your opinion of the skill and ability of the chief." 
 The reply excited shouts of laughter because so 
 unexpected by the counsel as to completely astonish
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 115 
 
 hiin. It was in substance: "My opinion is that lie 
 knows how to handle men as well as any, and that we 
 have no better fireman among us. " 
 
 I digress here to relate another incident in which 
 this witness surprised some of his associates. Years 
 after the event recorded, when his appetite for liquor 
 had so far increased that he was much under its 
 control, he, with several others, was called upon to 
 testify in an early case under the Maine Law against 
 a notorious liquor-dealer, whose regular customers 
 they were supposed to be. The new law was regarded 
 by many as an invasion of private rights, so out- 
 rageous, some said, that even reputable men pre- 
 tended to believe that perjury, when necessary to 
 protect liquor-dealers, was proper. Witness after wit- 
 ness who had been seen by officers going in and out of 
 the store of the respondent testified that they had 
 never bought, drank, nor seen any liquors sold, given 
 away or drank there. 
 
 Finally our toast-master was called. He admitted 
 that he had bought and drank it there, and had seen 
 others do the same. The conviction of the liquor- 
 seller followed. The violator of the law afterwards 
 complained to this witness of what he called his 
 treachery, but the latter replied : "I have paid you for 
 all the liquor I have bought in your shop, and made 
 no promise, express or implied, to lie a]:)out it, or 
 perjure myself on your account.'' 
 
 By a curious coincidence, the lawyer who was prose- 
 cuting the charges brought against me before the 
 board of aldermen was also called as a witness in this 
 liquor case. He objected to answering the questions 
 asked by the county attorney on the ground, first, as 
 he said, that it was an invasion of his personal consti-
 
 116 REMINISCENCES 
 
 tntioiial rights ; if he might be asked ^Yhat he drank, 
 he urged, they might also ask him what he wore, ate, 
 etc.: second, that he could not answer the question 
 affirmatively without exposing himself to ridicule, 
 abuse, and loss of business; third, that if he should 
 answer affirmatively, he would criminate himself, as 
 he regarded it a misdemeanor for one person to pro- 
 cure the violation of law by another. The position 
 he took was argued pro and con by the counsel for the 
 liquor-dealer on the one side and the county attorney, 
 the late Henry J. Swasey, of Standish, on the other. 
 Finally the judge decided that the questions must be 
 answered. 
 
 The case of these two witnesses had nnich to do 
 with removing the obstacles to obtaining testimony in 
 the matter of the prosecution of liquor-dealers, which 
 obtained to some extent in the earlier cases against 
 them under the Maine Law. 
 
 But to return to my trial. Having utterly failed to 
 establish incompetence, the next resort was to the 
 specification charging me with arbitrary and despotic 
 manner and recklessness as to the safety of the men 
 under my command. A witness relied upon to sus- 
 tain this charge was one of the two pipe-men of one of 
 the engine-companies. He had a personal grievance 
 against me, because I had once emphatically 
 denounced him as a coward. In response to an 
 appropriate question, the witness said in substance, 
 referring to a recent dangerous fire: 
 
 "When the flames broke out in a narrow alley-way, 
 setting fire to the buildings on each side of it, the 
 chief ordered us into the alley with our stream to put 
 the fire out." "Well, what did you say?" "I told 
 the chief that it was too dangerous, and refused to go
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 117 
 
 in." "Well," continued tlie counsel, "what did lie 
 yay? " ' ' He called me a coward. " 
 
 At this point I whispered to my attorney, who im- 
 mediately interjected the question: "What did the 
 chief do^ " And before the opposing counsel could 
 stop him, the witness replied: "He snatched the pipe 
 from my hands and took it into the alley himself." 
 
 That part of the charge collapsed. 
 
 It had not been my intention to employ counsel 
 upon the occasion, but a member of the board of 
 aldermen, the late General James Appleton, a warm 
 personal friend of mine, and an earnest temperance 
 man, and to whose invaluable service to the cause of 
 temperance I shall refer elsewhere, urged me to do so. 
 I accordingly retained the late Hon. Francis O. J. 
 Smith, to whom reference has already been made. 
 He was then at the zenith of his power. He had no 
 sympathy with my views as to temperance, nor for 
 that matter anything else, as we were diametrically 
 opposed in politics and many other matters. 
 
 Mr. Smith created much amusement among the 
 spectators by his comment upon the petition. 
 After the signatures had been collected as related 
 at the various bar-rooms in town, the papers had been 
 so pasted as to make one long petition. Those who 
 prepared it did not notice, until Mr. Smith called 
 their attention to tliem, the ear-marks unmistakably 
 disclosing the animus in which it had its origin. 
 
 Naturally, the landlord, the saloon, or grog-shop 
 keeper, as the case might be, had first signed the 
 petition which had been left at his bar. Mr. Smith, 
 unfolding the paper and reading the heading, called 
 out as he came to it the first name on the ])etition, 
 that of a prominent liquor-dealer, and added : ' ' And
 
 118 REMINISCENCES 
 
 here follow the names of all his customers." Then 
 looking- down the list to where the first pasting 
 occurred, and reading the first name below, called 
 attention to the fact that it was that of a liquor- 
 dealer, and added as before, "And here follow the 
 names of all his customers," and so on through the 
 sheet. 
 
 Nothing came of this case, prepared by the saloon- 
 men at some expenditure of time and money, as a 
 flank movement in aid of their traffic. It l)roke down 
 in a way most vexatious and humiliating to them- 
 selves. The aldermen voted unanimously that no 
 cause for removal had been shown. About a month 
 later I was re-elected as chief without opposition, as 
 was the case for several years thereafter. 
 
 Some time after this, the temperance men " bolted " 
 the regular nominees for aldermen of the Whig party, 
 then dominant in city affairs, and I was quietly 
 dropped from the position of chief engineer. It was 
 generally supposed that my position on temperance 
 had to do with this, but I never sufficiently interested 
 myself to find out. 
 
 My old engine-company, the Deluge, at its annual 
 meeting, following almost immediately after the 
 appointment of my successor as chief engineer, 
 elected me unanimously its captain, and appointed 
 a committee to urge my acceptance. I declined. 
 My service in the deimrtinent had been prolonged 
 because of the opportunity it gave me to serve the 
 cause in which I was interested. My labors in this 
 were at the time taking me frequently from town to 
 address meetings in various parts of the state, and it 
 was manifestly wise that my connection with the 
 department should not be renewed.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 110 
 
 Once thereafter I rendered service as a fireman. It 
 was while I was mayor. At a fire one evening, I 
 noticed one of the pipe-men so intoxicated as not to be 
 safely trusted on a ladder. No officer of the depart- 
 ment being in the immediate vicinity, I ordered a 
 policeman to take the man to the "watch-house," 
 while I took his place on the pipe. Tlie captain of 
 the company, when he ordered the pijje from the roof, 
 was surprised to find the mayor of the city executing 
 his order.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MY OBSERVATIONS, VIEWS, AFFILIATIONS AND EXPERIENCE 
 WITH REFERENCE TO NATIONAL POLITICS. MY 
 NOMINATION BY THE NATIONAL PROHI- 
 BITION PARTY FOR PRESIDENT. 
 
 My connection with politics, either local or na- 
 tional, has been no more than that of any ordinarily 
 informed, active citizen, who has deemed it proper 
 and found it agreeable to watch events as they pass, 
 and to i)erform his apparent duty relative thereto. I 
 have never held high official civil position, nor have 
 I been an aspirant therefor. My opinions npon polit- 
 ical questions, whether local or general, have been 
 tenaciously held, and often positively, if not aggres- 
 sively, exi)ressed. 
 
 The schools in which I took my first lesson as to 
 public questions, the temperance-reform and the anti- 
 slavery agitation, were not calculated to develop a 
 " party" man. Students there made better fighters in 
 the ranks of minorities, opposing established wrongs 
 and combating old customs and habits, than popular 
 favorites and available candidates for ])lace and 
 honor. But Avliile never a party man in the poli- 
 tician's understanding of the term, I appreciated the
 
 REMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 121 
 
 importance of organization, and as far as consistent 
 sought to give effect to my political views in co-oper- 
 ating with parties. 
 
 Though I have had no direct personal connection 
 with national politics worth noting, few have had my 
 opportunity to take even a general interest for so 
 many years in iniblic questions of a national charac- 
 ter, or to have seen so long a procession pass on and 
 off the stage of American politics. We take little 
 note of time in its flight, and when one at my age 
 looks back he may indeed be startled by the long line 
 of mile-posts he has passed, each in a time well-nigh 
 forgotten. 
 
 Eleven of the twenty-three'" presidents of the 
 United States were born during my lifetime, while of 
 them all Washington alone did not live within my 
 day, and the venom of faction did not lose its poison 
 for his high name and sacred fame until years after 
 my birth. When I had reached an age to be playing 
 vv^ith urchins on the street, boys got into quarrels 
 over him, as little ' ' Jacobin " scamps would hurl the 
 charge into the teeth of their "Federalist " fellows, of 
 whom I was one, that ' ' Washington was a coward and 
 hid behind a tree, " thus airing the spiteful calumnies 
 against the ' ' Father of his Country " learned through 
 the talk of their elders, at family fireside and board. 
 
 Only the presidential terms of Washington, that of 
 the elder Adams, and the first of Jefferson had been 
 terminated before my birth, and I think that, with 
 the exception of Washington, all who occuj^ied impor- 
 tant positions in either administration were living at 
 that time. Of age when Adams and Jefferson departed 
 together from this life, I had become, through my 
 
 *Written during Benjamin Harrison's term.
 
 122 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 reading and the fresli and reliable traditions of the 
 day, almost as familiar with the leading events of 
 their times as if my life had been contemporaneous 
 with theirs, and I was old enough to know something 
 of current politics during Monroe's incumbency of the 
 presidency. 
 
 I heard Webster's oration at the laying of the 
 corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument, in 1825, 
 before he had reached the height of his political 
 prominence. In 1830, I happened, in passing through 
 Salem, to visit the court-house, in which the famous 
 "White murder trial" was in progress, and then 
 heard him speak a few moments, the incident being of 
 sufficient importance for me to note the fact in a letter 
 to my wife. When he was at the zenith of his fame, I 
 expected to hear his oration at the completion of 
 Bunker Hill Monument, but the excursion from Port- 
 land to Boston was delayed on the way. Again I was 
 in Washington on the occasion of his famous seventh 
 of March speech, which may be said to have been the 
 winding-sheet of his political career. 
 
 At that time Hannibal Hamlin was a senator from 
 Maine, and was particularly i)olite, aiding in many 
 ways to make my visit to the capital agreeal^le. To 
 the best of my recollection the only member of the 
 senate besides Mr. Hamlin and his colleague. Senator 
 Bradbury, from Maine, whom I had met, was John P. 
 Hale, of New Hampshire. His acquaintance I had 
 made a year or two before at a meeting of the 
 American Temperance Union in New York, where he 
 was one of the speakers. 
 
 Through the kindness of Mr. Hamlin and Mr. Brad- 
 bury, I was introduced to a number of senators and 
 representatives, and I am more gratified now, I think,
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 123 
 
 than I was* then, that I thu.s had an opportunity to 
 speak with men at that time so prominent, but who 
 have long been dead. Besides Mr. Webster, Henry 
 Clay and John C. Calhoun were there. Salmon P. 
 Chase, with Mr. Hale, was of that class so hated by 
 politicians, almost as much at the North as in the 
 South — Free-Soilers — practically ostracized by many 
 senators. William H. Seward, of New York, found 
 himself but a little more pleasantly situated in that 
 particular. Stephen A. Douglass, then comparatively 
 unknown, was in the senate. Senator Butler, of 
 South Carolina, a few years after became prominent 
 through a historical speech of Charles Sumner, who 
 had not entered the senate at the time of my visit. 
 Senator King, of Alabama, two years later, was 
 elected vice-president, dying in a little more than a 
 month after his inauguration. 
 
 The speaker of the house was Howell Cobb, who, 
 with Alexander H. Stevens and Robert Toombs, made 
 a long-noted trio of Georgia statesmen. My old 
 schoolmate, James Brooks, was in the house, from 
 New York, and he, with Horace Mann, of Massachu- 
 setts, were the only members of that body, besides the 
 delegation from my own state, whom I had ever met 
 before. Andrew Johnson, afterwards so famous, was 
 then a representative from Tennessee, while that state 
 was also represented by Isham G. Harris, who at the 
 time of this , writing represents it in the senate, of 
 which body he is president pro tern. 
 
 Upon my introduction to Daniel Webster on this 
 occasion, I related to him a story told me years before 
 by ex-Senator John Holmes, of Maine. Mr. Holmes 
 was a senator at the time of the famous Webster and 
 Hayne debate, and on the evening before Mr.
 
 124 REMINISCENCES 
 
 Webster's great reply to the South Carolinian called 
 on the Massachusetts senator at his lodgings. He 
 found Mr. Webster in a dimly-lighted room, leaning 
 back in an easy-chair, his feet resting in another. 
 And in this position, without book, paper or pen, he 
 was preparing for his masterly effort of the next day. 
 The reminiscence seemed to please Mr. Webster. 
 
 William Pitt Fessenden and Hannibal Hamlin, con- 
 temporaries of my youth and middle age, lived and 
 closed their useful, honorable lives within my day. 
 I was past the middle of even a long life when James 
 G. Blaine, a young man unknown to fame, came 
 to Portland to become a citizen of Maine, while 
 Thomas B. Eeecl and Eugene Hale were lads at school, 
 and William P. Frye just out of college. It is hardly 
 an exaggeration, therefore, for me to say that three 
 generations of American statesmen and political lead- 
 ers have come, have performed their ])arts, and passed 
 on, while I have l)een an ol^server of the history which 
 they were making. 
 
 Similarly, of course, almost all the exciting ques- 
 tions in American politics have arisen, been discussed, 
 and disposed of during my day, and as to most of 
 them I have had a more or less intelligent interest 
 while they were vital, current issues. Tlie ' ' embar- 
 go," because of the ruin it precipitated upon a most 
 important interest of Portland, was still a topic for 
 table-talk and corner-store discussion after I was old 
 enough to understand something al:)out it, Avhile for 
 years after the Hartford Convention had passed into 
 history its actions and intents, real or imaginary, 
 disclosed or concealed, furnished ammunition for 
 attacks upon the Federalists and their political lega- 
 tees, the Whigs.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 125 
 
 I was fairly familiar with the events and discus- 
 sions pertaining to the Missouri Compromise, incited 
 as I was to give more than the attention that a boy of 
 sixteen would ordinarily pay to the subject because 
 of the local interest in the question of statehood 
 for Maine, which was connected with it, and from 
 my inherited antislavery convictions, strengthened 
 through the marked interest of my father in the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 I have heard some dead and forgotten issues dis- 
 cussed, and perhaps have presented some of them 
 myself, in a way to leave the impression that the fate 
 of the nation, with all the hopes and possibilities for 
 man wrapped up in it, depended upon the outcome of 
 the particular contest at that time pending. But I 
 have lived to see the country guided through them all 
 by that divine care which presided at its birth, and 
 until, despite all its trials and mistakes, it is richer, 
 greater, grander than ever before. 
 
 I could not well avoid becoming interested in public 
 matters at an early age. My father, though living a 
 (luiet, unol)trusive life, was by no means indifferent 
 to matters of general concern, and was in the habit of 
 reading, thinking and talking about public affairs, 
 and, as soon as I was old enough, was accustomed to 
 talk to me upon those subjects, and before that I took 
 l)leasure in listening to the conversation between my 
 father and mother, or that of the occasional visitors 
 at our house, about public men and measures. 
 
 As I have remarked, my father was a Federalist. 
 Of course he thought highly of Washington, wliose 
 first election as president was almost coincident with 
 my father's attainment of his majority. He had great 
 confidence in John Adams, and a strong admiration
 
 126 REMINISCENCES 
 
 for Alexander Hamilton, and my horror of dueling, 
 wliicli kept me later from voting for Henry Clay, 
 altlioiigli otherwise in sympathy Avith that "great 
 commoner," had its origin in what, as a boy, I had 
 heard my father say of the great loss the country had 
 sustained in the duel in which Hamilton lost his life. 
 
 My father had a collection of the papers written by 
 Hamilton arid others for the Federalist, and I read 
 and re-read them long before reaching my majority. 
 Naturally my political preferences and tendencies 
 were influenced by my associations, and what I read 
 only tended to confirm me in tlie same direction. It 
 is no wonder, then, that I was an earnest Federalist 
 before becoming a voter, but when I grew older I 
 could not approve the length to which that party 
 carried its opposition to the war of 1812. Because of 
 their position as to that, the Federalists became 
 odious in the eyes of young, hot-headed, warm- 
 hearted men, and the name became one of reproach. 
 Hence, although it contained many of the wisest 
 heads and purest hearts among the earlier statesmen 
 of the country, the Federal party lost its hold upon 
 the people and, therefore, its power for usefulness. 
 
 The existence of slavery in the South liad led to 
 conditions in that section differing widely from 
 those obtaining at the North. Under the stimu- 
 lating influence of free labor one portion made rapid 
 growth, while the mill-stone of the peculiar institu- 
 tion hung upon the neck of the other kept it almost 
 inert as to material progress. Thus, long before the 
 actual issue of the extension or perpetuation of slav- 
 ery was forced to the front by the awakening of 
 the northern conscience througli tlie efforts of Lundy, 
 Garrison, Pliillips, Lovejoy, and others, the two sec-
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 127 
 
 tions were inclined to take differing views upon 
 various questions wliicli became political issues. 
 
 I remember something of the talk at the time of the 
 election of Monroe in 1820. Although but sixteen 
 years of age, I was already interested in i)ublic ques- 
 tions, and the fact that Maine that year voted for the 
 first time as a state probably impressed the event 
 more upon my mind than would otherwise have been 
 the case. Monroe was not elected in the first instance 
 as a party man, and was re-elected that year Avithout 
 opposition. Upon his accession to the presidency 
 party animosities began to subside, party names to be 
 almost forgotten, and, in fact, parties were broken 
 up because the old subjects of dispute were settled. 
 
 Not old enough to vote in 1824, I was, nevertheless, 
 intensely interested, as indeed was almost everybody, 
 in that contest. In that campaign I studied and 
 became a supporter of the policy of Protection to 
 American Industries, and have never changed my 
 views Avith reference to it. Largely, as I believe, 
 through its beneficent influences, I have seen this 
 country progress from a condition of practical depend- 
 ence upon Europe for almost everything except food, 
 until the extent and variety of its manufactures com- 
 mand the admiration, where they do not excite the 
 Jealousy, of the world. 
 
 The outcome of that contest, through the national 
 house, favorable to Adams, resulted in a most violent 
 political controversy. The bitterness growing out of 
 that struggle, with the charges and counter-charges of 
 bribery and corruption, has never since been exceeded 
 in my observation of American politics. Owing as 
 much to the manner as to the matter of the discussion 
 attending that controversy, men became intensely
 
 128 REMINISCENCES 
 
 partisan in tlieir feeling, and the devotion expressed 
 for tlieir own candidate was excelled only by the 
 apparent hatred with which they denounced the 
 chosen of the other side. Jackson, the titular saint 
 of his party, was the great hete noire of his opponents ; 
 Adams, regarded by his supporters as the "ablest, 
 wisest, purest statesman " of his or any other day, was 
 an object for the derision of the other side. This 
 feeling increased in both political camps during 
 Adams' administration, and broke out with greater 
 heat in the next presidential election. 
 
 Immediately after the inauguration of John Quincy 
 Adams, a regular organization was established to 
 oppose his administration. It made little pretense of 
 concealing the fact that it was a party of the "outs"' 
 against the "ins;" indeed, a common expression at 
 the time was that they were ' ' determined to put that 
 administration down, though pure as the angels in 
 heaven. " 
 
 In the campaign of 1828, I made my first political 
 speech, as in that election I cast my first i)residential 
 vote. Speech and vote were both for Adams. I 
 remember the great care with which I prei)ared myself 
 for that effort, even to the extent of committing it to 
 memory, reciting it to myself time and again in long 
 walks devoted to its study, and I remember how 
 nearly all my labors came to naught. Fortunately, it 
 Avas toward the close of my declamation when I was 
 interrupted by one of the opposition with an annoying- 
 question, doubtless incited b\' a pertness of manner 
 incident to my youth. I was so disconcerted that I 
 mentally resolved that I would never thereafter 
 depend upon committed si)eeches. 
 
 The defeat of Adams, or rather the election of
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 12'.> 
 
 Jackson, I tliouKlit would prove a great national 
 calamity. Even now I feel disposed to say that 
 though we have heard much from that day to this of 
 false pledges aiid broken promises, it is ciuestionable if 
 any administration in the history of this country has 
 so disregarded the avowed pledges and principles upon 
 which it sought support from the people as did that of 
 Jackson. It went into power pledged to retrenchment 
 of expenditures, non-interference of office-holders in 
 elections, non-appointment of members of Congress to 
 office, and one term of office for the president ; yet the 
 national expenditures were trebled; violent partisan- 
 ship was the surest passport to office; more members of 
 Congress were appointed to place than by all the prior 
 presidents, while Jackson accepted a second term of 
 office. 
 
 His administration not only thus failed to carry out 
 its distinctive pledges, but its leading measures, such 
 as its course as to the United States bank and the 
 currency, were sprung upon the people, not having 
 been alluded to in the campaign. All the old preju- 
 dices against the Federalists were aroused, and had 
 much to do with aiding Jackson to secure and retain 
 his hold upon the masses. It is true, however, that 
 during the day of his power many of the leading- 
 supporters of Jackson and Van Buren had formerly 
 been among the warmest Federalists, while A^ast num- 
 bers of the opponents of those administrations had 
 been firm and efficient supporters of Jeflferson and 
 Madison. 
 
 The Federal party was accused of being in favor of 
 a strong national government, so strong as to merge 
 in itself the independence and even the individuality 
 of the several states. It was quite easy for differences
 
 130 REMINISCENCES 
 
 upon that quesstion to degenerate, and leaders who 
 were opposed to magnifying the nation at the expense 
 of the states found among their followers those who 
 imagined that the opponents of Federalism were tend- 
 ing toward the abolishment of all law. In fact, at 
 one time there were out])reaks for that purpose in New 
 Hampshire during my father's younger days, which 
 had something to do, perhaps, with leading his sym- 
 pathies toward Federalism. 
 
 Notwithstanding the denunciation by his supporters 
 of the Federalists for seeking a strong government. 
 General Jackson did more during his administration 
 to concentrate power in the hands of the executive 
 than the old Federal party was even charged with 
 designing to do. By the frequent use of the veto he 
 interrupted the exercise of the legislative power, and 
 by refusing to send the land-bill back to Congress 
 when more than two-thirds of both houses were in 
 favor of its passage, he in fact arrogated to himself 
 powers of the government not pertaining to his 
 position. 
 
 Despite all this, later, in the campaign of 1840, it 
 was the policy of the supporters of Van Buren to 
 attempt to fasten upon their opponents, the Whigs, a 
 party name, that of ' ' Federalists, " and to bring up all 
 the old charges against that extinct party, that old 
 Ijrejudices and old animosities might be revived to 
 their advantage. It was quite in accordance with 
 human experience that those most active in this piece 
 of treachery were Federalists when that party was in 
 existence, as were their fathers before them. 
 
 Referring to my home corresi)ondence of the period. 
 I find that partisan feeling did not die out with the 
 declaration of the result of tlie election. In a letter
 
 OF NEAL DOAV. 131 
 
 to my wife, from Porti^moutli, X. H., dated Aiisuyt 11, 
 1830, (Jacki^on had tlien been i)resident but little over 
 a year) in referring to a road in the vicinity of Ports- 
 mouth, I wrote: 
 
 " It would not 1)C an uncharacteristic thing of »Tackson, and 
 the greatest and best of his acts, should he issue his edict, 
 sweep every turn|)ike gate from every road in the Union, and 
 haui>- the toll-keepers upon the pivot post, and I think the act 
 would be quite in keeping if he should add the jiroprictors to 
 the list of the condemned." 
 
 Here I insert an extract from a letter written to me 
 by a young Whig friend, whose acquaintance I had 
 made on my "grand tour," from New Orleans, under 
 date of March 8, 1828, as illustrating the length to 
 Avhich political prejudices of the day would lead 
 young men: 
 
 " Is it not astonishing to see what an idol General Jackson 
 is, with his face employed as a sign for almost all taverns? 
 How can a true Yankee wish for president of his beloved 
 country a man who always resigned his political offices under 
 the candid avowal that he was unfit for them, who even dared 
 not keep his seat in the senate for fear that his incapacity for 
 a statesman would be too much noticed, and whose fame is 
 founded only on his murderous wars with poor, enervated 
 Indians and on a pretended battle of New Orleans, which 
 never was fought, and which never will l)e called a battle by 
 any true historian." 
 
 What we zealous opponents and friends of Jackson 
 said then to each other was likely to be much less 
 toned down than what we wrote to our families, 
 without idea of its ever seeing light. 
 
 In this campaign of 1832, though heartily opposed 
 to Jackson. I was not in favor of Clay. It was 
 reported that he had fought duels, or ai^proved of 
 them; he was also a pro-slavery man, it was said, and
 
 132 REMINISCENCES 
 
 for those reasons I would not vote for liim. I found 
 refuge, therefore, in the Antiniasonic movement, 
 which about that time culminated in the support of 
 a presidential candidate, and in two or three state 
 elections in Maine cast a few votes. Except for these 
 special reasons, I had great respect for Mr. Clay, and 
 was a full believer in the American System of Protec- 
 tion, with which his name was identified. 
 
 Up to this time Maine had kept company with 
 Massachusetts in her national politics in voting for 
 president, but in the election of 1832, the daughter 
 forsook the ways of the mother, and, going over 
 to the Democrats, voted for Jackson. 
 
 Continuing my general relations with the now fully 
 fledged Whig party, I was a supporter of Harrison, as 
 against Van Buren, in 1836. I took an active part in 
 the state campaign of 1837 for the Whig candidate, 
 Edward Kent, for governor, who, much to the sur- 
 prise and discomfiture of the Democrats, was elected, 
 though as I remember it, by a very narrow margin. 
 Governor Kent was of dignified presence, gentlemanly 
 in taste and deportment, a lawyer of ability, a man of 
 integrity, and a citizen of high standing generally. 
 He was again elected governor in 1840 by a small 
 majority, and his success in this latter year was 
 hailed throughout the Union by sanguine Whigs, 
 Avild in their rejoicings over it, as the harbinger of 
 their triumijh in the national contest, at its height 
 throughout the country when the Maine state elec- 
 tion was held. 
 
 The country was passing through a terrible 
 financial crisis in 1837, largely due to the withdrawal 
 of the government deposits from the state banks. 
 These had sprung up in profusion all over the
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 133 
 
 country, especially in the South and West, as an 
 outcome of the policy of Jackson relative to the 
 United States bank. They had inflated the currency, 
 stimulated speculation, and when at length the 
 United States deposits were withdrawn from them, 
 curtailment and calling of loans were necessary, 
 followed by the suspension of banks, and wide-spread 
 business disaster. The fever of speculation had 
 caught Maine, and extravagant fortunes on pai^er had 
 been made in her wild lands, only to be lost later with 
 substantial wealth when the collapse of 1837 came. 
 This contributed materially to the repulse of the 
 dominant party in the state and to the election of 
 Kent. 
 
 The Democrats recovered the state in 1838, prevent- 
 ing the re-election of Governor Kent. The contest 
 was sharp, the Whigs making a desperate effort to 
 hold, and the Democrats to recover, power. The 
 latter party was somewhat disturbed by internal 
 dissensions, a so-called "conservative" element in it 
 giving their associates little aid or comfort in the 
 campaign. I was much interested and somewhat 
 active in the contest. 
 
 Up to this time but one of the Maine men, who 
 within the past thirty years have been so familiar in 
 national politics, had attracted notice outside of his 
 own immediate neighborhood. Hannibal Hamlin, 
 afterwards vice-president of the United States, and 
 for a long time United States senator from Maine, as 
 a Democratic member of the legislature of 1837, had 
 been elected speaker of the house. Mr. Hamlin had 
 read law in Portland, and while there boarded for a 
 time in the same house with my uncle, Jonathan Dow, 
 where I made his acquaintance. Though opposed in 
 
 10
 
 134 KEMIXISCENCES 
 
 politics and not thrown much together in after life, 
 we remained good friends personally tlu-oughout his 
 long, eminent and useful career. In more than one 
 of the crises of his political life I was able to be of 
 service to him, and always felt that in aiding him I 
 was serving the public, whose faithful servant he was 
 for so long. 
 
 The most prominent man Maine had thus far given 
 to the Union was George Evans. He served in sev- 
 eral successive Congresses the district which included 
 part of the territory afterwards so long represented by 
 James G. Blaine. More than once, I am confident, he 
 was the only AVhig or anti-Democratic representative 
 in Congress from the state. As a result of the suc- 
 cesses of his party in Maine in 1840, Mr. Evans was 
 sent to the United States senate in 1841, serving one 
 term. He was a man of ability and force, and was at 
 one time, I think in 1844, quite prominent as a possi- 
 ble Whig candidate for vice-president. 
 
 During a part of his term in the senate, Mr. Evans 
 had for a colleague, Hannibal Hamlin, a Democrat. 
 Later in life, Mr. Evans crossed over to the democ- 
 racy, meeting on his way his old associate, Hamlin, 
 who was coming over to the "Republicans, and w^ho 
 filled, as Lincoln's vice-president, the position Evans 
 sought as a AVhig, with Clay. In 1847, Maine, having 
 returned to the Democratic fold, Mr. Evans was 
 succeeded by James AV. Bradbury, a Democrat. Mr. 
 Bradbury served one term, lie is the only man, so 
 far as I can recall, wlio has been prominently before 
 the pul^lic, now living in Maine, my senior in years. 
 Two or three years ago Mr. Bradbury and I met at the 
 State House in Augusta, and there, on the scene of 
 the many stirring events in which Ave had partici-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 135 
 
 pated, renewed the acquaintance which had existed 
 between ns for so many years. 
 
 The memorable campaign of 1840, terminating- in 
 the election of General Harrison, was as sharp and 
 exciting in Maine as elsew^here in the country. I 
 interested myself in it in various ways. It was 
 generally known as the "log-cabin and hard-cider" 
 campaign, a phrase which furnishes a striking illus- 
 tration of the influence, shown more than once in the 
 politics of the country, of an ill-considered reference 
 to an opposing candidate or party. 
 
 General Harrison was a poor man, and it was said 
 that his residence was a rude, log hut. After it 
 became know^n that he was to be the candidate 
 of the Whigs, some Democratic paper or orator said 
 something to the effect that Harrison had better 
 continue to skin coons and drink hard-cider in his 
 log-cabin than to try to become president of the 
 United States. This was immediately seized upon by 
 the Whigs and made the most of to show that the 
 supporters of Van Bur en, who was regarded as some- 
 what of an aristocrat, had cast a slur upon poverty. 
 Thereafter log-cabins, hard-cider, and coon-skins 
 served a great purpose in arousing prejudice against 
 Van Buren, who was made responsible for the 
 reflection upon the humble mode of General Harri- 
 son's life. 
 
 It is probably true that the roistering, rollicking 
 way in which the "log-cabin and hard-cider" portion 
 of that struggle was conducted by the younger 
 element of the Whig party had something to do with 
 breaking the grip of the Democrats upon the state of 
 Maine. But the untow^ard business conditions of the 
 country, felt in Maine perhaps more seriously than
 
 136 REMINISCENCES 
 
 anywhere else, and the combined influence of the 
 banking interes^t, had put our people into a receptive 
 mood, and while the "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" 
 jollifications were exciting some, an active education- 
 al campaign afforded food for thought to those of our 
 voters not so susceptible to mere excitement. I 
 entered into the contest of 1840 with great earnest- 
 ness and enthusiasm. 
 
 That year I delivered in the neighboring town of 
 Grorham, a Fourth of July oration which, as I remem- 
 ber it, though of a non-partisan character, had to do 
 with the political issues of the day, and was designed 
 to aid the Whigs without irritating such Democrats 
 as might favor me with their presence. After the 
 oration, a substantial meal was spread in the base- 
 ment of the Congregational church for the more 
 prominent of those in attendance from the surround- 
 ing towns. Among my auditors on that occasion, I 
 have been informed, was a lad, not then out of his 
 teens, who has been governor of Maine, my friend, 
 Frederick Eobie. In the winter of 1859, both being 
 members of the Maine legislature, we were room- 
 mates at Augusta. Throughout his ])ublic life 
 Governor Robie has merited and enjoyed the respect 
 of his extensive acquaintance in the state. 
 
 As to my interest in the preliminary September 
 gubernatorial campaign, I was incited to it not alone 
 by my general Whig convictions and opposition to 
 " Jacksonianism," of which Van Buren was regarded 
 as the executor and legatee, but probably more 
 because Governor Kent, the Whig candidate, when 
 governor in 18.38, had made reference in his inaugural 
 to the temperance question, being the first of our 
 executives to do so. Perhaps to remind me that he
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 137 
 
 had heard of my services, (I can think of no other 
 reason, though we were well acquainted and good 
 friends) Grovernor Kent appointed me on his staff, and 
 thereafter I was called "Colonel," though as may 
 be inferred from what has elsewhere been written, I 
 had never trained with the militia. 
 
 The "moral" effect of the success of the Maine 
 Whigs in September upon the canvass through the 
 country was immense. Four years before, the state 
 had voted for Van Bur en by a majority of more than 
 fifty per cent of the total vote. Now, it gave the 
 "Whig candidate for governor a plurality, though less 
 than a hundred, in the largest vote up to that time 
 cast. This result was heralded far and near as 
 presaging Democratic defeat in the impending presi- 
 dential election. Then, if I remember aright, presi- 
 dential electors were not chosen on the same day in 
 all the states, though in none of them were they 
 elected prior to the Maine gubernatorial election in 
 September. 
 
 The September election in 1840 was not followed by 
 a lull in political activity, as is usually the case. The 
 Democrats by no means conceded that Maine would 
 support Harrison in the following November, and, 
 though the exact vote was not known for some time, 
 from the close of the polls in September to the time of 
 the presidential election the state was like a vast 
 political camp. Meanwhile Pennsylvania, which had 
 voted for Van Buren in 1838, always a "Jackson" 
 state, had in October chosen Harrison electors, and 
 Ohio in the same month had nearly trebled the 
 majority given for Harrison four years before. Maine 
 Democrats, though they did their best, could not 
 resist the rising tide which gave the electoral votes of
 
 138 REMINISCENCES 
 
 their state to Harrison in an increased total vote by a 
 little over five liunclreci plurality. 
 
 That election sent to the national house a Whig, 
 William Pitt Fessenden, who was thereafter to win 
 national distinction, and promoted from the house to 
 the senate, as has already been noted, another Whig, 
 George Evans. But Maine whiggery, as an organiza- 
 tion, did not profit long by the success. What with 
 "Tylerism" and other troubles it lost all the ground 
 it had gained, and Governor Kent was defeated for 
 re-election in 1841 by the Democratic candidate he 
 had beaten in 1840, and in 1844, both in September 
 and November, Maine was reunited by large plurali- 
 ties to her old Democratic love. 
 
 In 1844, Whig as I was as to all economic and 
 administrative questions, I would not give my vote to 
 Clay. Dueling, slavery, the annexation of Texas, 
 were the disturbing points, and I acted with the 
 Abolitionists, with whose horror of slavery I was in 
 full sympathy. It was a forlorn hope in which the 
 political liberty men were engaged, l^ut it was making 
 the way plainer and smoother for the path-finder of 
 the Republicans in 1856. 
 
 In 1848, I favored Van Buren, as the Free-Soil 
 candidate for president, though I was among those 
 imagining they could see under the Free-Soil cloak of 
 that veteran Jacksonite the intent to ininish Cass, his 
 old-time rival, for his (Van Buren's) discomfiture in 
 the Democratic convention four years before. 
 
 In 1852, I did what little I could in Maine for the 
 Whig presidential candidate. General Scott. My 
 sympathies were as they had beevi four years before, 
 with the Free-Soil candidate, but the peculiar situa- 
 tion of tlie temperance movement in Maine, to be
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 139 
 
 more fully described else^Yhere, placed the friends of 
 Prohibition under peculiar obligations to temperance 
 Wliigs who liad supported at the polls, notwithstand- 
 ing its possible influence upon tlie nation at large, the 
 Democratic candidate for governor, because he had 
 approved the Maine Law. 
 
 In 1856, the Republican party, of whicli I was a 
 charter member, had been formed, and I favored its 
 candidate for president, Fremont. Maine for the first 
 time since 1840, that year gave its vote to other than a 
 Democratic candidate for president. Of some of the 
 causes which led up to this great political change I 
 shall write in another chapter. It was during this 
 campaign that I first met, as a Republican, my friend, 
 Hannibal Hamlin. We addressed an immense meet- 
 ing from the same platform. Our presence there had 
 more than ordinary significance, and the great ova- 
 tion accorded each by the thousands that thronged 
 the square was not altogether personal to either. 
 
 Mr. Hamlin had long been in public life, and was 
 respected and loved as few men haxe been hy the 
 people of any state. His fidelity to his convictions 
 and his integrity in all relations of life were unques- 
 tioned. Early in June of this year, 1856, Mr. Hamlin 
 created a profound sensation, not only in Maine, but 
 throughout the Union, in taking a course, so far as I 
 am aware, without a parallel in the i)olitical history 
 of the country. He formally abandoned the party 
 which had elected him to the senate, and cast his 
 political fortunes with the opposition, whicli had but 
 once, sixteen years previous, elected a United States 
 senator, and which the year before Mr. Hamlin's 
 change lost the power it had exercised for one year in 
 Maine.
 
 140 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 From that time Mr. Hamlin Avas< indicated as the 
 candidate of the Republicans of Maine for governor in 
 the campaign of 1856. He was disinclined to accept 
 the nomination , but yielded after much persuasion. 
 At the time of the meeting referred to, Senator 
 Hamlin had just been elected governor by an immense 
 majority, to vrhich his own personal popularity had 
 contributed much, and his presence at the meeting 
 reminded the thousands of Republicans assembled of 
 their recent great triumph in the state. What my 
 presence at the meeting signified will be mentioned 
 later. 
 
 In full sympathy with the Republican party in 1860, 
 I participated, with voice and pen, in the campaign 
 resulting in the election of Lincoln. I accompanied 
 to the polls that day my honored father, over ninety- 
 four years old, as he went to deposit what proved to 
 be his last vote. Of age when Washington was 
 elected president for the first time, he had witnessed 
 the marvelous material growth and the even more 
 astonishing political changes in the country for 
 nearly three-quarters of a century, and was still 
 interested in current events. 
 
 In 1864, I favored Lincoln as a matter of course. 
 At times during his administration iny intense antag- 
 onism to slavery and my strong desire for the rapid 
 progress of the Union arms led me to feel some imim- 
 tience at what I was inclined to regard as a timid, 
 hesitating policy. But my confidence in the ability, 
 integrity and jjatriotism of the President was too 
 strong to be shaken 1:)y whatever of misgiving or 
 doubt I might hav(3 entertained as to any particular 
 action or non-action. More than this, I liad, as I 
 thought, special iiifoniialion as to a fact which
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 141 
 
 demanded the renomination of Mr. Lincoln as indiw- 
 pen.sable to the success of the cause of the Union, as it 
 was due to his own great qualities and service. 
 
 I had been two years in the army, and had learned 
 from my intercourse with the South, through promi- 
 nent Confederates in my charge as prisoners of war, 
 and others who had in turn held me as such, that the 
 re-election of Lincoln would be a great discourage- 
 ment to them, as evidence of the determination on the 
 part of the North to continue the war to a successful 
 issue, and that after such re-election the collapse of 
 the Confederacy would be only a question of time. 
 
 Just prior to the assembling of the convention in 
 which Lincoln was nominated the second time, I had 
 been exchanged as a prisoner of war, and was on my 
 way home from Richmond, when I stopped in Wash- 
 ington. While on the floor of the national house, 
 throngs of the members gathered about me, and the 
 question of what should be done was there, as in 
 every other gathering of public men at the time, 
 uppermost. There was no doubt as to what most of 
 those men believed the proper course — the re-nomina- 
 tion of Lincoln. But I was able from such informa- 
 tion as I had to reinforce that view effectively, and to 
 show that the evidence that Lincoln was supported by 
 his party would be worth for the Union cause another 
 levy of one hundred thousand men. 
 
 From 18G4, up to and including the election of 
 President Hayes in 1870, I retained my connection 
 with the Republican party and supported its tickets, 
 state and national, rendering from time to time such 
 assistance as I could upon the platform and through 
 the public press, my services by no means being con- 
 fined to the state of Maine.
 
 142 REMINISCENCES 
 
 In 1880, I way the nominee for preBident of tlie 
 Prohibition party. Prior to the assembling of its 
 national convention at Cleveland, Ohio, it had been 
 intimated to me that there were those desiring that I 
 should bo selected as the nominee of that organization 
 for president. Where it was i)roi)er for me so to do, I 
 expressed a hope that such action would not ]^e taken. 
 There were several reasons for my wish tliat some 
 other choice might be made, only one of which I will 
 cite: 
 
 In my entire life my name had been used in connec- 
 tion with my candidacy for official i)osition, whether 
 with or without expectation of attaining to such, only 
 as it was supi^osed l)y friends of temperance that the 
 cause in which they and I were alike interested might 
 thus be served. In this instance I believed that any 
 other name would answer as well as mine around 
 which to rally the few who had come to regard i)rohi- 
 bition of the liquor-traffic a national issue of para- 
 mount imi)ortance, and I was inclined to the 
 opinion that I could better serve the general cause 
 if unembarrassed by even a nominal candidacy for 
 office. I was, however, persuaded that others should 
 be permitted to finally i)ass upon that (juestion. 
 
 My name was presented to the Cleveland convention 
 by Hon. James Black, of Pennsylvania, and I was 
 unanimously nominated. On the evening of that day 
 I received over the signatures of Mr. Black and of 
 Rev. A. A. Miner, the distinguished Universalist 
 clergyman of Boston, a life-long friend of temperance, 
 the following telegram: 
 
 " Cleveland, O., June 17, 1880. 
 To General Need Doir : 
 
 The National Prohibition party, large in numbers and
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 143 
 
 earnest in purpose, have just nominated you by a unanimous 
 rising vote, with cheer upon cheer, and the doxology, as 
 their candidate for president. We congratulate the cause 
 which has thus made you its representative standard bearer." 
 
 The gentleman nominated by the convention for 
 vice-preyident was Prof. A. H. Thompson, of Ohio, 
 president of Oberlin college, an earnest friend and 
 able advocate of Prohibition, a gentleman of high 
 character and standing, with whom it was a pleasure 
 and satisfaction to me to be associated. 
 
 As already intimated, I did not feel at liberty to 
 decline the nomination, and accordingly accepted in 
 the following letter: 
 
 Hon. Jamen Black and Rev. A. A. Mine)', D. D. : 
 
 Gentlemen: Your note of the 18th June, notifying me 
 officially of my nomination by the JS'ational Prohibition con- 
 vention at Cleveland as candidate for the presidency, is 
 received. I am very sensible of the honor implied in a spon- 
 taneous and unanimous selection l)y such an asseml)ly, to 
 represent their opinions and purposes as to the relation of 
 the liquor-traffic to the interests of the nation and people. 
 
 There is and can be no difference of opinion among intelli- 
 gent men as to the tremendous evils flowing necessarily from 
 that traffic to every public and private interest. Such men 
 may and do differ as to the best methods of providing a rem- 
 edy for these evils, but each must judge for himself ui)on 
 that point according to his light. 
 
 In our country there can be no change in any public policy 
 which depends upon law, unless the people desiring the 
 change shall indicate their pleasure through the ball()t-l)OX. 
 Parties and their policies come into power among us and go 
 out of power only through the ballot-box. There is no other 
 w^ay by which the people can express their will effectively. 
 All important questions of pul)lic policy are decided in that 
 manner only. 
 
 The question of deliverance to the country and emancipa- 
 tion of the people from the infinite evils of the liquor-traffic, 
 may well challenge the closest attention of patriots, philan- 
 thropists, and statesmen. This question touches the interests
 
 144 REMINISCENCES 
 
 of nation, state and people as no other does or can ; the solu- 
 tion of it can never come in any other way than throudi the 
 ballot-box. 
 
 It is said by men whose o])iiii()ns arc entitled to the highest 
 respect, that the present is not a suitable time for pressing 
 this issue. 
 
 No man can be more sensible than I am of the magnitude 
 and im])ortance of other questions of pul)lic jMdicy which are 
 to be tried l)y the people at the next presidential election ; 
 but I am confident that none of these, nor all of them, are so 
 important as this, to every national and social interest. 
 "Whatever mischiefs may arise from an unwise poi)ular verdict 
 upon other issues, they cannot be so great as those coming 
 from the liquor-traffic. The former can continue but for two 
 years, the congressional term, or at most, for four years, the 
 presidential term, unless the people shall so determine by 
 their votes ; while the far greater evils of the li(|Uor-traflic 
 must continue indefinitely, unless the people shall express 
 their will against it emphatically l)y the ballot. 
 
 Men who hold this question to be of minor importance, 
 can never find a suitable moment for making it a political 
 issue. There will always be some other question in which 
 they feel more interest, that may l)e crowded out by ])ringing 
 this question to the front. There is never a suitalile time for 
 a summer rain in the view of everybody, however dry and 
 l)arched the earth may be. There will always be somebody to 
 whom the storm will l)e injurious or inconvenient. 
 
 In the old antislavery time, the authors and promoters of 
 the antislavery agitation were always a thorn in the side of 
 political })arties. They were always a nuisance and an exas- 
 peration to those who Avere out of office and trying to get in, 
 and to those who were in office and striving to retain their 
 places ; the two classes comprising almost the entire l)ody of 
 politicians. But the antislavery men, Ijent on overthrowing 
 the dreadful system of human bondage, having no personal 
 interest to ])romote, except such as might be involved in the 
 general good, were true to their convictions and steadfast in 
 the line of policy which they believed to ])e right and wise. 
 They encountered and overcame all possible modes of op])0- 
 sition — bitter denunciation, great personal violence, humili- 
 ating and offensive ostracism; l)ut, against all and over all, 
 in the love and fear of God, and in i)ersistent devotion to the 
 right, they won.
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 145 
 
 There was never a time before the tinal victory, when the 
 antislavery movement had so large a following as Prohibition 
 now has ; nor was it so influential, except in the great al)ility 
 and singular devotedness of those who were en";a<i"ed in it. 
 Very few in number at first and uninfluential, in many parts 
 of the country they put their resolve in the form of votes 
 into the l)allot-box, only to be laughed at by the politicians 
 and to 1)0 stigmatized as fanatics ; ])ut they won at last. The 
 prohibition movement in this country is now so respectable 
 for its magnitude, and so influential from the numbers and 
 character of those engaged in it, that it cannot be laughed 
 down. There is and must continue to be an 'irrepressible 
 conflict ' between the liquor-traffic and the prosperity of the 
 nation and the welfare of the people. As that traffic flour= 
 ishes, every legitimate industry languishes and dies. 
 
 The result of the recent 2:eneral election in En2:]and, marks 
 very distinctly what I consider to be the best mode of carry- 
 ing on the agitation against the liquor-traffic. Since 1853 the 
 Prohibitionists of that country have been striving with great 
 ability and persistence, to procure such a change in the law as 
 W'ould enable the people of any locality to forbid the liquor- 
 traffic, if they should choose so to do. But very little good 
 came of the agitation practicall}^ until they adopted the 
 policy of ignoring party ties and voting only for this one 
 object. At the late election their adversaries were thoroughly 
 defeated. 
 
 I consider the object of the Prohibitionists of the country 
 to be of supreme importance to the interests of the nation and 
 people. Aside from its bearing upon the moral and religious 
 welfare of the people, I consider the suppression of the liquor- 
 traffic to be an object of far greater political importance than 
 any other now claiming the attention of the country. My life 
 has 1)een largely devoted to the accomplishment of that pur- 
 pose. Perhaps I may live to see my dearest hopes in relation 
 to it realized, at least within my own state ; but however that 
 may be, in the future, as in the past, I shall keep that object 
 steadily in view. 
 
 While I sincerely wish that the choice of a candidate 1)y the 
 Cleveland convention had fallen on some other than myself, I 
 accept the nomination willingly, 1)eing sure that it will prove 
 to be the huml)le beginning of a triumphant end. 
 I am most respectfulh^ yours, 
 
 Neal Dow.
 
 146 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 While the nomination was merely a matter of form, 
 the Prohiljition party at that date not having even the 
 skeleton of an organization, I may be pardoned for 
 inserting here a sample extract or two of the com- 
 ments upon it. 
 
 The Springfield Republican said : 
 
 "There is one man at least in nomination for the presi- 
 dency who can boast a record of consistency and perseverance, 
 if not of wisdom, for many years in one line of reform, and 
 that man is Neal Dow of Maine, who is set up by the Prohibi- 
 tionists. He has been in the fight for a long lifetime. Among 
 the chapters of his career are two elections to the mayoralty 
 of Portland, membership in the legislature and service in the 
 army during the war, where he rose to the rank of l)rigadier- 
 general. He went out as colonel of the thirteenth regiment, 
 an organization composed of the flower of the Maine churches 
 and Sunday-schools, but which never had a chance to kill 
 many rebels. Most of Dow's career as a soldier was in the 
 Gulf department, and the boys used to say that General Butler 
 had a special spite against him because he was a 'psalm- 
 singer,' etc. At all events, a number of men who were in 
 Dow's command remember with exasperation such places as 
 Ship Island, at which they were left where there was all the 
 tedium and liability to disease of camp-life without the 
 remotest prospect of glory on the field. Dow possesses more 
 than the ordinary ability of public men, and his friends say 
 that if he had not sacrificed ambition to hate of the liquor- 
 trafiic he would have occupied a cons})icuous position in the 
 world. Certain it is that in his own state he has exercised a 
 tremendous influence, carrying the people forward with him 
 from one position to another, and even the supporters in the 
 Democratic party of a license system dare not formulate their 
 faith in a political platform. Whether Mr. Dow is right or 
 not, no one doubts his sincerity," 
 
 The National Temperance Advocate said: 
 
 "He is no 'dark horse.' For a quarter of a century he 
 has stood forth as the foremost champion of Prohibition in the 
 world. His sagacity, his wisdom, his ability, and his enthu- 
 siasm conceived the idea of Prohibition, and carried out the
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 147 
 
 inspiration into a practical law, which he has perfected for a 
 long time until it is the admiration of the friends of law and 
 order and the terror of all liquor-sellers." 
 
 An independent paper published in Portland, said: 
 
 " AVhile some of us at times have questioned his methods, 
 no man ever questioned his sincerity or his honesty, and 
 friend and foe alike unite in admiration for his undaunted 
 courasre and perseverance in the presence of obstacles and 
 difficulties which would long ago have daunted a spirit less 
 resolute, a purpose less determined." 
 
 Until 1880, I had uniformly acted with the Republi- 
 can party, supporting its nominations and advocating 
 its principles from platform and through the press, in 
 my own and other states. I had, however, been 
 dissatisfied with the action of the party in Maine at 
 times with reference to Prohibition, and had become 
 so much so that, with other temperance men who, up 
 to that time, had been stalwart Republicans, I refused 
 to support its nominee for governor in 1880. Some of 
 them either voted directly for the Democratic or 
 Fusion candidate, to make their protest more emphat- 
 ic, or for one of the Temperance candidates (there 
 were two) to make it more apparent. More than 
 enough votes were cast for the two Temperance 
 candidates to have elected a Republican governor, 
 had they been given as in the past to that party. As 
 it was, however, the Fusion candidate was chosen. 
 
 This was a presidential year, be it remembered, and 
 the result of the September election gave rise to some 
 apprehension among Republicans in the state, shared 
 by thousands throughout the country, that Maine 
 might be carried by the Democrats in November. 
 Though there was little probability of this, it was not 
 unnatural that such a fear should obtain. Maine had
 
 148 REMINISCENCES 
 
 invariably held in her presidential elections in Novem- 
 ber the same political position taken in the previous 
 September state election, and the Fusionists, with 
 that in mind, had been encouraged by the outcome of 
 the September balloting to strenuous efforts to secure 
 the electoral vote of the state for Hancock. 
 
 Shortly after the September election, I wrote a 
 letter to a friend in another state, giving some of the 
 reasons for the Republican discomfiture in Maine. 
 That letter, with others of similar im])ort, found its 
 way into print. It contained an intimation that but 
 for certain acts therein specified of some Maine 
 Republican politicians, the temperance men would 
 have voted, as usual, the Republican ticket in Sep- 
 tember, and that therefore the Republican candidate 
 for governor would have been elected. In the latter 
 part of October, I received by the hand of a mutual 
 friend, the following letter: 
 
 Augusta, Me., 25th October, 1880. 
 Mij Dear Mr. Doic : 
 
 There were some troubles that stood in the way of complete 
 harmony at the September election in the Repu])lican ranks. 
 I do not stop now to discuss those troubles further than to 
 say that they do not seem to attach to the national election. 
 Your own candidacy as the oldest and most unwavering friend 
 of Prohibition can have no other effect in this state, if an 
 electoral ticket is run, than to increase the chances for 
 Hancock. And I presume that every Dow man would prefer 
 Garfield to Hancock. C'ould you not, either by a public 
 letter, or by private letters to your friends, urire the support 
 of the Garfield electoral ticket? I think a public letter suc- 
 cinctly stating your reasons therefor would be far the best 
 method, and would increase the respect and regard enter- 
 tained for you by your host of old Republican friends in the 
 
 ^'^^^^^ Sincerely your friend, 
 
 James G. Blaine. 
 
 P. S. If done, 'twere well it were done quickly.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 149 
 
 In a long, full, and entirely frank conversation 
 with Mr. Blaine's messenger, I declined to write 
 either a public letter or private communications as 
 suggested, and took occasion to show how entirely 
 improper such a course would be under all the circum- 
 stances, even were I otherwise disposed to comply with 
 Mr. Blaine's request. I talked, as was my habit when 
 conversing with a friend, with great freedom, and 
 said something to the effect that it was undoubtedly 
 true that the great body of the friends of Prohibition 
 in Maine would vote for Garfield electors, as it had 
 been their wont to act with the Republican party, and 
 I also remarked that if it were true, as intimated by 
 Mr. Blaine, ' ' that every Dow man would prefer 
 Grarfield to Hancock " that preference would be 
 expressed by votes without request, suggestion, or 
 intimation of any sort from me. I also said in sub- 
 stance that the Prohi])ition vote for presidential 
 electors in Maine would in any event be so small that 
 there was no occasion for anxiety on the part of Mr. 
 Blaine. In the course of the conversation I referred 
 to my great respect and liking for General Garfield, 
 with whom I had enjoyed a personal acquaintance, 
 and who, on more than one occasion when he had 
 been in Maine, had been so kind as to call on me, as 
 he said ' ' to pay his respects, " and he was always so 
 cordial, whole-souled, and hearty as to lead me to feel 
 that we were something more than mere casual 
 acquaintances. 
 
 My conversation with that gentleman, who was a 
 warm personal friend of mine, as well as of Mr. 
 Blaine, was reported, perhaps with some embellish- 
 ments and additions, in two or three different 
 
 quarters. The outcome was the publication of state- 
 
 11
 
 150 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 ments, as coming from me, for which there was no 
 other foundation than the conversation related. It 
 was bruited all about the country that I had 
 announced my intention of supporting the Republi- 
 can nominee for president, and of doing other things 
 quite out of keeping with the dignity of a presidential 
 candidate, even of one who had no expectation of 
 receiving any considerable number of votes. The 
 result was a large num])er of telegrams from our 
 friends in many states asking questions based upon 
 those reports. I had long before found it impractica- 
 ble to give time or attention to misrepresentations of 
 myself or my position upon any subject, but in this 
 case I deemed it proper to state over my own signature 
 that I was then, as always, true to Prohibition, and 
 had said and done nothing inconsistent with my posi- 
 tion as candidate of the National Prohibition party. 
 
 The success that is measured by majorities we did 
 not expect. We were voting for a principle. Right- 
 feeling voters doing that reap a higher satisfaction 
 than is to be obtained by a nominal triumph secured 
 by sacrificing convictions and stifling conscience. 
 
 By 1884, I had reached an age long past that at 
 which most men interest themselves in public affairs. 
 My long-time friend, James Gr. Blaine, was the Repub- 
 lican candidate for president. The friends of 
 temperance in Maine, in more than one exigency, 
 had received his effective assistance in matters con- 
 nected with Prohibition. That year the prohibitory 
 constitutional amendment was pending before the 
 people of Maine, submitted by a legislature controlled 
 by the political associates of Mr. Blaine, and was to 
 be supported at the polls by thousands of voters 
 attached to him, earnestly desiring his election.
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 151 
 
 My views of what was wise and expedient, under all 
 the circumstances, led me to devote myself wholly to 
 securing as large a majority as possible for the prohib- 
 itory amendment. Some papers charged that there 
 had been an agreement between Mr. Blaine and 
 myself, whereby, in consideration of the support by 
 the Republican organization of constitutional Prohibi- 
 tion, I would withhold my sympathy from the national 
 prohibitory party, which organization was likely to 
 divert votes from the Kepublican candidate in the 
 important state of New York. 
 
 There was no truth in that, and I took occasion to 
 say so. Not a word had passed between Mr. Blaine, 
 or any other person, and myself upon that subject, 
 and so far as I knew there had been no such agree- 
 ment, expressed or implied. I believed then, as I 
 have since, that it was important to our cause in 
 Maine and elsewhere, that the policy of Prohibition 
 should be so intrenched behind a constitutional 
 provision as to be secure from any unexpected 
 attack in the legislature. 
 
 I add that I sincerely desired the election of Mr. 
 Blaine, although unable, had I been disposed, to lend 
 active assistance to his canvass. I seriously regretted 
 his defeat, because I believed that, had he been 
 elected, he would have given the country an adminis- 
 tration which would have contributed to its prosper- 
 ity, and added to his own fame. 
 
 That was the last presidential election in which I 
 have taken more than a passing interest. By 1888, 
 my old-time relations with the Republican party had 
 been completely severed. I voted that year, as in 
 1892, the national ticket of the Prohibition party. 
 Of the seventeen presidential votes I have cast, but
 
 152 EEMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 
 
 six liave been given to successful candidates, but each 
 of those votes represented my convictions, a matter of 
 greater import to every voter than to vote with the 
 majority. 
 
 Yet the safety of the republic will only be assured 
 when a majority of ballots shall represent intelli- 
 gence, clearly discriminating between right and 
 wrong, and conscience consenting to nothing that is 
 evil. Between the saloon and a class of bold political 
 manipulators, shamelessly seeking their own at the 
 public expense, there is a natural alliance, offensive 
 and defensive, against much demanded by the common 
 Aveal. There can be no political end worthier the 
 serious thought, the determined and united action of 
 true patriots than antagonism to that prolific source 
 of evil which serves itself by destroying those essen- 
 tials of good citizenship through which alone can be 
 realized the true greatness and glory of the country.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MAINE. SOME ACCOUNT OF WHAT IT WAS AND WHAT 
 
 IT IS. THE CONDITION OF ITS PEOPLE 
 
 THEN AND NOW. 
 
 To properly understand the origin, rise and progress 
 of the temperance reformation in Maine, some knowl- 
 edge of conditions prevailing in early times is neces- 
 sary. Space is not afforded for more than a cursory 
 glance. Her territory was rich in material resources, 
 as yet all undeveloped and mostly undiscovered. Her 
 immense forests represented untold wealth, while her 
 numerous rivers waited only to be curbed by dams 
 and harnessed to machinery to furnish the power to 
 convert those forests into lumber, and thereafter to 
 run looms and spindles to supply other necessities and 
 comforts of man. Fish in great variety and vast 
 numbers swarmed in the numerous bays along her 
 coasts, while in her large streams salmon literally 
 crowded each other for space. 
 
 Here I am reminded of a story, told me by my 
 father long before modern fish fictions were invented. 
 He was on the Kennebec river one evening, not long 
 after he first came to Maine, and saw a man take 
 seventeen salmon in less than an hour. It used to be 
 said that in articles of apprenticeship it was common
 
 154 EEMINISCEXCES 
 
 to stipulate that boys bound by tliem should not be 
 compelled to partake of that fish at more than a speci- 
 fied number of meals in any one week. 
 
 Everybody understands the demoralization attend- 
 ant upon a soldier's life in time of war, and there are 
 some facts which suggest that Maine may have suf- 
 fered to some extent from this. Massachusetts, of 
 which the district of Maine was a part, furnished 
 nearly thirty-six per cent of all the regular troops, 
 and more than twenty-seven per cent of all the militia 
 engaged upon the side of the colonies during the Kevo- 
 lutionary war. When the last war with Great Britain 
 was declared, the district of Maine was called upon 
 for two thousand, five hundred militia, and the next 
 year a tax of i>74,220 was levied upon her people. 
 During the war her enrolled militia, numbered over 
 twenty-one thousand men. It has been claimed that, 
 in proportion to her population, the district furnished 
 more soldiers to that war than did any state. If this 
 is true, it is evident that as a new country, as it then 
 comparatively was, Maine had a larger proportion of 
 men without families than any other portion of the 
 Union, a fact affecting other conditions to which 
 reference is elsewhere made. 
 
 Maine suffered greatly during that war. Her 
 interests were largely commercial, and her shipping 
 was destroyed, or rendered unproductive. Her entire 
 coast was exposed to British cruisers, which watched 
 her ports to seize and destroy whatever they could 
 conveniently reach. Several places lost much from 
 English troops landed to fortify harbors for their 
 blockading squadrons or to obtain suj^plies. That 
 portion of the district by any possibility exposed to 
 attack was in a constant state of alarm. Not only
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 155 
 
 were the ordinary occupations of the people seriously 
 interrupted, but so large a proportion of the male 
 population was for longer or shorter periods in camp, 
 that habits contracted there came subsequently to 
 exert a marked influence upon the entire community. 
 
 Great as was its loss caused directly by the war, the 
 district suffered yet more from intemperance, which 
 historical writers, in no way specially interested in 
 temperance reform, have noted as excessive, and have 
 attributed to the influence of the war. In the absence 
 of any concerted movement to check it, this vice 
 increased, fostered by the trade with the West Indies, 
 which took fish and lumber from Maine, to be largely 
 exchanged for rum. 
 
 In 1820 Maine was admitted to the Union, having at 
 that date a population of 298,000. Ten years later the 
 census numbered about 400,000, or an increase of 
 nearly 33 per cent. By 1840 the population was 
 500,000, and the census of 1850 placed the number at 
 583,000. In 1860 it had further increased to 628,000. 
 In the next, or war, decade, the population fell off 
 slightly, being in 1870 a trifle less than 627,000. In 
 1880 the tide turned again, and the population was 
 648,945. 
 
 Numbers, however, are not always an indication of 
 prosperity and happiness. Those who know what 
 Maine was once, as disclosed in the circumstances of 
 her people, and what she is now, may well wonder 
 that even the intervening years have wrought so great 
 a change. Once poorer, perhaps, than any state in the 
 Union, she has taken rank in wealth much in advance 
 of her relative position as to population, while in the 
 general comfort, thrift and happiness of her people, 
 she is excelled nowhere on the face of the globe.
 
 156 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 It was far otherwise when I became old enough to 
 observe and to think, and that was after earnest men 
 in Maine, startled by the evils of intemperance in the 
 midst of which our people lived, had engaged in more 
 or less systematic efforts to correct them. Those 
 efforts had by this time been productive of good, not 
 so much by the actual removal of existing evils as in 
 calling attention to the necessity for a change — the 
 sowing of seed in the intelligences and consciences of 
 a really noble people — seed that, because it fell into 
 such good soil, was soon to spring up in a wide-spread 
 organized movement for a genuine, permanent, and 
 marvelous change for the better. 
 
 Few now living have personal knowledge of those 
 times, and only such can appreciate the value to the 
 state of the movement, which, inaugurated before her 
 admission to the Union, w^hile I was a boy, was faith- 
 fully, zealously and unremittingly carried on by 
 earnest men and warm-hearted women for more than 
 the lifetime of a generation before it reached its 
 logical result in the outlawry of the liquor-traflic as 
 inconsistent with the general good, and as justly 
 chargeable with the greater part of the evils to 
 which our people were exposed. 
 
 Some wonder now why time and strength and 
 thought and means should have been devoted to a 
 temperance reformation. Could such be made to com- 
 prehend the situation in those early days their surprise 
 would cease. When a conflagration is raging, all are 
 interested and anxious to do what they may to extin- 
 guish it; when it is in great measure under control, 
 the efforts of many are relaxed; when but slumbering 
 embers remain, those alone whose specific duty it is 
 give attention to it.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 157 
 
 Only tlie remnants of intemperance in Maine, when 
 compared with what it was, are now left, and, 
 naturally, only those who know what the condition 
 was then, or who comprehend the danger lurking in 
 what remains, are drawn to give the attention neces- 
 sary to protect society from it. They understand 
 that, unless watched, like a flickering fire well-nigh 
 extinguished, it may at any time result in even 
 greater damage than was before threatened. 
 
 In the old time, to be drunk frequently was not to 
 lose standing, or, indeed, even to excite unfavorable 
 comment, and I remember hearing it said that the 
 men who had never been under the influence of liquor 
 were no more numerous than those who had been 
 intoxicated many times. That was probably an exag- 
 geration. Those alone addicted to the excessive use 
 of liquor were the subjects of criticism, so that long 
 before a man deriving a moderate income from his 
 daily labor was exposed to censure or reproof he was 
 often expending for drink money which his family 
 could not do without save at the expense of the 
 comforts and necessaries of life. This constant drain 
 upon wages earned, and the loss of wages which, but 
 for their habits, might have been earned, kept large 
 numbers of working-men poor, and their families 
 scantily clothed and fed. To this evil were all too 
 frequently added the greater degradation and the 
 more acute misery due to confirmed and gross 
 intemperance. 
 
 Some estimate of the extent of the traffic and habits 
 of that day may be formed by those who recognize 
 the intimate connection between supply and demand, 
 from the fact that when the population of Portland 
 was less than four thousand, eighty-one places within
 
 158 REMINISCENCES 
 
 its limits were licensed to sell liquor. In 1823, the 
 population of Portland being about nine thousand, 
 there were over two hundred licensed places in the 
 town, and no more attention was paid to the restric- 
 tions of a license-law here at that time than is given 
 elsewhere now: 
 At its annual town-meeting in 1823, the town voted: 
 
 "That the inspector of the police department be instructed 
 to make complaint to the proper authority against all such 
 persons as shall presume to retail spirituous liquors in this 
 town without being duly licensed." 
 
 And it would appear also that others than respect- 
 able citizens were engaged in the traffic, for, at the 
 same meeting, the town voted: 
 
 *' That the selectmen be requested to grant license in future 
 to no persons as retailers of spirituous liquors unless they are 
 satisfactorily recommended for that purpose." 
 
 This was in conformity with the law of the state 
 providing that the licensing board of towns ' ' may 
 license as many persons of sober life and conversation, 
 and suitably qualified for the employment, as they 
 may deem necessary." 
 
 Among the mechanics and laboring men of that day 
 it was as much the rule to quit work at eleven in the 
 forenoon and four in the afternoon to drink, as it is 
 now to rest at noon; and in Portland "eleven o'clock" 
 was sounded by the town bell-ringer, to notify all of 
 the hour for drink, as regularly as the nine o'clock 
 bell was rung in the evening. 
 
 In every grocer's shop were casks, larger or smaller 
 according to the capital invested, labeled "Rum," 
 "Gin," "Brandy." and in some cases with the names 
 of different varieties of wines. Often in the larger
 
 OF NEAL DOAV. 159 
 
 towns, as was tlie case in Portland, outside the stores 
 on the sidewalks to attract attention to the large 
 business done, were puncheons and casks which had 
 contained these liquors. Many of these places kept 
 rum punch constantly prepared in a tub, sometimes 
 on the sidewalk, just as lemonade is to be seen now 
 on the Fourth of July, or other gala-days. This was 
 a favorite beverage with those who were apprentices 
 at drinking. 
 
 Among the rich, educated and refined of the day, 
 frequent victims of intemperance were to be found, as 
 well as among those whose temptation and liability to 
 excess are generally regarded as greater. Liquor 
 found place on all occasions. Town-meetings, mus- 
 ters, firemen's parades, cattle-shows, fairs, and, in 
 short, every gathering of the people of a public or 
 social nature resulted almost invariably in scenes 
 which in these days would shock the people of Maine 
 into indignation, but which then were regarded as a 
 matter of course. Private assemblies were little 
 better. Weddings, balls, parties, huskings, barn- 
 raisings, and even funerals, were dependent upon 
 intoxicants, while often religious conferences and 
 ministerial gatherings resulted in an increase of the 
 ordinary consumption of liquors. 
 
 Years ago, while on one of my pilgrimages through 
 the country districts of Maine to preach the gospel of 
 reform, I was shown an account of the liquors pro- 
 vided for the dedication, in the closing years of the 
 last century, of a meeting-house standing on the spot 
 occupied by that in which my meeting was held. 
 Almost fifty years had elapsed since that dedication, 
 but there were yet living members of the church who 
 could remember the " jolly " time. They told me also
 
 160 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 that in time the drinking habits of their first minister 
 had so grown upon him that, after many promises on 
 his part to heed the injunctions of his church to drink 
 less, and after several appearances in such a condition 
 that he could scarcely mount the pulpit stairs, the 
 church finally dismissed him, but in doing this dis- 
 cord was created that for a time threatened the 
 dissolution of the society. 
 
 It was related of one of the earlier pastors of a 
 Portland church, that, one day, with a deacon he was 
 making a round of calls upon his parishioners, and 
 at every house was asked and expected to ' ' take 
 something," as was the common custom among the 
 ministers of the time. The good parson, after accept- 
 ing as many of those invitations to drink as he deemed 
 prudent, said: 
 
 "Deacon, this will never do; we shall all be 
 drunkards together. I will not drink any more." 
 
 On one occasion a number of men were injured by 
 the collapse of the frame of a church in process of 
 erection, in the town of Gorham, about ten miles 
 distant from Portland. The accident was due to the 
 drunkenness of one or two of the men engaged in the 
 work. Teams came into Portland for doctors to set 
 the broken limbs and repair other damages. The 
 "M. D.'s " were at some festive gathering, it was said, 
 in such a condition from drink as to be unable to 
 respond to the call, hence the injured men remained 
 without surgical aid until the next day, when some of 
 the Portland doctors were sufficiently sober to attend 
 to them. This incident fairly illustrates the general 
 habit, and no one lost either social, political, or, 
 save in extreme cases, religious standing, by such 
 excess.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 161 
 
 If I am rightly informed, the first large building 
 erected in western Maine without the use of liquor 
 was built by my long-time friend, the late Isaac Dyer, 
 of Baldwin. Mr. Dyer was largely interested in 
 lumbering, and carried on an extensive general busi- 
 ness besides. As to this particular building, I under- 
 stand that Mr. Dyer offered his workmen more than 
 the cost of the usual liquor ration in cash if they 
 would work without it. They consented, and it was 
 learned in that vicinity that men could do hard work 
 without rum — doubtless a surprise to many of them. 
 I had been acquainted with Mr. Dyer before this, and 
 have been told that he tried this experiment because 
 of some conversation I had had with him upon the 
 subject, but I have no recollection of talking with him 
 about it. 
 
 In my later young manhood, and early maturity, 
 public dinners, controlled by the leading business 
 men of the town, were almost invariably supplied 
 with different kinds of liquors, and frequently 
 resulted in exhibitions that would seriously affect 
 the reputation and standing to-day of persons indulg- 
 ing to such excess. I was sometimes a guest on those 
 occasions, and my companionship was much sought, 
 a seat by my side being competed for facetiously by a 
 number, because, as I never drank, he who sat next 
 me could get my share of the liquor served, whatever 
 it was. 
 
 I have seen highly respectable gentlemen on such 
 occasions jump upon the tables and dance a jig to the 
 encouraging shouts of those present in a condition to 
 see and approve of such manifestations. With all the 
 progress that has been made, I fear there are some 
 to-day who would prefer the ' ' good old times, " when
 
 162 REMINISCENCES 
 
 such actions would be regarded by all present at such 
 gatherings as quite the thing for the most respectable 
 citizens. 
 
 Some time before the date of which I am now 
 writing, the intemperate condition of our people must 
 have attracted attention, for an almanac ' ' Calculated 
 for the Meridian of Portland," issued in 1793, con- 
 tained a lecture, entitled "Effects of Spirituous 
 Liquors Upon the Human Body," delivered by 
 Benjamin Eush, M. D. 
 
 The indebtedness of the people of this country to 
 that celebrated statesman and surgeon of the Eev- 
 olution, who was a signer of the Declaration of 
 Independence, cannot be too highly estimated. 
 Important as were his services at the birth-struggle 
 of his country, he was yet more useful as the pioneer 
 of the temperance reformation. A century ago he 
 truly said: 
 
 " A people corrupted with strong drink cannot long be a 
 free people. The inilers of such a community will soon par- 
 take of the vices of that mass from which the}^ are selected, 
 and all our laws and governments will sooner or later bear 
 the same marks of spirituous liquors which were described 
 formerly by human individuals." 
 
 There are thoughtful people now who trace as 
 clearly in the governments of some of our larger 
 cities the evil influences of the liquor-saloon as they 
 do in the blurred eyes, blotched faces, feeble bodies 
 and mental and moral demoralization of many of 
 its human victims. 
 
 Other portions of that old almanac indicate that its 
 publisher was not too deeply impressed by the argu- 
 ments presented by the patriotic and distinguished 
 author of that address, or, perhaps, having put the
 
 OF NEAL DOW. • 163 
 
 former in type, he concluded that it would be 
 unpalatable to many of his readers and decided to 
 give them something more to their liking under the 
 head of "Advice to Tavern Keepers." Hear him: 
 
 ' ' Here I would remark that whatever extraordinary fare 
 the tavern-keeper provides for his guest, he ought to be paid 
 accordingly, but he must remember that he should try to 
 accommodate all — some like rum, some like strong beer, 
 some cider, some wine, etc., 
 
 " You cannot, for example, l)uy a pipe of Madeira wine of 
 the iirst quality — but you can keep a gallon or two for 
 several months — and when gentlemen find a glass of good 
 wine in the country, the}^ are willing to give a good price for 
 it. But I would recommend it to you to be more careful in 
 the choice of your wine. Few of you are judges of wine — 
 and when you purchase, the wine-sellers turn you off with 
 any adulterated mixture they please. 
 
 "After a great number of experiments, I can safely de- 
 clare, that nine times out often, the wine I have called for in 
 country taverns has been a mixture of cider, molasses, and a 
 little real wine ; or brandy and wine, and not unfrequently 
 with a strong tincture of sugar of lead. Such mixtures pass, 
 in the country, for Malaga, or other sweet wine. To avoid 
 impositions in purchasing wine, get some gentleman who has 
 always been used to wine to choose it for you, and keep a 
 little of the best quality for such passengers as are willing to 
 pay for it. 
 
 " With respect to spirits, the same advice is necessary — 
 but of the quality of spirits 3'ou are better judges, and there- 
 fore less liable to imposition." 
 
 I cannot refrain from interpolating here the 
 suggestion that the foregoing is fair evidence that 
 the adulteration of liquors, so frequently charged 
 to Prohibition, antedated that policy by many years. 
 
 " .When you bring on liquors, endeavor 
 
 to give every one a separate glass. If you have not enough 
 in the house, you will be excused ; but gentlemen do not 
 like that all the company should drink out of the same 
 vessel."
 
 164 • EEMINISCEKCES 
 
 Now follows advice indicating that tlie ' 'taverners " 
 of the old time were quite like some modern hotel- 
 keepers who make the liquor department of their 
 establishment of more consequence than the hotel 
 proper. 
 
 ' ' Endeavor to accommodate different companies with dif- 
 ferent rooms. Nothino; is more disao'reealde than to 
 crowd a number of strangers into the same room ; or to 
 oblige travelers to sit down with grog drinkers in the bar- 
 room. Furnish yourselves, if possible, with beds enough to 
 give every lodger one to himself. It is a monstrous, inde- 
 cent, as well as unsafe, practice, for persons, perhaps total 
 strangers, to sleep in the same ])ed. It is an afiront to a 
 man to request it. And a word to you about keeping your 
 beds clean. Give every decent man a decent bed. Every 
 one ought to have clean, fresh sheets ; it is an imposition to 
 ask a man to lie on sheets, that have before been lain on by 
 you know not who ; you say it is a great trouble — very well, 
 then make your lodgers pay for the trouble. Those who 
 expect clean beds are willing to pay for them." 
 
 Unquestionably the tavern-keepers of Maine, and 
 the grocers as well, acted upon such advice so far as 
 to keep in stock liquors in reasonable variety and of 
 sufficient quantity. In regard to quality the evidence 
 is not so clear. 
 
 The advice as to the separate glass recalls to mind a 
 country store-keeper, who, like all his competitors of 
 the time to which I refer, sold liquor. I knew him 
 well. He abandoned the trade in liquor before the 
 enactment of the Maine Law. He was a very respect- 
 able citizen, had a large trade and became for his 
 time and place a wealthy man. He had a deformed 
 hand. In filling a glass for his customers he invari- 
 ably held it Avith thumb inside, decreasing by so 
 much the capacity of the glass. One day one of 
 his regular customers for liquor was behind in the
 
 or NEAL DOW. 165 
 
 settlement of his score, and lie refused to trust him 
 for any more of the ardent. 
 
 "Look a here, Squire," said the thirsty applicant, 
 "I have bought and paid for that 'ere thumb of yours 
 often enough for you to be a little more liberal. 
 Come now, give us a glass. " 
 
 He got one. The practice of this store-keeper was 
 not over nice, perhaps, but the general tendency of 
 drinking is not toward cleanliness. 
 
 A clergyman, the Rev. Thomas Adams, who was 
 settled in Vassalboro over the Congregational church 
 in 1817, and who, in 1834, left his charge to assume an 
 agency of the Maine Temperance Society, has left an 
 account of his observations when he first visited 
 Maine. 
 
 He says: 
 
 , "In 1817, the common use of alcoholic liquors as a bever- 
 age was universal, and no one seemed to regard it as in any 
 manner improper. No retail merchant thought of doing 
 business without keeping alcoholic liquors for sale. No 
 movement had been made in the direction of opposing the 
 drinking habits of the Congregational church in Vassalboro, 
 and for several years after I heard nothing on the subject of 
 temperance, and scarcely thought of it — certainly not in the 
 direction of total abstinence. 
 
 " When I commenced housekeeping I purchased two pairs 
 of decanters, and should probably have felt mortified when 
 visitors called, or the meeting of the Ministers' Association 
 came round, had they not been well supplied with the usual 
 variety. I well recollect that, on settling a pretty long 
 account with a merchant, he felt so well pleased at getting 
 his pay that he requested me to bring over my gallon jug 
 and he would fill it with l^randy. Of course the thing was 
 done. 
 
 " The principal merchant in my parish was a strict temper- 
 ance man, I presume then a total abstinent, a great enemy of 
 intemperance, the sad effects of which he saw in some of his 
 near neighbors. This gentleman preached temperance, but
 
 166 REMINISCENCES 
 
 continued to sell rum. There was a shelf in the store at 
 which tipplers were accustomed to take their drams. The 
 merchant's son, one day, wrote in large characters on the wall 
 above the tipplers' shelf, ' Moderate drinking, the down-hill 
 road to intemperance.'" 
 
 When I was a boy, there was a country store ahnost 
 directly opposite my father's house, kept by a most 
 estimable citizen. Liquor was on tap there, and on 
 many a morning before the store was opened I saw, 
 sitting on a rough settle outside the door, the well- 
 known topers of the neighborhood waiting to obtain 
 their morning drams. 
 
 That store was on the highway over which many 
 country teams passed before the days of railroads and 
 canals. These teams came at all seasons of the year, 
 but in greater numbers in the winter, when the road 
 through the White Mountain Notch was passable 
 from what was called the "Coos country, "or northern 
 New Hampshire and Vermont. These Coos teams, as 
 well as many from nearer points, had four, six and 
 sometimes eight horses, and there were also numerous 
 ox- teams. 
 
 Near my home there was a slight bend or curve in 
 the road, and often, as far as eye could reach either 
 way, I have seen the road filled with long lines of 
 teams. Their loads varied. Coming into town they 
 brought wood, lumber, barrels, shooks, masts for the 
 shipyards, bark, hides, wool, butter, cheese and all the 
 products of forest, field and farm for consumption 
 there or for exportation by its shipping. Returning, 
 they carried fish, molasses and dry goods — rum was 
 never missing — and whatever else our stores could 
 furnish that the country traders could dispose of to 
 the farmers.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 167 
 
 Almost invariably these teams would stop at this 
 store — the teamsters going in to get a drink. If it 
 happened that any one in the line did not want to do 
 that, he would have to turn out and go by, at the risk 
 of a quarrel perhaps, or wait until those ahead of him 
 had quenched their thirst, some of these being occa- 
 sionally m such an inflamed condition from drink 
 that disturbances were by no means unusual. When 
 I was quite a small boy, I saw one teamster fell 
 another with a blow from a goad-stick. 
 
 Several years after this, the wife of the owner of 
 this store, influenced by the growing sentiment 
 against the trafiic, asked her husband to abandon it. 
 He said: 
 
 "I am willing to, but you cannot live in so large or 
 comfortable a house as now if I do. " 
 
 ' ' I am willing to live in the poorest house in town, " 
 she replied, ' ' if you will sell no more rum ! " 
 
 The business was abandoned, and the store, con- 
 verted into a house, became their home in place of the 
 larger one in which they formerly lived. 
 
 All over the state similar places existed, and the 
 effects were to be seen in neglected and badly culti- 
 vated farms, shabby, dilapidated buildings, in tumble- 
 down schoolhouses and other public buildings, in 
 leaky roofs, hingeless doors and gates, old hats and 
 garments in windows in place of glass, in miserable 
 houses, and in shiftlessness, idleness and intem- 
 perance. This continued long after my boyhood. 
 
 At the time of the admission of Maine to the Union, 
 and for thirty years thereafter, her people probably 
 consumed more intoxicating liquor in proportion to 
 thfiir numbers than the i)eople of any other state. 
 Aside from the causes already noticed, this may be
 
 168 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 attributed in a measure to tlie nature of the employ- 
 ment of a large proportion of lier male population, 
 whicli separated tlie men for several months in each 
 year from their families, and deprived them to that 
 extent of the restraining, conserving and elevating 
 influences of home life, and exposed them peculiarly 
 to temptation to excess in the use of stimulants. 
 
 The leading industries in the state were lumbering- 
 and fishing. Great numbers of men were living in 
 log camps in the winter, engaged in felling trees, 
 transporting them to lakes, ponds or rivers, and, upon 
 the breaking up of the ice in the spring, in driving 
 logs down the swollen streams to sawmills. These 
 were to be found on almost every considerable stream, 
 and were kept running summer and winter, if the 
 supply of water and logs was sufficient, and often 
 were run at night as well as by day. 
 
 The hardships incident to this employment cannot 
 be described, and to be appreciated must be experi- 
 enced. The men engaged worked in the winter 
 laboriously all day in the severest weather of a 
 rugged climate, when other occupations were sus- 
 pended. Rest and shelter at night were secured at 
 the expense of fresh air in over-crowded log huts. 
 Kecreation in the long evenings was found in cards, in 
 song and dance, in story telling and liquor drinking, 
 often interspersed with the quarreling and fighting 
 excited by intoxication. 
 
 In the spring, when log driving commenced, the 
 hardships were varied, l3ut not lessened. As they 
 took rafts of logs down the river the men were much 
 in the water, often up to their waists, and not infre- 
 quently all .under, some of them never to emerge again 
 alive. None but iron constitutions could endure the
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 169 
 
 life of the lumberman. There were, of course, some 
 logging camps not included in this description of the 
 vast majority. 
 
 In the coast towns, most of the men who did not 
 work at lumbering were engaged in the fisheries, in 
 which industry, during the season, many vessels were 
 employed, while the inhabitants of the small hamlets 
 upon the shore made a scanty living by fishing from 
 boats. The hardships of their lives were scarcely less 
 severe than those of the lumbermen, while the dan- 
 gers, and perhaps temptations, were greater. 
 
 The prevalent opinion that liquor was a panacea for 
 all complaints, a protection in all forms of exposure, a 
 relief for fatigue and pain, and for other discomforts 
 incident to hard labor and extremes of heat and cold, 
 made its use general among fishermen and lumbermen, 
 and it was an important part of their daily rations. 
 The excitement of drink took the place of the com- 
 forts of life, and, the appetite being thus created, 
 excess naturally followed. The drinking habits of 
 logging camp and fishing smack were kept up during 
 the off seasons of work in town, village and hamlet, 
 and the " stay-at-homes " vied in dissipation with the 
 men who had returned from work in the woods or on 
 the sea. The boys imitated their elders, until indul- 
 gence in drink almost everywhere was the rule. 
 These habits spread easily because there was no 
 opposing public opinion. 
 
 The common drink was rum, though a sort of 
 whiskey, a fiery liquor, was produced from potatoes, 
 in small distilleries scattered through the rural dis- 
 tricts. The manufactured lumber, and the products 
 of the fisheries, were exported in large quantities to 
 the West Indies, and the returns were rum and
 
 170 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 molasses, the latter being mostly converted into New 
 England rum at tlie numerous distilleries, of which 
 there were several in Portland alone, some of them 
 large, often running day and night. Kum, imported 
 and domestic, was consumed in great quantities; the 
 earnings of the men were wasted, and the capacity to 
 earn was, to a great extent, impaired. 
 
 A prominent citizen of Maine, in his younger days 
 clerk in a store in a shipbuilding village, has given 
 the following account of old times in the vicinity 
 where he lived: 
 
 " My employer built vessels on a large scale, and employed 
 many men, who took up their wages mostly at the store in 
 family supplies and in rum for themselves. The store was 
 open on Sunday to supply customers with rum. There were 
 three other stores in the village, in all of which liquors were 
 sold, but in no other so much as in that where I was employed. 
 
 "Everybody drank liquor, and rum was considered almost 
 as necessary as flour. There must have been sold by all 
 the traders of that village at least three puncheons of West 
 India rum each week, taking no account of the water which 
 was surreptitiously put in and sold at the same price. 
 
 " The working men and their families were always poor; 
 the men on settlement of their accounts rarely had any 
 balance coming to them — often it was the other way — - and it 
 was quite common for a farmer to be in arrears on the annual 
 settling-day,, in which case he gave a note for the balance, 
 and when the indebtedness amounted to one hundred dollars 
 or more my emj)loyers always required security by a mort- 
 gage on the farm. This was the practice among the traders, 
 with the result that a very large number of the farms were 
 under mortgage, and the farmers were becoming poorer exevy 
 year. 
 
 " On Saturday nights the workmen on the ships, and other 
 village people, were collected in the stores to drink, talk 
 politics, ' horse, ' and upon other topics of local and general 
 interest. Frequently there were quarrels and more or less 
 fighting. The farmers from the surrounding country would 
 be there also, unless kept away by storms, hence the stores 
 were frequently crowded with people, some in the noisy
 
 OP NEAL DOW. 171 
 
 stages of intoxication. We had in the village a justice and 
 two lawyers. There was always a court on Monday to settle 
 the quarrels of Saturday night, and this gave full employ- 
 ment to the lawyers, so that between the traders with their 
 rum and the lawyers with their fees, many of the people 
 rarely saved a cent of what they earned." 
 
 One of the most prominent and honored citizens of 
 Portland, recently deceased, a wholesale grocer on a 
 large scale, who had formerly been engaged in the 
 liquor-traffic, but who had abandoned it before the 
 days of Prohibition, said to me: 
 
 "I have something to tell you that I think will interest 
 you. Some time ago I had occasion for a general overhaul- 
 ing of my old books, and I was surprised to find that more 
 than two-thirds in number of all my sales were of liquors. 
 These were taken by the ox-teams of the traders and carried 
 in every direction from Portland, north, east, west, and their 
 course could be almost as distinctly marked by poverty, 
 dilapidation and decay as the path of a conflagration through 
 a forest." 
 
 Go into any old-time, long-established country store 
 in Maine, get a look at the books if you can, covering 
 the period from 1820 down to 1835 and 1840, and you 
 will be surprised to find, as I have repeatedly found, 
 that the majority of the entries are for liquor in some 
 one of its many forms. 
 
 Editor D. R. Locke, of the Toledo (Ohio) Blade^ 
 famous as Petroleum V. Nasby, came into Maine to 
 investigate Prohibition for himself. He afterward 
 said in his paper: 
 
 " I was shown one set of l)ooks in a village near Portland 
 of ante-Prohibition times, which represented a business in 
 goods of all sorts. Eighty-four per cent of the entries 
 were for rum. Boots and shoes, dress goods, sheeting and 
 shirting, hats and caps and groceries appeared at rare inter- 
 vals, but rum was splotched over every page."
 
 172 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 Hear liim again: 
 
 "Every village had its rumshops, and those of any preten- 
 sions, scores of them. Lawlessness and order-l)reaking were 
 common ; brawls and fighting were invaria])le on election 
 days and all public occasions, and, in short, the state was 
 demoralized as a state wholly given over to rum always is. 
 It was the regular thing — rum, slothfulness, poverty and 
 lawlessness. 
 
 In one village he asked of the older residents: 
 "What was the condition of the village in those 
 days ? " 
 
 " As bad as could be. The village was then largely inter- 
 ested in lumber. We had several mills here, the timl>er 
 coming down the river. The village was filled constantly 
 with half-drunken, rufiianly men, who laughed at law and 
 despised order. Strangers riding through were assailed and 
 compelled to pay for rum for their assailants, and on public 
 days it was a pandemonium. Drunkenness was universal. 
 The dwellings in the village were shabby in the extreme, 
 for everything went to rum. The women and children were 
 insufiiciently clothed and scantily fed. There was no regular- 
 ity in labor, and nothing prospered but the liquor-stores. 
 The liquor-dealers absorbed all the money. 
 
 " The farms were even worse than the village. You might 
 ride for miles without seeing a painted house, a sound fence, 
 or windows without broken glass in them. Rags and old hats 
 su])plied the place of glass in the window sashes. The stock 
 was of the poorest and badly kept. Crops were meagre and 
 uncertain, for the rum mills confiscated the time necessary to 
 the i)roper working of the farm. Rum not only took nearly 
 everything the farmers produced, but so sapped their energy 
 and lal>oring power as to reduce ])roduction to a very low 
 point. With the farmers it was rum in plenty, but for them- 
 selves, their wives and children, the most meagre supplies of 
 the necessaries of life in quantity and the cheapest and worst 
 in quality. 
 
 " A dozen old men who were born in the neighborhood 
 testified to the correctness of this horrible statement." 
 
 Editor Locke published much else tending to show 
 the conditions forced upon the people of Maine by the
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 173 
 
 liquor-traffic existing in the state prior to the adoption 
 of Prohibition. His statements upon that point hav- 
 ing been called in question, he replied, and, premising 
 that he did not live in Maine at the time referred to, 
 and could not, therefore, say from his own knowledge 
 that the statements made were true, went on to say 
 that he had obtained the information upon which he 
 had based his statements from "old, respectable citi- 
 zens, who have grown gray in the state, who made the 
 state, and men whose utterances would be accepted 
 anywhere without a question. • Not one only was 
 interviewed on the subject, but hundreds, and more 
 than hundreds. The testimony was unanimous. It 
 did not vary at all except in degree of badness. 
 Every one bore testimony to the fact that the condi- 
 tion of the state was very bad, that rum drinking was 
 universal, and that its effect was the demoralization 
 and ruin of the state." 
 
 Northwest of Portland are two large bodies of 
 water, Sebago Lake and Long Pond, connected by a 
 river flowing from the latter to the former, navigable 
 for about thirty miles. This is the source of the 
 water supply of Portland, unlimited in quantity, 
 excelled in purity by none in the world. It is plied 
 now by excursion steamers, and is a most charming 
 resort for pleasure seekers, the air delightful, the 
 scenery beautiful beyond description. 
 
 Sebago Lake in the old time was connected with 
 tide water at Portland by a canal about seventeen 
 miles in length. By this there was much freighting 
 between the city and the interior bordering upon 
 these waters. Farm products, and wood and lumber 
 in many forms and in large quantities, were brought 
 to the wharves in Portland, while supplies for the
 
 174 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 interior were taken back by that cliannel. A friend 
 of mine had a wire factory at Harrison, at the north- 
 erly end of Long Pond. He said to me that a canal 
 boatman, who was engaged as a common carrier from 
 Portland, told him that in the year before the enact- 
 ment of the Maine Liquor Law he carried from Port- 
 land to the towns on that line, three hundred barrels 
 of rum. That was a fair sample of his annual busi- 
 ness in transporting liquor. 
 
 Several years after this I was at a temperance 
 meeting in Bridgton, a beautiful village about a mile 
 from the shores of Long Pond, and repeated that 
 statement. At the close of the meeting a citizen of 
 the town came to me and said that he ran a boat on 
 that canal, making a round trip to Portland every 
 week. Before the enactment of the Maine Law he 
 had never made a return trip with less than a 
 puncheon of rum and from five to ten barrels of the 
 same liquor; that there were always twelve, and 
 sometimes more boats on the canal, and that his 
 boat carried no more rum than others. 
 
 At a public meeting in the village of Raymond on 
 the shores of Sebago Lake, a prominent citizen, the 
 late Hon. James M. Leach, who had been a member of 
 the constitutional convention of the state, and subse- 
 quently of the state senate, said to me, referring to 
 the amount of liquor brought into the town by canal- 
 boats and teams from Portland, that it could be 
 proven by the old account books in existence in Ray- 
 mond, that its people consumed more strong drink in 
 every period of eighteen years than the entire valua- 
 tion of the town. 
 
 I insert here a clipping from a letter written by 
 Rev. R. B. Howard, formerly a resident of this state,
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 175 
 
 but at the time of its publication a citizen of New 
 Jersey, published some time in 1876, in the Chicago 
 Advance: 
 
 " In 1847-'48, I attended school and during the winter 
 taught in two districts near the delightfully situated village of 
 Wayne, in Kennebec county. That place was then cursed, 
 and had been from the first, with an old-fashioned rumshop 
 combined with a country store. Nearly all the trade in the 
 neighborhood where I first taught was done at the groggery, 
 and New England rum ' rectified ' with water and turpentine, 
 was the chief article bought by the parents of some of my 
 pupils. A poor set of fellows, half laborers and two-thirds 
 loafers, hung around the village, whetting their appetite for 
 rum with crackers and codfish, their chief articles of diet. 
 For twenty years that drunkard factory turned out its prod- 
 ucts of poverty, misery and crime. The father of one of 
 my scholars had been in state-prison for the attempted 
 murder of another whom he had left in a stream of water 
 for dead. Both were drunk." 
 
 At a meeting I attended at what is now the beautiful 
 and prosperous village of Fryeburg, a town in Oxford 
 county, named for Greneral Frye, a Revolutionary 
 officer, and the grandfather of our present United 
 States Senator Frye, a resident physician, Dr. Bar- 
 rows, known and honored throughout the state, said 
 in the course of a speech: "There are now in this 
 village twenty widows whose husbands were killed by 
 drink. " Fryeburg was by no means exceptional in the 
 matter of intemperance, and may be considered as 
 fairly representative of the state at large in that 
 particular. 
 
 As late as 1840, a committee appointed at a temper- 
 ance meeting in Portland for the purpose of investi- 
 gating the subject, which committee included two 
 citizens who were subsequently mayors of the city, 
 reported that there were five hundred common drunk-
 
 176 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 ards in a population of about twelve thousand, and 
 that one thousand, at least, were addicted to the 
 excessive use of intoxicants. There is no reason to 
 suppose that Portland in this particular differed much 
 from the rest of the state. 
 
 Testimony might be adduced indefinitely, tending 
 to show the vast extent of the liquor-trafRc and the 
 resulting evils in Maine before the enactment of the 
 prohibitory law. There are few now living acquainted 
 with Maine in those days, and those who know it now 
 and are familiar with its abounding evidences of 
 thrift can hardly understand what it was then. No 
 person could fail to notice the general poverty of the 
 state, and no thoughtful person could fail to connect 
 cause and effect, and to see that much of this poverty 
 was the direct result of the general distribution of the 
 traffic in liquor. 
 
 It is not to be understood from that general descrip- 
 tion of conditions in early Maine that all, or a major 
 part, of her people were suffering from their own 
 excessive indulgence in intoxicants. Such was by no 
 means the case, but all, nevertheless, were laboring 
 under the burdens imposed upon them by the liquor- 
 traffic. Just as an entire army, though largely com- 
 posed of brave men, may be beaten into a hopeless 
 rout if a few score in its line of battle awaiting a 
 charge puts up the despairing cry of " Sauve qui peutf'' 
 so the best material for citizenship may find progress 
 blocked, if, in addition to surmounting obstacles 
 itself, it is obliged to drag useless lumber with it. 
 The chief evil of the liquor-traffic is that, as the rain 
 falls alike upon the just and unjust, so it imposes its 
 multiform burdens upon an entire community, per- 
 mitting nothing in the wide range of its diversified
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 177 
 
 interests to escape. The sober, the industrious, the 
 thrifty citizen bears his portion, if in a manner less 
 apparent than do those through whose indiscretions 
 the more palpable injury is wrought. 
 
 Good authorities upon such matters have held that 
 it is a dangerous, generally a disastrous, strain to put 
 upon the courage and discipline of the best troops to 
 expose them to a fire which would put one in ten of 
 their number hors du comhat. In such cases the 
 repulse to be expected would not be due alone to the 
 direct loss sustained by the decimation; more than 
 that would be subtracted in one way or another from 
 the fighting force of the unscathed nine. So the citi- 
 zens of Maine were exposed to and suffered from the 
 rifle-pits and batteries of a trade, for years intrenched 
 in the fallacy, fostered by the law which made them 
 quasi representatives of the state, that they served a 
 useful purpose. 
 
 True, therefore, as it is that in her early days Maine 
 suffered from the trade to which at length the intelli- 
 gence, virtue, conscience and patriotism of her people 
 denied legal foothold within her borders, that great 
 moral awakening, that marvelous political revolution, 
 that long stride in legislation in which the state recog- 
 nized its right and asserted its determination to be 
 freed from the moral and material incubus of the rum 
 trade, testify in themselves volumes to the possession 
 by the masses of her people of all those elements 
 which must underlie a prosperous and progressive 
 nation. Honest, industrious, frugal, enterprising, 
 thoughtful, they were themselves on the highway to 
 prosperity, and were making plain the paths to plenty 
 for all who should profit by their example and be 
 guided by their precepts. When at length they found
 
 178 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 their way onward blocked by a trade serving no use- 
 ful purpose whatever, they devoted themselves to 
 removing the enemy obstructing their progress. 
 
 Believing, as I devoutly do, that Maine could not be 
 to-day what she is, rich in all that goes to make for 
 the substantial prosperity and true happiness of a 
 virtuous people, but for the bulwark she erected in 
 Prohibition years ago to protect herself from the 
 injury and demoralization of the liquor-traffic, I yet 
 recognize with pride the high average of her early 
 inhabitants in all excellent qualities. Had the men 
 of Maine been less then than what they were, it would 
 have been left to some other state, possessing those 
 virtues which, happily, they did not lack, to have led 
 the way, as did Maine, in the most difficult, unpopular 
 and important moral revolution of their time. 
 
 In 1850 not a savings bank existed in Maine. By 
 the census of 1890, although ranking as the twenty- 
 ninth among her sisters in the Union in point of 
 population, only five outrank her in the number of 
 her depositors, and only six in the total amount of 
 deposits. By that census, New Jersey, with a popula- 
 tion of 1,444,933, had 117,853 depositors in those 
 institutions, and Ohio, with 3,672,310 people, had 
 73,335, while Maine, with less than half the population 
 of the former and less than a fifth of the latter, had 
 132,192 dei)ositors. Other comparisons might be 
 instituted, all indicating the general prosperity of the 
 state, but it is not necessary. 
 
 I was born in Maine, and have always made my 
 home here. I have all that affection for it that 
 ii becomes one to entertain for his native state. I 
 have, too, that great and abiding devotion to her that 
 one must have who has tried earnestly to serve her
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 179 
 
 best and highest interests as he has been led to see 
 them, and yet I think that I am able to judge and 
 speak impartially. Believing so, I am glad to say 
 that though I have traveled far and wide in this 
 country and in other lands, nowhere have I found a 
 people giving so many evidences of the possession of 
 all that is desirable for solid, substantial, enduring 
 comfort as in the state of Maine. 
 
 Do any say I am partial because a native ? Let such 
 come, see, and judge for themselves. No observing 
 person can travel through Maine to-day without com- 
 ing to the conclusion that, taking it all in all, no 
 other portion of the country can exceed her either as 
 a desirable place for a permanent home, or as a 
 delightful resort for recreation, health and pleasure. 
 James G. Blaine, in the course of a speech in the City 
 Hall of Portland, referring to the prosperous condition 
 of our people, turning to Senator Allison, of Iowa, 
 who occupied a seat upon the platform, said: "I do 
 not except even your great empire of the West when I 
 say that Maine will compare favorably with any state 
 in the Union. " 
 
 I will not undertake here to say in what lies the 
 secret of her marked prosperity. Let another of her 
 sons, also to the manor born, speak upon this point. 
 Hon. Frederick Robie, to whom I have elsewhere 
 alluded, was governor of the state in 1883-84-85-86. 
 In one of his inaugural addresses to the legislature, 
 he said: 
 
 " Prohibition has worked immense aclvantaaes for the state 
 of ]\Iaine. The vast sum of money which formerly went into 
 the tills of the saloon-keeper is now spent for improving 
 farms, households, and a thousand other ways which benefit 
 society, and the entire state feels the beneficial efl'ect."
 
 180 EEMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 
 
 Other causes than the outlawry of the liquor shops 
 have contributed to the marked prosperity of Maine, 
 but there are thousands of her business men who 
 believe that that has been the chief instrumentality 
 which has enabled the state again and again to bear 
 with less distress than has any other portion of the 
 country the periods of business depression which have 
 accompanied hard times. 
 
 The liquor-traffic of the old time was a chief con- 
 tributing cause of the poor condition of the state at 
 the lowest point of its material prosperity. Had that 
 trade been allowed to continue unchecked, who 
 believes that Maine would now be able to challenge 
 comparison with her most favored sisters i
 
 Rev. Edward Pavson, D. D.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OPENING OF THE TEMPERANCE REFOEMATION IN MAINE. 
 FIRST TEMPERANCE SOCIETY. GRADUAL DEVEL- 
 OPMENT OF THE WORK. HOW I BECAME 
 INTERESTED. 
 
 What has been said in the last chapter fairly 
 describes the general condition of Maine from my 
 earliest recollection to about the time of the enact- 
 ment of the prohibitory law in 1851, save that at 
 different periods and in various sections the agitation 
 preceding that enactment had caused the traffic to be 
 regarded by many as deserving condemnation. 
 
 Indeed, the enactment of a measure, so widely 
 departing from long established modes of dealing 
 with the trade it outlawed, suggests that such legisla- 
 tion could only have grown out of such conditions. 
 Revolutions may be precipitated by events trifling in 
 themselves, but their real sources are to be found in a 
 necessity for change. It was the immensity of the 
 evil entailed upon the state by the traffic that finally 
 induced the people of Maine to demand its extirpation. 
 
 The intimate connection between the licensed liquor 
 resorts and the grossest forms of evil was by no means 
 a discovery of the temperance reformers in Maine, nor, 
 indeed, of modern times. The whole groundwork of 
 
 13
 
 182 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 the argument for Prohibition was at their disposal 
 when they had fairly commenced effective work. The 
 taverns and tippling shops had then long been recog- 
 nized by a few as the source of many ills, too 
 numerous to be counted, too multiform to be 
 described. Though much has been said and written 
 upon the subject since that day, it is little more than ' 
 a repetition, at most an amplification, of what had 
 been observed and described many years ago by wise 
 and thoughtful men, concerned for the general good. 
 
 The knowledge, however, had not been widely 
 disseminated, and, had there been no other reasons, 
 attempts to correct the evil were handicapped by the 
 almost universal belief that, though the nurseries of 
 great troubles, those drinking resorts supplied an 
 indispensable necessity. The evil of intemperance, 
 meanwhile, grew, until at length a few good citizens 
 saw that something must be done, and that it was as 
 much their duty as that of any one else to do it. 
 
 It is the first step that costs, and it is questionable 
 if in the history of the temperance reformation in 
 Maine anything has appeared more difficult and more 
 hopeless to those interested in it than the first effort 
 in the early days of this century. Yet that was not in 
 the first instance directed ag^^inst the use but only the 
 abuse of liquors. An advocate of total abstinence 
 then would have been considered more a subject 
 for criticism than were the most abandoned devotees 
 of the drink habit. 
 
 Indeed, liquor was generally accounted to be one of 
 the good gifts of God, not to be lightly refused, and 
 the rumsellers, far from being looked upon as enemies 
 of their kind, were by the overwhelming proportion of 
 the people regarded as commissioned for the distribu-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 183 
 
 tion of a great benefaction. Regret was doubtless 
 felt, and sometimes expressed, that tliat gift was mis- 
 used, but in looking for the remedy total abstinence 
 was not thought of for some time. That was not even 
 regarded as a wise precaution for personal safety, 
 much less as a Christian obligation by way of example 
 for the good of others. 
 
 There are those who now insist that antagonism to 
 the liquor-traffic is quixotic and that it must always 
 be fruitless of good results. They endeavor to main- 
 tain that position by showing that after nearly a 
 century devoted to exposing the danger of the drink- 
 ing habit the annual victims of intemperance are to 
 be counted only by appalling numbers; that, after it 
 has been more than a third of a century outlawed, the 
 liquor-traffic is still to l)e found in Maine. 
 
 Some of these doubters are to be found in that 
 highest of all callings, whose sacred trust it is to 
 make known the will of God. They teach that His 
 law was thundered from Sinai, and believe that under 
 and around those commands, to give them force and 
 effect, is the omnipotence of their Divine Maker. 
 Yet were they to apply to the ten commandments the 
 same tests they insist upon in measuring the results 
 of the temperance reformation of this century, they 
 would show to the satisfaction of all who are restive 
 under its prohibitions that the decalogue is a fail- 
 ure. But Christian men and women would continue 
 to labor as before, though their work would be harder 
 and the day of deliverance from sin would be longer 
 deferred, because they had been thus attacked in the 
 rear. 
 
 Eighteen centuries had witnessed to the vital power 
 of the Christian religion before it had impressed upon
 
 184 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 the life and practice of any considerable number, even 
 of its leaders and exponents, in the matter of tem- 
 perance, that precept of self-abnegation, "If meat 
 make my brother to offend, I will eat no meat while 
 the world stands." Happily, however, at last, the 
 dawn came, and light as to their obligations to their 
 fellow-men who looked to them for guidance and 
 advice, found its way into the minds and hearts of 
 Christian teachers, and, coming to see their duty 
 clear, they did not shrink from its performance. 
 Again, happily, there were some such living in 
 the early days of this century in Maine, and with a 
 brief reference to a movement inaugurated by two 
 devout clergymen of Portland, my story of the rise 
 and progress of the temperance reformation there 
 will commence. 
 
 Not long, about a year, after the establishment of 
 peace following the war of 1812, a few citizens of 
 Portland assembled in the Quaker meeting-house, a 
 plain, brick building, on the corner of the streets now 
 known as Federal and Pearl, at present included in 
 Lincoln Park, for the purpose of forming an associa- 
 tion based on the principle of abstinence from ardent 
 spirits. The Society of Friends had some years before 
 that time borne testimony not only against the use 
 of intoxicating liquors as a beverage, but against its 
 sale. Their place of worship was naturally selected, 
 therefore, for the first organized effort to reform in 
 the little town the excessive drinking customs of the 
 day. On the first and fifth days of the week men who 
 were leaders in every legitimate business enterprise in 
 Portland, as well as others less prominent, gathered 
 there for worship. There, clothed in plain and simple 
 garb, they gave in the quiet but impressive form
 
 or NEAL DOW. 185 
 
 peculiar to their society, homage to the Giver of all 
 good. There they cultivated that strength of char- 
 acter and matured that courage of conviction which 
 made them earnest and steadfast in antagonizing 
 demoralizing influences, of whatever kind. To them 
 the opposition of the world to any reform in their 
 minds justified of God weighed as little as did its 
 ridicule of their plain dress and quaint speech. So 
 that a movement was approved by their consciences, it 
 was sure of their sympathy and support, whoever else 
 favored or opposed. 
 
 This meeting-house, before its abandonment as a 
 place of worship, early in the fifties, gave the shelter 
 of its friendly roof not only to temperance in the most 
 unpopular and maligned days of that reform, but 
 when every other public building was closed to them, 
 the friends of. the early antislavery movement were 
 made welcome to it, and there they were once fol- 
 lowed by a mob in an attempt to stifle freedom of 
 speech, which attempt was, happily, however, sum- 
 marily suppressed, as before related. 
 
 There were present at this first temperance meeting 
 the two most widely known and respected clergymen 
 in the district of Maine, Edward Payson and Ichabod 
 Nichols. These were representatives of the diverging 
 elements of the early church of New England, Dr. 
 Payson being Orthodox, and Dr. Nichols, Unitarian. 
 The latter was settled over the First Parish in 1809, 
 and his pastorate was continued for many years. He 
 died in 1859, having passed his life in Portland, where 
 he was respected by the entire community and loved 
 by all who knew him intimately. He saw, as the 
 fruit of the seed he assisted to sow in the old Quaker 
 meeting-house, a marvelous growth of temperance sen-
 
 186 REMINISCENCES 
 
 timent in the city lie loved, to the higher welfare of 
 which he contributed so much by his noble life, hi& 
 lofty precepts, and his pure example. 
 
 Dr. Payson had been settled in Portland but two 
 years prior to the advent of Dr. Nichols. It was his 
 refusal to exchange service with Dr. Nichols, because 
 of the developing doctrinal differences, that first 
 emphasized the division in Portland among former 
 adherents of the old Puritan faith. He died in 1827. 
 Few men impress themselves upon the communities 
 where they live and lal^or as did Dr. Payson. His 
 influence was such, and he was so respected and loved 
 by his church and congregation, that they were com- 
 monly said to idolize him. Indeed, so marked was the 
 devotion of his society to him that it was at times 
 made a subject for captious criticism, and after his 
 death it was deemed desirable by some of his friends 
 to explain in a memoir the feeling entertained for him, 
 and to show that it was not .justly open to such com- 
 ment. 
 
 No word of mine in praise of Dr. Payson is needed. 
 To this day, though more than half of a century after 
 his death, his name is perpetuated in those of the 
 children and children's children of the generation 
 which sat under his ministry, and is still a household 
 word in Portland. His descendants are among our 
 best known and most respected citizens. His influ- 
 ence is felt in the religious life of the city in which 
 his work was performed. An elegant church edifice, 
 erected as a memorial to him, bears his name, a 
 precious heritage of the great religious body he 
 was connected with in life, and in the reverence of 
 which he was long since canonized for his piety and 
 devotion to the cause of the Master he served.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 187 
 
 The participation of those ministers in that meeting 
 attracted great attention in Portland and vicinity to 
 an undertaking then as unpopular as it was novel. 
 Indeed, under a less auspicious endorsement it could 
 hardly have gained foothold, for, deservedly great as 
 was the influence of those two leading clergymen, but 
 sixty-seven other persons were willing to associate 
 themselves in the effort they inaugurated, hence the 
 society they formed was locally known as the ' ' Sixty- 
 Niners." 
 
 It is not probable that that step was necessary, as 
 that term is ordinarily employed in this connection, to 
 one of the sixty-nine on his own account. There was 
 no apparent reason why they should have taken up 
 the work, that did not bear with like force upon the 
 many others who would have nothing to do with it. 
 Remembering as I do the impression I obtained of 
 Dr. Payson in my youth and young manhood, and 
 knowing Dr. Nichols as I did during much of his long 
 life, I can conceive of no other influence to lead them 
 to the step they then took save that they felt called to 
 it by God. 
 
 If patriotism is to be measured by service rendered 
 to the state, those men were patriots, none more 
 entitled to the name. If heroism consists in self- 
 abnegation in a righteous cause, those men were 
 heroes, none to be more highly praised. They who 
 would trace the limits of the usefulness of those 
 men to society must measure if possible the con- 
 stantly lengthening distance through all time to 
 come between the tendencies to evil that they were 
 instrumental in checking and those for good that 
 they were enabled to set in motion. He who 
 would estimate their courage must remember that
 
 188 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 to confront the fierce sweep of the world's avarice 
 and appetite, and to call a halt to a peculiarly 
 selfish phase of the selfishness of man, requires 
 the highest type of heroism. Hearing in their 
 own consciences the voice of God calling to them 
 to give the influence of their precept and example 
 against a wide-spread and constantly extending 
 vice, they took up the cross of their duty and 
 bore it through opposition, obloquy and reproach 
 that would have discouraged and cast down, men 
 of less moral strength. 
 
 The step taken in that Quaker meeting-house, how- 
 ever natural, reasonable and necessary it may now 
 seem, was a criticism upon the social customs of the 
 day and a condemnation of usages time-rooted in the 
 habits of the people. It was no easy matter to stand 
 up in the presence of men and women of business, 
 political, and social influence and show to them that 
 the ways that had come down from their fathers were 
 destructive to their fellows, and bid them, as they 
 loved their God and recognized their duty to man, to 
 change their course and thereafter to set an example 
 which might help and could not hurt others. But 
 those men did more. They exemplifled in their own 
 lives their conviction that it was incumbent upon 
 them to so direct their own walk that those who fol- 
 lowed them might find ! no pitfalls into which they 
 should plunge to their temporal and eternal ruin. 
 
 This example that they set was more offensive, if 
 possible, than the precepts they taught. It was a 
 daily, constant, ever-present reminder to others of 
 neglected duties, of lost opportunities for good, and 
 of ever-operating temptations to evil. Naturally this 
 excited opposition among those wlio did not read their
 
 OF KEAL DOW. 189 
 
 duty in the same light, or were unwilling to practice 
 the abnegation required for the discharge of such 
 obligations to God and man. 
 
 The "Sixty-Niners," therefore, were subjected not 
 only to the ridicule of those unable to comprehend 
 the significance of their movement, but to the con- 
 demnation of another very different class. Their 
 course was commented upon even in thoughtful, 
 grave, and religious circles much as the patrons of the 
 gilded high-license saloons of the present time discuss 
 modern phases of the temperance reformation. Their 
 critics were not disposed to appear indifferent to an 
 effort evidently inspired by a Christian-like appre- 
 ciation of duty. They were not, they did not care to 
 be regarded, indifferent to the welfare of their fellows. 
 They sought a shelter, therefore, behind which their 
 consciences might sleep without disturbance and their 
 habits be continued without reproach. They found 
 it in their attempts to prove that the example of the 
 "Sixty-Niners" was unnecessary, unwise, and at 
 variance with divine command. 
 
 Another meeting was then called in Portland to 
 consider what could be done to stem the tide of intem- 
 perance, ^ — ^ that of the fanatical "Sixty-Niners" as 
 well as of the hard drinkers. This meeting was in 
 the most famous old-time tavern in Portland, and 
 leading citizens took part who, in favor of "tem- 
 perance," earnestly opposed total abstinence. It was 
 commonly reported, I have been told, that, at this 
 gathering, which was in the nature of a dinner or 
 supper, liquors were on the table, and it was during 
 the drinking regarded by the drinkers as "moderate," 
 that those good citizens considered what could be 
 done to correct the intemperate habits of the masses.
 
 190 REMINISCENCES 
 
 The influence of this meeting was to excite a great 
 deal of opposition to the " Sixty-Niners, " which mani- 
 fested itself in many ways. Shortly after the meeting 
 an attempt was made, by enemies of the new move- 
 ment it was supposed, to destroy by fire both the 
 Friends' meeting-house and Dr. Payson's church. 
 
 I was a boy when the " Sixty-Nine " society was 
 founded, and knew nothing more of the gathering 
 and its proceedings than I heard from the table-talk 
 at my own home, or from the conversation of other 
 boys, who retailed with more or less additions and 
 omissions what they had heard from their parents. 
 My father was one of the sixty-nine, and his influence 
 was then and ever afterwards given to the promotion 
 of temperance. 
 
 Stories were told and jokes cracked at the expense 
 of the "Sixty-Mners," which number was shouted 
 in the streets by urchins who had no knowledge 
 of what it meant, l3ut who often aided in a most 
 annoying way in advertising and perpetuating the 
 name of the new society. In those days of compara- 
 tive poverty and strict economy, the goodwife in 
 many a well-to-do family in Portland did the internal 
 painting of her house. A point was made of keeping 
 the frame about the great kitchen fireplace in good 
 order as to paint, and the boys were frequently sent 
 for the needed pot of color. 
 
 On their way home the youngsters practiced the art 
 decorative, and it was their favorite pastime to daub 
 the figures "69" in as many places as possible between 
 the shop and their homes, as they carried the pot of 
 paint to their mothers. Because of this, those figures 
 for a long time greeted the eye from every place that 
 the mischievous boys could reach with their brushes.
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 191 
 
 Occasionally, a youth with more zeal than discretion 
 painted " 69 " on some new fence or house, and, in the 
 corner-shop discussions, the promoters of that society 
 were held responsible by some of their opponents for 
 the damage thus done by the boys. This, by the 
 way, is quite in keeping with some of the modern 
 objections to Prohibition. 
 
 I do not know how long that society existed in that 
 particular form, but from that day there was constant 
 progress in Portland for many years, though it was 
 sometimes slow, and from then to the present there 
 has been some kind of associated effort in behalf of 
 temperance in the state. It was peculiarly appro- 
 priate, perhaps especially significant and important, 
 that the temperance reformation in Maine in its 
 purely moral phase should have had its birth here. 
 Portland was the fountain head of the liquor-traffic 
 in Maine. The nearest important point in the district 
 to the West Indies, a great part of its relatively large 
 commercial business was with those islands, and 
 depended in great measure upon liquor. Portland 
 wharves groaned beneath the burden of West India 
 rum awaiting distribution into all contiguous territory 
 by country teams, and to many smaller eastern ports 
 by coasting vessels. Her distilleries were busy 
 converting West India molasses into New England 
 rum, to be in turn similarly distributed by Portland 
 traders. 
 
 Here the temperance movement w^as sure to be 
 antagonized by the supposed claims of business. 
 From the days when the money-changers were driven 
 with whips from the temple, down through the 
 opposition of the shrine-makers for Diana to the 
 preaching of Paul, and the days of the slave-trade, any
 
 192 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 reform supposed to be inimical to money -making has 
 been bitterly antagonized. Largely and peculiarly 
 interested in lines of trade tending to intemperance as 
 Portland was, any attempt at reformation in that 
 particular was here sure to be tested as by fire. If it 
 could succeed here it could anywhere. 
 
 To the men, therefore, who gathered in that little 
 Quaker meeting-house, so long ago, all honor is due 
 for the progress that has since been made. As we 
 who live amid the comforts and refinements of the 
 closing years of the nineteenth century know little of 
 the hardships of those who wrested homes from the 
 forest and savage, so Ave can hardly appreciate the 
 courage of the men who took the first step, struck the 
 first blow, and made the first sacrifice to abolish 
 abuses long established in custom and buttressed by 
 fancied personal and public interests. 
 
 The Sixty-Nine society was almost immediately 
 productive of good. Two years later, in January, 
 1818, the Second Parish church, over which Dr. 
 Payson presided, through his influence, dealt with 
 and suspended some of its members engaged in the 
 liquor business, and adopted the following resolution: 
 
 "This church considers the use of intoxicating liquors for 
 purposes of entertainment, refreshment, or traffic, as a case 
 of immorality, and a cause of discipline, subjecting the 
 offender to suspension, and, if persisted in, to excommunica- 
 tion." 
 
 Nevertheless, influential opposition to the effort of 
 the ' ' Sixty-Niners " continued, and was felt for a 
 considerable period, and into the thirties controlled 
 many who desired to promote sobriety in the town. 
 For years, only a few who interested themselves in 
 the reform believed either in the necessity or the
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 193 
 
 expediency of total abstinence. To condeitin drunk- 
 enness in others, and to be always moderate in his 
 own drinking, was about all that was expected of the 
 most earnest temperance man of that day. Shortly 
 after, a distinction came to be drawn, and for many 
 years was observed, between wine, cider, and mild 
 liquors generally, which were considered as harm- 
 less, useful, and entirely proper beverages, and the 
 stronger, or, as they were then called, "ardent 
 spirits." For years even those who manifested deep 
 interest in the subject only felt called upon to pledge 
 themselves to moderation, and, indeed, considered it 
 unwise to advocate the abandonment of the lighter 
 grades of intoxicating liquors. I remember that that 
 was my view until I was twenty-five years of age. 
 
 Intelligent men could not seriously consider the 
 evil of intemperance without coming to realize that 
 drunkenness was but one, and by no means the worst, 
 phase of it. In some respects that is the most start- 
 ling, as it is a disgusting form of this evil, but the 
 main injury to society at large is done in the passage 
 of the victim from the first to this last stage of the 
 vice, with the co-operation of those who never get on 
 to actual drunkenness. 
 
 Many a man who boasts that, though he has 
 indulged in liquor for years he has never yet been 
 drunk, has inflicted upon his fellows, however it may 
 have been as to himself, tenfold the evil he would 
 have done had he been drunk daily since taking his 
 first glass. In the latter case he would not have been 
 found, he would not have trusted himself, in places 
 of responsibility where important interests involving 
 the welfare, the property, the lives of others, were 
 committed to his car€.
 
 194 EEMmiSCENCES 
 
 So the friends of temperance came to understand 
 that society suffered from the drinking habits of 
 men who were not intemperate, who perhaps never 
 would become so, as the word was ordinarily un- 
 derstood. It was apparent that men who would scorn 
 the suggestion that they were not doing their part, 
 were not l^earing all their share of the burdens of 
 society, were, in fact, unable so to do. At some crit- 
 ical point when much responsibility was resting upon 
 them, unconsciously to themselves, unknown to the 
 majority of their fellows, their ordinarily sound, reli- 
 able judgment had failed them, their strong nerves 
 had weakened under the excitement of drink, and 
 perforce their load fell upon other shoulders. 
 
 Nor did society suffer only negatively. It became 
 evident upon observation that men who believed 
 themselves to be reliable and trustworthy, who would 
 not willingly have wrought wrong or harm in any 
 way to those who trusted them, were yet responsible 
 for wide-spread evils, — who can know how varied ? 
 How many millions of property, how many thou- 
 sands of lives, have been lost through such, can never 
 be known, but the acknowledged facts are appalling. 
 Shipwrecks in great variety and without number, 
 railroad accidents innumerable, boiler explosions, 
 mine disasters, ruined firms and corporations, moral 
 delinquencies involving the savings of thousands — 
 but it is useless to specify. Those and many more 
 injuries to society have been traced to drunkenness. 
 But such have followed less marked forms of intem- 
 perance. An inebriate would not have been clothed 
 with the responsibility leading up to such. Many 
 of those who thought themselves, and whose friends 
 thought them, free from the vice of intemperance,
 
 OF NEAL DOW. " 195 
 
 "but who, substituting a little wine for wit, have, 
 with the temerity of their "Dutch courage," en- 
 countered that danger, moral and physical, against 
 which their cooler judgments would have guarded 
 them and the interests committed to their care. 
 
 It was not long after the early temperance reformers 
 began their work before they saw that the great evil 
 was in something besides drunkenness, and that a 
 true temperance reformation must look to prevention 
 rather than to cure. Now they began to appreciate 
 the importance of a good example in their own lives. 
 With my sisters, I was frequently at parties given 
 by the young people of our acquaintance. At these, 
 among other refreshments, wine was always served, 
 and was used as any other drink would be, no ques- 
 tions raised, no exceptions taken. When one season 
 it became our turn to entertain, our attention having 
 been called to the subject of temperance, my sisters 
 and I discussed the propriety of offering wine. We 
 were unanimous in thinking that we ought not to 
 offer it, but my older sister suggested that our motives 
 would be misinterpreted and that the omission of wine 
 might do more harm than good to temperance, besides 
 provoking criticism that would create discord in our 
 circle. 
 
 I was inclined to that view, but my younger sister 
 insisted that it was for us to do what we believed to 
 be right, leaving the rest to Providence. We resolved 
 to act upon that suggestion. Our party was a large 
 one for those days, and was regarded as a great 
 success, the absence of wine being more than made 
 up in other ways. Its influence was such that the 
 omission of wine on such occasions came to be fre- 
 quent, then common, and after a long time, the
 
 196 EEMINISCEXCES 
 
 general rule, among all religions or serionsly inclined 
 people. 
 
 Thongli Holy Writ had denounced those who 
 catered to the demand for intoxicants by putting the 
 bottle to their neighbors' lips, general sentiment in 
 the church as to the propriety of the traffic was lax, as 
 late as a time after I had become interested in 
 temperance. But the call to duty had been clear. 
 Perhaps no agency had greater influence in arousing 
 attention upon the part of the church than the famous 
 six sermons of Dr. Lyman Beecher. No one can 
 to-day read those powerful discourses without appre- 
 ciating the inconsistency of a consent upon the part of 
 professing Christians to the iniquity of the liquor 
 trade. In those sermons, in describing the influence 
 of liquor establishments in a community, he employed 
 such expressions as these: 
 
 " They raise up a generation of drunkards The 
 
 ease with which families can provide themselves with large 
 quantities eventuates in frequent drinking and wide-spread 
 intemperance. 
 
 "What merchant in looking out for a place where to 
 establish himself in trade would neglect the invitation of 
 temperate, thrifty farmers and mechanics and settle down in a 
 village of riot and drunkenness, made up of tipplers, widows 
 and degraded children, of old houses, broken windows and 
 dilapidated fences? Commerce in ardent spirits is unlawful, 
 first, inasmuch as it is useless ; and, second, as it is eminently 
 pernicious. Property, reputation, wealth, life and salvation 
 fall l)efore it. The direct infliction of what is thus done 
 indirectly would subject a man guilty of it to a public execu- 
 tion. It is scarcely a palliation of this evil that no man has 
 destroyed maliciously or with any intent to kill, for a 
 certainty of evil is as great as if waters were poisoned which 
 some persons would surely drink, or as if a man should fire 
 in the dark u})ou masses of human beings where it. would be 
 certain that death would be the consequence to some."
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 197 
 
 And finally, addressing legislators, Dr. Beecher 
 said: 
 
 '" With the concurrent aid of an enlightened public senti- 
 ment you possess the power of a most efficacious legislation. 
 Mucli power is given to you to check and extirpate this evil 
 and to roll down the distant ages broader and deeper and 
 purer the streams of national prosperity." 
 
 Dr. Beecher was one of the earliest, ablest, and 
 most devoted friends of the temperance cause. No 
 man did more than he to arouse the people to realize 
 the evils of intemperance and to stimulate them to 
 active measures to check its progress. He suggested 
 very clearly that any permanent change for the better 
 in the habits of the people would be improbable, if not 
 impossible, without the suppression by law of the 
 traffic in intoxicating liquors. 
 
 The attention of many clergymen throughout Maine 
 was called to the subject by his sermons. These were 
 read, in whole or in part, from pulpits or at spe- 
 cial meetings of churches called for the purpose. 
 Through these efforts, the question came to be 
 discussed formally and publicly among church- 
 members as to what was their duty toward the 
 reformation. Who can doubt the conclusion arrived 
 at by the prayerful, conscientious, and courageous ? 
 
 The temperance movement in Portland received 
 great impetus from a visit of Rev. Justin Edwards, 
 D. D. , I think in the later twenties, or early thirties. 
 Until then but little impression had been made 
 upon the '"respectability" of the liquor-traffic, or 
 touching the inconsistency of being engaged in it 
 while claiming to be a Christian. But a sermon of 
 Dr. Edwards, delivered in the First Parish church, 
 caused a great awakening. Those ah-eady interested
 
 198 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 were stimulated to renewed zeal by that sermon, 
 while others before indifferent came to regard it their 
 duty to assist. 
 
 I record a somewhat remarkable result of that 
 effort. Each of three partners in a wholesale estab- 
 lishment, all professed Christians, was in attendance 
 with his family. Impressed by the sermon of Dr. 
 Edwards, each decided, in consultation with his wife, 
 to withdraw from the firm if the sale of liquor was 
 not abandoned, and each, in the counting-room the 
 next morning, found that his partners had come to 
 the same conclusion. The liquor branch of the busi- 
 ness was that day discontinued. 
 
 The temperance reformation in Maine was born in 
 the church. In its infancy it was almost wholly 
 dependent upon religious leaders and teachers. In 
 the days of its youth and young maturity it was 
 stimulated, encouraged and sustained by the same 
 powerful agency. It never could have attained the 
 height it afterwards reached but for that early and 
 continued assistance of godly men and women. It 
 waits for final and complete triumph until those 
 whose calling it is to declare "all the counsel of 
 God" shall deem it their duty to teach that He 
 abhors everything that tends, however remotely, to 
 the destruction of the living bodies and the immortal 
 souls of men. 
 
 For some time most of the earnest promoters of the 
 cause confined themselves to urging moderation, or 
 the "use," not the "abuse," of liquor. In 1827, how- 
 ever, a society was organized in the town of New 
 Sharon, so far as I know the first of the kind in the 
 state, which adopted the pledge of total abstinence 
 from ' ' distilled " spirits. Commencing its work with
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 199 
 
 ten members, within a year it had increased to 
 seventy. A little later, five persons associated them- 
 selves for the same purpose in the town of Prospect, 
 and in a few months the membership of this latter 
 society had increased to over one hundred. 
 
 The first published report of this association, after 
 relating the circumstanoes of its organization, stated 
 that on the day after its first meeting it was found 
 that a storm of opposition had arisen and was raging 
 with tremendous violence. The antagonism was 
 multiform, determined and powerful. The new 
 school was everywhere spoken against. Under the 
 standard of hostility were found the old and the 
 young, the rich and the poor. The temperate and 
 intemperate met on common ground, and "even 
 female tongues launched forth the shafts of ridicule." 
 Despite the resistance it encountered, the organiza- 
 tion continued its work for some time, holding 
 monthly meetings in various parts of the town. 
 
 Similar societies were formed during the same year 
 in Windsor, Buckfield, and Gorham. In 1828 one was 
 organized in Gardiner, which adopted a pledge 
 drafted by the Rev. Phineas Crandall, of Hallowell, 
 who a short time previously had established a paper 
 in that town called. The Genius of Temperance. Mr. 
 Crandall was one of the most advanced and pro- 
 nounced temperance men of his day. He was an 
 effective and interesting speaker, and rendered most 
 efficient service in the promotion of the cause in 
 which he took a deep interest. The pledge of this 
 society read as follows: 
 
 "Persons who sign this constitution, and thereby become 
 members of this society, agree to abstain from the internal 
 use of distilled spirits except when indispensable for medic-
 
 200 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 inal purposes, and wine except for the same purpose, or 
 sacramental occasions ; that they will not offer them to their 
 friends, to persons in their employment, or countenance their 
 use in their families only in the cases above excepted ; that 
 they will not knowingly vote for a man for any civil office 
 who is in the habit of using ardent spirits or wine to excess, 
 and, so far as the nature of their condition will admit, to give 
 the preference in their dealings to those store-keepers who do 
 not allow ardent spirits to be drunk in their stores." 
 
 I think I am safe in saying that the adoption of this 
 pledge was the first action, taken anywhere in the 
 state, favoring the introduction of the temperance 
 question in any form into politics. 
 
 A word of explanation as to the last clause of this 
 pledge may not be out of place. Already some mer- 
 chants had come to abandon in whole or in part the 
 sale of liquor. Some refused to sell it to be drunk on 
 the premises; others gave up retailing it altogether, 
 while continuing to sell it by wholesale to those who 
 did retail it. There were others still who, though not 
 selling, kept it in stock to ' ' treat " customers purchas- 
 ing other goods, holding that there was nothing in 
 this custom (which they thought necessary to meet 
 the competition of those who continued to sell liquor) 
 inconsistent with their duty as good citizens, or their 
 obligations, perchance, as Christians. For some time 
 this practice in many stores was a serious obstacle to 
 the prosecution of the work in Maine, and became a 
 specific object for correction. 
 
 This latter custom, I am sorry to say, yet finds 
 its counterpart in a practice countenanced by some 
 wholesale mercantile establishments in permitting 
 their commercial travelers to include in their expense- 
 accounts money paid for treating customers. Some- 
 times the amount is covered in a general charge, too
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 201 
 
 often well known to include the "drink money." 
 Pernicious in its moral effects, this custom has no 
 justification on sound business principles. The buyer 
 who can be induced by drink to purchase what he 
 otherwise would not, is sure — it is only a matter of 
 time — to lessen his ability to pay for what he has 
 bought, while the purchaser strong enough to resist 
 such seductions to ill-considered purchases is quite 
 likely to attribute the worst motives to such offers 
 to treat. Meanwhile it often happens that the whole- 
 saler loses otherwise by the demoralization of his 
 agent traceable to the practice. 
 
 The organization of societies throughout the state 
 continued during the next two or three years. The 
 pledges they adopted varied somewhat, as did their 
 methods of work, but they all sought the same gen- 
 eral object — a change in the customs of the people 
 w^hich had led to gross intemperance. 
 
 In almost every instance the leading men in these 
 societies were clergymen. It is not too much to say 
 that without their aid the great reformation would 
 have been postponed for years, if indeed it could ever 
 have reached the point to which it attained through 
 their assistance in a comparatively short time. Most 
 of the societies formed at this period were content to 
 make the test of membership a pledge to abjure 
 "ardent" spirits. But here and there were to be 
 found those taking the more advanced position in 
 favor of total abstinence. ^ 
 
 That was generally done under the leadership of 
 some man of God who enforced upon the members of 
 his church their duty, nay, showed them that it 
 should be their pleasure, to adopt even what they 
 did not deem in their own cases to be needful for
 
 202 REMINISCENCES 
 
 tlieir own safety, or to abandon that which they did 
 not view as in itself a wrong, if by such sacrifice they 
 might do good. Some of these clergymen did this 
 from an intuitive perception of their obligations to 
 their Master, some because they had had experience 
 similar to that related of Bishop H. C. Potter, which 
 I have seen in print. 
 
 " ' Doctor,' said a lady at a fashionable dinner-party, a few 
 years ago, to Bishop Henry C. Potter, ' I observe that you 
 take no wine.' 'No,' said Dr. Potter, 'I have not done so 
 for many years — in fact, for twenty-five years.' She 
 expressed surprise in the look which met the doctor's answer. 
 ' It may interest you to know why I abstain,' said Dr. Potter, 
 observing the expression of his companion. ' I will tell you. 
 A man with an unconquerable passion for drink came con- 
 stantly to see me, and told me how this miserable passion was 
 brinoincr him to utter ruin ; how his employers, every time he 
 obtained a situation, were compelled to dismiss him because 
 of his terrible habit. One day I said to this man, Why will 
 you not say, here and now, before God, and in his help, I 
 will never taste liquor again. The man said. Doctor, if 
 you were in my place you would not say that. I answered. 
 Temperate man that I am, I will say so this moment. And 
 I spoke the solemn vow that I had called upon him to make. 
 My poor friend looked at me with consternation ; then an 
 expression of hope overspread his face. AVith steady voice 
 he pronounced the vow. A moment after he left me, but 
 returned often to see me. The vow has been kept ; and he 
 that was fast losing soul and body found a position, kept it, 
 and became not only a sober, but a godly man.'" 
 
 Where is the Christian minister, who, professing to 
 love God, and to follow in the footsteps of the 
 Founder of his faith, would deem it too great a sacri- 
 fice to abandon his wine if thereby he might save a 
 single soul ? 
 
 Unquestionably Bishop Potter would have taken 
 that position earlier, indeed would have made a far 
 greater sacrifice if necessary, to avoid all possible evil
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 203 
 
 consequences of a liabit lie might regard as harmless 
 in itself, had such possibility occurred to him before 
 the experience related. So it was with many of the 
 early clergymen in Maine; so it is with the over- 
 whelming proportion of them to-day. Their refusal 
 to set an example, and their advice to those who 
 looked to them for spiritual guidance and comfort not 
 to set an example that might prove a stumbling-block 
 to others, made progress in Maine far easier than it 
 would otherwise have been. 
 
 Necessarily, in attempting to detail the methods of 
 revolutionizing public opinion in Maine with reference 
 to the liquor-traffic leading to the enactment of a pro- 
 hibitory law, I must dwell largely upon what came 
 under my own observation. Naturally, I am more 
 familiar with the work of which my own efforts were 
 a part, but I had personal knowledge of only a small 
 portion of what was being done throughout the state. 
 Here, as I begin the relation of my own part, I wish to 
 note what I trust will be borne in mind by those who 
 read these pages after I shall have passed on to rest. 
 In that work I was only one of many. 
 
 If, in attempting to discharge my duty, as God gave 
 me to see it, I have been able in any way to aid my 
 fellow-men, I acknowledge my indebtedness for such 
 measure of usefulness, to the guardians, guides and 
 exemplars of my youth ; to those to whom I looked for 
 advice in the earlier stages of the temperance move- 
 ment in Maine, and to those, as well, who later shared 
 with me the burden and heat of the day. They were 
 to be found in every walk in life, earnest, sincere, 
 unselfish, effective. With them I was proud to. be 
 associated; by them I was glad to be inspired, 
 advised, encouraged. The friends of temperance in
 
 204 REMINISCENCES 
 
 those stormy days had little time for mutual admira- 
 tion or congratulation. Each had his allotted task to 
 perform, requiring all the time and strength he had to 
 spare. The result may best show how well that duty 
 was done. I would be glad, if I could, to record the 
 names of all those true and faithful men. God in his 
 infinite mercy has spared my life though calling most 
 of them home. Nothing I can say will do justice to 
 what they manifested, by patience and zeal, of love 
 for God and a strong desire for the uplifting of their 
 fellow-men. By their deeds they are known, and 
 their labors will speak through all eternity. 
 
 Peculiar circumstances almost impelled me to an 
 interest in the temperance movement. I do not 
 remember any period of my life, after I was of suffi- 
 cient age to observe and to think for myself, when the 
 awful effects of intemperance did not claim from me 
 more than merely casual thought. In my early youth 
 a near neighbor was a confirmed inebriate. Because 
 of his habits, he and his unfortunate family, from 
 time to time, required aid from my parents. His case, 
 therefore, served at our table and fireside to add 
 weight to the precepts of sobriety and abstinence, 
 ordinarily inculcated in New England Quaker homes 
 of the period. It required no unusual mental power 
 in me, even as a small lad, to trace to drink the com- 
 parative wretchedness and squalor in that drunken 
 neighbor's home. 
 
 When a small boy, I was much impressed by hearing 
 my father say at the dinner-table that he had that 
 forenoon witnessed the conveyance of a tract of land, 
 now in the business portion of Portland, occupied by 
 stores. It was transferred to settle a score, charged 
 at the shop of the grantee against the grantor, for
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 205 
 
 liquor furnislied in the glass and drunk on the 
 premises. The incident was indelibly fixed in my 
 memory by the remark with which my father opened 
 
 the topic : "At last poor Friend has drunk up 
 
 his land!" This expression arrested my youthful 
 attention sufficiently to enable me to comprehend 
 something of the conversation which followed. 
 
 My mother was an exceedingly kind and charitable 
 woman. No worthy applicant for aid was turned 
 empty-handed from her door. She made it a duty to 
 investigate the case of every applicant, where she was 
 not previously informed, and I was frequently her 
 companion in the errands with which she thus 
 charged herself, seeing for myself much that led her 
 to pour precept after precept into my willing ears. 
 By her I was taught to abhor the very idea of liquor 
 drinking, and at her feet, not less from her example 
 than from her precept, I came to believe that to be 
 indifferent to the welfare of others was a sin and a 
 shame. As I grew older, therefore, I was prepared to 
 observe, perhaps at an earlier age than is the case 
 with many, the devastating effects of intemperance. 
 
 In my younger manhood, before I reached my 
 majority, my attention was called to the subject as a 
 matter of practical importance. I was brought into 
 contact with many who depended upon daily manual 
 labor for support, and to whom, therefore, health, 
 strength, and continuous employment were all- 
 important. My interest in them was easily enlisted, 
 and I came to know something, through my 
 opportunities for close personal observation, of the 
 condition of their families. I was impressed, not 
 only with the prevalence of drunkenness among them, 
 which indeed was more or less apparent in all classes
 
 206 EEMIJ^ISCENCES 
 
 of society, but by the evident inability of workmen to 
 provide for the pressing necessities of their families 
 when spending so much as was their habit for intoxi- 
 cants. 
 
 I saw health impaired, capacity undermined, 
 employment lost. I saw wives and children suffering 
 from the drinking habits of husbands and fathers 
 long before the latter could be said to have become 
 drunkards, in the parlance of that day. I saw that, 
 as a rule, neither industry, thrift, prudence, saving 
 nor comfort was to be found where indulgence in 
 intoxicants prevailed. Called often to render assist- 
 ance in these cases, my indignation at the men who 
 brought so much suffering upon their families for the 
 gratification, as it then seemed to me, of a mere taste 
 for liquor, softened into pity and sympathy when 
 I found them the apparently helpless victims of a 
 controlling appetite that was dragging them to ruin. 
 My observation of this had its effect in determining 
 the position I afterwards took. 
 
 I had attended meetings held under the auspices of 
 those who traced their interest to the influence of the 
 " Sixty-Mners, " and I was quite prepared to take a 
 stand when called upon to do so. The opportunity 
 soon offered. I was twenty-four years of age at the 
 time. The Deluge Engine-company, of which I was 
 clerk, was about to celebrate its first anniversary. 
 It was proposed that the officers be directed to provide 
 liquors for the occasion at the company's expense. I 
 took the floor and opposed the proposition as earnestly 
 as I could. There was considerable discussion, and 
 some feeling was developed, but I was sustained by 
 the company. This was due, I think, (juite as much 
 to the personal regard of the members for me (I was
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 207 
 
 the junior of most of tliem) as to tlieir full assent to 
 my views. 
 
 That speech caused some talk outside the company, 
 and a short time thereafter I was called upon to speak 
 at a temperance meeting where I had expected to be a 
 listener. Soon I was invited to be one of the 
 announced speakers at a meeting to be held, and 
 prepared for the occasion to the extent of writing out 
 in full what I proposed to say. 
 
 In the winter of 1815, the Maine Charitable 
 Mechanics' Association was organized in Portland. I 
 became a member of it almost immediately after my 
 majority. That society yet exists, after a long life of 
 varied prosperity. In its earlier days, especially, it 
 exerted great influence in the town, and soon came to 
 be a potential agency in the propagation of the princi- 
 ples underlying the temperance reform. 
 
 Its members had unusual opportunities to see the 
 evil effects of the liquor-trafiic and the drinking 
 habits of the day. Through them most of the labor- 
 ing men of the town found employment. They paid 
 out a large portion of the money distributed as wages 
 for skilled, as well as unskilled, labor, and they had 
 constantly before them the evidence that no inconsid- 
 erable proportion was expended for liquor. They 
 saw, too, in the resulting indisposition to work, in 
 the loss of time from drinking, and the impairment 
 of energy, capacity and health by debauch that the 
 money thus spent was more unwisely used than if 
 thrown into the sea. 
 
 In those days, master-mechanics were brought into 
 contact with the families of their employees much 
 more than now. They saw the poverty, misery and 
 disease brought upon wives and children by the excess
 
 208 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 ill drink of the husband and father, and their sym- 
 pathies were aroused. They were practical men of 
 affairs. They knew that their own success depended 
 in great measure upon the capacity, skill and faith- 
 fulness of their employees but they were often com- 
 pelled to pay for untrustworthiness and incapacity 
 caused by drink where they had contracted for better 
 service. They knew, too, that their own prosperity, 
 and that of the town in which they lived, were 
 interchangeable, and they were in a condition to be 
 easily convinced that the public weal could be served 
 by sober and industrious, but never by drunken and 
 shiftless citizens. It is not strange, therefore, that 
 the Mechanics' Association came to consider ways and 
 means of mitigating the terrible evils of intemperance. 
 
 At different times, in one form or another, the 
 subject was under discussion in the association, as 
 one intimately affecting its interests, and of vital 
 importance to the welfare of those in the employ of 
 its members. I participated in those discussions, but 
 to no greater extent than would be expected of a 
 young member interested in the topic. 
 
 In the winter of 1829, the association took under 
 consideration a proposition to change a custom almost 
 universal, and appointed a committee to recommend 
 some plan by which masters would stop furnishing 
 their journeymen and apprentices with ardent spirits. 
 Contractors and others employing workmen were 
 then as much expected to provide liquor for their 
 employees as to pay them wages. Of course the 
 workmen received less money than if not supplied 
 with rum, and it is not hazarding much to say that 
 tlie work was not as well done as if the compensation 
 had been all cash. Few workmen or employers liad
 
 or NEAL DOW. 209 
 
 thought of that. So general was that cuBtom that 
 even the small number of workmen who did not care 
 for, or would not drink, the liquor, received no more 
 pay in cash for the same amount of labor than if they 
 had insisted upon stimulants. Conditions were such 
 that an employer not furnishing liquor had as much 
 difficulty in hiring and retaining help as would one 
 to-day paying less than the ruling rate of wages; 
 hence, if anything was to be done to stop the per- 
 nicious practice, it was necessary that all employers 
 should co-operate. 
 
 At the time the before-mentioned committee was 
 appointed, another was raised charged by the associa- 
 tion to inquire if legislative aid could not be given to 
 prevent the collection of debts contracted for ardent 
 spirits. Of each of these committees I was the junior 
 member. They had several meetings, and gave care- 
 ful attention to the matters committed to them. 
 They consulted master-mechanics and journeymen; 
 they conferred with lawyers and some of the few 
 tradespeople who did not sell liquor. I gave some 
 time to the investigation, and my service on those 
 committees unquestionably increased the interest I 
 was already taking in the question. 
 
 The first committee reported at length, setting forth 
 the evils and urging the abolishment of the existing 
 practice. Its recommendation was adopted by an 
 almost unanimous vote, and the master-mechanics 
 belonging to the society took measures to give effect 
 to the position taken. Though a great power for 
 good in Portland, that action subjected the associa- 
 tion and its members to criticism and abuse from 
 liquor-sellers and others whose fancied interests, 
 habits or sympathies led them to favor the "good,
 
 210 REMINISCENCES 
 
 old way." Tlie resulting discussions, and even some 
 of tlie antagonisms created^ had an influence in fixing 
 the position of several members of the association in 
 the ranks of active temperance men during the contest 
 which soon, and for years, was to be waged all along 
 the line in Portland. 
 
 As to the proposition submitted to the other com- 
 mittee, a favorable report was also made. So far as I 
 am aware, the appointment of this committee was the 
 first step in Maine toward establishing by law the 
 policy which years afterwards was engrafted and has 
 since been maintained in the statutes of this state, viz : 
 
 " No action shall be maintained upon any claim or demand, 
 promissory note, or other security, contracted or given for 
 intoxicating liquors." 
 
 The first aggressive step on my part against legal 
 regulations that I remember was taken shortly after 
 the date of the appointment of those two committees. 
 On my motion the association voted, in the spring of 
 1829, to request the selectmen to insert in the warrant 
 for the api)roaching town-meeting an article to see if 
 the town would not vote to discontinue the practice of 
 ringing the "Eleven O'clock Bell" as a signal for 
 workmen to rest from labor and refresh themselves 
 with liquor. I was made the agent of the association 
 to present this request to the selectmen. They lis- 
 tened to me courteously, and promised to take the 
 matter under consideration. Nothing more came of 
 it. liowever. then, and "Eleven O'clock " was rung for 
 some time thereafter. 
 
 At a meeting of the association held in May, 1829, 
 the committee of arrangements for the approaching 
 festival on the Eourth of July was requested not to
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 211 
 
 provide ardent spirits. That, also, was a great step in 
 advance, and from that day to this, as I have been 
 informed, and believe, no liquors have appeared on 
 any festive occasion under the control of that society. 
 I was invited by the committee to deliver the address. 
 Accepting the invitation, I dwelt at length upon the 
 subject of temperance. By vote of the association the 
 address was subsequently published. As it was the 
 first of my expressions upon temperance to find way 
 into print, of which I have knowledge, I venture to 
 insert an extract here: 
 
 '* The influence which the Mechanics' Associations can 
 exert in the promotion of temperance is greater than that 
 which any other societies possess ; because, if we look abroad 
 through our whole country, we shall see that though this vice 
 has not confined its ruinous effects to any particular ])ody of 
 men, yet our mechanics, our yeomanry, and all the laboring 
 
 classes of the community, are the principal sufferers 
 
 Why does not our blood chill when we look upon scenes of 
 misery and sufiering and wretchedness which exist everywhere 
 around us ?" 
 
 Temperance meetings of one kind or another were 
 now frequently held in Portland and vicinity. They 
 were not largely attended, nor did they attract much 
 attention. A few interested themselves in maintain- 
 ing them and in increasing the attendance. They 
 were held in various places according to circum- 
 stances, sometimes in private houses, sometimes in a 
 church, a shop, or some small hall. I was a frequent 
 speaker at these, and, as opportunities for usefulness 
 to the cause offered, my interest in the subject 
 increased. 
 
 On Sunday evening, the 31st of March, 1833, a 
 meeting of young men of Portland was held at the 
 Park Street church, then known as the Second Metho-
 
 212 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 dist meeting-liouse, afterwards tlie Second Unitarian^ 
 and now the Presbyterian, cliurcli. An address was 
 delivered by the pastor, Rev. Gershom F. Cox. At 
 tlie conclusion of liis remarks ' ' The Portland Young 
 Men's Temperance Society" was organized. The 
 reason for this action was set out in the preamble of 
 the constitution as follows: 
 
 " As the use of ardent spirits is not only unnecessary but 
 injurious, as it tends to produce pauperism, crime and 
 wretchedness, and to hinder the efficacy of all means for the 
 intellectual and moral benetit of society, also to endanger 
 the purity and permanence of our free institutions, and as one 
 of the best means of counteracting its deleterious effects is 
 the influence of united example, therefore, we, recognizing 
 the principle of total abstinence from the use of ardent spirits 
 and from the traffic in it as the basis of our union, do hereby 
 agree to form ourselves into a society." 
 
 A few connected with the society at its inception, 
 including myself, were willing to have the pledge 
 include total abstinence from the milder forms of 
 intoxicants as well as from ardent spirits, but the 
 majority were not ready for that. An article of the 
 constitution read as follows: 
 
 " The object of this society shall be by example and kind 
 moral influence to discountenance the use of ardent spirits 
 and the traffic in it throughout the community." 
 
 It was also provided that any person might become 
 a member of the society by signing the constitution, 
 and three hundred and fourteen signatures were 
 obtained that evening. During the next two or three 
 years of the life of the society over thirteen hundred 
 signed, perhaps the most widely known among them 
 all being Henry W. Longfellow, who, during a^ 
 portion of the life of the society, was a professor in 
 Bowdoin college.
 
 Rev. IcuAiiuij Niciiui.s, 1). D.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 213 
 
 Rev. Grersliom F. Cox was cliosen president, and Dr. 
 C. H. P. McLellan, secretary. Among the vice-presi- 
 dents were Dr. Eliplialet Clark, James B. Calioon, 
 William W. Thomas and Phineas Barnes. An execu- 
 tive committee was also appointed, the members of 
 which, with the officers, were selected with reference 
 to securing representatives from every religious society 
 and each ward in the city. Two weeks later, it was 
 voted that the society should meet once in two weeks 
 until it had visited every religious society in the city 
 that was willing to accommodate it. 
 
 The next meeting was held at the First Parish 
 church. Among the speakers was Rev. Dr. Nichols, 
 whose connection with the first temperance society 
 has been referred to. His address was subsequently 
 published at the request of the society. Though 
 intended for a generation that has now almost wholly 
 passed off the stage of this world's life, it may well be 
 heeded by old and young to-day. He said: 
 
 " The principle is well established by repeated experiments, 
 that no evil results from the most sudden and unqualified 
 abstinence. The benefit is immediate, the dano;er nothing. 
 To your patronage in this object, young gentlemen, we look 
 with peculiar interest. Long, long, may your services be 
 felt in the improved condition of your country. May many 
 chains of intemperance be broken by your means and many 
 more be prevented from being forged. May numerous 
 friends owe to you the restoration and the security of their 
 peace, and in that solemn day, when to have been the cause of 
 others' ruin shall be unutterable woe, may you receive the 
 reward of those who have saved many from destruction." 
 
 A month later, the secretary having resigned, 
 Phineas Barnes was chosen to that position, and in 
 October of the same year, having left the city, he 
 resigned, and I was chosen. At the same meeting it 
 was resolved :
 
 214 REMINISCENCES 
 
 " That it be the sense of this society, in view of the evils 
 known to result from the use of ardent spirits, that the 
 traffic in that article is a moral wrong for which there can be 
 no sufficient palliation." 
 
 In the late fall of 1833, a call was issued for a state 
 convention, to be held in February, 1834, to be com- 
 posed of delegates from the various local temperance 
 societies, of whatever name and of whatever form of 
 pledge. This was the first state gathering in behalf 
 of temperance ever held in Maine. The Young Men's 
 society at its meeting in January, 1834, selected 
 delegates to that convention. William W. Thomas 
 and I were among the number. 
 
 At a meeting held April 8, 1834, Gen. James Apple- 
 ton offered the following resolution: 
 
 " That the license laws of this state are a great obstacle to 
 the advancement of the cause of temperance." 
 
 And the record in my writing adds, ' ' which he 
 advocated powerfully and eloquently." Further con- 
 sideration of the subject was postponed to the next 
 meeting, when Mr. Appleton again urged its adop- 
 tion, and ex-United States Senator John Holmes, 
 took the opposite side. I have no recollection of any 
 earlier discussion of that topic in Portland. 
 
 The only person participating in the organization of 
 that society except myself whom I know to be now 
 living is Hon. William W. Thomas.* He was also, 
 for a time, I believe, the secretary of the association 
 — I think the last one. From that day the great 
 weight of his influence and example has been given 
 to the promotion of temperance. He is a few months 
 
 * Mr. Thomas died in November, 189G, when a few months over 
 ninety-three years of age. It was evident that General Dow felt the 
 loss of his old friend keenly, his own rapid decline commencing about 
 two months later.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 
 
 215 
 
 my senior, and now looks back upon a life constantly 
 useful and influential for good in the community 
 where he has so long lived. He has held many public 
 positions, and has always had the esteem and good 
 will of his fellow-citizens. He was an alderman of 
 Portland at one of the most critical periods in the 
 history of Prohibition, proving himself the possessor 
 of moral and physical courage equal to the most 
 trying emergencies. As a member of the state sen- 
 ate, and chairman of its temperance committee, he 
 reported, in 1858, the prohibitory law, afterwards 
 approved by the people, the foundation of the present 
 prohibitory legislation in this state. Ketiring from 
 the senate, he served two years as mayor, exhibiting 
 the sterling qualities characteristic of his entire life. 
 
 By this time, almost unconsciously, I had become 
 so fully identified with the reform as to be in the way 
 of knowing about most of what was being done if 
 not actually taking part in it. To the best of my 
 recollection, however, my purpose at that time did 
 not extend beyond my desire to assist in correcting 
 evils apparent in the city of Portland. In such 
 speaking as had thus far devolved upon me I found 
 that illustrations, drawn from local incidents, famil- 
 iar to our people, of the results of intemperance, were 
 generally interesting to my hearers, and, as I hoped, 
 effective for good, and this incited me to obtain spe- 
 cial information of as many of them as possible. 
 With this in view, some time in the early thirties, 
 just after the incorporation of Portland as a city, I 
 secured an official position, the duties of which 
 required me to visit every family in the ward in 
 which I lived, two or three times a year. This not 
 only enabled me to see for myself much that I could
 
 216 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 make serviceable in temperance work, but gave me a 
 personal acquaintance which I was able to use to 
 advantage in the same direction. 
 
 The law provided that license fees should be used 
 for the benefit of the poor of towns. I served for 
 years as an overseer of the poor of the city that I 
 might speak with knowledge upon the point that the 
 money thus obtained was absurdly inadequate to 
 reimburse the expense that intemperance, fostered 
 in these licensed places, imposed upon the city. 
 
 What I learned in those positions enabled me to 
 speak more effectively at temperance meetings, and 
 also impressed me deeply with the importance of the 
 temperance reformation as an agency for the pros- 
 perity of the city and the welfare of its inhabitants. 
 I was not, consciously, at least, devoting more time 
 and attention to the reform than seemed to me to be 
 demanded of any good citizen aware of the prevalence 
 of intemperate habits, and their baneful influence. 
 
 It was in 1835 that it first occurred to me that any 
 special duty might be required of me in that line. 
 The incident out of which that idea grew is fresh 
 in my mind, though I am only able to fix its date 
 through a letter, to my wife. That letter, written in 
 Bangor, where I had gone on business in connection 
 with some timber-lands, was dated May 14, 1835. I 
 quote from it a few words relating to a conversation 
 having an influence upon my whole after life : 
 
 "We had an interesting company in the stage (from 
 Augusta to Bangor), much temperance talk, and I trust 
 with good effect ujjon a farmer from New Hampshire, a very 
 sensil)le old man, the father of Cooley, the lawyer, who said 
 I ought to leave off* exploring land and become a temperance 
 lecturer, for I should do a great deal of good. Think of 
 that ! "
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 217 
 
 From that time the subject impressed itself upon 
 my mind more and more as one involving something 
 beyond the reformation of the victims of intemper- 
 ance. It widened in my thought into one for the 
 prevention of the evil, and for the relief of society 
 from the burdens resulting from that vice. The idea 
 of prohibition was not then unfamiliar to me, as will 
 be shown later, but I had not become specially 
 devoted to it. I now began to look upon the liquor 
 shop as a potential agency for the propagation of 
 intemperance and its vast train of following wrong, 
 and as a great obstruction to the material, moral and 
 religious progress of the people. 
 
 About this time, however, an experience convinced 
 me that, while special influences for the promotion of 
 temperance and sobriety were dependent altogether 
 upon the voluntary contribution of time, strength and 
 money of those who conceived it to be their duty to 
 God and man to aid in the work, the hope of gain from 
 his trade made the dealer in intoxicants in effect a 
 paid agent, whose constant occupation it was to neu- 
 tralize those efforts for good. The contest, therefore, 
 between the two seemed an unequal one, like that 
 between the unpaid, unarmed, undisciplined farmers 
 at Lexington and the veterans of King George. The 
 parallel might, it seemed to me, be carried further. 
 The vendor of intoxicants, with his license, might 
 fairly claim to represent the state, as did the British 
 redcoats under Pitcairn, while the friends of temper- 
 ance, like the farmer victims of that first encounter of 
 the Revolution, were, in effect, engaged in interfering 
 with the operations of the law of the land. 
 
 A citizen of Portland with whom I was well 
 acquainted, a man of more than ordinary native
 
 218 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 ability, a graduate of Harvard college, influentially 
 connected in our community, liad become intem- 
 perate, thus greatly impairing his usefulness. My 
 attention was specially called to his case through the 
 appeal of his wife to me for counsel and assistance. 
 The man had made several efforts to reform, but had 
 repeatedly relapsed. During one of these periods of 
 sobriety I had assisted him to secure an official posi- 
 tion, for which, aside from his former intemperate 
 habits, he was admirably qualified. 
 
 Whether he could retain that place depended alto- 
 gether upon his ability to refrain from drink. There 
 was in the vicinity of the office where he was employed 
 a most "respectable" shop where liquor was sold. 
 My friend's pride yet kept him from the lower dens, 
 and I believed that the refusal of the keeper of that 
 resort to sell him liquor, should he apply for it, would 
 help him in an effort to abstinence, and perhaps save 
 him from the ruin certain to overwhelm him if he 
 returned to drink. 
 
 Accordingly I called on the proprietor of that shop, 
 
 stated the case with all the peculiar circumstances 
 
 attending it, and my hopes and fears connected with 
 
 it. He listened to me attentively and respectfully, 
 
 manifesting a degree of interest which encouraged mo 
 
 to believe that- he would heed my request and refuse 
 
 to sell liquor in that particular case, should it be 
 
 called for. But, after I had concluded, he said to me 
 
 in substance: 
 
 " Mr. Dow, you attend to your business, and I will look 
 after mine. I am licensed to sell liquor, have paid my money 
 for the privilege. That money helps to pay your taxes, and 
 it is a small business for you to try to prevent me from obtain- 
 ing the business I have a right to under "the law. If that man 
 comes in here in a sober condition and asks for liquor, 1 have
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 219 
 
 a legal right to sell it to him, and I shall do so, and I do not 
 want you around here whining about it." 
 
 Surprised, disappointed, indignant, I replied to the 
 effect that sooner or later I would see that he and all 
 like him were driven from the community unless they 
 abandoned their infamous business. Afterwards, 
 thinking it possible that some lack of tact on my 
 part, or my well known activity in connection with 
 the temperance movement might have led the man to 
 reply as he did, I advised the poor wife to call and in 
 her own way prefer the request, thinking it improb- 
 able that he would be deaf to entreaties urged upon 
 him with the eloquence born of her recollection of 
 past sufferings and her fear of future wrongs. A few 
 days later she came to me, and with tears in her eyes 
 told me that she had been no more successful than I 
 in the attempt to erect that feeble barrier to protect 
 herself and family from the danger of the intemper- 
 ance of her husband. 
 
 Her story strengthened the feeling with which my 
 interview with the liquor-seller in question was 
 closed. The reply that I had made to him, however, 
 was more than the ebullition of temporary feeling 
 then excited. I had been prepared to take the stand I 
 threatened by my already matured belief that the 
 liquor-traffic was the source of infinite evils, and that 
 there was no other field where work was demanded 
 for human progress in which laborers were so few or 
 so much needed. That incident affected me with 
 vital force. As I reflected upon it as only one of 
 the thousands of cases into which it mJght be indefi- 
 nitely multiplied with a product of immeasurable 
 misery to so many helpless women and innocent 
 children, I became more strongly convinced that my
 
 220 REMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 
 
 duty was clear. I resolved to try to discharge it. 
 From that day I have followed it with such strength 
 of body, mind and purpose as Grod has given to me. 
 
 Many times, prompted thereto by the seeming indif- 
 ference and sometimes strenuous opposition of those 
 whom I knew to be good citizens, and whom I believed 
 desired to be consistent Christians, I have considered 
 anew that decision, and have asked myself if the ob- 
 ject sought was worthy the sacrifices it necessitated. 
 But such reconsiderations have served to confirm me, 
 if possible, more strongly than before in the belief that 
 nothing is more productive of wretchedness for the 
 individual, or more obstructive to the general progress 
 and prosperity of the state, than the trafiic in intoxi- 
 cating drinks, and never, from the day of my early de- 
 termination, have I doubted that duty demanded of 
 me unrelenting and uncompromising opposition to 
 that trade.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 LIQUOR LEGISLATIOISr OF MAINE FROM 1820 TO THE SUG- 
 GESTION OF A PROHIBITORY LAW. THE MAINE STATE 
 TEMPERANCE SOCIETY. ORGANIZATION OF MAINE 
 TEMPERANCE UNION, PROGRESS TOWARD PRO- 
 HIBITION. GENERAL APPLETON's REPORT 
 RECOMMENDING THAT POLICY. 
 
 Maine inherited, at the time of her admission to the 
 Union, tlie laws of Massachusetts, and her first legis- 
 lation in no way modified those relating to the liquor- 
 traffic. The first law of her own adoption bearing 
 upon the subject was approved March 20, 1821. That 
 was a license law, and, except in the matter of fees, 
 and penalties for its violation, had all the provisions 
 found in the most approved license laws of these latter 
 days. But severe penalties for violation of such stat- 
 utes are not of modern invention. At the time of 
 the first liquor legislation by the mother state in our 
 colonial days, the law-givers provided whipping for 
 those selling "strong water " without a license. 
 
 The new law was similar to the existing statute of 
 Massachusetts. It provided that the licensing board 
 of the several towns might license as many persons of 
 "sober life and conversation, " and suitably qualified 
 for the employment, as they deemed necessary. The
 
 222 REMINISCENCES 
 
 license fee was six dollars. Any one presuming to be 
 a common seller without a license was liable to a 
 penalty of fifty dollars, and any person at any time 
 selling without such license should forfeit for each 
 offense len dollars. 
 
 Some of the provisions of that law shoAv that the 
 tendency of the traffic to gather about it other evils 
 was even then well understood. Gambling on the 
 licensed premises was prohibited, and all games and 
 other employments used in gambling were also pro- 
 scribed. Excessive drinking was not to be allowed. 
 Minors, travelers excepted, were not to be furnished 
 with drink without the special permission of parents. 
 ' ' Names of persons reputed common drunkards or 
 common tipplers " were to be posted by selectmen in 
 all licensed places, and liquors were not to be fur- 
 nished to such. Selectmen could also prohibit the 
 sale for the space of one year to any person who 
 should by idleness or excessive drinking of spirituous 
 liquors so misspend, waste or lessen his estate as to 
 expose himself or family to want, or to indulge in 
 liquor "so as to endanger his life, " and all persons 
 were prohibited from obtaining for and furnishing to 
 any such any spirituous or strong liquors. 
 
 In a moiety feature of the law an attempt was made 
 to hire as many as possible to assist in enforcing it. 
 Thus county-attorneys were especially enjoined to 
 "file information against" persons selling without a 
 license, and all fines not exceeding twenty dollars 
 were appropriated, one moiety to the use of the person 
 who should sue therefor. 
 
 There was also a provision prohibiting parties, 
 licensed to sell liquor, from giving credit to under- 
 graduates of colleges without consent of the college
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 22S 
 
 authorities, and the party so violating this provision, 
 in addition to his penalty, could not be re-licensed 
 within a year of such violation. It was provided that, 
 "all moneys accruing for licenses granted to retailers, 
 inn-holders and victualers " were to be applied for the 
 benefit of the poor — certainly a suitable companion 
 for a license law. 
 
 Apparently some of the gentlemen of "sober life 
 and conversation " who had obtained licenses under- 
 took to cheat the state, and for one contribution to 
 the pauper fund set up more than one pauper manufac- 
 tory; for, in 1824, the sale of liquor was prohibited at 
 more than one place under the same license. It seems, 
 too, that selectmen had found it burdensome to keep 
 the run of all those using liquor to excess, for the 
 new law required "sheriffs, deputy-sheriffs, constables 
 and tithing-men " to furnish information to selectmen 
 of all suffering from the excessive use of liquors, so 
 that the selectmen might better carry out the pro- 
 visions of the law prohibiting the sale to such persons. 
 It was also provided that no licensee violating 
 any restriction of the law should have his license 
 renewed for the term of two years. Evidently a con- 
 nection with the traffic was having a demoralizing 
 effect upon the men of "sober life and conversation" 
 who had procured licenses. 
 
 One provision, of interest not only because of its 
 peculiar character but for the testimony afforded by it 
 to the extent of intemperance in the state at that time 
 and to the conviction existing that something should 
 be done to correct it, was as follows: 
 
 " And it is hereby enjoined on all good citizens of this 
 state to give such information" (i. e., of persons using liquor 
 to excess, etc.,) "to the selectmen and assessors of their
 
 224 REMINISCENCES 
 
 respective towns and plantations for the purpose aforesaid," 
 i.e., that liquor-sellers (who knew better than any one else, 
 who those were) might be notified not to sell to them. 
 
 Now it should be borne in mind that in those days 
 no law had driven the trade into the hands of the 
 "lowest and most disreputable" people, as is urged 
 to-day in their arguments against Prohibition by 
 those in favor of license. Only people of "sober 
 life and conversation, and suitably qualified," were 
 licensed; yet such was the effect of the trade in their 
 hands in Maine in those days that the law enjoined 
 upon all good citizens to act as a sort of moral 2'>o^^e- 
 comitatus, to lessen as much as possible the evil. How 
 demoralizing the trade upon all having to do with it! 
 
 Election days were occasions of great drunkenness 
 and disturbance. In 1826 a law was passed called 
 "An Act to Prevent Intemperance at Elections." It 
 provided for the seizure of liquors exposed for sale 
 within a hundred rods of any place where an election 
 was being held, and also of any carriage, tent, booth 
 or vessels in wtich such liquors were exposed for sale 
 "to be detained until twenty-four hours after the 
 adjournment of the election." At the expiration of 
 that time they were to be delivered on demand to the 
 owner or the person from whom they were taken, 
 after payment of three dollars for safe-keeping. If 
 not demanded, they were to be sold at public auction 
 for benefit of owners, etc. 
 
 But there was a i)rovision shoAving the tender feel- 
 ing entertained for the traffic, and the belief that 
 licensed places were, in a measure, sacred soil, upon 
 which the state could not trench to protect itself even 
 on its recurring annual accouchements of authority 
 and power. It was that the act "should not be con-
 
 OF KEAL DOW. 225 
 
 strued so as to prohibit licensed parties from the 
 pursuit of their ordinary business in their usual 
 places of prosecuting the same." If people would 
 get intoxicated about the polls it was entirely con- 
 sistent with the theory on which they had been 
 authorized to sell liquor, that the licensed dealers 
 should have the exclusive privilege of reaping the 
 " profit " of making them so. 
 
 In 1829 the law was further amended so as to 
 prohibit licensed persons from selling to non-com- 
 missioned officers or soldiers of the United States 
 within five miles of any military post, or when such 
 non-commissioned officers or soldiers were on duty 
 outside of the five mile limit, unless such soldier 
 could present a permit from his commanding officer 
 for such sale. It would seem that through sales to 
 soldiers some special damage to the community was 
 experienced, but it does not appear that the men of 
 "sober life and conversation, " refrained from selling 
 to them. 
 
 In this year, 1829, also, a local-option law was 
 enacted and a law passed amending that of 1821, so 
 that "no license granted as aforesaid shall authorize 
 the sale of wine, spirituous or mixed liquors, part of 
 which is spirituous, to be drunk in the store or shop 
 of any victualer or retailer," though taverners were 
 still allowed to sell liquors to be drunk on the 
 premises. A provision was incorporated that any 
 town might at its annual meeting, by a vote of the 
 majority of its legal voters, authorize the licensing 
 board to grant licenses to sell to be drunk in the store 
 or shop of such persons under such regulations as 
 might be prescribed by the selectmen, and that such 
 license should be revokable by the selectmen on
 
 226 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 complaint and hearing thereon. It further provided 
 that the selectmen, at the time of granting such 
 license, should deliver to each person by them 
 licensed the name of any one "known to them to be 
 addicted to the intemperate use of strong liquors," 
 and licensees were prohibited from selling thereto. 
 
 It was also made the duty of the licensing board to 
 revoke the license in every instance which should 
 come to their knowledge of a violation of any of the 
 provisions of the act under complaint made and hear- 
 ing thereon. Licensed parties were also required to 
 keep copies of the act posted in a public and con- 
 spicuous place in their shops. The penalties under 
 this new law were also to be appropriated as under the 
 former — one half to the complainant. 
 
 By an act approved March 18, 1830, distinction was 
 made in the cost of license to those who were author- 
 ized to sell to be drunk on the premises and to those 
 who were not, the former remaining at six dollars and 
 the latter placed at three. The fees were not large. 
 Licenses were presumed to be issued only to those of 
 "sober life and conversation," and the restrictions 
 were such that, if any regulations would regulate, 
 whatever good the community could get from the 
 traffic might be enjoyed without its evils. So evi- 
 dently believed the legislators of 1829-30. 
 
 It is suggestive that the town-clerk, under all these 
 laws a member of the licensing board, was to receive 
 for his own use twenty-five cents on every license 
 granted — nothing on any refused — and in more than 
 one instance, when the licensing board divided upon 
 the expediency of granting licenses in general or to 
 any one in particular, the vote of the clerk was 
 recorded in favor of granting.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 227 
 
 By the same act licensees were prohibited from 
 furnishing liquor to any Indian except "for the use 
 of the sick," under the direction of a regular, practic- 
 ing physician. The act also repealed the existing 
 prohibition of the sale by retail without license of 
 beer, ale and cider. 
 
 In 1832, the law of 1824, which imposed certain 
 duties upon sheriffs and other officers, to secure the 
 better enforcement of the license law, and called 
 upon all good citizens, also, as we have seen, to assist 
 in the same, with other provisions inimical to the 
 liquor-selling interest, was repealed. 
 
 Again, in- 1833, it was distinctly made the duty of 
 municipal officers "in their warrants for convening 
 the inhabitants of their respective towns, plantations 
 and cities, at their annual meetings in March or 
 April, to insert an article " to see if they would be 
 authorized to grant licenses to sell to be drunk on the 
 premises. This was a provision intended to relieve 
 the liquor-sellers of the difficulty which they 
 encountered through the refusal of selectmen of some 
 of the towns, in deference to the growing hostility to 
 the traffic, to so prepare the warrants that a popular 
 vote might be had upon the question as to whether 
 licenses should be granted in their communities. 
 The liquor men clearly understood that in every such 
 contest they would have the advantage — through 
 their special interest in its issue — over the rest of the 
 community. 
 
 It provided for an appeal of any person aggrieved 
 by the refusal to grant such person a license, or by 
 the revoking of a license already granted, from the 
 municipal licensing board, taking the action com- 
 plained against, to the county commissioners, and if
 
 228 REMINISCENCES 
 
 such license was granted by the county commissioners 
 the license fee was to be paid for the benefit of the 
 county. This provision created a species of rivalry be- 
 tween the town and county financial agents, through 
 which almost any applicant, whether or not of ' ' sober 
 life and conversation," was quite sure to obtain a 
 license from one party or the other. 
 
 In 1834, after twelve years of unsatisfactory experi- 
 ence, the legislature repealed the former legislation 
 upon the subject, and the law substituted estab- 
 lished a license fee of one dollar, to be paid to the 
 selectmen, treasurer and town-clerk of towns, or to 
 the assessors and clerk of plantations, or to the alder- 
 men and city-clerk in cities, as the case might be. 
 There was no restriction upon the sale of cider, ale, 
 beer, etc. The licensees were to give a bond in the 
 sum of three hundred dollars to observe the require- 
 ments of the law. 
 
 No person was to be allowed to drink to drunken- 
 ness or excess in any licensed shop, nor was liquor to 
 be sold to any minor or servant, under pain of 
 incurring the forfeiture of the bond. Notices were to 
 be given, as under former laws, of persons who were 
 addicted to the use of strong liquors, and licensed 
 persons who sold to such were to forfeit the penalties 
 of the bond. It was made the duty of the municipal 
 officers to revoke and make void the license of any 
 person violating the provisions of the act, and to 
 cause the bond to be prosecuted after complaint and 
 hearing thereon, and ' ' any fine, forfeiture or penalty 
 not exceeding twenty dollars " was appropriated ' ' one 
 moiety thereof to the use of the person who may sue 
 therefor," and the fine for selling without a license 
 was ' ' not less than thirty nor more than three hun-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 229 
 
 dred dollars." Now came evidence of collusion 
 between the prosecuting officers and those who 
 violated the law, and in 1835 it was enacted that no 
 prosecuting officer should discontinue any legal 
 process commenced or to be commenced unless by 
 direction of the court. 
 
 It is now to be remembered that at the inception of 
 the temperance movement in Maine, and for many 
 years thereafter, the sale of liquor was considered as 
 respectable as any other branch of business. Men 
 engaged in the liquor trade with clear consciences 
 and general approbation, for the doctrine that rum- 
 selling was a vocation inconsistent with good citi- 
 zenship, as inimical to the general good, had not then 
 to any extent been preached. They had not consid- 
 ered the incalculable evils inflicted upon society by 
 their trade. They did not understand that their 
 business was surely and not slowly undermining the 
 morality and prosperity of the community of which 
 they were a part, and to the welfare of which they 
 believed themselves devoted. 
 
 Many of those engaged in liquor-selling were lead- 
 ers in their communities. In business their capital 
 was needed in projected enterprises which their judg- 
 ment and experience were relied upon to guide. In 
 politics their will was law, and their favor necessary 
 to the ambition of every aspirant for official emolu- 
 ment or honor. In society their houses were the 
 rendezvous of the elite, and their presence at social 
 gatherings was certain to give tone and contribute 
 pleasure. Many of them were regular attendants 
 upon the ordinances of the church ; some were fore- 
 most in good words and works. Elders, deacons and 
 Sabbath-school teachers competed with each other for 
 
 IG
 
 230 KEMIXISCENCES 
 
 customers for liquor, as well as for dry goods and 
 other family supplies, and cheerfully donated gener- 
 ously of profits thus obtained for the support of the 
 Gospel at home and abroad. Nor was engagement in 
 such business generally deemed inconsistent with 
 participation in charitable or religious work. 
 
 Such was the case even to my day, and for some 
 time after I had been actively engaged in labors for 
 the temperance reformation, and I earnestly devoted 
 much time to exposing the inconsistency of it. In 
 that particular phase of the work I severely criticised 
 some men who, though active in church work, con- 
 tinued in the business of selling liquor. There were 
 those who did not think it was necessary for me to do 
 so. Such did not understand that so long as men 
 reputed by their fellows to be good engage in repre- 
 hensible practices, so long they are maintaining an 
 insurmountable obstacle to the creation of a healthy 
 public sentiment upon which reforms may be based 
 and from which progress will date. Denouncing bad 
 men for bad practices may have little influence for 
 good. The chief troubles the world has experienced 
 have been from the bad practices of those claiming 
 and reputed to be good. That was recognized eigh- 
 teen centuries ago, when Scribes and Pharisees, the 
 good, religious men of the time, were denounced as 
 hypocrites and whited sepulchres, full of dead men's 
 bones, by one who ate with publicans and sinners. 
 
 Only grave reasons could lead men to incur the 
 odium and expose themselves to the personal incon- 
 veniences, discomforts, losses and antagonisms sure 
 to be encountered in putting themselves in opposition 
 to such influential citizens as were interested in one 
 way or another in the liquor business. Those reasons
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 231 
 
 were to be found in the great and wide-spread evils of 
 intemperance at that day, and in the consciences of 
 those who believed it their duty to correct them. 
 
 Maine was behind most of her sisters in the organi- 
 zation of a state society. This was due to several 
 causes. There was much work close at hand to be 
 done in every village by the local society, if there was 
 one, leaving little of means, strength or time for effort 
 beyond its immediate vicinity. Then again, the 
 comparatively sparse population and poor roads made 
 travel inconvenient and burdensome in time and 
 money. More than this perhaps, there was a strong 
 and influential element, because of the proportionally 
 large amount of capital directly or indirectly con- 
 nected with the traffic in intoxicants, that interposed 
 grave difficulties to the progress of the movement. 
 When at length a state temperance organization was 
 effected, it was found that all but four states in the 
 Union had preceded Maine in such action, Illinois 
 being the only other northern state, while there were 
 but three southern states that had not instituted 
 such societies. 
 
 It was in February, 1834, that a state organization 
 was formed. This was in Augusta during the session 
 of the legislature. It existed as an active agency for 
 about four years. While it received the support and 
 co-operation of those who advocated total abstinence, 
 as a society it did not make that a test of membership. 
 It did, however, bear positive testimony against 
 drunkenness and the excessive use of liquor, and 
 generally its members avoided altogether the use of 
 "distilled" liquors. Its avowed object was: "The 
 promotion of sobriety and temperance among the 
 people."
 
 232 EEMINLSCENCES 
 
 The work of this association was prosecuted with 
 varying energy. Nevertheless, its influence upon the 
 habits of the people and the public opinion of the 
 state with reference to the temperance question 
 generally was marked, not so much because of what it 
 undertook, but because in honestly trying to accom- 
 plish that, its thoughtful and active members came 
 to see that their methods were inadequate, illogical, 
 futile. Filled with zeal for the cause they were 
 sincerely trying to serve, the more earnest among its 
 numbers passed on in the direction indicated by 
 their observation and experience as necessary. 
 
 That old society could only serve the end for which 
 it was created by ceasing to exist. It sought to 
 prevent the "abuse" of intoxicants by advocating 
 moderation in their use.- It found it impossible to 
 draw any out of the maelstrom of intemperance on to 
 that platform, while, of those it was unintention- 
 ally, imperceptibly, but none the less certainly, 
 inviting on to it from among the young and 
 inexperienced, it was pushing many in. Neverthe- 
 less, for a time it kept on its well-intentioned course, 
 its founders little dreaming and its active agents 
 little realizing that the more influential and effective 
 their society should become in the actual promotion 
 of temperance the sooner it would give place to a 
 more progressive, logical and consistent successor. 
 
 In 1837, ex-Governor King was the president of this 
 society. At its annual meeting, held in Augusta, 
 February 2d of that year, it was proposed to amend 
 the pledge by making total abstinence, not only from 
 "ardent spirits" but from the milder alcoholics, a 
 pre-requisite for membership. An animated and 
 warm debate followed. Governor King and others,
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 233 
 
 all of them most respectable and influential members, 
 earnestly opposed the proposition. .. They took the 
 ground that there was a Bible warrant for the use of 
 wine; that harm was sure to come to the temperance 
 cause from the adoption of a proposition so generally 
 regarded as unwise and fanatical. There was always 
 danger, they said, in the prosecution of any cause, 
 lest its zealous and inconsiderate friends should bring 
 it into discredit by proposing extreme measures, sure 
 to result in reaction and the permanent injury of the 
 cause. 
 
 The friends of the proposed new departure were 
 voted down, but by this time it had become a matter 
 of principle with many of them, and they withdrew 
 from the meeting and from the society, and, resorting 
 to another meeting-house, organized a new associa- 
 tion, which they named "The Maine Temperance 
 Union." The record of this first meeting of the new 
 society recites: 
 
 "A meeting composed of delegates to the Maine Temper- 
 ance Society and members of that society was held in the 
 public meeting-house at Augusta, February 2d, 1837, for the 
 purpose of forming a new state society upon the principle of 
 total abstinence from all that intoxicates." 
 
 Among those who assisted in this initial meeting of 
 the new departure were Rev. Dr. Tappan, of Augusta; 
 Samuel M. Pond, of Bucksport; Charles A. Stack- 
 pole, of Bangor; Rev. Thomas Adams, of Waterville; 
 Hon. Samuel Reddington, of Vassalboro; Col. John 
 N. Swasey, of Bucksport; Col. ' Henry Little, of 
 Bangor; William Trafton. of Shapleigh; Dr. Isaac 
 Lincoln, of Brunswick; Hon. George Downs, of 
 Calais; Abiier (afterwards Governor) Coburn, of 
 Bloomfield; Rev. Philip Munger, of Livermore; Sam-
 
 234 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 iiel Fogg, of Weld; Rev. David Thurston, of Win- 
 throp; Rev. Asbury Caldwell, of Augusta; George A. 
 Tliatclier, of Bangor; Richard D. (afterwards Judge) 
 Rice, of Augusta; H. B. Farnum, of Bangor; and 
 John F. Potter, of Augusta. Mr. Potter, afterwards 
 a member of Congress from Wisconsin, became famous 
 from his connection with a proposed duel, growing 
 out of the assault upon Senator Charles Sumner. I 
 believe that, except myself, he is the only person 
 living who participated in that meeting. 
 
 Several other clergymen were present whose names 
 I cannot now recall. Here it may l^e noted that for 
 some years temperance work in Maine was largely 
 promoted, if not altogether managed, by clergymen. 
 They were prominent and influential at meetings and 
 conventions, and were active in arranging and direct- 
 ing proceedings. This they did wisely and well, 
 contributing greatly to give respectability and influ- 
 ence to the whole movement. These clergymen strove 
 earnestly to promote the cause in all legitimate ways. 
 The interest taken by them secured the co-operation 
 of large numbers glad to look to such men for sugges- 
 tion and guidance in matters relating to the social and 
 moral welfare of the people. 
 
 Besides clergymen there were many who were 
 prominent in business and political circles of the 
 state, or who afterwards became so, who rendered 
 great service in the promotion of the cause. I regret 
 my inability to name more than a few. 
 
 Among those taking a more or less active and 
 influential part in the proceedings of the Union at 
 different times during its existence, was Gen. James 
 Appleton, of Portland. General Appleton had been 
 an officer in the war of 1812. He was a man of
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 235 
 
 marked ability, high character and great influence, 
 and was an eloquent and forcible speaker. A 
 strong antislavery man, in 1842 he was a candidate 
 of the Liberty party for governor. This organization 
 appeared in state politics for the first time in the 
 gubernatorial canvass of 1841. General Appleton was 
 its candidate in the three following years. It was 
 subsequently merged in the Eepublican party of the 
 state. 
 
 No man in Maine was more devoted to the objects 
 of the Maine Temperance Union, no man more influen- 
 tial in promoting them, than General Appleton. He 
 was among the earliest friends of Prohibition, and in 
 a formal address, referred to elsewhere, upon that 
 subject to the legislature, of which he was at the time 
 a member, he developed the logic of that policy, 
 demonstrating by irrefutable argument its rightful- 
 ness and expediency. We were warm friends. He 
 was many years my senior, but I was often in his 
 place of business in consultation with him as to the 
 best methods of conducting our work in Portland. 
 Before coming to Portland, while a citizen of Massa- 
 chusetts, he had advocated prohibition of the liquor- 
 traffic, and to him as much as to any one was due the 
 interest in that policy I began to feel early in my 
 labors for the cause. 
 
 Charles A. Stackpole, when I first made his 
 acquaintance, was a resident of Bangor. Subse- 
 quently he moved to Portland, and we became 
 intimately acquainted and warm friends. His mental 
 ability and his physical and moral courage were out 
 of all proportion to his physique, as he was slight of 
 frame and stature, being somewhat below the medium 
 height. A clear, incisive speaker, and pungent
 
 236 EEMINISCEXCES 
 
 writer, he was always found in the front of every 
 contest involving the temperance and antislavery 
 movements, in both of which he took great interest, 
 devoting thereto far more time than he could reason- 
 ably afford. In the early days of those reforms he 
 abandoned more than one position upon which he 
 depended for support of himself and family, rather 
 than subordinate his views upon those questions to 
 the wishes of his employers. 
 
 Lot M. Morrill was another interested member of 
 the Union. He was a Democrat at that time, but 
 afterwards, as a Republican, became governor of the 
 state, United States senator, and secretary of the 
 United States treasury. From this latter position he 
 retired upon the accession of President Hayes, and 
 was appointed collector of the port of Portland, which 
 office he held until his death. Mr. Morrill always 
 retained his interest in the cause of temperance, con- 
 tributing to it with voice and pen all through his long 
 life and distinguished political career. Years after- 
 ward, from his seat in the United States senate, he 
 referred to the liquor-traffic as "the crime of crimes." 
 
 General Samuel Fessenden, of Portland, was an- 
 other influential member. He was very prominent as 
 an antislavery leader in the state. He had been in 
 early life an intimate friend of Daniel Webster, and 
 was the father of United States Senator William Pitt 
 Fessenden. A man of great intellectual vigor, he had 
 the moral courage which enabled him to espouse and 
 devote himself to whatever he believed to be right, 
 and no consideration of personal popularity, pecun- 
 iary gain, or individual comfort could induce him to 
 swerve from the path he had chosen. He carried 
 these characteristics into his profession as a lawyer,
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 237 
 
 in ^Yllicll he lielcl for years a leading position in 
 Maine, and lie never would take a case he believed to 
 be unjust. In later years, after the enactment of the 
 prohibitory law, he invariably refused retainers from 
 liquor-sellers, his view being that they were deliberate 
 violators of law, unlike those, in this particular, who 
 might commit criminal acts under stress of sudden 
 temptation. He lived to a ripe old age, enjoying the 
 respect and confidence of all who knew him. 
 
 A son of General Fessenden, Rev. Samuel C. Fes- 
 senden, Hiram Belcher, of Farmington, Luther Sev- 
 erance, of Augusta, and Samuel P. Benson, all 
 afterwards members of Congress, werO' at one time 
 or another members of this Union. Edward Kent, 
 twice governor of Maine, was a frequent attendant. 
 To Governor Kent, as has been related, had fallen the 
 rare good fortune of having twice, once in 1837 and 
 again in 1840, led his party, (the Whig,) though 
 ordinarily largely in the minority in the state, to 
 victory over its Democratic rival which, save in those 
 two years, up to 1852, was in the control of Maine. 
 He was for several years, I think from its organiza- 
 tion, a vice-president of the National Temperance 
 society, until 1848, when I succeeded him. 
 
 Among those still living who were interested in the 
 Union, is Rev. Austin Willey, " now of Minnesota, a 
 prominent leader in the antislavery movement. He was 
 a member of the Willey family that suffered in the la- 
 mentable landslide in the White Mountain Notch many 
 years ago, and was editor for a long time of an 
 antislavery paper published in this city, the influence 
 of which was constantly on the side of temperance. 
 Indeed, it is true that most of the men who were 
 
 * Since deceased.
 
 238 REMINISCENCES 
 
 actively engaged in either the temperance or the 
 antislavery movement sympathized with the other. 
 Rev. D. B. Randall" was also a member. He is still 
 living, and from that day to this has zealously labored 
 in the promotion of the cause he thus early espoused. 
 
 Hon. John Holmes was an influential member. He 
 had been the president of the constitutional conven- 
 tion of the state and one of the first two United 
 States senators from Maine, serving from 1821 to 
 1827, and again from 1829 to 1833. Mr. Holmes was a 
 man of great ability, and at one time of commanding 
 political influence in Maine. When elected to the 
 United States senate he Avas a resident of Alfred in 
 the county of York. Subsequently he married, for 
 his second wife, a daughter of General John Knox, of 
 Revolutionary fame, and removing to Thomaston, 
 resided there in the old Knox mansion. It is seldom 
 that the same roof has covered the home of two men 
 so distinguished as were they in their different 
 spheres of life. 
 
 Mr. Holmes was an interesting speaker. He became 
 active in the temperance movement, and was a wel- 
 come advocate of it in different parts of the state. I 
 remember well his relation of an incident occurring in 
 Thomaston. The people were considering in the 
 spring town-meeting whether licenses to sell liquor 
 should be granted. This was a common occurrence 
 in the towns of Maine under the ' ' local-option " 
 provision prevailing at one stage of the temperance 
 movement. 
 
 After a long discussion the house was polled. To 
 do this it was necessary that all should go out of the 
 
 * Mr. Randall was one of the officiating clergymen at the funeral of 
 General Dow.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 239 
 
 building. The opponents of license were to range 
 themselves on one side of the road, and its friends to 
 cross over to the other. Among those present was a 
 brawling fellow, who had strongly favored license, 
 and who was at the time considerably under the 
 influence of liquor. As the voters went out of the 
 town-house to divide, this man shouted: "Follow me 
 for liberty! " Crossing over to the license side of the 
 street, he fell in the slush and mud of the gutter. 
 Senator Holmes said that the iljustration of the 
 "liberty" to which that leader would persuade was 
 more effective for the anti-license party that day than 
 all the speeches that had been made. 
 
 Woodbury Davis, of Belfast, afterwards of Port- 
 land, was among those who early in life took an 
 interest in the temperance movement in Maine, and 
 whose influence as long as he lived was given to the 
 cause. His devotion thereto subsequently subjected 
 him to much annoyance and great pecuniary loss. A 
 devout Christian, a gentleman of refinement, and an 
 able lawyer, he was appointed as an associate justice 
 of the Supreme Court by Gov. Anson P. Morrill, the 
 appointment being made in the fall of 1855, shortly 
 after the defeat of Governor Morrill for re-election in 
 the reaction against Prohibition, to be elsewhere 
 related, and less than three months before the Gover- 
 nor retired from office. 
 
 The appointment under those circumstances was 
 irritating to the leaders of the political combination 
 which had carried the state and was so soon to have 
 the disposal of offices. The recognition by Judge 
 Davis of one of two sheriffs claiming the right to act 
 in his court — a judicial decision upon a question 
 of law — was made the pretext for the gratification
 
 240 REMINISCENCES 
 
 of party feeling, and lie was addressed from the bencli 
 by the legislature of 185G, which was controlled by 
 the anti-Maine Law coalition. He was restored to 
 the position in less than a year, the party opposed to 
 Prohibition having meanwhile lost power, and contin- 
 ued on the bench nearly ten years, when he resigned 
 to take the postmaster ship of Portland. During the 
 latter portion of his life he was a near neighbor of 
 mine, and I found great pleasure in his companionship 
 and close friendship. 
 
 Naturally, the secession to the Maine Temperance 
 Union from the parent society included the most 
 advanced and earnest temperance men of the day. 
 
 Among the resolutions adopted at the first meeting 
 of the Union, was the following: 
 
 "Resolved, That the subject of petitioning the legislature 
 for prohibiting, under suital)lo penalties, the sale of intoxi- 
 cating liquors as a drink, be recommended for discussion at 
 the next meeting of this society." 
 
 As far as I am aware, that was the earliest effort 
 made in Maine toward the development of a public 
 sentiment favorable to Prohibition, and I regret that 
 I am unable to give the name of the person who 
 proposed it. It was embodied in a report upon 
 "Subjects to be Considered," presented by Eev. 
 David Thurston, of Winthrop. I think it more than 
 probable that General Appleton, of Portland, was the 
 author of the resolution. However that may be, from 
 that day to its enactment in 1851, there were not 
 wanting in Maine men Avho were earnest adherents of 
 that policy, and who actively exerted themselves to 
 have it adopted as the law of the state. 
 
 The organization of the Union may fairly be 
 regarded as the first in the series of progressive
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 241 
 
 movements resulting in the enactment, in 1851, of 
 what has since been known as "The Maine Law." 
 For fourteen years it maintained its existence, the 
 recognized head of all organized public temperance 
 effort in the state. The means which it adopted, the 
 agencies it employed, and the work it inaugurated 
 and stimulated, and to a very great extent directed 
 and controlled, was chiefly instrumental in creating 
 that change in public sentiment by means of which 
 prohibition of the liquor-trafiic subsequently became a 
 part of the legislative policy of the state, and ulti- 
 mately found place in its fundamental law. 
 
 Temperance societies were formed throughout the 
 state, in almost every town and village, and conven- 
 tions were held quarterly in the several counties. All 
 this was largely done under the auspices of the new 
 society, which continued to assemble in its own 
 annual conventions at Augusta during the sessions 
 of the legislature. These conventions were largely 
 attended, and were influential in forming public 
 opinion. To some extent, also, they were subject to 
 and reflected public opinion. They were representa- 
 tive gatherings. Participation in them was not 
 strictly confined, it is true, to regularly elected 
 delegates from local societies. All members of such 
 societies present at the annual gatherings of the 
 Union were permitted to take part, and these, as well 
 as the delegates, were generally earnest advocates of 
 temperance in their various localities. 
 
 The action of the Union from year to year, there- 
 fore, may be considered as fairly reflecting the 
 average views of the more earnest temperance men 
 of Maine. As in every reformatory movement, there 
 were, of course, some in advance of the mass and some
 
 2-12 KEMIXISCEXCES 
 
 behind. The former were constant in urging more 
 positive action; the latter determined not to move ''too 
 fast and too far." The desire of all, however, was to 
 secure unity of action as far as possible with such 
 various and conflicting views. 
 
 At one of the meetings, an incident fairly illus- 
 trated the different ideas prevailing in the two — right 
 and left^ — ^ wings of the movement. A clergyman, in 
 a carefully considered speech, was urging the impor- 
 tance of caution and moderation. He used an 
 illustration familiar everywhere in Maine at the 
 time. He said: 
 
 ''You know how the careful teamster, when his 
 load of timber reaches the brow of a hill down which 
 he must go, always removes the leading yoke of oxen 
 and chains them on l)ehind, lest the load shall go 
 down too rapidly, crushing everything before it; so 
 we conservative men urge you to caution lest you be 
 crushed by the great load behind you." 
 
 An enthusiastic Methodist minister in the audience 
 sprang to his feet at the close of the speech and broke 
 the force of the illustration by urging: 
 
 ' ' Our work is all up-hill. We need no pulling back, 
 but want our leaders in front to help us over the hard 
 road we have to climb ! " 
 
 That reply carried the day for the "progressive" 
 element. 
 
 Almost concurrently with this first step toward 
 Prohibition by the organized temperance men of the 
 state, the first action of a legislative committee upon 
 the subject was taken. 
 
 In 1837, a joint special committee was appointed by 
 the legislature to take into consideration the entire 
 subject of the license system of the state. This com-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 243 
 
 mittee was composed of Senators David C. Magoun, 
 Luther Severance, Josiah Staples and Tristram Red- 
 Ion, and, on tlie part of the house of representatives, 
 of James Appleton, Daniel Clark, William D. Sewall, 
 Moses Higgins, Joshua Eaton and Ebenezer Knowl- 
 ton, all influential members of the legislature. Two, 
 Messrs. Severance and Knowlton, were afterwards 
 members of Congress. 
 
 To this committee were referred the petitions of 
 Hon. Edward Kent, who was the same year elected 
 governor of the state, and nearly forty thousand 
 others, praying for alterations in the license laws. 
 The committee subsequently submitted a report writ- 
 ten by General James Appleton, the first ofiicial docu- 
 ment in the history of Maine in which Prohibition is 
 suggested as the true method of dealing with the 
 liquor-trafiic. It will be interesting to note some of 
 the positions taken by the committee. 
 
 The report commenced with the statement that 
 "laws granting license to sell ardent spirits have 
 been enacted in every state in the Union, and as far 
 as the committee knows they are at this time, under 
 different forms, in operation in every state. " It con- 
 tinued: 
 
 "The first license law of Massachusetts was passed in the 
 3'ear 1646, and although from that day until the present they 
 have been variously altered and changed, yet at this time the 
 license laws of Maine are substantially what they were at first. 
 They authorize the sale of ardent spirits for common use. 
 This is the principle that gives them character. The manner 
 of granting the license or the form of the law are circumstances 
 of no great amount," 
 
 After referring to the generally admitted increase 
 of intemperance and the operation of state laws, the 
 report says :
 
 244 EEMIXISCEKCES 
 
 "Although other causes, no doubt, were in operation, yet 
 there are many reasons for the opinion that those laws were 
 the principal cause of the result. They make it lawful and 
 reputable for a person who lias a license, to soil it and of course 
 
 not iinpro}ior nor disluniorable to purchase and use it 
 
 It tirst assumes that alcohol is necessary for common use, and 
 then makes provision that there shall be no deticiency by mak- 
 
 ino- it the duty of the select few to keep it for sale 
 
 The law has given character and respectability to the tratKc, 
 and has done much to tix on the minds of the public the im- 
 pression that rum is necessary and that the public good re- 
 quires it. It was seen many years since that no restrictions or 
 
 regulations could prevent abuse or violatimi of the law 
 
 But these regulations only sol'^■o to keep alive and augment the 
 evil. How could it bo otherwise? It is repugnant to the tirst 
 perceptions of common sense to suppose that a man who merely 
 obtained a license could innocently sell 'strong water' — the 
 name tirst given to rum in the colonial laws — and that any 
 other man could be justly liable to whipjiing, Avhich was 
 ordered by one act, for soiling it Avithout a license. The same 
 may be observed of our present laws. They are absurd on 
 the face of them. The people will never bo satisfied that if 
 the tavornor might rightfully vend tho article l)y the glass, to 
 the ruin of his neighbor, it is a crime for the retailor to do the 
 same The trade, except for medicinal and manufac- 
 turing purposes is morally and politically wrong, and no law 
 
 or legislation can change its essential character If it 
 
 is found that the bar-room and grog-shop are subversive of the 
 jniblic good, may we not say so, shall we not shut them up? 
 
 "There is no more reason for supposing that you can re- 
 strain this evil without law than for supposing that theft, 
 gambling or any other crime can be restrained without law. 
 
 This (prohibition) will be a public expression by the 
 
 legislature, which cannot be mistaken and which cannot fail of 
 exerting the most salutary inlluence upon the whole com- 
 munity When it is seen that the tratlic in any article 
 
 entails not only pauperism and crime iquni tho ctinnnunity, 
 but that in numerous cases it threatens human life, and in many 
 instances destroys it at once, it is ditticult of escaping the con- 
 clusion that the government should interpose and prohibit 
 
 it altogether The objection will doubtless be made 
 
 that if Ave had such a law it could not be enforced. Now ad- 
 mit the validity of this objection, and it proves the utter hope-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 245 
 
 lessness of the case, for no one, wc presume, will venture the 
 supposition that you can accomplish against law that which 
 you cannot etl'ect with it. It is sufficiently difficult to reform 
 the manners and habits of the community when the influence 
 and authority of the law can be brought to aid the object, but 
 to do this against the law and against the direct and powerful 
 interests of a numerous class of men created by law is scarcely 
 
 possible One immediate eflect (of prohibition) would 
 
 be to render the traflic disreputal)le as well as unlawful. No 
 individual who had any respect for his character would con- 
 tinue the practice 
 
 "Suppose the law we have in view should be sometimes 
 violated, this would be no sufficient objection to making it, for 
 what law is there Avhich men kee}) perfectly? But we are not 
 left to conjecture on tiiis point. We have a law to prevent 
 gambling in this state. Now the eflect of this law has not 
 been to banish gambling, but it has had the effect to prevent 
 or greatly restrain the evil. It is considered disgraceful to 
 keep a gambling-house, and gaml)lers are unwilling to be 
 known in this character, hence they seek the darkness of the 
 night and secluded places for their purpose, and the commu- 
 nity is thus generally saved from the pernicious influence of 
 their example. Now supj)Ose if instead of this law prohibit- 
 ing gambling we had a statute to regulate gambling by grant- 
 ing licenses to open gambling-shops in every part of the state — 
 and it would be nuich less demoralizing and not more unrea- 
 sonable than the rum laws — what, your committee ask, would 
 be the effect of such a law? It is in vain, therefore, to object 
 to a hnv that it cannot prevent the offense it prohibits. We 
 have a law against theft, but have we no larcenies? 
 
 "The mere existence of such a law would exert the most 
 salutary inffuence upon the public mind. It would of itself 
 go far to create public opinion in regard to the necessity of 
 ardent spirits, for it is no more true that the laws are an ex- 
 pression of public opinion than that they inffuence and deter- 
 mine public opinion. They are as surely the cause as the effect 
 of the public t)opular will. It is the nature of law to mold 
 the public mind to its requirements, and to fasten upon all an 
 
 abiding impression of its value and necessity All 
 
 good and wholesome laws prescribe, at least, what is right, and 
 forbid what is wrong. They raise the standard high, and 
 
 caution, and warn and forbid Not so with the rum 
 
 (license) laws. In their spirit and letter, whether executed or 
 
 17
 
 246 EEMINISCEXCES 
 
 not executed, whether obeyed or disobeyed, their only effect 
 is to destroy. The path they mark out is not the path of truth 
 and safety or virtue and happiness 
 
 " It (the liquor-traffic) leads to ruin, and its steps take hold 
 
 on the grave It is a public evil, or it is not. If it is, 
 
 it is the right and duty of the legislature to stay it at once. 
 
 If it is not an evil, it should be equally free to all We 
 
 would not prohibit the sale of ardent spirits because it is in- 
 consistent with our religious and moral obligations, although, 
 doubtless, this is the fact, but l)ecause the traffic is inconsistent 
 with our obligations, as citizens of the state, and subversive 
 of our social rights and civil institutions. 
 
 "If it is again objected that there is something stronger 
 and more to be depended upon than human laws, even the 
 
 spread of religious sentiments and upright principles, 
 
 what does it value in the present case ? The question is not 
 of the value of religious sentiments and upright principles, 
 nor their persistency in controlling the actions of those who 
 possess these virtues, but is how men are to be controlled in 
 the absence of these principles. On what else could we safely 
 depend but the law to restrain the vicious and intemperate? 
 
 "Public opinion is, doubtless, lixed against highway rob- 
 l)ery, but repeal the law against this crime, and how long 
 would a man travel and be safe? The truth is, laws must be 
 framed for men as they are, and so long as they are the crea- 
 tures of passion and appetite you will never effectually succeed 
 in restraining the perverse except by super-adding to the dic- 
 tates of reason the sanction and authority of the law. The ques- 
 tion of the essential alterations in the license laws has been 
 canvassed for several years by the people of the state, and 
 petitions to this effect have again and again l)een preferred to 
 the legislature, and your committee recognize that the time 
 has arrived when it is proper to act upon the subject. They 
 therefore offer the annexed bill." 
 
 As the bill referred to was the first prohibitory 
 measure introduced in the Maine legislature, it is 
 inserted in full, though it failed to become a law. 
 
 " An Act to regulate the Sale of Brandy, Rum or any Strong 
 Liquor : 
 Be it enacted by the senate and house of representatives in 
 legislature assembled :
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 247 
 
 Section 1, No person shall be allowed to sell brandy, rum 
 or any strong liquors in a less quantity than twenty-eight 
 gallons, and that delivered and carried away all at one time, 
 except physicians and apothecaries, who may sell the same 
 for medicinal and manufacturing purposes. And if any per- 
 son, except the individuals aforesaid, and for the purposes 
 named, shall at any time sell any spirituous liquors or any 
 mixed liquors, part of which is spirituous, in a less quantity 
 than twenty-eight gallons, as aforesaid, he shall forfeit and 
 pay for each and every offence the sum of twenty dollars, to 
 be recovered by action of debt, or upon complaint before any 
 justice within the same county where said offence was com- 
 mitted. 
 
 Section 2. Be it further enacted that prosecutions for the 
 penalty mentioned in the first section of this act may be com- 
 menced by any person or persons, or in the name of the 
 inhabitants of any town or plantation or city where said 
 offence is committed, to be appropriated toward the support 
 of the poor of said town, city or plantation. 
 
 Section 3. Be it further enacted that when any individual 
 shall refuse or neglect to pay the penalty aforesaid that, may 
 be recovered against him by virtue of the provisions of this 
 act, then in such cases he shall be liable to be imprisoned for 
 a term of thirty days within the county jail situated in the 
 county within which such offence shall have been committed, 
 and it shall be the duty of the justice aforesaid to issue his 
 execution or mittimus accordingly. 
 
 Section 4. Be it further enacted that this act shall take 
 effect and be enforced from and after the first day of Septem- 
 ber, 1837, and all acts or parts of acts inconsistent with the 
 provisions of this act be, and the same are repealed." 
 
 With the presentation of that report, the lines 
 began to be clearly drawn between those who adopted 
 the principles laid down by General Appleton and 
 those who clung to the old methods of dealing with 
 the liquor-traffic. 
 
 Though in one form or another at almost every 
 session of the legislature the measures relating to the 
 liquor-traffic had been presented for consideration, 
 and though up to 1837 more than half the legislatures
 
 248 REMINISCENCES 
 
 liad enacted laws bearing upon the subject, no gover- 
 nor had deemed the topic worthy of notice in an 
 inaugural address; but when, in 1838, Governor 
 Edward Kent, whose election as a Whig by a very 
 narrow margin, in the fall of 1837, had broken the 
 long line of Democratic victories in Maine, assumed 
 the executive chair, he said in his address to the 
 legislature : 
 
 "The cause of temperance and that philanthropic move- 
 ment which has already done so much to check the ravages 
 of the fell destroyer of individual health and happiness, and 
 prolific source of crime and misery — intemperance — depend 
 mainly for their ultimate and perfect success upon moral 
 causes, but may yet receive aid and support from legal enact- 
 ments which shall put the seal of reprobation upon the traffic 
 in ardent spirits whenever public sentiment will sustain the 
 strict enforcement of the provisions of such a statute." 
 
 I had been acquainted with Governor Kent for 
 some time. He was about my age, and I first met him 
 when he Avas in attendance upon one of the legisla- 
 tures sitting in Portland. Afterwards, when in 
 Bangor, I renewed his acquaintance and saw him 
 there frequently. The temperance question was 
 often a subject of conversation between us, and we 
 were in substantial accord upon it, with the result 
 that our mutual interest in it was increased. 
 
 As mayor of Bangor in 1837, he referred in his 
 inaugural address to intemperance, as follows: 
 
 "The subject of pauperism leads to the consideration of its 
 prolific source — intemperance. As a municipal corporation 
 we are interested in this subject, for our burdens and taxes 
 are swelled by the crime and misery attendant upon this 
 destroyer of human life and human happiness. As the consti- 
 tuted guardians of the public weal, it is our duty to do what we 
 can to restrain its ravages. I trust that the resolution adopted 
 by the board of last year will be adhered to, and that no legal-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 249 
 
 ized and licensed drinking will be found in our limits. In my 
 view, the sanction or influence of legal authority should never 
 be given to a traific which tills our jails with criminals and 
 almshouses w^ith paupers, and our whole land with want and 
 misery." 
 
 That year lie was renominated by tlie Wliigs as 
 their candidate for governor, they having supported 
 him for that position in the previous year, when if I 
 mistake not, he was also mayor. It is needless to 
 say that in both years he found in me a most 
 enthusiastic supporter. I was led to special activity, 
 not so much by my high personal esteem for him as by 
 the fact of his general interest in the cause with 
 which I was also deeply concerned. 
 
 It would be presumptuous for me to say that I had 
 any influence in leading him to refer to the matter of 
 temperance legislation in his inaugural as governor in 
 the winter of 1838. He was undoubtedly inclined to 
 that, as witness what he had said in the spring of the 
 year before as mayor of Bangor; but we conversed 
 upon the subject, and whatever I did say was quite in 
 line with his own judgment. He was again elected in 
 1840. Our acquaintance had been in the meantime 
 kept up, and he appointed me on his staff.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MAINE TEMPEEANCE UNION CONTINUED. IT DECLARES 
 
 FOR PROHIBITION. ENACTMENT OF PROHIBITORY 
 
 LAW IN 1846. FURTHER LEGISLATION. 
 
 As we have seen, 1837 may fairly be taken as the 
 date of the first attempt at departure in Maine from 
 the time-w^orn and illogical attempt to limit and 
 curtail the evils of the liquor-traffic through the 
 legal endorsement of it as a useful and necessary 
 trade. In that year the Maine Temperance Union 
 voted to consider the expediency of asking for Prohi- 
 bition. In that year, General Appleton, in advance 
 of the great mass of his co-laborers for temperance, 
 advocated that policy in the legislature, of which he 
 was a member, and in that year Governor Kent was 
 elected, who upon assuming office called attention to 
 it as an end to be desired. 
 
 It may now be convenient to trace the way toward 
 the final adoption of that policy in the action of the 
 Maine Temperance Union and of the state legislature. 
 These were both representative bodies — the latter, 
 the constitutional one, of the average sentiment of 
 the entire people upon general matters which were 
 proper subjects for legislative action; the former, of 
 the more active and zealous friends of temperance.
 
 EEMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 251 
 
 The Union assembled at Angusta February 7tli, 
 1838, for its first meeting after its organization. 
 Henry Tall man, of Bath, afterwards an attorney- 
 general of the state, as chairman of the committee 
 of arrangements, presented the following: 
 
 " Resolved, That a committee of one from each county be 
 raised to appear l)efore the committee of the legislature which 
 has under consideration the license law." 
 
 " Resolved : That the committee be instructed to advocate 
 the passage of a law by the legislature prohibiting under suit- 
 able penalties the sale of all intoxicating liquors as a drink." 
 
 Those resolutions were debated at great length. 
 Strong opposition was manifested. Many members 
 upon both sides of the question spoke, but the resolu- 
 tions were finally adopted. The committee appointed 
 under them consisted of William D. Little, from 
 Cumberland county, (Mr. Little is still living, a much 
 respected citizen of Portland)'" Rev. Mr. Palmer, from 
 Lincoln county; Rev. Stephen Thurston, of Waldo; 
 Joseph W. Mason, of Penobscot; Eben Weston, of 
 Somerset; Rev. Philip Munger, of Oxford; and Hon. 
 Samuel Reddington, of Kennebec. As I now remem- 
 ber, that was the first committee to appear before a 
 legislature in Maine to advocate Prohibition. 
 
 Considerable feeling had been aroused in the 
 
 discussion of the resolutions, and fear was expressed 
 
 lest endorsement of Prohibition should be made a 
 
 test of membership in the Union. With the intent of 
 
 allaying this, the following was unanimously adopted: 
 
 "Resolved: That this society, having taken the high 
 ground of total abstinence from all that intoxicates, has 
 settled every important principle, and we need not, as we 
 cannot, raise our standard higher. It is, therefore, now the 
 appropriate duty of this society to labor to extend the influ- 
 ence of this one principle through the community." 
 
 * Since deceased.
 
 252 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 The following resolution was indefinitely postponed : 
 
 ' ' Resolved : That this society recommends to the friends 
 of temperance to use their influence in enforcing the penalties 
 of the law against the sale of strong liquors." 
 
 In the legislature of 1838 a joint special committee 
 on license laws was appointed, of which General 
 Apple ton was again chairman on the part of the 
 house. This committee subsequently reported as 
 follows: 
 
 "Whereas, intem})erance is a great social and public evil, 
 and 
 
 "Whereas, it is the direct effect of any law which 
 authorizes or grants a license to sell ardent spirits or 
 other intoxicating drinks for common use to augment and 
 perpetuate this evil, and 
 
 " Whereas, the business of vending ardent spirits or other 
 intoxicating drink for common use is subversive of good 
 order and the public peace, therefore, 
 , "Be it enacted," etc. 
 
 The bill accompanying this report repealed all the 
 license laws of the state and prohibited the sale of 
 liquor as a beverage; and it further provided for the 
 submission of the law to the people, and if the 
 majority were in favor of the passage of the law it 
 was to go into effect from the date of the proclamation 
 of the governor to that effect and not otherwise. But 
 the bill did not pass. 
 
 Of the legislature of 1839 General Appleton was 
 again a member and again chairman on the part of 
 the house committee on license laws. This committee 
 reported a bill which did not pass, prohibiting the 
 sale of intoxicating liquors in any quantity, mixed or 
 unmixed, to be drunk on the premises, and it repealed 
 all provisions of existing laws for license.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 253 
 
 When the Union assembled for its third annual 
 meeting, it was found that the advanced stand taken 
 at its second meeting as to the use of liquors, and its 
 recommendation of Prohibition, had led to the luke- 
 warmness of many who, in their way, had been 
 interested in the work. The Union had also encount- 
 ered opposition from some who, formerly active, had 
 withdrawn entirely from associated temperance effort. 
 At this meeting a committee was appointed "to 
 devise some means of securing the co-operation of all 
 the friends of temperance in carrying forward the 
 temperance reform, whether adopting the pledge of 
 the Union or not." This committee subsequently 
 reported, inviting the co-operation of societies ' ' whose 
 bond of association is different in some respects from 
 that of this Union," and permitting them to send 
 delegates to the meetings. 
 
 The report was finally adopted, though not until 
 after a long and heated discussion, in which the 
 progressive and conservative elements indulged in 
 more or less asperity of debate as to the methods they 
 respectively advocated or opposed. Among other 
 resolutions was the following, offered by General 
 Appleton, of Portland: 
 
 "Resolved, That General James Appleton, Neal Dow, and 
 Dr. Clark, of Portland, be a committee to inquire into the 
 best method of proceeding with intemperate persons in order 
 to their recovery, and also into the expediency of providing a 
 hospital or asylum in this state for the cure and restoration of 
 that unhappy class of our fellow-citizens who have contracted 
 that settled habit of intemperance, and report at the next 
 meeting of the Union." 
 
 Those most active in urging legislation against the 
 liquor-traffic were in those days, as always, as deeply
 
 254 EEMIXISCEXCES 
 
 interested and zealous as any in other phases of the 
 temperance ^vork. 
 
 Reversing the action of the last meeting, relative to 
 the enforcement of the existing license laws, the 
 Union this year resolved: 
 
 "It is necessary to exercise clail}'' and constant vigilance 
 in detecting the unlawful sale of intoxicating liquors, and to 
 cause the license law to be executed on all those who trans- 
 gress it." 
 
 There was quite as much official indifference as to 
 the enforcement of the restrictive features of the 
 license laws of the day as has prevailed at any time 
 since in the enforcement of prohibitory statutes. 
 
 The Union also adopted the following: 
 
 "Resolved, That a committee be appointed to draft a 
 petition to the legislature urging upon its attention the im- 
 portance of passing a law prohibiting the traffic in ardent 
 spirits in quantities less than twenty-eight gallons, excepting 
 for mechanical and medicinal purposes." 
 
 At its meeting held February 4th, 1840, the Union 
 resolved : 
 
 "That a correct public sentiment on this as well as on 
 every other subject should be allow^ed to manifest itself in 
 every suitable way : that one of those ways is the establish- 
 ment of good and wholesome laws ; that the best and most 
 wholesome law would be a law prohibiting the sale of intox- 
 icating liquors as a beverage, and it is the deliberate and 
 solemn conviction of this Union that it is the duty of wise 
 and virtuous legislators to conform their action to this high 
 standard, and as soon and as fast as it is proper, to establish 
 such laws." 
 
 Notwithstanding the educational influence actively 
 engaged throughout the state for nearly twenty years, 
 there were as late as 1840 many respectable citizens of 
 Maine interested in the liquor business in one form or
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 255 
 
 another, and among tlie resolutions adopted at this 
 meeting was the following: 
 
 " Resolved, That those who traffic in intoxicating drinks to 
 be used as a beverage are greatly hindering the progress of 
 temperance, and ought at once as good citizens to abandon 
 such traffic." 
 
 That resolution was adopted unanimously, and was 
 cordially supported by those members of the Union 
 still unwilling to favor the application of legal penal- 
 ties to those dealers in intoxicants who were not 
 amenable to such considerations as that resolution 
 expressed. 
 
 Before the next annual gathering of the Union the 
 influence of the great reformatory Washingtonian 
 movement had extended over a large portion of the 
 state. When the Union assembled, February 1st, 
 1842, it was largely animated by the spirit developed 
 in that great wave of reform. No less than six reso- 
 lutions referring to it, thanking God for it, hailing it 
 as the dawn of a brighter day, and providing for 
 guiding and utilizing it, and co-operating with it, 
 were discussed and adopted. Some of them, read 
 to-day in the absence of all knowledge of the circum- 
 stances existing when they were adopted, might excite 
 some curiosity. It is to be remembered that many of 
 the men active in the Washingtonian movement were 
 reformed drunkards. Some of them brought into the 
 meetings more zeal than culture, and their platform 
 efforts were characterized by more earnestness than 
 elegance of diction. 
 
 The ever-present memory of their own sufferings 
 and the wrongs which, through their intemperance, 
 their families had experienced impelled most Wash- 
 ingtonians to unvarnished speech. Opponents of
 
 256 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 temperance were quick to criticize their talk, urging 
 it as an excuse for their unwillingness to do anything 
 for temperance, and as a reason why aid should he 
 withheld. There were others, too, who regretted 
 that form of speech, but whose devotion to the cause 
 was sufficient to keep them interested, notwithstanding 
 their disapproval of much that was said and done in 
 its name by these new friends. The Union, recogniz- 
 ing this condition of things, adopted the following: 
 
 " Eesoh^od, That while the employment of harsh epithets 
 may have no tendency to advance this or any other good 
 cause, fidelity will often demand that our views of the 
 conduct of our fellow-men be frankly and unequivocally 
 expi'cssed. 
 
 " Kesolved, That though wo may not think it necessary or 
 courteous to denominate vendors of intoxicating drinks, 
 thieves, robbers, and uuirderers, we cannot repress the belief 
 or hesitate to avow that incalculably greater evils have re- 
 sulted from the sale of intoxicating drinks than from all 
 thefts, robberies, and murders that have ever been committed 
 in our country." 
 
 An attempt was made to commit the Union at this 
 meeting to Proliibition, but a resolution to that end 
 was laid upon the table. 
 
 The sixth annual meeting assembled in Portland, 
 October 12th, 1842. It was presided over by Hon. 
 Joseph C. Noyes, of Eastport. Mr, Noyes had been 
 a representative to Congress, and was a business man 
 of large experience, and a gentleman of strict integ- 
 rity. He afterwards moved to Portland, where he 
 spent the remainder of his days, retaining the esteem 
 and confidence of his fellow-citizens. There he held a 
 most important position of trust and usefulness, now 
 held by one of his sons, a most respected citizen. The 
 following resolution was adopted, though its intro- 
 duction led to warm discussion:
 
 OF NEAL DOAV. 257 
 
 "Resolved, That while moral suasion shall continue to be 
 urged upon those engaged in the sale of intoxicating drinks, 
 we are constrained to regard them as offenders against the 
 good and wholesome laws of the land, and can see no reason 
 why they as well as other offenders should not be held 
 amenal)le to those laws." 
 
 The next meeting of the Union was held in 
 Augusta, February 7th, 1844. The president, Joseph 
 C. Noyes, read an address which had been prepared, 
 to be signed by citizens of Eastport, and then sent 
 to the rumsellers of that place. It was an appeal to 
 them to abandon the business as one detrimental to 
 the material and moral interests of the community, 
 and therefore one in which good citizens should not 
 be engaged. Among the resolutions offered was the 
 following : 
 
 ''Resolved, That the present laws in relation to the sale of 
 ardent spirits ought to be repealed and prohibitory laws 
 ought to be passed instead." 
 
 This excited long and earnest discussion, and was 
 finally laid upon the table. A counter-resolution was 
 then offered by the conservatives, declaring that: 
 
 " Moral suasion has been, is now, and will continue to be 
 the great motive power of the temperance reformation, and 
 on this is based our hopes of final and complete triumph." 
 
 This resolution, as a result of the feeling developed 
 in the discussion of the one just referred to, was also 
 laid upon the table. Perhaps at no other period in 
 the history of the temperance movement in Maine 
 were charges and countercharges so common between 
 the conservative and progressive elements of the 
 friends of temperance. Those who opposed Prohi- 
 bition were vehement in asserting that the friends 
 of that policy were unfriendly to moral suasion.
 
 258 EEMINISCEXCES 
 
 These in turn insisted that the logical and inevitable 
 result of moral suasion -vrould be the outlawry of the 
 liquor-shop, and that the effort to accomplish this was 
 the most effectual kind of moral suasion, as it could 
 only be reached by convincing the people that their 
 moral and material welfare demanded the removal of 
 temptation to the continued use of liquor as a bever- 
 age, which was found in the rumshops, all the more 
 potent for evil because they existed under the recogni- 
 tion and protection of law. 
 
 Since 1835 there had been no substantial change in 
 the license laws, but in this year, 1844, an explanatory 
 act was passed, declaring that the statute should be 
 so construed that the licensing boards might have 
 power to grant license to others than inn-holders or 
 victualers, prohibiting these latter from selling wine, 
 brandy, or any strong liquors by retail, or in less 
 quantity than twenty-eight gallons, delivered or 
 carried away at one time. 
 
 The eighth annual meeting of the Union, which 
 assembled at Augusta, on the 29th of January, 1845, 
 was prol3ably more influential in its personnel and 
 action than any of its predecessors. The governor of 
 the state, Hugh J. Anderson, of Belfast, was made 
 president. Governor Anderson had been twice a 
 member of Congress, and was then serving his second 
 term as chief magistrate, and was subseciuently 
 re-elected for a third term. Portland, among others, 
 sent the Rev. William T. Dwight, D. D., one of the 
 leading Congregational clergymen of the state, Wil- 
 liam W. Thomas, and William Senter, both of whom 
 afterwards Ijecame mayor of Portland. Ex-Governor 
 Kent, Hon. Noah Smith, Jr., of Calais, and many 
 other men of note, were in attendance.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 25'.) 
 
 It was publicly stated in the meeting that the 
 majority of the executive council, of the senate and 
 house of representatives had signed the pledge of the 
 Union and were favorably disposed to legislation to 
 promote the cause. It may be noted as a matter of 
 interest that of those present, Noah Smith, Jr., of 
 Calais, afterwards, in 1851, as a member of the legis- 
 lature and chairman of the temperance committee on 
 the part of the house, reported '^ The Maine Law" to 
 the legislature. 
 
 The meeting was not only made up of men of influ- 
 ence in the councils of the state, but was more radical 
 than any of its predecessors. The Rev. Dr. D wight, 
 of Portland, was formally invited to deliver a 
 discourse upon "Law as a means of promoting the 
 temperance reform." This address, no less from its 
 ability than from the high standing of its reverend 
 author, attracted great attention and created a pro- 
 found sensation in the state. Dr. Dwight was a man 
 of dignified, gentlemanly and attractive presence, 
 with a fine voice and an animated and impressive 
 delivery, which, with his ripe scholarship and rare 
 intellectual attainments, made him a most efi'ective 
 speaker. In this discourse he took an unqualified 
 position in favor of Prohibition. 
 
 The resolutions adopted, affirmed that individuals 
 engaged in the liquor-traffic ' ' arre the most guilty of 
 any criminals known to us," and should be "both 
 regarded and treated according to their guilt as are 
 other criminals; that to patronize a store or tavern in 
 which intoxicating drinks are sold is to countenance 
 and support intemperance." It was also resolved: 
 
 " As the sense of this convention that a law be asked of 
 our legislature to "Tant no license for the sellino- of intoxicat-
 
 260 REMINISCENCES 
 
 inir liciiiors to be used as a drink, and to provide effectual 
 penalties of tines and iniprisonnient against traffic in liquors." 
 
 A committee was appointed to appear before tlie 
 legislative committee upon license laws to urge tlie 
 passage of sucli a law. That committee, of which I 
 was chairman, included George H. Shirley, Rev. 
 George W. Bourne, John T. Walton, of Portland; 
 Hon. R. M. Goodenough, of Paris; Col. William H. 
 Morse, of Brunswick; Rev. J. W. Pitcher, of Gardi- 
 ner; H. K. Baker, of Hallo well; J. Hockey, of 
 Freedom and Hon. Moses McDonald, of Limerick. 
 The latter was then speaker of the house of represen- 
 tatives, and subsequently a member of Congress. 
 
 The committee was granted a hearing in Represen- 
 tatives' Hall, which was crowded to repletion with 
 members of the legislature and others gathered to 
 listen to the arguments in favor of a law such as the 
 friends of temperance desired. This hearing had 
 nnich to do with the enactment by the next legisla- 
 ture of what was known as "The law of 1846," the 
 first prohibitory statute enacted in the state. 
 
 At the ninth annual meeting, which assembled at 
 Augusta on June 24th, 1846, it was apparent that 
 the growth of sentiment in the state in favor of 
 Prohibition had been great during the preceding year. 
 The resolutions took strong ground in favor of the 
 legal suppression of* the liquor-traffic, and it was 
 voted that " General Appleton, Neal Dow and John T. 
 Walton be reci nested to appear before the legislative 
 committee on license laws to represent the views and 
 wishes of the thousands of our state who have asked 
 by their petitions the passage of a law which shall 
 effectually close up the drinking houses and tippling 
 shops." The resolution referred to a bill General
 
 OF NEAL DjOW. 261 
 
 Appletoii had prepared, and which was subsequently 
 enacted, after being subjected to many amendments 
 in the course of its consideration by the committee. 
 
 While I was speaking before the legislative commit- 
 tee in favor of the bill, a petition, fifty-nine feet in 
 length, containing the names of 3,800 citizens of 
 Portland, was festooned over the speaker's chair in 
 the house of representatives. Many of the names to 
 that petition had been secured by my wife, whose zeal 
 in behalf of temperance was limited only by her 
 strength and the time she could spare from the care of 
 her family. Those who cared nothing for the words 
 in which the passage of the bill was urged w^ere not 
 indifferent to the forcible appeal of that request, one 
 of a large number from all parts of the state presented 
 to the legislature for the same object. Judge Nathan 
 Weston appeared before the committee and made a 
 long and able speech in opposition to the request 
 of the petitioners. The bill was passed, however, by 
 a vote of eighty-one to forty-two in the house, and 
 twenty-three to five in the senate, and was approved 
 by Governor Anderson, August 7, 1846. Referring to 
 this law, I wrote immediately after its enactment to 
 the Journal of the American Temperance Union that 
 it constituted ' ' the first blow only which the friends 
 of temperance here propose striking at the trafiic in 
 strong drinks. " Ten years afterward, w^hen Lot M. 
 Morrill, in the legislature of 1856, was protesting 
 against the repeal of the law of 1851, he referred to 
 this act of 1846 and said that "it placed Maine in the 
 very front ranks of the movement against the liquor- 
 traffic." 
 
 In the next three annual meetings of the Union, no 
 special action was taken other than to endorse the law 
 
 18
 
 262 REMINISCENCES 
 
 of 184G, to urge upon officials its vigorous enforce- 
 ment, and to recommend changes in some particulars 
 to make it more effective. 
 
 The law was now such in principle as to excite most 
 virulent opposition on the part of the liquor-interest, 
 not only to all such legislation but to those who had 
 been active in securing it, and were now engaged in 
 efforts to enforce it. It had been difficult to secure 
 the enforcement of the old-time license laws of the 
 state. Over and through and under and around their 
 restrictive provisions the traffic had continued its 
 demoralizing and destructive work. If by any chance 
 a person selling without license was so subjected to 
 the penalties of the law as to lead him to abandon the 
 trade, the inviting doors of the authorized vendors 
 made room for his customers. If one licensed seller 
 was brought to the bar for violating any of the 
 restrictive regulations, all made common cause in his 
 behalf. 
 
 As long as the law recognized the trade as useful, 
 necessary, and legitimate, those engaged in it cared 
 little for its restraining clauses. The license was 
 more potent in swelling the number of their patrons 
 and the sum of their gains than the restrictions were 
 in protecting the people from the evils inseparable 
 from the business. Now, however, under the law of 
 184<), matters were different. Now the trade began to 
 show its teeth. The time had come when the fire was 
 the hottest, the danger the greatest, and only the moat 
 determined and courageous kept on. This was mani- 
 fest in the absence from the annual meetings of the 
 Union in 1^^47, 1848 and 1849, of some of its former 
 supporters. They liad little taste for the kind of 
 warfare now forced upon them, and perhaps, as to
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 263 
 
 some of them, grave fears as to what the outcome 
 politically might be to themselves or their party. 
 
 The vacancies, however, were filled by others, who, 
 though younger, less widely known, and lacking in 
 the prestige and influence of those whose places they 
 took, had all the zeal, persistency, and courage, 
 demanded at that stage of the movement. But there 
 were yet to be found some of the old leaders. The 
 calm, cool courage, the earnest, unabated devotion of 
 Appleton, were yet at the service of the cause. The 
 venerable Samuel Fessenden was, as always, to be 
 relied upon, and the devotion of such men, trained in 
 the school of the antislavery reform to cherish the 
 courage of their convictions as a priceless treasure, 
 was a tower of strength at this crisis of the movement. 
 
 In 1849, a law was enacted which punished by 
 imprisonment in the county jail any person not 
 licensed who should sell or expose for sale during 
 the continuance of any cattle-show or fair any intoxi- 
 cating drink within two miles thereof. This is the 
 first instance in the legislation of the state where 
 imprisonment was imposed as a penalty for the sale of 
 intoxicating liquors. 
 
 In 1850, penalties for the violation of the law were 
 very much increased. Where they were, originally, 
 for selling in violation of the provisions of the law, 
 fixed at not less than one, nor more than twenty 
 dollars, they were, this year, increased to not less 
 than twenty, nor more than three hundred dollars, 
 or imprisonment not less than thirty days nor more 
 than six months. 
 
 The last annual meeting of the Union was held in 
 Augusta on the seventh of August, 1850. I was 
 elected president. By this time the great body of the
 
 '2('A REMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 
 
 active temperance men of the state were tliorouglily 
 committed to tlie principles of Prohibition, and at the 
 request of the convention I appeared before a legisla- 
 tive committee to urge its adoption. This will be 
 referred to later. The Union never assembled again. 
 The object which for some time its leading spirits had 
 had in view was the next year attained, and it gave 
 way to other forms of work. For its annual meetings, 
 mass state conventions were substituted, which for a 
 few years following 1851 became from force of circum- 
 stances somewhat political in character. Ordinarily 
 during this period a convention was held at Augusta 
 in the winter, and as occasion seemed to call at other 
 seasons of the year at different points in the state. 
 They were useful in maintaining a public sentiment 
 and in stimulating various kinds of reformatory effort 
 throughout Maine.
 
 GKiN. Ja.mks AI'PI.ETON.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE WORK OF CHANGING PUBLIC SENTIMENT. PROGEESS 
 
 IN PORTLAND. THE WASHINGTONIAN MOVEMENT. 
 
 FIRST POPULAR VOTE ON LICENSE. 
 
 METHODS AND INCIDENTS. 
 
 It was not long after the policy of Prohibition had 
 been suggested that I became satisfied, if indeed I 
 had ever doubted, that it was reasonable and right. 
 I had read, with the interest they were sure to excite 
 in any one who had considered the general subject, 
 several able articles in favor of Prohibition, which 
 General James Appleton had contributed in 1832 to 
 the columns of the Salem Gazette. The ground he 
 then covered is familiar to every friend of temper- 
 ance. 
 
 Nearly sixty years have elapsed since General 
 Appleton took a position so opposed to habits, opin- 
 ions, and prejudices of the day that it testified to his 
 possession of a moral courage that may fairly be 
 called sublime. In 1833, General Appleton came to 
 Portland, and immediately interested himself in 
 reformatory efforts. We became at once good friends, 
 remaining so during his residence of twenty years in 
 this city.
 
 266 REMIXISCEXCES 
 
 General Appletoii was one of the ablest and bravest 
 of those connected with the temperance movement. 
 He never shrank from the hard labor it involved, nor 
 flinched under the blows to which those engaged in it 
 were exposed. In most of the pitched battles in our 
 old city hall, as Avell as elsewhere, he was to be found 
 in the thickest of the fray, always leading toward 
 closer and more effective fighting. Wise in council, 
 ready and able in debate, and courageous in bearing, 
 his influence was potential in all matters touching the 
 progress of the cause in Maine. 
 
 In 1837, as a member of the legislature from Port- 
 land, and chairman on the part of the house of the 
 committee on license laws. General Appleton prepared 
 and presented a report, freely quoted from elsewhere, 
 which, as the first declaration in this state of an 
 influential character in favor of Prohibition, as well 
 as for its intrinsic merit, attracted great attention. 
 It was widely circulated through the state, and had 
 much to do with turning the attention of the friends 
 of temperance to Prohibition as the logical object of 
 their efforts. 
 
 Having been thoroughly aroused to the nature of a 
 trade that would prompt an otherwise respectable 
 citizen to be willing to work a ruin like that impend- 
 ing in the case to which my attention was specially 
 called, as has been related, I was easily convinced 
 that duty demanded of me a determined and persist- 
 ent effort to assist in putting the liquor-traffic under 
 the ban of public opinion and to antagonize the grog- 
 shops with the strong arm of the law. 
 
 I did not commit myself blindly to the policy, nor 
 without due consideration of the sacrifices involved 
 in devotion to it. Nor did I underestimate the labor
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 267 
 
 necessary to accomplish the end in view. If only 
 those who had given time and effort to the promotion 
 of temperance fully comprehended the extent of the 
 evil they desired to correct, so none better than they 
 could appreciate the nature and magnitude of the 
 obstacles to be overcome before they would be able to 
 interpose the shield of law between society and the 
 poisoned darts of the liquor-traffic. 
 
 They saw avarice and appetite in the way. But 
 civilization had made its entire progress by surmount- 
 ing one form or another of these. If in this case the 
 aggregate capital interested in opposing the movement 
 was vast, so also were the benefits society was to win 
 through success. If in this case ignorance, indo- 
 lence, indifference, and varied forms of human 
 selfishness were to be found in the opposing ranks, 
 this did not lessen in any degree, in the estimation of 
 the temperance men of Maine, the great value and 
 importance of what they sought to obtain. To secure 
 this great good for the people and the state they 
 would ask of none sacrifices Avhich they were not 
 prepared to make themselves, and they, had faith 
 enough in moral, educational and religious influences 
 to believe that no reason for discouragement could be 
 found along the line they had chosen. 
 
 I cannot fix the exact date of my first public decla- 
 ration in favor of that policy. Looking over the 
 manuscript memoranda of some of my earlier 
 temperance efforts, by chance preserved, I find an 
 address delivered before the Portland Temperance 
 Society, on the last Tuesday of February, 1836. In 
 this there is no reference to Prohibition. It was 
 confined exclusively to an appeal to "moderate 
 drinkers " to forego that indulgence for the good of
 
 268 REMINISCENCES 
 
 others. This was at that time the chief bone of 
 contention among the more earnest friends of the 
 reform. In an ' ' Address on Temperance, delivered at 
 the Mariner's church, September 24th, 1837," I find 
 among other references to Prohibition, the following: 
 
 " If the retailinir of ardent spirits could 1)e prohibited 
 throughout the United States at once, there can l)e little 
 doubt that their consumption would l)c reduced one-half at a 
 
 blow It will be, in fact, assailing the enemy in the 
 
 very citadel of his strength It cannot be necessary I 
 
 am sure, to go into a formal argument to show that the 
 retailing of ardent spirits ought to be prohibited." 
 
 The major part of that address, also, was devoted to 
 impressing upon my hearers the wisdom and reason- 
 ableness of total abstinence. 
 
 For some time the state law had permitted the 
 selectmen of towns and aldermen of cities to refuse 
 licenses except to tavern-keepers, unless the citizens 
 should vote instructing such to be issued. In Port- 
 land, our efforts were in the first instance directed 
 with varying success to urging the licensing board to 
 refuse licenses in every case where the law would 
 permit them to be withheld. 
 
 It is not strange, under the circumstances, though 
 at the time it seemed unreasonable to most of us who 
 were endeavoring to induce selectmen and aldermen 
 to adopt that course, that the authorities should 
 hesitate about changing a system which had obtained 
 so long. The friends of temperance, though numer- 
 ous, were far from united upon an aggressive policy, 
 and the most of those w^ho really wished that licenses 
 should be withheld were not unnaturally disposed 
 to leave the trouble, the odium and the danger of 
 securing that end to others.
 
 OP NEAL DOW. 269 
 
 While, therefore, the comparatively small number 
 of temperance men were working for that object, the 
 "conservative " element, holding that new departures 
 were always unsafe, and the purely business interest, 
 strangely fancying that material prosperity was to be 
 promoted by a trade that thrives upon the destruc- 
 tion of - all that makes for such, were more or less 
 openly, but generally effectively, aiding the avowed 
 liquor men to counteract the no-license movement. 
 The selectmen and aldermen were made to believe 
 that public opinion demanded license. We did not 
 think so, but were willing that the test should be 
 made. We rejoiced, therefore, when an opportunity 
 was afforded, as was the case in 1839, to take the 
 question to the people. 
 
 The voters of Portland were then asked to pass 
 upon the following question, submitted to them by 
 the authorities: 
 
 ' ' Shall the aldermen be requested to decline grant- 
 ing licenses for retailing spirituous liquors in this 
 city ? " 
 
 For two weeks the matter was discussed in numerous 
 meetings. At most of these I was one of the speakers. 
 As it was the first opportunity for an expression of 
 public opinion upon the subject, the community was 
 considerably aroused by it. When the ballots were 
 counted, it was found that 5(31 had voted yes, and 599 
 no. The opponents of license were defeated. Their 
 discomfiture, however, under the circumstances, prom- 
 ised well for the future. 
 
 On the day of the balloting I was at the polls in my 
 ward distributing the no-license ballot. Just opposite 
 me in the passage leading to the ballot-box stood a 
 well known liquor-seller, who, naturally enough, was
 
 270 REMINISCENCES 
 
 offering license votes to all who approached the polls. 
 One of his customers, a hard-drinking man whom I 
 knew well, refused the license vote and cast the no- 
 license ballot which he received from me. "Well," 
 exclaimed the rumseller, with an oath, "you're a 
 pretty fellow to be voting that way ! " "Perhaps so," 
 replied the voter, "but you see I have had enough of 
 your rum, and you have had too much of my money ! " 
 That was only one of many instances disclosed by the 
 struggle of intemperate men who voted to have temp- 
 tations to drink put out of their way. 
 
 The question of whether licenses should be granted 
 however, was a practical one only from a moral and 
 educational point of view. Liquor-selling was by no 
 means confined to licensed dealers. Everybody sold 
 who cared to. Only the "good " citizens who desired 
 to deal in it took the trouble to obtain the legal per- 
 mission to do so. Restrictive clauses of the law were 
 generally disregarded by the licensed sellers, while 
 the prohibitive features had no restraining effect upon 
 those who could not, or who did not trouble them- 
 selves to, obtain licenses. The authorities as a rule 
 made no attempt to enforce the law against either 
 class of violators. Nevertheless, we believed it would 
 be of immense value in its moral effect and education- 
 al inlluence if the regularly elected representatives of 
 the people should officially declare against giving the 
 sanction of law to the iniquitous trade; hence the 
 action of the friends of temperance. 
 
 Defeated, but not discouraged, in their first pitched 
 battle, the temperance men of Portland addressed 
 themselves to preparation for another assault upon 
 license, deemed by them the stronghold of the evil 
 they were combating. Temperance societies were
 
 or NEAL DOW. 271 
 
 organized in every ward; under their auspices meetings 
 were held, addressed not only by our local speakers, 
 including clergymen, but by agents of the Maine 
 Temperance Union. A house-to-house canvass was 
 instituted, the total abstinence pledge was presented, 
 and every person who could be reached without an 
 unreasonable amount of trouble was given an oppor- 
 tunity to sign it. 
 
 I am happy to be able to testify from my own 
 personal knowledge that many consented to what 
 they deemed a personal sacrifice in taking that 
 pledge, giving their adhesion to it because they 
 believed that in setting such an example they could 
 benefit others. But we found in the contest in those 
 days, what was the case before and has been since — a 
 great many of the professed friends of virtue standing 
 aside, unwilling to engage in the conflict lest they 
 should suffer some damage in the fray, while the 
 intemperate, the dissolute, profligate and abandoned 
 part of the community made common cause, and, 
 shoulder to shoulder, resisted every attempt to sup- 
 press vice and promote virtue, under whatever form 
 the effort was made. To carry on the work inaugu- 
 rated required great sacrifice of time and much 
 self-denial on the part of those who engaged in it. 
 Comparatively few could be found who deemed it 
 their duty to take part; but about this time strong 
 reinforcements were brought into the field. 
 
 In the spring of 1841, the influence of the Washing- 
 tonian reform reached Portland. The story of this 
 great awakening has been frequently and variously 
 told. It originated in Baltimore, in 1840, where a few 
 working-men, five or six of them at most, all hard 
 drinkers, suddenly resolved, without any outside
 
 272 KEMINISCEXCES 
 
 inflnence, tliat they ^YOul(l abstain entirely from all 
 intoxicating drinks. 
 
 That movement foreshadoTved the great contest 
 then abont to begin between those on one side, who, 
 in the interest of their own health, happiness and 
 usefulness, and in that of their fellow-men, were to 
 forswear and to oppose intemperance and all that 
 should tend to it, and those on the other, who, for 
 the pelf that came to them through the trade thriving 
 on intemperance, were to antagonize the reform at its 
 every stage. On the one side were rallied in due time 
 thoughtful and conscientious sympathizers with the 
 higher aspirations of the race, while the other re- 
 tained the assistance only of those who did nothing 
 and cared nothing for the welfare of mankind, so far, 
 at least, as that welfare was to be served by sacrifice 
 and lal^or in the cause of temperance. 
 
 The rumor of this sudden and strange conversion 
 soon spread throughout the country. A delegation 
 from Baltimore was invited to New York, where an im- 
 mense open-air meeting was held in Union Park, full 
 reports of which were spread everywhere through the 
 press. That meeting created a strong feeling through- 
 out the country for the reformation of drinking men. 
 After the New York effort, a successful attempt of 
 the same kind was made in Portland, in May, 1841. 
 Some working-men, friendly to temperance, gladly 
 engaged in the undertaking. In accordance with a 
 carefully prepared plan they invited many men of 
 their ac(|uaintance to come at a specified time to a 
 room I occupied in my capacity as chief engineer. 
 At this meeting were present about fifty persons, 
 nearly half of them being what were called "hard 
 cases."
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 273 
 
 The discussion among temperance men, as lias been 
 seen, had already reached a point where attacks upon 
 the liquor-traffic were not uncommon in their meet- 
 ings. A strong prejudice against everything of the 
 kind existed among those who were not prepared to 
 accept this phase of the gospel of reform. Accord- 
 ingly, at this gathering, great care was taken not to 
 alarm, by any suggestion of legal measures against 
 the traffic, the men whom it was hoped to enlist as 
 Washingtonians. There was nothing radical in the 
 talk, nor in the methods recommended; everything 
 said and done was in the line of so-called "moral 
 suasion." The rumshops were not alluded to, nor 
 was there in any talk an intimation that rumsellers 
 were enemies of society, and especially of working- 
 men, but an attempt was made to convince those 
 poor men that their drinking habits wasted their 
 wages and seriously impaired their health, and to 
 show them the inevitable suffering thereby entailed 
 upon their families and the certain destruction of all 
 that would otherwise make their homes happy. 
 
 This meeting was successful beyond our expecta- 
 tions. Twenty-five of the drinking men present 
 signed the pledge, already prepared for presentation, 
 of total abstinence for life from all intoxicating 
 drinks. There was a unanimous vote that the meet- 
 ings should be continued, and those present promised 
 to exert themselves to invite others to attend. 
 
 One of the men who signed the pledge at this first 
 meeting soon became a devout Christian. A few 
 years after, I was able to procure his appointment 
 to the city watch, as the police was then called. He 
 retained his place, I think, uninterruptedly for many 
 years. In time, however, he became too infirm for
 
 274 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 active police duty, and was notified that liis services 
 would be dispensed with at the close of the month. 
 That fact was brought to my attention by a news- 
 paper man who came to my house one morning and 
 told me that the night before he overheard this old 
 man praying in the police station for help in the 
 enforced idleness of his declining years. I made it 
 my business to call on the mayor that forenoon, and 
 obtained a promise, as a favor to myself, that the 
 faithful old city servant should be retained in some 
 position the duties of which he could perform. The 
 promise was redeemed, and my reformed man of the 
 early forties died only a few years since with the har- 
 ness on. 
 
 The next meeting was filled to overflowing. Then 
 those who had started the movement retired and left 
 the work to the new converts. John Hawkins, of 
 Baltimore, was invited to Portland, and the meetings 
 arranged for him in the churches were always 
 crowded to the utmost capacity, intensifying the 
 interest in the saving of drinking men, and in general 
 efforts in behalf of abstinence. 
 
 From Portland, Washingtonianism spread through- 
 out the state, so that a large proportion of the 
 population was brought under its influence. Mem- 
 bers of the Portland society were active in attending 
 meetings as missionaries in almost every part of 
 Maine. During the progress of this revival my time 
 was much given to the work. Some weeks I spoke at 
 as many as ten meetings, responding whenever it was 
 Ijossible to every call. A general revival of interest 
 in the temperance cause followed, with the reforma- 
 tion of many intemperate men. The Washingtonian 
 society, as it was called, held its meetings for years,
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 275 
 
 and tliousands signed ite pledge. It may not be 
 without its lesson for me to state in passing that, of 
 all the converts who remained faithful to the total 
 abstinence pledge of the Washingtonians, I do not 
 remember one who did not in time become an earnest 
 friend of Prohibition. 
 
 Much of modern antagonism to Prohibition covers 
 its real purpose — support of the liquor-traffic — by 
 parading professions of great confidence in what it 
 terms "moral influences," and not infrequently cites 
 the Washingtonian reformation by way of illustra- 
 tion. Yet that reform was a most effective agency in 
 securing anti-liquor-selling legislation in Maine. In 
 the city of Portland alone, within a year of its 
 organization, that society numbered one thousand 
 two hundred and twenty -five, of whom it was esti- 
 mated at the time, that at least one thousand had, 
 before taking the pledge, diverted of their small, 
 hard-earned wages, on an average, about twelve 
 cents a day from the support of their families to 
 provide themselves with drink. That aggregated a 
 considerable sum for so small a city as Portland then 
 was to expend for that which served no useful pur- 
 pose, and which reduced to a large, if not exactly 
 ascertainable per cent, the earning capacity of those 
 who purchased it. The effect of stopping this leakage 
 from the pockets of the working-men into the tills of 
 the liquor-seller resulted in an increase of the receipts 
 of dealers in family supplies larger than was the re- 
 duction of the sums paid for liquor; this was because 
 with the abandonment of drink the working-men 
 could earn more money, which, added to that no 
 longer expended for rum, was available for the com- 
 forts of life.
 
 276 REMINISCEKCES 
 
 The friends of temperance were not backward in 
 using these facts to show that the less the sale of 
 liciuor the greater the prosperity of the community, 
 and to argue if there were no liquor-shops every 
 legitimate business would be improved. The step, 
 tlierefore, Avas easy, natural, and logical toward con- 
 demnation of the liquor trade by law. Right here 
 the friends of the Washingtonian movement were 
 confronted by the same kind of charges, concocted by 
 the liquor-dealers, so commonly in later days applied 
 to Prohibition. Here are some of them: "The 
 Washingtonian movement does no good. " ' ' Just as 
 much liciuor is drunk now as ever." "More rum is 
 sold now than formerly." "These fellows (pledged 
 Washingtonians) may not drink as publicly as before, 
 but they keep their supplies at home, drink in private, 
 and consume more than ever. " 
 
 To refute such statements in order that men might 
 not be discouraged in well-doing, and that the Wash- 
 ingtonian reform might receive the sympathy and 
 support of considerate citizens, I interested myself 
 with others in collecting statistics to show that these 
 assertions of the liquor-interest as to the inutility of 
 the Washingtonian reform were unfounded, and was 
 able to satisfy the citizens of Portland that so much 
 good had been accomplished by tliat reform that it 
 was entitled to the countenance and support of 
 citizens who were interested in the material pros- 
 perity of the place, if they cared nothing for the 
 moral aspects of the case. That reform, as I have 
 said, tended inevitably and logically toward Prohibi- 
 tion, because the greater the attention given to the 
 evils of intemperance, and the closer the examination 
 of the connection of the liquor-traffic with those evils,
 
 John T. Waltox.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 277 
 
 the greater the certainty of a conclusion that the 
 trade in intoxicants is inimical to the public good and 
 ought not to be tolerated. 
 
 In August, 1841, following the inauguration of the 
 Washingtonian movement in Portland, a "Young 
 Men's Total Abstinence Society" was organized. 
 This was intended to enlist some who, for the sake 
 of their influence for good upon others, were willing 
 to subscribe to a pledge they did not deem necessary 
 to take in their own behalf. A praiseworthy example ! 
 Like the Washingtonian movement, this society had 
 its inception in the fire-department, and it included 
 many of the members of that body. Its officers were 
 all firemen, well known, reputable, and influential 
 young men. Its president was Franklin C. Moody, 
 afterwards a chief engineer of the department; its 
 corresponding secretary was Jedediah Jewett. and 
 its treasurer, William Senter, each of whom was sub- 
 sequently mayor of Portland. The society was not 
 long-lived, but it was most serviceable in its time; 
 indeed, it is difficult to limit the extent or the duration 
 of the influence for good of that movement, much more 
 of a body of men who, with Saint Paul, forswear 
 whatever makes a brother to offend. 
 
 I was not a member of this society, but took an 
 interest in inducing young men to become connected 
 with it. I recall an instance of two young mechanics, 
 working at the same trade and at the same bench, 
 apparently with equal opportunities for advance in 
 life. Both were in the habit of drinking occasion- 
 ally, neither of them to excess. Favorable oppor- 
 tunity serving one day, I called the attention of both 
 at the same time to this society, and advised them to 
 join. After some discussion, one consented and the
 
 278 REMINISCENCES 
 
 other refused, preferring to retain liis "liberty." 
 Circumstances were such that for several years I 
 was able to know something- of the progress each was 
 making in his chosen direction. The one went 
 constantly downward, until, after some years of 
 dependence upon others for support, he died, a 
 pauper. The other, after a time, went into business 
 for himself, in which he is yet engaged,* and has 
 accumulated a handsome property. 
 
 But the inlluence of the laws which in those days 
 recognized the liquor-traffic as a useful and respecta- 
 ble trade, was ill. Several of the young men who 
 joined that society failed to keep their pledge; some 
 of theui went to the bad, undoubtedly influencing 
 others in the same direction, while still others became 
 interested in the liquor-traffic. It could hardly be 
 otherwise with legislation holding the liquor-business 
 to be a useful adjunct of society and its patrons as 
 helping to maintain what the laws pronounced good. 
 
 Washingtonianism proved a potent factor in the 
 next set contest at the polls between the friends and 
 opponents of the liquor-traffic. This occurred in 
 1842. In May of that year, I presented to the board 
 of aldermen a petition, numerously signed, asking 
 that no licenses should be granted for the sale of 
 intoxicating liquors. Thereui)on the board, upon 
 motion of General Appleton, adopted the following: 
 
 "Resolved, That the public good does not require that 
 any person should ])e licensed to sell intoxieatinu' drinks in 
 the city of Porthuid, during the ensuing year, and tlial this 
 board does not deem it necessary to license any person for 
 that purpose." 
 
 Accordingly the numerous aijplicants for licenses 
 were denied a hearing and no licenses were gi*anted. 
 * Since deceased.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 279 
 
 The sale of liquor, however, went on, without regard 
 to the action of the board. The authorities, unaccus- 
 tomed to i)aying attention to violations of the liquor 
 law, took no steps to impose the penalties provided 
 for those who should sell without license. Co-operat- 
 ing with other friends of the cause, I made frecjuent 
 and urgent appeals to the mayor and to members 
 of the board of aldermen, as well as to the sheriff of 
 the county and to the county attorney, to enforce 
 the law. I must have made myself very annoying to 
 them, and with but little effect. They generally 
 excused themselves with the plea — the ready defense 
 of neglectful officials, always and everywhere — that 
 the people did not wish the law enforced. The real 
 idea concealed in that phrase could have been ren- 
 dered by the words, ' ' We are afraid that we shall lose 
 our offices if we enforce the law. " 
 
 In the fall of that year, the aldermen were induced 
 to ascertain for themselves whether the public desired 
 the enforcement of the law. They submitted the 
 matter to the voters of the city in the following form : 
 
 " Shall the unlicensed and unlawful traffic in spirituous 
 liquors be countenanced and sustained in this city or not?" 
 
 Again there was a tangible point which the oppo- 
 nents of the liquor trade could labor to attain, A 
 " no " vote wou-ld mean, it was understood, that the 
 laws were to be enforced; a "yes " that they were to 
 be ignored. The temperance men held meetings and 
 resorted to other legitimate agencies to secure as 
 strong an expression as possible in favor of enforce- 
 ment. I prepared an address to the citizens which 
 was published and circulated through the city. On 
 the other hand, the friends of the trade, if less open 
 and frank in their work, were active in various ways.
 
 280 REMmiSCENCES 
 
 The vote resulted: For permitting the traffic, 498; 
 against it, 943. 
 
 Growing out of the refusal to license was a petition 
 from a well-known business house, occupying a store 
 owned by the city, addressed to the mayor and 
 aldermen. The petitioners stated: 
 
 " On taking the store it was fully understood by all parties 
 that ardent spirits composed a large share of their (the les- 
 sees') business, and that iu consideration of the high rent 
 paid the board was bound to protect them in their traffic in 
 ardent spirits." 
 
 This petition was referred to a special committee 
 which had a hearing upon it. The main object of the 
 petition was to make it appear to the tax-payers that 
 the city would suffer pecuniarily by the refusal to 
 grant licenses. I appeared to present the temperance 
 view of the matter. In its report, the committee 
 referred to the vote of the board of aldermen before 
 quoted to the effect that the public good did not 
 require that licenses should be granted, and recom- 
 mended tliat no further action be taken upon the 
 communication. 
 
 Again in 1843, the aldermen, at the instance of the 
 friends of temperance, adopted a similar resolution. 
 As usual, no attention was paid to this, and the 
 former licensed li(|Uor-dealers, as well as many others, 
 continued to sell with no interference upon the part 
 of the officials. Accordingly we engaged once more 
 in the preparation and circulation of petitions, 
 addressed to the board of mayor and aldermen, 
 requesting the prosecution of persons violating all 
 license laws; whereupon the board unanimously voted 
 that such prosecutions should be commenced. 
 
 By this time, a "public sentiment" against the
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 281 
 
 liquor-traffic had been in one way or another unmis- 
 takably manifested but it was with great difficulty 
 that the officers whose duty it was could be induced 
 to take effective measures for the prosecution of 
 violators of the law. Objection after objection was 
 urged. "It was difficult to obtain evidence," they 
 said. We secured sufficient proof. Upon this 
 they urged that evidence procured in that way, 
 by those with an evident bias against the traffic, 
 would not answer, that juries would not convict on 
 such. Then we went before the board of mayor and 
 aldermen and secured the passage of an order offering 
 a reward for information leading to the conviction of 
 persons violating the license law. Then petitions, 
 numerously signed by women, were i)resented to the 
 board, praying for the suppression of the traffic. The 
 reward offered by the city council was confined to 
 evidence of the sale of liquors upon the Sabbath. 
 The petition of the women asked that it might be 
 made applicable to all violations of the law, and that 
 it be increased in amount. 
 
 By most strenuous exertions on the part of the 
 friends of temperance, to which I endeavored to con- 
 tribute a part, it was now possible to secure from the 
 proper officials some attention to the violation of the 
 license law, but even after conviction had been 
 secured the penalties provided, trifling as they were, 
 were rarely imposed. There were reasons, as indefi- 
 nite in purpose as in number, for suspending them. 
 When all other subterfuges proved unavailing, the 
 liquor-dealer would, as a last resort, through his 
 counsel, plead that since the date of the offense of 
 which he was convicted, he had abandoned the busi- 
 ness. This was generally, I must not say, invariably,
 
 282 REMINISCENCES 
 
 false. I personally investigated a number of such 
 cases, and in no instance could I find any evidence 
 about the premises of the respondent that gave any 
 indication of the truth of such a plea. 
 
 I was in court one day when a liquor case was on, 
 the chief-justice presiding. The counsel for the 
 defense moved the discharge of the respondent 
 because he had been assured by him that he had 
 abandoned the business and would sell no more. 
 ' ' What have you to say to this ? " asked the judge of 
 the county attorney. "I interpose no objection, 
 your Honor, " replied that official, and the discharge 
 was granted. I immediately left the court room and 
 went directly to the tavern kept by the respondent 
 and there saw him behind the bar selling liquor. 
 This was less than fifteen minutes after his attorney 
 had pledged his word in court that he would sell no 
 more. The attorney in this case had made that 
 pledge honestly, under instructions from his client. 
 I called his attention to the matter afterwards, telling 
 him what I had seen. He was indignant at being 
 thus imposed upon, and told me that he would never 
 again appear in court for that man. That attorney 
 was William Pitt Fessenden, afterwards so prominent 
 in the councils of the nation. 
 
 Every year, from the commencement of the agita- 
 tion to 1851, when the Maine Law went into effect, 
 the subject was under consideration in one form or 
 another by the board of mayor and aldermen. The 
 friends of temperance were generally successful in 
 obtaining what they asked, always excepting the 
 enforcement of the penalties provided for those who 
 violated the law and sold without licenses, which 
 were withheld during the last few years of that
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 283 
 
 period, except for the sale of liquors for medicinal 
 and meclianical purposes. It was rarely tliat tlie 
 advocates of license could control more than one vote, 
 or at most two, out of the seven in the board of 
 aldermen on any question coming before that body. 
 
 The specific penalties for the violation of the law 
 were generally so small, that fear of them, even were 
 they imposed, had but little restraining effect, but a 
 bond of one thousand dollars was required, during a 
 portion of this period, of licensed liquor-dealers, 
 conditioned upon their observing in all things the 
 requirements of the law. Failing in other particulars, 
 earnest temperance men would occasionally procure 
 evidence, and lay it before the licensing board, of 
 violations of the conditions of these bonds, and urge 
 the forfeiture of the penalty of the bond as well as the 
 cancellation of the license. They were rarely success- 
 ful in this. I recall no instance of their securing a 
 majority vote of the board, and I think it fair to 
 assume that their evidence was either insufficient in 
 amount or not effectively presented. 
 
 In 1845, the city council adopted by a large majority 
 resolutions instructing the representatives of the city 
 in the legislature to favor a law, whereby the traffic 
 might be speedily and effectually suppressed, and 
 from that time the action of the city government 
 in the matter of votes and resolutions at least, was, I 
 think, without exception, in accord with the wishes of 
 the friends of temperance. 
 
 During all this. time, also, more or less systematic 
 efforts in the so-called ' ' purely moral " phases of the 
 reform were in process. One of the most trying 
 duties with which the temperance men found them- 
 selves charged was the investigation of individual
 
 284 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 cases of misery and want, of abuse and wrong, due to 
 intemperance, to which their attention was called. 
 They were constantly appealed to in such cases for 
 assistance, and to render that wisely and well careful 
 inquiry into all the circumstances was necessary. 
 
 Many, if not most, of these abodes of misery were in 
 the vicinage of places where liquor was sold. That 
 was to be expected. Just as the smoke issuing from 
 the chimney of a factory settles upon and to an extent 
 blackens everything in the neighborhood, so, though 
 the emanations from these moral pest-houses were to 
 be traced far and near, they were generally more 
 dense, if not blacker, in their immediate proximity. 
 Hence those engaged in this work of charitable 
 investigation were observed and known to those 
 whose frightful trade made charity necessary. 
 
 Efforts in this direction were obnoxious to the 
 vendors of intoxicants. By intuition they foresaw 
 that such investigation would expose the nature of 
 the business in which they were engaged, and they 
 knew enough of human nature to understand that 
 those with hearts sufficiently warm to be touched by 
 the misery thus disclosed must be led to abhor the 
 trade of which that wretchedness was the product. 
 Perhaps, too, they feared that some with wills strong 
 enough might he led to invoke law as a protection 
 from such sin and shame and crime as their business 
 was pouring out in an ever-widening stream to befoul 
 what otherwise might be virtue, plenty, happiness, 
 and peace in tlie community. 
 
 Naturally, much of this charitable investigation 
 fell to women, the wives and sisters and daughters of 
 the men who were interested in the reform movement. 
 It was not uncomiiioii ff)r them to be the subjects of
 
 Mrs. Xeal Dow.
 
 OF XEAL DOW. '265 
 
 many kinds of annoyances, ranging from petty insults 
 almost to the verge of violence. My wife was one of 
 these. Full of tact, gentle, courteous, considerate, 
 and refined in all her bearing, it was impossible for 
 her to give offense by voice, or manner, to any whom 
 she might encounter on such missions. 
 
 One day. perhaps because she bore my name, she 
 was violently accosted by a rumseller, not one of the 
 •• respectable " kind — but fully as respectable as his 
 business — with some insulting advice about attending 
 to her own affairs. When she reached home she 
 related the incident to me. and I had an interview 
 with the fellow and thereafter there was nothing of 
 which to complain in his behavior toward any woman 
 who visited his neighborhood on such errands of 
 mercy. 
 
 Into all parts of the city where their ministrations 
 could serve to mitigate suffering in any form, good 
 women went. Did woman ever carry her sympathy, 
 her tears, her kindly assistance to the maimed and 
 bleeding victims of a battle-field without conceiving a 
 holy horror of war i So in the hearts of these kind 
 women of Portland in those earlier days of the 
 reformatory movement there sprang up a detestation 
 of the trade which produced the scenes that common 
 humanity compelled them to view. 
 
 Pages might be filled with the relation of incidents 
 coming under their observation, and some of them 
 might well be termed heart-rending. Were such 
 presented, those who might read them, could, per- 
 haps, more easily understand how active temi)erance 
 workers of the period were impelled to unfaltering 
 zeal by what they thus learned of the magnitude of 
 the evil they were endeavoring to suppress. Leave all
 
 286 REMmiSCENCES 
 
 this, however, to imagination, which cannot outrun 
 the reality. 
 
 A most effective agency for the creation of art 
 improved public sentiment was the circulation of 
 petitions from house to house. Sometimes these were 
 addressed to the legislature, asking for more stringent 
 restrictive provisions in the license law; sometimes 
 they asked for prohibitory laws; sometimes they were 
 addressed to the board of aldermen, praying them to 
 refuse to grant licenses, and sometimes asking them 
 to cause the provisions of existing laws to be more 
 strictly observed. 
 
 Signing petitions is often a merely perfunctory act 
 and the solicitation of signatures a trifling task. Not 
 so as to the petitions with the circulation of which 
 temperance men and women in Maine charged them- 
 selves at the time of which I write. The opponents of 
 the movement and those indifferent to it, knew, as 
 well as did those who obtained the signatures, that 
 these petitions represented the sober convictions of 
 their signers, and that signatures had not been affixed 
 to them hastily, or without thought. Those long 
 lists of names, in some cases many thousands, stood 
 for as many enlightened, quickened consciences, and 
 for an equal number of warm and earnest hearts. 
 Behind them was a deliberate purpose, which, sooner 
 or later, in one form or another, was to make itself 
 felt with the law-making, law-enforcing power. 
 
 I note one out of many of these petitions. It was 
 presented to the city government, on the 22d of Feb- 
 ruary, 1849, and was numerously signed. The first 
 signature upon it was that of Rev. Ichabod Nichols, 
 D.D,, already mentioned as one of the sponsors of the 
 first movement in behalf of temperance in Portland.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 287 
 
 Following his name came those of all the clergymen 
 of Portland, and of many of our most influential cit- 
 izens to the number of nearly one thousand. Such a 
 petition, so numerously and influentially signed, 
 could not be ignored, and most respectful considera- 
 tion was given it. It was in substance a request to 
 the city authorities to enforce the law against the sale 
 of intoxicants. 
 
 Of those composing the committee appointed in re- 
 sponse to this petition to consider the subject besides 
 that of the mayor, the late Eliphalet Greeley, I note 
 the name of Edward Fox, an alderman, to whom I 
 shall have occasion to refer again. The committee 
 manifested considerable interest in the matter, and in- 
 vited the petitioners and other citizens to meet with 
 it to carefully consider the whole subject. Subse- 
 quently, the committee reported: 
 
 "Places for the illegal sale of ardent spirits have increased 
 in the city during the last two years to an alarming extent — to 
 the nunil)er of three hundred — in the opinion of those whose 
 attention has been drawn to the subject. The committee rec- 
 ommends that the provisions of law authorizing the prosecu- 
 tion of suits in behalf of the city should be enforced energet- 
 ically in all cases where sufficient proof can be obtained, and 
 urges the co-operation of those citizens who are desirous of a 
 speedy removal of this great evil ; it also recommends that 
 the city authorities appeal to the owners of buildings in which 
 the traffic is carried on for their aid and services against the 
 odious traffic, and for prompt and decisive action upon the 
 subject ; and to accomplish the above suggestion the commit- 
 tee submits the accompanying resolves for consideration of the 
 city council : 
 
 "Resolved, That the licensing board be and they are hereby 
 requested and instructed to adopt speedy and efficient meas- 
 ures to enforce the law in every case where proof can be ob- 
 tained by them against all persons now engaged in the illegal 
 traffic in intoxicating drinks who shall not immediately aban- 
 don it ; and said board is hereby fully authorized and empow-
 
 288 REMINISCENCES 
 
 ered to adopt such measures and incur such expenditures as 
 in their judgment may be expedient to accomplish this desirable 
 object. 
 
 "Resolved, That a committee be ap})ointod to call upon the 
 owners of buildings where intoxicating liquors are sold to 
 make an earnest appeal to them in behalf of the city authori- 
 ties urii'inii' them to take measures immediately to remove those 
 persons from their premises." 
 
 The rei)ort and resolutions '\;vere adopted unanimous- 
 ly, and the committee provided for was appointed. 
 
 The mayor expressed himself as willing to do every- 
 thing in his power to carry out the wishes of the 
 petitioners and the avowed determination of the city 
 council. It was, however, about the close of Mayor 
 Greeley's sixth successive term, and he was not a can- 
 didate for re-election. His successor was James B. 
 Cahoon, who was in full sympathy with the spirit of 
 the resolutions, and indeed was one of those upon 
 W'hose petition the city government had acted. 
 
 Upon the installation of Mayor Cahoon, substan- 
 tially similar action to that related was taken by the 
 new city government which undertook in good faith 
 to enforce the law. But it was impracticable to do 
 anything under it. There was nothing in its provi- 
 sions which prevented the would-be dealers from 
 carrying as large a stock, displayed in as attractive 
 form, as they chose, and so after a time all efforts at 
 enforcement were practically abandoned for want of 
 the requisite weapon with which to attack the traffic. 
 
 By this time it had been demonstrated as clearly as 
 in the nature of the case w^as possible, that the faith- 
 fulness and zeal of the friends of temperance had 
 educated and developed a poidilar feeling in the 
 community hostile to the nefarious trade. Neverthe- 
 less, it was impossible to direct that into really
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 289 
 
 effective practical antagonism to the traffic it con- 
 demned, and the clearly manifested will of the people 
 stood impotent in the presence of those who, against 
 law, against public sentiment, and against the welfare 
 of the connnunity, continued the business which was 
 sapping the moral well-being of the city and fattening 
 upon all that made for its material prosperity as well. 
 
 What was to be done ? There were those, and very 
 respectable citizens they were too, who took no special 
 interest in the matter. Their fortunes were secure, 
 their sons were safe, their comfort and happiness were 
 not likely to be disturbed and they took little note of 
 what did not directly affect them in person or prop- 
 erty. Not so, how^ever, was it with those whose zeal 
 had brought the liquor-traffic to the bar of public 
 opinion, where it had been condemned as hostile to 
 every public interest. They determined that the 
 instrument should be provided whereby the will of 
 the people could be given force and effect. 
 
 Of course those who devoted themselves to this 
 aroused opposition, which was visited upon them in 
 many forms, and sometimes from unexpected quarters. 
 This did not discourage them. They understood, 
 however, that in morals, as in mechanics, with greater 
 force and speed came increased resistance and friction, 
 and they looked upon the antagonism which they 
 aroused as so much evidence that they were accom- 
 plishing something, and they kept on, full of courage, 
 hope and determination.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HOW SOME OF THE WORK WAS DONE. ANNOYANCES AND 
 
 ASSAULTS. USEFUL AGENCIES. SOME PERSONS 
 
 TO WHOM MAINE IS INDEBTED. 
 
 While work, such as I have endeavored partially to 
 describe, was in progress in Portland, labor with the 
 sanie object in view, differing somewhat according to 
 locality and circumstances, was being prosecuted else- 
 where. Meetings were held in almost every accessible 
 town, village and hamlet; wherever two or three 
 could be gathered together in the name of temper- 
 ance, some one was in their midst preaching the 
 gospel of freedom from the curse of the drink habit. 
 In the summer season, large open-air meetings were 
 held throughout the state, to which the people came 
 from considerable distances, often making of the 
 occasions fete days and picnics. Music, processions, 
 banners, and effective singing, as well as speaking, 
 rendered these meetings attractive to many who 
 would not otherwise have been present. 
 
 I attended many such gatherings, large and small, in 
 different parts of the state, though I chiefly confined 
 my labors to the three or four western counties. 
 Announcements of meetings which I was to address 
 were made sometimes far in advance of their date.
 
 KEMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 2\)] 
 
 A temperance paper was published in Portland, of 
 which my long-time friend and co-worker, George H. 
 Shirley, now of Brooklyn, N. Y., was publisher. It 
 was our custom to announce a course of meetings 
 in its columns at such dates and plac6s as would 
 permit of their being taken in succession with the 
 least outlay of time and travel. To meet the appoint- 
 ments thus made, I took my own team and made the 
 rounds. Many of these missions occupied several 
 weeks, others only a week or less. 
 
 Mr. Shirley and Mr. John T. Walton were my 
 almost invariable companions on those trips. We 
 were frequently accompanied by Mr. Samuel R. 
 Leavitt and Mr. Henry C. Lovell, the latter being a 
 fine singer. Upon Mr. Shirley devolved the work of 
 making arrangements and attending to the correspon- 
 dence, for which he was admiral^ly adapted. Too 
 much credit cannot be given for the earnest, faithful, 
 painstaking labor which he gave to the cause. Ever 
 zealous, never tiring, always faithful because of his 
 love of God, he gave time and service to his fellow- 
 men at a period of life when most men feel justified in 
 employing their strength in providing for themselves. 
 Mr. Shirley still lives, almost the sole survivor of 
 those with whom I labored in the early days of our 
 movement in Maine. No man was more devoted, no 
 man more unselfish, no man more useful than he. 
 
 Mr. Walton had abandoned the use of liquor three 
 or four years prior to the Washingtonian revival. He 
 was a bachelor, and a cari^enter, in which trade he 
 accumulated means sufficient for his modest wants. 
 He was an earnest Whig in politics, and a frequent 
 and pleasing speaker at political meetings, having a 
 remarkably clear, incisive and forcible style. His
 
 292 REMINISCENCES 
 
 often homely, but always striking, illustrations and 
 epigrammatic phrases made him at all times welcome 
 at any meeting he was willing to address. 
 
 We generally found suitable preparation made for 
 the meetings that had been announced. Ordinarily 
 the attendance was large for the localities in which 
 they were held, but the size of the audience did not 
 concern us. We had truths to tell, and we told them 
 to those who would listen, whether they were num- 
 bered by hundreds or only included a dozen. In fact, 
 it often happened that the smaller meetings proved 
 the more useful. Frequently people came from all the 
 surrounding country, in winter in sleighs, pungs, 
 sleds, and in summer in chaises, farm wagons, and 
 every conceivable conveyance, sometimes crowding 
 into great carts drawn by teams of oxen. Our gath- 
 erings were held in meeting-houses, town-houses, 
 school-houses, sometimes in barns, and often in the 
 open air. 
 
 Traveling about as we did in every direction, we 
 had opportunity to see the people and talk with them 
 in private as well as in public. Everywhere, especially 
 in the earlier days of our work, the evidences of intem- 
 perance abounded, and in every village, and on every 
 country road, as we traveled we saw and became 
 familiar with that with which to point or adorn our 
 story, and which incited us to persistent efforts for 
 the end we sought. 
 
 One great obstacle to be overcome was the common 
 opinion that lifpior was a panacea for sickness in 
 various forms, and a preventive for innumerable and 
 indescribable ills. It was used ui)on the slightest 
 pretext. If one were warm, he must have it; if cold, 
 he could not do without it, being ignorant, undoubt-
 
 George H. Shirley.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 293 
 
 edly, that in either case it was worse than useless. It 
 was necessary to confront those notions by demon- 
 strating their absurdity. Special efforts were made 
 to induce men not deeply addicted to drinking to 
 experiment and see if they could not get through a 
 day or a week of work better without than with it. 
 Farmers were sometimes led to make the same test in 
 their busy season, and the invariably satisfactory 
 reports as to these trials were found to be of great use 
 in correcting the general belief that liquors were 
 indispensable adjuncts of industry. 
 
 The opportunity for an effective canvass was good. 
 Audiences were not obliged to rely upon the imagina- 
 tion of speakers to learn how intemperance affected an 
 individual, or to understand the obstacles which that 
 evil interposed to the prosperity and progress of their 
 community. Substantial evidence of all this was to 
 be obtained on every hand. Some of their neighbors 
 were grossly intemperate; their friends, perhaps many 
 of them, were neglecting their business and their 
 families because of their growing appetite for liquor. 
 It was only necessary that attention be called to the 
 matter in a general way. Almost every adult in the 
 audience had been unfavorably affected by the 
 intemperance rife in the vicinity. Right at hand 
 were illustrations of the demoralizing influence of 
 the drink habit, and of the traffic which lived upon 
 and contributed to it. 
 
 In these early meetings it was not uncommon for 
 men in various conditions of subordination to the 
 appetite for rum to sign the pledge and promise their 
 adhesion to the movement. Sometimes a moderate 
 drinker, though thinking himself safe from the 
 danger of drunkenness, would announce his willing- 
 
 20
 
 294 REMINISCENCES 
 
 ness to give up his occasional indulgence for the sake 
 of his example of abstinence to others, and it was 
 almost invariably the case if we could induce one 
 such to make that announcement in open meeting 
 that he was followed by others. More than once, 
 veritable drunkards staggered to the platform to sign 
 the pledge, and promised to make an earnest struggle 
 to free themselves from their terrible thraldom. 
 
 I have in mind a striking illustration of this. A 
 man, reeling drunk, staggered to the platform where 
 I was speaking, and announced his desire to sign the 
 pledge. I had grave doubts of his understanding 
 what he was about, and advised him to wait until he 
 was sober, l3ut he insisted, and affixed his signature in 
 a bold, round hand. I knew him well. He was con- 
 nected with a respectable family, but his intemperate 
 habits had well-nigh ruined him. He kept the pledge 
 for years, meanwhile establishing himself in business 
 and doing well, having bought and paid for a modest 
 l3ut comfortable home, and accumulated other means. 
 Prospering thus through his sobriety and industry, 
 twelve years after the incident I have related he was 
 confined to his bed for several weeks by sickness. 
 
 In an evil hour his attending physician prescribed a 
 little liquor. The poor man protested against taking- 
 it, but finally, after much persuasion by his wife, who 
 had been led by the doctor to believe that liquor alone 
 could save her husband's life, he yielded. A short 
 time after, seized by an uncontrollable desire for 
 stimulants, the reformed man left his house, obtained 
 liquor, and was found in a few hours in a state of 
 beastly intoxication. Thereafter he relapsed into 
 drinking habits, losing the property he had gathered, 
 and from a self-respecting, self-supporting citizen, con-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 295 
 
 tributing his full share to the well-being of the 
 community, he became a wreck, and a helpless charge 
 upon the charity of others. 
 
 No need in those days for vulgar exhibitions by the 
 speakers in imitation of speech or act of drunken men. 
 Those present were all too familiar with such scenes 
 in their own family or in the families of their neigh- 
 bors and friends. We drew on imagination rather to 
 show what the condition of their town or village, of 
 their neighbors and friends, of their own families, 
 might be if the drink should be abandoned and the 
 business of the rumseller no longer permitted in their 
 midst. 
 
 It was our special care at all these meetings and in 
 our journeyings from one to the other to distribute 
 temperance literature freely, selected with a view to 
 enlightening the people as to the relation of the 
 liquor-traffic to the general good. We devoted our- 
 selves largely to exposing the evils inevitably flowing 
 from the grog-shops, and convincing the people that 
 liquor-selling was a great sin against God and a crime 
 against society. Occasionally the wife of a country 
 trader would go home from such a meeting and 
 insist that her husband should abandon the sale of 
 liquor and pour out what stock of it he had on hand, 
 and in several instances the men thus induced to 
 relinquish the traffic became active and useful friends 
 of the cause. 
 
 At one of these meetings in a large country town I 
 was describing the character of the drink-traffic and 
 its efi'ects upon the people. After I had been speak- 
 ing some time two ladies arose from the body of the 
 crowded house and went out. The next day we 
 learned that they were mother and daughter, the wife
 
 296 REMINISCENCES 
 
 and child of tlie hotel-keeper in the town. They had 
 gone home that the wife might say immediately, as 
 she did upon entering the house: "Husband, liquors 
 must go out of this house or I will go!" From that 
 day the tavern became a temperance house and the 
 tavern-keeper, and his wife and daughter, warm and 
 influential friends of the temperance movement in 
 their vicinity. 
 
 It was common in those meetings for the speakers to 
 contrast the social and business standing of the 
 patron, not to say the victim, of the rumshop with 
 that of the village liquor-seller, to call the attention 
 of the people to the comfortable home of the latter 
 and ask them to compare it with their own habita- 
 tions, to see what comforts the family of the man of 
 whom they bought their liquor enjoyed, and contrast 
 them with the hardships to which their own wives 
 and children were exposed. This proved a most 
 effective mode of speaking, but it was not always an 
 agreeable one. When it is remembered that in those 
 early days of the movement the rumsellers were 
 among the most respected and influential members 
 of these village communities, it will be understood 
 that the meetings in which such talk was made had a 
 tendency to create excitement at times becoming dis- 
 agreeable in the extreme to the speakers. 
 
 In one of our excursions we Avere to speak at a 
 village which had been peculiarly cursed by rum. 
 We had been told that we would be shot if we went 
 there, but we antic ii)ated no such extreme danger, 
 and kept on, despite the warning. There was a 
 "sciuire," as trial- justices were uniformly called, 
 who kept a large country store, with every variety 
 of goods suitable to the trade which he supplied.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 297 
 
 as well as rum in large quantities. It had l^een given 
 out that this man had determined that no temperance 
 speeches should be made in that community if he 
 could prevent it. It was important that the village 
 over which he exercised a sort of terrorism should see 
 that, after all, the ' ' squire " would be quite helpless 
 in confronting those who were conscious that they 
 were right. 
 
 The "squire's " house was large and handsome, well 
 kept in every particular, while the other houses in 
 the village, almost without exception, were poor and 
 shabby. Our meeting was crowded, and we talked to 
 the people plainly, contrasting their hovels and their 
 surroundings with the establishment of the "squire," 
 showing them that it was their money which had 
 made that house so fine, while for the want of it 
 theirs were mean and dilapidated. The back part 
 of the meeting-house was crowded with these poor 
 people, and we noticed some of them looking at each 
 other significantly and nodding, "That's so." Natur- 
 ally, the "squire" did not like it, and after the 
 meeting took some very foolish steps to manifest it, 
 but they reacted upon him and his business and thus 
 served our purpose well, for the next time we held a 
 meeting there we entered and departed undisturbed. 
 
 We did not, however, always have our own way. 
 It was not infrequently that the village lawyer, doc- 
 tor or tavern-keeper would speak, adding the weight 
 of his influence to such argument as he was able to 
 make against the reform. Occasionally the less 
 respectable portion of the community would oppose 
 after a difi'erent fashion. Violence was at times 
 resorted to, to break up the meetings. The speakers 
 would be insulted and threatened with personal
 
 298 REMINISCENCES 
 
 injury, or the harnesses of the teams in which they 
 had driven to meeting would be tampered with, that 
 accidents might happen on the way home, while in 
 several instances residents interested in the promotion 
 of the meetings had their barns and liouses burned, 
 their horses and cattle injured, orchards destroyed, 
 or experienced other damage to person or property. 
 
 Early in our work, while I was a comparatively 
 young and vigorous man, the exact date I have not 
 at hand, I was assaulted one forenoon on the principal 
 lousiness street of the city. I was walking down its 
 slight grade, when, hearing a quick step behind me, I 
 turned as one involuntarily does and glanced over my 
 shoulder just as I received a blow from a tall fellow 
 dressed in the garb of a sailor. Taken thus at a 
 disadvantage, I fell, but was up instantly, when, after 
 two or three ineffectual attempts to strike me again, 
 the fellow took to his heels. Not disposed to let the 
 affair terminate that way, and suspecting, what after- 
 wards proved to be the case, that he had been put up 
 to the job by others, for I had never seen the man 
 before, I followed, overtaking him in a rod or two. 
 There he surrendered. While I was holding him on 
 his back to the ground, Hanson M. Hart, Esq. , one of 
 our most respected citizens, seeing what he supposed 
 to be the handle of a knife, protruding from the 
 sailor's waistband, withdrew it to find that it was a 
 cowhide. 
 
 At the trial it turned out that my assailant was a 
 stranger in town, the mate of a coasting-schooner; 
 that he had never seen me until I had been ])ointed 
 out to him on the morning of the assault, and that he 
 had been hired by some rumsellers to cowhide me on 
 the [jublic streets. Though he failed to carry out
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 299 
 
 his contract, he thought he had fully earned the 
 promised fee. That was the last assault ever made 
 upon me in the open — although two juries before 
 whom the fellow and an accomplice were tried dis- 
 agreed. It seems that after the disagreement of the 
 first jury, the county attorney, a political and per- 
 sonal opponent of mine, (I had given him an immense 
 deal of annoyance in insisting that he should prose- 
 cute rumsellers under the old license laws) consented 
 that one of the jurors, a rumseller, who happened to 
 be in the court-room, should be put on the other panel 
 to fill an unexpected vacancy there, and tried the 
 case again immediately with what was to be expected, 
 another disagreement. That ended the case. It was 
 said at the time that it cost the men who employed 
 the sailor over three hundred dollars to defend him 
 and to pay him for his trouble. That was a large sum 
 for that time, but it was less than their disappoint- 
 ment. A short time afterwards there was a temper- 
 ance meeting in Portland addressed by John B. 
 Gough. Opening his speech he offered this toast: 
 "N. D., knocked down, not dead." 
 
 On one occasion my family was startled in the 
 evening by the crashing of a window. Some one, 
 perhaps imagining that he would thereby check the 
 progress of temperance, had thrown a bottle of asafet- 
 ida into our parlor. The result was some ruined 
 furniture and the temporary annoyance and incon- 
 venience of my family. That was all. 
 
 One evening a couple of fellows waylaid me on my 
 way from a temperance meeting, and springing upon 
 me from behind a tree, expected to take me at a 
 disadvantage, but they failed. Several ineffectual 
 attempts and one successful one to fire some of my
 
 300 REMINISCENCES 
 
 buildings were made, and for a time I could not get 
 some of my property insured ])ecause the agents be- 
 lieved that my activity against the liquor-traffic 
 rendered it liable to incendiary attempts on the i)art 
 of evil-disposed persons. Then came petty vexations. 
 Not infrequently objectionable i)ackages were left 
 at my house. Bottles, sometimes dead cats even, 
 were thrown into my yard or put into my carriage 
 when I had left it standing before some place where 
 my business had called me. Other trivial efforts to 
 annoy me were made, but none of them interrupted 
 our progress perceptil^ly. For the most part, however, 
 I suffered little individually, and on more than one 
 occasion was able by my mere presence to prevent 
 serious trouble to some other temperance man who 
 was threatened with violence. Fortunately, fellows 
 animated by motives which prompt such attacks 
 rarely have nerve sufficient to carry out their design. 
 Some of our friends, however, did not escape so 
 easily. There were numerous cases of assault, more 
 or less aggravated, upon temperance men and upon 
 complainants against violators of the liquor law in 
 various parts of the state. I recall one in particular, 
 upon H. K. Baker, of Hallowell, who early in life 
 became interested in the promotion of temperance, 
 and who devoted miu-h of his time for many years to 
 l^ersistent and constant efforts in that direction. 
 Many complaints against unlicensed liquor-dealers 
 had been brought before him, as a trial- justice. He 
 was known to ])e an earnest friend of temperance. 
 His sympathies in tliat direction, however, had never 
 led him to official injustice on the bench, and he was 
 able to show that not one of seventy-five appeals from 
 his decisions had ])een sustained. Nevertheless, Mr.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 801 
 
 Baker, on coming out of the court-house one day in 
 Augusta, was assaulted and cowhided by a man who 
 was urged to it and applauded by a crowd of men 
 awaiting Mr. Baker's exit from the court, on the 
 piazza of a licensed rum-tavern which he was obliged 
 to pass on his way home. 
 
 That assault created great excitement because of its 
 peculiarly cowardly character. It afforded also as 
 satisfactory proof as could be asked of the sympathy 
 existing between licensed and unlicensed liquor-deal- 
 ers, and the mistake of relying upon the former for 
 assistance in the prosecution of the latter. Five men 
 were subsequently indicted by the grand jury for 
 complicity in the assault, and they were convicted 
 and heavily fined. Such incidents had not a little to 
 do with arousing that public sentiment later resulting 
 in the enactment of the prohibitory law. 
 
 At one trial in Portland of some liquor-dealers for 
 the violation of the provisions of the existing license 
 law, one of the most important witnesses for the 
 prosecution, living in Oxford county, had become cog- 
 nizant of the violations while staying at the tavern of 
 the respondents. As the trial progressed, the friends 
 of temperance were inclined to the opinion that 
 the county attorney, who was in charge of the pros- 
 ecution, had no sympathy with the effort to enforce 
 the law generally, and was especially disinclined in 
 this particular case. It was in the late fall. I be- 
 came satisfied on the day of the trial that the program 
 was to delay proceedings so that it should be dark 
 before the adjournment of the court, with a view, as 
 I had reason to believe, of assaulting this particular 
 witness when he left the court, he having informed 
 me that threats of the kind had been made. I accord-
 
 302 REMINISCENCES 
 
 ingly determined to protect liim at all hazards from 
 violence, should such be attempted. 
 
 I had recourse again to my engine-company, which on 
 occasion had ^'el\ served me in previous emergencies, 
 and with two able-bodied, plucky men, from the old 
 Deluge, I was on hand in the court-room, the shades 
 of evening having already fallen, waiting for the 
 adjournment. As the crowd passed out, I took the 
 witness by the arm, while my two friends fell in just 
 liehind. We walked from the court-house to the 
 tavern where the witness was then staying, fol- 
 lowed by a crowd of roughs, who visited upon our 
 little party all the annoyances of unbridled talk and 
 loud threats, but that was all. No blow was struck, 
 no harm was done. The threatening bullies were 
 undoubtedly cowed by the consciousness of the wrong 
 of their intent, and possibly by the bearing of the 
 escort of the witness they had marked for a victim. 
 
 That was the last time that I ever went armed on 
 the streets of Portland. Eeturning to my house in 
 the evening, I threw my outer coat across the baluster 
 of the front stairway, forgetting that in the pocket 
 was a brace of pistols. The act discharged one of 
 them, and the bullet, smashing the hall-lamp, just 
 grazed in its course the head of one of my daughters, 
 who was ascending the stairs. The shock of her great 
 danger (as it was she was cut by the falling glass) 
 taught me a lesson which I never after disregarded. 
 
 My friend Woodbury Davis, to whom I have else- 
 where alluded, was the victim of a most atrocious 
 assault, perpetrated by some ruffians, i)robably paid 
 therefor l)y some wiser, if not better, men than they, 
 who had taken offense at some remarks of Mr. Davis 
 at a temperance meeting. Though lie lived years
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 303 
 
 after the incident, it was tliought that he never fully 
 recovered from the injuries he received, and that his 
 life was shortened thereby. A life-insurance com- 
 pany, some time after the assault, refused to issue a 
 policy upon his life on the ground that his chances for 
 longevity had been lessened by it. 
 
 Joshua Nye, of Waterville, one of the most earnest, 
 and active friends of temperance in Maine, was on one 
 occasion set upon by a crowd of ruffians, who, with 
 clubs and bludgeons, sought to punish him for his 
 activity in prosecuting a liquor-seller. Happily, he 
 was able to draw a pistol before they had seriously 
 injured him, and the cowardly hirelings (it was after- 
 wards shown that some liquor-sellers had employed 
 them) abandoned the scoundrelly job for which they 
 had been paid. 
 
 In the town of Standish, in Cumberland county, an 
 earnest friend of temperance, Mr. S. O. Paine, a well 
 known and highly respected citizen, was most foully 
 treated because of his activity in behalf of the cause. 
 He was taken from his bed one winter night by a 
 party of masked men, who were on the other side of 
 the question, and carried out into his yard, where 
 there was a long watering-trough. Into this he was 
 ducked three or four times, his tormentors meanwhile 
 expressing the hope that he might thus get enough of 
 cold water. This did not help their cause. There 
 were numerous cases of more or less aggravated 
 assaults in different parts of the state. All, however, 
 proved quite as effective as any speeches to hasten the 
 day when the liquor-traffic was to be placed under the 
 ban of the law as inconsistent with the public good. 
 
 Nor were the friends of temperance exposed only to 
 personal violence from the baser part of the popula-
 
 304 KEMINISCEXCES 
 
 tion. They were often annoyed and insulted by men 
 wlio knew better, and in places and amid surround- 
 ings which ought to have been free from such scenes. 
 One day a county attorney went so far out of his way 
 to insult me tliat he ]>rought upon himself a severe 
 rebuke from the presiding judge, the late Hon. Daniel 
 Gooclenough, of Alfred. I had stepped into court and 
 taken a seat near the jury, among other spectators, 
 facing the attorney, who was addressing the panel. 
 For some reason my presence there evidently annoyed 
 the official, for, pausing in his address to the jury, he 
 shouted to me in a loud voice and most excited and 
 offensive manner: "Get out of there!" Every one 
 present could understand to whom he spoke, and see 
 that his intent was to insult me. Flushing with indig- 
 nation, I arose, but at a sign from Judge GoodenougH 
 resumed my seat. ' ' Mr. Attorney, " said his Honor, 
 "sit down, sir!" The county attorney attempted to 
 go on. "Sit down, sir!" said the judge, "Sit 
 down ! " 
 
 After the official had taken his seat, the judge said, 
 in substance: "Mr. Attorney, when I am unable to 
 protect citizens in this court-room from such insults as 
 that of which you have just been guilty I will resign 
 from the bench. After you have properly apologized 
 to the court and to all present you will be at liberty 
 to proceed." 
 
 The late Eenjamin Kingsbury was then editor of 
 the Eastern Argus. He was connected with a differ- 
 ent faction of tlie Democratic party than that with 
 which tlie county attorney was identified. In refer- 
 ring to the incident in his paper, he said: "At the 
 conclusion of the judge's rebuke, Mr. Dow's smile was 
 wide enough to dis|»]ay n fifty-dollar set of molars."
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 305 
 
 Meeting Mr. Kingsbury on the street shortly after, I 
 told him the figure was low for natural teeth. 
 
 The annoyances, and even the dangers, which the 
 active friends of temperance were called upon to 
 encounter were by no means the heaviest burdens 
 they were obliged to bear. Something besides the 
 modicum of physical courage they required was essen- 
 tial to enable them to maintain the positions they had 
 taken. Only a deep conviction that their duty to 
 God and humanity exacted it could have induced the 
 handful of men who commenced the work to continue 
 it. The contest was earnest. In many instances it 
 became bitter. It extended into the churches, dis- 
 turbed their harmony, emptied not a few of the pews, 
 and sometimes caused resignations from pulpits. 
 Almost every organization in Avhich citizens were 
 associated for one purpose or another was affected by 
 it, dividing into "ramrods" and "rummies," as the 
 two sides were respectively, and by no means affec- 
 tionately, called by each other. Lifelong friendships 
 were broken, and even families were divided. 
 
 Happily, after a time there was improvement, and 
 with the new and changed public sentiment, the fruit 
 of the agitation, old enmities died out, and old friend- 
 ships were restored. In more than one instance, after 
 years of estrangement from leading and influential 
 citizens growing out of differences on this question, I 
 have received messages from dying men, expressing 
 regret for our long antagonisms and the hope that the 
 temperance movement would go on to success. One 
 of these came to me from the county attorney who 
 was reproved by the court for insulting me. Follow- 
 ing his message I called upon him, and there was a 
 hearty and cordial reconciliation. Is it surprising
 
 306 REMINISCENCES 
 
 that there are few of us, as we look back upon our 
 active lives of hostility to the litiuor- traffic, who do 
 not now regard the loss of i)ersonal friendships, be- 
 cause of the positions we thoughtfully took and 
 conscientiously maintained, as among the greatest 
 sacrifices we were called upon to make? 
 
 The prohibitory movement received invaluable 
 assistance from the distinctively antislavery ele- 
 ment in the state that from 1842 to the organization 
 of the Republican party in 1854 maintained a political 
 organization in Maine known first as the Liberty 
 l^arty, and afterwards as the Free-Soil. Most of its 
 members were also temperance men, holding the move- 
 ment for Prohibition as second only in importance to 
 the object they cherished as above all others. On the 
 other hand, many of us who gave temperance the first 
 position were almost as earnest Free-Soilers. 
 
 An incident may not be out of place. I have 
 alluded to my father's antislavery convictions and 
 to his sympathy with escaping bondmen. On one 
 occasion, not far from 1840, several runaways who 
 had reached Portland on a vessel from some southern 
 port, had been sent on their northward way rejoicing, 
 my father and I having rendered some assistance. 
 Our colored i)eople lield a meeting in the Abyssinian 
 church to celebrate the event, and some whites, 
 among them myself, had been invited to participate. 
 The colored presiding officer, when he introduced 
 me, after saying to the audience that the "under- 
 ground railroad to freedom runs through his kitchen 
 and ])ackyard," added, "His face is white, but, God 
 bless him. his heart is black," which well-intended 
 commendation of me to my colored hearers insured 
 my cordial reception by them.
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 807 
 
 No one familiar with the antislavery agitation in 
 Maine can fail to recall the names of James Appleton, 
 of Samuel Fessenden, of S. M. Pond, of Ezekiel 
 Holmes, of Charles A. Stackpole, of George H. Shir- 
 ley, and among the clergy those of Rev. Austin 
 Willey, Rev. David Thurston, Rev. O. B. Cheney, 
 Rev. D. E. Randall, Rev. C. C. Cone, and Rev. Luther 
 Wiswall, and as certainly, the mention of those names 
 revives in the minds of its friends the temperance 
 movement. Most of the leaders in each reform 
 were interested and active in both, exerting their 
 influence to make the efi'orts for one contribute to the 
 development of the other, as far as it could be done 
 consistently and with prudence. To this end the 
 state and county gatherings of both agitations were 
 generally held upon succeeding days, that those at- 
 tending the one might more conveniently participate 
 in the other. When the Maine Law was adopted, the 
 Inquirer, edited l^y Rev. Austin Willey, the organ of 
 the Free-Soilers, was the only paper other than an 
 avowedly temperance publication that gave it a cor- 
 dial and hearty welcome. Elsewhere it will be shown 
 how in another exigency of Prohibition, the Free- 
 Soilers rallied to its defense, and that the two 
 elements became fused into a new political party, 
 pledged to both issues. 
 
 Referring to the so-called secret temperance organi- 
 zations, first in order of time, as I remember it, were 
 the Rechabites. I was a member of this order for a 
 while, though too much engaged in outside work to 
 give it much of my time. I think it did not cover a 
 large portion of the state, but a branch was estab- 
 lished in Portland. 
 
 Following upon the Washingtonian movement, the
 
 308 REMINISCENCES 
 
 order of the Sons of Temperance was introduced into 
 Maine, the first division being instituted in 1844. 
 Within a few years it obtained a rapid growth and 
 was widely diffused through the state, including in 
 its numerous divisions a large number of the active 
 friends of temperance. In many towns it was for a 
 while the only organization. At one time, at a later 
 period, its membership numbered nearly, if not quite, 
 thirty thousand. I did not become connected with 
 this order until the fall of 1851, when it was thought 
 desirable that I should become the presiding officer of 
 its Grand Division. A new division was instituted in 
 Portland; I was elected to its chair, and, becoming 
 thus eligible for the Grand Division, was elected G. 
 W. P. for Maine. The next year, at the meeting of 
 the National Division in Richmond, Va. , I was chosen 
 M. W. A., Judge J. Belton O'Neale, of South Carolina, 
 being M. W. P. I entertained a very high opinion of 
 Judge O'Neale. It has been said that he did not 
 sympathize with the secession sentiment which domi- 
 nated his state, and though his views were well 
 understood, so great was the respect entertained for 
 him, that he experienced no personal difficulty on 
 account of them. 
 
 It is impossible to call here the long and honorable 
 roll of those members of the order in Maine whose 
 faithfulness never faltered, and whose zeal was never 
 relaxed Avhere their services were needed. But such 
 names as Joshua Nye, of Waterville, of John S. Kim- 
 ball, of Bangor, of H. K. Morrell, of Gardiner, of Sam- 
 uel L. Carleton, of Portland, are never to be omitted 
 from any story of the progress of temperance in 
 Maine — men whom no personal sacrifice could deter 
 from constant efforts for the good of the state.
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 309 
 
 Temperance Watchmen clubs were organized in 
 1851, and before the close of that year, there were 
 over a hundred of them, every city and all the larger 
 towns having one or more. These were composed 
 largely of young men, zealous friends of the legal 
 prohibition of the liquor-traffic, who made it a special 
 duty to see that the laws against the trade were 
 vigorously enforced. They also had much to do with 
 the quiet, political work through which old party 
 lines were crossed and recrossecl by so many voters in 
 efforts to sustain Prohibition in its earlier days in 
 Maine. 
 
 Later, in 1860, the order of Good Templars found 
 its way into the state, and in August of that year, 
 delegates from eleven subordinate lodges were organ- 
 ized as a Grand Lodge. This order had the following 
 declaration of principles: 
 
 Total abstinence from all intoxicating liquors as a beverage. 
 
 No license in any form or under any circumstances, for the 
 sale of intoxicating liquors to be used as a beverage. 
 
 The absolute prohibition of the manufacture, importation 
 and sale of intoxicating liquors for such purposes ; prohibition 
 by the will of the people, expressed in due form of law, with 
 the penalties deserved for a crime of such enormity. 
 
 The creation of a healthy pu])lic opinion upon the subject, 
 by the active dissemination of truth in all the modes known to 
 an enlightened philanthropy. 
 
 The election of good, honest men to administer the laws. 
 
 Persistence in efforts to save individuals and communities 
 from so direful a scourge against all forms of opposition and 
 difficulty, till our success is complete and universal. 
 
 This was the first organization to acknowledge the 
 right and duty of women to labor equally with men 
 in the temperance reform. The order has always 
 recognized the necessity for activity in efforts to 
 enforce the Maine Law, and during the agitation 
 
 21
 
 310 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 for the constitutional proLiibitory amendment, many 
 thousands of petitions were presented to the legisla- 
 ture through its agency, and during the campaign for 
 the popular apijroval of the amendment, the order 
 which at that time included a membership of more 
 than twenty thousand, expended much money in 
 keeping speakers in the field favorable to the propo- 
 sition. 
 
 It has included in its ranks a large number of most 
 faithful and efficient friends of the cause, men and 
 women, who have never tired in well-doing. Among 
 those whom I recall as having been connected Avith 
 the order, not elsewhere mentioned, are Major H. A. 
 Shorey, Rev. David Boyd, Rev. Smith Baker, Rev. 
 H. C. Munson. No record of Good-Templarism in 
 Maine would be complete that should omit the name 
 of George E. Brackett, of Belfast, now and for a long 
 time its efficient secretary, as well as editor and pub- 
 lisher of the Maine Temjjerance Record. 
 
 At the head of the Good Templars in Maine for a 
 time was Nelson Dingley, Jr., afterwards governor, 
 and now a member of Congress from this state. Able, 
 honest, indefatigable and conscientious in everything 
 he undertakes. Governor Dingley is sure to be useful 
 and influential in any movement that is fortunate 
 enough to secure his approval and assistance. Maine 
 owes much to him for what he has done for her in 
 various fields, but friends of temperance here and 
 everywhere have reason to be especially thankful to 
 him for his constant, unswerving, and consistent 
 devotion to that cause. 
 
 The Woman's Christian Temperance Union found 
 its way into Maine in 1875, the year after the national 
 body of that name was organized at Cleveland. It is
 
 Mks. I,. .M. N. Stkvkns. 
 President Wimikhi's Christian Temperance I'nion.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 311 
 
 the lineal descendant of the Woman's Temperance 
 crusade of 1873-74. It is no disparagement to other 
 societies to say that it is to-day the largest, best 
 organized, and most influential temperance society in 
 the country. It has attained this position by brains, 
 conscience, and true, persistent and sympathetic work. 
 The temperance cause in all its departments is its main 
 field of labor, and to this it devotes its thought 
 and energy. From a very small beginning, the Union 
 has been brought up in a few years to its present 
 commanding position in this country, only by the 
 wisdom, prudence, singular devotedness and persis- 
 tent work of the women who lead in its great 
 endeavor to protect wives, mothers, children and 
 homes from the brutal, murderous warfare upon 
 them by the saloons. 
 
 It has been my great pleasure to have made the 
 personal acquaintance of its able, devoted and 
 efficient leader. Miss Frances E. Willard," and I have 
 been much impressed by the zeal and devotion which 
 she has brought to the work to which she has conse- 
 crated herself. The first president of the Union in 
 Maine was Mrs. Charles F. Allen, the wife of the 
 chaplain of the Maine legislature that enacted the 
 original Maine Law. Its present presiding officer is 
 Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens, who has held the position since 
 1878 and has given to the Union, and to the cause 
 which she serves, most unreservedly of her time and 
 strength. With Mrs. Stevens, as with Miss Willard, 
 there is no such word as failure; neither knows what 
 it is to be discouraged. They furnish a noble exam- 
 ple to the women of this country, which I am cheered 
 to believe is to find year by year constantly increasing 
 
 * Since deceased.
 
 312 REMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 
 
 numbers of those who, profiting by it, like them, will 
 inspire others to self-sacrificing labors for the uplift- 
 ing of the race. 
 
 I regret that it has been impossible for me to men- 
 tion the names of large numbers of those who were 
 engaged in revolutionizing the public sentiment of 
 our state. Many men with whom I was intimately 
 acquainted, and many whom I did not know, were 
 constantly engaged in unselfish, self-sacrificing labor 
 greatly contributing to that end. Almost every town 
 had its temperance organization, and every village 
 had its representatives devoted to laying broad and 
 deep in the intelligence and conscience of the people 
 that foundation upon which it was subsequently 
 possible to erect and maintain the principle of Prohi- 
 bition. Those men encountered the same opposition 
 and were exposed to the same dangers as were those 
 to whom I have referred by name. Many to whom 
 the cause of temperance is greatly indebted for untir- 
 ing labor passed away long before much progress was 
 made. For the examples they set, for the lessons they 
 taught, for the sacrifices they made in behalf of their 
 fellow-men and the state in which they lived, for tlie 
 unselfish services they so freely gave, and for the 
 abundant good they accomplished, the state of Maine 
 is and always must remain indebted.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ELECTIONS AFFECTED BY PROHIBITION. SHARP CONTESTS 
 IN REPRESENTATIVE DISTRICTS. MY NOMINATION 
 
 AND ELECTION AS MAYOR OF PORTLAND. 
 REFERENCE IN MY INAUGURAL TO 
 PROHIBITORY LEGISLATION. AC- 
 TION OF CITY GOVERN- 
 MENT THEREON. 
 
 The law of 1846 had not found its way into the 
 statutes of Maine without political action. Earnest 
 men do not long permit themselves to ask legislatures 
 in vain for what they are impelled by their consciences 
 to seek, without endeavoring to make up those bodies 
 of men who will vote there for what is demanded by 
 those who elect them. Again and again, as we have 
 seen, beginning with 1837, the more active among 
 the temperance men of Maine had been asking for 
 Prohibition, only to be refused by the legislators. 
 Something more than petitioning must be done, if 
 they were to obtain what they asked ; that could only 
 be done at the polls. 
 
 Immediately upon the advent of the prohibitory 
 agitation it began to have its effect, almost imper- 
 ceptibly, here and there through the state, in the 
 election of members of the legislature. The prepara-
 
 314 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 tory school for this had been furnished in the 
 local-option law under which, to some extent since 
 1829, and much more frequently after 1835, voters in 
 the various municipalities had acted, without ref- 
 erence to general politics, upon the question of 
 license or no-license in their respective towns. 
 
 In these contests temperance Democrats and Whigs 
 found, perhaps in some cases to their surprise, that 
 they could act together with reference to any question 
 as to which they thought alike, Avithout serious 
 detriment to their personal comfort, happiness and 
 well-being. Some of these contests, which were in 
 the spring, developed feeling intense enough to last 
 until fall, when party lines were drawn again for the 
 state election. 
 
 Then it was natural that a temperance Democrat 
 should prefer to vote for a Whig for representative to 
 the legislature with whom he had acted in the spring 
 for no-license, perhaps against the rumselling tavern- 
 keeper, who was the nominee of his own party, and 
 whom he had found favoring license a few months 
 before. Similarly, a no-license Whig was more 
 inclined to support a Democrat in September, who 
 with him had opposed license in March, than to vote 
 for the Whig candidate who might have been virulent 
 in his opposition to the "temperance cranks." This 
 was generally done quietly for fear of the party 
 leaders, and for some time was only effective in close 
 districts. 
 
 The numerous temperance meetings all tended in 
 the same direction, with the result that there was a 
 gradual weeding process, whereby those whose busi- 
 ness or whose habits rendered them the most obnox- 
 ious to the temperance-element were left out of the
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 315 
 
 legislature. After a time it became apparent to the 
 local political leaders on both sides that a licensed 
 taverner or other liquor-seller was not available as a 
 candidate, and such would not be nominated by 
 either side. There were exceptions, but on the whole 
 there was general progress in that direction, though 
 sometimes there would be local reactions. 
 
 MeauAvhile a healthier general sentiment upon the 
 whole subject was being developed through the action 
 of the various agencies and methods of work already 
 noted. Shortly after the appearance of the "Liberty 
 party" in the state this process proceeded more 
 rapidly. Its two most conspicuous leaders were 
 General James Appleton and General Samuel Fessen- 
 den, both most earnest friends of temperance. Its 
 legislative nominees were without exception friends 
 of Prohibition, and the few who succeeded at the 
 polls, in the earlier days of that party, did so by the 
 aid of temperance Democrats and Whigs in districts 
 where the nominees of those two parties were inimical 
 to Prohibition. 
 
 In those days it required a majority vote to elect 
 members of the legislature, and in some instances 
 where temperance men and Free-Soilers united on the 
 same candidate the contests were exciting and pro- 
 longed. It fell to my lot on one occasion to occupy 
 the position of independent candidate for the legisla- 
 ture from Portland. It happened this way: Politi- 
 cally, Portland was ordinarily Whig, in the days of 
 that party, by a safe margin, but at the state election 
 of 1847, two of its three Whig candidates for the 
 legislature failed of an election. One was William 
 Pitt Fessenden, who, having already served one term 
 in Congress, was about re-entering politics.
 
 316 REMINISCENCES 
 
 A day or two after the state election, Mr. Fessenden 
 called on me and inquired as to the reasons for the 
 opposition to his election. The conversation resulted 
 in explanations satisfactory to the friends of Prohibi- 
 tion, and at the special election called to fill the two 
 vacancies he was chosen. His associate was Hon. 
 Phineas Barnes. Mr. Barnes was a gentleman of 
 marked ability, unexceptional life, of positive opin- 
 ions, and of a sufficient degree of firmness to hold him 
 steadfast to whatever position he had taken. He was 
 at that time the editor of the Whig paper in Portland. 
 He also had an interview with me in which he 
 declared himself unwilling to support the measure 
 the temperance men desired. I gave him to under- 
 stand that the temperance men would not support 
 him, and he replied, "I will bide my time, and we 
 will see who will get the worst of it." His election 
 was again prevented, though he had a large plurality. 
 
 Between this and the next balloting, political, 
 business, and social pressure had been brought to 
 bear so heavily upon the temperance candidate that 
 he declined to run again, and for want of any one else 
 disposed to bear the brunt of the now bitter struggle, 
 I was made a candidate in his place. After this there 
 were seven ballotings, in two of which I received 
 more votes than either of the regular candidates, 
 before the contest was decided by the election of Mr. 
 Barnes. This struggle lasted long enough for a cap- 
 tain of a Portland vessel, engaged in the West India 
 trade, to start on a trip to Cuba, after voting at the 
 first trial, and return in season to vote at the last. 
 
 An amusing incident connected with that voyage 
 to Cuba was related to me liy my friend, the captain 
 referred to. One day while his vessel was at a
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 317 
 
 West India port, an English man-of-war engaged in 
 practice-firing at a mark, a hogshead having been 
 moored at some distance to serve as such. After 
 several ineffectual shots from "Her Majesty's ship," 
 my friend, the captain of the Portland merchantman, 
 caused its ' ' Long-Tom " to be loaded. Then training 
 it on the mark he fired and blew the hogshead into 
 smithereens. A few moments after he saw a boat put 
 off from the Englishman and make for his vessel. 
 Soon a young English naval officer, in full uniform, 
 came over the side of the Portland ship, and, with 
 great difficulty suppressing his own amusement, 
 succeeded finally in asking in the name of the com- 
 mandant of ' ' Her Majesty's ship " if the destruction 
 of that mark was intended as an insult. Everything 
 of the kind was disclaimed. , Then my friend quietly 
 assured his visitor that his only intent was to show the 
 Englishmen how to fire, whereat the officer most 
 politely withdrew, leaving the captain with a private 
 assurance that he had made a most capital shot. 
 
 During all that contest the city, or at least the 
 political part of its population, was much stirred up. 
 Political, personal, and social ties and friendships 
 were disturbed with lasting unpleasantness. For 
 years the relations between Mr. Barnes and myself 
 were much strained, but as his correct, honorable, 
 and useful life was drawing to its close, a message 
 from him to me led to mutual expressions of most 
 kindly feeling. 
 
 Among other more fortunate effects of that pro- 
 longed contest, politicians of both sides learned 
 through it that the temperance men of Maine were 
 much in earnest, and for reasonable cause would be 
 likely to interfere with the plans of party leaders.
 
 818 REMINISCENCES 
 
 To prevent such troublesome contests in the future, 
 and to weaken the influence of independent political 
 movements, the plurality system was adopted in 
 the choice of representatives to the legislature. To 
 this the temperance men said: ' ' Well, we can easier 
 obtain a plurality than a majority of votes, and, if 
 need be, will set about it. " 
 
 With the enactment of the law of 1846, the move- 
 ment for Prohibition became marked as a disturbing 
 element in the politics of Maine. On the one hand, 
 its friends were earnest in their desire that it should 
 be so amended as to make it more effective; on the 
 other, the attempt to enforce even its inadecpiate 
 penalties had excited a virulent opposition, not only to 
 the law and its friends, but to the principle it 
 embodied. When, therefore, the time for the nomi- 
 nation of members of the next legislature drew near, 
 both sides were evident in political caucuses and 
 conventions. 
 
 Numerous petitions had been presented to the 
 legislature of 1849 asking for the passage of a law 
 which, as I said before the committee to which the 
 petitions were presented, would enable the authorities 
 to "ferret out and suppress the grog-shops." Many of 
 the provisions sought at that time were similar to 
 those afterwards incori)orated in the law of 1851. 
 The measure, debated at length in both houses of 
 the legislature, passed both branches and was sent to 
 tlie executive. This was in the closing days of the 
 session. By a constitutional provision, if a bill was 
 sent to the governor within three days of adjourn- 
 ment he could retain it for consideration until the 
 third day of the next session. Accordingly, on the 
 last day, Governor Dana, in a message to the legisla-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 319 
 
 ture, stated that the provisions of the bill were so 
 extraordinary that he was not prepared to approve it 
 and withheld it for further consideration. 
 
 Almost immediately petitions began to pour in upon 
 the Governor, urging him to approve the bill, thou- 
 sands so expressing their desire for the law, but they 
 availed nothing. At the opening of the next legisla- 
 ture, just before he retired from office. Governor Dana 
 sent a veto message to the house. From that day to 
 this nothing has been urged against Prohibition that 
 was not expressed or implied in what Governor Dana 
 had to say nearly half a century ago. Since then, 
 Avhether emanating from pulpit, from bench, from 
 the halls of legislation, or from any other center from 
 which influences beneficial to the people are sup- 
 posed to radiate, or from behind the bars of open 
 grog-shops, from the moral miasma generated in hot- 
 beds of vice and crime, or from any other quarter 
 inimical to enlightenment and progress, all that has 
 been urged against Prohibition has been little else 
 than a repetition of what that message contained. 
 
 What Governor Dana said might be urged with 
 equal force against the entire criminal code. Laws 
 may not make men honest, but in prohibiting the 
 reception of stolen goods they lessen temptations to 
 theft; legislation may not make men virtuous, but in 
 prohibiting specified acts it reduces allurements to 
 vice. Criminals, to avoid detection, w^ink at the sup- 
 pression of truth, encourage falsehood, and perpetrate 
 perjury when they can thus evade penalties. Detect- 
 ives often run down a criminal by deceiving and 
 holding out false pretenses. Yet Governor Dana did 
 not suggest a reconstruction of the criminal laws of 
 Maine, that thieves, burglars, and other malefactors
 
 320 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 might, througli a general permission to commit crime 
 in the open, be relieved of the temptation to deceit 
 and hypocrisy incident to efforts to escape punishment. 
 The house refused to pass the bill over the veto, 
 and it failed, therefore, to become a law. That veto, 
 though not unexpected by the friends of Prohibition, 
 was nevertheless a great disappointment. It had long 
 been known that the Governor was carefully consider- 
 ing whether he should approve the measure, and it 
 was feared that matters of a purely political nature 
 were having great weight in his deliberations. He 
 was taking counsel of some of the leaders of his party, 
 and when finally the veto came it was believed that it 
 was prompted by their fear that the law would prove 
 disastrous to the political organization of which he 
 was the titular head in the state. 
 
 Governor Dana's political life ended with that veto. 
 Two years later, substantially the same measure 
 became a law, having been passed in both branches by 
 an overwhelming vote and approved by his successor 
 in the gubernatorial chair. Subsequently, after a 
 test of many years' experience, by a popular vote of 
 more than three to one, the policy of Prohil:)ition was 
 made a part of the fundamental law of the state. Had 
 Governor Dana lived a few years longer, he would 
 have seen, through the direct and indirect influence 
 of the policy he contemned, a large portion of his 
 state practically freed from the evils which he pre- 
 dicted would only be increased thereby. 
 
 Disappointed, to be sure, but not discouraged, by 
 the action of Governor Dana, the friends of Prohibi- 
 tion began anew. Petitions for a prohibitory law 
 were again circulated and presented to the legislature. 
 I explained and advocated before the special com-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 321 
 
 mittee to which they were referred substantially the 
 same bill which was afterwards known as ' ' the Maine 
 law." The committee reported favorably, and the bill 
 passed the house, but was lost in the senate by a tie 
 vote. Governor Dana had by this time yielded the 
 executive chair to Governor Hubbard. Nevertheless, 
 so large a vote in the legislature favorable to a bill 
 substantially the same as that vetoed by the retiring 
 governor was a matter of great encouragement to its 
 friends. 
 
 The legislature in both branches was largely in 
 political sympathy with Governor Dana, who was a 
 man of ability and influence, and justly entitled to 
 leadership among his political associates. The wil- 
 lingness, therefore, of so many to go on record in 
 opposition to his views indicated the deep hold which 
 Prohibition had obtained upon the people of Maine. 
 Such action naturally threatened discord in the domi- 
 nant political organization, yet a large number of its 
 voters were willing to risk that, if need be, for the 
 sake of the advantages sure to inure to society from 
 the outlawry of a traffic the evil efi:ects of which were 
 apparent on every hand. From that legislative action 
 it was evident that Prohibition was to come to the 
 front with the approval of the people of Maine, what- 
 ever should befall political leaders and whatever 
 might happen to political parties. 
 
 The bill, which had so nearly become a law, was 
 published and extensively circulated through the 
 state after the adjournment of the legislature. I 
 wrote a series of articles, analyzing and explaining its 
 features. It attracted much attention, and was dis- 
 cussed in temperance meetings generally. Its friends 
 in all parties labored in their respective primaries and
 
 322 EEMINISCEXCES 
 
 conventions to secure nominees for the legislature 
 favorable to its provisions. After the election peti- 
 tions were circulated, asking for the passage of that 
 particular measure. 
 
 Such was the general condition of public sentiment 
 when, some time in the winter of 1850-51, my attention 
 was called to the matter of becoming a candidate for 
 mayor of Portland. It was urged that my nomination 
 and election, because of my thorough identification 
 with the policy of Prohibition, would be of great 
 advantage to that movement. But there were some 
 difficulties in the way. It was not probable that an 
 independent nomination would result in my election, 
 and although I was nominally a Whig I had so fre- 
 quently bolted that ticket that it was hardly to be 
 expected that Whig leaders would take kindly to the 
 suggestion. It was, however, finally decided in a 
 council of a few of our friends to appeal to the rank 
 and file of the party, where many strong temperance 
 men were to be found. 
 
 The custom was for the Whigs of the various wards 
 to choose delegates, who afterwards in convention se- 
 lected a candidate whose name was then presented at 
 a mass-meeting on the eve of election for ratification, 
 or nomination. This latter gathering, to be sure, was 
 only a matter of form, the selection made by the lead- 
 ers in the convention being invariably endorsed at the 
 mass-meeting. That year, however, matters were dif- 
 ferent. The Whig ward-caucuses were unusually 
 large, surprisingly so to the old leaders of the party, 
 who saw the management taken out of their hands by 
 men rarely attending to details of party affairs. The 
 delegates chosen voted to recommend my name to the 
 ratifying mass-meeting, and then the fight was on.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 323 
 
 The federal offices in Portland were held by the 
 "Whigs under the Taylor-Fillinore administration. 
 The non-interference of officials with party manage- 
 ment had not then been preached to any effective 
 extent, and the collector of the port and the postmas- 
 ter of the city, both most estimable gentlemen, made 
 it very evident that they were opposed in general to 
 having the management taken out of their hands, and 
 especially, particularly, and earnestly to my nomi- 
 nation. To be frank, I was not surprised that they 
 were unfavorable to my selection. It would have 
 been a matter for wonder had they favored it. 
 
 Whatever their real motive may have been, they 
 liad a sound enough objection from a party point 
 of view to urge against me. I was not a ' ' reliable '' 
 Whig. I had ' ' bolted " the regular nominees of that 
 party, was "likely to do it again," they urged. They 
 dwelt especially upon the representative struggle of 
 three or four years before; they referred to the fact 
 that more recently enough votes had been given to me 
 to prevent the election by the people of the regular 
 Whig candidate for mayor, the official at that time 
 serving. No man, they insisted, with such a party 
 record as that, was entitled to a party nomination. 
 
 The day intervening between the choice of the 
 delegates and the assembling of the convention was 
 used by the leaders in efforts to convince delegates 
 that I ought not to be nominated; but meeting with no 
 success in the convention they turned their attention 
 to the mass-meeting, and rallied quite a following 
 there to aid an effort to prevent the ratification of 
 the nomination reported by the mayoralty convention. 
 The mass-meeting assembled in the old City Hall, 
 which had witnessed so many contests over the
 
 324 REMINISCENCES 
 
 temperance qnestion. When the motion was made 
 that my nomination be ratified, the collector took the 
 jQoor and made an earnest speech against it. I was a 
 "bolter," he said. I had run against the regular 
 party nominee; I was no Whig and ought not to be 
 nominated by Whigs, and if nominated would have 
 no claim upon the party for support. 
 
 The opposition manifested by those leaders during 
 the day had led to an unusual attendance at the mass- 
 meeting, with my friends largely in the majority. 
 To add to the certainty of the discomfiture of the 
 collector, the Hon. Henry Carter, now Judge Carter, 
 of Haverhill. Mass.,* at the time editor of the A¥hig 
 daily paper of Portland, called the attention of the 
 meeting to the fact that the collector had appointed to 
 positions in the Custom House temperance Whigs who 
 had bolted in 1847 with me, and insisted that if those 
 Whigs were to be permitted to warm their feet in the 
 customs service, while other regular Whigs desiring 
 their positions were left out in the cold, the gentleman 
 suggested by the mayoralty convention was a good 
 enough AVhig to be supported by the party after 
 having been proposed as a candidate in the orthodox 
 Whig way. This ingenious appeal to the disappointed 
 "outs " of the party added to the temperance-element 
 already in control of the meeting such a contingent of 
 the active workers of the party that my nomination 
 was overwhelmingly ratified. 
 
 The leaders of the discomfited minority, however, 
 were not satisfied. After the adjournment they 
 called together a few of their trusted retainers, had 
 the Whig ticket printed for the various wards, 
 straight in every particular except that it bore as 
 
 * Since deceased.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 325 
 
 that of a candidate for mayor the name of a highly 
 respectable citizen, Hon. Joseph C. Noyes, elsewhere 
 referred to as at one time president of the Maine 
 Temperance Union. They organized a corps of vote- 
 distributors for work at the polls the next day, and 
 took other measures to defeat me. Mr. Noyes had no 
 opportunity to prevent this use of his name, as he 
 knew nothing about it until he saw it upon the 
 bolting ticket when he went to the polls. 
 
 My friends were taken by surprise as completely as 
 was Mr. Noyes, knowing nothing about it until the 
 polls opened, and were, therefore, at some disadvan- 
 tage. . Nevertheless, when the votes were counted, it 
 was found that I had received a majority of those cast 
 in the city proper. But the "islands," which in those 
 days sometimes voted and sometimes did not, threw so 
 many votes for my competitor, who afterwards was 
 better known as General, and still later as United 
 States Judge, George F. Shepley, that I lacked eleven 
 votes of an election. There was no choice. 
 
 The outcome was more of a disappointment to the 
 leaders than to my friends. The former had pre- 
 vented my election, to be sure, but they were 
 astounded upon learning that, despite their efforts, I 
 had received more votes than had ever been given to 
 any candidate for mayor, save one, in the history of 
 Portland, and this though they had led off in their 
 bolt twenty-five per cent of the normal AVliig vote of 
 the city. These figures convinced them that, if my 
 friends had not been taken by surprise, my election 
 would have been sure. They decided, therefore, not 
 to "vote in the air "at the next trial, which, under 
 the provisions of the charter would be in about two 
 weeks, but to vote for the Democratic nominee.
 
 326 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 Various expedients were adopted by them to make 
 sure of my discomfiture on that day. One was to send 
 some of the active temperance Whigs, holding official 
 positions under the United States government, out of 
 the city, to attend to some official business trumped 
 up for the occasion, thus depriving me of their votes 
 and assistance at the polls. But it was of no avail. 
 Steam was up, and my friends, having been fore- 
 warned, were ready for the emergency, and I was 
 elected by a larger vote than had ever before been 
 given to a candidate for mayor of Portland, and by a 
 majority which had been exceeded but twice in its 
 history. 
 
 The Whig paper, referring to the result the next 
 day, said that there were probably more Democrats 
 who had voted for me than there were Whigs who 
 had opposed me. But that was cold comfort for the 
 men who had organized and led the movement for my 
 defeat. 
 
 As far as I can recall, the only points urged against 
 me in the canvass by the Democrats were that I 
 was a "ramrod" of the very stiff est kind, and an 
 "al^olitionist." It was important, therefore, they 
 insisted, both in the interest of ' ' reasonable " treat- 
 ment of the liquor question and the "Union," which 
 they alleged to be in peril because of the abolitionists, 
 that I should be defeated. The Union, however, 
 survived my election, and I expect to show that the 
 liquor question was treated during my administration 
 in the most " reasonable " manner i)ossible. 
 
 Among the aldermen elected to the city government 
 was my old friend and co-worker in temperance, 
 William W. Tliomas. I may here mention that when, 
 four years later, I was again elected mayor, Mr.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 327 
 
 Thomas also consented to serve as alderman. My 
 election was naturally regarded as a distinct triumph 
 of the temperance element of the city, although the 
 "regularity" of my nomination unquestionably led 
 Whigs to support me who had little sympathy either 
 with my opinions or my methods touching what to 
 me was the most important issue, viz. : the enforce- 
 ment of the existing laws against the grog-shops. It 
 was no less due, therefore, to the temperance element 
 than it was in accord with my own wishes and judg- 
 ment that the opponents of the liquor-traffic should 
 not be disappointed. I determined to meet their just 
 expectations if possible. 
 
 For years my name had been the target for epithets 
 of every kind and abuse in every form, save that 
 through it all my personal and business integrity was 
 not questioned. I had now been elected mayor by a 
 larger vote than any other candidate for that position 
 had ever received, and that without having abated 
 any of my zeal, or changed any of my methods in 
 laboring for the cause to which I had for years been 
 devoted. In view of that fact, my election was most 
 convincing evidence that something had been accom- 
 plished toward the creation of a healthy public 
 sentiment with reference to the great evil I had been 
 so long combating. 
 
 Here it seems not inappropriate to say something of 
 what Portland was at that time — more than thirty 
 years ago. It has greatly increased in population, 
 in wealth, and in the number and character of its 
 buildings. Everywhere are evidences of thrift and 
 prosperity far in advance of what was then enjoyed. 
 Then, with a population but little more than half 
 its present number, there were more indications of
 
 328 REMINISCENCES 
 
 extreme poverty than are now to be found. I will 
 not state here what in my opinion has been a potent 
 influence in this particular change. 
 
 I will say that it has been my frequent privilege to 
 conduct about the city, gentlemen from various parts 
 of this country and Great Britain in recent years — 
 men who had traveled extensively and were familiar 
 with conditions in many cities in this and other lands. 
 Repeatedly have I heard them say that nowhere in all 
 their travels had they found in a place, approaching 
 the size of Portland, so few indications of extreme, 
 abject poverty as here. Sometimes after a drive of 
 an hour or two over the city, covering every part of 
 its three miles in length and three-quarters in width, 
 they would say, ' ' Now show us where your poor 
 people live." "I have already done so." "Impossi- 
 ble! We have seen no such poverty as we refer to." 
 ' ' Do you remember the names of some of the streets 
 we have passed through?" "Yes." "Well, here is 
 a policeman, let us inquire." I would ask the offi- 
 cer to tell the gentlemen the names of the streets 
 inhabited by the poorest portions of our population. 
 As he would mention the names and the places 
 were recalled by the visitors they would exclaim, 
 "Remarkable!" "Wonderful!" "We have never 
 seen the like l^ef ore ! " Many times have I had 
 occasion for just such conversations, with the same 
 results. A man can but feel pleasure at such testi- 
 mony as to his native city, the place at once of his 
 l)irth, liis lif(* and liis lal)()rs. To that, in another 
 line, I am able to add that this country has not passed 
 through a financial crisis or a period of depression 
 for years when it has not been a matter for remark 
 among those avIio have been so situated as to know.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 329 
 
 that Portland — and for that matter the state of 
 Maine — has borne it with comparative ease, 
 
 I will not say what I think has contribnted so 
 largely to all this, which must be so gratifying- to 
 every loyal son of Maine at home or abroad; but 
 I will say that if the liquor-traffic is permitted' to 
 recover the ground it has lost in Maine he who thirty 
 years hereafter shall write of conditions here will be 
 unable to bear such testimony as I have given. 
 
 In writing of the natural advantages of Portland I 
 may be suspected of having a partiality for my home, 
 and I quote from an article written by one of these 
 strangers to whom I have referred, just after the close 
 of my first term as mayor. It was published then in a 
 southern paper, the writer being a citizen of a south- 
 ern state. Its somewhat florid rhetoric cannot con- 
 ceal the natural beauties it essays to portray. While 
 in many respects, as we have seen, Portland has 
 greatly changed for the better since then, her nat- 
 ural scenery and advantages remain the same: 
 
 " I could but wonder that the southern tourist, who is so 
 often content with the tame scenery and steaming, over- 
 crammed saloons of Saratoga, should rarely ever extend his 
 pilgrhnage to Portland, the commercial capital of this hardy, 
 enterprising and ocean-laved state. Once let the annual 
 southern tide of fashion set into the emerald waters of Casco 
 Bay, it would forever flow there as constant as the migrations 
 of birds of passage. 
 
 ' ' Portland would arrest and detain the southron on his way 
 to the White Hills of New Hampshire, and w^eave a web of 
 lasting enchantment around his senses. Nor to the senses 
 alone would the charm be limited. It w^ould enchain the 
 judgment and the affections, as I will, in advance, forewarn 
 the traveler that the moral and intellectual fascinations of 
 Portland are not exceeded even by the charms of her glorious 
 .scenery 
 
 "Portland is situated on a peninsula on the western extremi-
 
 330 REMINISCENCES 
 
 ty of Casco Bay, looking eastward and northeastward over 
 the three hundred ishmds that gem the pale blue background 
 of that peerless ocean picture. There the sea is a living, 
 tossing element, a thing of life, that has not gone to take a 
 siesta on some tame and interminable stretch of sand-shore, as 
 in the southern coasts ; there the tides roll in and dash upon 
 theiv rocky and sul)lime barriers as if they were in earnest, 
 loved the sports of the watery gymnasium 
 
 "How beautiful antl sublime from the sea is Portland — a 
 city three miles in length, by three-fourths of a mile in width, 
 rising like an ampitheatre l^etween two hills, with regular 
 streets, magnificently embowered with the wide-spreading, 
 ancient elms, the maples and the lindens. On the hill where 
 the ruins of the old provincial Fort Sumner are still visible 
 stands the lofty observatory. With me, southron, ascend it, 
 and confess that the scenery from the top of the Bunker Hill 
 monument is tame in comparison. Look all over the county 
 of Cumlierland, and see scores of snow-white villas and 
 villages throw tower and spire heavenward. Look seaward ; 
 the three hundred isles of Casco Bay, a perfect, linked bead- 
 work of beauty, stretch away to the northeast. South- 
 easterly, the eye wanders, unobstructed, save by distance, 
 over the breast of the Atlantic, that touches the fast-anchored 
 isle of Britain 
 
 " Look to the northwest. Heavens, what sublimity ! The 
 giant White Hills of New Hampshire stand there, cold and 
 passionless, with their gray sides l)rightening upward into 
 pale blue, then into white, commercing with the feathery 
 clouds ; or, perhaps, overlooking a black thunder-storm 
 ofrowlinir in vain far below the everlasting silence of their 
 sentinel sunmiits." 
 
 My friend, Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, so well known in 
 connection with the Roljert college in Constantinople, 
 told ine that on board a steamer at some point in the 
 Mediterranean the attention of a group of passengers, 
 of whom he was one, was called to the scenery, when 
 one of the party remarked: "I have never seen any- 
 thing finer than that, save from what is called the 
 Eastern Promenade in the city of Portland, Maine, in 
 the United States." Whereupon Dr. Hamlin intro-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 331 
 
 duced himself as familiar with that view, and was 
 able to endorse the testimony of the stranger as 
 to the delightful outlook afforded from that point 
 in Portland. 
 
 To return to the matter of my election as mayor, 
 I was inaugurated on the twenty-fourth of April, 
 1851, and my address, which covered as Well the 
 topics ordinarily treated in such papers, after refer- 
 ring to the supposed necessity for a new almshouse 
 and house of correction, contained the following: 
 
 " In my opinion the present almshouse is sufficiently 
 spacious and may be rendered comfortable and well arranged, 
 at a very small expense, for the decent and proper mainte- 
 nance of all those who would be thrown upon the city for 
 support, but for the illegal traffic in intoxicatins; drinks, 
 
 " I call your attention to this latter subject, as one of deep 
 importance to the city, in every point of view. The illegal 
 traffic in intoxicating drinks is an evil of frightful magnitude, 
 and has been rapidly increasing among us within the two or 
 three years past. The inevitable tendency of this traffic is to 
 impoverish and degrade the people ; to convert sober men and 
 good citizens into drunkards and bad members of society ; to 
 corrupt the young and inexperienced — and to render many 
 families wretched as well as poor — which but for this busi- 
 ness, would be prosperous and happy. Our almshouses, our 
 jails, hospitals, lunatic asylums, and our prisons are filled 
 with the miserable victims of this odious traffic, which is the 
 fruitful parent of every species of misery, vice and crime, 
 in every degree of intensity — while it has no redeeming 
 feature ; it carries poverty, pauperism, degradation, crime, 
 and death to thousands, while it benefits nobody. 
 
 " There is no fact better established than this, that the 
 traffic in intoxicating drinks tends more to the degradation 
 and impoverishment of the people than all other causes of evil 
 combined ; its existence is incompatible with the general 
 welfare and prosperity of the community. All classes of 
 society have the deepest interest in its suppression. As a 
 question of domestic and political economy, of earnings and 
 savings, of annual accumulating wealth to the city, this sub- 
 ject demands the highest consideration. I have good reason
 
 332 EEMINISCEXCES 
 
 to believe that a very larirc majority of the people of this city 
 and of the state, are in favor of the adoption of some ellectual 
 measures for the suppression of a l)usiness which is at war 
 with every principle of humanity and enlightened patriotism, 
 and which violates the law of God as well as the law of the 
 land. 
 
 " I have only to add, that any measure you may think it 
 proper to adopt, tending to restrain or to suppress this traffic, 
 shall have my cordial co-operation. This subject is now 
 exciting the attention of the people of all the states of the 
 Union ; and it has l)een considered so important l)y the people 
 of Ohio and Michigan, that a provision has 1)een inserted in 
 the recently revised constitutions of those states, depriving 
 their legislatures of the power of enacting any law to grant 
 licenses'for the sale of intoxicating drinks, and providing that 
 such liquors shall only be sold for medicinal and mechanical 
 purposes. 
 
 "In the larger towns and cities in this state, no decisive 
 movement can be made to suppress the numerous drinking 
 houses and tippling shops by which they are infested without 
 the enactment of a law for that purpose which shall be suffi- 
 ciently stringent in its provisions and summary in its 
 processes to effect its objects. I commend this subject to 
 your attention, as one eminently worthy your regard." 
 
 That portion of my message relating to the liqnor- 
 trafiic was referred to a special committee which 
 subsequently reported: 
 
 *' Resolved, That the illegal traffic in intoxicating drinks is 
 highly injurious to every counnunity in which it is tolerated ; 
 that it tends directly to impoverish and degrade the i)cople ; 
 that it is the cause of a hirge proportion of the pauperism and 
 crime which exist among us ; that it tends to seduce the 
 young and inexperienced from the path of virtue, and to pro- 
 duce i)ad men and l)ad citizens, while it })encfits nol)ody, and 
 no interests, either pul)lic or })rivate, are advanced l)y it. 
 
 " Resolved, That the city council regards the suppression 
 of the illegal traffic in intoxicating drinks as an object of 
 great public importance, which is only to be accomplished 
 elfectually by the enactment of a law for that purpose, 
 stringent in its provisions and summary in its processes ; and 
 that "they believe an act siiuiliir in its provisions to that
 
 Neal Dow at 47 \kaks.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 333 
 
 reported at the last session of the legislature will ciml)le the 
 authorities of the city to suppress that traffic within its limits 
 promptly. 
 
 " Resolved, That the representatives'to the legislature from 
 this city be requested to use their best efforts to procure the 
 passage of the bill referred to, or of some other bill which 
 will be equally eftective in its operation." 
 
 The resolutions were passed iinanimonsly in both 
 boards, as was also the following order: 
 
 "Ordered, that the mayor, Aldermen Charles Jones and 
 William W. Thomas be a committee, with such as the common 
 council may join, to visit Augusta during the session of the 
 present legislature to present the foregoing resolutions to the 
 representatives from this city, and to express to any com- 
 mittee which may he appointed by the legislature to consider 
 this subject the opinions and wishes of the city council in 
 relation to it, and that said committee be authorized to add to 
 their number such persons as they may think proper from the 
 citizens at large to join them in their visit to Augusta for the 
 purposes aforesaid." 
 
 The lower board added its president, William G. 
 Kimball, and Messrs. Nathaniel Walker, Hanson M. 
 Hart, Veranus C. Hanson, Moses Eussell, and William 
 Hoit. Mr. Walker was the only Democrat in the list, 
 that party having no representative in the upper, and 
 but three in the lower, board. Of that committee, 
 Mr. Thomas, Mr. Hart,'"- and myself are the sole sur- 
 vivors. This committee, however, was not completed 
 until after the Maine Law had actually been reported 
 to the legislature, and those of its members who sub- 
 sequently went to Augusta found nothing for them to 
 do but to urge its passage. 
 
 * Mr. Hart survived General Dow a few months.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 PREPAKATION OF THE MAINE LAW. ITS ENACTMENT. 
 INCIDENTS. THE TEXT OF THAT MEASURE. 
 
 The legislature that had been elected in the fall of 
 1850, was strongly Democratic, and was to meet in 
 May, 1851. That was to be the last summer session of 
 that body, as by a change in the Constitution it was 
 thereafter to assemble in the winter. It was under- 
 stood, however, that this session would be short, 
 with an early adjournment to the next January. 
 If the measure I desired should be postponed till that 
 time, my term of office as mayor would be practically 
 over before it could become a law. If, therefore, I 
 was to have an opportunity, which I much desired, to 
 enforce such legislation as I was to ask for, it must be 
 enacted at the session close at hand. 
 
 The matter of drafting a prohibitory bill was not 
 new to me, as I had drawn up two or three. Never- 
 theless, I was anxious that the one in process of 
 construction, and which I had every reason to believe 
 would be approved by the legislature, should be as 
 perfect as possible in its details. 
 
 Before the action of the city council, referred to in 
 the last chapter, I had carefully redrawn the bill I
 
 REMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 335 
 
 had advocated before the last legislature in order to 
 eliminate any possible defects of a constitutional 
 character that might have been overlooked. Having 
 completed it to my own satisfaction, I submitted it to 
 Edward Fox, then a practicing attorney of high 
 standing in Portland, afterwards judge of the United 
 States district court for Maine. Mr. Fox was at the 
 time much in sympathy with the temperance move- 
 ment, though not actively identified with it. He 
 suggested a few changes, principally on technical 
 points, which I accepted. 
 
 The bill was ready for presentation to the legisla- 
 ture when, through members of the city government 
 friendly to the object, I initiated the movement lead- 
 ing to the appointment of the committee previously 
 mentioned. I could now appear before the legislature 
 to advocate my measure in an official character, rather 
 than as an individual, as had before been the case, 
 and it only remained to ascertain the best time for the 
 purpose. Henry Carter was one of the representatives 
 of the city in the legislature. Not long after the 
 opening of the session, I wrote to him for information 
 as to the best time for me to submit my bill. His 
 reply was, "Come now, because we will adjourn 
 finally in a few days." 
 
 I immediately went to Augusta, and there, in 
 consultation with Senator William R. Porter, of 
 Cumberland county, and Representative Noah Smith, 
 Jr., from Calais, decided as to whom it would be 
 desirable to have appointed upon the special commit- 
 tee which we proposed to have raised to report upon 
 the measure I was to submit. Senator Porter was a 
 Democrat, and Mr. Smith a prominent member of the 
 Whig minority of the popular branch. Three years
 
 336 EEMIXISCENCES 
 
 later lie l3ecame the speaker of that body, and subse- 
 quently, when the political control of Maine passed 
 out of Democratic hands, secretary of state. 
 
 Having decided how the committee should be 
 constituted, I called upon the presiding officers of the 
 two branches. The i)resident of the senate, Noah 
 Prince, of Oxford county, was very friendly to our 
 object. The speaker of the house, George P. Sewall, 
 of Oldtown, was as earnestly opposed. Both, how- 
 ever, courteously consented to appoint in their 
 respective bodies, should the committee l)e ordered, 
 the gentlemen whose names I suggested. 
 
 On Thursday, May 22d, on motion of Mr. Smith, 
 the house voted for the appointment of a joint special 
 committee to consider the petitions relative to the 
 traffic in liquors. The senate concurred the same 
 day. The committee was made up, as previously 
 agreed upon, of Senators William R. Porter, of Cum- 
 berland; Roliert A. Chapman, of Oxford; Samuel C. 
 Adams, of York; and Representatives Noah Smith, 
 Jr., of Calais; Aaron Quinby, of Westbrook; Ezekiel 
 Holmes, of AVinthrop; Alden Chase, of AVoodstock; 
 Jesse H. Nickerson, of Orrington; Alfred E. Berry, 
 of Georgetown; and Rufus Sewall, of Cliesterville. 
 Politically the committee was classified as follows: 
 Senators Porter and Chapman, and Re]jresentatives 
 Quinby, Chase, and Berry, were Democrats; Senator 
 Adams, and Representatives Holmes and Sewall, were 
 Free-Soilers, and Representatives Smith and Nicker- 
 son were AVhigs. 
 
 The committee appointed a i)ublic hearing in Repre- 
 sentatives' hall for the following Monday evening. 
 At that time I appeared and went over the familiar 
 ground, most of my speech being devoted to explain-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 337 
 
 ing the novel and technical features of the bill. I 
 closed with the pledge: "If you will enact this bill, 
 the sun shall not rise on Portland, January, 1852, and 
 find there a single open grog-shop. " I shall show that 
 I fully redeemed that pledge. 
 
 None appeared in opposition. At the close of the 
 hearing, Kepresentative Smith expressed himself satis- 
 fied with the measure, and moved that it be reported, 
 as it was. His motion was adopted unanimously, and 
 he was authorized to present it in the house. The 
 rule of the legislature required bills of a public 
 nature to be printed before consideration. The 
 foreman of the state printing-ofiice had formerly 
 resided in Portland. He was an old Washingtonian 
 temperance man, and a personal acquaintance of 
 mine. I had quietly arranged with him to have the 
 bill printed in the usual form, ready for distribution 
 as soon as its printing had been ordered, assuring 
 him that I would be personally responsible for any 
 expense that might be incurred by reason of possible 
 changes to be made in committee, which, constituted 
 as that was, I did not deem probable. On the follow- 
 ing morning, May 27th, Mr. Smith reported the bill 
 in the house, and its printing was ordered in the 
 usual course. As arranged, however, the printed 
 copies were immediately laid upon the desks of the 
 members. 
 
 On Thursday, the 29th of May, the bill came up 
 for consideration. Mr. John C. Talbot, a Democratic 
 member from Lubec, moved its postponement until 
 the next, or January, session of the legislature. Mr. 
 Talbot is yet living. He was the next speaker of the 
 house, and, I think, f6v more than twenty years, the 
 last Democrat who occupied that position. He was
 
 338 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 a man of ability, integrity, and higli standing. Often 
 after that date lie was a member of the legislature, 
 and more than thirty years later was a member of the 
 house over which my son presided as speaker. 
 
 The motion of Mr. Talbot to postpone was lost by a 
 vote of 89 to 16. Thereupon, Mr. Carter, of Portland, 
 called for the previous question, and the bill was put 
 upon its passage and was ordered to be engrossed by a 
 vote of 81 to 40. Politically the votes were classified: 
 For the bill, 42 Democrats, 31 Whigs, and 8 Free- 
 Soilers; against it, 25 Democrats and 15 Whigs. 
 
 The next day. May 30th, the bill came up in the 
 senate, and under suspension of the rules was put 
 on its passage to be engrossed. It was attacked by 
 Senator Gary, of Aroostook county, in a vigorous 
 speech. Mr. Gary had been a member of Gongress, 
 was a man of much native force and talent, and quite 
 an acceptable speaker at Democratic rallies and con- 
 v^entions. In the course of his speech he gave 
 considerable attention to me in phraseology ^intended 
 by him to be more damaging than complimentary. 
 Mr. Gary referred to the bill as the ' ' mere efferves- 
 cence of the fanaticism of the city of Portland." The 
 following are some of his expressions : 
 
 " This new manifestation of the spirit of fanaticism ov\<y\- 
 natcd in the eity of Portland under the auspices of that 
 
 prince of fanatics, the present INJayor of that city It 
 
 embodies the ultra notions of the wring-necks of that city, of 
 whom the Mayor is chief. Has the legislature of Maine, and 
 a Democratic legislature, too, ]:)ecomc so lost to dignity and 
 self-respect, as to sit here the registrar of the in(|uisitorial 
 edicts of the temperance fanatics of Portland, headed by its 
 popinjay Mayor, a AVhig abolitionist of the most ultra stri{)e? 
 I met the ]\Iayor the other day on the stairway. lie is a 
 pretty little dapper man, goes well dressed, wears a nice blue 
 jacket and fancy vest and his hat cocked on one side of his 
 head. He succeeded in getting his l)ill reported by the com-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 839 
 
 mittee, word for word and letter for letter, as it was prepared 
 for them. I do not expect to make any impression on the 
 senate, I do not belong to the powers that be. I train in a 
 different company. I do not expect to have any influence in 
 the party until the reign of niggerism and fanaticism is over. 
 A few years ago the jackdaw Mayor of Portland, this man 
 with the fancy vest, who got up the precious document the 
 legislature is called upon to register, was at the head of the 
 nigger movement in that city. He was formerly a Federalist, 
 but Federalism alone was not low enough for his instincts, 
 and he joined the abolition movement ; but even Abolitionism 
 was not strong enough for his diseased palate, and he has 
 added temperanceism to his former stock of huml)ugs. Is 
 this Federal-abolition-wring-neck to be allowed to dictate to a 
 Democratic legislature what enactments it shall pass? Talk 
 with the Mayor. Does h^ pretend to be a Democrat ? No. 
 He never had and never can have a Democratic feeling or 
 pulsation. He is a Federalist at heart, of the alien and 
 sedition law stripe. Why should he, the Lord Mayor of 
 Portland, come down here with his rum bill, all cut and 
 dried, for this legislature to enact into a law? Was it for 
 any good to the democracy ? What does the fop Mayor of 
 Portland care about the democracy? Why, all he cares 
 about it is to overturn the democracy of the state and put 
 himself at the top of the heap by heading this wring-neck 
 temperance movement as he headed the abolition movement. 
 We have two kinds of bees, one small and not handsome, but 
 useful, the honey-bee. A swarm of this sort of l)ees have a 
 king bee or queen bee, bigger than any of the rest. The 
 mode of making him is said to be this : They take the largest 
 maggot they can find and by some sort of process not fully 
 imderstood continue to grow it into a bee of immense size, 
 and install it as the king or queen bee, whom all the little 
 bees fall down and worship. The temperance fanatics have 
 imitated the example of the honey-bee in this respect. They 
 have taken the Mayor of Portland, and by some process 
 blown him up into a king bee, bigger than all the other bees 
 in the hive. There is also another kind of l)ee, called the 
 bumblebee, or bumblebee, whom he likewise resembles in 
 several respects. This bee is a big bee, a very big and 
 pretty bee. It has a fine coat with pretty colors, and makes 
 a great noise. In fact, it keeps up a tremendous buzz, buzz, 
 buzz, wherever it goes. The house has been frightened into 
 the passao-e of this bill by the buzzing of a bumblebee."
 
 340 REMINISCENCES 
 
 At the closie of Senator Gary's speech, after some 
 fun at his expense caused by one or two other sena- 
 tors, the yeas and nays were called, and the bill was 
 ordered to be eno-rossed by a vote of 18 to 10, divided 
 politically as follows: For the bill, 14 Democrats; 3 
 Whigs; 1 Free Soiler; against it, 10 Democrats. 
 
 The bill would come up in the house for final passage 
 the next day. It was not usual for measures to be 
 attacked at that stage, but there was no rule pre- 
 venting it. Senator Gary's sonorous oratory had 
 drawn many of the popular branch from their seats 
 into the senate-chamber during its delivery, and I 
 thought it possible that some one among them might 
 lie induced to imitate him when the bill should come 
 up in that body on its passage to be enacted. This 
 apprehension was increased somewhat by the action of 
 the speaker, by whose side, through his courtesy, I was 
 occupying a chair. 
 
 Several acts and resolves were on the desk awaiting 
 final passage. He looked these over, selected one, 
 which I observed was the bill in which I was inter- 
 ested, and laid it aside. He then put the vote for 
 final passage upon all the others collectively in the 
 ordinary way. Those disposed of, he took up the roll 
 he liad laid aside, and, looking carefully over tlie 
 house, slowly and distinctly read the title of the act: 
 
 ''An Act for the Suppression of Drinking Houses 
 and Tippling Shops." 
 
 'Hit'ii Ik' paused and looked over the house again. 
 Ko ineml)er rose: no one of them all "cauglit the 
 sr^aker's eye.'' The pause was not long, only a few 
 seconds, but to at least one anxious friend of the bill, 
 each second seemed a miiiute. and a iiiiimte would 
 have been an iiileimiiiable time. Then (leli])erately,
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 341 
 
 with a perceptible pause between eacli word, the long 
 formula in vogue in the passage of bills to be enacted 
 was put. Holding the roll in his hand, the speaker 
 said: 
 
 ' ' Bill, an act entitled, An Act for the Suppression 
 of Drinking Houses and Tippling Shops. This bill, 
 having had its three several readings, and having 
 been passed to be engrossed, is now reported by the 
 committee on engrossed bills as truly and strictly 
 engrossed. Is it the pleasure of the house that the 
 bill shall now pass to be enacted ? " 
 
 The seconds now seemed to multiply in number and 
 increase in length, during which the speaker scanned 
 the silent house. " It is a vote. The bill will now be 
 signed by the speaker and sent to the senate, " said the 
 chair. The speaker had taken so much more time 
 than Avas ordinarily given to bills in that stage that I 
 could not refrain from laughingly inquiring of him, 
 "Don't you wish you could have said, 'It is not a 
 vote i ' " But there was no reply. He was in no mood 
 for pleasantries. 
 
 Immediately after the speaker had signed the bill I 
 took it to the senate. There the president promised 
 that there should be no delay. It promptly passed to 
 be enacted in that body, and I took it to the governor. 
 Just as I entered the executive chamber with the 
 bill I had so carefully watched through the legisla- 
 ture, several, perhaps half a dozen, members were 
 passing out. I thought nothing of the incident at the 
 moment, but was subsequently informed that they 
 were a self -constituted committee of the Democratic 
 majority of the legislature which had been laboring 
 with the governor to induce him to follow the example 
 of his immediate predecessor, and veto the bill. That 
 
 23
 
 342 REMINISCENCES 
 
 course was urged upon him by two or three senators 
 and representatives who had but a short time before 
 voted for the measure. 
 
 The governor naturally questioned them as to the 
 consistency of such advice. To this they replied that 
 they had been constrained to vote for it by the 
 politicians' first law of political self-preservation; the 
 vote margin in their districts between their party and 
 their Whig competitors was small, the radical temper- 
 ance men holding the balance of power; in a score of 
 contests in various parts of the state these had 
 demonstrated their willingness to use their votes 
 whenever necessary to secure a legislator favorable 
 to Prohibition. Attention was called to the fact 
 that familiar faces were missing from both branches 
 of that legislature, and their absence was thought to 
 be due to opposition to a law which had been submit- 
 ted the previous year, and which was substantially the 
 same as the one for which they had just voted. The 
 position of the governor, they urged upon him, was 
 quite different. He had received at both of his elec- 
 tions more than nine thousand plurality. There 
 was no danger to him, so those gentlemen said, from 
 the temperance vote, and they believed that he could, 
 with political safety, veto the measure, of which it 
 Avas tliought he did not personally approve. 
 
 Governor Hubbard, however, as he afterwards in- 
 formed me, reminded those gentlemen that they had 
 voted for the bill. Their record was public. He was 
 bound to l)elieve that their vote, as thus recorded, 
 rei^resented their convictions. It was neither his 
 duty nor his desire to relieve them from the position 
 in which they had placed themselves. They had 
 admitted, in voting for the measure, that they were
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 343 
 
 representing the wishes of their constituents. They 
 must not ask him to disregard the public will that 
 they had obeyed, and heed their private opinions and 
 personal wishes, which they had concealed by their 
 votes. Two sessions of the legislature, the Governor 
 said, had been occupied in discussing and maturing 
 the subject. It had passed both houses by a vote of 
 about two-thirds. It could not be looked upon, there- 
 fore, as hasty and inconsiderate legislation, which 
 alone would authorize the interposition of the veto, a 
 power which the Constitution did not contemplate as a 
 part of the ordinary process of legislation. He would 
 not use it in this case unless upon a careful examina- 
 tion of the bill he should find in it defects too grave 
 to be overlooked. 
 
 All this had passed between the Grovernor and some 
 of his political associates before I saw him, but I did 
 not learn of it until more than a year later, when as 
 will be shown. Governor Hubbard and I found our- 
 selves co-operating politically. 
 
 Presenting myself to the Governor, I handed him 
 the bill bearing the official certification of its passage 
 by both houses. He received me courteously, took 
 the paper without a word that would indicate his 
 views upon the subject, put it in his pocket, and, 
 saying that he would have an opportunity to consider 
 it carefully the next day, Sunday, at his home, only a 
 short distance from the capital, turned our conversa- 
 tion to general topics. After a few moments of 
 friendly intercourse, I took my leave. 
 
 There was now nothing for it but to await the 
 executive act which was to put in my hands the 
 weapon I wished to use in Portland in the contest 
 of the people against the liquor-traffic, or to relegate
 
 344 REMINISCENCES 
 
 it to the arcliives of the state to repose among other 
 dusty reminders that the will of the people does not 
 always find expression in the acts of their servants. 
 
 I felt that there wa^ ground for hope in the charac- 
 ter and antecedents of Governor Hubbard. As far as 
 I know, he had up to that time, manifested no special 
 interest in the temperance reform in the state; I do 
 not know that he did not consider it entirely right and 
 ])ro[)er to indulge in an occasional glass of intoxicants, 
 but he was known to be a man of the people, and not 
 distinctively a politician. A practicing physician, 
 with a large clientage that had helped him to an 
 election to the state senate from a strong Whig dis- 
 trict, he had been made the Democratic candidate for 
 governor in 1849 because of his personal popularity in 
 an exigency in the history of his party when it found 
 it necessary to select the most available man to retrieve 
 its fortunes, which had been somewhat impaired the 
 year before. 
 
 In 1848, under the influence of the Van Buren 
 national campaign, the Liberal party in Maine had 
 thrown in the September election a sufficiently large 
 vote to prevent a choice of governor by the people. 
 The same had happened in 1846, for the first time in 
 the history of the state, and Democratic politicians, 
 in their anxiety to change this condition of things, 
 had a])andoned their old-time policy in the matter of a 
 gubernatorial candidate. 
 
 Before the nomination of Dr. Hubbard, his party 
 had, I think, invariably taken its candidates for gov- 
 ernor from the list of its leaders trained in the 
 conduct of political affairs, but in this case it had 
 abandoned tliat practice. Governor Hubbard, up to 
 the time of his election, had had but little to do with
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 345 
 
 the politicians of his party. The leading Whig paper 
 of the state, upon his accession to office in 1850, had 
 said of him: 
 
 "The leaders of both factions of his party aheady evi- 
 dently feel very uncomfortable with John Hu))bard for their 
 governor. They look at him with a sort of dread. They 
 evidently feel that he will at least need a great deal of training 
 before he will answer their purpose, and all, as yet, stand 
 aloof from him as if debating the question, ' Who shall try 
 him hrst ? ' " 
 
 The event proved that Governor Hubbard had the 
 requisite strength of character to resist the solicita- 
 tions of some of his party leaders to veto the bill, and 
 on Monday, June 2d, he announced his approval of it. 
 The text of the law is as follows: 
 
 An Act for the Suppression of Drinking Houses and 
 Tippling Shops. 
 
 Section 1. No person shall be allowed at any time, to 
 manufacture or sell, by himself, his clerk, servant or agent, 
 directly or indirectly, any spirituous or intoxicating liquors, 
 or any mixed liquors, a part of which is spirituous or intoxi- 
 cating, except as hereafter provided. 
 
 Section 2. The selectmen of any town, and mayor and 
 aldermen of any city, on the first Monday of May annually, 
 or as soon thereafter as may be convenient, may appoint 
 some suitable person as the agent of said town or city, to sell 
 at some central or convenient place within said tow^n or city, 
 spirits, wines, or other intoxicating liquors, to be used for 
 medicinal and mechanical purposes and no other ; and said 
 agent shall receive such compensation for his services as the 
 board appointing him shall prescribe ; and shall in the sale of 
 such liquors, conform to such rules and regulations, as the 
 selectmen or mayor and aldermen as aforesaid shall prescribe 
 for that purpose. And such agent appointed as aforesaid, 
 shall hold his situation for one year, unless sooner removed 
 by the board from which he received his appointment, as he 
 may be at any time at the pleasure of the board, 
 
 Section 3. Such agent shall receive a certificate from the 
 mayor and aldermen or selectmen by whom he has been
 
 346 REMINISCENCES 
 
 appointed, authorizing him as the asfent of such town or city, 
 to sell intoxicating liciuors for medicinal and mechanical pur- 
 poses only ; hut such certificate shall not l)e delivered to the 
 person so appointed until he shall have executed and delivered 
 to said hoard, a bond with two good and sufficient sureties, in 
 the sum of six hundred dollars, in substance as follows : 
 
 Know all men, that we, as principal, and and 
 
 as sureties, are holden and stand firmly bound to the inhab- 
 itants of the town of , (or city, as the case may be) in 
 the sum of six hundred dollars, to be paid them, to which 
 payment we ])ind ourselves, our heirs, executors, and admin- 
 istrators, firmly by these presents. Sealed with our seals, 
 and dated this day of A. D. 
 
 The condition of this obligation is such, that whereas the 
 above bounden has been duly appointed as agent for 
 
 the town (or city) of , to sell within and for and on ac- 
 
 count of said town (or city) intoxicating liquors for medicinal 
 and mechanical purposes and no other, until the of 
 
 A. D. , unless sooner removed from said agency. 
 
 Now if the said shall in all respects conform to the 
 
 l)rovisions of the law relating to the business for which he is 
 appointed, and to such rules and regulations as now are or 
 shall l)e from time to time established by the board making 
 the appointment, then this obligation to be void ; otherwise 
 to remain in full force. 
 
 Section 4. If any person, by himself, clerk, servant or 
 agent, shall at any time sell any spirituous or intoxicating 
 liquors, or any mixed liquors, part of which is intoxicating, 
 in violation of the provision of this act, he shall forfeit and 
 pay on the first conviction, ten dollars and the cost of prose- 
 cution, and shall stand committed until the same be paid; on 
 the second conviction he shall pay twenty dollars and the cost 
 of prosecution, and shall stand committed until the same be 
 l)aid ; on the tliird and every subsequent conviction he shall 
 pay twenty dollars and the costs of prosecution and shall be 
 imprisoned in the common jail not less than three months, nor 
 more than six months, and in default of the payment of the 
 fines and costs prescribed by this section for the first and 
 second convictions, the convict shall not be entitled to the 
 ])enefit of Chapter 175 of the Revised Statutes, until he shall 
 have l)een imj)risoned two months ; and in default of i)ayment 
 of fines and costs provided for the third and every sul)sequent 
 conviction, he shall not ])e entitled to the l)enefit of said 
 Chapter 175 of the Revised Statutes, until he shall have l)een
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 347 
 
 imprisoned four months. And if any clerk, servant, agent, 
 or other person in the employment or on the premises of 
 another shall violate the provisions of this section, he shall be 
 held equally guilty with the principal, and on conviction shall 
 suffer the same penalty. 
 
 Section 5. Any forfeiture or penalty arising under the 
 above section may be recovered by an action of debt, or by 
 complaint before any justice of the peace, or judge of any 
 municipal or police court, in the county where the oflense 
 was committed. And the forfeiture so recovered shall go to 
 the town where the convicted party resides, for the use of the 
 poor ; and the prosecutor or complainant may be admitted as 
 a witness in the trial. And if any one of the selectmen or 
 board of mayor and aldermen shall approve of the commence- 
 ment of any such suit, by endorsing his name upon the writ, 
 the defendant shall in no event recover any costs ; and in all 
 actions of debt arising under this section, the fines and 
 forfeitures suffered by the defendant shall be the same as if 
 the action had been by complaint. And it shall be the duty 
 of the mayor and aldermen of any city, and selectmen of 
 any town, to commence an action in behalf of said town or 
 city, against any person guilty of a violation of any of the 
 provisions of this act, on being informed of the same, and 
 being furnished with proof of the fact. 
 
 Section 6. If any person shall claim an appeal from a 
 judgment rendered against him by any judge or justice, on 
 trial of such action or complaint, he shall, before the a}) peal 
 shall be allowed, recognize in the sum of one hundred dollars, 
 with two good and sufficient sureties, in every case so ap- 
 pealed, to prosecute his appeal, and to pay all costs, fines and 
 penalties that may be awarded against him, upon a final dispo- 
 sition of such suit or complaint. And before his appeal shall 
 be allowed, he shall also, in every case, give a bond with two 
 other good and sufficient sureties, running to the town or city 
 where the offense was committed, in the sum of two hundred 
 dollars, that he will not during the pendency of such appeal, 
 violate any of the provisions of this act. And no recogni- 
 zance or bond shall be taken in cases arising under this act 
 except by the justices or judge before whom the trial was 
 had ; and the defendant shall l)e held to advance the jury fees 
 in every case of appeal in an action of debt ; and in the event 
 of a final conviction before a jury, the defendant shall pay 
 and suffer double the amount of fines, penalties and imprison- 
 ment awarded against him by the justice or judge from whose
 
 348 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 judgment the appeal was made. The forfeiture of all bonds 
 and recosfnizances uiven in pursuance of this act shall go to 
 the town or city where the offense was committed, for the use 
 of the poor ; and if the recognizances and bonds mentioned in 
 this section shall not be given within twenty-four hours 
 after the judgment, the appeal shall not be allowed. The 
 defendant in the meantime to stand committed. 
 
 Section 7. The mayor and aklermen of any city, and the 
 selectmen of any town, whenever complaint shall be made to 
 them that a breach of the conditions of the bond given by 
 any [)erson appointed under this act, has been committed, 
 shall notify the ])erson complained of, and if upon a hear- 
 ing of the parties it shall appear that any breach has been 
 committed, they shall revoke and make void his appointment. 
 And whenever a br(;ach of any bond given to the inhabitants 
 of any city or town in pursuance of any of the provisions of 
 this act, shall l)e made known to the mayor and aldermen, or 
 selectmen, or shall in any manner come to their knowledge, 
 they, or some one of them, shall, at the expense and for the 
 use of said city or town, cause the bond to be put in suit in 
 an}'' court proper to try the same. 
 
 Section 8. Xo i)erson shall be allowed to be a manufac- 
 turer of any spirituous or intoxicating liquors, or common 
 seller thereof, without being duly appointed as aforesaid, on 
 pain of forfeiting on the first conviction, the sum of one 
 hundred dollars and costs of prosecution, and in default of 
 the ])ayment thereof the person so convicted shall be impris- 
 oned sixty days in the common jail ; and on the second 
 conviction, the person so convicted shall pay the sum of two 
 hundred dollars and costs of prosecution, and in default of 
 paymeut shall be imprisoned four months in the common jail ; 
 and on the third and every sul)se(j(uent conviction, shall pay 
 the sum of two hundred dollars and shall be imprisoned four 
 months in the common jail of the county where the oftense 
 was committed ; said penalties to be recovered before any 
 court of competent jurisdiction, by indictment, or by action 
 of debt in the name of the city or town wlun-e the offense 
 shall be connnitted. And whenever a default shall be had of 
 any recognizance arising under this act, scire facias shall be 
 issued, returnable at the next term, and the same shall not l)e 
 contimuul, unless for good cause, satisfactory to the court. 
 
 Sectio!! I). No ))erson engaged in the unlawful tnilHc in 
 intoxicating li(jUors sli;ill Ik- competent to sit upon any jury 
 in any case arising under this act ; and when information
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 349 
 
 shall be communicated to the court, that any member of any 
 panel is engaged in such traffic, or that he is l)elieved to be so 
 engaged, the court shall inquire of the juryman of whom such 
 belief is entertained ; and no answer which he shall make 
 shall be used against him in any case arising under this act ; 
 but if he shall answer falsely, he shall be incapable of serving 
 on any jury in this state ; but he may decline to answer, in 
 which case he shall be discharged liy the court from all 
 further attendance as a juryman. 
 
 Section 10. All cases arising under this act, whether by 
 action, indictment or complaint, which shall come before a 
 superior court, either by appeal or original entry, shall take 
 precedence in said court of all other business, except those 
 criminal cases in which the parties are actually under arrest 
 awaiting a trial ; and the court and prosecuting officer shall 
 not have authority to enter a nolle ])rosequi, or tb grant a con- 
 tinuance in any case arising under this act either before or 
 after the verdict, except where the purposes of justice shall 
 require it. 
 
 Section 11. If any three persons, voters in the town or 
 city where the complaint shall be made, shall, before any jus- 
 tice of the peace or judge of any municipal or police court, 
 make complaint under oath or affirmation that they have 
 reason to believe, and do believe that spirituous or intoxicat- 
 ing liquors are kept or deposited, and intended for sale by 
 any person not authorized to sell the same in said city or 
 town under the provisions of this act, in any store, shop, ware- 
 house, or other building or place in said city or town, said 
 justice or judge shall issue his warrant of search to any 
 sheriff, city marshal or deputy, or to any constable, who shall 
 proceed to search the premises described in said warrant, and 
 if any spirituous or intoxicating liquors are found therein he 
 shall seize the same, and convey them to some proper place 
 of security, where he shall keep them until final action is had 
 thereon. But no dwelling-house in which or in part of which 
 a shop is not kept, shall be searched unless at least one of 
 said complainants shall testify to some act of sale of intoxicat- 
 ing liquors therein, by the occupant thereof, or by his consent 
 or permission, within at least one month of the time of 
 making said complaint. And the owner or keeper of said 
 liquors, seized as aforesaid, if he shall l)e known to the officer 
 seizing the same, shall be summoned forthwith before the 
 justice or judge l)y whose warrant the liquors were seized, 
 and if he fails to appear, or unless he can show by positive
 
 350 REMINISCENCES 
 
 proof that sfiid liquors are of foreign production, that they 
 have been imported under the laws of the United States, 
 and in accordance therewith, that they are contained in the 
 original packages in which they were imported, and in quan- 
 tities not less than the laws of the United States prescribe, 
 they shall be declared forfeited, and shall be destroyed by 
 authority of the written order to that effect of said justice or 
 judge and in his presence, or in the presence of some person 
 appointed l)y him to witness the destruction thereof, and who 
 shall join with the officer by whom they shall have been 
 destroyed in attesting that fact upon the Imck of the order by 
 authority of which it was done ; and the owner or keeper of 
 such li(]Uors shall pay a fine of twenty dollars and costs, or 
 stand committed for thirty days, in default of payment, if in 
 the opinion of the court said liquors shall have been kept 
 or deposited for the purposes of sale. And if the owner or 
 possessor of any liquors seized in pursuance of this section 
 shall set up the claim that they have been regularly imported 
 under the laws of the United States, and that they are con- 
 tained in the original packages, the custom house certificates 
 of importation and proofs of marks on the casks or packages 
 corresjjonding thereto shall not be received as evidence that 
 the li(iu()rs contained in said packages are those actually 
 imported therein. 
 
 Section 12. If the owner, keeper or possessor of liquors, 
 seized under the provisions of this act, shall be unknown to 
 the officer seizing the same, they shall not be condemned and 
 destroyed until they shall have ])een advertised, with the num- 
 ber and description of the packages, as near as may be, for 
 two weeks, by posting up a written description of the same in 
 some public place that if such liquors are actually the prop- 
 erty of any city or town in the state, and were so at the time 
 of the seizure, purchased for sale by the agent of said city or 
 town, for medicinal and mechanical purposes only, in [)ursu- 
 ance of the provisions of this act, they may not be destroyed ; 
 but u|)on satisfactory ])roof of such ownership within said 
 two weeks before the justice or judge by whose authority said 
 liquors were seized, said justice or judge shall deliver to the 
 agent of said city or town, an order to the officer having said 
 liquors in custody, whereupon said officer shall deliver them 
 to said agent, taking his receipt therefor u])on the l)ack of 
 said order, which shall l)e retui-ned to said justice or judge. 
 
 Section 18. If any person claiming any li(juors seized as 
 aforesaid shall ai)p(':il lioiii the judgment of any justice or
 
 or NEAL DOW. 351 
 
 judge, by whose authority the seizure was made, to the dis- 
 trict court, Ijcfore his appeal shall be allowed, he shall oivc a 
 bond in the sum of two hundred dollars, with two good and 
 sufficient sureties to prosecute his appeal, and to pay all fines 
 and costs which may be awarded against him ; and in the case 
 of any such appeal, where the quantity of liquors so seized 
 shall exceed five gallons, if the final decision shall be against 
 the appellant that such liquors were intended by him for sale, 
 he shall be adjudged by the court a common seller of intoxi- 
 cating liquors, and shall be sul)ject to the penalties provided 
 for in section eight of this act ; and said liquors shall be 
 destroj'ed as provided for in section eleven. But nothing 
 contained in this act shall be construed to prevent any 
 chemist, artist, or manufacturer, in whose art or trade they 
 may be necessary, from keeping at his place of business such 
 reasonable and proper quantity of distilled liquors as he may 
 have occasion to use in his art or trade, but not for sale. 
 
 Section 14. It shall be the duty of any mayor, alderman, 
 selectman, assessor, city marshal, or deputy or constable, if 
 he shall have information that any intoxicating liquors are 
 kept or sold in any tent, shanty, hut or place of any kind for 
 selling refreshments in any public place, on or near the 
 ground of any cattle-show, agricultural exhibition, military 
 muster, or public occasion of any kind, to search such sus- 
 pected place, and if such officer shall find upon the premises 
 any intoxicating drinks he shall seize them and arrest the 
 keeper or keepers of such place, and take them forthwith, or 
 as soon as rpay be, before some justice or judge of a munici- 
 pal or police court, with the liquors so found and seized, and 
 upon proof that such liquors are intoxicating, that they were 
 found in possession of the accused, in a tent, shanty, or other 
 place as aforesaid, he or they shall be sentenced to imprison- 
 ment in the county jail for thirty days, and the liquor so 
 seized shall be destroyed by order of said justice or judge. 
 
 Section 15. If any person arrested under the preceding 
 section, and sentenced as aforesaid, shall claim an appeal, 
 before his appeal shall be allowed he shall give a bond in the 
 sum of one hundred dollars, with two good and sufficient 
 sureties, that he will prosecute his appeal and pay all fines, 
 costs and penalties which may be awarded against him. And 
 if on such appeal the verdict of the jury shall be against him, 
 he shall in addition to the penalty awarded by the lower 
 court pay a fine of twenty dollars. In all cases of appeal 
 under this act from the judgment of a justice or judge of any
 
 352 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 municipal or police court, to the district court, except where 
 the proooedinii is by action of debt, they shall be conducted 
 in said district court by the prosecuting officer of the govern- 
 ment, and said officer shall be entitled to receive all costs 
 taxable to the state, in all criminal proceedings under this act, 
 in addition to the salary allowed to such officer by law, but no 
 costs in such cases shall be remitted or reduced by the prose- 
 cuting oflicer or the court. In any suit, complaint, indict- 
 ment, or other proceeding against any person for a violation 
 of any of the provisions of this act, other than for the first 
 olfense, it shall not be requisite to set forth particularly the 
 record of a foruier conviction, but it shall be sufficient to 
 alleo-e briedy that such person has l)ecn convicted of a viola- 
 tion of the fourth section of this act, or as a common seller 
 as the case may be, and such allegation in any civil or crimi- 
 nal process in any stage of the proceedings, before final 
 judgment, may be amended without terms and as a matter of 
 right. 
 
 Section 1(5. All payments or compensations for liquor sold 
 in violation of law, whether in money, labor, or other prop- 
 erty, either real or personal, shall be held and considered to 
 have been received in violation of law, and without consider- 
 ation, and against law, equity and a good conscience, and all 
 sales, transfers and conveyances, mortgages, liens, attach- 
 ments, pledges and securities of every kind, which either in 
 whole or in part shall have been for or on account of spiritu- 
 ous or intoxicating liquors shall be utterly null and void 
 against all persons and in all cases, and no rights of any kind 
 shall be acquired thereby ; and in any action, either at law 
 or equity, touching such real or personal estate, the pur- 
 chaser of such li(juors may be a witness for either party. 
 Av\(\ no action of any kind shall l)e maintained in any court 
 in this state, either in whole or in part, for intoxicating or 
 spirituous liquors sold in any other state or country whatever, 
 nor shall any action of any kind be had or maintained in any 
 court in this state, foi- the recovery or possession of intoxi- 
 cating or spirituous li(iuors, or the value thereof. 
 
 S(!ction 17. All the provisions of this act, relating to 
 towns, shall be a]){)lical)le to cities and j)lantations ; and 
 those relating to seU^ctmen shall also be a))plied to the mayor 
 and ahUu'nien of cities and assessors of ))lantations. 
 
 Section IM. The act entitled, "An Act to Restrict the 
 Sale of Intoxicating iJrinks," approved August sixth, one 
 thousand eight Imndrcd and forty-six, is hereby repealed,
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 353 
 
 except the thirteen sections from section ten to section 
 twenty-two inclusive, saving and reserving all actions or 
 other proceedings, which are already commenced by authority 
 of the same ; and all other acts and parts of acts inconsistent 
 with this act are hereby repealed. This act to take eiiect 
 from and after its approval by the governor. 
 
 From the enactment of that laAv to the present time, 
 save for about two years, to be noted hereafter, the 
 liquor legislation of Maine has embodied its dis- 
 tinctive features. 
 
 The political classification of the votes for and 
 against the law in both branches of the legislature 
 shows that it was in no sense a party measure. The 
 two leading parties, Democrats and Whigs, were 
 divided upon it, a majority of each being favorable. 
 The few Free-Soilers voted solidly for it, representing 
 their individual views as temperance men, as most of 
 that party were. 
 
 It is unquestionably true that many of the leaders, 
 Democrats and Whigs, were afraid of the political 
 effect of the law, and were disposed to pass the matter 
 over as lightly as possible. For fear of the people 
 they had refrained from actively opposing its passage; 
 for fear of the liquor-interest they would have been 
 quite inclined to have the bill fail to pass, if only the 
 fe41ure could have been brought about by some other 
 agency than their own votes. 
 
 No attempt was made by the papers of either party 
 to make a political question of the enactment of the 
 law. Some of them ignored it altogether, while those 
 that referred to it dealt with it as a topic entirely 
 outside the range of party politics. Indeed, the 
 non-partisan character of the support it had received 
 in the legislature made that inevitable. This status 
 was a most fortunate one for the measure, for, if it
 
 354 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 had been antagonized at the first state election which 
 followed its enactment by a strong disciplined party 
 with the prestige and influence of age, the outcome 
 miglit have differed from that of which we shall 
 learn later. 
 
 If I remember aright, the Inquirer, the organ of the 
 Free-Soilers, was the only political paper in Portland 
 which commented upon the enactment of the law, 
 most warmly approving it. In so doing the Inquirer 
 said: 
 
 " With unusual satisfaction we refer our readers to the 
 entire act. It is an honor to the state, beyond any other act 
 in its history, thus to excel all other civilized states in bold, 
 righteous le2:islation against a ajiant evil, under which inno- 
 
 r^ o o o ^ 
 
 cence l)leeds and humanity weeps. Other states have now 
 to copy this statute of Maine. But the law will not execute 
 itself. There must be an inflexible determination through the 
 state that the liquor-traffic shall now be stopped. AYho can 
 estimate the benefit of this law, executed, to the happiness 
 and prosperity of the people of Maine ? " 
 
 The distinctively temperance papers of the state 
 approved the enactment of the law as a matter of 
 course. It was but a realization of the hopes in- 
 dulged in by the active temperance element for years, 
 toward which all their labors had been directed. 
 
 The law was regarded by friends of temperance out- 
 side of the state as a matter of so much importance 
 that the committee of the American Temperance 
 Union, after taking advice from leading temperance 
 men in different parts of the country, issued a call for 
 a national temperance convention, to meet at Saratoga 
 Springs, on the 'iOtli of August, to consider the Maine 
 Law. Seventeen states were represented by more 
 than three hundred delegates, accredited from every 
 form of temperance organization existing at the time.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 355 
 
 Chancellor Reuben Hyde Walworth, of New York, 
 
 presided, and Rev. Justin Edwards, D. D., was made 
 
 chairman of the business committee. 
 
 Those in attendance upon this convention from 
 
 Maine were questioned publicly and privately by the 
 
 delegations from other states, who manifested the 
 
 most intense interest to learn all that was to be told 
 
 about the character and working of the law. The 
 
 convention adopted the following resolution: 
 
 " Resoh^ed, That the principle assumed and carried out in 
 the Maine Law, that spirituous and intoxicating liquors, kept 
 for sale as a beverage, should be destroyed by the state, as a 
 public evil, meets the approbation of this convention, as con- 
 sonant with the destruction of the implements of gambling 
 and counterfeiting, of poisonous food, infectious hides, and 
 weapons of war in the hands of an enemy ; that if the liquor 
 destroyed is private property, it is only so as are the imple- 
 ments of the counterfeiter, dangerous and deadly to the best 
 interests of the community ; that its destruction is no waste 
 of the bounties of Providence, more than the destruction of 
 noxious weeds, while its very destruction enriches the state, 
 exceeding the amount for which it could have been sold. It 
 tends to put an end to all subterfuges, frauds, and secret 
 sales, and to the demand for it in the community. It makes 
 the state a perfect asylum for the inebriate. It is a solemn 
 manifestation to the world of the vile and worthless nature of 
 the article destroyed, and an unmistakable token to the 
 vendor of the end to which a righteous public sentiment will 
 ultimately bring his lousiness. For these and other reasons, 
 the convention give it their hearty approbation ; and they do 
 strongly recommend to all the friends of temperance to 
 cherish it as the sure, and the only sure triumph of their 
 cause, and continually to urge its adoption upon every legis- 
 lature." 
 
 An address to the friends of temperance in the 
 United States and the British Provinces, was adopted, 
 from which I quote the following: 
 
 " So great a scene in one of the principal states of our 
 Union, the result of no sudden action, of no wild fanaticism,
 
 356 REMINISCENCES 
 
 hut of years of profound thought and arduous labor, impresses 
 the mind witli solemn awe. The action of Maine is a matter 
 of history. Shall we not thank God and take courage? Shall 
 wc not rise from one end of America to the other, and give 
 her the approving voice? Shall we not strive for the same 
 results in our various localities? Shall not the same unrelent- 
 ing foe be su1)dued all over the world? Let the millions of 
 dollars once wasted in Maine, now ])e expended u})on her 
 farms, her buildings, her schools, her means of education and 
 religion, and soon, among all her sister republics, she will be 
 an {)])ject of universal admiration." 
 
 The effect of this convention was marked through 
 the country, in its stimulating influence upon temper- 
 ance sentiment and activity. A month later a state 
 convention was held in Massachusetts which was 
 presided over by Hon. Nathaniel P. Banks. The con- 
 vention, referring to legislation applicable to the 
 liquor-traffic, declared that it knew ' ' of no law based 
 upon the true principle except that recently enacted 
 by the legislature of Maine." Among its resolutions 
 were the following: 
 
 "Resolved, That the Maine Law, not merely in its general 
 principles but in the details of its ])rovisions — as, for instance, 
 in the simplicity of its ap[)lication ; the employment of the 
 contraband article itself in testimony ; the speed and certainty 
 of its penalties ; the obstacles in the way of appeal ; the 
 removal of discretionary power from magistrates ; the with- 
 drawal from intoxicating drinks of all the sanctions of 
 f)roperty ; and, above all, th(Mr conliscalion and destruction 
 when used for sale ; these all indicate that the Maine Law 
 must be (what actual experience is daily proving that it is) 
 the one efficient engine to sup[)ress the open sale of intoxi- 
 cating drinks. 
 
 " Resolved, That these characteristics of the Maine Law 
 give no just ground of complaint to the unlawful dealer in 
 liquors ; since law is bound to give no security to i)roperty 
 employed in contraband traffic." 
 
 Similar action was taken during the same year 
 by state conventions in Connecticut, Rhode Island,
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 357 
 
 Vermont, New Hampshire, New York and New Jer- 
 sey. In Pennsylvania a mass-meeting was held at 
 Harrisbnrg, in which many members of the legislature 
 participated, and adopted resolutions endorsing the 
 law. 
 
 While the masses of the friends of temperance 
 throughout the country were expressing their gratifi- 
 cation and determination through such resolutions 
 as have been quoted, many individuals, who, in differ* 
 ent parts of our land, had rendered heroic service to 
 the cause, hailed the advent of the law with pleasure, 
 and recorded themselves as subscribing to the prin- 
 ciple it embodied. Professor Moses Stuart, of 
 Andover, Mass., wrote: 
 
 "I thank and praise my God, that by his holy providence, 
 there is one people on the face of this wicked world who dare 
 to do their duty boldly, fiiithfully, and thoroughly. People 
 of Maine, the God of Heaven bless you for achieving such a 
 victory ! Many triumphs have been achieved in the good 
 
 cause, but none like yours You combat with the 
 
 body of sin and death itself, and not with those who are 
 deceived and misled." 
 
 The Hon. Lucius M. Sargent, of Boston, a lawyer of 
 high standing, but better known in the field of phi- 
 lanthropy through his Temperance Tales and other 
 services to the cause, wrote: 
 
 "Maine has, most worthily, extended her legislative arm 
 for the protection of her children ; how long she will be 
 enabled to retain it in its present position is a question of the 
 deepest interest to the inhabitants of that commonwealth, 
 and of no ordinary solicitude to the citizens of other states." 
 
 Gen. John H. Cocke, of Virginia, who had grown 
 gray in the service of the cause of temperance almost 
 before I had reached my majority, said: 
 
 24
 
 358 REMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 
 
 " I am grateful, indescribably grateful, that my life has 
 been spared to see the day, when a sovereign state has out- 
 lawed the master evil of our day and generation," 
 
 The Rev. Justin Edwards, D. D., whose early ser- 
 vices for temperance in Maine have been before 
 noted, said: 
 
 "If the ])eople prevail, and permanently defend themselves 
 and their children, as the}' have a right, and it is their duty 
 to do, from the evils of the licjuor-traffic, they will l)e ))enc- 
 f actors, not only of the present generation, l)ut of all future 
 generations of men ; not only in Maine, but in every state in 
 the Union, and throughout the Christian world." 
 
 Gerritt Smith, the distinguished opponent of slav- 
 ery and friend of philanthropy, wrote: 
 
 "That law has laid the foundation for an unrivaled prog- 
 ress in respectal)ility and knowledge and happiness. If no 
 other state should follow her example in this respect, Maine 
 will very soon be able to boast, if indeed she cannot thus 
 boast now, that her people surpass every other, physically, 
 mentally, and morally."
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 MY DUTY AND INCLINATION TO ENFORCE THE LAW. NO- 
 TICE TO LIQUOR DEALERS OF MY INTENTION SO 
 TO DO. THE FIRST SEIZURE. INCIDENTS. 
 
 LIQUOR TRAFFIC DRIVEN OUT OF SIGHT 
 AND PRACTICALLY EXTINGUISHED. 
 SOME REFLECTIONS. 
 
 From wliat lias been said, it is easy to understand 
 that Proliibition in Maine was not accepted in a spasm 
 of excitement. The foundation for it had been deep- 
 ly laid in a long and arduous educational campaign, 
 in which the active friends of temperance had been 
 engaged for years. This they had done in the 
 reverent belief that in endeavoring to place the trade 
 in intoxicants under the ban of the law they were 
 serving God, and in the confidence that they were 
 thus promoting the highest welfare of the people and 
 the best interests of the state. 
 
 In this campaign the consciences of the people had 
 been aroused and their judgment enlightened. Be- 
 fore the adoption of the Maine Law the masses of the 
 people throughout a large portion of the state had 
 come to know what the liquor-traffic really was, and 
 to realize, to some extent at least, that it was at war 
 with their material, as well as their higher, interests.
 
 300 REMINISCENCES 
 
 To that educational work temperance men in Main© 
 had cheerfully contributed time and labor and money. 
 In cliurclies. in schoolhouses, in halls, at every avail- 
 able point from which they could reach the ears of 
 the i)eoi)le, they had explained the nature of the 
 tralhc they were attacking, and had called attention 
 to its pernicious influence and effects. 
 
 AVhen not actually engaged in speaking, they were 
 busy at home devising ways and means of getting 
 facts bearing upon the problem before all the people, 
 with the purpose of arousing in the masses a desire 
 for relief, of crystallizing that into a determination to 
 secure it, and in organizing a sufficient numl^er of 
 conscientious and fearless citizens, who would dare to 
 disregard the dictation of the party leaders they had 
 been wont to follow, and to use their own votes to 
 represent their own convictions; and, having done 
 this, to lead their improvised forces in the most prac- 
 ticable way to accomplish the end that was sought: 
 the outlawry of the business they had come to abhor. 
 
 In doing this work they had not concealed their 
 opinions. They did not make a secret of the end they 
 had in view. More than this. They had never 
 thouaht of deferring that end to a more convenient 
 season. They had not put off the day of laboring for 
 it " until the people should be ready for Prohibition," 
 l)ut liad addressed themselves to the task of mak- 
 ing ready for it by insisting that it was right and 
 proper in itself, and that the sin and shame and crime 
 of the traffic ought to be at once and forever sup- 
 pressed. There was no danger of obtaining Prohibi- 
 tion too soon. The way to it was hard and ui)hill its 
 entire length. If it was ever to be attained, it was 
 necessary to set about cliinbiim at once.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 3G1 
 
 The friends, patrons, and apologists for the trade 
 knew just what its determined opponents were trying 
 to accomplish. They had fair notice, they had every 
 opportunity to make such opposition as they were dis- 
 posed; in fact, they had made more or less of a fight 
 at every step. They had yielded nothing. Whatever 
 ground had been gained had been taken from them by 
 hard and persistent work. The " Sixty-Niners " had 
 been sneered at; the friends of "Total Abstinence" 
 had been denounced, as at variance with nature and 
 revelation; the license laws had been ignored, and 
 those who had insisted upon the observance of their 
 restrictive features had been insulted, assaulted, 
 mobbed, and otherwise injured and abused at every 
 point. 
 
 Later I will show that the fact of my past interest 
 and activity in temperance was made use of in an 
 effort to make it embarrassing for me to discharge my 
 official duty as I had urged others to do. Now, how- 
 ever, the movement had reached a stage where it was 
 quite certain that those engaged in the liquor-traffic 
 would not sneer. Denunciation would not aid them. 
 The friends of Prohibition had passed through all 
 that. The day had gone by for assaults, for mobs, 
 and violence of every form, but it was certain that the 
 fight was by no means ended. The weapon was pre- 
 pared. It must be tried, to see of what temper was 
 its steel, how keen its cut, how sharp and far-reaching 
 its point. The crucial test was now to come. Could 
 those who had carried the cause thus far be relied 
 upon to follow to the end ? 
 
 Most of us who had been in the front of the battle 
 had faith in the people in this particular. I had 
 traveled thousands and thousands of miles. Over a
 
 36-2 REMINISCENCES 
 
 consideral)le portion of tlie state I was familiar with 
 every cross-road. No spire pointed skyward that did 
 not mark the spot of some effort to prepare the people 
 for what they had now secured. No schoolhouse was 
 to be seen on hill or in dale that had not echoed to 
 the denunciation of the infamous trade. 
 
 The approaches to nearly every town-house, to 
 thousands of homes, had been almost literally sown 
 with temperance literature, explaining the nature and 
 effect of the liquor-traffic and the intimate connection 
 between it and misery, wretchedness, pauperism, and 
 crime. I had no shadow of a fear that, when the 
 people should have had an opportunity to contrast the 
 condition of the state when comparatively free from 
 the liquor-traffic under Prohibition with what they 
 had known of its condition under license, they would 
 ever consent to sanction the pernicious trade under 
 the form of law. 
 
 To give the citizens of Portland such an opportunity 
 I was fully determined, and if I should succeed I was 
 confident it would go far to set an example to the 
 entire state. No other duty devolving upon me as 
 mayor would be sacrificed or neglected by a vigorous 
 and impartial enforcement of the new law, and to 
 do that I was bound by the obligations of my posi- 
 tioii. There was no question in my mind as to what 
 course was right, and my judgment satisfied me that 
 that which I lielieved to be right would be to the 
 advantage of the city whose interests I had at heart, 
 and lor tlic benefit of tlie cause to which I was 
 devoted without reserve. 
 
 I found myself in a somewhat anomalous situation. 
 For years my connection with eiforts to enforce the 
 aiiii-li-iuor-sclliiig legislation of the state had been
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 363 
 
 purely voluntary. I had occupied no official position, 
 and liad been under no other obligation thereto than 
 that resting on all good citizens. In the discharge of 
 that service I had repeatedly called upon those whose 
 duty it was to enforce the restrictive features of the 
 old license laws, or to bring the prohibitions of the law 
 of 1846 to bear upon the traffic, warmly urging upon 
 them action in that direction, and pointing out, when 
 the circumstances seemed to justify it, what appeared 
 to me to be incumbent upon them in that particular. 
 
 Time and again I had met with substantially the 
 same reply, to the effect that it was all very well for 
 me, a private citizen, to look at the matter in that 
 light, but that it was the privilege of the official to 
 decide for himself what his duties were. Officers 
 would insist that they could not escape the reproof of 
 the people for enforcing a statute so obnoxious as 
 were those provisions of the license law, devised to 
 curtail the profits of the licensees by confining their 
 business to the classes therein specified, or even those 
 which were designed to swell their profits by prevent- 
 ing unlicensed parties from selling; while as to the law 
 of 1846, that, being prohibitory in character and there- 
 fore more obnoxious to the trade and its friends, was 
 one as to the suggested enforcement of which these 
 officials had been even more impatient. 
 
 It availed nothing for my purpose to urge upon 
 officers that, if it were necessary to excuse themselves 
 to the people for doing their duty, it would be suffi- 
 cient to refer to the law, to the record of their 
 appointment or election, and to their oaths to dis- 
 charge without fear or favor the responsibilities of 
 the positions they occupied. To such suggestions 
 the reply was in effect uniform, that I was an
 
 364 REMINISCENCES 
 
 extreiiiis^t upon that point, and altliougli they would 
 express a great deal of sympathy with me in my 
 views as to the evils of intemperance in general, they 
 would remind me that I was generally regarded as 
 fanatical on the whole subject. And when I would 
 ask them if they thought.it "fanatical" or "extreme," 
 or "unreasonable " to expect an official to perform the 
 duty which the law had plainly marked out for him, I 
 was customarily reminded that they had a great deal 
 of business on hand at that particular time and could 
 not give more attention to the matter just then. 
 
 Now the situation was different. The new enact- 
 ment found me the chief executive officer of Portland. 
 Now the responsibility was upon my shoulders. Now 
 I was called upon by the duties of my position to do 
 what I had so often enjoined upon others. Not 
 underestimating the difficulties, certain to be great 
 at the inception of the new departure, I determined to 
 do my full duty in the premises, confident that I 
 could render no greater service to my native city, 
 every interest of which was dear to me, than to 
 relieve it from the infinite evils of the traffic in 
 intoxicating drinks. 
 
 The only question which concerned me was how 
 best to take the initiatory step. I was anxious that 
 there should be as little friction as possible, and at 
 the same time was satisfied that any unnecessary 
 delay in instituting proceedings under the new law 
 would be considered by the vendors of the contra- 
 ])and liquors as an indication that the authorities 
 were hesitating as to enforcing the new and untried 
 process of search and seizure. 
 
 The law went into effect on the second of June, 
 1851, and on the next day I consulted with several
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 365 
 
 members of the city government, and our unanimous 
 conclusion was that it would be wise to give imme- 
 diate notice of our determination that the law would 
 be vigorously and impartially enforced, and in doing 
 this to give a reasonable opportunity to all who were 
 willing to abandon the business to dispose of the 
 stocks of liquor they might have on hand, provided 
 that they were sold to be sent out of the state. 
 
 On the morning of the fifth of June, our citizens 
 had an opportunity to read in the daily papers the 
 following notice: 
 
 I have been requested by several persons whose opin- 
 ions are entitled to respect to give some public notice 
 of the manner in which I propose to execute the 
 recently enacted liquor law, so far as this department is 
 concerned. No violator of law can reasonably complain of 
 promptitude and energy in its administration. Certainly, 
 those persons who are engaged in the unlawful traffic in 
 intoxicating drinks, from which the people suffer great mis- 
 chief, cannot complain that I should avail myself of all the 
 power which the law has put into my hands ^ and which the 
 city council may entrust to me to free the city as soon as 
 possible from this great evil. 
 
 I am informed that the stock of liquors in the hands of 
 dealers is very large, and its loss would fall heavily on some 
 of them. I theretore propose to allow such persons a reason- 
 able time to dispose of their liquors by shipping them otf to 
 other states or countries, the governments of which allow 
 intoxicating liquors to be sold to their people. But if it 
 comes to my knowledge that any dealer here violates the 
 law by selling such li(juors to our people, I shall use all 
 means in my power to bring such persons to punishment. 
 After the lapse of a reasonable time, I shall avail myself 
 of all proper means to discover and seize all intoxicating 
 liquors unlawfully kept, that they may be promptly destroyed 
 according to law. 
 
 I hope I have good reason to believe that the dealers in 
 this citv will not contend with the government in this matter, 
 and will promptly aliandon a business which is ruinous to the 
 highest interests of the community and which has been out-
 
 366 REMINISCENCES 
 
 la wed by the le<rislature of the state with great unanimity. 
 The people of this state, and this city in particular, have 
 <riven emphatic expression to their wish to be relieved from 
 the terrible evils which result necessarily from the sale of 
 intoxicating drinks, and my duty will require that I should 
 emjilov alllhe means in my powder to give full force and effect 
 to the'law. " Neal Dow, Mayor. 
 
 The effect of this notice was beneficial in the 
 extreme for the purpose it was intended to serve. 
 In Portland, but a short time before the enactment 
 of the law, a large committee had been appointed 
 by the Washingtonian Temperance Society to ascer- 
 tain the number of grog-shops in the city. This 
 committee was composed of several from each ward, 
 and it had divided and subdivided its work in such 
 a way as to ensure a thorough canvass. In its report 
 the committee stated that it had found in the city 
 more than three hundred open retail liquor-shops, 
 besides several wholesale establishments. 
 
 The consternation with which the three hundred 
 or more liquor-dealers read the notice that in a short 
 time at most their business must be stopped, was 
 mingled with a feeling on their part of surprise and 
 relief. In the short time that they had had since the 
 enactment of the law to consider the situation none 
 of them had dreamed of any leniency, and I imagine 
 that few of them had had much hope that there 
 would be any timidity or delay upon the part of the 
 officials. As a consequence I had numerous calls 
 that day from those who had long been engaged in 
 the traffic — in violation of law be it remembered — 
 some of them to thank me for the opportunity that 
 had been given them to save their stocks, and all 
 of them to promise me that they would immediately 
 abandon the business. The wholesale trade ceased
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 367 
 
 almost instantly. Those engaged in it, with but one 
 exception, I believe, assured me that they would make 
 no more sales, and would, as soon as possible, prepare 
 their stocks for shipment out of the state. 
 
 In a day or two, drays loaded with liquor were 
 to be seen passing through the streets on their way to 
 railroad stations or steamboat landings, w^hile of the 
 retail dealers only a few were left about whose places 
 the slightest indication of intent to violate the law 
 was visible. Thus, without other action on the part 
 of the authorities than the notice of their intention 
 to enforce the law, a large proportion of the traffic 
 was immediately suppressed without excitement, with- 
 out confusion, and without delay. 
 
 Shortly after its publication, similar notices to that 
 given by the authorities of Portland were issued in 
 many of the larger towns throughout the state, and 
 with similar results, and large quantities of the now 
 contraband article were shipped to Boston and New 
 York. My information was such as to satisfy me 
 that the wholesale dealers generally throughout the 
 state followed the example of those in Portland and 
 abandoned the business at once. 
 
 The shipments of liquor on the part of the wholesal- 
 ers disturbed some of our citizens whose sympathies 
 in the controversies that had led up to Prohibition 
 had been rather with the temperance movement than 
 against it. This fact affords a striking illustration of 
 the influence of legislation as an educational force. 
 Some time after the law had ceased to recognize the 
 retailing of liquor to be drunk on the premises as 
 right, wholesaling in quantities of not less than 
 twenty-eight gallons continued to be legalized. That 
 provision led many citizens to consider that there was
 
 368 REMINISCENCES 
 
 a difference between the moral iniquity of the whole- 
 sale, and that of the retail, trade. Hence numbers 
 even among those who would not engage either in 
 wholesaling or in retailing liquor, with or without the 
 sanction of law, thought it more decent to sell it in 
 quantities than by the glass, while there were those 
 who, holding it immoral to sell directly to a consumer, 
 thought it no wrong to sell it by the cask to those 
 whose consciences did not forbid them to put the 
 bottle to their neighbors' lips, and make them, or, for 
 that matter, their wives and children drunken also. 
 
 Under the law which thus discriminated between 
 wholesalers and retailers of intoxicants there were 
 men with consciences too enlightened or with too much 
 regard for public opinion to sell liquor by the glass, 
 or who would not violate the law in so doing, who 
 did not hesitate to roll a cask of liquor from their own 
 stores into that of their next door neighbor — which 
 they could do lawfully, be it remembered — who with 
 no qualms of conscience to trouble, and no regard for 
 the law of the state which forbade it, would peddle it 
 to all comers, moderate and intemperate drinkers, old 
 and young alike. Under these circumstances it was 
 not strange that the "exiling" of the stocks of 
 wholesalers became a matter of comment, even among 
 those wlio were willing to have the "drinking- 
 houses and tippling-shops" closed. These latter had 
 in one form or another for a long time been more 
 or less under the restraints of the law. Accustomed 
 to see such dealt with as places of rather questionable 
 resort, a severer apijlication of law to them was not 
 especially obnoxious to the sense of propriety of those 
 wlio yet deemed wliolesale dealing decent. But as 
 to the trade of tin- larger dealers — the merchants —
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 369 
 
 many felt otherwise, and as truck-loads of liQuors 
 passed through the streets toward the depots and 
 wharves, they began to fear that the business of the 
 city would suffer, and to think that the wholesalers 
 ought not to be disturbed. 
 
 Some wholesalers, with business and social con- 
 nections to which the retailers could not aspire, saw 
 an opportunity for making a point in this against the 
 new law. In doing it they had, of course, the earnest 
 support of the retailers whom they supplied, and 
 the turpitude of whose business they in a measure 
 shielded under the cloaks of their own respectability. 
 Now these began to insist that the "business " of the 
 city was sure to be ruined. In this they had the 
 support of citizens not directly or indirectly connected 
 with the traffic in liquors, but who really believed 
 that whatever could be called ' ' business, " regardless 
 of its nature, would inure to the material prosperity 
 of the city and state. 
 
 Another illustration of the educational influence of 
 law was that traced to the permission accorded 
 "taverners" to retail, long after it was withdrawn 
 from the ordinary trader. That provision, originally 
 based upon the notion that as the tavern was the 
 "home" of those domiciled in it, it should be per- 
 mitted to provide those it temporarily sheltered with 
 whatever they might desire, has had such an influence 
 that there are men who still hold that there is a 
 moral difference between selling liquor at a bar-room, 
 under the same roof with a hotel, and retailing it 
 from a bar having no such respectable connection. 
 Yet, it is within bounds to say that there is not a 
 hotel-bar in New England that does not furnish liquor 
 to a hundred who run in from the street solely to
 
 370 REMINISCENCES 
 
 obtain it, to every one of the genuine hotel guests 
 that it supplies. 
 
 As was to be expected, therefore, the authorities 
 were in receipt of many suggestions that it would be 
 desirable to permit the hotels to continue their busi- 
 ness as before. Meanwhile, on the 12th of June, the 
 city council passed the following: 
 
 ''Ordered: That, to give full force and efiect to the act 
 for the suppression of drinking-houses and tippling-shops, 
 recently enacted, and to procure the full benefits thereof to 
 the city as speedily as possible, the mayor be, and he is 
 hereby authorized to draw his orders on the treasury from 
 time to time, and for such sums as he may judge necessary 
 and proper to secure the prompt enforcement of the law." 
 
 By the passage of this order the liquor-dealers and 
 their sympathizers saw that the aldermen and council- 
 men were in accord with the mayor, and would sustain 
 his lawful actions in his efforts to suppress their trade. 
 Here it may be said that the mayor in no case 
 availed himself of this permission, because he made 
 the liquor-sellers pay all the costs of the vigorous 
 campaign against them, and at the end of the munici- 
 ]jal year he had a balance of several hundred dollars 
 in the treasury for a continuation of the war. 
 
 Almost immediately after the shipment of liquors 
 began, following the notice referred to, my office was 
 overrun with citizens who called to see me uix)n the 
 matter of the business effect of the execution of the 
 law. Some of its opponents came to remonstrate with 
 me, some of its friends to inform me of what was 
 being said in many business circles. It was not 
 difficult to convince the real friends of Prohibition 
 that no trouble need be apprehended on this score. 
 They knew the effect of the liquor-traffic, and that it
 
 OF NEAL JK)W. 371 
 
 tended to sap, undermine and destroy the very foun- 
 dation and superstructure of all business prosperity. 
 These interviews multiplied for days, and finally I 
 concluded it best to answer publicly some of the 
 questions poured upon me touching the effect of the 
 execution of the law upon the general business of the 
 city. Accordingly I prepared and caused to be dis- 
 tributed the following: 
 
 "In a commercial and trading community like ours the 
 inquiry will very naturally arise in the minds of the people, 
 What eflect will the new liquor law have upon the business 
 of the city and state. That this law will operate decidedly 
 upon the business of the state is conceded by all, and the 
 effect will be in the highest degree beneticial. 
 
 "At the lowest estimate, the annual expenditure in this 
 state for intoxicating drinks has ])een two millions of dollars. 
 This has been a dead loss to the people, and even worse than 
 that, for it has injured the productive industry of the state to 
 an equal amount, at the very least ; so we have here an actual 
 annual loss to the state of four millions of dollars, arisina: 
 from the traffic in intoxicating drinks, and which the bill 
 alluded to was intended and is calculated to save to the 
 people. 
 
 " But it may be said, if that view of the case be correct, 
 trade must suffer, at any rate, to the amount of two millions 
 of dollars ; for that amount of merchandise, or most of it, 
 will no longer be bought and sold. That amount of these 
 particular articles will not be sold, it is true, but then a 
 greater value of articles, useful and necessary to the com- 
 fort and enjoyment of the people, will be sold, while they 
 will be able to earn much more than they did while consuming 
 this immense quantity of strong drinks. 
 
 " The larger portion of these drinks were consumed by the 
 working people, and in order to obtain them they were com- 
 pelled to forego many articles of comfort and necessity to 
 their families. When the temptation to indulge is removed 
 out of their way, they will not take much trouble to obtain 
 strong drink, their habits will be changed, their appetites will 
 no longer torment them, their money will be spent for articles 
 useful to their families, their health and character will be 
 restored, and they will earn more, enjoy more, and save more
 
 S7'2 REMINISCENCES 
 
 than they ever did before. This process is going on in this 
 city at this moment, and is so olivious as to be noticed and 
 remarked upon by the most casual observer. 
 
 '•The cost of strong drinks to the people of this state has 
 been greater than the cost of their imported tlour, which is 
 regarded as a serious drain upon the wealth of the state. 
 Our statesmen and legislators have often spoken of the 
 effect upon our prosperity of the expenditure of so much of 
 our earnings as is required to procure the Hour which we 
 consume ; and an effort was made by our legislature some 
 vears ago to correct this evil, by offering liberal bounties to 
 our farmers on domestic wheat, that resulted in nothing but 
 a heavy state debt, which yet remains unpaid. Yet our 
 legislators and statesmen have only recently considered the 
 fact that we spend more money for strong drinks than we do 
 for Hour and that this great sum is a total loss to the state, 
 and that another loss, equal to it in amount, results 
 therefrom, to wit : the diminished industry and habits of 
 unthriftiness which are always produced by the use of these 
 drinks. 
 
 "The money which we spend for imported flour is not 
 all lost to the state — very far from it; perhaps it is no 
 loss at all. The labor which would be spent in raising 
 domestic wheat tor our own use is now occupied in other 
 branches of industry ; and many intelligent men among us are 
 of the opinion that we can l)uy our flour cheaper than we can 
 produce it — that is, the same amount of lal)or, as at present 
 emi)loyed, produces a greater amount of value than it would 
 if devoted to the cultivation of wheat. AMth the same 
 amount of labor, they say, we can produce more cattle, hay, 
 potatoes, fish and ships than we could of wheat, and we can 
 exchange these articles for our flour, and have a l)alance in our 
 favor. That is my opinion ; l)ut whether it is correct or not, 
 the loss or gain in this matter of buying our flour is precise- 
 ly equal to the difference either way between the results 
 of our industry as at i)resent employed, and Avhat they 
 would be if the same labor Avere devoted to the production of 
 wheat. 
 
 " liut not so with the amount exjjcnded by our people for 
 strong drinks. That is a dead loss to its full extent, and 
 nmch worse than that, for the consumption of these drinks 
 entails upon us many other expenditures and evils of various 
 kinds fr(jm which we shall be entirely relieved by the ojxu'ation 
 of the l;t\v nlhided to. At the very lowest estimate, the amount
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 373 
 
 expended by the people of Portland for strong drinks may 
 be estimated at one hundred thousand dollars per year, and 
 the loss to an equal amount in the diminished industry and 
 the unthriftiness of those who consume them. By the full 
 operation of this law, and the obedience of the people to it, 
 this great sum will be saved and earned in our midst, and 
 will go to swell the amount of the annually accumulating 
 wealth of the city. 
 
 "The trade of the city will also be improved, as will the 
 business of all those who are engaged in the rum trade, 
 except the retail groggeries, which are of course extinguished. 
 A law which stops entirely the sale of strong drinks is not 
 only for the good of the consumer but for the advantage of 
 all of those wholesale dealers, who have a legitimate busi- 
 ness aside from the sale of these drinks. The management of 
 those dealers who supply strong liquors to their customers is 
 like that of boys with productive fruit trees standing by the 
 roadside. They begin to gather the fruit before it is half 
 grown, and while it is injurious to health. It would be 
 much better every way for them to wait until the fruit be 
 fully grown and ripe. They all acknowledge this — every 
 one says he would be glad to wait, but others will not ; and 
 if he does not get his share of the green fruit he will have 
 none at all, and so the trees are stripped from year to year. 
 A rule which will compel all the boys to wait until the fruit 
 be ripe would be for the benefit of all, and none but bad boys 
 would object to it. All others would consent to such a rule 
 with pleasure. So it is with this rum business. All those 
 engaged in it will and do confess that the traffic is wrong in 
 principle and bad in practice ; but they say they cannot help 
 it, if they do not sell others will ; and while the withdrawal of 
 any one in particular would not diminish the quantity con- 
 sumed that individual would lose his share of the profits. 
 This is the universal mode in which persons engaged in this 
 trade justify themselves. 
 
 " But this law is intended and calculated to compel all these 
 dealers to abandon that traffic, and a compliance with its 
 requirements will be for the advantage of all. The trade of 
 Portland and the state will be favorably affected by this law 
 in every way. It will operate on the large scale precisely as 
 it would on a small one. Let us state a case : 
 
 "A wholesale and retail dealer has the trade of a certain 
 region of country secured to him — say six miles square — 
 containing five thousand inhabitants, industrious, working 
 
 25
 
 374 REMINISCENCES 
 
 people. The trader is in the prime of life, with many years 
 of active usefulness before him, and with a large family of 
 sons to help him in his Imsiness, and to succeed to it. 
 These people require large quantities of goods of various 
 kinds for domestic consum})tion, clicy pay in cash and in the 
 products of their industry ; they consume no strong drinks, 
 they know nothing of them, but the trader knows he could 
 easilv introduce a taste for them among the people ; he sits 
 down to think about it as a mere matter of interest. 
 
 '* Now, as a matter of business, what course should he take? 
 If other traders were furnishing them with such drinks it 
 might be another matter. But he has the entire trade of that 
 community, and his children will have it after him. What 
 should he do ? ^Nlost certainly he should not introduce strong 
 drinks among them. Everybody will agree that such a 
 measure would be most unwise. The people would have so 
 much less means with which to purchase articles of necessity 
 and comfort, they would immediately become less industrious 
 and less thrifty, a considerable part of their earnings would 
 be expended for paupers, and in detecting, convicting and 
 imprisoning criminals ; and as this community should become 
 more and more under the influence of strong drinks they 
 would become poor, unthrifty, without industry ; they would 
 become vicious, profligate, and if these liquors should have 
 their full ofl'ect upon them they would become a community of 
 va<rabonds and beirsars, and our trader would have entirely 
 ruined his customers and lost his business. 
 
 " All these consequences flow inevitably from the traffic in 
 strong drinks, and are more or less extensive, as the people 
 are more or less under the influence of these drinks. Kow 
 what would be true of the Imsiness of the trader in the case 
 stated is true of this city and of this state. This city has the 
 entire trade of a great region of country, and this trading 
 ground is l)ecoming more extensive every day. It is for the 
 interest of this city to keej) strong drinks out of that countr}', 
 because in such a case the people will earn more, buy more, 
 consume more ; they will be happier people, better people, 
 they will be better educated, and richer from year to yeai", 
 and, what is the great thing with many men, they will not 
 only buy more but i)ay better." 
 
 Not long after this I had a call at my house one 
 evening from one of (jiir wealthiest and most infliien-
 
 OF N^EAL DOW. 375 
 
 tial citizens, a Whig, one of those who had actively 
 opposed my election because he had never approved 
 my methods in connection with temperance, and, as 
 I thought, because he had no sympathy with the 
 reform. Under the circumstances the call surprised 
 me, and I was at a loss to understand its object. 
 That was soon disclosed by his suggestion that he, 
 with some other influential Whigs whom he named, 
 would be glad to support me most cordially in the 
 future, but upon the condition, delicately veiled in 
 well chosen phrases, that I would show some consid- 
 eration in the enforcement of the new law. Our 
 conversation was long and earnest, but in good part 
 throughout. In it I tried to convince him that I had 
 no option under my ofiicial oath, save to execute 
 Jbhe law against the liquor-traffic vigorously and 
 impartially, as I proposed to do with other laws. 
 On the other hand, he made clear to me his own 
 view, which he insisted was that of many for whom 
 he claimed to speak, that because the new law was of 
 my particular devising I could do with it as I pleased, 
 enforce or ignore it; that in executing it I should be 
 regarded by him and many other citizens, not as an 
 official doing his duty, and therefore entitled to 
 respect, but rather as an officious volunteer, thus 
 making myself peculiarly obnoxious to all upon whom 
 the law would bear directly and depriving myself of 
 the sympathy and support of good citizens, who, had 
 the law not been of my own seeking, might feel 
 otherwise about it. He assured me that this embar- 
 rassment, which he tried to convince me would be 
 great, I might avoid altogether, as far as he and many 
 others among the most influential of my townsmen 
 were concerned, by taking a moderate course.
 
 376 REMINISCENCES 
 
 Thougli we could not see tlie matter alike, we 
 parted on good terms personally, wliich were always 
 maintained. After that I would occasionally hear of 
 this gentleman as referring to me as a "fool and 
 fanatic," generally with the addition, "but I think 
 he is honest in his opinions." 
 
 The authorities had early notice that one wholesale 
 dealer had refused to avail himself of the opportunity 
 to save his stock by shipping it out of the state, and 
 had repeatedly declared that a seizure in his store 
 would be at the peril of whoever made it. Several 
 citizens informed me that he had called them into his 
 store and shown them a large stock of liquors, stating 
 it to be his intention to retain them until the "flurry" 
 was over, when he should sell them — the new law and 
 its author to the contrary notwithstanding. Mean- 
 while he declared that if any seizure was made he 
 would test the constitutionality of the statute. 
 
 I directed the city marshal to let me know immedi- 
 ately if he had knowledge of any sale being made by 
 that dealer, and in the meantime to pay no attention 
 to any threats that might come to his hearing. Some 
 time not long after the passage of the order of the city 
 council of June 12, the city marshal told me that he 
 had information and proof that tlie liciuor-seller above 
 mentioned had sold a quantity of rum. There had 
 been no concealment about the sale, and it was freely 
 intimated that it had been purposely made in a spirit 
 of bravado, to show that the authorities would not 
 dare to enforce the law, and the marshal said he had 
 reason to believe that other dealers were watching to 
 see what the result would be. 
 
 I was satisfied that the time had come to act, and 
 that any delay would only tend to make the beginning
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 377 
 
 more difficult. Accordingly, I directed the marshal 
 to make his complaint, apply for a warrant, and if he 
 obtained it to make the seizure at once. Providing 
 himself with a warrant, the marshal returned to me 
 for final instructions. These given, I told him to 
 report to me as soon as he had executed his orders. 
 
 As this was to be the initiatory step in the enforce- 
 ment of the law, I was extremely anxious that no 
 mistake should be made, and I had told the marshal 
 to take three or four policemen with him, so that any 
 disposition on the part of the proprietor to make 
 trouble might be overawed, and thus all semblance of 
 disturbance be prevented. 
 
 The citizens of Portland had been more or less 
 familiar with legal proceedings against liquor-sellers. 
 These, however, had been of a desultory, ineffective 
 sort, in which neither the liquor-selling respondent 
 nor the traffic in general had suffered much. There 
 had been many expressions of popular opposition to 
 liquor-selling, and I had no doubt but that the 
 average sentiment of the people was hostile to the 
 trade. Nevertheless, as there had been no seizure of 
 liquors, I was far from being confident that there 
 would not be a revulsion of popular sentiment fol- 
 lowing such a summary proceeding. 
 
 After waiting much longer than was necessary for 
 the reasonably prompt execution of my orders without 
 a report from the marshal, and being informed by a 
 citizen that a large crowd had collected about the 
 store in question, I walked to the scene to learn the 
 situation. The store was located in one of the most 
 frequented squares in the city, and, arriving there, I 
 found hundreds of people assembled, drawn together 
 by the novelty of the occurrence.
 
 378 REMINISCENCES 
 
 Piisliing my way tlirougli the crowd, I entered the 
 store to find the marshal and three policemen, the 
 proprietor and three or four others whom I did not 
 recognize. The officers had done nothing. The pro- 
 prietor was storming about the store, threatening, in a 
 loud voice, vengeance upon any man who should 
 touch his property. 
 
 The officers were not hesitating from fear of personal 
 violence, but the marshal thought that in executing his 
 orders he might expose himself to some personal legal 
 liability, and was deliberating as to what would 
 happen to him if the law should prove to be unconsti- 
 tutional. Ascertaining this, I immediately assured 
 the marshal that I would stand between him and all 
 harm on that account. Then turning to the proprietor 
 I called his attention to the fact that the marshal 
 was acting simply under my orders. Upon this, the 
 liquor-dealer, who had checked his bluster for a 
 moment upon my arrival, renewed it in a most offen- 
 sive way. I then told the marshal that if the man 
 made any more noise to direct one of his officers to 
 put him into a corner and keep him there. That 
 ended all disturbance, and the marshal was directed 
 to remove the liquors promptly, and take them to 
 the cellar of the old City Hall. When the officers 
 proceeded to hoist the contraband goods from the 
 basement, some one cut the rope, delaying matters 
 only for a few moments, when with no more trouble, 
 they were loaded on drays and removed. 
 
 That was the simple, easy initiation of a new policy 
 under which, speaking generally, wherever there were 
 competent and faithful officials, liquors were put and 
 kept out of the way, and those who would have them 
 at any cost were obliged to search for them. Assum-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 379 
 
 ing such competency and faithfulness, rumshops could 
 no longer hold out temptations on every corner, in 
 eligible places, and in the most attractive manner to 
 old and young alike. The hard drinker wishing to 
 reform could now easily avoid temptation, if he 
 would. The young and uncontaminated were not 
 likely to seek drink in the cellars, attics, and other 
 out-of-the-way places, where what was left of the 
 traffic was soon to be concealed. 
 
 The liquor seized as above described was duly con- 
 demned under the law to be destroyed. The rumseller 
 appealed, and, to try the constitutionality of the law, 
 brought suit against me. The case ran along for 
 years, and was finally decided against the claimant, 
 who had large costs to pay in addition to the loss of 
 his liquor. 
 
 The effect of that first seizure was marked. It 
 was an object lesson at once of the determination of 
 the authorities to do their duty, and of the efficacy of 
 the law. It was then apparent to the most obtuse 
 dealer that under the new law, in the hands of 
 trustworthy officers, no considerable amount of con- 
 traband liquors could be kept in stock, and that the 
 wholesale business was at an end. So also was much 
 of the retail trade. Almost immediately after the 
 seizure, the principal rumsellers of the city, the 
 hotel-keepers, and those who kept genteel saloons, 
 came voluntarily to the mayor's office and entered 
 into a written agreement not to violate the law, in 
 the same instrument acknowledging that they had 
 done so. Thereupon they were assured that, so long 
 as they observed their pledge, there would be no 
 disposition on the ])art of the authorities to prosecute 
 them for past offenses.
 
 380 REMINISCENCES 
 
 In a surprisingly sliort time all of the better known 
 rumsellers of former days abandoned the business, 
 and almost without exception such as continued it 
 removed from their former eligible locations to places 
 better adapted for the conduct of an illegal, and no 
 longer respectable, trade. Hence the open sale of 
 liquor entirely ceased, and with it the traffic was 
 shorn of its most dangerous powers. 
 
 There were persons, it is true, in Portland, who 
 continued to sell liquors on the sly, but in very small 
 quantities. The authorities were often notified of 
 the places in which the violators of the law had 
 concealed their contraband stocks, and where they 
 were carrying on the outlawed trade. Those hiding- 
 places were unknown to the general public and 
 accessible only to the initiated. They were fre- 
 quently to be reached through some obscure and 
 filthy alleyway; sometimes they were approached 
 through the front door of a building on one street, 
 thence through that house to the back door, and 
 across areas more or less obstructed with ashes and 
 general rubbish to some shed or out-house connected 
 with a building on another street. Those on whom 
 the appetite for liquor had fastened its relentless grii) 
 would pursue these devious and unattractive ways to 
 obtain the means to cjuench tlieir unnatural thirst. 
 None, however, who had not formed the appetite, or, 
 who, having it, desired to throw it off, were exposed 
 to temptation from any places in which the traffic 
 lingered. The efi'ect upon the general quiet, good 
 order, an<l tlirift of the city was marked. 
 
 The quantity of liquors kept in these places of de- 
 posit was very small. Tlie Avliole stock in some would 
 be contained in a i)int bottle or two in the coat pock-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 881 
 
 ets of the vendors; some of tliem would be in a thin 
 tin vessel, fitted to the person, and worn under the 
 vest. One of the places that I remember was in the 
 brickwork of a chimney, a small cask of liquor being 
 enclosed in it, a lead pipe leading out near the floor; 
 another was an opening under the step of chamber 
 stairs, another, under the floor of a pig-pen. Some of 
 these stocks of liquor were hidden in ash-pits under 
 cooking-stoves; some of them in cellar walls; some 
 under chamber floors, the trap covered by the carpet 
 and the bed placed over it; some on shelves in chim- 
 neys, some in innocent water-conductors in the eaves 
 of a house; some behind mangers in horse-stalls; some 
 under stable floors, and some in unmentionable places. 
 
 For a time liquors were brought into the city by 
 railroad, by steamer, and by sailing-vessels. They 
 were often marked and sometimes intended for 
 country towns. Frequently shippers sent consign- 
 ments to be divided upon arrival in Portland and 
 conveyed in different directions through the state. 
 After a time special efforts were made to stop this 
 traffic, as thus the supply would be cut off from many 
 retail stores in country towns. The city marshal was 
 ordered to seize all such upon arrival. 
 
 Such seizures went on regularly as a stated part of 
 police duty until the transportation in that way was 
 nearly, or quite, broken up. Meanwhile efforts were 
 made to smuggle liquors into the city under various 
 disguises. These were usually in four, eight and ten 
 gallon kegs, concealed in flour or sugar barrels and 
 packed in sawdust, grain, salt, sugar, oysters in the 
 shell, oats, bran, anything which would prevent the 
 contraband liquors from being noticed when the cask 
 was moved. Sometimes these kegs were packed in
 
 882 REMINISCENCES 
 
 dry-goods boxes, and in large traveling trunks. At 
 first officers vrere misled by these devices, and liquor 
 frequently escaped them, but after a time they became 
 so expert that they could generally detect the trick 
 on sight, and almost always upon a slight superficial 
 examination. 
 
 For a while this seizing of liquors in transitu was 
 denounced in unmeasured terms by the opponents of 
 the law, especially by those directly interested in the 
 liquors seized. They used it for the purpose of creat- 
 ing a prejudice against the law, and stated and her- 
 alded all over Maine that damage was done to 
 proi)erty, actual property, not liquors, by the officers 
 in their search for the contraband article. Many 
 extravagant stories were told of this description. 
 Officers were represented as boring with long augurs 
 into boxes containing pianos, dry-goods, leather, and 
 every variety of merchandise which could be injured 
 in that way. Bogus certificates were published, in 
 every instance but one, so far as I know, over un- 
 known names, of damage thus done. 
 
 One statement to that effect was signed by a non- 
 resident ijartner of a well-known business house in 
 Portland. It was to the effect that officers had bored 
 with an augur again and again through a large box 
 containing i)atent leather, of course to the ruination 
 of the goods. I called at the city office of the man- 
 ufactory and asked one of the members of the firm, 
 a brother of the partner who had signed the state- 
 ment, for particulars, j)repared to pay personally any 
 damage that mi^ht have been done. ' He said there 
 was not a word of truth in the statement, that they 
 had never liad aii\ L'cods daiiinirefl by the officers. 
 
 Some time after. 1 happened to be on a railroad
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 383 
 
 train when the man who had signed the certificate 
 approached me witli a mutual acquaintance, to be in- 
 troduced. "All!" I said, "This is the gentleman, I 
 believe, whose stock of leather was ruined by the 
 ofliicers." Blushing all over his expansive face, he 
 said, "All things are fair in politics, you know," and 
 upon my asking him if he really had any leather 
 injured, he replied: "No, I was mistaken when I 
 signed that certificate." Afterwards that man came 
 to look upon the signing of such certificates as some- 
 thing more than a mere mistake, and became also an 
 earnest friend of mine. 
 
 All stories of that kind were false, with no other 
 foundation for any of them than that packages 
 actually containing concealed liquors, but marked as 
 enclosing other goods, were seized. The ofiicers were 
 specially enjoined in this particular to exercise the 
 greatest care and to seize only on certainties. While 
 I know of many charges made publicly, with more or 
 less particularity as to details, there was never one 
 coming to my knowledge with any foundation what- 
 ever in fact. Nevertheless, these assertions were so 
 repeatedly made that it was deemed desirable tliat the 
 city marshal should state publicly, as he did, over his 
 own signature, that there had never been a single case 
 in which merchandise of any description had been 
 injured in the search for liquor. I regret to say that 
 some of the papers which had heralded these charges 
 refused to publish the marshal's denial of them until 
 after the election they had been concocted to affect. 
 
 It is not necessary to enlarge upon the statement 
 that more care, more zeal, more persistency, were 
 necessary to produce the same results in the first year 
 of the enforcement of the law than would be the
 
 384 KEMIXISCENCES 
 
 case thereafter. It is also true that such enforcement 
 would be likely to excite more opposition to the law, 
 and to those whose duty it was to enforce it, than 
 after the seizure and confiscation of liquors had come 
 to be looked upon as a matter of course. It would be 
 difficult to put into language suitable for publication 
 here the charges and insinuations more or less direct, 
 bandied from mouth to mouth in those days, some of 
 Avhich even found their way into print, against those 
 whose duty it was to enforce the Maine Law^ in that 
 first year of its existence. 
 
 As has been stated, the first seizure called together 
 a crowd to witness it and excited interest not only 
 throughout the state, but outside of it. In a few 
 weeks there was no more of this, so that the entrance 
 of the officers into a suspected rum-den to search it 
 attracted no more attention than w^ould the arrest of 
 a pickpocket. Only a curious stranger or two w^ould 
 stop to see the outcome of the search, and a few idle 
 boys would collect about the door. 
 
 While the depots and steamboat landings were 
 carefully watched for liquors intended for other i)arts 
 of the state, the other phases of the work were also 
 carried on through the city. The searching of 
 suspected places was frequent, the police being often 
 aided in this work by drinking men wdio betrayed the 
 secret hiding-places of the rumsellers, because, as 
 they said, they wished the business to be entirely 
 suppressed. 
 
 Over a large portion of tlie state the same kind of 
 warfare was carried on. It varied in energy and 
 effectiveness, but surely, however slowly, the coils of 
 the law were winding around the lifjuor-traffic in 
 Maine, and the volume of the trade was constantly
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 385 
 
 dimiiiisliing. When the law went into operation 
 there were many country traders who kept liquors in 
 stock much against their own views of propriety. 
 ' ' Others do, and we must, " was the reason given for 
 continuing a trade they admitted to be wrong. Such 
 merchants as those availed themselves of the new law 
 to abandon the traffic without delay, and this con- 
 siderably reduced the number of those engaged in 
 it. There were others who, though entertaining no 
 personal scruples as to the business, yielded at 
 once. The law was an authoritative and emphatic 
 expression of public opinion they did not care to 
 encounter. Their objection to being engaged in the 
 business so condemned was strong enough to lead 
 them to abandon it without regard to the penalties 
 awaiting them if they continued it. Others preferred 
 to test the law. Comparatively few, however, cared 
 to experience the penalties more than once. As soon 
 as they found the authorities in earnest they ceased 
 business. 
 
 A volume, however, would not suffice to describe 
 the various methods resorted to by some dealers or 
 their agents to block the officers in the discharge of 
 their duty ; it would be, however, but the old story 
 of a contest between law-officers and law-breakers. 
 The course of each is the same everywhere and at all 
 times, the latter always endeavoring to avoid detec- 
 tion and escape the penalty for crime, the former, if 
 honest and capable, alert in the discharge of duty and 
 determined to bring the criminal to justice. 
 
 Occasionally, in some of the rural districts of the 
 state, the question of the enforcement or non-enforce- 
 ment of the law would be considered and decided in 
 neighborhood, corner-grocery discussions, in which
 
 386 EEMIXISCENCES 
 
 the opinion of the village "squire "as to the consti- 
 tutionality of the statute had much weight. But 
 wherever there could be found three determined 
 temperance men, an honest justice and a courageous 
 constable there was no difficulty in putting the law 
 into operation. In some outlying districts, familiarity 
 with the forms of proceedings under the law was not 
 as great as was the zeal for its enforcement. Some- 
 times amusing incidents resulted, because the people, 
 though generally understanding the object of the law, 
 did not always know just how to proceed under it. 
 
 In one town in York county, not far from Portland, 
 liquor had been seized in a building not covered by 
 the search warrant. In this case, as was not uncom- 
 mon, the officer had been assisted by several zealous 
 friends of the law, young men, who were anxious to 
 destroy the liquor at once, but the officers dissuaded 
 them. When the time for the hearing came, the 
 owner demanded the return of the liquor. The 
 assistant searchers and their friends were on the 
 ground, and the justice court became a sort of 
 informal town-meeting. Everybody was disposed to 
 be good natured about it, but nobody, save the 
 claimant, and possibly his counsel, desired to see the 
 liquors given up. 
 
 The owner was confronted with the fact that there 
 was plenty of evidence to show that he had repeatedly 
 violated the law, and that, though because of infor- 
 mality, it might be necessary to surrender these 
 lifjuors, he could be proceeded against in due time 
 under other clauses of the statute. Finally it was 
 arranged that all proceedings against the owner 
 should be stopped if he would himself "voluntarily " 
 knock in the head of the barrel. This at first he
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 387 
 
 flatly refused to do, but after being reasoned with 
 and convinced that with so many in the neighborhood 
 to watch him he could not sell he took the ax and 
 swung it over his shoulder preparatory for the blow, 
 but his heart failed him. " Boys, I cannot do it! " he 
 exclaimed, in a tone almost as pitiful as if the barrel- 
 head had been that of one of his children. But the 
 " town-meeting " good-naturedly insisted. Again and 
 yet again he essayed to strike, each time his heart 
 failing him. At last he asked to be allowed to take a 
 drink of the liquor to nerve him to the dreadful deed. 
 This refused, he finally struck the blow. The head 
 was knocked in, and he threw down the ax, protesting 
 it was too bad to waste such stuff as that. Meanwhile 
 the "town-meeting" stood round him convulsed with 
 approving laughter. 
 
 In several cases neighborhood gatherings were held 
 to witness the voluntary destruction of liquors by the 
 owners, who had decided to go out of the business, 
 sometimes on the tacit understanding that they 
 should not be prosecuted for violations of the law 
 in which they had been detected, and sometimes 
 because, without any pressure, they had concluded 
 to sell no more. 
 
 As I have stated, the more respectable among those 
 engaged in the trade abandoned it without waiting 
 for action on the part of the authorities. They did 
 not care to be classed as law-breakers, or as among 
 those who had no respect for an expression of public 
 opinion as formulated in the law, to the effect that 
 their business was injurious. Others, less sensitive, 
 abandoned the trade through fear of penalties. They 
 were early satisfied that in the long run they could 
 reap no profit from a business under the ban of such a
 
 388 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 law, the execution of which was in the hands of 
 officials who, having regard for their oath of office, 
 were determined to do their full duty. Others were 
 driven out of it after suffering once or twice the pains 
 provided for violators of the statute. 
 
 Who then was left to carry on the trade 'i With 
 very few exceptions, only disreputable persons who 
 Avould shrink from the violation of no law interfering 
 in any way with their wishes, if they could hope to 
 escape the penalties in such cases provided. Those 
 carried it on generally in out of the way places, in 
 which they were wont, as occasion might offer, to 
 violate other laws, or outrage the general proprieties 
 and decencies of life. 
 
 As bearing upon this point, I quote a single extract 
 of a multitude that might be republished, written by 
 opponents of the law. But one will suffice. It is 
 taken from the Portland correspondence of a Boston 
 paper, published some time in November, 1H53. After 
 referring to the Maine Law as "the most disagreeable 
 pill that ever mortal man was made to swallow,'' it 
 goes on to say : 
 
 "A short time ago a friend invited me out to 'smile' with 
 several others. We took our course through a dirty, muddy 
 lane, where no signs of shop, shed, or shanty, were visible, 
 and arriving at a certain retired spot, our host gave the word 
 to halt. Groping his way under a huge iron ship-kettle, half 
 invci-ted, ho pulled out a jug which proved to l)c brandy. 
 Tile word was given to ' tire away,' and each in rotation 
 iml)ibed from the aforesaid jug, leaving a goodly supply for 
 another ' smile.' So it goes. Every person desiring a drink 
 must get it in some such democratic way as this. Of course 
 fancy drinks, such as sherry cobblers, tip and ties, brandy 
 smashes, or even the good old hot whiskey punches, with a 
 port wine top to tiiem, are luxuries wholly unknown here. 
 But enough of this li(juor law, it is killing Portland as dead 
 as a h('rriML^ and no mistake."
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 389 
 
 And now what do my readers suppose was the next 
 statement of this correspondent with reference to 
 Portland, which, he says, is being "killed as dead as a 
 herring" by the liquor law? Here it is: " There in a 
 great deal of building in Portland among the rich men, 
 xcho cannot invest their capital in any more advantageous 
 way. " 
 
 The customers drawn to such places by such deal- 
 ers, were, almost without exception, those upon whom 
 the appetite for intoxicants had so fastened itself that 
 they could be rescued from it only by the special inter- 
 position of Divine grace. No sensible person could 
 fail to see that a trade driven to such straits and into 
 such hands was not as dangerous or as extensive as if 
 permitted in eligible localities and in every variety of 
 attractiveness to flaunt its invitations, temptations, 
 and seductions in the face of every passer. 
 
 It is urged, however, by the opponents of Prohibi- 
 tion, that the banishment of the trade to such places 
 and to such hands is injurious. It is under such con- 
 ditions, they say, that the worst phases of the evil are 
 developed. But it is to be remembered that no evil 
 which is condemned as such by law is likely to be 
 conducted in the light of day, always supposing faith- 
 fulness on the part of officials. It seeks the dark 
 because it is unlawful. If the secrecy in which a 
 prohibited act is performed is a fatal objection to 
 the law which compels its concealment, then the 
 entire system of criminal legislation is wrong. What 
 law have we in the entire criminal code, the violator 
 of which politely approaches officials to inform them 
 when the violation is about to begin ? 
 
 The objection is a specious one. The very secrecy 
 in which a prohibited act is committed suggests to all
 
 390 REMINISCENCES 
 
 who are tempted that it is evil. Who will say that 
 the degrading, immoral, and injurious influences of 
 the lottery shop, the gambling hell, and the brothel, 
 have been increased in communities where fear of the 
 law has driven them from the public view ? 
 
 It nuist not be forgotten tliat the tendency of the 
 rum trade, whatever the form of law, or in the 
 absence of any law affecting it, is to drag its patrons 
 down. Suppose a community in which liquor had 
 never been sold, and in which there was not an 
 individual who indulged in the use of it, or who had 
 had any desire for intoxicants. Let now the sale be 
 established. Make the restrictions as rigid as possi- 
 ble, and let them be observed to the letter. But if 
 the business is to exist, patrons are sought; young 
 men and old, mothers and maidens, who have never 
 drunk before, are in effect invited to drink now. 
 Why not^ The place where they are expected to 
 begin is respectable, it is attractive. No excess has 
 ever been committed there, nothing as yet has been 
 witnessed there to shock the most refined, because no 
 liquor has ever been sold there before. Why should 
 not all patronize it ? It is a licensed shop; Avho should 
 advise any to avoid it ? The proprietor has paid his 
 fee to the state for the privilege of establishing his 
 business there. Who will violate the implied con- 
 tract between him and the people for his undisturbed 
 possession of that business, by counseling those who 
 might become his customers, not to patronize him ? 
 
 The sale begins. Now seeds are being sown that 
 will spring up into a baneful growth. Of those who 
 become patrons of such a respectably conducted shop 
 a percentage will, in time, reach a point where that 
 shop, if it continues to be respectable, will no longer
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 391 
 
 welcome them as customers, although they are of those 
 who think that they must have drink. They have 
 become the victims of an insatiable appetite which it is 
 torment to refuse to feed. Does your respectable shop 
 refuse to cater to these victims ? It matters little now. 
 Their condition is such that the elegance of the shop 
 which first attracted and seduced them is as displeas- 
 ing to them as the coarse surroundings of the place 
 toward which they are gravitating would have been 
 when they were first charmed into the path to ruin by 
 the gilded saloon; and so they go on. The worse the 
 cravings of the created appetite, the lower in the scale 
 of respectability they are dragged, and the lower will 
 be the resorts in which they seek to gratify it. 
 
 Let none imagine that the permission of so-called 
 *' respectable " shops will make disreputable places 
 less numerous. The rule is otherwise, and it is a rule 
 holding good under any form of law which may be 
 adopted. It has no relation or connection with law. 
 Select the worst drunkard to be found in the vilest 
 den in the land, and time was when, of his own 
 accord, he would not have gone there for stimulants. 
 He commenced higher, if it be an ascending scale, in 
 some more ' ' respectable " place. 
 
 The progressive steps in the manufacture of such a 
 product may be easily traced. The raw material is 
 the respectable beginner in whom the appetite does 
 not exist. He is taken in with a great many others 
 through the front door of an attractive saloon. The 
 process of selection at once begins. Material suitable 
 for the purpose is passed from one saloon to another, 
 always downward, until the finished product is finally 
 turned out, the miserable wretch we selected from 
 the back door of a low liquor-den.
 
 392 REMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 
 
 It may be possible to prevent this, or the most of it, 
 by closing the place into which the raw material is 
 drawn. That open, the lower dens follow as a matter 
 of course; that closed, and in time there will be no 
 demand for the worst haunts. That open, and the 
 lower depths will certainly be permitted; that closed, 
 and soon there will be little supply left for the 
 moral and material (juagmires. Stop the gathering of 
 raw material, the young, the thoughtless, the inno- 
 cent, and after a while there will be no finished 
 product, the drunken, the miserable, the disreputable. 
 
 As was to be expected, results consonant with this 
 theory followed upon the enforcement of Prohibition. 
 Most of those who knew what Maine was before those 
 days have gone to their long home. Assuming that the 
 average age necessary for experience and observation 
 is thirty years, only the few of us who have passed 
 the allotted age of man can bear witness to the 
 great change for the better, everywhere to be seen, 
 resulting from the faithful application of the prohibi- 
 tions of the Maine Law. But there is not wanting 
 evidence, to be found in official reports, and the 
 recorded statements of reliable witnesses, some of 
 which will be cited hereafter.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE EFFECT OF THE ENFOECEMENT OF PEOHIBITION. 
 GATHERING OPPOSITION TO IT. MY DEFEAT 
 IN THE MUNICIPAL ELECTION 
 OF 1852. 
 
 Within a comparatively few inontlis after the enact- 
 ment of the Maine Law, a considerable portion of the 
 state, including Portland and most of the larger 
 towns, was practically free from the liquor-traffic. 
 The change for the better, substantially throughout 
 Maine, was marvelous, apparent not only in a decrease 
 of drunkenness and of the long and varied list 
 of disturbances which radiate from a rumshop as 
 miasma rises from a swamp, but in evidences of 
 industry, thrift, and material prosperity rewarding- 
 well-directed labor. This was a revelation to many, 
 who, having given little thought to the subject, had 
 regarded the prophecies of the advocates of Prohibi- 
 tion as fanciful, if not fanatical, dreams. To those, 
 however, who had considered the matter, gratifying 
 as was the change, it was not surprising. 
 
 The grave temptations peculiar to open bar-rooms no 
 longer existed. What was left of the trade was 
 secret, obscure, unlawful, disreputable. If it was 
 true that some victims of an appetite, relentless in its
 
 394 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 once fastened grip, could yet find in out-of-tlie-way 
 places that with which to gratify their body-destroy- 
 ing and soul-damning thirst, it was, nevertheless, 
 clearly demonstrated that those not yet brought 
 under the complete c(mtrol of that deadly desire 
 had been given and were improving a chance for 
 reform. 
 
 Nor were these alone benefited. Loafing about the 
 corner-groceries was discouraged by the storekeepers 
 lest they should be suspected of continuing a traffic 
 no longer respectable because no longer countenanced 
 by law. Hanging about where liquor was surrepti- 
 tiously sold was not tolerated even by the illicit 
 dealers, because the attention of the officers would 
 thus be attracted to their law-breaking. Those who 
 formerly gathered in such places to get the ' ' fuddle " 
 were no longer drawn thither. Those who cared less, 
 or little, for drink, but who had been wont to spend 
 time in them because others did, now kept away; 
 hence much time formerly wasted about the taverns, 
 bar-rooms and corner-groceries, where liquor of all 
 kinds had been kept on tap, was now employed in 
 useful labor. 
 
 The time required to walk or ride to the grocery, 
 which would average half a mile or more from the 
 farm, was now devoted to seeing what repairs were 
 needed to make the house or the barn decent and com- 
 fortable. There was a leaking roof, long neglected; 
 a broken pane of glass for a month or more supplanted 
 by a shingle, or more often an old hat; a dozen clap- 
 boards were hanging loose, needing a nail or two 
 each; a broken well-swee|j had for weeks awaited 
 mending; the fence about the kitchen garden did not 
 protect it from the cow; the harness must have here
 
 OF NEAL DOAV. 395 
 
 a strap, there a buckle. All these and many other 
 easily remedied defects were now noticed that were 
 before unseen. 
 
 The time formerly lounpjed away in one day on the 
 old stiff-back settle at the store over the mug of grog 
 or flip now served to set a half dozen panes of glass, to 
 stop a half score of leaks in the roof of barn or shed, 
 or to make any one of many other needed repairs, 
 while the money, or more often the butter, eggs, 
 poultry, spent or exchanged for rum sufficed to buy 
 the shingles, the glass, or whatever material was 
 necessary. 
 
 Nor was this all. Wives and daughters who had 
 hardly dared to hope for bare necessities now began 
 to look for genuine comforts. The husband and 
 father was now in a condition to see and appreciate 
 for himself the difference between a shabby, neglected, 
 cheerless home, and a clean, bright, and attractive one. 
 A man whose time was given up to destroying at the 
 rumshop all incentives, tastes and capacity for indus- 
 try could not command the ordinary necessities, much 
 less the comforts and legitimate pleasures and luxuries 
 of life. Happily for him, poor fellow, following upon 
 the loss of his capacity to command them soon came a 
 lack of taste and desire for them; but now time was 
 given to industry, and industry at once supplied 
 existing demands and created other desires for all 
 that would contribute to the comfort of family and 
 home. 
 
 A striking illustration of the effect of this change 
 was drawn out by the opposition to the law. Some 
 liquors had been seized by the authorities in Port- 
 land at a railroad station, marked and intended for 
 delivery in a country town. This created a great
 
 396 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 hullabaloo among the apologists of the outlawed 
 trade. Many of our citizens owned stock in the 
 railroad, and the attempt was made to enlist them 
 against the law by insisting that the road would be 
 ruined if its freighting business was thus interfered 
 with. This was met by the publication of a statement 
 from the freight agent of that railroad, showing that 
 the receipts from freight had been much larger since 
 the enforcement of the Maine Law than before. The 
 money formerly spent in the country towns for rum 
 was now used to procure the necessaries and comforts 
 of life, transported by the road, while the capacity 
 for production and consumption was greater in sober 
 communities than in intemperate ones, with a corre- 
 sponding increase in the demands for all sorts of 
 merchantable commodities. 
 
 So much for the country towns. In the cities and 
 larger villages it had taken longer to extirpate the 
 traffic, but there was only here and there a place 
 where the enforcement of the law was not sufficiently 
 vigorous to largely curtail the unlawful trade, to 
 drive it into obscure places, comparatively difficult, 
 and always inconvenient, of access. The effect on 
 general industry was the same as in the country. It 
 was so marked that men who had predicted ruin to 
 I)rosi)erity when trade in intoxicants was prohibited 
 learned that business was immensely benefited. The 
 money formerly spent in rum now procured that 
 which created instead of destroyed, as did liquor, 
 the ability to consume more of the necessities and 
 comforts of life, and the capacity to produce more to 
 be exchanged for such increased consumption. 
 
 I remember a statement published by a retail wood 
 dealer in Portland in the winter of 1851-52 after the
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 397 
 
 law had been in operation about nine months. It was 
 to the effect that the winter before, as had been the 
 usual custom, he was troubled by numerous applica- 
 tions for "four pence ha'penny" (six and a quarter 
 cents), and "ninepence" (twelve and a half cents) 
 worth of wood, and often people would want to be 
 trusted for that small quantity. This year, he said, 
 none of these people bought less than half a cord of 
 wood at a time and always paid when they got it. 
 
 From all lines of legitimate business similar testi- 
 mony, more or less in detail, was offered, showing 
 that more than the money saved from the groggeries 
 was flowing through channels of trade tributary 
 to and not destructive of the common weal. The 
 Maine Law, therefore, became immensely popular 
 with a large portion of the public. Its friends were 
 delighted, and many who had been originally its 
 opponents were now glad to be numbered among its 
 supporters. 
 
 It was not to be expected, however, that the trade 
 would give up its chance for profit without a struggle. 
 It had long existed in defiance of that higher law 
 under which no man has a right to seek to serve 
 himself by trampling on the rights of others. What 
 interest, individual or social, had not suffered by it ? 
 It was a drag upon progress, a blot upon civilization. 
 Blind, deaf, and indifferent, as it was, to the highest 
 and most sacred interests of society, who could 
 expect it to yield to legislative enactment if, by open 
 defiance of law, intrigue and cunning, by bribery and 
 corruption, it could continue to reap ill-gotten gains ? 
 Opposition to the law became vigorous, but because of 
 the marked advantage to the state materially, as well 
 as to the people morally, it was obliged to conceal its
 
 398 REMINISCENCES 
 
 real animus under some more respectable and useful 
 cloak. 
 
 There had been no state election in the fall of 1851, 
 and the legislature which enacted the law was to 
 come together in January, 1852, following the adop- 
 tion of Prohibition in June, 1851. It was hardly to be 
 supposed that, left to itself, that body would undo 
 the measure it had so recently passed by a two-thirds 
 vote. This was an- advantage to the friends of the 
 law, which its opponents sought to undermine by 
 ' ' instructions " from town-meetings in various repre- 
 sentative districts. 
 
 In a number of cases town-meetings were regularly 
 called, in the expectation that a popular vote favoring 
 repeal would be adopted. I have the record of 
 several such cases before me, and in each of them the 
 vote was overwhelmingly against repeal. I know of 
 no case where it was otherwise, or less than two to one 
 — in several it was more than four to one — in favor of 
 the law. After about a score of towns had voted 
 that way, the opponents of Prohibition ceased calling 
 town-meetings for that purpose. 
 
 By this time, also, the diminution of pauperism and 
 crime in the state was so great that most charitable 
 and ijenal institutions had by far fewer inmates than 
 formerly. Among them the Kennebec county Jail at 
 Augusta and that of Oxford county were empty for 
 the first time since their erection. 
 
 Evidence in a great variety of forms was abundant 
 to prove the salutary effect of the law in a large 
 portion of the state, so much so that before the legis- 
 lature had assembled it was evident that no success 
 would attend any effort to repeal it. By the time 
 tlic law-makers had convened it was as certain that
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 399 
 
 no attempt would be made in tliat direction. The 
 opponents of the law preferred to wait for a more 
 convenient season before attacking it in that cjuarter. 
 The legislature had been in session but a few days 
 when, on the 19th of January, Editor Carter, of the 
 Whig daily of Portland, a representative in the legis- 
 lature, wrote to his paper from Augusta: 
 
 " Both friends and opponents of the liquor law may set 
 their hearts at rest about its repeal at this session. It will 
 not be repealed ; it is not among the possibilities. The feel- 
 ing in favor of the law is much more decided and unequivocal 
 than at the last session. One ot the ablest members of the 
 house, who voted against it last spring, told me a day or two 
 ago that he regarded the evidence of its beneficial effects and 
 the favor with which it is regarded by a vast majority of the 
 people as altogether too conclusive and overwhelming to be 
 resisted. On the other hand, I have not yet heard a single 
 member say a word in favor of the repeal, and the general 
 opinion is that no serious attempt to repeal it will be made. 
 If there is, it will prove a complete failure." 
 
 About the same date the Bangor Whig said : 
 
 "The law is found to be a practical and working law, and 
 is enthusiastically sustained by public sentiment." 
 
 For many reasons Portland was the most important 
 point involved in the war waged by the people against 
 the trade from which they had so long suffered. It 
 was the most populous place in the state. At the time 
 of the enactment of the Maine Law more capital was 
 invested in the traffic there than in any other munici- 
 pality in Maine. If the law was enforced in Portland 
 there would be no difficulty in making it effective in 
 any other locality. If benefits followed upon Prohi- 
 bition there, where in Maine might not equal good 
 result ? The vigorous application of its provisions at 
 that place, the chief distributing point in the state, in
 
 400 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 tlie seizure of liquors in transitu would prove of 
 immense assistance to the authorities of many country 
 towns, by cutting off supplies of litiuors that might 
 otherwise be clandestinely sold in them. All those 
 reasons stimulated the friends of Prohibition to desire 
 an earnest execution of the law in Portland. The 
 realization of so much that they had hoped for from 
 the law, after it had been in operation l^ut a few 
 months, now increased their zeal for its continued 
 enforcement. 
 
 On the other hand, its opponents understood that if 
 the law could be hindered, embarrassed and crippled 
 in Portland it would lose prestige and favor at home 
 and abroad. Portland was the birthplace of the 
 temperance reform in Maine. There it had been 
 baptized by the Paysons, the Nicholses and their 
 early coadjutors of the old Sixty-Nine society; there 
 a devout, self-sacrificing clergy had given it the 
 assistance of their prayers, their sympathy, their 
 precepts and their examples; there scores of its stout- 
 hearted friends had pushed it forward over every 
 o])stacle; there the able, fearless and earnest Appleton 
 had advocated it and had elucidated the principles of 
 Prohibition. Portland, in the language of Senator 
 Gary, when the Maine Law was pending before the 
 legislature, was the hot-bed of "temperance fanati- 
 cism ;'' tliere the very law being weighed in tlie 
 balance had been drawn, and there the enforcement 
 of that measure was in the hands of its author, who, 
 armed witli tlie authority i^ertaining to the position of 
 mayor, was under the obligation of an official oath to 
 faithfully and impartially enforce it. 
 
 As the friends of tlie law in Portland were specially 
 led to stand l)y it, so its enemies there were deter-
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 401 
 
 mined to bitterly oppose it. Every method, therefore, 
 that could be devised was resorted to by them to 
 embarrass the authorities, hinder the execution and 
 defeat the object of the law. I am confident that I 
 am justified in saying that there has never been a day 
 in Portland since that first nine months of its exist- 
 ence, when the enforcement of Prohibition would not 
 have been easier than at that time. 
 
 A battle royal was soon to be fought there at the 
 charter election to be held in April, 1852, about 
 nine months after the law had been put into opera- 
 tion. Both friends and opponents were preparing for 
 the contest in Portland when the legislature came 
 together in Augusta. On the 15th of January, 1852, 
 as mayor, I sent to the city council the following 
 communication : 
 
 " The Act for the Suppression of Drinking Houses and 
 Tippling Shops, passed at the last session of the legislature, 
 has now been liut about six months in full operation in this 
 city, and I think it proper to lay before the city council a 
 statement of its results. There has been no act of any state 
 legislature which has attracted so much of the attention of the 
 people of New England and the whole country as this be- 
 cause it is well understood that the operation of it upon the 
 various interests of the state must be in the highest degree 
 salutary, and it was the first effectual legislative measure in a 
 line of policy which there is reason to suppose will be speed- 
 ily followed by many, and eventually by all our sister states. 
 
 " For many years it has been well established that the 
 tralEc in intoxicating drinks has been the cause of a large 
 amount of poverty, pauperism, suffering and crime ; and 
 Maine has undertaken, by the enactment of this law, to free 
 herself from so much of these evils as flow from that source. 
 From the first, the prompt and energetic execution of the law 
 in this city was submitted to cheerfully and quicth^ ; the 
 wholesale dealers in spirits promptly abandoned the l)usiness, 
 which it was impossible to carry on a single day under this 
 law ; and all those retail dealers who had any self-respect 
 pursued the same course, without waiting for the execution of
 
 402 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 a statute which regards and treats the keeper of a grog-shop 
 as a criminal of the lowest grade. The few persons who con- 
 tinued to sell intoxicating liquors after the enactment of this 
 law did so secretly ; the sales were on a very limited scale, 
 and princii)ally to foreigners, and to such as could be trusted 
 not to betray the vendors to the authorities. Many persons 
 who were habitually intemperate abandoned the use of strong 
 drinks, at first from the difficulty of procuring them — and 
 afterwards they were fully sensible that they and their fami- 
 lies wore nuich better without them. I have reason to believe 
 that the law is every day becoming more firmly fixed in the 
 favorable regard of the people of this city and state, and I 
 am confident that no retrograde step will be taken here in 
 relation to this subject. 
 
 " The salutary effects of this law are more immediately seen 
 in all those de})artments of our affairs which fall under the 
 care of the police, and the returns of commitments to the 
 watch-house and house of correction will show something 
 of the difference in this department between the present 
 and past years, but these returns will not exhibit the actual 
 difference, l^ecause the police and watch during the present 
 year have been more strict than they formerly were in ar- 
 resting persons found in a state of intoxication. Our streets 
 are now so much more quiet, particularly at night, than they 
 were the last year, or any year before, that the difference can- 
 not l)e understood very clearly, except by those connected 
 with the night police and watch. 
 
 "This is attested by the city marshal, the captain of the 
 watch, and by Mr. Curtis Meserve, a bank watch-man, who 
 is in the streets every night, and in those parts of the city 
 where disturl)ances would be most likely to occur, and he 
 speaks strongly of the great improvement in this respect ; 
 street disturbances of any kind no longer occur in the city. 
 Fore street, from Union to Center street, frequently required 
 during the last year, the services of four policemen — particu- 
 larly on Saturday and Sunday nights — and they were often 
 too few, but now that locality is as quiet at all times as any 
 other part of the city, and receives no extra attendance from 
 the police. 
 
 "The number of ])ersons who continue to sell strong drinks 
 in the city is now very small, tliey are almost all foreigners, 
 and soil with gix-at secrecy and caution ; an oj)en rumshop or 
 bar of any kind is entirely unknown; a barrel, keg or other 
 vessel of liquors is not to be seen in the city at all, except at
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 403 
 
 the city agency ; the law has executed its mission with more 
 ease, certainty and dispatch, than was anticipated by its most 
 ardent friends — it lias been most triumphantly successful. 
 
 " I think it is not an exaggeration to say that the quantity 
 of intoxicating liquors now sold in this city, except by the 
 city agent, is not one-fifteenth part so great as it was seven 
 months ago, and the salutary effects of this great improve- 
 ment are apparent among the people in all parts of the city. 
 The amount of liquors consumed in the state I think is not 
 one-quarter so great as it was seven months ago, and it will 
 become less very rapidly, as the people in the country towns 
 are now enforcing the law more extensively and vigorously 
 every day ; from many towns in the state the illegal traiiic is 
 entirely banished. I have now adopted a regular system by 
 wdiich the power of the law to exclude intoxicating liquors 
 from the city except for lawful purposes is to be fully tested, 
 
 " The master of the almshouse has submitted to me the 
 following returns, which show the eflect of the law upon that 
 establishment: Admitted into the almshouse from January 
 1 to December 31, 1850, 290. Number admitted to the 
 house from January 1 to December 30, 1851, was 262 ; 
 average number through the year 1851 was 106. Number of 
 families assisted out of the house from June 1 to December 
 31, 1850, was 60 ; average number through the year 1851 was 
 96. Number of families assisted out of the house from June 
 1 to December 30, 1851, was 40. Number in the house 
 December, 1850, was 107. Number in the house December, 
 1851, was 86. Number committed to the house of correction 
 for drunkenness from June 1 to December 1, 1850 — 6 
 months — was 40. Number committed from January 1 to 
 May 31, 1851 — 5 months — was 34; from June 1, (the law 
 was approved June 2) to October 16, was 8 ; from October 
 16 to December 31, none. From June 1 to December 31, 
 — 7 months — 8. The house of correction is now empty. 
 
 "The master of the almshouse adds that he formerly had 
 great trouble from paupers out at work, or on leave, who 
 would return in a state of intoxication, which was an every- 
 day occurrence — but for months past he has not had a case 
 of this kind, and on the day of the cattle-show he let them all 
 out on leave, and all returned perfectly sober. 
 
 " The number of commitments to the jail of this county for 
 drunkenness, assault and larceny, from June 1 to December 
 31, 1850, was 192 — for the same months of 1851 the number 
 was 89, and for these months of 1851 there were 58 liquor-
 
 404 REMINISCENCES 
 
 sellers imprisoned, while in 1850 there were none. The law 
 was in operation here ]iretty well by the first of August, 1851, 
 and from tliat time to December 31st there were nine commit- 
 ments for larceny, and for the corresponding months of 1850 
 there were 16 commitments for that offense. 
 
 " The whole number of convictions before our municipal 
 court under this law for selling intoxicating liquors has been 
 101, and the amount of fines imposed for that offense is 
 $1,310; amount of fines for keeping liquors, $360; amount 
 of costs in cases of selling and keeping, $373.35; whole 
 amount of fines and costs, $2,043.35. 
 
 " The whole number of seizures of intoxicating liquors has 
 been about fifty — and the market value of the liquors seized 
 has not been far from five thousand dollars. 
 
 " There were committed to the watch-house from June 1 
 to December 31, 1850, 332 persons; in the corresponding 
 months of 1851, 152 persons; in October, November and 
 December, 1850, respectively, 43, 44 and 48 — 135 ; in 
 the same months of 1851, 21, 23 and 11 — 55. This state- 
 ment does not show the actual difference in the commitments 
 of the two periods of 1850 and 1851, because in the former 
 year the practice of the police and watch was to allow all 
 intoxicated persons who were quiet to get home if they were 
 able to accomplish it, and often such persons were aided by 
 the watch ; but during the corresponding periods of this year 
 the orders to the police and Avatch were to arrest and commit 
 to the watch-house all persons who were manifestly under the 
 influence of liquor, and the application of the same rule to the 
 corresponding period of 1850 would have doubled th^ num- 
 ber of commitments. At least nine-tenths of the persons 
 committed to the watch-house for the last six months were 
 foreigners, who obtained the means of intoxication from low 
 shoj)S or cellars, kept with great secrecy b}^ their countrymen. 
 
 •' I have notes received from Mr. Mitchell, city missionary, 
 and from Mr. Hadley, minister at large, whose duties call 
 them exclusively to visit the poorer part of our population. 
 Mr. Mitchell has been city missionary for many years, and 
 has had under his supervision from six hundred and fifty to 
 seven Imndred families, and he adds that not one-twentieth of 
 intem])erate drinking can now be found that existed when the 
 ' Maine Law ' went into eflect. Tn his constant walks about 
 the city he does not meet one intoxicated person a day ; and 
 he does not recollect more than five or six cases for the last 
 six months of complaints of wives that their husbands drink
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 405 
 
 too much ; in many inveterate cases which he knows where 
 both husband and wife drank to excess they are entirely 
 reformed through the efiect of the law, and are living happily 
 together. 
 
 "Mr. Hadley says that his intercourse is chiefly with the 
 poorest part of the population, who are out of the almshouse, 
 and especially with the intemperate. For the quarter just 
 ended, compared with the corresponding period ending 
 Deceml)er 31, 1850, the calls made upon him for assistance 
 have been less than one-seventh, and the cases where relief 
 was actually aftbrded were just one-sixth as many as they 
 were during the same months of 1850, and the amount given 
 in the three months of 1851 was $1 to $5.37^ given in the 
 corresponding period of 1850 ; these results he obtains from a 
 careful examination of his books, and attributes the diflference 
 entirely to the favorable operation of this law upon the habits 
 and domestic economy of the people. 
 
 " These statements collected from various sources, all point- 
 ing significantly in one direction, cannot fail to satisfy the 
 most casual observer that the operation of the ' Maine Law,' 
 if steadily enforced, will sweep away a large proportion of the 
 poverty, pauperism, crime and suffering Avith which we have 
 been afflicted, the result of the traffic in strong drink. I con- 
 sider the success of this law of the highest importance to the 
 interests of the city, and to the prosperity and happiness of 
 the people — and I have not hesitated to exert, for the accom- 
 plishment of that object, all the power conferred upon me by 
 the city charter and the city council. 
 
 " It seemed to me to be necessary to pursue such a course, 
 because the bill was drawn and passed under circumstances so 
 peculiar that the people of the state turned their eyes to this 
 city with common consent, to observe the manner in which it 
 should be executed here. The law is so stringent in its pro- 
 visions, and summary in its processes, that many persons 
 supposed some difficulty might be found in executing it, and 
 a firm and energetic enforcement of it in this city was neces- 
 sary to encourage other towns and cities in the state to do 
 the same thing, and to demonstrate to the people of this 
 state and of other states that such a law would he effectual 
 in extinguishing the traffic, in intoxicating liquors, which all 
 acknowledge to be an unmitigated curse in every community 
 in which it is tolerated. 
 
 "On the 12th of June the council passed the following 
 order — to wit- 
 
 27
 
 406 REMINISCENCES 
 
 'Ordered, That to give full force and effect to the Act for 
 the Suppression of Drinking Houses and Tippling Shops 
 recently enacted, and to procure the full benefits thereof to 
 the city as speedily as possible, the mayor l)e, and he 
 is herel)y authorized to draw his orders on the treasurer, from 
 time to^ time, and for such sums as he may judge necessary 
 and proper, to secure the prompt enforcement of said law.' 
 
 "If the suppression of all our grog-shops could have been 
 effected at a cost to the treasury of some thousands of dollars, 
 it would be regarded as a good financial operation ; but I 
 have made it a point in carrying on the warfare against the 
 illegal traffic in rum to compel the enemy to pay the expenses 
 of the campaign ; so far, I have succeeded in accomplish- 
 ino- this object, and I am confident that at the end of this 
 municipal year I shall he able to report to the city council that 
 this traffic is entirely extinguished, and that the city has not 
 paid a dollar of the cost." 
 
 The statements contained in that communication 
 were entitled to all the weight and confidence 
 which pertained to official declarations made under 
 the obligations and responsibilities of public positions. 
 They were never denied nor questioned. Later, on 
 the 25th of March, in an annual report to the city 
 council, after referring to the general condition of 
 the city business, I said : 
 
 "In my message to the city council at the conmiencemcnt 
 of the year, I took occasion to speak of the almshouse estab- 
 lishment as altogether inadequate to the wants of the city, 
 and as being so badly arranged as to afford imperfect 
 accommodation to its inmates, who could not be classified 
 and separated, as their comfort and proper discipline required. 
 Our citizens have for several years been justly dissatisfied 
 with that establishment; and ten or twelve years ago the 
 board of overseers were convinced of the necessity of a new 
 almshouse, and a purchase of land was made with reference to 
 it, and some preliminary steps were taken in that direction. 
 At the commencement of the year I expressed the opinion 
 that the construction of a new almshouse establishment, to 
 cost at least lifty thousand dollars, would be indis})cnsable to 
 the comfort and pi'oper acconnnodation of our numerous
 
 or NEAL DOW. 407 
 
 paupers, who were increasing upon us from year to year, if 
 the cause of pauperism, to wit : the traffic in intoxicatino; 
 drinks, should be permitted to exist among us. Since that 
 time our legislature has enacted a stringent and effective law 
 upon this subject, which in the nine months of its existence 
 has almost entirely annihilated the traffic in this city, and 
 generally throughout the state ; and the effect of this is very 
 striking already in diminishing the number of inmates in the 
 almshouse ; and the general suffering throughout the city 
 from want, although the winter was unusually severe, has 
 ])een much less than usual, and if the present course of policy 
 shall be steadily persevered in our almshouse will probably 
 afford abundant and comfortable accommodation for all its 
 inmates until the city shall be three or four times as populous 
 as it now is. At the commencement of the year the number 
 of open rumshops of all grades in full operation was supposed 
 to be from three hundred to four hundred, as estimated by 
 those who were best able to judge. Three hundred was the 
 lowest estimate. At present there is not one. The receipts 
 at each of these places per day, at the lowest figure, may be 
 reckoned to average three dollars ; this for three hundred 
 days — and Sundays were the best days for such places — 
 would give $270,000 per year. It may be thought that this 
 sum is much too large to have been expended annually by the 
 people of this city for intoxicating drinks, but it is believed 
 that the number of grog-shops, set down at three hundred, 
 and the sum received by each per day, at three dollars, is 
 within the fact. But if we consider the expenditure in this 
 way to have been only $200,000, or about $2.22 per day for 
 each of the three hundred shops, the fact will be sufficiently 
 important to arrest the attention of every man who has any 
 regard for the prosperity of the city and the welfare of the 
 citizens. 
 
 "The whole of this sum, or of whatever sum may have 
 been expended in this way, was entirely lost to the city; no 
 valuable return was obtained from it. This amount will 
 purchase forty thousand barrels of flour at five dollars each, 
 or about five barrels of flour and five cords of wood to every 
 family in the city, estimating the number of families at four 
 thousand. It is true that some persons accumulated wealth 
 by the traffic, but it was not by paying a fair equivalent, or 
 any equivalent for property so gained ; but the process was 
 simply the transferring the hard earnings of the laboring man 
 to the coflers of the dealer in spirits — while the victims of
 
 408 REMINISCENCES 
 
 their trade were sent to their desolate homes to abuse wivea 
 and children who were suffering for the common necessaries 
 of life, which might have been purchased with the money 
 squandered on strong drinks. And while this traffic con- 
 tinued the persons by whom it was sustained were growing 
 poorer and more miserable and degraded every year, and 
 worse members of society. 
 
 " A great many families in this city situated thus a year 
 since are now comfortable and happy, being entirely relieved 
 by the suppression of the grog-shops from their former 
 troubles. 
 
 "The extinguishment of the traffic in intoxicating drinks 
 will not only be the means of saving this great amount of 
 money to the poorer part of the people, but the productive 
 industry of the country will be stimulated to an extent that 
 we cannot at present foresee. All this sum which was form- 
 erly expended for strong drinks by the people of this city and 
 state will henceforth be expended for the necessaries and 
 comforts of life, with the additional amount which will accrue 
 from the more industrious habits of the people, and these in- 
 creased quantities of merchandise and products of improved 
 habits of industry will give additional revenue to all classes 
 of common carriers — the arrest of every barrel of rum which 
 is stopped in its transit to the consumer will save an amount 
 of money to the people which will be expended for many bar- 
 rels of other merchandise, or their equivalent in bulk, which in 
 their journey to the consumer will follow precisely the same 
 channels of transit which would have been taken by the 
 strong drink. Every legitimate branch of trade, of industry 
 and investment, is deeply interested in a pecuniary way in 
 the suppression of the traffic in intoxicating liquors. The 
 people may not see this now, but the results are as certain as 
 any other law of trade or of nature. 
 
 " I have received from the master of the almshouse and 
 house of correction return of commitments from June 1, 
 18/31, to ]\Iarch 2, li^52, and for the corresponding period of 
 the preceding year, as follows : 
 
 "Committed to the almshouse from June 1, 1850, to 
 March 20, 1851, 252; committed from June 1, 1851, to 
 March 20, 1H52, 14G ; numl)er in the almshouse March 20, 
 1851, 112; number in tiie almshouse March 20, 1852, 90. 
 Numl)er of families assisted out of the almshouse from June 
 1, 1850, to March 20, 1851, 135; from June 1, 1851, to 
 March 20, 1852, HO. Sevent3--five of the DO now in the alms-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 409 
 
 house came there through intemperance ; four of the 90 were 
 not brought there through that cause ; the history of the 
 remaining eleven is not known. 
 
 "Committed to the house of correction for intemperance 
 from June 1, 1850, to March 20, 1851, 4G ; for larcen}^, etc., 
 12. Committed from June 1, 1851, to March 20, 1852, for 
 intemperance, 10; for larceny, etc., 3. Committed in April, 
 1851, 9 ; committed in May, 1851, 10. 
 
 "The Maine Law was enacted June 2, 1851, and from 
 the first of that month to March 20, 1852, ten months, the 
 number committed was 10. At tlie term of the District Court 
 in this city March, 1852, but one indictment was found 
 for larceny, and that is supposed to be the result of mis- 
 take, while at the March term, 1851, there Ave re seventeen 
 indictments found. These results have been obtained, 
 notwithstanding an increased vigilance in arresting persons 
 found under the influence of strong drinks. Of the ninety 
 persons now in the almshouse, forty-nine are foreigners, and 
 forty-one natives. Not more than one-eighth of our popula- 
 tion is foreign, while the few secret grog-shops which remain 
 in the city are almost entirely among that class of people. 
 
 "There were committed to the jail for drunkenness, 
 larceny, etc., from June 1, 1850, to and including March, 
 1851, 279; for the corresponding period of 1851-52, 135; 
 deduct liquor-sellers imprisoned in the latter period, 72, and 
 we have 63 for drunkenness, larceny, etc., against 279 for the 
 corresponding period before the enactment of the liquor law. 
 
 " There Avere in jail on the 20th of March, 1851, twenty- 
 five persons — on the 20th of March, 1852, seven persons, 
 three of whom are liquor-sellers ; Avithout them the number 
 would be four against twenty-five of the corresponding day of 
 1851. 
 
 "I learn that for several years past the county commis- 
 sioners have been considering the necessity of erecting a new 
 jail to accommodate the numerous prisoners, but if the 
 present liquor law remains upon the statute-book, and is 
 vigorously enforced, the present jail will afford ample room 
 for all who will be committed to it, until our population shall 
 amount to 75,000 or 80,000. From present indications, the 
 ofiice of jail-keeper in this state will not henceforth be very 
 eagerly sought after, as its emoluments depend upon the 
 number of persons imprisoned. 
 
 " There were committed to the watch-house from June 1, 
 1850, to and including March, 1851, 431 persons. For the
 
 410 REMINISCENCES 
 
 corresponding period of 1851-52, the number was 180, not- 
 withstanding the increased vigilance of the police in the latter 
 term to arrest intemperate persons found in a state of 
 intoxication. 
 
 "The number of convictions under the liquor law in Jan- 
 uary was twenty -three, in February, two, in ]March, six. 
 The liquor-shops arc now so few and secret that it is difficult 
 to obtain proof against any. 
 
 "By order of the city council, I was authorized to draw 
 on the treasurer from time to time, for such sums as I should 
 judge necessary to secure the prompt enforcement of the 'Maine 
 Law,' so called ; but the receipts from fines under that law% 
 have been considerably greater than all the expenses incurred 
 in the prosecutions, by an amount between $500 and $600. 
 
 " I wish it were in my power to report the illegal traffic in 
 intoxicating drinks to be entirely expelled from the city ; 
 such, however, is not the fact. At the commencement of the 
 present municipal year, a great number of open rumshops 
 were in existence in all parts of the city ; temptations to the 
 young and inexperienced, as well as to those with depraved 
 appetites confirmed, were spread out at every corner ; at the 
 present time, not one such place is in existence among us; 
 the temptation to drink is entirely withdrawn, and depraved 
 appetite for intoxicating liquors can now be gratified with 
 difficulty — and only in dark and concealed places known only 
 to a few, and which are kept only by persons of the lowest 
 and most abject character. 
 
 "The efiect of the law, and of the administration of it, has 
 been, within the ten months of its existence, not only to 
 accomplish this, and very much to reduce poverty, pauperism 
 and crime, but also to render the hal)it of using strong drinks 
 disreputable amor'g all classes of society. 
 
 " The example of Maine has caused a general movement 
 throughout all the free states against the traffic in strong 
 drinks ; and if our people shall maintain their position, as I 
 think they will, I am confident our exanq)le will be followed 
 by all New Kngland, and l)y many others of our sister states, 
 within five years. 
 
 " I have written to Kev. Mr. Iladley, minister at large, and 
 to Rev. Mr. Mitchell, city missionary, requesting statements 
 of the effect of the liquor law u})on the poor under their care 
 and observation ; and I submit the reply of ^Nlr. Hadley 
 entire, as it cannot well l)e abbreviated, and I consider it very 
 imi)oiiant-, from Mr. Mitchell I have received no reply."
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 411 
 
 " Office of the Ministry at Large, ) 
 Portland, March 23, 1852. 5 
 
 Hon. Neal Doav : 
 
 Dear Sir: — I embrace the earliest opportunity to answer 
 your note of the 18th inst., in which you request me ' to 
 furnish some statements concerning the effects of the Maine 
 Liquor Law upon the poor — their sufferings, intemperance, 
 need of charity,' etc. 
 
 " I answered a similar request from Rev. T. W. Higginson, 
 of Newburyport, Mass., on the 10th of this month, and as my 
 letter to him has been published, I would refer you to that as 
 partly answering your request, I might add many facts as 
 supplementary to the letter above referred to, without repeti- 
 tion ; but for certain reasons I prefer to make some extracts 
 from my periodical reports which have been presented from 
 time to time to the trustees of this ministry, and approved by 
 them, — even at the risk of repeating much which I have 
 already uttered in the letter to Mr. Higginson. My journal 
 abounds in details of individual cases illustratino; the terrible 
 effects of mtemperance among the poor of this city, but I 
 shall not find room within the proposed limits of this com- 
 munication to transcribe any of these, but must confine myself 
 to the more general statement of facts, from which you may 
 draw your own inferences 
 
 "I often have serious misgivings about uttering the whole 
 truth concerning the effects of intemperance and the extent of 
 its fearful ravages, as I witness them, feeling that in doing so 
 I am very liable to be disbelieved by multitudes, who, 
 though intelligent on most subjects of common investigation, 
 really know less of the true condition of vast numbers of the 
 poor victims of this vice in their midst than the most distant 
 tribes of the earth. 
 
 " From my first Annual Eeport, rendered April 2, 1850, I 
 make the following extracts : 
 
 ' The great mass of squalid poverty which we witness is 
 the effect of idleness, prodigality and intemperance. This 
 last named evil is the great and terrible scour2:e wdiich atilicts 
 our conmiunity, and produces more poverty and misery than 
 all other causes combined. 
 
 ' It would take fifty pages like this to contain a compre- 
 hensive narration of my experience of the terrible ravages of 
 
 intemperance in this city Could all the sober and 
 
 benevolent persons in this city see the effects of this plague
 
 412 REMIXISCEXCES 
 
 as they really exist, there would be one general uprising and 
 concentration of effort, and no labor, self-denial or cost 
 would 1)0 deemed too great to check its progress. I leave 
 much of the darker part of my experience and observation in 
 the shade.' 
 
 (From My Quarterly Keport, October 1, 1850.) 
 ' I have made directly to the poor and in their behalf 
 about six hundred calls, and rendered assistance in some form 
 in more than one hundred instances during the last quarter, 
 besides the clothing that has been given to children. The 
 calls made upon me for assistance have been almost number- 
 less, and the demand almost without limit. I have been 
 accustomed to investigate the condition and circumstances 
 of the i)Oor under my notice as thoroughly as possible, seek- 
 ing to understand the causes of their poverty, and endeavoring 
 to lind out and apply the remedy ; and I am fully convinced 
 that intemperance is the fruitful source of almost all the evils 
 and sufferings among the poor of my charge.' 
 
 (From My Quarterly Keport, January 1, 1851.) 
 ' On secular days I have scarcely been able, during the 
 last (juarter, to take a single meal in a day without the inter- 
 ruption of calls, and occasionally have had no less than three 
 
 or four during the half hour set apart for dinner The 
 
 number of instances in which aid has been solicited, and in 
 which I have been obliged to take some definite action — by 
 way of investigation or granting some kind of immediate 
 assistance — has exceeded eight hundred, to say nothing of 
 many others which have been summarily dismissed.' 
 
 " In turning over the pages of my journal, corresponding 
 in time with this report, I find that in almost all cases of 
 pressing necessity which came before me, intemperance was 
 the inducing cause. 
 
 (From My Quarterly Report, April 1, 1851. 
 
 ' In my last quarterly report I stated that the number of 
 applications for assistance during the quarter ending January 
 1, which seemed to require some definite action, exceeded 
 eiirht hundred. During the first two months of the (juarter 
 ending to-day, i. e., January and February, they were much 
 more numerous than ever before, and no memorandum was 
 
 made of their number The ap[)licants were accustomed 
 
 to call at all liours of the day, and occasionally as late as
 
 OF KEAL DOW. 413 
 
 half-past nine at night. During these months I was seldom 
 able to take a meal without having from one to four calls from 
 the table. While the severest storms of the season were rag- 
 ing, I found six families, in each of which were infants from 
 one day to six months old, or very aged and infirm persons, 
 or both, entirely destitute of fire and fuel, and some of thom 
 
 at the same time destitute of food Their sufferings and 
 
 destitution were occasioned entirely by l^eastly intemperance. 
 
 The chief of all the destitution and wretchedness 
 
 witnessed during the quarter just ended, as well as at all 
 other times since my residence here, has been the result of 
 intemperance.' 
 
 (From My Quarterly Keport, July 2, 1851.) 
 ' For six months past I have given much attention to the 
 
 subject of temperance Previous to the passage of the 
 
 recent liquor bill, I assisted in finding out one hundred and 
 seventy places where intoxicating liquors were illegally sold 
 
 and drank Under such circumstances, nothing but the 
 
 most reckless disregard of God and man could induce any one 
 to do anything to favor this most nefarious traffic, or to 
 violate a law the most salutary and needful to human progress 
 ever enacted on earth. I should consider its repeal without 
 a substitute equally salutary and stringent, a greater calamity 
 than all the plagues of Egypt poured upon our land at once. 
 'Let this reformation go on, and our ministry will not be 
 
 labor and money thrown away Our almshouses and 
 
 jails will give place to churches, schoolhouses, libraries and 
 lecture rooms.' 
 
 "I have paid great attention to the subject of juvenile 
 vagrancy, truancy from school, etc., for more than two years 
 and a half past ; and since receiving your letter, I have 
 called on most of the teachers of the Primary, and all of those 
 of the boys' Grammar schools, who have unanimously con- 
 firmed my opinion of the vast improvement in the punctuality 
 and conduct of the more irregular i)ortion of their pupils — 
 especially, they say, loiihin the last six months. I do not 
 believe that there is now prevalent a fourth part of the 
 truancy, vagrancy, and nocturnal orgies which have so often 
 made the night hideous, which we were accustomed to witness 
 a year ago. Most of the young vagrant rowdies with whom 
 the city has heretofore been so dreadfully infested, have been 
 children of intemperate parents. 
 
 " The attendance on the evenino- school has 1)ecn twenty
 
 414 REMINISCENCES 
 
 per cent greater during the last term than on any previous 
 occasion, notwithstanding the new rigid rules as to their 
 admittance, which excluded large numbers of applicants, and 
 
 which were never adopted till the last session 
 
 " I have already given you a comparative view of the calls 
 for charity during the quarters ending respectively on the 
 first of January, 1851-52. As for the months of January 
 and February this year, compared with those of last, the dim- 
 inution of calls has been fully two-thirds, and the cases of 
 extreme w^ant have changed from great frequency and enormity 
 to none at all. I have not had as many applicants for the 
 bestowment of charity of any kind, since the first day of 
 January, as there have been secular days during the time. 
 
 I feel that this ministry may now begin to do the work 
 
 for which it was originally designed — a w'ork connected with 
 the intellectual, moral and spiritual improvement of the poor 
 — and not the mere business of alms-giving and relief of the 
 physical wants of wretched, intemperate paupers, for whom 
 we could hope nothing more than temporary physical relief, 
 while intemperance abounded as heretofore. 
 
 Very respectfully, W. H. Hadley." 
 
 Evidence no less conclusive was abundant to show, 
 what was to be expected following upon the suppres- 
 sion of the liquor-traffic, that every kind of legitimate 
 trade had been improved. Money was no longer 
 finding its way into the grog-shops, and the butcher, 
 the baker, the clothier, and all other useful trades- 
 men, found their sales larger and collections easier. 
 In short, the city had a glimpse and foretaste of those 
 inestima])le blessings to be enjoyed when the vast evils 
 resulting from the traffic in intoxicating drinks shall 
 be no more. In a few months it had been demon- 
 strated beyond all possibility of successful denial that 
 Prohibition could be enforced, and that enforced 
 Prohil^ition would prohibit. It had been as clearly 
 shown that a community living under enforced Pro- 
 hibition would not only be free from the evils 
 inseparable from the lifpior-traffic, but would succeed
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 415 
 
 to the enjoyment of many positive advantages in 
 their stead. 
 
 So many and great had been the benefits to the state 
 generally of enforced Prohibition, that the subject 
 was now attracting wide attention beyond the borders 
 of Maine. This had forced upon me a large corres- 
 pondence, covering substantially all the United States 
 and the Canadas. I was also in receipt of many 
 urgent invitations from widely scattered localities to 
 make addresses, all but a few of which my official 
 duties compelled me to decline. 
 
 Among those that I felt obliged to accept was one to 
 speak before a legislative committee of Massachusetts, 
 appointed to consider the subject of a prohibitory law. 
 This was in January, 1852. The meeting was held 
 in Representatives' Hall, which was crowded to its 
 utmost capacity. The large audience indicated the 
 popular interest in the subject, while the reception I 
 was accorded satisfied me that it was largely in 
 sympathy with the views I had to present. 
 
 On this occasion I had the great pleasure of meeting 
 one of my early preceptors in temperance. Rev. Dr. 
 Lyman Beecher, who, with Rev. John Pierpont, and 
 Rev. Father Taylor, addressed the committee along 
 the line of my effort. Subsequently, Massachusetts 
 adopted a law, taking that of Maine for a model, but 
 departed, however, in some particulars from it. A 
 year or two later some of its features were pronounced 
 unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and the law 
 was afterwards amended to conform to that decision. 
 
 Another gathering outside of Maine that I attended 
 about that time was a great banquet of- the National 
 Temperance society in New York. Among those 
 present were Hon. Samuel Houston, of Texas, who
 
 416 REMINISCENCES 
 
 was the president of the society, and Rev. T. L. 
 Cuyler, who alone survives of all that I can recall as 
 in attendance. To Dr. Cuyler and his eminent ser- 
 vices for temperance I shall have occasion to again 
 refer. Rev. John Chambers, of Philadelphia, was 
 there, as were also Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Rev. 
 Dr. E. H. Chapin, Rev. George B. Cheever, and many 
 other clergymen, none the less devoted friends of 
 temperance, though not so widely known as those I 
 have mentioned. I met on this occasion, for the first 
 time, P. T. Barnum, of Connecticut, and had an 
 opportunity to renew my acquaintance with Horace 
 Mann. 
 
 After several toasts had been offered and responses 
 made, came the following sentiment: 
 
 "The Maine Law. It infringes no man's just and lawful 
 rights ; it interrupts no proper or legitimate branch of trade ; 
 but, like laws for the destruction of the implements of gaming 
 and counterfeiting, it operates only for the public good," 
 
 I was called upon to respond. My reception by the 
 large gathering was extremely gratifying, indicating 
 as it did that representative, thoughtful men of the 
 country, whose lives were largely devoted to the wel- 
 fare of society, of whom the attendance was mostly 
 made up, had become thoroughly aroused to the 
 necessity for legislative action against the liquor- 
 traffic. When the applause had subsided, and I 
 was commencing to speak, I was surprised by an 
 interruption from General Houston, who, in the name 
 of the society, presented me with a gold medal,* 
 about three inches in diameter, with the inscription: 
 ' ' Presented to Neal Dow for Eminent Service in the 
 Temperance Cause. New York, February 18, 1852." 
 
 * This medal, after the deatli of General Dow, was, conforming 
 to his request, presented to Miss Frances E. Willard, for the W. C T. U.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 417 
 
 For these and other reasons the little city of Port- 
 land had become widely known, and the question of its 
 mayoralty for the coming year was exciting more than 
 local interest, so that it is questionable if in a city of 
 its size a municipal contest ever attracted as much 
 attention outside its limits as did that which was now 
 approaching there in the spring election of 1852. The 
 newspapers all over the country commented upon it 
 before and after the result was ascertained. 
 
 The disgruntled and discomfited old-time Whig 
 leaders, who the year before had found their occupa- 
 tion of dictating nominations gone, were determined 
 to "get even" with me, and the consternation and 
 desperation of the liquor-element furnished them an 
 abundance of material to be utilized for their purpose. 
 This was supplemented by a large and eminently 
 respectable, conservative element, to which change 
 was always disagreeable, excitement objectionable, 
 positive convictions irritating, and a decided, unequiv- 
 ocal action, even against wrong, especially obnoxious. 
 Those three elements were to be combined against my 
 re-election, and it was evident that the opposition 
 to me would be formidable. 
 
 On the other hand, those who were determined to 
 compass my defeat had much to reckon with. While 
 the rigid enforcement of the Maine Law had annihi- 
 lated the liquor-traffic, it had also inured in other 
 particulars, as has been shown, to the benefit of the 
 town. Meanwhile, no other interest had been neg- 
 lected. Ordinary municipal affairs had been closely 
 looked after, and the city finances were admittedly in 
 better condition than when I assumed office. In the 
 meantime several public improvements of great value 
 and importance to the future of Portland Jiad been
 
 418 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 inaugurated. In none of these particulars was there 
 any opportunity for criticism. It had been clearly 
 shown that there was nothing inconsistent between a 
 vigorous enforcement of the prohibitory law and 
 careful attention to all the ordinary municipal busi- 
 ness. It had been further demonstrated that the 
 suppression of the liquor-traffic was an important 
 contribution to the general prosperity of the com- 
 munity. It was clear that those who proposed to 
 defeat an administration of which so much that was 
 favorable could be said had no ordinary task upon 
 their hands, and if my re-election was to be prevented 
 the opposition must throw more votes than it had 
 ever cast in Portland. 
 
 The details of the contest now opened would not be 
 worth space here had the struggle been one simply 
 involving purely local issues, however important. In 
 name, to be sure, it was a municipal election in one 
 of the smaller cities of the country. To such, 
 ordinarily, attention is not attracted outside the 
 boundaries including the residences of those who 
 have a right to participate in it; but this, as has been 
 stated, was watched with great interest by a large 
 portion of the country, which had come to look upon 
 everything pertaining to the Maine Law as important. 
 
 By the uniform usage of my party, I was entitled to 
 a renomination as in all matters relating to general 
 municipal affairs my administration had not been 
 subjected to a breath of suspicion. But in this case a 
 matter vastly greater than usage controlled, and my 
 candidacy for re-election could not be prevented. 
 It would have been inevitable had I desired retire- 
 ment myself, unless the earnest friends of Prohibition 
 had determined to abandon the principle for which
 
 OF NEAL DOAV. 419 
 
 they had been so long laboring just as it had been 
 secured and successfully applied. 
 
 My name was now, abroad as well as at home, insep- 
 arably connected with a policy which was already 
 proving of great value to the city. The measure which 
 I had applied so successfully there had now won al- 
 most world-wide celebrity, and had given the state of 
 Maine and the city of Portland a fame that neither 
 had enjoyed before. There could be no shrinking 
 now from the struggle unless all was to be given up, 
 and no one thought of that. 
 
 The Whig caucuses were called in the usual way, 
 and delegates favorable to my nomination were chosen 
 without a lisp of opposition in any ward. Among 
 them was William Pitt Fessenden, soon to be chosen a 
 United States senator as a result of the revolution of 
 which signs were already to be seen in the political 
 horizon of the state, and in which the Maine Law and 
 its friends were to play so important a part. The nom- 
 inating delegates assembled in convention, and, going 
 through the usual form, unanimously voted to sub- 
 mit my name to the mass-meeting. There, where my 
 friend the collector of the port had been so active in 
 opposition to me the year before, not a sign of antago- 
 nism was manifested, and the action of the delegates 
 was ratified with an enthusiasm rarely witnessed in 
 such gatherings. It was evident that my support was 
 to be large and cordial. 
 
 The Democrats had before this nominated the ven- 
 erable Albion K. Parris to lead the opposition. To 
 be confronted by such an antagonist was in itself 
 no slight evidence of the conviction in the minds of 
 my opponents that the Maine Law had won a strong 
 hold upon the confidence of the people, and that the
 
 420 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 candidate whom force of circumstances had made its 
 special representative could be defeated by no ordinary 
 competitor. 
 
 Unquestionably, Judge Parris was the strongest 
 candidate that could have been selected by those 
 opposed to my re-election. His had been a remark- 
 able political career. Having served in both branches 
 of the Massachusetts legislature before the separation 
 of Maine from the mother state, he was afterwards 
 elected to two Congresses; thence he was transferred 
 to the bench of the United States District Court. He 
 was a member of the Constitutional Convention of the 
 state, had been a justice of its Supreme Court, had 
 represented Maine in the United States Senate, and 
 had been five times elected governor, in the last three 
 cases by practically unanimous votes. Of unsullied 
 reputation in public and private life, kind, courteous 
 and considerate in his intercourse with all, his vener- 
 able years alike lifted him above the jealousies of 
 factions in his own party and dissipated all fear 
 among Whigs that his election would prove detri- 
 mental to their politics. It was also probably true 
 that the Democrats of Portland could have selected no 
 man who could better hold to their party allegiance 
 any disposed to vote for me because of their approval 
 of the Maine Law, or who could induce more Whigs 
 disapproving of that measure to vote against their 
 party candidate, than the highly eminent citizen 
 wlio, much against his own personal wishes, was now 
 besought, in return for all the honors his party had 
 bestowed upon him, to lend the great influence of 
 his prestige to help defeat the Whig candidate for 
 mayor. 
 
 I have referred to the nominations respectively as
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 421 
 
 Whig and Democratic. Such in name they were, but 
 party ties were to be melted in the heat of the 
 strife, and "liberal" Whigs were to out-democrat 
 Democrats in their support of the Democratic candi- 
 date, while "temperance" Democrats were to out- 
 whig Whigs in their devotion to the Whig nominee. 
 
 As the approaching election was the first of marked 
 consequence in the state since the enactment of the 
 Maine Law, it was deemed of importance by both 
 friends and foes of that measure throughout the 
 country. The newspaper files of the day disclose that 
 it was widely believed outside the state that the fate 
 of Prohibition was involved in its issue. In Portland, 
 however, while it was undoubtedly true that hostility 
 to the law furnished the animus to a most intense 
 opposition to my re-election, and was able to obtain 
 great assistance from the liQuor-interest of Boston 
 and New York, so far as the avowed objects of my 
 opponents disclosed, the law was not at all at stake. 
 
 In Portland the issue of record was not a contest 
 over the law, but between those who approved the 
 rigid and impartial execution it had had under my 
 administration, and those claiming to favor what 
 they called a "wise," "discreet," "reasonable" en- 
 forcement of its provisions. 
 
 The following quotation from the Democratic daily 
 of the time, which supported Governor Parris, shows 
 that in the opinion of those in charge of his canvass. 
 Prohibition per se had so won its way into the confi- 
 dence of the people that my defeat' could be better 
 secured by avowing devotion to the law than by an- 
 tagonizing it: 
 
 *' False issues ! The opposition have undertaken to place 
 the Democratic ticket as adverse to the liquor law. That is
 
 422 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 not the issue, fellow citizens. Hundreds of staunch friends 
 of that law will vote for Albion K. Parris. Their ol)jection 
 is to what tliev deem the unwarrantal)le mode of executing it. 
 They wish to see it faithfully and effectively maintained, ])ut 
 not so as to infringe upon the legal rights of others. The 
 election of Mr. Parris is not to be considered a test of the 
 pu1)lic sentiment of Portland on the ({uestion, so that temper- 
 ance men can safely cast their votes for that gentleman." 
 
 Prol)ably no action of the authorities in the course 
 of the execution of the law had aroused so much 
 opposition as the seizure at raih'oad stations and 
 steamboat wharves, of liquors marked and often in- 
 tended for country towns. The effectiveness of the 
 method of thus seizing comparatively large quantities 
 before they could be distributed and concealed in a 
 hundred different localities had something to do with 
 the criticism of that method. But more potent, 
 because more respectable, were the complaints about 
 it growing out of the idea that it interfered in 
 some mysterious way with the business of the city. 
 "Why trouble these liquors?" was asked by some 
 merchants. "They are not to be sold here. They 
 will do no damage. Let them come and go. They 
 will i)ay much freight to railroads and steamboats, 
 storage at our warehouses and wharfage at our 
 wharves. To seize such will certainly interfere with 
 the trade and commerce of Portland.'' The reply of 
 the authorities was uniform. " It is our duty to seize 
 such liquors. They are made contraband by the law. 
 That in itself is a sufficient justification without con- 
 sidering the general question of its effect upon the 
 prosperity of the city; but as to that it is easily to be 
 demonstrated that the growth and progress of the 
 city of Portland can never be enhanced by anything 
 which tends, as does the trade in intoxicants, to im-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 423 
 
 poverisli lier own citizens and tlioae of the country 
 towns, upon whom her trade must always depend." 
 
 Nevertheless, some of these gentlemen would not be 
 convinced that it was wise or well to seize liquors at 
 the wharves and depots, and they were insistent that 
 "the interests of the city as a commercial port and 
 the central depot of the state should not be permitted 
 to suffer by an "injudicious" administration of the 
 law." 
 
 As has been intimated, party lines were generally 
 ignored during the campaign, and by the morning of 
 election day they were completely broken down. The 
 disaffected Whigs arranged with the Democrats in 
 the strong Whig wards to run Whigs instead of 
 Democrats on their local ward tickets, thus making- 
 it easier for Whigs to vote against me, while in the 
 Democratic strongholds Whig nominees on the Dow 
 ticket yielded to Democrats favorable to my election. 
 It thus became a straight "Dow" and "anti-Dow" 
 fight, those being the slogans with which the voters 
 were rallied to the polls. 
 
 A thousand shafts were aimed at me personally, 
 by some professing to favor Prohibition, and dur- 
 ing the day while the balloting was in progress, a 
 stranger, with no other information than such as he 
 could gather from the conversation about the polls 
 would have found it difficult to decide which were the 
 better friends of the Maine Law, the "Dowites" or 
 the "Antis." He might have been assisted by some 
 other signs but these it is not necessary to mention. 
 
 The interest was intense throughout the city. 
 Nothing like it before or since has occurred within 
 my knowledge. A severe snowstorm prevailed, but 
 in spite of this the vicinage of each polling place was
 
 424 REMINISCENCES 
 
 tlironged with earnest and enthusiastic workers on 
 each side. During the last hour belated voters were 
 obliged to work their way to the ballot boxes by a 
 narrow path through the crowd, and each voter was 
 cheered by that side with which he decided to cast his 
 vote. There was no other disturbance; there were no 
 runishops open, no man lost his temper or his head, 
 and everything was as good natured as such a crowd, 
 in such a storm and in such excitement could be. 
 
 Tlie vote of the city was a third larger than had 
 ever been polled before. My vote the year before, it 
 may be remembered, was larger than any candidate 
 for mayor of Portland had to that time received. 
 This year it was increased over that at my previous 
 election in larger proportion than the growth in popu- 
 lation, and was considerably in excess of that of the 
 rest of the Whig ticket in several wards. This, in 
 view of the great personal popularity of my competi- 
 tor, might be regarded as a popular vindication of my 
 administration and an endorsement, of a vigorous and 
 impartial execution of the law. Under ordinary cir- 
 cumstances, in a normal — shall I say honest ? — vote, 
 it would have re-elected me. But I was defeated. 
 The feeling following upon my defeat might well 
 be passed unnoticed had the election been deemed by 
 our citizens as a mere contest between rival aspirants 
 for position, or only the expression of a locality as to a 
 chief magistrate. But it was much more than that. 
 
 To me, personally, it is to be understood, defeat 
 was nothing, unless, indeed, it was of great advantage. 
 I had been accustomed to such reverses, and had 
 little to learn in such a school. Had there otherwise 
 been ground for merely personal disappointment, it 
 would have been dissipated by the merging of my
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 425 
 
 individuality in what I had come to represent. Here, 
 too, there were some compensations and encourage- 
 ments. An aged clergyman, the Rev. Cyrus Cressey, 
 had walked that day in all the storm, ten miles from 
 Gorham, being unable to procure conveyance, in 
 order to vote for me — or rather, for that for which 
 my name stood. That evening, in the regular week- 
 ly prayer-meetings of the various churches, reference 
 was made in many prayers to the result. 
 
 Such evidences of the deep interest of many Chris- 
 tian people in that which I had been called upon 
 to serve as best I might was of great encouragement 
 to me. When a cause is worth praying for it is worth 
 working for, and surely, conscientious, thoughtful, 
 courageous Christians must feel called upon to work 
 for that upon which they invoke the divine blessing. 
 
 It must not be understood that all the good people 
 of Portland voted for me on that day. Far from it. 
 Had such been the case, the result would have been 
 otherwise; but I heard of none of them who, after 
 the votes had been counted, felt it a duty, either in 
 public or private, to thank God in prayer for the 
 result, as I did know of those who prayed most 
 earnestly that it might be overruled for good. Under 
 such circumstances who could be discouraged ? 
 Others may have been; I was not. 
 
 The abnormally large Democratic vote excited much 
 comment. It was almost double that given to my 
 competitor the previous year, and there were many 
 allegations of fraud. It was publicly alleged, and so 
 far as I know never denied, that many naturalization 
 papers were procured in Boston through the agency 
 of the liquor-interest there, and were put into the 
 hands of aliens who were hired to swear to their
 
 426 REMINISCENCES 
 
 identity with tlie persons in whose names those papers 
 had been issued. In those days that was sufficient to 
 get a name on the voting list up to tlie fast minute 
 before the ciosing of the polfs. It was said that 
 hundreds of votes were secured in tiiat way. 
 
 No legai investigation was had, however, and no 
 attemi)t was made to justify those charges at any 
 competent tribunai. Certain it is tiiat if there was 
 fraud neither Governor Parris nor any of the respect- 
 abie persons who supported him were concerned in it. 
 But the term respectabie cannot be properiy appiied to 
 those whose soie animus for opposition to me was 
 their desire to engage once more in the iiquor- 
 traffic in Portiand. 
 
 So many years have passed since my defeat that 
 no personai feefing, either of disappointment, resent- 
 ment or regret, if any ever existed in connection with 
 that matter, remains, but I quote from a fetter pub- 
 fished some time after over the signature of Wiffiam 
 W. Thomas, who justfy enjoys to this day the reputa- 
 tion of being of an exceptionaffy cafm, dispassionate 
 temi)erament, as showing his view of tfie situation, 
 f^nown to fiim as afderman. He wrote: 
 
 '* Well, you may not understand why Neal Dow was not 
 re-elected, and it will take some time to make you acquainted 
 with all the kinds of opposition 1)rou<rlit against him. One 
 thing, however, you wdll keep in mind at the outset — Mr. 
 Dow had a majority of the legal votes. jNfany people were 
 brougiit uj) to the polls who had no right to vote, hut they 
 swore that they w^ere so and so. Some of them were rejected 
 at the polls. There were hundreds of naturalization tickets 
 brought from Boston and handed to parties who came up and 
 swore in on those tickets, and thus the list was raised. It 
 was understood that these tickets were borrowed for the 
 occasion in fioston, and given to people \\li() had no kind of 
 title to vote in Portland."
 
 Hon. W.m. W. Thomas.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 427 
 
 Whether or not Mr. Thomas was correct in his ex- 
 pressions, shortly afterwards the law bearing upon 
 the voting lists was so changed as to make it less easy 
 to do what he believed was done at that election. 
 
 Among the incidents following my defeat, none 
 touched me more deeply than the calls upon me of 
 poor women, the wives of men who before the enact- 
 ment of the Maine Law had been intemperate. They 
 came with tears in their eyes to ask me if the rum- 
 shops were to be opened once more and they to be 
 again exposed to the suffering they had endured 
 before they were closed. I was happy to be able to 
 assure them that I believed the new mayor would not 
 willingly assent to that. 
 
 My duty, as I have understood it, has often called 
 me into paths where I have known that numbers of the 
 influential in the community could not see their way 
 to lend any aid or encouragement. But many of 
 those less favored in life have often come to express 
 their sympathy in their plain humble way, urged to it 
 as were those poor women, by their appreciation of 
 advantages they had experienced in their own lives 
 from Just such service as the earnest friends of temper- 
 ance were trying to render. 
 
 Portland, however, was only one part in the line 
 along which the battle was fought that spring. We 
 have seen that there, there was no open and avowed 
 opposition to the law itself, but rather to the way 
 the authorities had executed it. The issue was more 
 clearly defined in many other places. In no less than 
 one hundred and sixty-three cities and towns in the 
 state, the question of the enforcement of the law was 
 the controlling issue. In seven of these, including 
 Portland, those most identified with Prohibition were
 
 428 EEMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 
 
 defeated by candidates professing to favor it; in 
 thirty-three towns the friends of the new law^ were 
 defeated by its avowed opponents, while in one 
 hundred and twenty-three cities and towns its pro- 
 nounced supporters were successful. _ Altogether, 
 therefore, the municipal elections in the spring of 
 1852 indicated a strong popular sentiment favorable 
 to Prohil^ition, promising permanency to the new 
 policy and relief to the state from the incubus of 
 the traffic under which it had so long labored.
 
 CHAPTER XVir. 
 
 DEMANDS UPON MY TIME OUTSIDE OF MAINE. EFFORTS 
 
 TO SUSTAIN GOVERNOR HUBBARD AND THE MAINE 
 LAW IN THE STATE ELECTION OF 1852. 
 PROHIBITION A DISTURBING ELE- 
 MENT IN THE POLITICS 
 OF MAINE. 
 
 Conscions that, as mayor, in the administration of 
 the new law as in every other particular. I had only 
 discharged what I believed to be my duty, I accepted 
 my retirement from office with the satisfaction of 
 knowing that I had preserved my self-respect. This 
 was of infinitely more worth to me than to have 
 retained the office at the price demanded for it, even 
 had I wished so to do on personal grounds, however 
 strong. 
 
 The outgoing city government, at its meeting sub- 
 sequent to my defeat, supplementing the ordinary 
 resolutions of thanks to a retiring mayor, unani- 
 mously adopted the following: 
 
 "Resolved, that for the noble stand he (Mayor Dow) has 
 taken in temperance reformation, and for the unremitting 
 assiduity with which he has attended to the irksome and 
 wearying duties connected with the enforcement of the tem- 
 perance law, he merits the gratitude not only of the citizens 
 of Portland, but of the whole state."
 
 430 EEMINISCEXCES 
 
 That resolution was all the more gratifying to me 
 personally, as it was most significant, coming as it 
 did immediately after my defeat. Aside from its 
 com|)limentary phrases, it indicated that the men who 
 had borne with me the heat of the contest developed 
 in the first application of Prohibition, had not lost 
 heart and were not demoralized by the apparent 
 popular condemnation of our course. 
 
 Following the time-honored custom at the installa- 
 tion of the new city government, I introduced the 
 mayor-elect to those who were to be his associates in 
 the administration of city affairs, thus terminating 
 my official duties. Mayor Parris, in a brief inaugu- 
 ral, announced an intention to "enforce the law," 
 and expressed the hope that at the end of his term it 
 would be found that the morals of the city had not 
 suffered through any omission of his. It is only 
 proper to add that during his administration the law 
 was so well enforced that there was little, if any, 
 ground for complaint among its ardent friends. 
 
 At first it was evident that some dealers expected 
 more leniency under the new mayor than during the 
 preceding year, but they soon learned that they could 
 only conduct their trade surreptitiously. Mayor 
 Parris did not have the same hearty support from 
 his associates in the city government as did his prede- 
 cessor, which may account for whatever of comfort 
 the secret dealers in the contraband article may 
 have enjoyed under his administration more than 
 under mine. There was less seizing of liquors in 
 transitu, and not so sharj) a lookout for the attic, 
 back-alley, and l)edr(jom groggeries under Mayor 
 Parris. That was about all the difference; yet 
 uii(|uestionably tlic distinct li(iuor-intere8t felt that
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 431 
 
 it liad made a great point in the change, and had 
 the contest the next year been between the same 
 candidates they would have supported him as cor- 
 dially as when he was elected, not so much for love of 
 him, perhaps, as for hatred of me. 
 
 It was soon evident that, whatever its effect locally, 
 my defeat was to afford the opportunity to widen and 
 vivify the interest in Prohibition. My first thought 
 was that the relief from the duties of the mayoralty 
 would allow me to give attention to my private busi- 
 ness interests. But in this I was disappointed. 
 Demands upon my time from out of the state multi- 
 plied as it became known that the reasons upon 
 which I had based my refusal to respond during the 
 previous year no longer existed, and now I felt 
 compelled to accept invitations to attend meetings in 
 various states. These engagements consumed three 
 months immediately after my defeat, and covered 
 several appointments in each of the states of Massa- 
 chusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and 
 Michigan, with here and there a meeting in some 
 other state. 
 
 During this tour I spoke in Faneuil Hall, for the 
 first time. I had attended other meetings there, and 
 never without somewhat of the feeling which the 
 history and associations of that famous auditorium 
 were calculated to inspire; but I had never been on 
 its platform before, and I confess to an unwonted 
 hesitation about speaking in the grand old place. 
 But all this vanished in the presence of a gang of 
 roughs, who prevented me with their noise from 
 being heard for more than half an hour. It was 
 said at the time that they had been paid by an agent 
 representing some grog-shops to break up the meeting.
 
 432 REMINISCENCES 
 
 Finally a sufficient police force was obtained to eject 
 tlie rowdies, and there was no further disturbance. 
 
 I recall an incident showing that the Maine Law 
 was at that time a subject of much thought and 
 conversation among men whose sympathies or whose 
 duties led them to consider social conditions and 
 the relation between the liquor -traffic and many of 
 the miseries which society suffered. On a steamer 
 between Buffalo and Detroit, I met a gentleman from 
 Toronto, Canada. Our conversation covered a vari- 
 ety of topics, but as it happened, neither of us 
 disclosed to the other his name. I learned from him 
 that he was a magistrate in Toronto, having to deal 
 with criminals brought before his court. He referred 
 to the Maine Law as a matter in which he was much 
 interested, and, finding that I was somewhat informed 
 upon the subject, asked me if I Avas acquainted with 
 Neal Dow. I could not say no, and hesitated until I 
 thought it too late to disclose my identity. Refer- 
 ring to the incident, I wrote in my daily letter to my 
 wife: 
 
 " He pressed me for information about ]Mr. Dow, and the 
 working of the Maine Law. Of course I praised the one, the 
 law, and let the other (N. D.) off easily without exposing 
 many of his faults, about which his enemies talk so much. 
 He did not suspect who I was, and said that he would take 
 the first opportunity he had to visit Portland, examine into 
 the subject of tlie Maine Law at the ])lace of its nativity, and 
 make the personal ac<iuaintance of its author." 
 
 Reaching home in the latter part of July, I was, for 
 most of the time up to the September election, active- 
 ly engaged on the stump and otherwise in support of 
 Governor Huljbard. By reason of a change in the 
 Constitution, there was no state election in 1851. 
 Before the people of Maine, therefore, had an oppor-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 483 
 
 tunity to pass upon Prohibition at tlie polls more tlian 
 a year had elapsed since its enactment. But for the 
 constitutional change referred to, the law would have 
 been an issue in a state election only three months 
 after its approval by the governor, and before its 
 benefits could have been apparent. It had been, how- 
 ever, as we have seen, practically involved in the 
 town elections in the spring of 1852, with results 
 generally favorable to it. 
 
 Now the Maine Law became the controlling issue in 
 the state election, and the question, first, of the 
 renomination of Governor Hubbard, and, second, of 
 his re-election, became the political storm-center of 
 the struggle. The Governor was popular, and in more 
 than one contest had been elected as a Democrat in a 
 strong Whig district. Though at first supposed, as 
 an individual, to be opposed to Prohibition, his name 
 had, through his approval of the Maine Law, become 
 identified with it, and attacks upon him because of 
 that action naturally led him to throw his influence in 
 its behalf into the contest which was soon to follow. 
 
 The Democratic party of Maine at that time was 
 divided into two factions, as is apt to be the case with 
 a party flushed with long success at the polls. The 
 issue between the factions was largely a question of 
 offices, kept as much out of sight as possible under 
 cover of whatever question of state or national policy 
 would serve for the purpose. As Governor Hubbard 
 was supposed to sympathize with one of these fac- 
 tions, the other was prompt to seize upon the fact of 
 his approval of the Maine Law to help its own 
 fortunes and, incidentally, to punish him. 
 
 It had been customary in the Democratic party, in 
 order to save the cost of a state convention, travel
 
 434 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 being then expensive in time and money, to make 
 its renominations of candidates for governor in 
 caucuses of tlie Democratic members of the legislature. 
 The opposition to the renomination of Governor 
 Hubbard was earnest, active, and influential. It con- 
 fined itself, however, to demanding a convention and 
 opposing the legislative-caucus system as undem- 
 ocratic. But the cooler heads of the party of both 
 factions, dreading the row sure to be precipitated 
 in a mass convention, finally determined that the 
 established usage should prevail, and that the renom- 
 ination, as customary, should be made by a legislative 
 caucus. Governor Hub1:)ard was accordingly again 
 put in nomination in the early spring of 1852 by the 
 Democratic members of the same legislature that had 
 passed the bill for signing which the malcontents 
 were proposing to punish him. These latter now 
 turned their attention to the polls, with the intent, of 
 administering discipline there. 
 
 The renomination of Governor Hubbard was fol- 
 lowed by a formidable bolt. The anti-prohibition 
 element of the Democratic party nominated Anson G. 
 Chandler, upon an avowed anti-Maine Law platform. 
 This movement drew to its support a small ' ' Liberal- 
 Whig" element which resented the action of the 
 majority of the Whigs in the legislature that voted 
 for the Maine Law, and which was restive under the 
 evident tendency of that party to support the new 
 policy. 
 
 This new combination called itself the "Liberal" 
 party. As far as my knowledge extended, its com- 
 mittees in the various counties were made up of men 
 who had been formerly, directly or indirectly, inter- 
 ested in the liquor-traflic, such as ex-distillers, former
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 435 
 
 wholesale-dealers, and tavern-keepers. They were 
 provided with all the money needed to conduct a 
 vigorous campaign, obtained, it was said, from the 
 liquor-interest in Boston, and New York, which had 
 lost so much business in Maine through Prohibition. 
 They established a paper in Portland and entered the 
 canvass against Governor Hubbard with an energy 
 and determination worthy a better cause. The term 
 " liberal " adopted by those gentlemen has been to 
 this day in Maine the political sobriquet of those who 
 in either political party avow their opposition to 
 Prohibition or to its enforcement. 
 
 Deeming the re-election of Governor Hubbard as 
 desirable in the extreme, I immediately addressed 
 myself to the task of making good, as far as possible, 
 the defection in his own party, from which it was now 
 evident he was sure to suffer as a candidate. Not 
 exactly an exemplary Whig, my standing as such, 
 nevertheless, enabled me to address Whigs effectively 
 along the line I had chosen as the practical one for 
 the occasion, viz: to induce as many of them as 
 possible to forsake the gubernatorial candidate of 
 their own party on this particular occasion, and to 
 support that of their old-time antagonists. I tried to 
 convince them that, when a portion of a party was 
 engaged in striking down a governor of its own selec- 
 tion for doing his duty, it was becoming in good 
 citizens, of whatever party, to rally to his support. 
 I also endeavored to show that the question of the 
 prohibition of the liquor-traffic was a subject of more 
 vital import to Maine than any of the other issues 
 about which political parties were contending. The 
 large vote for Governor Hubbard proved that some of 
 us rendered effective service.
 
 436 REMINISCENCES 
 
 It was a presidential year, and tliis, doubtless, had 
 some influence on the result. It held some Democrats 
 to the support of their party candidate who otherwise 
 might have voted against him, and on the other hand, 
 prevented thousands of Maine-Law Whigs from doing 
 what they certainly would have done in an " off-year." 
 Then, as now, the vote of Maine in September was 
 supposed to exert an influence on the national result 
 in the following November. In 1840, when Maine 
 had broken from her Democratic moorings to lead in 
 that political revolution which resulted in the elec- 
 tion of the elder Harrison, it was believed that her 
 example had been potential. Regular party men, 
 Democrats and Whigs, and even the followers of the 
 forlorn hope to which some of us clung as Free-Soilers, 
 had come to look upon any action likely to unfavor- 
 ably affect their respective parties in a national 
 campaign as the unpardonable political sin. 
 
 The old party leaders sounded as usual the familiar 
 calls to battle, and the support of regular nominees 
 was urged by them and by most of the recognized 
 political organs as earnestly as ever in the past, but it 
 was evident that popular attention was engrossed by 
 another than the old distinctively political issues, and 
 that the shibboleth of party had lost its power. The 
 leaders, as a rule, adhered to the "old party flag," but 
 the rank and file did not respond as promptly as in 
 the past to their slogan, and the most astute 'and 
 experienced of politicians saw that they could only 
 wait for the result, without caring to predict it. 
 Neither the natural devotion of the voters to party, 
 nor the most pronounced threat of the application of 
 the pains and penalties in such cases provided by 
 party discipline, was sufficient to prevent the clevel-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 437 
 
 opment of the most formidable political defection in 
 the history of the state, whicli ruthlessly trampled 
 under foot the lines dividing parties as the voters 
 ranged themselves with reference to the new issue. 
 
 Nevertheless, the more active friends of Prohibi- 
 tion made every reasonable effort to avoid taking the 
 initiative in any of the political complications which 
 were now developing. Many Democrats, Whigs, and 
 Free-Soilers, who were earnestly devoted to their 
 respective parties, had thus far co-operated heartily 
 for that policy, and it was deemed essential for its 
 success to so act in the exigency now forced upon its 
 friends as not to arouse among them antagonism to 
 Prohibition by any action that could be consistently 
 avoided. Accordingly committees appointed at tem- 
 perance conventions addressed communications alike 
 to the Democratic, Whig and Free-Soil candidates for 
 .governor, and to candidates for the legislature as well, 
 asking an avowal of their views upon the Maine Law. 
 The replies to these inquiries committed each of the 
 "regular" candidates for governor to the essential 
 features of that legislation. Nothing upon that point 
 was asked or expected of Mr. Chandler, the ' 'Liberal " 
 candidate, as he was running upon an avowedly anti- 
 Maine Law platform. 
 
 Early in the campaign, however, the more positive 
 Prohibitionists, whether Whig or Free-Soil, in their 
 political affiliations, came to see the propriety of sup- 
 porting the regular Democratic candidate. Governor 
 Hubbard. The candidates of their respective parties 
 had given replies to inquiries entirely satisfactory to 
 the temperance element, yet, as the punishment of the 
 Governor was the objective point of the ' ' Liberal " 
 movement, for his approval of the law, support of him
 
 438 REMINISCENCES 
 
 on the part of temperance men seemed to be indicated 
 
 by ordinary considerations of gratitude. Then, too, 
 
 his manly and unequivocal reply to the questions 
 
 addressed to him by the temperance committee had 
 
 special weight with the more earnest Prohibitionists 
 
 of all parties. He said: 
 
 "The ]\Iaine Law is the law of the people, deliberately 
 matured by them through a series of years and enacted by 
 the only organ authorized l)y the constitution and the spirit 
 of our orovernment to transform the wishes of our people into 
 law — tlie senate and house of representatives assembled — by 
 an overwhelming majority. It is a constitutional law. I am 
 prepared to enforce it for the suppression of drinking-houses 
 and tippling-shops, and I am therefore opposed to any 
 amendments which would impair its efficiency, while I am 
 nevertheless of the opinion that it is susceptil)le of amend- 
 ment that would not only not impair its efficiency, but which 
 would render it easier of execution and more efficient." 
 
 There could be, he further said, no doubt that the 
 people, through their representatives, had the right to 
 enact a law to abate or suppress so monstrous a 
 scourge as intemperance, and there could be as little 
 doubt that the law in (luestion was within the limit of 
 their constitutional power. That this law had on the 
 whole done good, could not, he thought, be denied 
 by any candid, observing person. 
 
 The i)olitical leaders, of course, were not disposed 
 to abandon the field without a struggle, and most 
 strenuous exertions were made to reconstruct the 
 broken party lines and to i^reserve the old organiza- 
 tions intact. It was pressed ui)on the Whigs that the 
 opI)ortunity of that party in Maine had come; that 
 the Democratic organization was now torn asunder; 
 that the Whigs, if faithful and steadfast, could now 
 erect the temple of their own domination over the 
 ruins of that of lln-ir old antagonist. They had
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 439 
 
 not then rightly read the signs of the times and were 
 not anticipating the Waterloo which was to over- 
 whelm their party, nationally, in the coming Novem- 
 ber. Prior to the nomination of the Whig candidate, 
 a Whig paper had said : 
 
 "At present, Whig temperance men, so long as in all 
 probability they will have a better temperance man than 
 Governor Hubbard presented for their suffrages, will decline 
 the invitation to stultify themselves by voting for the latter." 
 
 In every possible way the Whig leaders endeavored 
 to prevent temperance Whigs from abandoning the 
 regnlar Whig nominee to support Governor Hubbard; 
 Some of them even thought it worth while to 
 picture to me the great advantage I would find, both 
 personally, and with reference to the cause, by help- 
 ing the Whigs to profit by the division of their polit- 
 ical opponents. Whenever they could secure them, 
 temperance men of Whig proclivities, justly having the 
 confidence of Maine-Law men, were brought to the 
 front in conventions, in the newspapers, and on the 
 stump to proclaim their intention to support the Whig 
 candidate, and to advise all other temperance Whigs 
 in the name of their party to do the same. Noah 
 Smith, Jr. , of Calais, who possessed the regard of the 
 temperance men of the state to a high degree, said in 
 the Whig nominating convention that as a " ramrod 
 temperance man I shall support the nominee of this 
 convention, William G. Crosby." One Whig paper 
 said: 
 
 "The election of Governor Hul^bard, should such a thing 
 happen, will be claimed, and rightfully and justly too, as a 
 political victory in which temperance has no substantial part. 
 
 And therefore, no temperance editor should undertake 
 
 to enforce upon temperance Whigs the propriety of voting 
 for him."
 
 440 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 This Tvas in reply to an editorial in the leading- 
 AVhig paper in Kennebec county, Governor Hub- 
 bard's home, urging temperance Whigs to support 
 the Governor's re-election. In addition to all this, 
 the legislative nominees upon the Whig ticket were 
 generally friendly to the Maine Law. 
 
 Democratic leaders were none the less alarmed. 
 The contending factions in their party were sure to 
 get out every Democratic vote for one or the other of 
 the two Democratic candidates, both of w^honi stood 
 sciuarely upon the Democratic national platform. 
 The combined votes for these two candidates, after 
 the election, could be heralded throughout the 
 country as indicative of public sentiment in Maine 
 upon national questions. Nevertheless, the wise 
 heads among the Democratic leaders, foreseeing the 
 disastrous results of division upon this side issue, 
 entreated their followers to support the regular nomi- 
 nation. Said one of their papers, referring to the 
 possible defeat of Governor Hubbard by the bolt 
 against him: 
 
 " No sul)soqaent exertion or triumph could atone for the 
 folly or repair the mischief occasioned l)y the disaster." 
 
 The subsequent story of the Democratic party in 
 Maine proves the wisdom of that prediction. 
 
 Since 1840, Maine had not witnessed such a struggle 
 as was now about to poll the largest vote that had 
 been cast in the state. Never in the history of Maine 
 did considerations of a mere party character have so 
 slight an effect upon the masses of the voters. The 
 leading Whig paper said the morning after election: 
 
 "The Maine-Law ((uestion has caused such a deranirement 
 of parties as to mai<e it ditlicult to draAV any conclusion what- 
 ever from Uh; votes as to national jjolitics."
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 441 
 
 The Democratic party was hopelessly divi<led. 
 More than half its normal vote had been diverted 
 to a bolting candidate, running expressly to repu- 
 diate what a Democratic legislature had passed and 
 a Democratic governor had approved. Indeed, only 
 four times since Maine became a state had a united 
 Democracy cast as many votes as the disaffected 
 Democrats now threw for the ''anti-Maine Law" 
 candidate. 
 
 The effect upon the Whig party varied greatly in 
 different sections of the state. In Portland, its candi- 
 date for governor, who in 1850 had carried the city 
 with a vote of 1,300, by nearly 200 majority, received 
 only about half as many, while Governor Hubbard 
 received more than two to one for the Whig can- 
 didate. Whigs and Free-Soilers in Portland had 
 deserted their candidates in sufficient numbers to 
 much more than make good the Democratic defection 
 against Hubbard, amounting to fifty per cent of the 
 normal Democratic vote. In fourteen of the larger 
 towns of the state, most of them now cities, places 
 where the enforcement of the law had been most 
 marked for good, Governor HubbarcVs vote was 
 increased nearly fifty per cent. Nevertheless, the 
 Whig party, as a whole, threw about its usual vote. 
 
 Notwithstanding the formidable bolt against him. 
 Governor Hubbard received more votes than in either 
 year in which he had been elected governor, and more 
 than any successful candidate for governor, save one, 
 had received in ten years. Though he lacked a 
 majority, only one governor had received a larger 
 plurality than that now secured by Governor Hub- 
 bard, which was over forty per cent greater than 
 that given him in either of his prior elections. How-
 
 442 REMINISCENCES 
 
 ever, there was no election of governor by the people. 
 There was nothing specially significant about that. 
 Twice within ten years there had been a similar 
 result. But an overwhelming majority of Maine-Law 
 men had been elected to the legislature, and it was 
 believed at first that Governor Hubbard was sure of 
 being chosen by that body. 
 
 The result, under the circumstances, was a most 
 satisfactory and complete popular endorsement of 
 Prohibition. Of the more than 94,000 votes cast, over 
 72,000 had been given to candidates unequivocally 
 committed to the Maine Law. It was a popular 
 approval of that policy which was heeded by the 
 politicians of all parties for a number of years. 
 
 Whence did Governor Hubbard's large vote come ? 
 Ancient history now, that was a practical question of 
 great interest then, because a satisfactory answer 
 might throw some light upon the political future of 
 the state, as to which politicians of all parties were 
 anxious. In the first place, an unusually large vote 
 was cast. Only in 1840 had the total vote of Maine 
 reached 90,000. This year it exceeded that figure by 
 more than 8,000. From such information as it was 
 possible to obtain, and from estimates and compar- 
 isons made, it was concluded that the vote for 
 Governor Hub])ard had been thrown by about 23,000 
 Democrats, 6,500 Free-Soilers, and about 12,500 Whigs 
 and "stay-at-homes," or men who rarely voted. Mr. 
 Chandler, the anti-Maine Law candidate, had received 
 nearly 22,000, nine-tenths from the Democratic party. 
 
 Without attempting to be exact where precision was 
 impossible, it was estimated that about four-ninths 
 of the total vote had been thrown with sole reference 
 to Prohibition, by its friends and foes combined. It
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 443 
 
 was confidently believed, and the next year justified 
 the conviction, that among the 23,000 Democrats who 
 voted for Governor Hubbard were those who could be 
 relied upon, should occasion call, to sever i)arty ties 
 and sustain the Maine Law. It was understood, of 
 course, that the bulk of the Democratic votes for 
 Governor Hubbard were given on the ground that he 
 was the regular candidate of that party. But it was 
 also true that many Whig and Free-Soil Prohibitionists 
 preferred to support the regular candidates of their 
 own parties, both of whom, as we have seen, were 
 committed to the Maine Law, to breaking from their 
 political associations. 
 
 It is certain that the votes thrown for Mr. Chandler 
 represented radical opposition to the policy of -Prohi- 
 bition. With so large a body of determined men on 
 the one side and the other, ready to subordinate every 
 ordinary political consideration to that question, it 
 was evident that Prohibition had come into politics 
 and was likely to become an important political issue. 
 
 The reader who has followed this story has not 
 failed to see that Prohibition was forced into state 
 politics as a party issue by its opponents rather than 
 by its friends. Governor Hubbard was entitled by 
 the long-established usage of his party to renomina- 
 tion. His ability, his character, and his general 
 personal standing were such that no objection to him 
 could be urged with any chance of success upon other 
 grounds than his approval of the Maine Law. The 
 presentation of his name, therefore, for a third elec- 
 tion was not the outcome of an effort on the part of 
 temperance men to reward him; it was the only 
 course open to Democrats, unless their party preferred 
 to array itself against the Maine Law by refusing to
 
 444 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 the Governor ordinary usage by way of punishment 
 for liis approval of tliat measure. The Democratic 
 party, as an organization, declining to perpetrate such 
 folly, the licpior-element in it assumed the responsi- 
 bility. Said one Democratic paper: "They loved rum 
 better than they served Democracy." It is more than 
 probable that, but for that defection, the future of 
 the Democratic party in Maine would have been quite 
 otherwise than it proved. 
 
 The grave questions of national weight then press- 
 ing to the front and so soon to cause a re-alignment of 
 political parties, would, but for that bolt, have found 
 the Democratic party in control in Maine. A party 
 thus in power, armed with the cohesive and attractive 
 strengjbh which prestige of past and prospect of future 
 success always carries into political contests, would 
 have proved a very different antagonist from that 
 which a few years later was driven into a long 
 retirement when Hannibal Hamlin led his personal 
 following out of it into the new Republican organiza- 
 tion. The skill, the courage, ability, and integrity of 
 even that honored and popular leader would have 
 found the task he undertook a much more difficult 
 one but for the " breaking-up plow " of the Maine-Law 
 movement, which preceded his work by four years 
 and heartily co-operated with him in the memorable 
 campaign of 185(5, when Maine, for the first time after 
 1840, cast her electoral vote for other than a Demo- 
 cratic candidate for president. 
 
 Wlien Senator Hamlin undertook the work he so 
 successfully accomplished, men of all parties in 
 Maine had been learning in the school of the Maine- 
 Law movement that the sun would rise and set, the 
 moon wax and wane, and the stars keep on in their
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 445 
 
 course undisturbed, though regular nominations were 
 "bolted" and the old leaders thereby hastened to 
 political graves. Until such a lesson was learned it 
 would have proved no easy undertaking to change the 
 combined Democratic majority in 1852 of over 33,000, 
 into a Eepublican majority only four years later, of 
 19,000. In 1855, before Senator Hamlin left it, the 
 Democratic party had dropped from a plurality in 
 1850 of 9,000, into a minority of 14,000. 
 
 It is not a matter, therefore, for great surprise that 
 for years thereafter the Democratic party of Maine 
 looked with little favor on the Maine-Law movement, 
 or on anybody or anything identified with it. It will 
 not be regarded as egotism to say that for years my 
 personality was the great hete noire of the Democratic 
 leaders in Maine, nor a matter for surprise that some 
 of our papers had said that Democratic babies were 
 terrorized into obedience by threats of the suffering 
 they were taught to dread if they should fall into the 
 hands of Neal Dow. 
 
 Yet, as we have seen, whatever of disaster in the first 
 instance, because of the Maine-Law movement, came 
 upon that party, was due altogether to those who 
 sought to punish Governor Hubbard for approv- 
 ing the law. Though the people rallied to his aid, 
 as under similar circumstances they had never sup- 
 ported any governor before, he was defeated, and 
 no Democratic candidate for governor of Maine has 
 been elected by the people in all the years that have 
 followed. ' ' Whom the gods would destroy, they first 
 make mad." 
 
 The legislature elected in 1852 was composed, in the 
 senate, of fourteen Whigs and nine Democrats, there 
 being eight vacancies ; and in the house, of sixty -two
 
 446 REMINISCENCES 
 
 Whigs, eighty-four Democrats, and four Free-Soilers, 
 the latter being of Democratic antecedents. Under a 
 constitutional provision vacancies in the senate were 
 filled by a convention of the senators-elect with the 
 house of representatives, and in the case of a failure 
 to choose a governor by popular vote, before the recent 
 change in the Constitution providing for the choice 
 by a plurality, the house selected two from the four 
 highest candidates and presented them to the senate, 
 which then proceeded to the choice of one of the two 
 for governor. Four of the eight vacancies in the 
 senate were in Cumberland county, and the temper- 
 ance Whigs and Democrats in the legislature made an 
 arrangement whereby two Maine-Law Whigs and two 
 Maine-Law Democrats were elected from that county. 
 Irritated by this action, enough Democrats were in- 
 duced to join with the Whigs to enable the latter to 
 select two of their party from Waldo county. Thus 
 four Whigs were added to the fourteen chosen by the 
 people, making the full senate stand eighteen Whigs 
 to thirteen Democrats. 
 
 The house, as we have seen, had a clear majority of 
 eighteen Democrats, and it was competent, therefore, 
 to send to the senate the names of Hubbard and 
 Chandler, both Democrats. This, however, would 
 have resulted in the election of Hubbard by the 
 senate. To prevent this, enough of the anti-Hubbard 
 Democrats in the house joined with the Whigs and 
 sent up the name of Crosby with that of Hubbard. 
 
 There were three Whig senators who could be 
 relied upon to vote for Hubbard, as they had been so 
 instructed by their constituents, and had pledged 
 themselves to temperance men so to do. This would 
 have secured his election had none of the Democratic
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 447 
 
 senators bolted. If the Democrats in the senate had 
 all voted for Hubbard, they, with the three pledged 
 Whigs who did vote for him, would have given him 
 sixteen, while the Whigs could have controlled but 
 fifteen for Crosby. But the two Democratic senators 
 from Governor Dana's county, Oxford, voted with the 
 Whigs, and the vote stood seventeen for Crosby to 
 fourteen for Hubbard. Thus the Whig candidate, 
 over twelve thousand below Hubbard on the popular 
 vote, was elected and inaugurated as governor. In 
 this way the friends of ex-Governor Dana resented 
 Governor Hubbard's approval of a law the same in 
 principle and similar in most of its provisions to that 
 vetoed by the former. To gratify the resentment of 
 Governor Dana they preferred to take a course which, 
 we shall see, blasted the prospect for power of their 
 party in Maine. 
 
 The Democratic party was now hors du combat. It 
 had the strength in the legislature to have elected 
 Governor Hubbard, and thus, perhaps, to repair its 
 fallen fortunes. But too many of its leaders loved 
 their party less than they hated Prohibition. The 
 leading Democratic paper in the state, a few months 
 later, referring to the subject, said: 
 
 "It (the legislature) began its first session with a Demo- 
 cratic majority, but ended with a Whig governor and a Whig 
 senate. It was not temperance, but rum, which did it." 
 
 Thus had liquor wrought the same havoc in the 
 Democratic party of Maine that it has in many 
 another once united family. 
 
 It was generally supposed that Governor Crosby 
 had little sympathy with Prohibition. He was a most 
 admirable gentleman, and there was no reason to 
 suppose that he would not be heartily glad to have
 
 448 REMINISCENCES 
 
 society relieved of the incubus of the liquor-traffic; 
 but he disliked excitement and agitation of every 
 kind, much preferring ease and quiet. Prohibition 
 was sure to cause great discussion, if not a wrangle, 
 and all such controversy was foreign to his nature. 
 But, however that may be, as a politician of the old 
 school he naturally regarded the Maine Law with 
 some disfavor, as a disturbing element in the politics 
 of the state. 
 
 In his inaugural address, Governor Crosby, in 
 referring to the subject of temperance, said: 
 
 <'In enterino: upon a new year, it may not l)e inappropriate 
 to call to mind for a few moments the year which is past. It 
 has been an eventful one in the history of our own state, of 
 the Union, and the civiHzed world. It will be remembered as 
 the year in which, for the first time in the nineteenth century, 
 wdth a strong w^ill, the strong arm of a sovereign state was 
 stretched forth in the work of moral reform — to arrest in its 
 midway career the progress of the moral pestilence, intemper- 
 ance. Other law^s have been enacted in this and other states, 
 whose object and tendency were to impede its progress, or 
 confine it within certain defined limits : but it remained for 
 the state of Maine to erect, by legislative enactments which 
 in the hope and faith of those who framed them, could be 
 neither avoided nor evaded, a barrier beyond which it was not 
 to pass 
 
 "I am not aware that any further legislation upon the 
 subject is contemj)lated. If it is, I can only invite you to 
 give it the calm and delil)crate consideration to wdiich a 
 subject matter of such magnitude, involving principles so 
 important and conse(iuences so momentous — the moral wel- 
 fare and civil rights of the people — is entitled. But I would 
 here, as elsewhere, in the name of humanity, forl)id the banns 
 between temperance and religious sect or political party." 
 
 The last sentence in the ciuotation from his address 
 was speedily turned upon him, to his great annoyance 
 and discomfiture. A state temperance convention 
 assembled soon after in Augusta, which included in
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 449 
 
 its membersliip many connected with the legislature. 
 In it I offered the following resolution: 
 
 "Resolved, That the banns be forbidden between rum and 
 religion and politics of every party and every sect, and, in 
 the name of God and humanity, that a union be proclaimed, 
 holy and indissoluble, of aftection as well as of necessity, 
 between temperance, religion, and politics of every party and 
 of every sect." 
 
 The resolution, which was passed unanimously amid 
 shouts of approval by the convention, was afterward 
 copied and commented upon extensively throughout 
 the state as a fair hit at the Governor. It was not 
 to be supposed that one who had been the leader of 
 a great party in two campaigns would notice the 
 matter at all, save to smile at it as a fair retort, but I 
 was told that it was the innocent cause of no little ill 
 feeling on the part of "His Excellency." 
 
 The legislative committee to which that part of the 
 Governor's message was referred, of which, by the 
 way, Noah Smith, of Calais, who reported the original 
 Maine Law, was again chairman on the part of the 
 house, subsequently reported some amendments to the 
 law. I make the following extracts from the report 
 which accompanied the bill: 
 
 " That they fully respond to the declaration in the address 
 * That the people of the state demand a Jaw sufficiently 
 stringent to close effectually every haunt of intemperance 
 within its borders, is undeniably true'; they also feel that it 
 is justly a subject of congratulation that the state of Maine 
 should be the Jirst community ' to erect by legislative enact- 
 ments which in the hope and faith of those who framed them 
 could be neither avoided nor evaded, a barrier beyond which 
 intemperance was not to pass.' It has been the object of the 
 committee, in preparing the act which they now sul3mit, fully 
 to sustain the honor of the state in being the first of the sister 
 states to enact an efficient law for the purpose so indicated. 
 The great principle of the act of 1851, which they
 
 450 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 regard as a discovery in legislation, as applied to this subject, 
 that will redound to the lasting honor of its author — that is, 
 the seizing by the strong hand of the law, and destroying by 
 the order of the court the great agent of the mischief — they 
 have designed scrupulously to preserve. It may truly be 
 said to l)e a discovery in legislation on this subject. 
 
 " The ol)ject of this law is not to dictate to men ' what they 
 shall eat and what they shall drink, or wherewithal they shall 
 be clothed.' These are not matters for which in themselves 
 legislation is fitted, although in practice in all ages legislation 
 has been more or less devoted to such objects. They are in 
 themselves better let alone by law-makers, Avho are justified 
 in interfering with them only when from their abuses the 
 public is a sufferer 
 
 " They declare that, in their opinion, the first article of the 
 bill of rights in our constitution is the basis upon which this 
 legislation is rightfully built. Among the rights therein 
 declared to be inalienable, which can never be parted with, 
 are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquir- 
 ing, possessing and protecting property, and of ' pursuing and 
 
 olitaining safety and happiness.' This evil attacks the 
 
 constitution and Ijill of rights in the very threshold of the 
 temple of liberty, and there it should be met, resisted and 
 overthrown." 
 
 All the proposed amendments to the law submitted 
 were declared by the committee, and were so regarded 
 by the friends of Prohibition, to be in the line of 
 increased efficiency, and such as experience had shown 
 to be desirable to carry out the popular will as 
 expressed in the law and the elections. 
 
 In the discussion in the house, ex-Speaker Sewall, 
 who had voted "no " on the question of the passage of 
 the original Maine Law, announced himself as favor- 
 able to the amendments, but as desiring to submit the 
 law as thus amended to the people. In a speech he is 
 reported to have said : 
 
 "I shall vote for the bill whether referred or not. I 
 believe a majority of this house are in favor of the Maine 
 Law ; I believe four-fifths of the people will vote for the law
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 451 
 
 if submitted to them. If so, the law Avill ])o iiioie liruily 
 established than ever, as firmly almost as the constitution 
 itself. If rejected, no one will wish to have the law stand 
 on the statute-book, for no law cau be long enforced in 
 opposition to a majority of the })eople." 
 
 While tlie matter was under consideration it was 
 said that the election of nine-tenths of the members of 
 that legislature had turned upon the question of the 
 Maine Law. Mr. Freeman H. Morse, who three years 
 later was elected to Congress, and who was subse- 
 quently for years United States Consul at London, 
 England, was a member of the house from Bath. In 
 the course of the debate upon the amendments he 
 said: 
 
 "This law has been passed and in operation for some 
 years, and the people have virtually passed upon it repeat- 
 edly. I am satisfied that a large majority of the people of 
 the state are in favor of it." 
 
 William Pitt Fessenden was a representative from 
 
 Portland. He said: 
 
 "The proposition to refer these amendments to the people 
 is unfriendly to the bill. It involves the whole question of 
 the Maine Law. The people have in their primary elections 
 expressed their views upon it. If after all this we should 
 send it back to the people as thouoh we did not know what 
 they wanted, they may well say we are very stupid indeed if 
 we do not know what they desire, alter being told so many 
 times." 
 
 The proposition to submit the law to the people was 
 voted down in the house by yeas, 56 ; nays, 83, and the 
 bill was passed to be enacted by a vote of 94 to 43. 
 Politically classified, 49 Whigs, 41 Democrats, and 4 
 Free-Soilers voted for the bill; 39 Democrats, and 4 
 Whigs against it. In the senate the bill was passed, 
 20 yeas, 6 nays, classified politically, yeas, 13 Whigs, 
 7 Democrats; nays, 6 Democrats. The amended law^
 
 452 REMINISCENCES OF KEAL DOAV. 
 
 Tvas approved by Governor Crosby, March 31, 1853. 
 
 At the adjournment of the legislature of 1853 it 
 may be said that the Maine Lavr, having demon- 
 strated ita efficiency and run the gauntlet of a 
 state election and a legislative session, in which its 
 strength with the people at the polls and their 
 representatives in the legislature had been clearly 
 manifested, was more popular than ever. Its friends 
 had every reason to be confident as to its future.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 EXTENSIVE SPEAKING TOUKS IN BEHALF OF PROHIBITION. 
 
 SOME OF THE TERRITORY COVERED. INCIDENTS 
 
 AND EXPERIENCES CONNECTED 
 
 THEREWITH. 
 
 After the Maine September election of 1852, my 
 time was largely occupied, up to January, 1853, in a 
 speaking tour. I addressed many meetings in Massa- 
 chusetts, where an agitation for a prohibitory law was 
 in progress. Among my coadjutors there was Rev. 
 John L. Stevens, from Maine. Mr. Stevens was then 
 a Universalist clergyman. Shortly afterward poor 
 health compelled him to leave the ministry, and he 
 became an active Republican politician. He was, I 
 think, the first chairman of the state committee of 
 that party. For many years he was a personal friend 
 and political confidant of James G. Blaine. He 
 received several diplomatic appointments, the last 
 being that of minister to the Hawaiian Islands. 
 
 I filled a series of engagements in New Jersey, 
 many of them large meetings. One, however, perhaps 
 the most important, was comparatively private, by 
 special appointment, in Jersey City, where every 
 clergyman of the place was in attendance, enabling 
 
 30
 
 454 REMINISCENCES 
 
 me to present the subject of Prohibition to them more 
 comprehensively than possible in a speech to a popular 
 gathering. 
 
 While in New Brunswick, I received a note of 
 which the following is a copy: 
 
 To THE Hon. Neal Dow. 
 
 Dear Sir: — The undersia-ned, desirous to obtain reliable 
 information in regard to the practical operation of the prohibi- 
 tory anti-liquor law, respectfully request you to address them 
 on the subject, in the First Presbyterian church, at 5 o'clock 
 p. M., October 20th. 
 
 This was signed by over fifty of the clergymen in 
 attendance upon the Presbyterian Synod, then in ses- 
 sion in that city. Among them were Theodore L. 
 Cuyler, then a comparatively young man. Rev. Dr. 
 John McLean, N. Murray, D. D., D. Magie, D. D., 
 Charles Hodge, D. D., C. Van Rensellaer, D. D., J. 
 C. Watson, D. D., Jos. L. Sliafer, D. D., R. Baird, D. 
 D., C. W. Nassau, D. D., and P. O. Studdiford, D. D. 
 
 I was unable to accept the invitation because of 
 other engagements. Quite a number of the clergy, 
 however, left the session of the synod to attend 
 my meetings, and after the close of my speech several 
 came to me and gave their adhesion to the movement 
 for Prohibition, being kind enough to say that they 
 now saw the matter in a different light. 
 
 During my stay in Trenton, I was the guest of Rev. 
 Theodore L. Cuyler, as was frequently my good 
 fortune afterwards. My acquaintance with Mr. 
 Cuyler has been maintained for many years, and 
 though latterly it has lacked somewhat of its early 
 intimacy, time has served to increase the high esteem 
 for him with which I was inspired when he was a 
 comparatively young man. Now, full of years, uni- 
 versally loved and respected by those who know him
 
 or NEAL DOW. 455 
 
 personally or by reputation, lie looks back upon a 
 long and useful life, during all of which he has been 
 careful that the influence of his voice and example 
 should be upon the side of right. Nothing that I can 
 say of commendation of him can add to the honor 
 which is his due. He has had the courage of his con- 
 victions, and has dared to maintain them under 
 circumstances where many would have thought it 
 better to bow to the public opinion of the time and 
 place with which they were in conflict. Who can 
 mark the limits beyond which the beneficent power of 
 such a life will not reach ? He was my frequent com- 
 panion in the early "fifties" in speaking tours, and 
 his association with me did much to render delight- 
 ful otherwise wearisome journeys, while he always 
 instructed and charmed the audiences he addressed. 
 While in New Jersey, I received a communication 
 from the speaker of the house of representatives of 
 Vermont, transmitting an invitation to address that 
 body in Eepresentatives' Hall, at Montpelier, which I 
 subsequently did. In Rochester, New York, where I 
 spoke several times, I saw some large campaign flags 
 thrown across the street, inscribed with such mottoes 
 as, "Neal Dow and the Maine Law," "Neal Dow, 
 Temperance, and the Maine Law." These were some- 
 what annoying to me, and during my stay I took pains 
 to avoid passing them on the street. It was there, I 
 think, that for the first time I realized that my name 
 was becoming known outside of my own state. I 
 began to see that a measure devised simply as a more 
 efficient instrument for use in the immediate field of 
 my own official work in the little community where 
 I resided was attracting an attention in the country at 
 large that I had never anticipated when I was pre-
 
 456 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 paring it and urging its passage by the legislature of 
 my own state. 
 
 I spoke in several other large places in New York. 
 Returning thence to Massachusetts, I found most of 
 the stores and other public places draped in black, the 
 state being in mourning for Daniel Webster. This 
 was in November, but a few days after the national 
 election, in which the Whig banner in the hands of 
 General Scott, whose nomination was so severe a blow 
 to Webster, went down in the political gale that swept 
 his party out of existence. 
 
 Early in January, 1853, I again left Maine in 
 response to demands for my services elsewhere. 
 It was impossible, however, for me to respond to 
 one in ten of the many pressing invitations I received. 
 These came from all over the New England and 
 Central states, from Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, 
 Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, Louisiana and Ala- 
 bama. Visits to the two latter states were postponed 
 for ten years, when they were made under other 
 auspices and for another purpose than that for which 
 I was now invited. 
 
 During this tour I addressed a committee of the 
 legislature of New York in Representatives' Hall at 
 Albany, which was crowded. I remember the occa- 
 sion well, as before I rose to speak I had a severe 
 attack of stage-fright which for a time I thought 
 would paralyze me. This was a matter of great sur- 
 prise to me, for I had long before overcome, as I 
 supposed, all difficulty of that kind. It passed away, 
 however, immediately when I commenced to speak. 
 
 A day or two after, I was a guest at a large party in 
 Albany, given by a wealthy and prominent citizen, 
 whose name I am unable to recall. Here I met, for
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 457 
 
 the first time, Horatio Seymour, then governor. He 
 was polite enough to manifest some interest in the 
 subject of the Maine Law, flattering enough to com- 
 pliment me on my speech before the legislative 
 committee, and adroit enough to give me no inkling 
 of his personal views upon the subject. Subsequently 
 he vetoed a prohibitory bill. 
 
 In Albany I was the recipient of much attention 
 from many prominent citizens. In my letters home I 
 referred to this as a gratifying indication of the great 
 change in public sentiment relating to temperance. 
 I quote from a letter written to my wife, under date 
 of January 23, 1853, relative to my first interview with 
 a leader in that movement for woman which was then 
 a wonder to most and a delusion to many, but which 
 in its present development bears grand testimony to 
 the progress of the past fifty years. I wrote: 
 
 " I had also a call from Miss Susan B. Anthony, a woman's 
 rights lady, and a bloomer. I was not in, l)ut returned her 
 call, and found her a modest, sensible lady, of no particular 
 age, dressed elegantly, tastefully and modestly, in moderate 
 bloomer costume, black silk skirt nearly to the ankles, 
 pantalets of the same, and elegant boots fitting a pretty foot 
 like a glove." 
 
 After several speeches in the northern part of New 
 York, I went to New Jersey. At Trenton, I was the 
 recipient of a large silver pitcher, beautifully embel- 
 lished. The presentation speech was made by my 
 friend. Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler. Returning to 
 Philadelphia, I addressed a very large meeting in 
 that city, and dined, at her invitation, with Lucretia 
 Mott. Thence I went to Baltimore to speak, where I 
 received from Annapolis an invitation to address the 
 Maryland legislature, also one from Harrisburg to 
 speak before that of Pennsylvania. While on tliis
 
 458 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 tour I was followed by many invitations, by mail and 
 
 wire, to speak in different states, and accepted enough 
 
 of them to occupy much of my time for the year. 
 
 During this trip I stopped in Pittsburgh, Pa. , where 
 
 I was in receipt of the following communication: 
 
 " Pittsburgh, February 2, 1853. 
 Hex. Neal Dow, Late Mayor of Portland, Me. 
 
 ii /Sir: — Properly appreciating your lal)ors and your sac- 
 rifices in the great cause of temperance, and desirous of 
 paying respect to you as the author of what we deem the only 
 effectual legislation for suppressing the giant evils of intem- 
 perance — the Maine liquor law — we would respectfully 
 invite you to accept a public dinner, at such time as may suit 
 your convenience, that the friends of temperance may have an 
 opportunity of showing that respect w^hich they desire to one 
 to whom our whole country is so much indebted." 
 
 This bore some forty signatures, among which were 
 C. L. Magee, James K. Morange, 3^. H. Foster, D. W. 
 Miller, William Barrows, J. M. Kirkpatrick. 
 
 My reply was as follows: 
 
 MoNONGAHELA HousE, PITTSBURGH, February 3. 
 
 Gentlemen: — Your polite note of the 2d inst. is just 
 received, inviting me to a public dinner, which you propose 
 to tender to me as a mark of regard (as you are pleased to 
 say) for my labors in the temperance cause. I am very much 
 obliged for this token of your esteem, but beg leave to 
 decline, as I cannot conveniently remain in Pittsburgh, and 
 because my tastes and inclinations lead me to avoid scenes of 
 public ceremony and display as far as possil)le. 
 
 My labors in the temperance cause, of which you are 
 pleased to speak, have been of a humble character, and were 
 dictated solely by the desire to promote the welfare and 
 happiness of my countrymen. If the course of law which 
 has been adopted in Maine in regard to the protection of her 
 citizens from the traffic in strong drinks, prevail throughout 
 the country — as I believe it will eventually — the prosperity 
 of the nation, and the wealth and happiness of the people, 
 will be promoted to an extent of which history furnishes no 
 parallel. 
 
 Permit me to exhort the temperance men of the Keystone
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 459 
 
 state to a patient perseverance in their effort to procure the 
 enactment of a prohibitory law for the effectual protection of 
 themselves and children from the terrible effects of the traffic. 
 Thus they will certainly succeed. 
 
 I am, gentlemen, very respectfully and truly your friend, 
 
 Neal Dow. 
 
 Returning home, I found that some of our friends 
 who felt that the municipal contest in the previous 
 year had been controlled by fraudulent votes were 
 insisting that I should again be nominated by the 
 Whigs for mayor. The managers of that party were 
 naturally averse to this. There were two reasons 
 operating among them. There were some, of course, 
 who were earnestly opposed either to me, to the cause 
 with which my name was identified, to the Maine 
 Law, for which they held me responsible, or to my 
 way of enforcing it, which they deemed especially 
 obnoxious. 
 
 To the arguments based upon such considerations 
 used in opposition to my nomination, they had 
 another of a strictly political character. I had again 
 forfeited, so they said, all claim to recognition as a 
 Whig. I had supported the Democratic candidate for 
 governor, Hubbard, at the state election the fall 
 before. They did me the honor to attribute to me 
 the leadership of that half of the Whig party of Port- 
 land which went over to the Democratic camp on that 
 occasion. Opposition to me of this sort, however, 
 was largely confined to that element of the party 
 which had opposed my first nomination and election, 
 and which supported in a body the election of the 
 Democratic candidate in the spring of 1852. These, 
 however, were now reinforced by another contingent 
 from among those party men who held Whig success 
 at the polls to be of paramount importance, and who,
 
 460 REMINISCENCES 
 
 with the memory of my defeat the year before in 
 mind, thought it would be bad policy politically to 
 put me in nomination again. 
 
 These leaders, aware that they had the rank and 
 file of the party to deal with, had no hope that they 
 could control the ward primaries against me. They 
 knew, also, by experience, that if my name was pre- 
 sented for endorsement by a nominating convention 
 in the usual way, they would find it difiicult, if not 
 impossible, to induce the mass-meeting to refuse ratifi- 
 cation, and it began to look to them as if they must 
 expose their own weakness in the ward caucuses or 
 submit to my nomination without opposition. 
 
 Finally they decided to change the method of mak- 
 ing the nomination by calling a mass-meeting in City 
 Hall, to name a candidate without the intervention 
 of the ward primaries, and a delegate convention to 
 suggest a name. There were those among my friends 
 who said that this method was chosen because it 
 would be easier to conceal in a general mass caucus 
 those having no right to participate in Whig prima- 
 ries than would be the case in ordinary ward meetings. 
 However that may have been, there was a lively 
 time when the mass-meeting assembled. Of the many 
 encounters that old battle-ground had witnessed that 
 which now followed upon the call of the Whig com- 
 mittee was the most exciting. 
 
 The Democratic daily, which may be supposed to 
 have been fairly impartial between the rival Whig 
 factions, certainly with no leaning toward me, said: 
 
 " The hall was jammed and crowded to excess, and it was 
 the richest, the funniest, the noisiest muss that ever congre- 
 gated in this city. 
 
 "The Whig party is divided into two great factions — the 
 Dowitcs and anti-Dowites, or, as they arecalled at Augusta,
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 461 
 
 the Ramrods and Scheidam Schnapps. These two forces have 
 been for more than a week preparing for a pitched battle. 
 The former have the advantage of a perfect interior organiza- 
 tion, and a large body of active, restless, fearless young men 
 to give vigor and life to that organization. They have their 
 strength marked and numbered, and when the word ' Go ! ' 
 is given, they all go it together 
 
 "The chairman made a few conciliatory remarks, and 
 promised to do the fair thing. No sooner, however, had he 
 stopped, and before he could get seated, than uj) rose 
 Augustus Robinson, with a resolution nominating Neal Dow. 
 This was received with a commingled storm of cheers, hisses, 
 groans, clappings, stampings, and yells for various nota])Ies. 
 
 " Josiah S. Little finally got the stand, and made a non- 
 commital speech. He was friendly to everything and every- 
 body — wanted a man nominated who would carry forward 
 the most harmoniously the great cause of temperance, which 
 he had deeply at heart, and closed by saying that he had been 
 requested to suggest the name of James B. Gaboon. 
 
 " Mr. Garter then took the stand and moved that the 
 resolution be amen'ded by striking out Mr. Dow's name and 
 substituting that of Mr. Gaboon. On this there was a 
 miniature hurricane — No ! — Yes ! — Oh ! — Ah ! — Hurrah 
 for Ga — Dow ! Three cheers for Dow — hoon ! Our friend, 
 however, waited with a calm and benignant expression upon 
 his countenance until the waves had subsided, and then pro- 
 ceeded to define his position. He had stood by Dow for two 
 years, but last spring the Whigs had been most awfully 
 broken down by him. It was necessary to resuscitate the 
 dead Whig party with a new man. Dow, if nominated, 
 would not stand one chance in a hundred. He will be 
 beaten. (Not Yes! Good! 'Taint true! Hurrah for 
 Gaboon ! Hurrah for Dow ! ) Even Elder Peck will not say 
 otherwise. Who are the men most active for Dow? Tem- 
 perance Democrats ! We are grateful for their kind interest, 
 but we can do without them. 
 
 " Finally, Mr. Walton got the floor and was allowed to 
 talk about three minutes. He glorified Mr. Dow and said he 
 had known him from his youth. He had traveled with him 
 into the country villages, lectured with him in behalf of the 
 great cause of temperance, and averred that he was rever- 
 enced by thousands all over the land. Mr. Dow was opposed 
 last spring by some good men, but he was beaten by the 
 scrapings of h — I. This settled John's coffee. The yells
 
 462 KEMIXISCENCES 
 
 and uproar sounded as though the place he mentioned had 
 ])roken loose. All hands, and feet, and throats were engaged 
 in the enterprise of putting John down. He looked, how- 
 ever, as though he wouldn't, but he did ; for as soon as he 
 opened his li})s, the shouts recommenced. 
 
 "John Neal next stood before the audience. He said 
 that, like his friend, Walton, he had known Neal Dow from 
 his youth, and had suftered from his knowledge ! This was 
 as far as the Dowites would let him go, and the history of his 
 sufferings remained an untold tale. Neal trod up and down 
 the stage, in expressive pantomime, with a dogged persever- 
 ance. He looked pleasant and cross, cheerful and sad, 
 supi)liant and defiant, tragical and comical. But the people 
 only laughed and hissed, and cheered and roared the more. 
 He yielded at last to the mighty surge of the popular breeze, 
 and l)owed his head and retired. 
 
 " The vote on the amendment was finally taken by hand. 
 We judged the Dowites had it two to one, but we saw some 
 on l)oth sides hold up all the hands they had. The chair 
 remained in a state of puzzle, and could not decide. An 
 adjournment was moved. It was a tie, said the chair — and 
 the chair was more puzzled than ever. The chair, by the 
 way, has been through a good many political scenes, l)ut he 
 was never in so tight a place before — and he has made up his 
 mind never to be again. He did not come out so well as he 
 went in, hardly. 
 
 "An adjournment was again called, and pronounced car- 
 ried, l)oth parties being willing to have it so terminate. Thus 
 the Whigs here are, for the first time in their political history, 
 without a nominee." 
 
 The Whig paper, the editor of which, my good and 
 valued friend Judge Carter, participated in the meet- 
 ing as an " Anti," said : 
 
 " The hall was more densely crowded than we ever saw it 
 
 before The chair finally called for a show of hands, 
 
 and up went a cloud of hands on both sides, the chairman 
 declaring that it was utterly impossible for him to decide 
 
 which were the more munerous Both sides appeared 
 
 satisfied to call it a draw game." 
 
 The Whigs having thus failed to nominate a candi- 
 date for mayor, a citizens' meeting was called for that
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 463 
 
 purpose. Its nominee, ex-Mayor James B. Calioon, a 
 most estimable citizen, who was declared to be and 
 who was a true friend of the Maine Law, was elected. 
 More than three hundred voters, nevertheless, sup- 
 ported me at the polls without consultation with me 
 or organization among themselves. 
 
 The month of May found me in Rhode Island. At 
 Providence, I was the guest of Amos C. Barstow, then, 
 I think, mayor. My acquaintance and friendship 
 with this most admirable man continued as long as he 
 lived. We frequently visited each other's homes, and 
 often corresponded upon the subject in which he, like 
 myself, took a deep interest, and upon other topics 
 as well. 
 
 I wrote from the library, State House, Albany, 
 under date of May 26, 1853: 
 
 "I stop here at the Delevan House, where are many mem- 
 bers of the legislature, which is now in session, and who 
 recognized me, as I addressed them on the Maine Law last 
 winter. Nothing, probably, will be done this session about 
 the law, but it will eventually be enacted. I left home with 
 great reluctance at this time. It was with the feeling that 
 home duties really required me to stay, but I could not decline 
 the calls from abroad, in fact, I begin to see that I am not now 
 at liberty to consult my own interests. What the event or re- 
 sults of my tour will be I cannot foresee, but hope good will 
 be done." 
 
 While resting at Cleveland, Ohio, it becoming 
 known that I was in the city, I was beseiged with 
 callers at my hotel who induced me to stop and speak. 
 Our friends insisted that my presence in Cleveland 
 was providential, because the question of the suppres- 
 sion of the Sunday liquor-traffic was at the time 
 before the city council. 
 
 On my way west I had stopped in Buffalo, New
 
 464 KEMIXISCENCES 
 
 York, where the Presbyterian General Assembly was 
 in session. I attended one of their meetings, and was 
 introduced to many clergymen and representative lay- 
 men. It was a source of gratification to me that the 
 asf^embly adoi^ted a resolution endorsing temperance 
 and the Maine Law. I wrote home at the time that 
 such action on the part of so conservative a body was 
 gratifying evidence of the great change in public 
 opinion. 
 
 In Michigan, the question of the adoption of Prohi- 
 bition, which had been submitted to a popular vote, 
 was under discussion. The state was alive with 
 meetings relative to it. I filled a long list of appoint- 
 ments. From Adrian, I wrote, June 15, 1853: 
 
 " I am in a constant hurry, and always fatigued — two 
 meetings every day and the traveling to do besides, often in 
 the night. I have told them that I can speak but once a da}' 
 at length to a great crowd. The labor is very great, but my 
 lungs bear it well." 
 
 On this tour I was in my first railroad accident, a 
 "head-on" collision between our passenger train and 
 some cattle cars. No human life was lost, but some 
 of the poor brutes were killed. It was a strange sight 
 to see tlie locomotives standing perpendicularly on 
 their rear ends, their wheels interlocked as if they 
 were great wrestlers in a deadly embrace. 
 
 At a hirge meeting in Niles, Michigan, in the open 
 air, attended by farmers from all the country round, 
 when I commenced to speak I was interrupted by 
 several drunken men who were noisy and made con- 
 siderable threatening talk. I paused and invited 
 them to come to the platform where they could see, 
 be seen, and be better heard. One, the most intoxi- 
 cated, accepted with much bluster, but when he
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 465 
 
 got to the platform and faced the crowd, he seemed to 
 be sobered, at least he became quiet, and sat there, 
 such a picture of the effect of the evil I was exposing 
 that it was in itself a potent sermon for our cause. 
 The influence of it in one particular was instantane- 
 ous. His noisy comrades became quiet, and there was 
 no further disturbance. So far as I can recall, that 
 was the only instance during my entire round of 
 engagements in Michigan where there was the least 
 annoyance from persons disposed to interrupt a meet- 
 ing. Under date of June 14, 1852, I wrote from 
 Detroit : 
 
 " I have just arrived, after an intensely hot and dusty ride 
 of one hundred and forty miles, and found a meeting notified 
 for me to address, which I could not do, for my voice Ls 
 entirely broken down by my outdoor eiforts of the two pre- 
 ceding days. I can scarcely speak above a whisper. The 
 weather has been suifocating for the past few days, notwith- 
 standing which I have been incessantly at work, often rising 
 early in the morning to reach my appointments, and again 
 traveling late at night to be ready for the next day." 
 
 At Pontiac, I addressed a densely crowded meeting 
 in the Congregational church, the weather being 
 intensely hot and suffocating. It was so warm that 
 I went to the church without a vest, and while 
 speaking from the pulpit was at once astonished and 
 pleased by a suggestion from the pastor to remove my 
 coat and continue my speech in my shirt sleeves. I 
 demurred at first, because in all my experience in 
 stumping I had never done that, but the pastor 
 pressed his advice, assuring me that it was very com- 
 mon in the western country, and I adopted his 
 suggestion, to my great relief. 
 
 On my way to Mount Clemens, when I arrived at a 
 corner about a mile from the town, I found a large
 
 466 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 number of wagons and chaises collected. Presently 
 a cavalcade of ladies and gentlemen, very handsomely 
 mounted, with a good band of music, came out to give 
 me a public reception. They made a fine show which 
 I wished to avoid, but as I was told that a great deal 
 of pains had been taken to get up the affair, the 
 dresses, scarfs, horses and saddles, and that the 
 failure of the plan would cause much chagrin, I 
 yielded. As the cavalcade approached, it opened, 
 and the marshal addressed me in a speech, to which 
 I replied. I was then taken through the town to a 
 hotel. On the way I was informed that an aged 
 Baptist minister was anxious to see me, but was too 
 feeble to go out, and the cavalcade therefore would 
 pass his house. 
 
 At my request, it stopped until I could go in to meet 
 him. He did not expect that and was affected to 
 tears. He was a very old man, and in true patriarchal 
 style invoked blessings on my head, and said he had 
 prayed for me daily and wanted to see me before his 
 death; that he had my picture in his bedroom, which 
 he took me to see, and said he was now ready to depart 
 in peace ; that he had longed to see me, but he never 
 expected to do so. I could not but be deeply touched, 
 as his family gathered around and almost embraced 
 me. 
 
 My last speech in Michigan in this campaign was on 
 Sunday, the day before the voting. This was at 
 Northville. I wrote at the time : 
 
 "I found a very large gatherino; of people, of all ages, 
 sexes and conditions, from all the country round, coming in 
 vehicles of all descriptions, absolutely blocking up the roads 
 in all directions, chaises, gigs, carryalls, carriages, and farm 
 wagons of all sizes and variety, loaded full of farmers with 
 their wives, wives' sisters, and all the children, down to the
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 467 
 
 crying babies. It was a meeting in a beautiful grove, and as 
 it was to 1)6 my last in Michigan I spoke longer than I other- 
 wise might have done, about two hours, and was much 
 exhausted." 
 
 The result of the balloting in Michigan was most 
 gratifying, and I felt amply repaid for my hard labor. 
 Even the city of Detroit helped to make \i\) part of 
 the majority of twenty thousand registered for Pro- 
 hibition. 
 
 Among my co-laborers in Michigan was Dr. Charles 
 Jewett, of Massachusetts. He had thrice been in 
 Maine, and immediately after the enactment of the 
 Maine Law spent some time there. He and I often 
 spoke together, and he was frequently at my house 
 and we were warm friends. His inexhaustible fund of 
 humor, and his ready wit made his companionship 
 delightful, while his thorough knowledge of every 
 phase of the temperance question made him a most 
 effective speaker. 
 
 He was at my house on some festive day, Thanks- 
 giving, or Christmas, when in addition to our family 
 circle of eight, including the doctor, there were of 
 neighbors and friends enough for quite a tableful. 
 I had asked Dr. Jewett to assist in carving, which he 
 consented to do, much to his own annoyance, for he 
 proved to be far from skillful in the art. Looking up 
 at length from his hardly half-completed task and 
 poising the carving-knife in his hand, he said: " I beg 
 you to believe that I am not ordinarily such a bungler 
 in serving humans with a knife; I claim to be a good 
 surgeon." 
 
 Dr. Jewett did much in Maine to form and 
 strengthen the public opinion of the state in favor 
 of the policy of Prohibition. He labored earnestly
 
 468 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 and effectively in all our large towns and in many of 
 our smaller ones, demonstrating the rightfulness, 
 expediency and the wisdom of the movement to pro- 
 tect the people and their interests from the infinite 
 mischief of the liquor-traffic. We never had among 
 us one more acceptable to our people as a leader in 
 this department of Christian and philanthropic labor. 
 I never knew a more devoted and unselfish man. His 
 whole heart was in his work for the love of God and 
 of his fellow-men. No man realized more fully than 
 he that earthly interests and affairs are of small 
 moment when compared to those which relate to the 
 eternal world, and so he lived mainly for those which 
 he made the great purpose of his life. His hope was 
 to be able to work to the very last, not to be placed 
 upon the retired list, or to be invalided, but to fall in 
 full health and strength upon the battle-field. 
 
 I may mention, by the way, that while in Detroit I 
 called to pay my respects to General Cass, whom I 
 had met once before, and whom I had of course 
 known by reputation, not only as a public man, but 
 as one whose influence had been given to temperance, 
 by voice and official action as well as by personal 
 example as an abstainer. We had a pleasant inter- 
 view, in which he called my attention to the fact that 
 when he was secretary of war, under Jackson, he had 
 changed the army regulations so that the liquor 
 rations might be commuted into its equivalent in cash 
 value in coffee and sugar, a change which he was 
 confident had been productive of much good. Later, 
 in 1857, General Cass, learning that I was about to 
 visit Europe, very kindly sent me a personal letter to 
 his son, who at the time, I think, was minister at 
 Kome, in which he requested him, should I visit that
 
 OF NExVL DOW. 469 
 
 city, to do all in his power to make my stay there 
 agreeable. I was unable, however, to avail myself of 
 the opportunity to present the letter. 
 
 Leaving Michigan, I went to Ohio to attend a 
 number of meetings. Among others, a monster dem- 
 onstration had been arranged at Columbus, but 
 thoroughly broken down with fatigue, I was intend- 
 ing to keep away and only consented to attend it after 
 most urgent entreaties. My eye rests now on one of 
 the despatches received by me at the American House 
 in Cleveland: 
 
 " For heaven's sake do not fail to appear in Columl)us. 
 Thousands and thousands are coming to see you. You will 
 not be compelled to speak, but come what will you must be 
 here, so as to be w4th us on Thursday. Again I say let 
 nothing short of absolute impossibility prevent you from 
 coming. You shall have every possible comfort. You can- 
 not conceive of the disastrous consequences of this unlooked- 
 for disappointment." 
 
 At Columbus my audience numbered fully ten 
 thousand, which stood for two whole hours in the 
 open air to listen to what I had to say. Twice during 
 my speech, I essayed to stop, nearly exhausted from 
 dizziness, but the shouts of "go on!" "go on!" 
 spurred me to further, and well-nigh exhausting, 
 effort. 
 
 Such an incessant round of speaking, with the 
 necessary intervening travel, was in those days more 
 wearisome than it would be to a man of equal physi- 
 cal vigor now. Traveling in the early "fifties "was 
 quite a different matter from the journeying of 
 to-day. The best accommodations of the railroads of 
 that time would hardly be tolerated now. Compara- 
 tively, there was no comfort in cars by day or night. 
 
 In addition to fatigue incident to travel and public 
 
 31
 
 470 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 speaking, wliether staying at hotel or in private 
 houses, I was overrun with callers. Many of these 
 wanted light, or were disposed to privately discuss 
 with me the question I was publicly presenting. 
 Then too, I was followed by communications from all 
 parts of the country urging me to come and speak, or 
 asking opinions upon this point, or advice upon 
 others. To all such I tried to reply. Besides all 
 these Avere my letters to my home, which I wrote 
 almost every day. I Avas often, therefore, obliged to 
 write into the early morning or to be up almost at 
 daybreak to keep up with my correspondence. 
 
 From Ohio I went into northern New York for a 
 number of meetings, and thence to Canada. At 
 Toronto I was somewhat embarrassed by the nature 
 of my cordial greeting. I arrived there by steamer 
 from Hamilton in the forenoon and found at the 
 wharf a party of about thirty gentlemen waiting for 
 me, who received me in form, and then in a coach and 
 four followed by six other coaches, I made the tour 
 of the city. The next day I was kindly entertained 
 at a public breakfast, where I had the pleasure of 
 meeting many of the prominent men of the city. 
 
 My Canadian tour included Montreal and Quebec, 
 and wherever I stopped the general interest in the 
 ^luestion of Prohibition was manifest in other ways 
 Ithan by the size of the meetings, which were almost 
 without exception large. After completing my Can- 
 adian appointments I turned my face homeward, 
 having been absent more than three months. 
 
 Within thirty days after my return I started out 
 once more to fill a series of appointments in the 
 eastern part of the state. These were held with 
 special reference to the state election, soon to occur.
 
 OF NEAL DOW, 471 
 
 in which the Maine Law was indirectly involved. 
 To that election, and some of its results, I shall 
 refer later. To meet these appointments I traveled 
 from place to place in a private conveyance, often 
 speaking twice a day. Besides this I had many 
 private conferences with leading friends of temper- 
 ance in towns where I spoke. On this trip also I 
 visited my cousin, John Hodgdon, whom I found 
 living luxuriously in the midst of the very terri- 
 tory where he and I some thirty years before had 
 ' ' roughed it " for months in the wilderness to plot 
 the land and arrange for its clearing. 
 
 While I was active at home and abroad for Prohi- 
 bition, the opponents of it were not idle. Two papers 
 were established in Portland avowedly to oppose it, 
 and persistent efforts were made to spread broadcast 
 through the country reports derogatory of Portland 
 and the state of Maine, representing them as suffering 
 materially and morally from the Maine Law. It was 
 openly charged that Boston liquor-dealers furnished 
 the money with which the laborers in that field were 
 paid, but I do not know that this was ever proven, 
 nor, for that matter, denied. 
 
 The statement that Prohibition had proved in any 
 way detrimental led to a public denial, signed by 
 four hundred and thirty-three of our best known 
 citizens, including the mayor of the city and most, 
 if not all, of the clergymen. It was stated in the 
 paper in which this was first published that the 
 number of names might have been increased indefi- 
 nitely, had it not been intended in the first instance 
 to confine it to comparatively representative names, 
 but the number had already been swelled far beyond 
 the original design, because so many had asked the
 
 472 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 privilege of affixing their signatures. Among tlie 
 names of special note attached to the denial was 
 that of William Pitt Fessenden. There were also 
 those of six men who either had been, or were after- 
 wards to be, mayors of Portland. 
 
 During September, a World's Temperance con- 
 vention was held in the city of New York. It was 
 a large and influential gathering, including delegates 
 not only from many of the states of this Union and 
 the British Provinces, but from Great Britain as well. 
 I was made president of this body. An incident 
 occurred which interfered somewhat with the har- 
 mony of the occasion. "Woman's Eights" were not 
 then generally recognized, and an attempt of the Rev. 
 Antoinette L. Brown to speak was very offensive to 
 some delegates, especially to many clergymen present. 
 Objections were raised to her speaking, and amid a 
 storm of protests against it she appealed to the chair 
 for recognition and protection of her right to be 
 heard. 
 
 Coming clearly within the terms of the call as she 
 did, being a delegate from a properly constituted 
 temperance society, I decided that she had a right 
 to speak. I could not have done otherwise had I 
 been personally disposed to exclude her. An appeal 
 from the chair was taken, but its decision was sus- 
 tained. At this the disturbance on the part of some 
 of those who believed that women should keep silent 
 in meeting was so great that she could not go on, and 
 the chair requested the police to quell the disturbance 
 by putting disorderly persons out of the hall. After 
 that there was no further trouble for the time. 
 
 The next day, a movement, at the time deemed to 
 be more in the interest of Woman's Rights than of
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 473 
 
 temperance, in the name of which the convention was 
 called, was started. It was led, as far as it pro- 
 gressed, by Wendell Phillips. If I remember aright, 
 a society was organized immediately after Miss 
 Brown's attempt to address the convention. This 
 was called the "Neal Dow Temperance Society," of 
 some New York City ward, I believe. Mr. Phillips 
 was elected a delegate to the convention, the main 
 object being, it was supposed, to secure his matchless 
 oratory to support a fight intended to be waged over 
 the question of Woman's Rights. 
 
 When Mr. Phillips rose to speak, objection was 
 raised, and his eligibility to membership was ques- 
 tioned. I was obliged to rule in substance that the 
 "Neal Dow Society," not having had an existence at 
 the time of the assembling of the convention, was not 
 one of those contemplated by the call, hence the great 
 antislavery reformer and Woman's Rights advocate, 
 and earnest champion of so much that makes for the 
 welfare of society, could not go on. Certainly there 
 were few men in that body whose devotion to temper- 
 ance could in point of ability, sincerity and zeal, 
 outrank his. I regretted much that the incident 
 occurred, but never doubted the soundness of the 
 ruling by the chair. 
 
 After several meetings in different parts of New 
 York state, I went to Pennsylvania. There I spent a 
 month, constantly speaking, often twice a day, until 
 the eve of the election on October 11, in which the 
 Maine Law was involved. Shortly after this date 
 I reached home. Early in November, however, I was 
 off again for a series of meetings in Massachusetts, 
 commencing with one in Faneuil Hall. Filling my 
 appointments, which were mostly in the western i)art
 
 474 REMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 
 
 of the state, I returned to Portland to give such atten- 
 tion as I could to my own affairs. 
 
 For most of the time up to January, 1854, I was at 
 home, with occasional temporary absences, due to 
 demands upon me to speak at sundry places in Maine, 
 generally not far from home. Some time was also 
 devoted to the peculiar political conditions existing in 
 the state as a result of the September election of 1853, 
 which was becoming manifest in the winter and spring 
 of 1854. These can best be considered in another 
 chapter.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE STATE ELECTION OF 1853, BOLT OF MAINE-LAW DEM- 
 
 OCEATS. THE TUKNING-POINT IN THE POLITICS 
 
 OF MAINE. ELECTION OF WILLIAM PITT 
 
 FESSENDEN AS UNITED STATES 
 
 SENATOK. 
 
 It is now to be borne in mind that the election of 
 William Gr. Crosby by the legislature of 1853, through 
 the defection of the anti-Maine Law Democrats, 
 placed a Whig in the gubernatorial chair. This 
 was only the third time that a Whig had occupied 
 that position since the organization of the Democratic 
 party, which, early in the history of the state, had 
 acquired an ascendancy, maintaining it up to 1853, 
 save that in 1838 and 1841, Edward Kent, a Whig, 
 was governor, in the former case having been chosen 
 by the people in the state election of 1837 by less than 
 one hundred majority, and in the latter case depend- 
 ing for his position upon the legislature chosen in 
 1840, when he failed of a popular election by less 
 than forty votes. 
 
 The ill-feeling in the Democratic ranks developed 
 through the election of a Whig by Democratic votes, in 
 the legislature which assembled in 1853, was by no 
 means allayed, but rather grew stronger with the
 
 476 REMINISCENCES 
 
 lapse of time. For several weeks prior to tlie gather- 
 ing of the Democratic nominating convention at 
 Bangor, in the latter part of June, 1853, it was 
 evident that trouble was brewing which could 
 only, be prevented by the greatest skill on the part of 
 the leaders from breaking out in open revolt. 
 
 The "liberal" Democrats insisted that the platform 
 and the nominee should be unequivocally committed 
 against the Maine Law. The Expositor, the Portland 
 organ of that wing of the party, referring to the 
 Maine Law, said: 
 
 " The people want no ' side issue ' made of this matter, Imt 
 a main, direct issue upon it, at the polls, and this in the elec- 
 tion of the next year's law-makers and law-executors. And 
 they demand and will insist on having candidates wdiose 
 course shall not be a concealed nor a doul)tful one. The 
 peoi)le want no more to be cheated, nor delayed in this 
 matter ; and as sure as the sentiment of those leaders of the 
 jjarty who twirl their thumbs and fingers significantly and 
 scornfully about their noses and cry ' no side issue ' — ' Keep 
 still : ' — ' Keep dark ! ' — ' Let us be united ! ' — shall pre- 
 vail in the convention at Bangor, and a dumb democracy is 
 to be represented in the candidate selected, then it will be the 
 duty, the interest, the policy, and the necessity of the liberal 
 democracy of the state, and of all liberal men and minds, 
 once more to rally upon their own responsibility, and in 
 defense of their own cause and rights, and drive these traf- 
 ficking politicians from the halls of legislation, and from the 
 executive department of the government. This they can do, 
 and this we believe they will do." 
 
 On the other hand, the Maine-Law Democrats were 
 no less determined that the state convention should 
 endorse the legislation wliich had been enacted when 
 their party had complete control of the state. 
 Between these two extremes the leaders held the 
 great mass of tlie party to a half-way policy, the 
 nomination of a candidate personally opposed to
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 477 
 
 Proliibitioii, but upon a platform whicli sliould 
 entirely ignore that subject. 
 
 The discussion, public and private, prior to the 
 convention, had excited great interest in it, and 
 certain that no hall would contain those who would 
 be in attendance to participate in it and to watch its 
 proceedings, a large tent was provided to accommo- 
 date the convention. 
 
 The uncompromising Gary, who had so vigorously 
 criticized me in the discussion upon the Maine 
 Law, when it was first before the senate, was the 
 candidate of the straight-out liberals; my cousin, 
 John Hodgdon, was supported by some of the other 
 extreme, while the middle-men favored Albert G. 
 Pillsbury. The latter was nominated on the third 
 ballot. The main difference between Mr. Pillsbury 
 and Mr. Gary upon the liquor question, was in 
 expression, not opinion. The latter was frank and 
 outspoken, the former voicing equally positive hos- 
 tility to the measure but only where it would attract 
 votes and not repel them. 
 
 A story found its way into print to the effect that, 
 after his nomination, Gandidate Pillsbury sent Mr. 
 Gary an invitation to come to the Pillsbury head- 
 quarters. To this, it was said, Mr. Gary replied: 
 "Tell Pillsbury to come to mine. I have here more 
 friends and better liquor than can be found in his ! " 
 
 The "liberal " element, having nothing to complain 
 of in the candidate, was now easily made to see that 
 silence in the platform as to Prohibition was the 
 better policy, and that course was adopted. Remem- 
 bering the quarrel of the last year over the question 
 of a legislative renomination of Governor Hubbard, 
 the convention voted:
 
 478 REMINISCENCES 
 
 "That the legislature as such have nothing to do with the 
 nomination of governor." 
 
 It was soon evident that it mattered little who had 
 
 to do with the selection of Democratic candidates for 
 
 governor of Maine. Since that time, with but one or 
 
 two exceptions, they have never been more than 
 
 candidates. The Democratic A7'gics, referring to the 
 
 platform, said: 
 
 "The convention gave no sign by which it could even l)e 
 inferred that there was such a thing on the statute-books as a 
 
 liquor law Mr. Pillsbury is the representative of the 
 
 principles embodied in those resolutions — and no others. 
 Consequently all Democrats may unite in giving him their 
 cordial support." 
 
 Almost immediately after the adjournment of the 
 convention it became evident that the Democratic 
 party was far from being a happy and united family. 
 Much bitter, if not justifiable, talk followed. One 
 Democratic paper, referring to the convention, said: 
 
 " The noise and confusion which attended its proceedings, 
 constituted at times a perfect pandemonium. The voice of 
 the multitude broke forth in the wildest shouts and set at 
 deliance the authority of the chairman and the rules of 
 decorum." 
 
 Another paper spoke of the convention as, "a 
 desperate, unprincipled, and rum-soaked set of men." 
 Allowance, however, should be made for the irrita- 
 tion and excitement of the time. A Democratic paper 
 said: 
 
 " All)crt Pillslniry was nominated by a convention of the 
 Lil)eral party, and none but the sworn enemies of the Demo- 
 cratic party have made him their standard-ltoarcr. The same 
 party that last year nominated Anson G. Chandler have this 
 year nominated Albert Pillsbury." 
 
 A few days after the nomination of Mr. Pillsbury, a 
 state temperance convention was held in Portland
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 479 
 
 which was largely attended. Its presiding officer was 
 Gen. John J. Perry, of Oxford county, and one of its 
 secretaries was Woodbury Davis, of Waldo county. 
 Among the speakers was Gen. Samuel Fessenden, of 
 Portland. A feature of this convention was the 
 attendance of a fire engine-company, from Saco, all 
 pledged Maine-Law men, which marched into the hall 
 preceded by a band of music. A state temperance 
 committee was appointed, and among others the fol- 
 lowing resolutions were adopted: 
 
 *' Resolved, That the temperance reform is the cause of 
 God and humanity, and that all true Christians and patriots 
 will stand by it, whenever and wherever that cause is 
 endangered. 
 
 " Resolved, That the Maine Law is a recognition of moral 
 truth, and an embodiment of political wisdom, and is worthy 
 to stand as a leading question before the people of our state 
 in popular conventions and at the ballot box, until all opposi- 
 tion to it shall cease. 
 
 " Resolved, That the legal prohibition of the traffic in 
 intoxicating liquors is not a ' side ' issue nor an ' outside ' 
 question foreign to legitimate politics, but a subject involv- 
 ing the highest political welfare of the state, and that no 
 candidate for office who is not a true and reliable supporter 
 of the ' Maine Law ' shall have our support at the polls. 
 
 "Resolved, That the central committee be authorized and 
 instructed in behalf of this convention, to interrogate the 
 several candidates for governor, in regard to their opinions 
 and position in relation to the Maine Law, and that they 
 publish the answers they may receive for the consideration 
 and action of the people." 
 
 The Whig leaders now saw their opportunity to 
 profit by the situation, and their leading organ editor- 
 ially said: 
 
 ' ' If the question could be fairly put to the people of this 
 state, entirely disconnected from party politics, we believe 
 that more than three-quarters of our legal voters would be 
 found opposed to the repeal of the Maine Law And yet
 
 480 REMINISCENCES 
 
 the danger of repeal in this state is at this moment more im- 
 minent than ever l)efore. 
 
 " It is morally impossible that the ]Maine Law can ever be 
 repealed in this state without the aid of the organization and 
 political machinery of one of the great political parties. Last 
 3^ear the rum power failed to secure this object. The regular 
 candidates of all the political parties were committed in favor 
 of the material provisions of the law. The opposition to the 
 law was therefore found outside of, and opposed to, all the 
 political organizations. "VVe can assure the friends of the 
 Maine Law, that the day of their trial has come. They now 
 have to deal with an opponent that has not been accustomed 
 to defeat. 
 
 ' Now, gallant Saxon, hold thine own ! 
 No maiden's hand is round thee thrown ! 
 That desperate grasp thy frame might feel 
 Through bars of brass and triple steel.' 
 
 "Those who are prompted by appetite, passion and self- 
 interest, in a contest of this character, are generally united, 
 determined and persevering. Those who are moved only by 
 devotion to a sentiment, or principle of duty, are too often 
 divided, irresolute and lukewarm. They lack that wonderful 
 cohesive power of selfishness which impels and binds together 
 their opponents. Here lies the principal danger at the 
 present time. If its friends are united, resolute and deter- 
 mined, the law will be sustained, and in a manner which will 
 prevent future efforts to make war upon it. But, if they are 
 divided, irresolute and faltering, the chances are that they 
 may sustain a most inglorious defeat, the law be swept from 
 the statute-book, and Maine return to a state of things the 
 consequences of which human wisdom can hardly compre- 
 hend." 
 
 About the same time a Democratic paper said : 
 
 "It is a notorious fact, in the mouth of both friends and 
 foes of the jNIaine Law, that Mr. Pillsbury was selected as 
 the most available exponent of those who go for a repeal of 
 
 that measure. He gave such pledges, verbally and 
 
 in Avriting, as to leave no dou1)t in regard to his position. 
 The rum-interest is rejoicing in the assurance that the Maine 
 Law is now doomed, and in order to make the thing effectual 
 the entire rum-interest is to ])e enlisted in his favor. The 
 liberal Whigs of INIaine already stand pledged to support
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 481 
 
 him, and will do so to a man. But even with all this 
 extraneous aid, the democracy is so disgusted and disgraced 
 by the drunkenness and rowdyism Avhich resulted in this 
 nomination, that they feel called upon to rise up in indigna- 
 tion against those who have betrayed a virtuous constituency." 
 
 The Maine-Law men were fully alive to tlie danger 
 thus set out, and hardly needed the warning, however 
 disinterested were those who extended it. The story 
 of the next few years shows that they made good use 
 of the means at their disposal. As soon as it became 
 apparent that a political organization, as such, was 
 contemplating an attack upon the law, its friends 
 interposed between it and the threatened danger a 
 strong party unequivocally committed to its support. 
 
 Governor Crosby had been renominated by the 
 Whig members of the legislature, and Dr. Ezekiel 
 Holmes had also been renominated by the Free- 
 Soilers. Meanwhile the committee appointed at the 
 state temperance convention to interrogate the candi- 
 dates for governor upon the subject of the Maine 
 Law had addressed notes to each of these, as well 
 as to Candidate Pillsbury, containing the following 
 questions : 
 
 " 1st. Ought the Maine Liquor Law, in your judgment, to 
 be repealed? 
 
 2d. If not, should this law be modified in any respect? 
 If so, please state to us what provisions you think should be 
 changed, and in what respects?" 
 
 To these Governor Crosby had replied: 
 
 " Believing that the object of the law referred to is of the 
 highest importance to the moral, social and political welfare 
 of the people, and that its provisions are adequate to the 
 accomplishment of that object, it ought not, in my judgment, 
 to be repealed. I have no modifications to propose or recom- 
 mend, and am not aware of any which should be made." 
 
 Dr. Holmes, in his response to the committee, said:
 
 482 REMINISCENCES 
 
 << Permit me to say that, in my judgment, the legislature of 
 Maine could not do a deed more fatal to her moral interests, 
 more disastrous to her growing prosperity, and, by conse- 
 quence, more derogatory to her honor and reputation, than to 
 repeal the act commonly called the ' Maine Law.'" 
 
 No reply was received from Mr. Pillsbury, but a 
 Democratic paper, the editor of which was understood 
 to be a very close friend of his, said : 
 
 " A committee was appointed to catechise candidates. The 
 friends of a candidate know his opinions or are willing to take 
 him as he is on the responsibility and recommendations of the 
 nominating convention while the enemies of a candidate only 
 catechise him for the purpose of drawling something from him 
 to be used to his disadvantage." 
 
 In the latter part of July, another state temperance 
 convention was held in Bangor. Its presiding officer 
 was Mayor Greorge W. Pickering, of that city. It 
 adopted the following resolution: 
 
 " Resolved, That we seek to form no political organization, 
 or raise any political issue. We go unitedly for the support 
 of the Maine Law, and, in this great work, we recognize all 
 men who are friendly to that enterprise as our friends, and 
 its enemies as our enemies, and we feel bound to treat all 
 nominees for office, when their acts can affect that law% as for 
 us or against us, and the candidate that refuses to define his 
 position, when respectfully requested so to do, is unworthy of 
 our support, and shall be treated accordingly at the polls." 
 
 That convention was addressed by Anson P. 
 Morrill, who had always been an earnest Democrat, 
 but who denounced the position of the Democratic 
 party and its candidate upon the Maine Law, which 
 he strongly favored. Within ten days after that 
 speech, Mr. Morrill was nominated for governor ])y a 
 state convention of bolting Democrats, held in Port- 
 land on the fourth of August. 
 
 A number of prominent and influential Democrats,
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 483 
 
 among them Noah Prince, who, as president of the 
 senate, had affixed his name to the Maine Law in 
 attestation of its passage through the body over 
 which he presided, and Gen. John J. Perry, had 
 united in a call for a mass convention of those Demo- 
 crats who, to quote, ' ' are opposed to the disgraceful, 
 unjust, and unjustifiable proceedings of the recent 
 Bangor convention." 
 
 In response to the call, a convention assembled in 
 Portland. Notwithstanding a severe rainstorm, there 
 was a large attendance, Oxford county especially 
 sending a numerous delegation. I remember an 
 amusing incident connected with the march of this 
 body, nearly five hundred strong, from the depot to 
 the hall where the convention was to assemble. It 
 was raining hard, and as but few of the procession 
 carried umbrellas, they presented, all dripping as they 
 were, a forlorn picture. They were greeted with 
 derisive shouts from the sidewalk contingent of 
 Democratic regulars, such as: "You are out in the 
 wet! " " Your bear skins are spoiled! " and other con- 
 temptuous expressions. 
 
 In front of the old Exchange, which occupied the 
 spot where is noAv the post-office, stood Hon. Virgil D. 
 Parris, one of the stalwart leading Democrats of the 
 time. He was then, if I remember aright, certainly 
 at one time, a United States marshal for Maine. He 
 was of tall and commanding figure, and his imposing- 
 physique had for years been a marked feature of 
 every Democratic gathering of note in the state. A 
 citizen of Oxford, he recognized many of his Oxford 
 neighbors in the procession, and hailed one of them 
 with the jocular inquiry: "What fire company have 
 you bears joined now ? " The term "bears " was com-
 
 484 REMINISCENCES 
 
 monly applied to residents of Oxford county, which 
 included much wild forest-land, Avhere bears were 
 abundant. Instantly the reply came from the ranks: 
 "The name of this company is the 'Pillsbury Extin- 
 guishers!'" This retort gave to the bolters, as they 
 were then called, the name by which they were 
 known through the campaign. It was an appropriate 
 one. They certainly did extinguish Pillsbury, and 
 with him Democratic prestige and power in Maine. 
 
 The convention nominated Anson P. Morrill as its 
 candidate for governor. Among the resolutions 
 adopted was the following: 
 
 "Resolved, That the great moral evils which affect society 
 are proper subjects of legislative restraint, and that all laws 
 enacted for such purpose should be respected and enforced." 
 
 Through committees appointed for the purpose, the 
 MorriU men perfected their arrangements to oppose 
 regular Democratic nominees for the legislature who 
 were not known to be friendly to the Maine Law and 
 to support Whigs or Free-Soil candidates who might 
 be sound on that issue, the choice being determined by 
 the prospects which one or the other might have of an 
 election with such aid, while on the other hand, in 
 strong Democratic districts, where there was any 
 prospect of electing by so doing, temperance Whigs 
 and Free-Soilers supported Morrill-Democratic can- 
 didates for the senate and house. 
 
 The campaign which was now opened proved a 
 warm one, especially between the two wings of the 
 divided Democracy. It was the expectation among 
 the leaders of the " regulars " that they could throw 
 for their candidate, Pillsbury, who ignored the pro- 
 hibitory issue, a larger vote than Hubbard had 
 secured the year before. In this they were disap-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 485 
 
 pointed by some thousands. Hubbard, running in 
 1852 as the regular Democratic candidate, but une- 
 quivocally committed to the Maine Law, for which by 
 his approval he was sponsor, received forty-two thou- 
 sand votes, while Pillsbury in 1853, also a regular 
 Democratic candidate, but understood to be hostile to 
 the law, polled a little over thirty-six thousand votes. 
 
 This loss of five thousand, six hundred votes was 
 not uniformly distributed throughout the state. It 
 varied with the earnestness of temperance sentiment 
 in different localities. In Portland, for instance, 
 where in 1852 Hubbard had received 1495 votes, 
 Pillsbury in 1853 obtained only 755, the exact number, 
 by the way, given the "liberal" bolting candidate, 
 Chandler, in 1852. In Bangor, where Hubbard 
 had received 1,065, only 611 votes were cast for 
 Pillsbury, while Morrill received almost as many 
 as had been thrown by the "liberals" in 1852. In 
 some other sections of the state Pillsbury received 
 more votes than Hubbard. The Free-Soilers, who in 
 1852 had transferred most of their strength to Gover- 
 nor Hubbard, this year gave their own candidate, 
 a strong Maine-Law man, who in his letter had advo- 
 cated more stringent prohibitory legislation, almost 
 nine thousand votes, while the Maine-Law candidate, 
 Anson P. Morrill, received about eleven thousand, 
 drawn mostly from the Democratic party, and the 
 Whig candidate, Governor Crosby, received some 
 twenty-seven thousand votes. The choice of a gover- 
 nor was thus again devolved upon the legislature. 
 
 The result of the election was most gratifying every 
 way to the friends of the Maine Law, indicating most 
 clearly that the policy was entrenched behind a sub- 
 stantial popular majority. 
 
 32
 
 486 REMINISCENCES 
 
 The leading Whig daily of the state, referring to 
 
 the result, said: 
 
 " It cannot be denied that the liquor-law question entered 
 lavoely into our recent election. It was, in fact, the only 
 qu(>stion, or issue, or principle, upon which there was any 
 considerable feeling. The result indicated a very strong 
 popular sentiment in favor of maintaining the law. Crosby, 
 Morrill, and Holmes were all strongly and unequivocally com- 
 mitted in favor of the law In this city, Portland, 
 
 where the law has been very thoroughly discussed, and its 
 practical operation subjected to close scrutiny and severe 
 tests, the election of representatives at the last two annual 
 elections shows a decided majority in its favor." 
 
 The legislature chosen was strongly favorable to 
 the Maine Law. But it was of a decidedly mixed 
 character politically. To the house there were 
 elected sixty-four Whigs, sixty Democrats, nineteen 
 Morrill- Democrats, and eight Free-Soilers. 
 
 The majority rule yet obtained as to the choice of 
 senators, and of these only thirteen of a total of 
 thirty-one were elected by the people, seven of them 
 being Democrats. 
 
 In addition to the choice of a governor from among 
 the four candidates between whom the popular vote 
 had been divided, the legislature was to choose a 
 United States senator, to succeed Hon. James W. 
 Bradbury, whose term had expired in 1853. The 
 legislature elected in 1852 was Democratic, as we 
 have seen, but it rei)resented a party that was split 
 into two irreconcilable factions over the issue of the 
 re-election of Governor Hubbard, with the result that 
 the election of a successor to Mr. Bradbury had been 
 postponed for a year. Now it ^vas apparent that 
 unless the Morrill-Democrats should co-operate with 
 their former political associates, no Democrat could 
 succeed Mr. Bradbury, and it was almost as certain
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 487 
 
 that such co-operation could not be secured. Never- 
 theless, as soon as the political complexion of the 
 legislature became known, efforts were made to bring 
 the Morrill men back into the Democratic fold. 
 They were promised forgiveness, present position, 
 and future reward if they would return to their 
 accustomed political abiding-place. Moreover it was 
 also urged upon them that the Maine Law was 
 safe, that it was clear that Prohibition was to be the 
 fixed policy of the state, and that it was the duty of 
 all former Democrats to work together for the restora- 
 tion of harmony in the ranks of that much distracted 
 party. 
 
 On the other hand, the leaders of the three elements 
 opposed to the regular, or Pillsbury, Democracy, were 
 active in perfecting an understanding whereby the 
 opposition majority of the legislature could co-oper- 
 ate. This was so far successful that the house was 
 organized without delay by the choice of a Whig 
 candidate for speaker, Noah Smith, of Calais, of 
 whom we have heard before as chairman of the 
 house committee which reported the original Maine 
 Law, and the election as clerk of John J. Perry, 
 who, we will remember, was one of the leaders 
 in the bolting convention which had nominated 
 Anson P. Morrill for governor. 
 
 This done, attention was turned to filling the 
 vacancies in the senate which by a constitutional 
 provision must be done in a joint convention of the 
 senators-elect and the house. An understanding was 
 perfected among the leaders of the opposition to the 
 regular Democrats that the vacancies in the senate 
 should be filled, as far as constitutional limitations 
 would permit, by those who could be relied upon
 
 488 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 to vote for Morrill, and that tlie coalition in the house 
 would send up to the senate thus completed the names 
 of Morrill and Crosby as the constitutional candi- 
 dates for governor, of whom the senate would choose 
 Morrill. 
 
 It was also understood that the Whig- candidate for 
 the United States senate, Mr. Fessenden, should 
 be elected through the assistance of the Morrill 
 Democrats. It is here proper to say that it was most 
 unequivocally denied that there was anything in the 
 nature of a trade as to these two offices, but, never- 
 theless, the conditions were such that it seemed 
 inevitable for a time that the Morrill men, through 
 the aid of some Whigs, would elect the governor, 
 while the latter, with the assistance of the Morrill 
 men, would obtain the senatorship. 
 
 The regular Democrats saw the handwriting on the 
 wall, and did nothing to hasten the day of the dis- 
 comfiture they expected. It reciuired a month's time 
 and an opinion from the Supreme Court before the 
 vacancies in the senate could be filled. When at 
 length this was done, it was supposed that the 
 Morrill men had one more than half of that body. 
 Now came the choice of governor. Under the Consti- 
 tution the house might select either two of the four 
 candidates who had received the highest number of 
 votes. Under the arrangements referred to the house 
 coalition promptly sent up the names of Crosby and 
 Morrill, outvoting the regular Democrats who sup- 
 ported Crosby and Pillsbury. 
 
 The senate was now to decide. Unquestionably a 
 majority of the Whigs in that body, left to their own 
 inclination and judgment, would have preferred to 
 vote for Mr. Morrill. But the United States senator-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 489 
 
 ship was yet to be decided and was sure to be affected 
 by the course of the Whig senators on the governor- 
 ship. On the one hand it was feared that if Morrill 
 was not made governor, his friends could not be relied 
 upon to support Mr. Fessenden for the senate. On 
 the other hand it was known that some Whigs would 
 bolt as to the senatorship if their nominee for gov- 
 ernor was beaten by the votes of Whig senators. 
 
 In this dilemma the Whig leaders concluded that 
 the path of safety was to be found in party con- 
 sistency. Consequently they brought great pressure 
 to bear upon those Whig senators who were thought 
 to incline toward Morrill to keep them in the party 
 fold. Some Whigs were in the senate through the 
 assistance at the polls of the Morrill-Democrats under 
 the promise, express or implied, that if necessary to 
 elect him they would vote for the candidate of the 
 Maine-Law Democracy. Upon these, of course, the 
 friends of Mr. Morrill relied. But, shortly before the 
 senate was to vote, one Whig senator, who had been 
 depended upon to vote for Morrill, was called into the 
 lobby, where he was labored with an entire hour by a 
 coterie of leading Whigs, who finally secured through 
 his pledge the one vote needed to elect Crosby. Then 
 the senate, having patiently awaited that proselyt- 
 ing process, proceeded to the choice of a governor. 
 Nine regular Democrats and seven Whigs, sixteen in 
 all, voted for Crosby, and four Whigs, two regular 
 Democrats, and nine Morrill-Democrats, fifteen in all, 
 voted for Morrill. 
 
 The result was a profound surprise to everybody 
 present, save the three or four Whigs who had con- 
 verted their vacillating brother. Commenting upon 
 it, a Portland daily said:
 
 490 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 " All can rejoico in having defeated something, and that 
 the Maine Law is safe." 
 
 The regular Democrats were delighted. They were 
 pleased because a "bolter" had been punished; they 
 were sanguine that the back-bone of the coalition was 
 broken, and imagined that the "deserters" in the 
 Morrill camp would come home to be forgiven, to 
 be revenged upon the ' ' tricky " Whigs, and to act 
 thereafter with the Democratic party. They were 
 convinced that the Whigs would now be unable to 
 elect Mr. Fessenden to the senate, and confidently 
 expected the success of their own candidate. The 
 Whig leaders ridiculed these claims publicly, but 
 privately were anxious. The situation was critical 
 and no one was able to predict with certainty what 
 the outcome on the senatorial contest would be. 
 
 A generation has passed since Mr. Fessenden first 
 entered the body in which he won distinction for 
 himself and influence for his state. The circum- 
 stances attending his first election are not wholly out 
 of place in this narrative, because, although the ques- 
 tion of temperance and Prohibition was not involved 
 in it, his success was the result of disaffections in 
 the Democratic party, largely growing out of the 
 temperance question, and some of the friends of 
 Prohibition, as such, were instrumental in bringing 
 it about. It was a direct consequence of the rum-bolt 
 against Governor Hubbard in 1852, to which, also, it 
 is due in a measure that no Democrat has since been 
 sent from Maine to the United States senate. 
 
 The outcome of the gubernatorial contest was a 
 great disappointment to the friends of Mr. Morrill, 
 and for a time it was feared that their votes could not 
 be secured for Mr. Fessenden for the senate. These
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 491 
 
 Morrill men were Democrats, with all the Democratic 
 convictions, not to say prejudices, against Whigs and 
 Whig policies. They were separated from their former 
 political associates only because of the "liberal" bolt 
 against Hubbard in 1852, and their consequent tem- 
 perance bolt against Pillsbury in 1858. They were 
 held together only by their devotion to their leader, 
 Anson P. Morrill, and the principles they believed 
 would be advanced by his elevation to the governor- 
 ship. In this contingency, the interesting question 
 among all concerned was: What course will Mr. 
 Morrill take upon the senatorship question now that 
 he has lost the governorship through the efforts of 
 the Whig leaders ? More interest was felt upon this 
 point because the regular Democrats, in the hope of 
 capturing the following of Anson P. Morrill, had 
 nominated his brother. Lot M. Morrill, to whom he 
 was known to be most warmly attached, as their 
 candidate for United States senator. 
 
 In a consultation between Anson P. Morrill and his 
 followers he stated plainly that while he could not 
 actively oppose his brother Lot he saw no good reason 
 in his own defeat for governor to lead them to recon- 
 sider their previously formed determination to vote 
 for Fessenden. Nevertheless, much anxiety was felt 
 among Mr. Fessenden 's Whig friends as to the out- 
 come. Prominent temperance men who were personal 
 friends of Mr. Fessenden, and others who were glad 
 to punish the Democratic party for its treatment of 
 Hubbard, also entered heartily into the canvass for 
 Mr. Fessenden, and finally secured enough pledges 
 from among the Morrill-Democrats to ensure his elec- 
 tion, if all the Whigs could be relied upon to support 
 him.
 
 492 REMINISCENCES 
 
 In those days United States senators were elected 
 by concurrent votes of the two houses, there being no 
 joint ballot, as now, in case of disagreement between 
 senate and house. Mr. Fessenden was certain to be 
 chosen on the part of the senate, but trouble was 
 feared in the lower branch. It was thought that two 
 or three Whigs could not be relied upon to vote for 
 him, if there was any probability of his election and 
 if their defection could be concealed. Their supposed 
 opposition was to his credit. He was said to have 
 inherited the antislavery convictions of his honored 
 father, General Samuel Fessenden, one of the leading 
 Free-Soilers of the state. Then, too, the charges of 
 trading with the Morrill-Democrats against Crosby, 
 brought against some of Mr. Fessenden's friends, had 
 added to the coolness of some of the latter's party 
 associates. The viva voce vote was not then required, 
 and the election was to be by ballot. No one could 
 know absolutely how his neighbor voted. Neverthe- 
 less, because of the ease of tracing the treason to its 
 source if each candidate did not get his full party 
 strength, it was certain that Mr. Fessenden would get 
 every Whig vote, unless by means of the Morrill men 
 casting their ballots for him a cover would be 
 afforded under which a few Whigs could bolt without 
 fear of detection by their party associates. The prac- 
 tical problem then was how to secure the Morrill votes 
 for Fessenden without letting the Whig malcontents 
 know that he was to receive them until too late for 
 them to prevent his election. 
 
 It was accomplished in this way: With some public- 
 ity, an interview was arranged between the Morrill 
 Democrats and ex-Governor Hubbard, to give the 
 impression that they were intending to vote for him.
 
 OF NEAL 1>0VV. 493 
 
 The naturalness of such an arrangement gave color 
 to its probability. The Morrill men in the legislature 
 were in a measure the avengers of Hubbard's wrongs. 
 But for the Democratic liquor-bolt against him there 
 would have been no Democratic temperance-bolt 
 against Pillsbury, and the Morrill men, as such, 
 would not have been in the legislature. It was 
 reasonable to think that they might vote for Mr. 
 Hubbard, and their support, with that of the regular 
 Democrats, would elect him and thus pave the way 
 for that union and harmony needed for the restora- 
 tion of the Democracy to its control of the state. 
 
 After this interview the report was circulated that 
 Governor Hubbard had been nominated by the 
 Morrill men, and that there would be no choice on 
 the first ballot. Those in the secret took assiduous 
 care that the report should not be contradicted, lest 
 some of the disaffected Whigs might withhold their 
 votes from Fessenden. Accordingly ballots were 
 printed for Governor Hubbard and carefully distrib- 
 uted throughout the house just before the hour of 
 balloting arrived. Not a Democrat in the legislature, 
 and but two Whigs, knew what the Morrill men were 
 to do. 
 
 Mr. Fessenden was one of those. He and his Dem- 
 ocratic competitor, Lot M. Morrill, who like himself, 
 was a member of the house, had taken seats in the 
 front, one on each side of the speaker's desk. The 
 committee collected the votes and retired to count. 
 Its report was to settle the question which had been 
 disturbing the politicians of the state for nearly two 
 years, yet there were not twelve men awaiting that 
 report who supposed that the choice had been 
 effected. The committee came in. Its announcement
 
 494 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 was awaited and received in dead silence. To the 
 great surprise of almost every one present, it showed 
 the election of Fessenden. Not a word was spoken 
 for nearly a minute, which seemed fully five minutes 
 so great was the strain, during which not a sound was 
 heard in the crowded assembly. 
 
 Finally, Mr. Morrill rose, and, almost staggering as 
 he walked, so great was his nervous excitement, 
 crossed over to the side of Mr. Fessenden, shook 
 hands with him in the presence of the great crowd 
 which thronged the house and congratulated him 
 upon his success. The spell thus broken was 
 followed by loud and long-continued applause. 
 Subsequently Messrs. Fessenden and Morrill were 
 colleagues in the United States senate as Republicans, 
 and both also afterwards became secretaries of the 
 the United States treasury. 
 
 Though the Whigs had succeeded, through a pecu- 
 liar combination of circumstances that has been 
 described, in electing both the governor and United 
 States senator, before the adjournment of the legisla- 
 ture it was evident to far-sighted politicians that 
 political conditions in the state were undergoing a 
 change, and that the Whig party would soon cease to 
 be an important factor in the politics of Maine. The 
 old Democratic party was also in its decline. The 
 organization of a new party was only a question of 
 time. How it would be brought into existence, and 
 what it should represent when born, was yet a matter 
 of uncertainty. 
 
 In the spring of 1853, as we have seen, the Whig 
 party made no nomination for mayor in Portland, 
 so irreconcilable were its contending factions, and in 
 the spring of 1854 it did not make the attempt. To
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 495 
 
 Bome extent the same trouble affected that organiza- 
 tion in many other municipalities in the state, while 
 the warring elements in the Democratic party left 
 that in as bad a condition. 
 
 Whig and Democratic politicians had by this time 
 learned that a larger number of voters than ever were 
 interested in other issues than as to which of their 
 leaders should be placed in office, and were deter- 
 mined that they would be led by none whom they did 
 not believe to be sound upon the great questions of 
 the prohibition of the liquor-traffic and the non- 
 extension of slavery, which they had come to regard 
 as of transcending political importance. How to util- 
 ize to the best advantage or to avoid the unfavorable 
 effect of this changed condition, were questions that 
 troubled immensely the mere time-servers and office- 
 seekers. They were also of grave concern to those 
 who sought to evolve from the political chaos of the 
 day the promotion of Prohibition and Free-Soil 
 principles.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 SPEAKING TOURS IN DIFFERENT STATES. MY NOMINATION 
 AND DEFEAT AS A CANDIDATE FOR MAYOR. THE 
 COMBINATION RESULTING IN THE ELEC- 
 TION OF ANSON P. MORRILL AS 
 GOVERNOR OF MAINE. 
 
 Early in January, 1854, I was again in the field 
 answering calls to speak in other states. Among my 
 meetings were two great gatherings at Manchester, 
 N. H. At one of these, my second, two hours before 
 the time arrived every seat was occupied, and an hour 
 before, the hall and the adjacent square Avere packed 
 with people. Tlie mayor told me that it was a larger 
 crowd than had ever been gathered there, and that it 
 numl^ered at least ten thousand. 
 
 In January, also, I was the guest at a great banquet 
 in Philadelphia, where I was the recipient of a massive 
 silver tea-set, manufactured with si)ecial design for 
 the occasion. The banquet i)roved an influential 
 gathering, and was attended by over fifteen hundred 
 l)eople. The presiding ofiicer was Judge William D. 
 Kelley, afterwards so prominent in the national house. 
 The presentation address was made by Rev. John 
 Chambers, of Pliiladelphia.
 
 REMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 497 
 
 During this tour, I addressed the legislative com- 
 mittees of New York and Pennsylvania, respectively 
 in the Representatives' Halls at Albany and Harris- 
 bnrg. While I was in New York City this month, 
 Rev. Dr. Tyng, addressing a great meeting, said: 
 "I had rather have the reputation of Neal Dow than 
 that of any other man who has ever lived." As I had 
 no other reputation than that of an earnest and, I 
 trust, consistent opponent of a traffic I believed to be 
 inimical to the welfare, temporal and eternal, of my 
 fellow-men, I saw in that remark more than the 
 unmerited compliment to myself that might otherwise 
 be implied by it. It was but Dr. Tyng's mode of ex- 
 pressing his opinion of the liquor-trade, and the great 
 blessing to mankind its banishment would prove. 
 
 March found me in Connecticut. Among other 
 towns which I visited was Salisbury, where were 
 preached the famous six temperance sermons by Rev, 
 Dr. Lyman Beecher, sermons, the reading of which, 
 in my younger manhood, had so much to do with 
 settling my conviction as to the enormity of the 
 liquor-traffic and the duty of good citizens to do all 
 they properly could to suppress it. 
 
 During my absence from home on these tours, my 
 name was again presented to the citizens of Portland 
 in connection with a nomination for mayor. Some of 
 our people desired a more vigorous enforcement of the 
 Maine Law than had generally obtained during the 
 year. That was the main reason for my nomination. 
 Then there were those among the local managers of 
 "our side" of the Whig party who, foreseeing the 
 speedy dissolution of that organization, were anxious 
 to be in a position to be potential in the new party 
 which they knew must soon be formed.
 
 498 REMINISCENCES 
 
 These reasons led to a call for a meeting of the 
 
 " Friends of the Maine Law." This was held in City 
 
 Hall, which was crowded. Hon. William W. Thomas 
 
 presided. I was unanimously nominated for mayor, 
 
 and the meeting appointed a committee to select a 
 
 full list of candidates for the city government. 
 
 Among those selected for aldermen were William W. 
 
 Thomas and John M. Wood. The latter a few 
 
 months later was nominated for Congress. The Whig 
 
 daily paper, which opposed my election, said of the 
 
 meeting the next morning : 
 
 *' It was very evident that the great majority of those 
 assembled were determined to nominate Mr. Dow, having 
 made arrang^ements to do so, and his nomination was finally 
 declared to be unanimously made, no one taking the trouble 
 to dissent." 
 
 My nomination was immediately followed by a call 
 for a meeting of those citizens who were favorable to 
 the re-election of Mayor Cahoon. This meeting, also 
 largely attended, put that gentleman in nomination 
 again, and the issue was declared by his adherents to 
 be between a wise and judicious enforcement of the 
 Maine Law, such as they favored, and the "rash" 
 and " Tinreasonable " one, such as might be expected 
 from me. The friends of Mr. Cahoon also put in 
 nomination a full ticket for city officers, including 
 some known to be far from friendly to Prohibition. 
 
 The lines being thus drawn, on the morning of the 
 election, my friend Judge Carter, who had opposed 
 my nomination, said in his paper, the Whig daily: 
 
 "In political, as well as in other matters, there is often 
 much more excitement about shadows than substance. It has 
 been so in relation to the municipal election which occurs 
 to-day. If the temperance men of this city had expressed 
 themselves satisfied with Mr. Cahoon (as they undoul)tedly 
 would, if Mr. Dow had previously started on his contem-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 499 
 
 plated tour to Europe) we should have witnessed a very 
 different state of things. Some other candidate would have 
 been brought out, and Mr. Gaboon, just as he is, and having 
 executed the law just as he has, would have been the Maine- 
 Law candidate, and the bitter opponents of the law would 
 have been arrayed against him. But Mr. Dow was brought 
 out. The liquor men at once saw their advantage, and were 
 not slow to improve it. They knew very well that this must 
 divide the friends of temperance and they were well con- 
 vinced that Mr. Gaboon would be elected by a large majority. 
 They resolved to ride the winning horse, and, while the law 
 men were grasping in different directions for the shadow, 
 they would endeavor to secure the substance. In other 
 words, they conceived the idea of carrying in with Mr. 
 Gaboon a majority of what they term liberal men." 
 
 The election was closely contested, and called out 
 a larger vote than had been thrown in Portland, save 
 in 1852, when fraud had been alleged. This year the 
 total vote was 3,111, against 3,399 then counted. In 
 that year, with one daily paper supporting me, I was 
 beaten by four hundred, while this year, with all four 
 dailies against me, my competitor led me with one 
 hundred and three votes. I was absent during the 
 canvass, reaching home at noon on the day of election. 
 A few days before I had written from Watertown, 
 Conn. : 
 
 " I have been so incessantly engaged and on the move that 
 I have had no time to think of affairs at Portland. I do not 
 permit myself to feel the least anxiety about them. If our 
 friends will do their duty I leave all else to a kind Provi- 
 dence, and whatever may be the result I shall cheerfully 
 acquiesce. I sometimes think I might do more good, per- 
 haps, by sowing the seeds of the Maine Law ail over our land 
 than I can in that position." 
 
 There were those who believed that, had I been at 
 home and able to lend personal assistance, my elec- 
 tion would have followed, but very likely they were 
 mistaken in this — the majority against me might
 
 500 REMINISCENCES 
 
 liave been larger. The Whig daily paper the day 
 
 after election said that the Dow men had elected 
 
 fifteen members of the city council to twelve of the 
 
 opposition. It went on to say: 
 
 " There is, therefore, unquestional)ly a decided majority of 
 botli ])raiiches of the city government in favor of a vigorous 
 execution of the liquor-law. This result of the election, 
 under all the circumstances, is a strong indication of the 
 
 strength of the law in this city We have been of 
 
 the o^^inion that the law itself, disconnected from all other 
 considerations, would poll at least a majority of eight hun- 
 dred in this city, and the result of this election has confirmed 
 us in that opinion." 
 
 That amounted to an intimation that the medicine 
 was more popular than the doctor who had been 
 prescribing it, but I was quite content, my aim was 
 not popularity. 
 
 Mayor Calioon, referring to temperance in his 
 
 inaugural address, said: 
 
 " In 1826, one hundred and eighty-nine licenses were 
 granted to retailers and victualers in this city, and our 
 population was not probably more than two-thirds the 
 present number. Under the present laws there are no 
 licenses and no public and open places where licpors are to 
 
 be sold Friends of temperance may honestly differ with 
 
 regard to the best measures to be adopted to eradicate the 
 evil, l)ut all will unite in the opinion that it is the great 
 source of most of the misery, crime, and wretchedness of 
 the land, and that the most efficient measures should be 
 adopted to accomplish the greatest amount of good. These 
 are no new princijiles with me, for I have entertained them 
 for more than thirty years, and my practice has been in 
 accordance therewith." 
 
 Again my defeat as a candidate for mayor unques- 
 tionably led to the growth of Maine-Law sentiment 
 throughout the country, as it left me free to respond 
 to invitations to speak, which I must otherwise have 
 declined. As it was, a considerable portion of my
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 501 
 
 time was given toward tlie propagation of that policy. 
 During May I filled a series of appointments in Dela- 
 ware, including all the larger places in the state. 
 June and July found me in the British Provinces. 
 The latter part of July and the first of August, were 
 spent in New York state, where, during a portion of 
 my stay, I was the guest of Edward C. Delevan, in his 
 delightful country home. 
 
 This year the Ashbury University, of Indiana, con- 
 ferred on me the title of LL. D. I was reminded by it 
 that a great deal of fun was occasioned when Cam- 
 bridge University, years before, paid a similar honor 
 to President Jackson. I rightly anticipated that the 
 press of the country would have many jokes over this, 
 and for a while they rung the changes upon it to as 
 great an extent and variety as ready wit or versatile 
 fancy could suggest. 
 
 Much of my time in the summer of 1854 was given 
 to aiding the efforts to consolidate, into an effective 
 party organization, those who, on the one hand, as to 
 state politics, were favorable to the Maine Law, and 
 those who as to national issues disapproved of the 
 repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the alleged 
 tendency of the Democratic party at the time to serve 
 the will of southern statesmen as to slavery. 
 
 We have already seen that the Democratic party, 
 once all-powerful in Maine, had, through its dissen- 
 sions over the Maine Law, lost control of the state. 
 It was by this time evident to most men of ordinary 
 political discernment that a re-alignment of voters in 
 Maine was inevitable and immediately impending. 
 The Whig national organization was tottering to its 
 fall, not more because of its crushing defeat in 1852 
 than from its inability to cope with the new and 
 
 33
 
 502 KEMIXISCENCES 
 
 grave political problems demanding solution. Long 
 years of adversity had developed in most Maine 
 Whigs an unconquerable aversion even to the name of 
 the Democratic party, and they desired a permanent 
 political al^iding-place where they might effectively 
 indulge their hostility to the Democracy and to what 
 it represented. It was evident that it was high time 
 for them to be looking out for a new party home. A 
 Idrge contingent, therefore, from tliis moribund organ- 
 ization could be relied upon for a new departure. 
 
 The Free-Soilers controlled about ten per cent of 
 the popular vote, and were stronger in their convic- 
 tions than at the polls. The repeal of the Missouri 
 Compromise and the passage of the Nebraska Bill, for 
 which one Democratic representative from , Maine had 
 voted, had raised a storm of excitement in the state, 
 sure to inure to the promotion of their principles, if 
 not to increase the votes that might be thrown under 
 the name of their political organization. The time, 
 therefore, seemed ripe for a consolidation of the 
 elements which, in the quadrangular contest of 
 1853, had left the Democrats in a minority of about 
 eleven thousand on the ijopular vote, and the leaders 
 of these various elements had come to seriously con- 
 sider the feasibility of a new political union under 
 a common political name. 
 
 Earnestly antislavery in my convictions, and irre- 
 vocably opposed to the extension of the peculiar 
 institution, I was naturally anxious that Maine 
 should take a right position on that question. But 
 I was determined, so far as I could influence events, 
 that this should be done without imperiling Prohibi- 
 tion. I believed that i)olicy right and its enforcement 
 sure to contribute to the moral weal and the material
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 503 
 
 prosj3erity of the state, and therefore a matter of ^reat 
 importance, none more so, to our people. Again I 
 was confident that it would prove a great element of 
 strength in the new combination, as it had been the 
 most potent agency in the overthrow of tlie Demo- 
 cratic party in the state. Though, as has been seen, 
 the question of Prohibition had become a political 
 matter rather by the action of its opponents than 
 of its friends, conditions had now become such' tliat 
 the cordial co-operation of the Maine-Law men would 
 be necessary to secure votes enough to throw the 
 influence of Maine nationally in opposition to the 
 further encroachments of slavery. 
 
 With a number of other men more or less interested 
 in public affairs, and each, perhaps, actuated by some- 
 what different motives, I earnestly and industriously 
 addressed myself to bringing aboTit a union at the 
 polls of the various elements which for one reason or 
 another were antagonistic to the old Democratic 
 party in the state. 
 
 Before the adjournment of the legislature, in the 
 spring of 1854, signs of political chaos were abundant. 
 The Morrill-Pillsbury breach in the Democratic party 
 had become wider than ever. Early in April, the 
 Morrill men in the legislature had united in a request 
 to the state committee of that element, appointed the 
 year before, to call a mass convention to nominate 
 a candidate for governor. In this they styled them- 
 selves "Democratic members of the legislature," and 
 asked that the call for the mass-meeting be addressed 
 to "our political friends," thus testifying to their 
 belief that the old Democratic name was yet potent in 
 the politics of Maine. 
 
 Prior to this action, a circular-call for a mass con-
 
 504 REMIXISCENCES 
 
 ventioii of the Democratt^ in the state had been issued 
 by quite a number of "liberal" gentlemen, whose 
 avowed desire was to "allay personal jealousies and 
 dissensions both in the ranks of the Democratic party 
 and among all who are disposed to promote the 
 ascendency of liberal views." 
 
 It was proposed that this convention "nominate a 
 candidate for governor, and adopt all needful meas- 
 ures to assure the united support by all liberal 
 electors of the nomination that shall be so made." 
 
 Just what "liberalism" in Maine at that time 
 meant may be best shown by a quotation from 
 the resolutions adopted at a meeting of ' ' liber- 
 als" held in one of the legislative representative 
 districts in Cumberland county, which were subse- 
 quently widely circulated. The Maine liquor-law 
 was denounced as iniquitous, uncalled-for, and un- 
 just; and it was 
 
 " Resolved, That abolitionism and the Maine-Law men, or 
 the effect of them, have ])roken down both the old political 
 parties in Maine, and planted on their ruins (or at least 
 attempted to do so) a code of laws or moral reform unknown 
 to the constitution and laws of this republic, and in deroga- 
 tion of both. 
 
 " Kesolved, That the people of Maine are yet able to 
 govern themselves,' the opinion of William Pitt Fessenden to 
 the contrary notwithstanding." 
 
 The resolves further called for an early organiza- 
 tion of all liberal-minded men as all-important for 
 the peace, prosperity, and happiness of the people of 
 Maine, and charged that "negro and Maine-Law 
 nonsense is the sole cause of all the secret juggling, 
 chicanery, and villainy practiced in the electioneer- 
 ing, both out of and in the legislature." 
 
 The circular-call referred to was denounced by reg-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 505 
 
 iilar Democrats in most positive terms, a sample of 
 which is taken from a Democratic paper published in 
 Bangor : 
 
 " It is a second, and more delil)erate and mature movement 
 than the first, to array in political contest a series of political 
 and unpolitical measures against their opposites ; to array 
 the sham democracy against the true democracy ; rum 
 against prohil)itory anti-liquor statutes ; slavery extension 
 against slavery restriction ; Douglass and Nebraska dough- 
 faceism against Houston, Benton, and freedom ; ' the danijer- 
 ous classes' against the conservatives, the public morals and 
 domestic peace and prosperity." 
 
 In response to the ' ' liberal " call a mass convention 
 assembled in Portland on the 15th of June, and 
 passed a series of thirteen resolutions, mainly devoted 
 to denunciation of the Maine Law, declaring it to be 
 "justly obnoxious to all odious characteristics that 
 can define a bad law," and insisting that it ought to 
 be repealed without delay. 
 
 Largely made up, as it was, of men who under the 
 provisions of that law had been driven from a direct 
 or indirect participation in the liquor-traffic, the 
 convention insisted ' ' that it becomes the time friends 
 of temperance throughout the state to join in efi'ecting 
 a repeal of the Maine Law, as demoralizing to the 
 citizen, destructive to the just pride and the peace of 
 society," and expressed itself as desiring "a substitute 
 for that measure which should bring to punishment 
 all known abuses of the sale a^id use of intoxicating 
 liquors, and discourage hypocrisy among all classes 
 of men in the use of such." 
 
 A committee of two from each county was appointed 
 to select a candidate. Some merriment was created 
 in the convention by the announcement of the names 
 of the members chosen for that committee by one
 
 506 REMINISCENCES 
 
 county. These were reported, without the mention 
 of their given names or initials, as respectively Mr. 
 Neal and Mr. Dow. Hearty hisses were given for the 
 man brought to mind by those two names, which gave 
 place to laughter and applause upon the suggestion 
 that "a liberal, like a rose, is just as sweet by any 
 name." It was not surprising that a committee 
 representing a convention assembled for such a pur- 
 pose and influenced by such considerations should 
 promptly agree. Upon taking a ballot every member 
 of the committee voted for Shepard Gary. That 
 gentleman was unanimously nominated by the con- 
 vention as the best embodiment of its views and 
 intent. 
 
 The Morrill-Democrats again presented their leader 
 on a platform endorsing the Maine Law and con- 
 demning the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. 
 This was done in a convention which gave many 
 indications of proving more troublesome to the regu- 
 lar Democracy than in the previous year, which party 
 thus threatened with a loss of radicals on both sides 
 of the Maine-Law question, and harassed by doubts 
 as to the extent of the trouble to be encountered 
 on national issues, found itself in an embarrassing 
 situation. 
 
 The Democratic organization could hope for noth- 
 ing from the "liberals" unless it could "out-cary 
 Gary" in its candidate. It did not dare to attempt 
 that, for with less of a "liberal" than Gary it had 
 lost more Azotes than it could spare at the last 
 election. It therefore concluded to look elsewhere 
 than to the unpronounced liberals in its party from 
 among whom it had taken Pillsbury the year before, 
 and take its candidate from its "moderate" Maine-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 507 
 
 Law men, in the hope of holding what Prohibitionists 
 there were left in the party and possibly of winning 
 back some it had lost in 1853. 
 
 In the matter of a platform, the "regular" Demo- 
 cratic convention dodged all issues, preferring to 
 make its fight to recover its lost supremacy upon the 
 record and high character and standing of its candi- 
 date. In this exigency and for this purpose it chose 
 for its leader no less a man than ex-Governor Parris, 
 who, to his high personal merits and long and distin- 
 guished early public career, had recently added the 
 prestige of having been elected mayor of the Whig 
 city of Portland by a large majority over a Whig can- 
 didate who had polled a larger vote than any other 
 Whig ever elected to its mayoralty. Now, full of 
 years and honors, Grovernor Parris was taken from the 
 repose of private citizenship, which he had fairly 
 earned and earnestly desired, in the hope that his 
 name and fame would restore harmony to his party 
 and lead it back to the enjoyment of place and power. 
 But it was too late. What the name of Governor 
 Parris might possibly have done in 1853 was impos- 
 sible of accomplishment in 1854. 
 
 By this time the Whig party had held its state con- 
 vention, and had adopted a platform similar in its 
 reference to the important issues of Prohibition and 
 slavery to that of the Morrill men. Our old friend, 
 Noah Smith, of Calais, with his reputation as a "ram- 
 rod " Maine-Law man, only missed receiving its nomi- 
 nation for governor by a few votes, and what proved 
 to be that empty honor was awarded to Isaac Reed 
 of Waldoboro. 
 
 Mr. Reed was a citizen of property, probity, and 
 ability. He had served one term in Congress, and
 
 508 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 stood liigli in the estimation of his party throughout 
 the state. In his own town of Waldoboro he was 
 all-powerful, politically, and had demonstrated that 
 power in a way which rarely falls to the lot of a local 
 political leader. While the state was overwhelm- 
 ingly Democratic, he made and kept his town a Whig 
 stronghold, and when, upon the dissolution of the 
 Whig party, most of its following went into the 
 Hepublican ranks, he led the Waldoboro Whigs into 
 the camp of his old-time opponents, making the town 
 as positively Democratic as it had formerly been 
 reliably Whig — ^ almost exactly reversing in a total 
 vote of between seven and eight hundred, a more 
 than two to one margin. 
 
 An incident growing out of this fact illustrates the 
 extensive knowledge Horace Greeley had of political 
 details all over the country. The veteran editor was 
 in Maine in the winter of 1871-72. He was to deliver 
 a lecture in Rockland, and my son, from whom I have 
 the story, happened to l^e in the same train with him, 
 sharing his seat between Brunswick and that city. 
 When the conductor announced "Waldoboro!" 
 through Avhich town the train passed, Mr. Greeley 
 said: "Waldoboro! This is the home of Isaac 
 Reed." He then went on to say: "Mr. Reed is 
 one of the few men wlio, by changing their political 
 faith, have l^een able to influence any considerable 
 number of their fellow-citizens to change their 
 politics. AVhen Mr. Reed was a Whig, Waldoboro 
 was strongly so; when he became a Democrat, he 
 made Waldoboro as strongly Democratic." And 
 having had his attention in that Avay called to the 
 subject, Mr. Greeley commented with similar accu- 
 racy upon the politics of other towns along the line
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 509 
 
 of the road as their names were announced at the 
 various stations. 
 
 In November of the year that Mr. Greeley made 
 that reference to Mr. Reed, he was himself to furnish 
 a striking illustration of the unwillingness of the 
 American people to take kindly to strange political 
 fellowship, even at the call of one who had long 
 been their teacher in matters pertaining to politics. 
 Happily, with the spread of general intelligence, and 
 wider means of obtaining special information, this 
 tendency among the people to self-reliance is sure to 
 increase. 
 
 There were now four gul3ernatorial candidates in 
 the field, a Whig, a "regular" Democrat, a Maine- 
 Law Democrat, and an anti-Maine Law Democrat. 
 Under ordinary circumstances the prospect for the 
 Whig candidate to obtain a plurality of the popular 
 vote, as it had not since 1840, was exceedingly good. 
 But a state temperance convention was now held, 
 over which I presided. The convention endorsed the 
 candidacy of Mr. Morrill with an unequivocal — as it 
 may easily be believed, for I had drawn it myself — 
 Maine-Law resolution, one which, by the way, I had 
 taken the precaution to learn, would be entirely satis- 
 factory to the candidate nominated upon it. This was 
 immediately followed by the Free-Soil endorsement of 
 Mr. Morrill, who was as reliable an exponent of the 
 views of that party upon the slavery issue as he was of 
 the temperance men upon Prohibition. That party 
 was also earnestly favorable to the latter, as witness 
 its support of Hubbard in 1852 upon that distinct 
 issue, and as is also shown by its platform and candi- 
 date for governor in 1853. 
 
 Of the candidates who were now in nomination.
 
 510 REMINISCENCES 
 
 two, Mr. Morrill and Mr. Reed, occupied substan- 
 tially the same ground, as far as could be judged 
 by public declarations. It was, however, generally 
 understood that Mr. Morrill was a " ramrod, " favor- 
 ing enforced Prohibition, while Mr. Reed was 
 regarded as more nearly reflecting the views of those 
 '•moderate " men who, anxious not to injure or offend 
 any interest, were sometimes described as being "in 
 favor of the Maine Law but opposed to its execution." 
 As the campaign progressed, this was seen to be a 
 distinction with quite a difference, having marked 
 results upon the Whig vote in the balloting. 
 
 There was more time to perfect a union in congres- 
 sional matters. In the Second district, there were 
 distinct conventions of Morrill-Democrats, Whigs 
 and Free-Soilers; each made a conditional nomination 
 and appointed a committee to confer with a similar 
 committee from the other two conventions, with 
 instructions to agree, if practicable, upon a can- 
 didate. The decision of the conference was that 
 Gen. John J. Perry, the nominee of the first named 
 convention, should be selected, and his candidacy 
 was endorsed by the other two organizations. 
 
 In the First district the nomination was made in a 
 mass convention. Public sentiment had been espe- 
 cially aroused in this district by the vote of its 
 Democratic representative for the Nebraska Bill, 
 and the convention was a large, most earnest, and 
 enthusiastic gathering. It selected with practical 
 unanimity John M. Wood, of Portland, as its candi- 
 date for Congress. 
 
 As a part of the history of the time, I may be per- 
 mitted to say that Mr. Wood would not have been a 
 candidate for this nomination if I had been an
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 511 
 
 aspirant for it. But three months before his nomina- 
 tion for Congress he had been a candidate on the 
 "Dow ticket " for alderman in the Portland munici- 
 pal election, and he and I were warm personal friends. 
 Some time prior to the district convention, Mr. 
 Wood came to me and urged me to be a candidate 
 for the congressional nomination, stating that he 
 would not allow his name to be used and pledging 
 his warm support — he then owned the leading paper 
 in the district — if I would consent. In the course of 
 this conversation he told me that a large "liberal" 
 element opposed to me in municipal politics would 
 heartily favor my nomination for Congress, in the 
 hope that it would tend to modify my radicalism on 
 the temperance question, and in the fond belief that 
 my election to the national house would place me 
 where I would be less troublesome to them upon 
 that issue. I had no doubt whatever either of the 
 sincere friendship of Mr. Wood, or of the wish of the 
 liberals that my radical temperance views might be 
 softened, but my tastes and convictions of duty 
 impelled me to put a negative upon the suggestion. 
 
 The Maine Law did not enter directly into the 
 nomination of congressional candidates. Indeed, in 
 a speech in the mass convention where I was called 
 upon to vouch for Mr. Wood, because he was a 
 comparative stranger outside of Portland, I had 
 said that the only issue there was the opposition to 
 the extension of slavery, and with reference to that 
 evil, men of all shades of opinion on other questions 
 could act together. Nevertheless, the temperance 
 men had been determined that the influence per- 
 taining to the candidacy for Congress in the coalition, 
 which was the advance agent of the new party,
 
 512 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 should not be on tlie ^\^ong side of the Maine-Law 
 controversy. 
 
 Many Whigs recognized the necessity for this even 
 if they did not like it. Mr. Wood, a particular friend 
 of mine, and a Maine-Law man, with the courage of 
 his convictions, and thus acceptable to "our wing," 
 was for other reasons very satisfactory to the other 
 element. The Democratic press of the district 
 essayed to rouse the old straight Whig prejudices 
 by insisting that the Fusion nominee was a "Neal- 
 Dow-Maine-Law man." Though they met with a 
 degree of success in drawing "liberals" from the 
 support of Mr. Wood, he was elected by a plurality of 
 about three thousand in a district which two years 
 before had given a Democratic plurality of over 
 thirty-eight hundred. 
 
 On the same general plan selections were made in 
 two of the other four congressional districts. In one 
 district the Whig candidate had served one term and 
 had voted against the Nebraska Bill, but he was an 
 outspoken opponent of the Maine Law, and its friends 
 would not vote for him. They supported in that dis- 
 trict a candidate of their own, who was elected. In 
 the other district, where fusion was not effected, the 
 regular Democratic candidate was elected by a small 
 plurality, his leading competitor being the Free-Soil 
 nominee. With this exception the Democratic can- 
 didates for Congress were defeated. The coalition 
 was also perfected in a majority of the legislative dis- 
 tricts, and as to candidates ui)on most of the county 
 tickets. 
 
 In the county conventions generally, resolutions 
 similar to the following, adopted in Portland, were 
 made a part of the platform:
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 513 
 
 "Resolved, That this convention approves of tlie law com- 
 monly known as the Maine Law, and is in favor of its vigor- 
 ous enforcement." 
 
 Temperance conventions were held in various coun- 
 ties in the state. At many of these I spoke, as did 
 Candidate Morrill. Here I may say that in this cam- 
 paign our acquaintance, already formed, was perfected 
 into a warm, strong, and abiding friendship, which 
 lasted as long as he lived. At all of these con- 
 ventions resolutions endorsing his candidacy were 
 adopted, and committees were appointed to aid his 
 canvass. Ordinarily, these committees included men 
 who in the last campaign had voted for the Whig and 
 Free-Soil candidates for governor, as well as those 
 known as Morrill-Democrats. 
 
 Mr. Morrill was a vigorous and effective speaker, 
 and his bold, manly and unequivocal endorsement of 
 Prohibition attracted temperance Whigs to his sup- 
 port. This led to restiveness on the part of some of 
 the liberal Whigs, who, alleging that "ramrod" 
 members of their party were going to bolt the Whig 
 nominee for governor, devoted themselves to creating 
 as much trouble as possible in the matter of nomina- 
 tions for the lower house of the legislature, generally 
 made on the eve of election, to the end that, in the 
 event of a failure to elect by the people, Morrill's 
 name should not be sent by the house to the senate as 
 one of the two constitutional candidates for governor. 
 This only tended, however, to swell the number of 
 temperance Whigs determined to vote for Morrill, 
 with the result that about all of the Whig party 
 left to support its candidate was that portion of it 
 opposed to Prohibition. That remnant could find 
 little comfort, however, in voting for Mr. Reed,
 
 514 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 because, as we have seen, he, as well as Mr. Morrill, 
 had committed himself to the Maine Law. 
 
 About this time the Know-Nothing organization 
 had established numerous lodges in the state and had 
 acquired some political strength. To those of us who 
 remember the anxiety with which membership in that 
 organization was sought by Whigs and Democrats 
 alike, in order to control it, the fear in these latter 
 years lest connection with it be remembered is 
 something amusing. However, by this time, it had 
 become apparent that the opposition to the Democracy 
 was in the saddle of the order, and just prior to the 
 election its endorsement of Mr. Morrill was secured, 
 much to the disgust of its Democratic contingent. 
 
 There was no election of governor by the people. 
 Mr. Morrill, with over 44,500 votes, a larger number 
 than had been given to a candidate for ten years, 
 lacked about 1,500 of a majority. Governor Parris 
 had over 28,000, Mr. Eeed, the Whig leader, about 
 14,000, while the avowed anti-Maine Law candidate, 
 Mr. Cary, received about 3,500. 
 
 Twenty-one senators were elected. Eleven of them 
 were Whigs, five, Morrill-Democrats, and five, Free- 
 Soilers, all chosen on coalition tickets. To the house 
 the coalition had chosen forty-four Whigs, forty-two 
 Morrill-Democrats, and twenty-three Free-S oilers. 
 Forty-two straight Democrats were also elected. 
 The complexion of the legislature was such that 
 the Maine Law was safe, and its representative 
 standard-bearer before the people was sure to be the 
 next governor. 
 
 Some figures here may be interesting. In the cities, 
 and those towns which have since become cities, the 
 popular vote was as follows: Regular Whig 2,243;
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 515 
 
 regular Democrat, 3,698; Maine-Law, 9,731; anti- 
 Maine Law, 425. There was nothing in those 
 returns, surely, to lead an ordinarily sensible poli- 
 tician to doubt the strength of a moral issue before 
 intelligent, aroused and organized voters. 
 
 Such was the result of the contest between the 
 hastily assembled Fusion forces and what was left 
 of the old-time Democratic party of Maine. The 
 end had been attained through the presentation 
 of questions which appealed to the hearts and con- 
 sciences of the people; through the courage of the 
 men in charge of the movement, and by the measures 
 they had taken for educating and organizing the 
 masses. It was the fruit of years of self-sacrificing, 
 unremitting toil on the part of scores of men, who, 
 unknown to fame, had unselfishly and unceasingly 
 labored for what they believed to be right. 
 
 The leading Democratic daily of the state, com- 
 menting upon the result, said: 
 
 *' But it is obvious that nothing has contributed so much to 
 weaken and disorganize the majority party in Maine during 
 
 the last three years, as the Maine-Law question The 
 
 same issue has given to the Democratic party nothing but 
 disaster. It has elected no governor since the law passed. 
 Hubbard was defeated in 1852, and Pillsbury in 1853, and 
 
 Judge Parris has failed of an election in 1854 We 
 
 say, then, that the Nebraska question was not the foundation 
 of our late defeat." 
 
 The leading Whig organ said : 
 
 "The temperance reformation has extended into many of 
 the benio-hted strons-holds of the sham Democracv. It has 
 been like letting the sun into low, damp places from which it 
 had been heretofore excluded. The fog and darkness which 
 had settled down upon them were dissipated, and all began to 
 assume a new aspect. It is thus that the Maine-Law question 
 has contributed so much to weaken and disorganize the 
 majority party in Maine."
 
 516 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 The leading Maine-Law paper said: 
 
 " Our friends abroad will be gratified to learn that in our 
 late state election the Maine Law was completely triumphant. 
 It is now a fixed fact that so far as Maine is con- 
 cerned the old parties are broken up, and they can never be 
 reorganized upon the old issues that once divided them. 
 There is no reason why these men should not con- 
 tinue to act together, indeed there are many cogent reasons 
 
 why they should hereafter constitute one party As to 
 
 the name of this new party, it is already sufficiently indicated. 
 Our friends in Franklin county have got the start of the rest 
 of the state and have organized their forces as the ' Republi- 
 can ' party, and this appears to us to be the name with which 
 to christen this new organization." 
 
 Thereafter the men who in 1854 acted together, 
 came to be called, and to call themselves, by that 
 name by which the new party in the state was for- 
 mally baptized on the 22d of February, 1855. 
 
 After the election of 1854, I resumed my campaign- 
 ing for the Maine Law in other states, responding to 
 as many calls to speak as possible, selecting from 
 among them such as I thought opened the widest 
 opportunity for usefulness. Among other meetings 
 which I addressed was that of the Legislative Temper- 
 ance society in Kepresentatives' Hall, in Boston. 
 This was presided over by Gov. Henry J. Gardiner, 
 whose matter and manner in introducing me to the 
 large audience clearly showed the interest he felt at 
 that time in the subject of Prohibition. 
 
 The legislature assembled in January, 1855. From 
 force of circumstances, it naturally brought to the 
 political surface many men who had had but little 
 to do with politics. One of these, who was entirely 
 unknown in legislative circles, was chosen speaker of 
 the house. To Sidney Perham, elected as a Morrill- 
 Democrat from Oxford county, was accorded this
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 517 
 
 unusual honor. A circumstance wliicli contributed 
 much to this result was the fact that he was at the 
 time the presiding officer of the grand division of the 
 Sons of Temperance in the state. 
 
 Long interested in temperance, Mr. Perham had 
 given much time to speaking upon the subject. 
 Though a Democrat, he had supported Mr. Morrill 
 in the election of 1853 upon the Maine-Law issue. 
 A few years later, after the repeal of the Maine Law, 
 and preparatory to the movement for its re-enactment, 
 he traveled over the state extensively, speaking, no 
 man more effectively, in favor of Prohibition. He 
 subsequently served in Congress three terms and as 
 governor of the state three years. He was also for 
 some years the United States appraiser at the port of 
 Portland. He is one of the few active participants in 
 the political revolution which marked this year who 
 still survive. In private life without reproach, and in 
 public discharging the duties of every position to 
 which he was called with ability and integrity, 
 Sidney Perham has justly enjoyed the confidence 
 of the people of Maine. 
 
 The vacancies in the senate were filled, and with 
 the result that, of its thirty-one members, all were 
 Maine-Law men. The house sent up to that body, 
 the names of Morrill and Reed as the constitutional 
 candidates for governor, and ten minutes later Anson 
 P. Morrill was unanimously elected by the senate. 
 
 In his inaugural address. Governor Morrill, refer- 
 ring to the Maine Law, said: 
 
 " It has been fully discussed by the people and become a 
 question of prominence and deep interest in our elections. 
 The result shows conclusively that the people are by a very 
 large majority in favor of sustaining that law, a happy verdict 
 
 34
 
 518 REMINISCENCES 
 
 for the cause of humanity throughout the land. Had Maine 
 declared against the law, her "decision would have been felt 
 most disastrously by other communities where strong efforts 
 
 are being made to obtain similar legislation The 
 
 people demand that the grog-shops l)e closed, whether found 
 in spacious saloons and popular hotels, wdiere temptation is 
 presented in the most alluring form, or in filthy cellar or joint 
 wdiere poor degraded humanity is made loathsome to the last 
 degree." 
 
 Referring to Governor Morrill, the leading daily 
 of the state said: 
 
 " The movement which has resulted in his election has been 
 emphatically a movement of the people by a deep and abiding 
 conviction and feeling upon the great questions of liberty and 
 temperance, not only without the aid of, but in open defiance 
 of old party organization The inauguration of Gov- 
 ernor Morrill may be regarded also as the inauguration of a 
 new political party in this state, based upon the prominent 
 issues which entered into the canvass which resulted in his 
 election and which were discussed in his message." 
 
 In January, I appeared before the legislative com- 
 mittee in support of more stringent provisions for the 
 prohibitory law, which were subsequently enacted. 
 This afterwards came to be known as the ' ' Intensified 
 Maine Law." 
 
 Before the adjournment of the legislature, the 
 coalition members of both branches united in a call 
 inviting the people of the state, without distinction of 
 former political party, in favor of a prohil)itory law 
 and opposed to the further extension of slavery and 
 the encroachment of the slave power, to assemble in a 
 convention to transact the necessary business and 
 organize the Republican party. Commenting upon 
 this call, the leading Republican organ of the state 
 said: 
 
 " The principle of Prohibition, as opposed to the old sys- 
 tem of license, has now become fundamental with a <rreat
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 519 
 
 majority of the temperance community, and is so recognized 
 in the call." 
 
 The convention was held on the 22d of February, 
 1855, and nominated Anson P. Morrill unanimously 
 as its candidate for governor. Among others it 
 adopted the following resolution : 
 
 " Resolved, That the existence and execution of the Maine 
 Temperance Law is a vital element in the organization and 
 life of the Republican party in this state, and is one of the 
 chief safeguards of the lives, reputation, property and homes 
 of our people." 
 
 The resolution endorsing the nomination of Gover- 
 nor Morrill, referred to him as ' ' an ardent friend and 
 supporter of the temperance reform." 
 
 Enough has been said to show that whatever other 
 purposes were contemplated in the organization of the 
 Kepublican party of Maine, and whatever other 
 agencies served to make way for its accession to power 
 in the state, it may be claimed, without ignoring any 
 of those, that the Maine-Law movement was a most 
 important and potential influence to that end. 
 
 Anson P. Morrill had all the requisites for leader- 
 ship in a political movement of the kind. He was a 
 man of ability and integrity, of courage, of political 
 skill and experience. What he believed to be right 
 he upheld, and no considera,tion of personal advan- 
 tage or mere temporary party expediency could swerve 
 him a hair's breadth from the course marked out for 
 him by his convictions of duty. Though he was 
 defeated for re-election the next year, I doubt if the 
 combined political wisdom of his supporters could 
 have selected a man who could have run as well as he 
 did in the combination of untoward circumstances 
 with which he was called upon to contend in 1855.
 
 520 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 Defeateii for governor that yoav. ho was in 1S(>0 
 elected to Congress and served one term, when, deelin- 
 ing re-election, he made way for James (i. Hlaine. 
 
 Dnring liis service as congressman, Mr. Morrill liad 
 an experience in a matter of patronage which nuist 
 have been unnsnal. if not altogether nnique. I relate 
 it as nearly as possible as he told it to me years ago. 
 As a representative to Congress he had made a 
 recommendation for the appointment of a postmaster 
 in one of the more important towns in his district. 
 Under the system adopted by President Lincoln for 
 the distribution of patronage, that reconnnendation 
 should have been followed by an innnediate appoint- 
 ment. This, however, was delayed and, obtaining no 
 satisfactory assurance from the post-office department, 
 Mr. Morrill called on President Lincoln and obt*fiined 
 an explicit promise that his friend should be ap- 
 pointed the next day. 
 
 '•The next morning at about five o'clock," said Mv. 
 Morrill. ''I was awakened by some one ra[>pi ng at the 
 door of my sleeping apartment. Supposing that an 
 important telegram had been received, I rose hastily. 
 Upon opening the door, a card was put in my hands 
 by the bell-boy. Glancing at it, I read, 'A. Lincoln.' 
 Even that familiar name did not suggest to my half- 
 awakened faculties that I had received a call from the 
 President of the United States, a visit not to be 
 expected under any circumstances, much less, as it 
 seemed to me, at that untimely hour. As I was 
 exclaiming, ' Who is A. Lincoln, that he should wake 
 me up at this unearthly hour T the tall form of the 
 great Abraham Lincoln, the President of the United 
 States, stepped into my chamber. I stood aghast. 
 I hardly know what I said.
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 521 
 
 '■Mr. MorrilL,' said he, I ;/ave you a proTni-fe 
 yeHterday, exi^ctinj^ to fulfill it UhIsly. You have a 
 rifrht t^j exact its jjerforrriarjce: but I have calle^l to 
 a«k you to relieve me from my lAedga, and to explain 
 to you why it in necefj-^ary for me to prefer such a 
 request. ' 
 
 " ' But, Mr. President, why did you not send for me 
 to call on your 
 
 " 'I have called on you iiLstead of askinj^ you to call 
 on me. because I am asking a favor; and I have called 
 at this early hour for reasons which I am sure you 
 will appreciate, for the President is not ordinarily at 
 liberty to make such a call as this and cannot well do 
 it publicly.' 
 
 "Mr. Lincoln then went on," said Mr. MorrilL "to 
 explain the circumstances impelling him to seek the 
 relea.se from his promise, which of course I was 
 bound, and glad, in view of his great anxiety, to 
 give." 
 
 Mr. Morrill told me what those circumstances were, 
 but the interest pertaining to such a call at such an 
 hour for such a purp^jse from the President of the 
 United States will lose nothing by withholding 
 them, and there are those yet living who might 
 feel hurt by their relation.
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 NOMINATION AND SECOND ELECTION AS MAYOR. 
 THE JUNE RIOT. 
 
 In the spring of 1855, I was nominated as the candi- 
 date of the Republicans of Portland for mayor, and 
 my election followed. The events leading up to that 
 nomination are a part of the history of the Maine- 
 Law movement, and may properly find place in this 
 narrative. 
 
 The new Republican party in Maine had declared 
 support of the Maine Law to be one of its cardinal 
 principles. I had contributed something to that 
 change of sentiment whereby the Republican organi- 
 zation had been led to success through the shattered 
 lines of the party which had so long controlled the 
 state, and by far the major part of the Republican 
 vote in Portland must come from the men who had 
 supported me for mayor in the spring of 1854, 
 while the overwhelming proportion of tliose who 
 had opposed me then would thereafter be found in 
 opposition to the new party. 
 
 Before my nomination this year, efforts were in 
 progress to unite the ' ' liberal " Whigs and the ' ' Lib- 
 eral Democracy" with the regular Democrats, in
 
 REMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 523 
 
 opposition to the Republican party. The Democratic 
 leaders had not yet abandoned hope of getting their 
 political craft off the rocks upon which it had been 
 run by the "liberal" mutineers that they might 
 defeat Governor Hubbard. But Portland was not 
 the place where, nor was that spring the time when, 
 they thought it proper to attempt to float their ship 
 under its own name and old colors. The leaders of 
 this combination now took the initiative in the local 
 politics of Portland, and organized a formidable 
 demonstration to bring out a citizens' candidate for 
 mayor, and our people were confronted one morning 
 with the following call, numerously signed, which 
 appeared simultaneously in the Democratic and the 
 Liberal morning papers: 
 
 " Citizens' Meeting ! The citizens of Portland, without 
 distinction of party, in favor of a wise, upright, and intelli- 
 gent administration of its municipal affairs, and who are 
 opposed to a return to that system of measures w'hich, three 
 years since, inflicted so many evils upon the city, and which 
 met so signal a rebuke at the hands of its citizens in the elec- 
 tion of 1852, are invited to meet at the City Hall in Portland, 
 on this, Saturday evening, March 24, at 7.30 o'clock, p.m. 
 to take into consideration the nomination of a candidate for 
 the ofiice of mayor for the ensuing year, and to take such 
 further action in relation to the city election as the best 
 interests of the city may seem to require." 
 
 Among the five hundred signers were many most 
 respectable citizens, but the list had been lengthened 
 by the names of a number who, before the Maine 
 Law, had been interested in the liquor-traffic. The 
 reference to my administration was intended to be 
 clear, but was inapplicable in that no evil had been 
 entailed upon the city by my mayoralty service unless 
 the practically total extinction of a prolific source of
 
 524 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 infinite injury to its moral and material interests was 
 to be so considered. 
 
 That call was more than a pointed personal reflec- 
 tion. For such, neither I nor my friends cared. I 
 had long been hardened to the most severe criticisms. 
 The call distinctly intimated that enforced Prohi- 
 bition was inimical to the business interests of a 
 growing town. Convinced as we were that there was 
 no foundation in fact or fancy for such an insinua- 
 tion, the friends of that policy were not disposed to 
 let it go unchallenged. 
 
 The Citizens' meeting was held, and put in nomina- 
 tion James T, McCobb, a gentleman of character and 
 ability, a lifelong Democrat, who had been two years 
 a state senator, and one whose sympathies with 
 Prohibition had been frequently declared. In the 
 meeting it was announced from the platform that I 
 was to be the opposing candidate, with the absurd 
 addition that, if elected, I did not intend to serve, but 
 was to abandon the office, go abroad, and leave its 
 duties to Mayor Cahoon, who was to be made an 
 alderman and president of the board, for the purpose. 
 There was some extravagant threatening talk, which 
 at the time was attributed to the excitement attend- 
 ing partisan zeal. 
 
 A few days later, the following call was published: 
 
 " The undersiirned citizens of Portland and memliers of the 
 Repubhcan party would respectfully invite their fellow- 
 citizens who are in favor of the principles and platform laid 
 down by said party at the state convention held in Augusta, 
 February 22d, to meet at the City Hall, this Thursday 
 evening, March 21lth, at seven and a half o'clock, for the })ur- 
 pose of nominating a candidate for mayor for the ensuing 
 municipal year, and to transact such other business as may 
 come before the mcotinir."
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 525 
 
 This call bore the signatures of about eight hun- 
 dred citizens, the first two being those of the mayor of 
 the city, and of William Pitt Fessenden, United 
 States senator. While exceeding the ' ' Citizens' Call" 
 in the number, and not suffering by a comparison 
 with that in the standing, influence, and character of 
 its signers, this list did not include the name of any 
 Ijerson interested in the liquor-traffic. 
 
 The caucus was held according to call. The old 
 City Hall was packed to its utmost capacity. Mayor 
 Cahoon, who had been elected over me the year 
 before, was called upon to preside. Upon taking the 
 chair, he said, as reported in the next morning's 
 papers : 
 
 " Sometimes the public mind is so centered on a candidate 
 as often to anticipate a formal nomination. It may be the 
 case in this instance. How shall the candidate be nominated, 
 by ballot or by acclamation ? " 
 
 The same paper says : 
 
 "The response was loudly and unmistakably, ' By accla- 
 mation,' and, on motion, Hon. Neal Dow was nominated by 
 acclamation, twice three thundering cheers doing the work in 
 the most satisfactory manner." 
 
 I did not look upon the nomination thus made as in 
 any sense a personal compliment to myself. The 
 cheers for my name were not for me, but for the 
 cause, which, from force of circumstances, my name 
 represented. The nomination was accorded, to be 
 sure, by a party having other purposes and policies 
 than the maintenance of Prohibition, and to which 
 I was fully committed and which I had materially 
 aided. Nevertheless, it was understood in the caucus 
 nominating me, as clearly as in that which had de- 
 nounced my former administration, that, in selecting
 
 526 REMINISCENCES 
 
 me as its candidate, the portion of the community 
 represented in the caucus cheering my name, repudi- 
 ated the suggestion in the call for the Citizens' 
 meeting, that the city had suffered by my vigorous en- 
 forcement of Prohibition, four years before. 
 
 That there may be no mistake as to what was 
 understood and intended by that gathering in my 
 nomination, I add that among other speakers who 
 addressed it was Noah Smith, Jr. , of Calais. He was 
 known far and wide in Maine as a friend of the law 
 with which his name was identified, as we have seen. 
 Happening to be in the hall, Mr. Smith was called 
 upon to speak. The next morning's paper, referring 
 to the incident, said: 
 
 " Mr. Smith responded in a very sensible and effective 
 style, remarking that the contest in view was not merely a 
 municipal matter, but there were involved in the result great 
 and im})ortant influences upon the state and nation. If Neal 
 Dow were defeated, it would be said that temperance and the 
 Maine Law were defeated ; that the great statute was killed 
 with its author in its own home. This would be a bad report 
 to go to the senate of New Jersey at this crisis." 
 
 The reference to New Jersey was in connection with 
 the fact that a prohibitory law was then pending 
 before the legislature of that state. 
 
 My good friend. Judge Carter, was also one of the 
 speakers. His paper the next morning reported his 
 remarks as follows: 
 
 ' ' Mr. Carter said that he had both supported and opposed 
 Mr. Dow, and in both cases without reference to any personal 
 feeling toward him. After he had been defeated in 1852, as 
 he believed by fraud, he did not think it wise to again bring 
 him forward the next year. He did not think the time had 
 arrived last year, but now he l)elieved the time had arrived, 
 and nothing could indicate this more clearly than the move- 
 ment of his opponents within a week or two past. They had
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 527 
 
 seen the indications that the time had arrived ; they had seen 
 the handwriting on the wall even before the friends of Mr. 
 Dow had moved. He confidently predicted the election of 
 Mr. Dow." 
 
 Both the Citizens and the Republicans put full 
 municipal tickets in the field, and a most exciting 
 contest followed. A gentleman who had been elected 
 as alderman the year before on the "anti-Dow" 
 ticket, and who had been elected president of that 
 board, had subsequently removed from the city and 
 state, and established his business and residence in 
 Boston. His absence left the board, which was to 
 decide upon the qualification of voters, a tie between 
 the "Dow" men and "antis." He consented to 
 return to the city temporarily, and, resuming the 
 chair, decided by his own vote in his own favor, 
 the question of his right to act as a member of the 
 board. Thereupon he aided, or it was so publicly 
 charged, in placing upon our lists the names of 
 hundreds of illegal voters. In fact, an attempt to 
 add between three and four hundred names at once 
 without any investigation was only defeated by the 
 positive refusal of the minority to permit so gross a 
 violation of law and usage. 
 
 The quarrel in the board of aldermen tended to 
 increase the excitement attending the campaign. As 
 had been the case in other elections in which I had 
 been a candidate, the vote was larger than ha^ been 
 polled in the city before. In a total of 3, 742 votes my 
 majority was forty-six. The morning after the elec- 
 tion, the Republican organ, in announcing the result, 
 said: 
 
 " After a hard-fought battle, one of the hardest in which 
 we ever took part, the Republicans of Portland achieved a
 
 528 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 glorious and substantial victory over the combined forces 
 arrayed against them. The rum-power did its mightiest. 
 
 Personal hatred against Mr. Dow was appealed to, 
 
 and fonned to the utmost, and finally an alderman was 
 imported from Boston to place upon our voting lists hundreds 
 
 of illegal foreign votes And yet the Republican 
 
 party achieved what, under all the circumstances, may be 
 regarded as a most brilliant victory." 
 
 In my inaugural address, after dealing with the 
 ordinary city affairs, referring to the prohibitory law, 
 I said: 
 
 " I consider the object of that law, viz : the annihilation of 
 the rum-traffic, as one of very great importance to the pros- 
 perity of the city in all its various interests, and to the 
 welfare and happiness of all her people. I shall not fail, 
 therefore, to employ all the power which the law has put into 
 my hands, and which you may entrust to me, to the accom- 
 plishment of the purpose contemplated by the legislature. 
 
 " I was induced to permit my name to be used in the recent 
 municipal canvass in connection with the office to which my 
 fellow-citizens have done me the honor to elect me, by circum- 
 stances over which I had no control, and of which I do not 
 foresee the recurrence. And if in retiring from the responsible 
 position which I now occupy, at the end of my term of office, 
 I shall be able to say that the city is no longer cursed with 
 the traffic in strong drinks, and that prosperity and happiness 
 reign in all her borders, I shall consider it the happiest 
 moment of my life." 
 
 Here, it is proper to say that it is probable that at 
 no time in the history of the temperance movement in 
 Maine, or of my connection with it, had the liquor- 
 interest honored me with so intense a dislike as at the 
 time of my re-election to the mayoralty. I must not 
 be understood as intending to intimate that opposi- 
 tion to me was confined to that interest. It was far 
 otherwise. For a great variety of reasons, many 
 of my fellow-citizens who had no connection, near 
 or remote, with the liciuor- traffic, had deemed it
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 529 
 
 proper to interest themselves actively against my 
 re-election. As for most of these there is no reason 
 to suppose they were animated by any considerations 
 that might not properly weigh with good citizens; as 
 to the ex-distillers and the ex-licjuor-dealers, whose 
 unholy trade had been ruined, as they insisted, by my 
 persistent "fanaticism," the intensity of their dislike 
 for me is inadequately described in saying that they 
 hated me. It was not unnatural that such should be 
 the case. A great party had taken the position I had 
 so long advocated, and was pledged to uproot the evil 
 trade, and those who had been engaged in it, or who 
 yet clung to the outlawed traffic, knew that so long as 
 my influence was potential in that party there would 
 be no shadow of turning from the publicly avowed 
 determination to free the state from the rumshops. 
 
 This hostility to me manifested itself in a variety 
 of ways, extending from mere petty and insulting- 
 personal annoyances to overt acts clearly violative 
 of law, which culminated in what has since been 
 known as the June riot, for some time foreshad- 
 owed in threats, some vague, and others more 
 specific. Though having no direct connection with 
 the enforcement of Prohibition, this was made 
 through misrepresentation and consequent misun- 
 derstanding, the pretense with the aid* of which a 
 covert attack was made upon that policy, so far 
 successful as to result in the repeal of the Maine 
 Law, and the return, for a brief period, to the sys- 
 tem of license. Aside from its direct effect in that 
 particular, the riot demands notice here as fitly 
 illustrating the straits to which the liquor-interest 
 had been driven within four years after the enact- 
 ment of the original Maine Law.
 
 530 REMINISCENCES 
 
 Portland, so far as the major part of its population 
 was concerned, was a law-abiding, order-loving com- 
 munity; but its harbor was the convenient and safe 
 resort for many vessels, there often being two or three 
 hundred in port for several days at a time, and from 
 the crews of these vessels recruits were easily obtained 
 to aid our local roughs in any projected disturbance. 
 
 The June riot, though the last mob, was by no 
 means the first one which had threatened law and 
 order in Portland. Upon this point I quote from 
 one of the city papers an article which appeared 
 nearly six years before my last term as mayor. In 
 October, 1849, there was a riot in Portland which 
 was quelled without much difficulty. The next 
 day, the paper referred to said: 
 
 " Portland is becoming, we are sorry to say, notorious for 
 its mob spirit. The tone of the press abroad shows that in 
 this respect, we are acquiring a most unenviable reputation. 
 Unless something is done to stop this rioting, neither life nor 
 propert}^ will be deemed safe from one night to the other. 
 We speak plainly. We tell the authorities that they have 
 the power to crush forever this growing and dangerous 
 mobocracy, and the people will expect them to do it." 
 
 Premising that, of the several mobs which had 
 disgraced the city, no one of them approximated it in 
 magnitude and desperation, I proceed to relate the 
 story of the June riot. First, let us see what was the 
 immediate pretext for it. 
 
 The prohibitory laAV made provision through munic- 
 ipal agents for the sale of liquors for medicinal and 
 mechanical purposes. The agency system was at the 
 time regarded as a sort of safety-valve to the policy of 
 Prohibition, as in providing for the legitimate supply 
 of legitimate demands for liquor it prevented the 
 arraying against the law of an element that might
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 531 
 
 otherwise be hostile to it. For this reason it was 
 especially obnoxious to the liquor-interest. 
 
 The board of mayor and aldermen authorized the 
 use of a shop owned by the city in the basement of 
 the City Hall, and appointed a committee, of which 
 the mayor was chairman, to arrange for the estab- 
 lishment of a city agency for the sale of spirituous 
 liquors, wine, etc., for medicinal and mechanical 
 purposes, under the provisions of the law. In i)ur- 
 suance of this order the committee contracted with 
 the selling agent of a New York liquor house, in 
 the name and on account of the city and for the 
 city agency, for a quantity of liquors, which arrived 
 in Portland, marked ' ' Portland Agency, Portland, 
 Maine," accompanied by bills of lading similarly 
 made out. The liquors were billed to the ' ' Portland 
 Agency, Portland, Maine," and on their arrival were 
 immediately carried to the agency, and there left in 
 charge of the city agent previously elected. Up to 
 that time the authorities had not received an intima- 
 tion that any trouble was to follow. Subsequently it 
 was learned that arrangements for a disturl^ance were 
 commenced immediately after the first order establish- 
 ing the agency, nearly a month prior to this date. 
 
 On the morning of the 2d of June, our citizens were 
 confronted with the following, which was circulated 
 broadcast through the city: 
 
 "Attention, City Marshal! 
 While the city authorities are busy searching private 
 houses for demijohns and jugs of liquor, it is, perhaps, not 
 strange that they should overlook wholesale importations into 
 the city of what are probably impure liquors intended for 
 sale. We are credibly informed that $1,600 worth of li(iuors 
 have recently been purchased by a citizen of Portland, and 
 brought into the city in violation of law, and are still kept
 
 532 REMINISCENCES 
 
 here illegally. Why doesn't the marshal seize and destroy? 
 The mayor of the city has no more right to deal in liquors 
 without authority than any other citizen. Where are our 
 vigilant police, who are knowing to the above facts, and who 
 thmk it their duty to move about in search of the poor man's 
 cider, and often push their search into private houses, con- 
 trary to every principle of just law? Why are they so 
 negligent of the weightier matters and so eager for the mint 
 and cumin? We call upon them by virtue of Neal Dow's law 
 to seize Neal Dow's liquors and pour them into the street. 
 The old maxim reads : ' Flat jm^tilia ruat coehim,' which 
 means, ' Let the lash which Neal Dow has prepared for 
 other backs be applied to his own when he deserves it.'" 
 
 Naturally, all in the city opposed to Proliibition 
 or to Neal Dow were aroused by that publication. 
 The excitement was increased by the talk such utter- 
 ances were calculated to incite. In the afternoon, 
 three citizens, one of whom was an ex-distiller, whose 
 business had been suppressed by the Maine Law — or 
 by Neal Dow, as was the custom then to say — and 
 the other two, violent personal and political enemies 
 of the mayor, made complaint under oath that they 
 had reason to believe and did believe that intoxi- 
 cating liquors were kept by Neal Dow in the middle 
 cellar under the building commonly known as the 
 City Hall, and that said liquors were intended for 
 sale in the city in violation of law. These complain- 
 ants were accompanied to the court-room by a large 
 number of persons known to be violently opposed to 
 the Maine Law, and to the mayor, and though all the 
 circumstances were such as to compel the judge to 
 believe that the complainants were swearing falsely, 
 and that the complaint was made in pursuance of a 
 plan to incite trouble, he had no option but to issue 
 the warrant. Thereupon the complainants insisted 
 that the judge should ignore the officer whose special
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 533 
 
 duty it was to serve such warrants, and commit it to 
 the hands of a constable whom they had brought 
 with them to the court-room. This, however, the 
 judge refused to do. 
 
 In the course of an hour and a half after receiving 
 the warrant the officer went to the place described, to 
 wit: the city agency. There to his surprise he found 
 three truckmen who told him they had come to haul 
 the liquors away. Quite a number of people also 
 were collected there, who manifested an unusual 
 interest in the proceedings. Entering the premises, 
 the officer found the liquors marked as already 
 described, and also some other seized liquors, that 
 being the usual place for depositing such. Being in 
 doubt whether he should seize them, he called for 
 the invoice. This was produced by the city agent, 
 and was found to correspond Avith the marks upon 
 the packages. He then left the building to consult 
 the city marshal and county attorney. His departure 
 was the occasion for loud complaints from the crowd 
 that no seizure had been made, accompanied with 
 threats that they would take care of it in the evening. 
 -This violent talk was renewed when the officer 
 returned shortly with the city marshal to seize the 
 liquors. Having seized them, he took an account of 
 them and left them where they were, in the building 
 owned by the city. 
 
 The warrant had now been duly executed. The 
 processes of the Maine Law had been applied quietly 
 and in due form by the proper officials, without 
 trouble or disturbance of any kind. The threats and 
 bluster that had been made by the crowd, sent there 
 to make trouble, were caused by the refusal of the 
 officers to do more than duty required of them, which 
 
 35
 
 534 REMINISCENCES 
 
 refusal interfered with the designs of the f omenters of 
 the subsequent riot. Nothing now remained for the 
 officer but to make his return as provided by law, that 
 all questions involved might be passed upon by the 
 court, as was subsequently in due time done. That, 
 however, was not what the complainants who had 
 sworn out the warrant, and those for whom they were 
 acting, desired. Their purpose may be fairly inferred 
 from what followed. 
 
 A crowd, for the main part orderly, gathered 
 around the agency in the afternooii, in the evident 
 expectation that the liquors to be seized would be 
 removed from the building by the constable selected 
 by the complainants to make the seizure. What that 
 crowd would have done in that event is conjectural. 
 What was done under changed conditions, may be 
 briefly described. 
 
 The comparatively orderly gathering of the after- 
 noon was by evening largely increased in number, 
 and became a desperate mob intent upon unlawful 
 and riotous action. It threatened property and life. 
 The small, undisciplined, ununiformed police force at 
 the disposal of the authorities proved utterly inade- 
 quate to cope Avith it. Warnings were answered with 
 insults; attempts to disperse the crowd aroused only 
 excitement and threats; the ringleaders arrested were 
 rescued by their fellow-rioters, and finally the mar- 
 shal reported to the mayor his inability to maintain 
 the peace with the force under his command. 
 
 The municipal authorities in the emergency acted 
 without haste or excitement, under the competent 
 legal advice of the city solicitor. Gen. Samuel Fessen- 
 den. After the civil force had proved unequal to 
 disperse the mob and the i)olice were in imminent
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 535 
 
 danger, two military companies were called upon to 
 act as an armed police force. There was delay in the 
 response, for want of proper arms and ammunition, 
 the captain of one of the companies refusing to expose 
 his men to the mob unless they were properly armed 
 and equipped. This only encouraged the rioters. 
 
 Meanwhile the police force, by the use of revolvers, 
 was maintaining its position inside the building into 
 which the mob was endeavoring to force its way. 
 Finally, after the sheriff of the county, as well as the 
 mayor, had read the riot act, and the mayor had 
 warned the rioters to disperse, and one military com- 
 pany, which had accompanied the mayor and two of 
 the aldermen into the presence of the mob, had been 
 reduced by wounds from stones and other missiles, 
 and the retirement of those who left the ranks to 
 carry off their wounded comrades, to eight men, a 
 second military company arrived upon the scene, and 
 after a few volleys of four shots each cowed the mob, 
 which was afterwards dispersed at the point of the 
 bayonet. One rioter was killed and three or four 
 wounded, whether by the police or the military it was 
 never judicially ascertained. 
 
 What would have followed if the mob had got 
 access to the liquors after trampling down the consti- 
 tuted authorities may also be left to conjecture. It is 
 enough here to say that the majesty of the law was 
 sustained — not the Maine Law, be it remembered; 
 the enforcement of that statute, as we have seen, was 
 not involved in the riot. There would have been no 
 disturbance of any kind had the complainants and 
 those for whom they acted been content with the 
 orderly enforcement of the statute under which they 
 had sworn out the warrant.
 
 536 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 AVliat was tlie original object of that complaint? 
 It wa^* not understood at the time by the authorities, 
 and probably few ever really knew. Personal, politi- 
 cal, and other considerations led those active in 
 precipitating the trouble to conceal as much as 
 possible their part in the transaction. Months 
 after the excitement over the riot had subsided, 
 and it had accomplished its political ends, and 
 after those whose indiscretion of speech and act 
 had brought on the crisis were ashamed of their 
 part in it, an "opposition" member of the city 
 government, who took some of the initiative steps 
 leading to the riot, gave me his theory of what 
 was intended. He had himself furnished some of 
 the ' ' information " on which the inflammatory news- 
 paper articles alluded to, and the application for a 
 warrant were based. He probably was well informed 
 as to what it was hoped to accomplish. 
 
 According to his statement, he and the complain- 
 ants believed that it would be found that the liquors 
 had been billed to the mayor by name; that it would 
 be shown on the trial that that official had exceeded 
 his authority in purchasing them, and that he, there- 
 fore, was the actual owner of the liquors; that 
 the city could not become the technical owner except 
 through purchase from the mayor, who was, there- 
 fore, holding the licpiors "with intent to sell in 
 violation of law." This shown, Neal Dow would 
 be fined and imprisoned in the common jail, and 
 be thus "compelled to taste some of his own medi- 
 cine." 
 
 Meanwhile it had been arranged that the constable 
 whom they had expected to seize the liquors was to be 
 "overpowered" by a "friendly, good-natured mob,"
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 537 
 
 which would take the liquors from him and destroy 
 them. Then, they expected, the mayor would be 
 compelled to make good their value to the city, which 
 in addition to the hoped-for fine and imprisonment 
 would let "the lash which Neal Dow has prepared for 
 other backs be applied to his own. " 
 
 If, on the other hand, the city should assume the 
 cost, the mayor and "his law" would be exposed to 
 condemnation by tax-payers, because the loss could be 
 said to have been incurred through the mayor's care- 
 lessness in the purchase of the liquors, and his 
 remissness in permitting a mob to overpower a con- 
 stable engaged in enforcing his own law. This 
 latter failure could also be made to appear as a 
 matter of spite on the mayor's part because the 
 constable was engaged under the forms of the 
 mayor's own law in putting the mayor himself 
 into a box. 
 
 It was never the intent of the prime movers, so it 
 was said, that the matter should go as far as it did. 
 Their plans were ruined when the judge refused to 
 deliver the warrant to the constable who was to stand 
 in with them in the game, and the program had to be 
 changed. As a result, the friendly crowd which was 
 to take the liquors from the constable became a 
 desperate mob, getting beyond the control of its 
 instigators, and determining to obtain the liquors at 
 all hazards. 
 
 It is of little moment whether the real purpose of 
 those who caused the trouble was thus correctly 
 related. It is, perhaps, the most charitable view to 
 be taken of it. Whatever their original purpose may 
 have been, a mob was the result of what they said and 
 did. It resorted to unlawful means to accomplish an
 
 538 REMINISCENCES 
 
 unlawful act. The authorities had but one duty to 
 perform. 
 
 More than thirty years have elapsed since that 
 event. Most of those who had to do with that riot, 
 either officially or otherwise, have passed away. In a 
 few years at most, I must follow. Yet after the 
 amplest opportunity for reflection, I find myself 
 justified in the solemn declaration that I have never 
 for a moment believed that the mayor either failed in 
 his duty, or exceeded any part of it, whether in con- 
 nection with the riot, the circumstances which led 
 up to it, or those which followed upon it. 
 
 A coroner's inquest with the .jury impaneled in the 
 usual way, was held over the dead body of the rioter. 
 It found that the deceased "came to his death by a 
 gunshot wound, a musket, a pistol, or revolver ball, 
 shot through his body by some person unknown to 
 the inquest, acting under the authority and order of 
 the mayor and aldermen of the city of Portland in 
 defense of the city property from the ravages of an ex- 
 cited mob, unlawfully congregated for that purpose, 
 of which, he, the said deceased, was found to be one. " 
 
 Foiled in their original plans to injure Neal Dow 
 and the Maine Law, nothing now remained to the in- 
 stigators of the riot but to make the most out of the 
 excitement to which it naturally gave rise, in order to 
 cover their own tracks, which led from the inception 
 of the trouble directly to the corpse of the victim of 
 their error. They accordingly induced another cor- 
 oner, witli a jury, every one of whom was notoriously 
 a bitter personal and political enemy of the mayor, 
 and an opponent of the Maine Law, to hold another in- 
 quest. Of course that jury brought in the verdict it 
 was packed to find. In substance it declared that
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 539 
 
 Neal Dow was punishable either for manslaughter or 
 murder, and called upon the grand jury to ascer- 
 tain which. It is needless to say that the grand jury 
 did nothing of the kind. 
 
 Commenting upon this so-called verdict, a political 
 paper published in the city said: 
 
 "It is the very spawn of the pit, for so diabolical a verdict 
 was never rendered by mortal man." 
 
 The same paper proceeded to call those engaged in 
 procuring the verdict: 
 
 "A band of conspirators against the welfare of society, a 
 set of shameless profligates, a horde of desperate adventurers, 
 a motley crew of political gamesters, a perfidious junta of 
 civil pirates such as rarely infest any community." 
 
 A city religious paper commenting upon it, said: 
 
 "To our view, in short, the whole thing is simply infamous, 
 and such, we are sure, will be the ultimate verdict of the 
 community. Instead of fastening any charge of unjustifiable 
 homicide upon Mr. Dow, this coroner's jury in their verdict 
 have shown themselves guilty of murderous intent aoainst 
 him." 
 
 Meanwhile the mayor sent a message to the city 
 council, covering all the facts, whereupon it was 
 ordered: 
 
 " That the report of the mayor of the transaction of June 
 2d, which has heen read at this board, be adopted and pub- 
 lished as a true history of the occurrences of that day and 
 night, and that it be entered on the city record." 
 
 A non-partisan committee was appointed by the city 
 council, consisting of seventeen highly respected 
 citizens, which was charged with the duty of investi- 
 gating the whole affair. That committee gave nearly 
 a month's time, taking a large amount of testimony, 
 and submitted an exhaustive report to the city 
 council, which was accepted with but one dissenting
 
 540 REMINISCENCES 
 
 voice, that of the alderman who subsequently dis- 
 closed to me the purpose of the instigators of the riot, 
 as before related. 
 I quote a few extracts from that report. 
 
 "Here Avas a question not merely whether a quantity of 
 liquor should l)e destroyed, for that would be of compara- 
 tively small importance, but whether law should be vindicated 
 and triumphant, and the peace and property of the city be 
 preserved, or whether mob violence should rule the hour, 
 trample upon law and order, and break down the great 
 barrier which protects the life, the property, and the happi- 
 ness of our people That the mayor did not call 
 
 upon an armed force too large or too soon, is apparent from 
 the testimony. This additional force was not employed until 
 the regular police was nearly overpowered and an alderman 
 fresh from the scene had entreated the mayor to proceed 
 without further delay with the auxiliary force to preserve the 
 property and rescue the police from imminent peril. There 
 is no evidence of undue precipitancy on the part of the mayor 
 any more than there is of timidity and shrinking from duty." 
 
 The report concludes: 
 
 " The committee, on a careful and laborious investigation 
 of the whole case, is satisfied that the mayor and other execu- 
 tive officers of the city did no more in the emergency than 
 their duty and the public service required, and that they 
 would have proved unfaithful to their trust had they done 
 less." 
 
 Among the signatures appended to that report was 
 that of William Willis, as chairman of the committee. 
 He was a lawyer of high standing in the state, a man 
 whose reputation in all tilings honorable and upright 
 did not need the attestation which it received by his 
 election as mayor of the city within two years after 
 he signed that document. 
 
 Another signature was that of Rev. William T. 
 Dwight, as secretary. Dr. Dwight at that time liad 
 lived for years, in this city, as the able, honored.
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 541 
 
 loved pastor of the Third Parish Congregational 
 church. He enjoyed a reputation throughout his 
 days for a character and life in keeping with his 
 high and holy calling. 
 
 On the Tuesday following the riot my trial com- 
 menced, on the complaint of having liquors in my 
 possession with intent to sell in violation of law. 
 So great was the public interest that the court was 
 held in the City Hall instead of its ordinary chamber. 
 The counsel for the prosecution was Nathan Clifford, 
 an ex-attorney general of the United States, and after- 
 wards a justice of the United States Supreme Court. 
 My counsel was William Pitt Fessenden, United 
 States senator. The prosecution endeavored to 
 show that though tlie liquors were bought in the 
 name and for the use of the city there was no 
 actual authority for the purchase, and that there- 
 fore the respondent must be held to have bought 
 them for himself; that an actual transfer of the 
 liquors to the city must follow; that such transfer 
 would amount to a sale under the statute; and 
 therefore the respondent was subject to fine and 
 imprisonment. The case was argued at length on 
 both sides. 
 
 The court, Judge Henry Carter, in its decision, 
 reviewed all the testimony, and concluded as follows: 
 
 "From the whole evidence the court finds that these 
 liquors were ordered by a committee chosen by the board 
 of aldermen for that purpose, and that they were ordered for 
 the city agency and for lawful sale ; that they were sent 
 marked and invoiced to the city agency ; that they wore 
 placed in the room which had been appropriated for the city 
 agency, and found in the possession of the city agent, legally 
 appointed previous to this complaint. From these facts the 
 court decides they were not kept hy the defendant with an
 
 542 KEMINISCEXCES 
 
 intent to sell in violation of law, and that he is not guilty 
 of the charge made against him in the complaint. It is 
 ordered, therefore, that he Ije discharged, and that the liquors 
 seized by the officer be returned to the city agent, from whom 
 they were taken." 
 
 I cannot refrain from adding that, upon the 
 announcement of the decision, the great crowd 
 which thronged the hall burst into cheering. 
 
 The governor of Maine, under date of June 11, 
 1855, wrote a letter to Hon. Edward C. Delevan, 
 of New York, which was extensively published and 
 from which I quote: 
 
 "Ere this is received, you will have heard of the recent 
 riot in Portland, the arrest of the mayor, Hon. Neal Dow, for 
 the alleged violation of the Maine Law, and also his most 
 triumphant acquittal and justification for the action he took in 
 
 quelling that riot The whole aliair has proved a 
 
 pitial)le failure on the part of those who wickedly instigated 
 it. Mayor Dow and those true men who aided him in 
 quelling the mob on that trying occasion merit and will 
 receive the support and approbation of all good citizens." 
 
 A short time after the publication of the report 
 of the investigating committee, several citizens whose 
 sympathies and influence had been hostile to the city 
 authorities in the matter of the riot, took advantage 
 of a ijolice incident to call upon me and to express 
 in most kindly terms their regrets for the past. 
 The occurrence which they alleged as the reason 
 for their call was a trifling one, yet because they 
 thought it sufficient to lead them to that courtesy, 
 I am inclined to relate it. 
 
 One evening between ten and eleven o'clock, word 
 was brought to the mayor's office that a notoriously 
 turbulent man, of great muscular strength, was crazy 
 drunk, and was threatening to shoot his wife and 
 children, who had locked themselves into a room.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 543 
 
 which he was trying to enter, and that the police 
 on the beat were helpless. Repairing immediately 
 to the scene, I found that the fellow, armed with a 
 double-barreled gun, two pistols, and two sabres, 
 was near the head of a flight of stairs leading to 
 his tenement, bidding defiance to everybody and 
 threatening to shoot any who should approach to 
 arrest him. He was thus holding four policemen 
 at bay, and meanwhile was trying to burst open 
 the door, behind which his wife and children had 
 taken refuge. 
 
 Looking up the stairway, I saw an open window 
 in the back of the hall where the ruffian was standing. 
 Going to the rear of the building, I sent two of the 
 policemen for a ladder, which was placed so that I 
 could jump from it through the open window. This 
 I did, grappling with the fellow, and holding him 
 until the police came up the stairs and handcuffed 
 him. The charges in the gun were subsequently 
 drawn in my presence and found to contain in each 
 barrel over forty buckshot. Active, wiry, muscular, 
 myself, I ran no great risk, but the incident led to 
 much talk, and was the excuse given for the courteous 
 calls and expressions referred to. 
 
 Complimentary references to retiring officials are 
 often perfunctory, but after the bitterness which 
 had been aroused by the events I have hastily 
 sketched, commendation for the "able, efficient, 
 and entirely satisfactory manner in which Neal 
 Dow has discharged the duties of mayor" which 
 at the close of my term was unanimously recorded 
 by both boards, in each of which the opposition 
 was represented, may be fairly considered as of 
 more than ordinary significance.
 
 544 REMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 
 
 In dismissing the subject, I add that two or 
 three years subsequent to the time when personal 
 and political opponents were, as above related, 
 charging me with murder in connection with this 
 riot, I was unanimously elected a representative 
 from the city to the legislature. The nomination 
 by my party was made to afford an opportunity 
 for a popular vindication, while leading political 
 opponents frankly and politely said to me that 
 after all the circumstances they deemed it only 
 fair to pay me the compliment of declining to 
 nominate a candidate against me.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 PROGEESS OF PEOHIBITION IN OTHER STATES. DEFEAT OF 
 
 GOVERNOR MORRILL. ELECTION OF A HOSTILE 
 
 LEGISLATURE. REPEAL OF THE MAINE 
 
 LAW. DISSATISFACTION OF THE 
 
 PEOPLE. RESTORATION 
 
 OF PROHIBITION. 
 
 The influence of the Maine Law for good was felt 
 ahnost immediately in every municipality in Maine 
 where it was enforced with any degree of vigor, 
 which was the case as to the major portion of the 
 state, and the advantages following upon it were 
 generally in proportion to the faithfulness of the 
 ofiicials whose duty it was to see to its execution. 
 In some towns, as has been stated, municipal officers 
 were chosen known to be opposed to the law, and in 
 such cases but little, if any, attention was paid to it. 
 Intelligent, observing citizens could not fail to notice 
 the great difference between a town cursed with the 
 trade and one free from it, and unless they were 
 themselves directly or indirectly interested in the 
 traffic or in some one who was, they were thus led to 
 favor Prohibition. 
 
 Wherever the law was enforced there was soon 
 comparative freedom from the disgusting and brutal-
 
 546 REMINISCENCES 
 
 izing exhibitions inseparable from the liquor-traffic, 
 such as drunkenness, brawls, disturbances, begging, 
 squalor, and wretchedness; there was a reduction in 
 the public expense due to pauperism and crime. 
 Laborers lost less time, and earned more money, while 
 they were employed. They were thus able to provide 
 better for their families, and became more disposed 
 and able to do so. AVitli the removal of the tempta- 
 tion to waste time, throw away money, impair 
 strength and ruin health in grog-shops came the 
 means and desire to command and enjoy more of 
 the comforts of life. The sales of legitimate traders, 
 therefore, were larger, their collections easier, and 
 their losses from bad debts smaller. 
 
 The law steadily grew in public favor, though 
 hatred of it entertained by the liquor-interest was not 
 less. There were at times and places occasional re- 
 actions and apparent reverses. Unquestionably my 
 defeat as a candidate for re-election as mayor in 1852 
 might have been avoided by less vigor on my part in 
 the execution of the law. I understood that as well 
 as any ; and if I had been too obtuse to comprehend it, 
 the abundant suggestions I received to that effect 
 would have enlightened me. But the effort of the 
 liquor-traffic to compass my defeat enabled other 
 Maine-Law men to succeed in other communities 
 where defeat would have been more discouraging to 
 them than it was to me. 
 
 We have seen that Governor Hubbard failed of a 
 re-election in 1852, because of his official approval of 
 Prohibition, but the same element which then rallied 
 over twenty thousand anti-Maine Law votes for 
 Chandler, two years later was unable to poll three 
 thousand five hundred for Gary. The difference did
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 547 
 
 not represent, perhaps, an altogether sincere conver- 
 sion to the prohibitory faith. Some self-respecting 
 men came to be ashamed to be counted as opponents 
 of a measure which had so unmistakably blessed the 
 state as had the Maine Law. 
 
 The difference between the mass-meeting which so 
 unanimously and so enthusiastically nominated me 
 for mayor in 1855, and the gathering which divided 
 over the same question in the same place in the 
 spring of 1853, indicated a great change in public 
 sentiment, quite as much as did my election in 1855 
 by substantially the same vote as that by which I was 
 defeated in 1852. 
 
 With the opening of 1855, it may be said, the great 
 preponderance of public sentiment in the state at 
 large was heartily favorable to the Maine Law, and 
 its impartial, faithful enforcement. And this may be 
 said to be due to the fact that the law had fully 
 justified the predictions of the early friends of Prohi- 
 bition in the state as to the advantages sure to follow 
 upon the suppression of the liquor-traffic, as well as 
 to the zeal of its advocates in so utilizing the favor- 
 able sentiment as to make it efl'ective. 
 
 Encouraged by what had been done in Maine, soon 
 after the adoption of the Maine Law, a great many 
 Christian and philanthropic citizens in other states, in 
 fact throughout the English-speaking world, began to 
 interest themselves to secure prohibitory legislation. 
 These efforts were continued until, in 1855, about 
 four years and a half after its enactment in Maine, 
 the law was in substance that of several states. 
 
 These included, besides all NeAv England, New York, 
 Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Iowa and 
 Delaware. In several other states attempts had been
 
 548 EEMIXISCENCES 
 
 made to the same end, failing sometimes in one house^ 
 sometimes in the other, sometimes in both, and at 
 least in one instance where it had run the legislative 
 gauntlet, the law had failed to secure the approval of 
 the people to whom it had been submitted for ratifi- 
 cation. Prohibition had also been adopted in New 
 Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward's Island, 
 among the British Provinces, while in other states 
 and in Canada and Great Britian, it was commanding 
 general attention. In most of those states where the 
 agitation had made sufficient progress to result in 
 legislative action, I had borne some part in the discus- 
 sion of it before the people. Such also had been my 
 privilege as well, in Canada, New Brunswick, and 
 Nova Scotia. 
 
 It may now be well to note that the conditions 
 under which much of this legislation was secured, 
 differed from those prevailing in Maine at the time of 
 the enactment of its law. In most of them public 
 sentiment was speedily aroused to favor Prohibition 
 by the success of the policy in Maine where its adop- 
 tion had been preceded by many years of most 
 thorough, educational work, during which the people 
 had been firmly grounded upon the foundation princi- 
 ples of the reform. In some of the states which, 
 following the example of Maine, adoi)ted Prohibition, 
 as much progress was made in awakening public 
 attention to the evils of the liciuor-traffic in a few 
 months as had been accomplished in ten or a dozen 
 years in Maine. Consequently, conditions were not 
 as favorable for resisting reaction or for recovering 
 from a reverse should such follow the desperate 
 efforts of the liquor-traffic when it should feel the 
 choking grip at its throat of enforced Prohibition.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 549 
 
 In Maine, however, it was different. Here, I tliink 
 it may be safely said that the foundations upon which 
 Prohibition was erected had been more thoroughly 
 and substantially constructed tlian elsewhere. Years 
 of patient, self-sacrificing, systematic, educational 
 work, in which hundreds of her citizens had been 
 active with that special object in view, liad preceded 
 the adoption of the Maine Law. Prohibition, thus 
 intrenched behind the intelligence and conscience of 
 the people, when the liquor-traffic commenced its fight 
 for life in Maine, was able to hold its ground until an 
 opportunity was afforded it to demonstrate something 
 of the good it was calculated to do. Maine, there- 
 fore, was better prepared to recover from the reverse 
 which Prohibition was here about to experience than 
 were most of the other states which had so promptly 
 followed her lead. 
 
 Let no one imagine that for that reason efforts to 
 secure Prohibition should be postponed "until the 
 people are prepared for it." Preparation for reform 
 is made, not by a disposition to defer it but by labor 
 to obtain it. He who favors Prohibition to-day does 
 something to make it possible at some time in the 
 future. He who opposes it now, aids its indefinite 
 postponement. 
 
 Notwithstanding the long and thorough prepara- 
 tory work which had preceded the adoption of her 
 now famous law, Maine was to reverse her position, 
 while the policy she had inaugurated was elsewhere 
 in the full tide of success. That change was princi- 
 pally due to misrepresentations as to the June riot, 
 the story of which was related in the last chapter. 
 
 Every possible use was made of that affair to break 
 down Prohibition, not only by the liquor-interest, but 
 
 36
 
 550 REMINISCENCES 
 
 by many leaders of the anti-Republican coalition in 
 order to embarrass and defeat the new political 
 organization which, under the name of the Repub- 
 lican party, was to contest for the first time, a state 
 election. This was to occur in the September follow- 
 ing the riot, before time had served to allay the 
 excitement aroused through that event by the enemies 
 of the law. But, even under circumstances favorable 
 to the liquor-interest, the opposition to the party that 
 was pledged to the Maine Law did not deem it 
 prudent to make the fight upon an avowed anti- 
 prohibitory platform. So persistently did it declare 
 itself favorable to "a suitable prohibitory law," that, 
 although the election in 1855 resulted adversely to 
 the Republican party, and thus made certain the 
 repeal of some of the features of the law, a return to 
 license was not anticipated by the friends of Prohibi- 
 tion until about the time for the assembling of the 
 legislature in January, 1856. 
 
 The Republican party had been organized in Feb- 
 ruary, 1855; had declared the maintenance and 
 enforcement of the Maine Law to be one of its 
 fundamental principles, and had nominated Anson 
 P. Morrill, as its candidate for governor. The spring 
 town elections that year promised Republican success 
 in Sei)tember. The most intensely hated of the 
 friends of Prohibition in the state, had been elected 
 mayor in Portland, where the liquor-interest was the 
 strongest. Less than two months later followed the 
 June riot, and shortly after this in the ordinary 
 course, the campaign preparatory to the September 
 election opened. 
 
 The Democrats nominated Samuel Wells, of Port- 
 land, for governor. Mr. Wells was a lawyer, a man
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 551 
 
 of unsullied private character, and had been a judge 
 of the Supreme Court of the state. He was free from 
 all connection with either faction in his party, and 
 could not be suspected of any sympathy with the 
 liquor-traffic. The convention which nominated him, 
 though denouncing the existing statute in unmeas- 
 ured terms, declared itself as favorable to "suitable 
 prohibitory laws."" 
 
 What was left of the Whig party again nominated 
 Isaac Reed. It now retained few of its old leaders, 
 besides those who, unprepared to enter the Republi- 
 can party, were not willing to subjugate their 
 prejudices against the Democratic name and connect 
 themselves with that organization, until they had 
 made satisfactory terms as to their own future 
 with their lifelong political antagonists. Though 
 defunct nationally, Whiggery in Maine was now 
 made to assist in rehabilitating Maine Democracy. 
 
 These opponents of the Republican party, profiting 
 by their experience and observation during the past 
 few years, now united upon legislative and county 
 tickets and pushed the campaign with great vigor. 
 One of the most warmly disputed contests in the 
 history of the state followed. The anti-Republican 
 coalition made the most of the June riot. While 
 insisting through its organs and orators that it was 
 favorable to "suitable prohibitory laws," it was 
 vehement in persistent denunciation of a law 
 which it maintained had caused, and would certain- 
 ly continue to cause, bloodshed. 
 
 It is useless to dwell upon details. The country 
 districts were flooded with circulars full of misstate- 
 ments and pictures representing officers shooting 
 women and children who had gathered to see
 
 552 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 liquors seized, or who were passing the stores 
 where liquors were kept. One of these is before 
 me while I write, representing a company of uni- 
 formed soldiers firing under my orders into a throng 
 of men, women and children, passing on the opposite 
 sidewalk, peacefully attending in broad daylight to 
 their legitimate pursuits. I was made the special 
 object of attack and the resources of the language 
 were exhausted for epithets to apply to me, while 
 the Republican party was as roundly denounced for 
 its fellowship with me. 
 
 As a whole, the Republican party did not shrink 
 from the issue forced upon it. Its state and county 
 conventions in resolutions opposed the repeal of the 
 law, and its legislative nominees were squarely 
 committed to maintaining the existing prohibitory 
 legislation. Nevertheless, it is true that some of the 
 old Whig leaders who had obtained front seats in the 
 new organization would have ignored Prohibition if 
 the rank and file of the party had permitted it. They 
 thought they could better draw upon what was left of 
 the old Whig element by making the fight solely 
 upon national questions, but, as a general rule, the 
 masses of the party held the leaders up to the pro- 
 hibitory issue. One incident will illustrate the 
 tendency at that time: 
 
 A great mass convention was held in Portland. It 
 was the largest political gathering up to that time 
 held in the state. No hall or public square in the 
 city could accommodate it, and the assembled thou- 
 sands formed into a great procession and marched to 
 the ' ' Oaks, " that beautiful grove in the outskirts of 
 the city, immortalized in the verse of Longfellow. 
 The speakers on the occasion were Governor Cleve-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 553 
 
 land, of Connecticut, Senators Benjamin Wade, of 
 Ohio, and John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, all of 
 whom, by the way, with Nathaniel P. Banks, of Mas- 
 sachusetts, had called on me at the mayor's office 
 during the day. The incident was impressed upon 
 my memory because Mr. Banks told me that his first 
 speech was on temperance and was made before a 
 fire engine-company, of which he was at the time a 
 member. 
 
 Toward the close of the meeting, after all the 
 speeches, the chairman of the committee on resolu- 
 tions, my friend, John L. Stevens, already mentioned, 
 reix)rted a list which was adopted with enthusiasm. 
 There was no reference to Prohibition, whereupon a 
 man in the crowd shouted with stentorian voice, so as 
 to be heard to its outermost limits, " Give us a resolu- 
 tion endorsing the Maine Law!" This demand was 
 so vociferously cheered that Mr. Stevens immediately 
 sat down and wrote the following: 
 
 " Resoh^ed, That the perpetuation and execution of the 
 Maine Law are among the fundamental issues of the Republi- 
 can party of Maine." 
 
 The real reason of the committee for withholding 
 that resolution was that the speakers for the day were 
 from without the state, and the committee feared that 
 it might not be so agreeable to the strangers to be 
 thus in a measure by their presence committed to 
 what was deemed a local issue. But in submitting 
 the resolution he had prepared at the demand of the 
 people, Mr. Stevens said in substance: 
 
 " Our opponents have often insisted that the leaders are 
 forcing the Maine-Law issue upon the people, and the com- 
 mittee thought it better not to offer one with their regular 
 report. I am glad, however, it has been demanded."
 
 554 REMINISCENCES 
 
 The resolution was adopted with greater applause 
 than had been accorded to the original report of the 
 committee. "Now," shouted the same voice, "give 
 us Neal Dow for half an hour, and then we'll go 
 home satisfied!" This, too, was loudly cheered, and 
 when the chairman announced that he had been 
 informed that Neal Dow was not present, the same 
 irrepressible, enthusiastic Maine-Law man in the 
 crowd called for "Three cheers for Neal Dow!" 
 which were given with a will. 
 
 It is to be understood by all now as I understood 
 it at the time; that cheering was not for me in 
 person. I was nothing to that great crowd of people 
 save as I happened to represent the principle to which 
 they subscribed, and the policy which they knew had 
 so promoted the material and moral concerns of the 
 state. It may have been due also, in part, to the fact 
 that many public meetings in various portions of the 
 state had been recently held, called "Neal Dow 
 meetings," in which resolutions were passed com- 
 mending the course of the city authorities in the 
 June riot, about two months before. 
 
 The total vote at that election was the largest that 
 had been thrown in Maine, exceeding by nearly six 
 thousand that of the Hubbard campaign of 1852. 
 Though Governor Morrill's vote was larger than that 
 of the year before by more than fifteen per cent, and 
 larger than any candidate for governor had before 
 received, and three thousand in excess of that for 
 Judge AVells, it was less than a majority, as Mr. 
 Reed polled almost eleven thousand votes. The 
 choice of governor was thus again thrown into the 
 legislature. 
 
 The coalition, including vacancies afterwards filled,
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 555 
 
 had chosen to that body twenty Democratic and 
 nine Whig senators, and sixty-eight Democrats and 
 twenty-two Whigs to the house. To the senate two 
 Republicans had been elected, and to the house, 
 sixty-one. Judge Wells was chosen governor in the 
 mode in such cases prescribed by the Constitution. 
 
 There were many, more or less prominent in the 
 Democratic party, who deemed it unwise politically 
 to foist the license system again upon the state. It 
 was true, they said, that the party was conunitted 
 to opposition to the existing Maine Law, but its 
 organs and its orators during the campaign had 
 urged while canvassing for votes that the principle 
 of Prohibition would not be endangered by the 
 success of the coalition, which it was then insisted 
 was solely opposed to the ' ' ill-considered, unwise, and 
 arbitrary " features of the existing law. Election 
 after election, they argued, had shown an overwhelm- 
 ing majority of votes distributed among candidates 
 pledged to Prohibition. 
 
 Was it not possible, nay, probable, they asked, 
 that their success in September was due to some 
 temporary excitement, and not to a reversal of the 
 prohibitory sentiment of the state? Was it safe to 
 assume that the people of Maine were disposed to 
 return to a policy which, after years of careful 
 consideration and general public discussion, they 
 had put aside? They urged that the true policy 
 for the incoming legislature would be to modify the 
 prohibitory law, and not to re-enact the license 
 system. 
 
 The coalition majority of the legislature, however, 
 would not follow such advice, and the prohibitory 
 law was repealed and a license law substituted, this,
 
 556 REMINISCENCES 
 
 however, not without a vigorous protest from a 
 minority of the triumphant coalition. In the senate, 
 the president of that body, Lot M. Morrill, left the 
 chair to make an earnest speech against the repeal. 
 In the course of his remarks he said: 
 
 " This question is one, not of to-day, nor of to-morrow 
 only, it is one of the future ages ; it is one that concerns our 
 business, our welfare, and our dearest rights. A man that 
 does not speak now does not deserve to have his rights 
 protected." 
 
 And he went on to warn his political associates that 
 if they enacted a license law their action would 
 relegate them to a minority. 
 
 The bill was under consideration in the senate for 
 some time. The discussion was mostly confined to 
 the coalition senators, hostile to Prohibition, some 
 frankly avowing that they did not dare to be as 
 "liberal*' as they would like, and others admitting 
 that they would be glad were the bill more "strin- 
 gent " than it was. It finally passed in the senate by 
 a vote of eighteen to four, both Repul)lican senators. 
 President Morrill and one other coalition senator 
 voting no. In the house, where, after two or three 
 days' delay, the vote was taken, resulting in seventy- 
 eight in favor and sixty-eight opj30sed, seven of the 
 coalition majority voted with the solid Republican 
 minority in opposition to license. It is interesting to 
 note in passing that of the ninety-six members of the 
 legislature who voted for that license law, but five 
 were re-elected. 
 
 Lot M. Morrill, shortly after making the speech 
 referred to in opposition to the re-enactment of 
 license, abandoned the Democratic party and identi- 
 fied himself with the Republicans. In a little more
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 557 
 
 than a year after he delivered that speech he was 
 chosen with great unanimity as the Republican candi- 
 date for governor. His nomination was followed by 
 an election, and it was his pleasure to sign the bill 
 repealing the license law, against the passage of 
 which he had protested, and to approve a prohibitory 
 law. 
 
 The repeal of the Maine Law, on the whole, proved 
 to be of lasting advantage to the cause of Proliibition 
 in Maine. It afforded an opportunity to contrast 
 the effects of that policy with the results of license, 
 ' ' toned up " to meet in a measure the higher demands 
 of the pul)lic sentiment which had been created by 
 Prohibition. The law substituted for it was what 
 was called a "stringent" license law, and contained 
 the most approved features of the so-called "high 
 license" legislation of these latter days. It was 
 drafted by Hon. Phineas Barnes, of Portland, who 
 was a coalition senator from Cumberland county that 
 year. 
 
 Mr. Barnes was a total abstainer from conviction. 
 Earnestly opposed to Prohibition, he nevertheless 
 would not permit the influence of his example, as to 
 the use of liquors, to be thrown on the wrong side. 
 He could not be suspected of any sympathy with the 
 liquor-traffic i^er se. He was undoubtedly anxious 
 that his law should prove more satisfactory to the 
 people than that which it was to supi)lant. He drew 
 it, therefore, with great care, to the end that it 
 should meet what he knew was the public wish, for 
 the closest possible restriction of the obnoxious busi- 
 ness, so far as he could meet that wish consistently 
 with his opinion that the traffic should have legal 
 recognition.
 
 558 REMINISCENCES 
 
 The vicious principle of license in that law neutral- 
 ized all the prohibitory features applied to unlicensed 
 dealers which it borrowed from the legislation of 
 the past few years. It re-established a legalized 
 liquor-trade, under the shelter of which an unlicensed 
 and illegal traffic began to thrive. The demoralizing 
 effects were everywhere apparent, and before the law 
 had been in operation six months it was arousing 
 great opposition. This, however, did not come from 
 the class which had antagonized the Maine Law. 
 Neither the liquor-sellers, nor the advocates of liquor- 
 selling, complained of this license legislation. Oppo- 
 sition to it was confined to that class whose interests 
 and sympathies were with sobriety, order, industry, 
 thrift, and all that contributes to the happiness of a 
 people, and the prosperity of a state. 
 
 Within a few months after the enactment of the 
 new license law, the political campaign for 1856 
 opened. That, it will be remembered, was the 
 presidential year in which the Republican party 
 fought its first national battle with John C. Fre- 
 mont as its standard-bearer. All Maine Republicans 
 were anxious that their majority in September should 
 be so large as to have an influence upon the national 
 election, as they were confident that the state was to 
 cast its electoral vote with their party. 
 
 It was believed by some prominent Maine Republi- 
 cans, that a larger majority could be secured by 
 ignoring that year the question of Prohibition, and it 
 was accordingly tacitly agreed that the license law 
 should have a fair trial, that no attempt should be 
 made to repeal it by the legislature to be elected 
 in September, that reference to Prohibition should 
 be excluded from the i)arty platform, and that the
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 559 
 
 campaign should be run upon national issues. Tliis 
 was done in the hope of obtaining the straight Whig 
 vote, supposed to be largely inimical to Prohibition, 
 and upon the conviction that the Prohibitionists who 
 had been misled into supporting the coalition of 1855 
 could be relied upon, in any event, to vote with the 
 Republicans. 
 
 It is proper to say that my wish and judgment were 
 opposed to this arrangement. As anxious as any other 
 Republican that the majority of my party in Septem- 
 ber should be large and decisive, I had more faith in 
 the strength of the prohibition issue with the masses 
 of the people than did some others. But many of the 
 friends of that policy who had rendered most valu- 
 able service to it differed from me upon this point, 
 and upon the assurance that in 1857 the party would 
 commit itself to Prohibition, I yielded. 
 
 I have never believed that five hundred votes more 
 were secured by the concession. Indeed, it was 
 impossible to keep the prohibition issue out of the 
 canvass, for, though I personally kept faith in this par- 
 ticular, many local Republican speakers denounced 
 the coalition for its disregard of the popular wish as 
 to the liquor-trafiic, and its return to the hated 
 license policy. On the other hand. Democratic 
 papers and speakers kept the question of Prohibition 
 in prominence, and, insisting that Republican success 
 meant the re-establishment of the Maine Law, urged 
 that the re-election of Governor Wells was necessary 
 to endorse license and to condemn Prohibition. 
 
 The Republican candidate for governor was Hanni- 
 bal Hamlin. Again the straight Whigs gave aid 
 and comfort to their old antagonists, and while sup- 
 porting an eminently respectable and wealthy citizen
 
 560 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 of Bath, Mr. George F. Patten, as a gubernatorial can- 
 didate, joined with them in legislative nominations. 
 The Eepublican vote was sixty-nine thousand five hun- 
 dred; Wells received on a much larger total, five 
 thousand less votes than the year before; the straight 
 Whig vote dropped to about six thousand five hun- 
 dred. For the first time since 1850 a governor had 
 been elected by the people, and this by a majority 
 of nearly twenty thousand. The legislature con- 
 tained in the senate thirty Republicans and one 
 Democrat; in the house one hundred and twenty- 
 five Republicans and twenty-six Democrats. 
 
 I have heretofore mentioned a great outdoor meet- 
 ing held on the eve of the Buchanan-Fremont presi- 
 dential election addressed by Senator Hamlin and my- 
 self. I refer to it again because an incident connected 
 with it illustrates the general sentiment of the time 
 as to Prohibition. As I have said, in the state 
 campaign of 1856, some of the leaders of the Repub- 
 lican party had been anxious to keep everything 
 pertaining to Prohibition out of sight, hence, I had 
 taken no active part in the September canvass, the 
 first for years in which my voice had not been fre- 
 quently heard. My presence at that meeting was my 
 first appearance at a political gathering that fall. 
 
 I have elsewhere stated the cause for the mani- 
 festation of gratification with which Mr. Hamlin was 
 received. As to my welcome, private citizen as I 
 was, no such reason obtained for enthusiasm upon 
 my appearance, as in the case of the distinguished 
 senator. I may not enlarge upon my reception more 
 than to say that it was by far the greatest demon- 
 stration of the evening. The cheering was so loud 
 and long-continued that an opposition meeting in
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 501 
 
 a hall in tlie vicinity was for a time suspended 
 because so many of those present rushed out into 
 the square to see what was causing the great excite- 
 ment. To me the affair was all the more gratifying 
 because I did not take it to be a personal ^'ompliment, 
 but rather as disclosing the strong hold of the policy 
 with which my name was identified upon the con- 
 victions and sympathies of the masses of the newly 
 organized party. 
 
 The new legislature assembled in January, 1856. 
 According to the understanding referred to no 
 attempt was made to repeal the license law. It 
 is, however, an interesting and suggestive fact, 
 illustrative of the public mind upon that question, 
 that though the statutes were republished that winter, 
 the license law was not incorporated among them. 
 Allowed to remain in all its deformity a law of the 
 state, it was not permitted to contaminate the general 
 statutes by being printed in the same volume with 
 them. There were two reasons for this: A vote 
 could not be carried in the legislature for the formal 
 re-enactment of a code containing it; and as it was 
 certain to be repealed the next year, it was not 
 deemed wise to cumber the new volume with a law 
 so soon to be a thing of the past. 
 
 In 1857 the Kepublican state convention, which 
 nominated Lot M. Morrill for governor, adopted 
 the following resolution: 
 
 " Eesolved, That the license liquor law passed by tlie 
 legislature of 1856 is inadequate to the suppression of the 
 evils of intemperance, and that the public welfare can best 
 be secured by a suitable prohibitory law, and believing that 
 all laws should be not only just and constitutional, but per- 
 manent, in their character and effect, and for the purpose of 
 removing this great moral question from the arena of party
 
 562 REMINISCENCES 
 
 politics, we recommend that an enactment designed to pro- 
 hibit the sale of intoxicating liquors be submitted to the 
 people upon some early day other than that of our annual 
 state election." 
 
 The Democratic state convention committed itself 
 to the support of the license policy. The election 
 resulted in the choice of Mr. Morrill for governor, 
 and a legislature overwhelmingly Kepublican in both 
 branches, there being, if I remember aright, but one 
 senator upon the license platform elected, and not 
 over forty of the one hundred and fifty-one repre- 
 sentatives. Hon. William W. Thomas, of Portland, 
 vras a member of the senate, and was made chair- 
 man of the temperance committee. 
 
 It was soon evident that an influence was operative 
 to prevent any action looking to a return to Prohibi- 
 tion. This the friends of that policy did not fear as 
 much as the more influential effort to introduce into 
 the new bill a provision abhorrent to the earnest tem- 
 perance men, viz: to permit the manufacture of liquors 
 in the state to be sold outside its borders. 
 
 For a time a very strenuous effort in that direction 
 was made requiring most emphatic protest to prevent 
 it. Distilling, before the Maine Law, had been carried 
 on extensively in Portland. Our trade with the West 
 Indies brought to our wharves great quantities of 
 molasses, and some of our leading merchants thought 
 best to provide for its distillation here into rum, not 
 to be sold in Maine. 
 
 To meet this new danger, the friends of Prohibition 
 held meetings all over the state, which adopted reso- 
 lutions and protests against that proposition. Mr. 
 Thomas, the chairman, and a majority of his commit- 
 tee, were sound upon the question, but for a while it
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 5(33 
 
 was feared that some might yield to the mistaken plea 
 that it would "help business." 
 
 Happily, however, the people of Maine had been 
 too thoroughly grounded in the principles underlying 
 Prohibition, and the proposition to relight the fires of 
 the distilleries of Portland was buried beneath a 
 storm of popular denunciation. 
 
 During the drafting of the new law, Mr. Thomas 
 and I had frequent interviews, and his firmness and 
 decision secured many provisions which less earnest 
 Prohibitionists than he would gladly have omitted. 
 The bill he reported passed in both houses, the vote 
 being, in the senate, yeas 24, all Republicans; nays 1, 
 Fusion; in the house, yeas 104, all Republicans; nays 
 27, all Fusion. It was approved by the governor and 
 submitted to the people at a special election. Tlie 
 issue presented was "The Prohibitory Law, of 1858" 
 or "The License Law of 1856." This, however, was a 
 matter of form, because the law would have become 
 operative though the popular vote had been against it. 
 Under the circumstances, it was not expected that 
 there would be a very general expression of the people 
 at the polls, but the vote was, for Prohibition, 28,855, 
 and for License, 5,912. 
 
 The re-enactment of Prohibition was the signal for 
 a cloud of predictions from its opponents that the 
 next year the party that had enacted the license law 
 of 1856 would be restored to power and Prohibition 
 again repealed. Accordingly, in the campaign of 
 1858, they made that issue as prominent as possible, 
 only to be emphatically repudiated at the polls. 
 
 From 1858 to this day, no license law has found a 
 place in the legislation of the state; indeed, no 
 serious attempt has been made to restore it, for when
 
 564 REMINISCENCES 
 
 the opposition to Prohibition has fairly taken the 
 field, with announced intention of re-enacting license, 
 it has been unable to muster enough representatives 
 and senators to make an even passable effort in that 
 direction. In the one legislature, since that of 1856, 
 which has been controlled by the opposition to the 
 Republican party in Maine, no such attempt was 
 made. On the other hand, the party which has gen- 
 erally been in power in the state, has almost uni- 
 formly inserted a plank in its platform endorsing 
 Prohibition. 
 
 The resolution of 1882 was: 
 
 " We refer with confidence and pride to the general record 
 of the Republican party in support of the policy of prohib- 
 iting the traffic in intoxicating liquors, the wisdom and 
 efficiency of which legislation in promoting the moral and 
 material interests of Maine have been demonstrated through 
 the practical annihilation of that traffic in a large portion of 
 the state, and we favor such legislation and such enforcement 
 of law as will secure to every portion of our territory free- 
 dom from that traffic. We further recommend the submis- 
 sion to the people of a constitutional prohil)itory amendment." 
 
 The circumstances attending the adoption of the 
 resolution quoted were peculiarly significant. At the 
 last preceding state election the Republican party, for 
 the first time since its organization in 1854, had failed 
 to secure a plurality, and it was known that the 
 contest in 1882 was to be particularly sharp, and the 
 leaders were anxious to put the party upon a platform 
 which in their judgment would secure the largest 
 number of votes. That resolution, therefore, shows 
 the judgment of the experienced politicians of the 
 Repul)licaii party as to the strength of Prohibition 
 with the masses of the people of Maine. 
 
 The legislature elected that year voted to submit to
 
 or NEAL DOW. 565 
 
 the people the following proposed amendment to the 
 Constitution : 
 
 " The manufacture of intoxicating liquors, not includino- 
 cider, and the sale and keeping for sale of intoxicating liquors, 
 are and shall be forever prohibited. Except, houcvcr, that 
 the sale and keeping for sale of such liquors for medicinal and 
 mechanical purposes and the arts, and the sale and keeping 
 for sale of cider may be permitted under such regulations as 
 the legislature may provide. The legislature shall enact laws 
 with suitable penalties for the suppression of the manufac- 
 ture, sale and keeping for sale of intoxicating liquors, with 
 the exceptions herein specified." 
 
 The vote submitting this amendment in the sen- 
 ate was: yeas, twenty-one Republicans, one Fusion; 
 nays, one Republican, one Fusion; in the house, 
 yeas, eighty-five Republicans, six Fusion; nays, eight 
 Republicans, twenty-three Fusion. The popular 
 vote was 70,783 in favor, and 23,811 against the 
 amendment. Neither in the legislature nor before 
 the people did the opponents of the constitutional 
 amendment make a point of opposition to Prohibition 
 per se. They generally confined themselves to assert- 
 ing that it was not wise, however desirable Prohibi- 
 tion might be in itself as a part of the statutes, to 
 engraft it upon the fundamental law of the state. 
 
 Ever since the enactment of the Maine Law, the 
 liquor-interest, in and out of Maine, through every 
 agency it has been able to control, has insisted that 
 Prohibition has increased the sale and consumption 
 of liquor; and many individuals, above suspicion 
 of any interest in the traffic, have been misled by 
 that clamor, though the constant and virulent opposi- 
 tion of the trade to Prohibition should suggest that 
 in such assertions the liquor-sellers and their sympa- 
 thizers are stating what they know to be untrue.
 
 566 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 To all such declarations, coi:^iing from T\^liat source 
 they may, I enter a general denial, without fear of 
 contradiction by any honest, ol:)serving citizen of 
 Maine; and maintain that whenever and wherever 
 any reasonably active and earnest effort has been 
 made to enforce Prohibition in this state, the results 
 have amply justified the hopes of its friends. That 
 such has been the case as to a very large portion of 
 the state has been publicly certified to, again and 
 again, by large numbers of our clergymen and by 
 others among our best citizens, including men as widely 
 known as are ex-Governors Lot M. Morrill, Sidney 
 Perham, Nelson Dingley, Jr., Selden Connor, and 
 Frederick Robie; l^y United States Senators Eugene 
 Hale and William P. Frye; by ex-Governor and 
 ex- Vice-President of United States Hannibal Ham- 
 lin, and by James G. Blaine. 
 
 A volume might be filled with the testimony of 
 these and other citizens of Maine, to the great benefits 
 the state has derived through the policy of Prohibi- 
 tion; but I will content myself with quoting from a 
 recent letter of James G. Blaine, which has been 
 extensively circulated, in w^hich he said: 
 
 *'The people of Maine are industrious and provident, and 
 wise laws have aided them. They are sober, earnest, and 
 thrifty. Intemperance has steadily decreased in the state 
 since the first enactment of the prohibitory law, until now it 
 can be said with truth that there is no equal number of people 
 in the Anglo-Saxon world among whom so small an amount 
 of intoxicating liquor is consumed as among the six hundred 
 and fifty thousand inhabitants of Maine." 
 
 If the absolute suppression of the liquor-trade all 
 through our territory were recpiired to prove the 
 usefulness of Prohil^ition, it might be said with 
 truth that it is a failure. But such a test is applied
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 567 
 
 to no other statute in the criminal code, and there 
 is no reason for its application here. It may be 
 admitted that in some places, most of the time, and in 
 others, at various times, the enforcement of the law 
 has been lax, and that as a consequence the traffic, 
 in a more or less unattractive form, has obtained a 
 foothold in such places. But on the other hand, at 
 times in substantially all of the state, in a great por- 
 tion of it for most of the time, and in some of it 
 for all of the time, the traffic has been practically 
 extinct, while scarcely anywhere for any portion of 
 the time has such of the trade as has existed, been 
 conducted with the seductiveness of surroundings 
 that gives to it its greatest power for harm. 
 
 A magnificent steamship is lying at the wharf. 
 What is her purpose? To carry tons of valuable 
 freight, worth many thousands of dollars, and hun- 
 dreds of precious lives across the seas. She is 
 constructed to safely ride the stormiest waves, with 
 power sufficient to breast the fiercest storms, but 
 she is lying there idle. Her propeller is not mov- 
 ing. She is a steamboat, to be sure, but some one 
 tells us that she is a failure. Why? Because she 
 is not moving; she is doing nothing. And persons 
 standing by, persons professing to desire that freight 
 and passengers shall be safely carried across the 
 ocean, and who would gladly approve of steam- 
 boats, so they say, if they could do that, applaud 
 the man who says she is a failure. Well, after a time 
 the wheels begin to revolve, the ropes are cast off, 
 
 " She walks the waters like a thing of life." 
 
 She is no failure now, though she is the same steam- 
 boat that an hour ago was idle, denounced as a
 
 568 REMINISCENCES 
 
 failure by the loungers on the wharf. All that 
 was necessary was an order for the engineer to 
 move the throttle-valve and let on the steam. 
 
 If anywhere in Maine there has been a failure 
 under Prohibition to enjoy the advantages always 
 to be expected from the absence of the liquor-traffic, 
 it is due, not to Prohibition, but because some one 
 whose duty it was to apply it has failed so to do, 
 or, if it is preferred, because the people have not 
 insisted that only those who could be trusted to 
 perform their official duty should be vested with 
 official power. There is no more difficulty with 
 Prohibition than in the case of the steamboat. 
 
 Here I may properly close my sketch of the temper- 
 ance movement in Maine. It had reached a point far 
 in advance of that taken in the little Quaker meeting- 
 house, but it had its inception in the precepts and 
 examples of Dr. Payson and Dr. Nichols, who saw 
 and appreciated the dangerous tendencies of the 
 habits and customs in the midst of which they lived. 
 They sounded the alarm and pointed their people to 
 the path of safety. They believed that duty to God 
 and love for their fellow-men demanded of them 
 antagonism to whatever might tend to the destruction 
 of the moral and material interests of man, and they 
 had the requisite conscientiousness and courage to 
 adopt the course they believed to be right. The 
 movement having been inaugurated by them, was 
 sustained and carried forward by those who had 
 learned at their feet that the glory of God, the good 
 of man, and the general welfare of the state were 
 to be promoted by it. If it lias not accomplished all 
 that those men and their coadjutors hoped, the fault 
 is not to be charged to them.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 569 
 
 I am confident that the people of Maine will never 
 return to the system of license unless they shall 
 forget the lessons of experience and prefer to subor- 
 dinate all their higher interests to a traffic which 
 they have once recognized as meriting the condem- 
 nation of law. That surely will never be if those 
 who conduct the moral, religious, educational and 
 charitable agencies of the state are true to their great 
 trusts, and comprehend the nature of the ceaseless 
 warfare waged by the liquor-traffic upon all that they 
 seek to promote. For them to be silent and indiffer- 
 ent as to that, is to manage the work in their charge 
 as imprudently as would a general in command at a 
 battle, who, while arranging to assail a detachment 
 of the enemy, should ignore its main body then 
 actually assaulting his own flank and rear.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 INVITATIOlsr BY UNITED KINGDOM ALLIANCE TO VISIT GEEAT 
 BRITAIN. EECEPTION AT HALIFAX. . MY FIEST 
 OCEAN VOYAGE. WELCOME IN ENGLAND. 
 MEETINGS THERE. EXPEEIENCES, 
 OB8EEVATIONS AND IN- 
 CIDENTS. 
 
 It has been my privilege to pass nearly four years in 
 Great Britain. I was there from April to November 
 in 1857, from May, 1866, to November, 1867, and again 
 from April, 1873 to May, 1875, a few weeks only out 
 of each of those periods being deducted for continen- 
 tal sightseeing. Through the kindness of many 
 friends and acquaintances made in all i)arts of Great 
 Britain, I was enabled to learn much that I would not 
 otherwise have known of the people of that great 
 country. 
 
 Each of those visits was made at the invitation of 
 the United Kingdom Alliance. That great and influ- 
 ential society was formed in 1853 in consequence of 
 the adoption of the Maine Law, to aid in obtaining 
 similar legislation in Great Britain. I have been 
 informed that letters written by me, in 1852 and 1853, 
 to prominent and philantliropic Englishmen, anxious
 
 REMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOAV. 571 
 
 to improve conditions in their country, were useful in 
 promoting its organization. However that may have 
 been, the society, from its inception, has been a pow- 
 erful agency for good. The purpose of my visits was 
 to explain to the English people the principles on 
 which the policy of Prohibition was founded and to 
 show its results. I remember with great satisfaction 
 the assurances I received from the executive officers 
 of the Alliance, at the close of each of those missions, 
 that my efforts had been productive of good, assur- 
 ances accompanied in each instance Avith earnest 
 requests to prolong my stay, and if that could not be, 
 to come again as soon as practicable. Indeed, some 
 years after my third visit I was strongly urged to a 
 fourth, and the insistence that I could again material- 
 ly aid the cause proved so strong a temptation that, 
 although more than eighty-five years of age, I com- 
 pleted arrangements to go, even to engaging passage, 
 but I was finally persuaded by my family that at my 
 age it would be the height of imprudence to incur the 
 fatigue and exposure incident to such an undertaking. 
 
 It is also a source of profound pleasure to me to 
 believe that the extensive personal acquaintance 
 formed and the knowledge of the English people, of 
 their opinions, convictions and prejudices, acquired 
 on my first tour, enabled me a few years later to help 
 to create a public opinion in Great Britain which 
 proved very useful to my country in the great crisis 
 through which our Union passed between my first and 
 second English tours. 
 
 I had good reason to believe that my visits to Great 
 Britain were of interest to friends of the cause in this 
 country, as well as to those across the seas. At a 
 meeting of the executive committee of the American
 
 572 REMINISCENCES 
 
 Temperance Union held in New York, on the 28th of 
 February, prior to my departure in April, 1857, for my 
 first visit, the following resolution was adopted : 
 
 " Whereas, our friend and fellow-laborer, the Hon. Neal 
 Dow, is, by special invitation, about visiting Great Britain 
 and parts of the continent of Europe, for the purpose of aid- 
 ing in the curtailment and suppression of the traffic in 
 intoxicating drinks as a beverage, l)y the power of a rectified 
 public sentiment, and suitable legislative and parliamentary 
 action : therefore, 
 
 "Resolved, That we cordially bid Mr. Dow God-speed in 
 his important work, and commend him to all our friends 
 abroad as one dear to our hearts, and an able and efficient 
 laborer in the great work in which he is engaged." 
 
 The Journal of the American Temperance Union, 
 referring to my departure, said: 
 
 " He will speak boldly and eloquently, declaring the truth. 
 He is not a noisy and loose declaimer. But while he is a 
 man of order, he is a man of correct statistics and useful 
 facts. He speaks like a man of business rather than the 
 studied orator, and will, therefore, as does Richard Cobden, 
 please the English people. He goes over at a favorable time, 
 when there is in almost every town, a warm discussion going 
 on, relative to the Maine Law." 
 
 At a public meeting held in the Second Parish 
 church, of Portland, a few days prior to my depart- 
 ure, an address to the friends of Prohibition in Great 
 Britain was adopted. This was suggested because at 
 the time of my first visit the policy of Prohibition, 
 which I was proposing to advocate before the British 
 pu])lic, was not existing in the statutes of Maine, 
 having been stricken out as elsewhere related by the 
 legislature elected in the reaction of 1855. Among 
 other tilings, that address said : 
 
 " AVe have been cast down, but we are not destroyed. 
 Though we were defeated in 1855, and are still waiting for 
 the restoration of the Maine Law, we are not disheartened;
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 573 
 
 we are confident that we do not wait in vain. Under our 
 form of government the public will will be sure to embody 
 itself in law, but this is not done without a struggle, and 
 while that struggle lasts, the friends of any cause, however 
 noble or however strong they may be in numbers, are liable 
 
 to reverses. So it has been with us The friends of 
 
 Prohibition have an unquestioned majority in our state, and 
 the day of triumph hastens on. Within another year Maine 
 will take her place again among her old associates and re- 
 assert her claim to take the lead in this glorious reform. The 
 restoration of the Maine Law is sure. 
 
 " We send this message by our fellow-citizen and co- 
 laborer in this cause, Hon. Neal Dow, with whose name you 
 are already familiar. By his constant and lifelong devotion, 
 his inflexibility of purpose, and his untiring energy and perse- 
 verance, he has given new power to this great and beneficent 
 movement by which unnuml^ered blessings have come upon 
 our common country, our state, and the city where we dwell ; 
 and with full hearts we commend him and his labors to the 
 friends of Prohibition in other lands." 
 
 Upon my arrival at Halifax, I was welcomed by 
 several friends who took me to a public hall, 
 where in the presence of many people assembled to 
 greet me, I was presented with the following address: 
 
 "We, the Deputy Grand Worthy Patriarch and Grand 
 Scribe, in behalf of the order of Sons of Temperance and 
 kindred organizations in Halifax, embrace the opportunity 
 afforded by the short delay of the English steamer, to bid 
 you welcome, and assure you of our high respect and esteem. 
 
 "Interested as we are in the progress of a moral reform 
 which we consider essential to the well-being of society, we 
 deem it our duty and our privilege to honor those, who, by 
 their zeal, their ability, and their constancy in the promotion 
 of that great reform, have entitled themselves to a prominent 
 place among the benefactors of mankind. We believe that 
 rumor has not misled us in ascribing to you the possession of 
 those qualities of leadership, which are required to give 
 compactness, direction, and stability to every important 
 enterprise, and we cheerfully accord to you the same position 
 in the public mind of our countrymen which you occupy in the 
 estimation of your own. The geographical lines which divide
 
 574 REMINISCENCES 
 
 us into communities, living under different forms of political 
 o-overnment, we hold to be but accidental or conventional 
 arrangements, which disappear m the contemplation of a 
 sentiment of universal brotherhood. 
 
 " We are aware that diversity of opinion exists, even 
 among conscientious persons, respecting the expediency of 
 prohibitory enactments for the suppression of the traffic in 
 intoxicating liquors ; but the world has not failed to recog- 
 nize, and to acknowledge, in the legislation of the state of 
 Maine, a signal example of magnanimous purpose, supported 
 with determination of spirit, and elevated by purity of motive. 
 Temporary ol^structions have hitherto prevented the full reali- 
 zation of all that the Maine Law was intended to accomplish, 
 but this fact, which might have been anticipated, cannot 
 tarnish the glory of the endeavor, nor does it, in our judg- 
 ment, invalidate the soundness of the principles upon which 
 the law was based. 
 
 "We trust that in the great country which you are about 
 visiting, and of which we form an humble appendage, your 
 exertion in behalf of the temperance movement, may be 
 eminently successful in stimulating the work already begun 
 by the people themselves, and that in conjunction with the 
 labors of Mr. Gough, and others who have preceded you, 
 such a moral revolution may be effected in the islands of 
 Great Britain and Ireland, as shall result in lessening the 
 woes, and increasing the happiness of the whole human race. 
 
 " In conclusion, allow us to wish you most sincerely, a 
 speedy and pleasant passage across the mighty deep, and a 
 safe return to your family and friends." 
 
 " Signed, in behalf of the Order of Sons of Temperance, 
 Halifax, Nova Scotia, 
 
 " John Shean, D. G. W. P. 
 " Patrick Monaghan, G. S. 
 
 "9th April, 1857." 
 
 Then forming a procession the assembly escorted 
 me to the steamer, and speeded me on my way by 
 three hearty British cheers. 
 
 Just as our ship moved from the wharf, there was a 
 startling illustration of the evil of intemperance. A 
 man who had been ashore came on board much under 
 the influence of liquor, and as the officers were
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 575 
 
 attempting to put him under restraint he jumped 
 overboard. He apparently knew how to swim, and 
 had he been sober might easily have been saved. 
 Life-preservers Avere thrown to liim, but he was too 
 badly intoxicated to avail himself of them. An 
 officer with a line attached jumped over to save him, 
 but the poor fellow, being unable to assist himself, 
 sank before he could be reached. 
 
 Pleasant acquaintances were made among the pas- 
 sengers, some of whom introduced themselves as 
 having met me at meetings I had addressed. Others 
 who said they had heard of me sought my acquaint- 
 ance, and altogether I found myself most pleasantly 
 situated. Though I never introduced the topic, 
 owing probably to my presence, there was much 
 conversation at meals during the first few days 
 about "abstinence," and "moderate" and "exces- 
 sive" drinking. Besides myself there were three 
 Americans who did not take wine. After the second 
 day my vis-a-vis^ a gentleman from London, Canada, 
 declined it, while later one from Glasgow, Scotland, 
 said that he would abandon its use. 
 
 Some gentlemen calling themselves men of the 
 world, with little time or inclination for interest 
 in reform, would occasionally insist that temperance 
 could be better served by moderate drinking, such 
 as they indulged in, than by total abstinence. They 
 were always very jovial about it, and would now and 
 then ask me if so much, naming a quantity they had 
 taken, was "too much." I imagine none of them 
 profited by the advice they sought. However, on the 
 last day of the voyage a passenger told me that he had 
 been many times across the Atlantic and had never 
 before seen so little drinking on shipboard.
 
 576 REMINISCENCES 
 
 To one who, like myself, had never made a wager of 
 any kind, the constant betting resorted to by some to 
 kill time was a marvel. The stakes were generally 
 small, and related to every conceivable coming event, 
 from the number of miles to be run in a day, to which 
 drop of spray would first reach the bottom as it ran 
 down a window. Lotteries too, were devised, and 
 almost every one was solicited to take tickets. I 
 thouglit it worthy of note in a letter written home at 
 the close of the voyage that not only was I not invited 
 to drink, but was not challenged to bet, nor asked to 
 buy a ticket in any of the numerous lotteries. Yet 
 I was on the best of terms with all the passengers, 
 not one of whom, so far as I could judge, thought me 
 unapproachable, uncompanionable or unsociable. I 
 mention this now in the hope that some young man or 
 woman may read in it the truth that one is never 
 obliged, in whatever surroundings, to prove false to 
 convictions or to adopt customs that may be question- 
 able that they may be able to keep on terms with desir- 
 able companions. 
 
 At dinner, as our voyage terminated, complying with 
 their request to me in a note signed by a number of 
 passengers, I thanked Captain Leitch of our steamer 
 for his kindness and attention, for the admirable 
 discipline he had maintained, and the seamanship 
 he had displayed. Then six Scotch gentlemen sprang 
 up, and, each with one foot upon his chair and the 
 other on the table, sang a Scotch song, shouting a 
 hearty good-bye to the passengers, greatly to the 
 entertainment of the company. An American gentle- 
 man then proposed the health of the queen, and an 
 Englishman proposed mine, a Scotch army surgeon 
 adding, "To be drunk in water. " This was done, all
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 577 
 
 standing, with great enthusiasm, and in admirable 
 spirits, though it was probably the first time that 
 most of them had thus honored a toast. 
 
 Arriving at Liverpool, Mr. Samuel Pope, the hon- 
 orary secretary of the United Kingdom Alliance, 
 accompanied by several other friends of temperance, 
 boarded our steamer and gave me a most gracious 
 reception. Upon landing, they conducted me to a 
 hotel where I met representatives from Liverpool, 
 Manchester, Bolton, and other cities, who had kindly 
 come to greet me. There I was welcomed formally in 
 behalf of the United Kingdom Alliance by Mr. Pope, 
 after which there was a public dinner. That over, 
 I was introduced, and made my first speech upon 
 English soil. 
 
 Nearly twenty years elapsed between my first and 
 last visits to England, while now more than thirty 
 years have passed since, in April, 1857, I embarked 
 at Boston on the Cunard steamer Europa for that 
 country. Consequently, in endeavoring to give some 
 account of my experiences and observations in Great 
 Britain, it will be convenient to pay little regard to 
 their order as to time. 
 
 My reception at Liverpool gave me an opportunity 
 to meet some of the most devoted friends of the 
 cause in Great Britain. With several of these it 
 was my great good fortune to be associated closely 
 for some time, forming strong and lasting friend- 
 ships, ever most highly prized by me. 
 
 Among these, mentioning only the officials of the 
 Alliance, were Samuel Pope, Esq., and Mr. Tliomas 
 H. Barker. Mr. Pope and I had had correspondence, 
 not only with reference to the movement in which 
 we were both interested, but bearing specially upon
 
 578 REMINISCENCES 
 
 my contemplated vi^it to Great Britain. He was an 
 able and effective speaker, and a most agreeable 
 gentleman. His constant kindness added much to 
 my comfort, and to liim I was greatly indebted for 
 any aid my visit afforded the society he represented. 
 The people of this country have strong reason to 
 be thankful to Mr. Pope for great services at a 
 time when the slightest assistance of the kind was of 
 importance. At a critical period during our war 
 for the Union when there was imminent danger 
 that the government of Great Britain would recog- 
 nize the Southern Confederacy — and there were 
 many who believed that it would be done within 
 twenty-four hours — Mr. Pope was active and influ- 
 ential in arranging for a public expression in 
 opposition to such action. The first step in this 
 direction was an immense public meeting in St. 
 James' Hall in London, at which he made the first 
 speech, and was followed by John Bright. That, 
 I think, was the first public utterance in all England 
 in favor of our Union. This meeting was so great and 
 enthusiastic that the British government delayed its 
 contemplated action, and many great meetings soon 
 afterwards held in the large cities developed a strong 
 public sentiment against the Confederacy and in favor 
 of the Union, and the great danger was averted. 
 Mr. Pope took a very prominent part in this move- 
 ment, speaking at many of those meetings and largely 
 giving up his time to the work. I am glad to be able 
 to say, also, that the more earnest temperance men 
 throughout the United Kingdom were among the 
 most active and prominent in favor of the mainte- 
 nance of our Union. , 
 
 Mr. Thomas H. Barker, the indefatigable and
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 571) 
 
 efficient secretary of the Alliance, was of invaluable 
 aid to me during all the time I spent in Great Britain. 
 Between him and myself Avarm friendship and close 
 intimacy were developed. Through his frequent and 
 valued letters I have been informed not alone of 
 the progress of the work of the Alliance in Great 
 Britain, but of the general trend of politics and 
 public affairs, of which he was naturally a keen 
 observer, and which by the demands of his position 
 in the Alliance, he was impelled to watch closely. 
 
 Some friends of the Alliance movement who had 
 been invited were unable to be present at my recep- 
 tion in Liverpool and sent letters of regret. One of 
 these, as it was read, was passed to me, and is before 
 me at this writing. It was from the Earl of Harring- 
 ton, and ran as follows: 
 
 " Elvaston Castle, Derby, 16th April. 
 " My Dear Sir : — I deeply reiri'et that important business 
 will prevent my having the pleasure of l)ein<i; ]>rescnt at the 
 reception of Neal Dow on his landing in Liverpool. He 
 stands next to Washington as the great benefactor of Ameri- 
 ca and the world, and we hail his presence in England with 
 gratitude and pride. Most truly yours, 
 
 Harrington." 
 
 A few days after, it was my good fortune to be the 
 
 guest of the Earl of Harrington at his magnificent 
 
 seat at Derby. He had become much impressed with 
 
 Prohibition, and two years previous to my visit had 
 
 entertained an immense gathering on his grounds in 
 
 honor of the Maine Law. The spot was marked by a 
 
 block of granite, with the following inscription: 
 
 " On the Fourth of July, 1855, ten thousand people assem- 
 bled here to congratulate the Americans on the passage of the 
 Maine Law in their Empire state. An American and an 
 English oak were planted to connnemorate the event, so 
 important to the world."
 
 580 REMINISCENCES 
 
 Another letter placed in my hands at the Liverpool 
 
 reception was from Sir Walter C. Trevelyan. He 
 
 wrote: 
 
 " I regret that it is out of my power to have the honor of 
 o-reeting you on your arrival in Liverpool ; but not being 
 able to do so personally, I trust you will kindly accept my 
 congratulations on your safe arrival. Looking upon your 
 kindness in coming to this country as opening to us a bright 
 prospect in the advance of the good cause in which you have 
 so long, so zealously, and so successfully labored among our 
 brethren on the other side of the Atlantic, and trusting that 
 I may, before long, have the honor and pleasure of becom- 
 ing personally acquainted with you, I remain, dear sir, yours 
 very faithfully, W. C. Trevelyan." 
 
 Sir Walter C. Trevelyan was a lifelong temperance 
 man, and was president of the Alliance. It was my 
 pleasure to experience many kindnesses from him, as 
 his guest, and in other ways. 
 
 Dr. F. E. Lees also wrote me: 
 
 " I regret that engagements will not permit me to welcome 
 you to the shores of the old country in person, but I beg to 
 assure you that my heart is with you, and my prayers for 
 your work of faith and labor of love. I hope to meet you in 
 Manchester next week, but in the meantime cannot refrain 
 from expressing my joy at your arrival amongst us, and giv- 
 ing you a hearty British welcome." 
 
 Dr. Lees was one of the first to give earnest and 
 powerful support to the movement in Great Britain 
 inaugurated by the Alliance for the immediate total 
 prohibition of the liquor traffic. He had l^een from 
 early youth a teetotaler, and for many years had 
 employed himself in teaching the public that alcohol 
 was always and everywliere a poison, and in whatever 
 quantity taken was a mischief to persons in health. 
 Of course this teaching was received with incredulity, 
 and ridiculed by many of the more prominent men in
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 581 
 
 the country, and so Dr. Lees was driven to fortify his 
 opinions and convictions by a careful study of the 
 physiological effects of that particular poison upon 
 the human system. In this special line of temperance 
 teaching, he ^Yas among the first. The books and 
 essays written by him upon this subject in the earlier 
 days of the temperance agitation were thorough and 
 exhaustive, and nothing better or more important has 
 been since contributed to the temperance movement 
 by any of the able men who have labored in the same 
 line. 
 
 Dr. Lees* was my frequent traveling companion in 
 my visits to Great Britain and on the continent, and 
 we often spoke from the same platform. He was an 
 admirable speaker, terse and logical. Thoroughly in- 
 /formed upon every phase of the temperance question, 
 scientific, moral and political, he was able to render 
 most valuable service to it. As a traveling compan- 
 ion he was most entertaining and instructive. He 
 knew every old abbey, castle, rock, and field, with a 
 history or tradition, in the United Kindom, and as we 
 visited many of these together I heard much from him 
 not recorded in books. It has been my pleasure to 
 entertain him in Portland, and we have been friends 
 and correspondents from our first introduction. 
 
 In addition to the pleasure derived from my inter- 
 course with our friends at the Liverpool reception, I 
 was enabled to get an idea of the situation of the 
 temperance cause in Great Britain. I learned that, 
 though many clergymen were taking an active inter- 
 est in it, some of them had not yet come to regard it 
 as incumbent upon them to set the example of total 
 abstinence to the parishes in their charge, though it 
 * Dr. Lees died but a few months before General Dow. 
 
 38
 
 582 REMINISCENCES 
 
 was true that some of these latter were active in doing 
 what they could to correct intemperate habits. I met 
 one, a clergyman of independent fortune, whose love 
 for God and man had led him to the clerical profes- 
 sion solely for the good he could do. He needed and 
 received no pecuniary compensation for his labors in 
 that calling. 
 
 His warm heart had been touched by the misery 
 about him traceable to drink, and he therefore pre- 
 pared and circulated a pledge, but without much 
 success, as he regretfully admitted to me. He was 
 then asked: "Are you a total abstainer yourself?" 
 "No," he replied, "I see no necessity in my case." 
 ' ' Would not your influence be greater among these 
 poor people, in whom you are so much interested, 
 if you should be able to say, ' Come, ' instead of ' Go ? ' " 
 "I never thought of that; I will consider it." He 
 shortly after abandoned the use of wine altogether, 
 and was delighted with the result, he afterwards said. 
 That little sacrifice enabled him to do vastly more 
 good in his chosen line. 
 
 It must be a comforting reflection to any person 
 that through subordination of a cherished comfort or 
 desire he has been able to contribute to the temporal 
 and eternal welfare of his fellows. The experience of 
 that wealthy clergyman we may all study to our own 
 good and to the advantage of those about us. 
 
 My first great meeting was to be in Free Trade Hall, 
 at Manchester. I had heard of that as the largest 
 auditorium in the Kingdom, with a capacity for seven 
 thousand, and I was somewhat nervous. I had been 
 informed that the meeting would be widely reported, 
 and would be influential by reason of the size and 
 character of the audience; that some would be there
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 583 
 
 who had not favored the object of the Alliance, and 
 whose future position with reference to it might 
 depend upon what I should say, and that knowledge 
 did not tend to relieve my anxiety. 
 
 Often afterwards it was my privilege to speak in 
 Free Trade Hall, but at the time of my first meeting 
 there I had never seen so large an indoor audience as 
 that which I then faced. It was a magnificent sight. 
 I had been accustomed to great meetings, and had 
 seen some outdoor gatherings larger than this. I had 
 before been kindly received by large audiences, but 
 no other welcome was so imposing in appearance as 
 that which greeted me at this, my first great meeting 
 in England. The press of the country was extensive- 
 ly represented, reporters being present, I was told, for 
 many of the more influential journals. Most of them 
 referred to my reception as enthusiastic. I quote 
 from one at hand : 
 
 " At the time we go to press, Mr. Dow has only addressed 
 one meeting, and that a monster one at Free Trade Hall, 
 Manchester. His reception on that occasion was not merely 
 enthusiastic, it was rapturous, and many times intensified 
 above what we are accustomed to witness on the most stirring 
 occasions. It was not mere hero-worship, and matter-of- 
 course laudation ; it was the sincerest and warmest homage 
 which the heart and judgment combined could render to 
 unselfish, courageous virtue and high-souled patriotism." 
 
 A glance at what was said and done at this meeting- 
 may afford as good a view of the situation of the 
 temperance cause in Great Britain as could otherwise 
 be obtained. Sir Walter C. Trevelyan presided, and 
 upon the platform beside him were Mr. Pope, Mr. 
 James Simpson, Rev. Francis Bishop, Dr. Lees, Rev. 
 Mr. Steinthal, Mr. Salisbury, member of parliament 
 for Chester, Mr. Thomas Clegg, Mr. Alderman Har-
 
 584 REMINISCENCES 
 
 vey, and others. The presiding officer, in his open- 
 ing remarks, after some complimentary allusions 
 to me, referred to conditions existing in Great 
 Britain, and questioned its right to be called a 
 civilized and Christian country while it was profit- 
 ing from a traffic the fruits of which were criminals, 
 paupers, and lunatics, and which cost more than a 
 waste of the capital which might be employed in 
 remunerating labor instead of being destructive to 
 the community; and he denounced the liquor-traffic 
 as one of the greatest impediments to reform, moral, 
 political, or social, and as preventing the spread of 
 education and religion, and as obstructing greatly 
 the labors of schoolmasters, clergymen and philan- 
 thropists. He insisted that when, and not until, the 
 laws were so changed as to seek the removal of that 
 evil, could the country be called in truth civilized or 
 Christian, 
 
 Following the remarks of the chair, Mr. Alderman 
 Harvey, in behalf of the gathering presented me with 
 an address as follows: 
 
 ''Honored and Dear Sir: — 
 
 "Permit us to assure you that our presence here to-night, is 
 not due to a mere idle feeling of curiosity — a mere desire to 
 see and hear an illustrious stranger. We are here to extend 
 to you a frank, cordial, and enthusiastic British welcome. 
 Your name being pre-eminently associated with the effort 
 made by our brethren in America to solve the greatest social 
 problem of modern times, we w^elcome you as one of the most 
 philanthropic statesmen of your great republic. The names 
 of Washington, Franklin, and their illustrious co-patriots, 
 are now venerated l)y the whole civilized world, as the cham- 
 pions of political freedom. So, we believe, will future 
 generations revere your memory as the exponent of social 
 virtue, and cherish the recollection of your laborious efforts 
 to dry up the chief source of national degradation and ruin, 
 Not only do we welcome you from a feeling of personal
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 585 
 
 aflfection, but we regard your presence in England at this 
 time as extremely opportune. It will not be unknown to you 
 that the efforts of the friends of Prohibition in this country 
 have been met by statements — circulated sometimes by 
 incautious and timid friends, but more frequently ))y inter- 
 ested opponents — tending to throw discredit upon yourself 
 and the progress of the cause in the United States. We are 
 firmly convinced that nothing is needed but full and authentic 
 information entirely to dispel all such impressions. 
 
 " We are aware that peculiar difficulties attend the legisla- 
 tive development in the United States of America. We are 
 astonished at the courage with which these have generally 
 been attacked, and at the measure of success that has already 
 been achieved. We are not surprised by occasional reverses. 
 Deeply rooted social habits cannot be extirpated in a day. 
 All this is familiar to us ; but every class of politicians, every 
 social reformer, and inquirer in this country will listen to 
 your words as of one qualified to speak with authority, and 
 for whose testimony can be claimed a most complete public 
 confidence and credit. We therefore again bid you welcome 
 to this country, and assure you that a cordial greeting awaits 
 you during your contemplated tour which we venture to 
 expect will prove as interesting and gratifying to yourself 
 as it will certainly be beneficial to our cause." 
 
 Having read the address, Mr. Harvey moved its 
 adoption, which motion was seconded by James 
 Simpson, and upon the motion being put to the 
 meeting, it was passed amid great enthusiasm. The 
 presentation to me of the scroll containing the 
 address was accompanied by loud cheering, the 
 entire audience standing. My reception upon my 
 rising to speak was gratifying in the extreme, as it 
 testified to the great interest of the vast audience 
 in the subject I was to present. At the close of 
 my speech, Mr. Salisbury, M. P. for Chester, moved: 
 
 ' "That this meeting, having heard the explicit and encour- 
 aging statement of the Hon.Neal Dow, desires to record its 
 conviction, not only that the prohibition of the liquor-trafiic 
 is a sound political principle, but that its development into
 
 586 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 practical leoislation in America is a great and operative fact ; 
 and that this meeting, not merely encouraged, but stirred 
 with a feeling of emulation, would urge the friends of the 
 Alliance in every part of the country to relax no effort, and 
 accept no compromise until they have registered a law of 
 prohibition on the statute-books of this kingdom." 
 
 And tills, upon being seconded by Mr. Pope, was 
 unanimously carried. 
 
 On the occasion of my second visit to England 
 in 1866, I was again welcomed in Free Trade Hall. 
 The weather was most unpropitious. It was rainy, 
 and the traveling was so wet, dirty and generally^ 
 unfavorable that it was anticipated that the meeting 
 would be a failure in point of numbers. But to 
 my great surprise the hall was exceedingly crowded, 
 every seat occupied, while hundreds were standing. 
 At this meeting fifty-five formal addresses from as 
 many different temperance societies in England, 
 Scotland, and Wales were presented to me, many 
 of them being most elegantly engrossed on parch- 
 ment, while some were printed on satin. Time did 
 not suffice for the reading of all of them, and after 
 the audience had listened to six the remainder were 
 presented each in turn by the several delegations, 
 without reading. Each representation while offering 
 its address stood upon the platform and remained 
 there until the ceremony of presenting them all was 
 completed. 
 
 It will be impracticable for me to attempt to cover 
 in detail my meetings in Great Britain. I met the 
 people in gatherings, large and small, in most of the 
 important towns of the United Kingdom. Many of 
 the meetings were of a character to call together rep- 
 resentative men from different parts of Great Britain; 
 some were confined to those specially invited to com-
 
 or NEAL DOW. 587 
 
 paratively select neighborhood or local gatherings, 
 where the speaking was altogether conversational, 
 while others were held in some of the greatest and 
 grandest auditoriums in existence, thronged with 
 thousands of the laboring men of that great work- 
 shop of the world. 
 
 Though everything possible was done for my com- 
 fort by the executive of the Alliance, and the kind 
 friends whose guest I was, at times I found the fre- 
 quent speaking, with the intervening travel, weary- 
 ing in the extreme, but was helped through my 
 labors by frequent assurances that popular attention 
 was being aroused and a healthy public sentiment 
 created. 
 
 While many of my audiences were large, perhaps 
 the more prc^table occasions were those, compar- 
 atively few in number, which were especially designed 
 as opportunities for interesting influential persons in 
 the movement. These were often in the form of 
 breakfasts, dinners, soirees, where those invited gen- 
 erally included ofiicials and clergymen, as well as others 
 occupying positions of responsibility and power, who 
 had not identified themselves with the movement, and 
 who in many instances were inclined to be skeptical 
 about the usefulness of it. 
 
 My arrival at some places was preceded by notes 
 sent sometimes in the name of him who was to be 
 my host, sometimes by a committee, to persons in 
 the neighborhood who it was thought would be 
 interested in the subject, inviting them to meet me. 
 The opportunity for sociability thus afforded enabled 
 me to make many agreeable and valuable personal 
 acquaintances, and to acquire a knowledge of the 
 English people.
 
 588 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 The first of these gatherings was held in Man- 
 chester, a day or two after my great meeting there. 
 Sir Walter C. Trevelyan was again in the chair, 
 nearly one hundred ladies and gentlemen being 
 present. On this occasion what I had to say \>a8 
 in the form of a speech, after which many questions 
 were asked, indicating in some cases more or less 
 lack of sympathy with Prohibition, but all were 
 preferred in a most courteous manner, manifesting 
 a sincere desire for information. At most of these 
 smaller meetings, however, the speaking was entirely 
 conversational, and I confined myself to answering 
 such questions as were suggested by the sympathy, 
 curiosity or opposition of the inquirers. I am grati- 
 fied to know that the executive of the Alliance 
 believed these meetings fruitful of good. 
 
 At the time of my first visit, the Maine Law had 
 been repealed, and Maine was under the license law 
 which supplanted Prohibition for two years. That 
 point was made much of in these conversational 
 meetings by those who did not understand the circum- 
 stances leading up to the repeal, and who honestly 
 believed in some instances that the revolt against 
 that policy had been taken in the interest of a 
 genuine temperance reformation. Though the law 
 had not been re-enacted, the Republican party, com- 
 mitted to Prohibition, had recovered political control 
 of Maine, and it was understood that the next legis- 
 lature to be elected would repudiate license. 
 
 Another subject for frequent inquiry was whether 
 it would be proper to provide for the compensation of 
 liquor-dealers who should be driven out of business 
 by Prohibition. I had little difficulty in satisfying 
 myself, at least, and generally, I believe, my hearers.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 589 
 
 that mon who invested their capital in a business 
 injurious to the public good did so at their own risk, 
 and no people could rightfully be called upon to 
 compensate those conri^elled to desist from inflicting 
 injury upon the commonwealth. 
 
 One of the most important meetings I attended 
 was a conference of ministers, held in Manchester, 
 to consider the suppression of the liquor-traffic. 
 The call was signed by a large number of ministers, 
 representing almost every denomination, inviting the 
 clergy generally to attend. I was asked to address 
 the conference at a great meeting under its auspices 
 in the Manchester Free Trade Hall. 
 
 It was my good fortune, also, to have opportunities 
 to meet many clergymen in smaller gatherings, in 
 some cases confined almost exclusively to them, 
 there being ten, twenty, or thirty of them at some 
 private house assembled to meet me and talk upon 
 temperance. Prohibition, and the Maine Law. I can 
 recall the names of three clergymen in Great Britain 
 who assured me that they were led to become total 
 abstainers because of what they had heard me say. 
 
 The executive committee of the Alliance took spe- 
 cial pains to have the public meetings reported by the 
 local press, and the larger and more important among 
 them by the metropolitan press. My experience was 
 that the British papers generally reported meetings 
 and speeches fairly, without regard to the views of the 
 editors. The news columns were accurate and impar- 
 tial. Opinions, prejudices, likes and dislikes were 
 confined to the editorial columns. That was the rule. 
 I was in one town, however, where this was not the 
 case, and where the reporters apparently took care 
 to omit some of the points made and to misrepresent
 
 590 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 others. Some of our friends were annoyed at this, 
 attributing it to the special hostility of the owners 
 of the papers to our work. 
 
 Not long afterwards I again visited that town. At 
 what I supposed might be the proper point I turned 
 from the line of my remarks to compliment the Eng- 
 lish press for its uniform habit of sending reporters to 
 such meetings, expressing the opinion that it was 
 more frequently done there than in America. "But, 
 young gentlemen," I said, speaking directly to the 
 reporters, "the representatives of our papers when 
 present always try to report the points of a speech as 
 they are made." After that, proceeding with my 
 address, I noticed that the pencils of the newspaper 
 men were busy, and it was said that they gave a good 
 account of the meeting. 
 
 Sometimes there would be editorial references in a 
 local paper in anticipation of a meeting in its locality. 
 It was not often that these were calculated to assist 
 my work, but, as far as I now remember, only once 
 was a disposition manifested in any of them to incite 
 interruption or disturbance. In that case, the paper, 
 while saying much in favor of "free speech" and 
 "fair play," suggested that it was important that 
 the meeting should not be made up of sympathizers 
 with the speaker, lest the applause that might be 
 accorded him in such case should lead to the impres- 
 sion outside that the people of the town agreed with 
 his "fanatical notions." He ought to be taught 
 otherwise, it was said. The meeting to which that 
 article alluded was disturbed by some individuals 
 under the lead of a man who said he was a brewer, 
 and it was some time before order could be secured so 
 that I could go on. Expressions of dissent at meet-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 591 
 
 ings were not infrequent, but very rarely to an extent 
 exceeding the bounds of propriety. 
 
 During my first visit a frequent form of interrup- 
 tion was by an inquiry as to slavery. I was partic- 
 ular not to speak of the intemperance prevalent 
 in Great Britain in more positive terms than did 
 Englishmen themselves. If by chance I used the 
 word "slavery" in reference to the drink habit, 
 which so many Englishmen had called their great 
 national vice, some one in the audience was almost 
 certain to refer to negro slavery in the American 
 southern states. 
 
 In one of my speeches, I was interrupted by a 
 question as to the condition of temperance in the 
 South. In the course of my reply, I said something to 
 the effect that many persons in that section favored 
 everything tending to promote it, for the reason that 
 a sober slave was more valuable property than a 
 drunken one. That expression was taken up and 
 found its way in a disconnected, distorted form, into 
 some of the papers, in which I was berated, much 
 to the satisfaction of the liquor-interest of the United 
 Kingdom, as a slavery sympathizer, and as being 
 most probably a slave owner. 
 
 The intimation that Prohibition had been or could 
 be approved by any slave state was seized upon and 
 made the most of by its opponents in Great Britain at 
 that time. The editor of the Alliance News thought 
 it necessary to counteract the effect of that as much 
 as possible, and accordingly he caused a large circu- 
 lar, or small poster, to be printed to correct the 
 impression the opposition to Prohibition had endeav- 
 ored to create. Here is something of what it 
 contained. It seems strange reading in these days,
 
 592 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 wlien no one in all this broad land of ours can be a 
 slaveholder, and what is better yet, when no one 
 would be. The circular was in the form of an open 
 letter to the editor of a paper which had published a 
 communication from a correspondent intimating that 
 I was a slaveholder. 
 
 " I am happy to inform your correspondent that, whatever 
 may be his talent for blundering, he can never have made a 
 greater mistake in his life than in attempting to connect Neal 
 Dow with negro slavery. Mr. Dow is not a slave owner and 
 never w^as a slave owner. Here, and in his own country, his 
 sentiments are and have been antislavery, and his political 
 connections are with that great Republican party that now 
 
 unites nearly all the antislavery sentiment of the states 
 
 I think your correspondent should hardly have ventured to 
 write for the public whilst ignorant of so simple a fact in 
 Geography. Maine herself, Mr. Dow's birthplace and home, 
 is a free state ; the Maine Law was cradled there, and not in 
 
 the lap of slavery When a gentleman of irreproachable 
 
 character and of distinguished position in his own country, 
 inspired with a philanthropic desire to do us a great service, 
 devotes to severe platform labor the leisure at his disposal in 
 visiting the land of his forefathers, he deserves at least no 
 
 unkindly treatment at our hands I feel sure the people 
 
 will accord him a respectful hearing in spite of the insulting 
 and false insinuations of a writer, whose foremost objection 
 to the Maine Law is confessed to be a senseless ' jealousy of 
 everything American.' " 
 
 The last meeting I addressed in England in 1857 was 
 in Free Trade Hall. It was just before my return to 
 America, and was an immense gathering of working- 
 men to bid me a farewell. There I was interrupted 
 by the common question, ' ' How about slavery in your 
 own land?" At that time the cloud which was so 
 soon to precipitate the direful woe of civil war upon 
 our country, was already gathering. I took occasion 
 in my reply to the question to say that serious 
 trouble, to come soon, in what form I did not know,
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 593 
 
 was then impending over my beloved land. "When 
 it does come," I said, "I believe, as I fervently hope, 
 its end will be the overthrow of slavery. " 
 
 Referring to slavery, I am reminded of a conversa- 
 tion I had with an English judge, during my first 
 visit in Great Britain, in which he referred to the 
 United States Supreme Court and to the Dred Scott 
 Decision, then comparatively recent. He said that 
 its decisions were once influential with the English 
 judiciary, but that since that decision they were 
 no longer quoted. He said when he was at the bar he 
 had a case involving a large amount of property. The 
 point in the suit had been decided in England in a 
 manner adverse to his client, but he had found in the 
 reports of the United States Supreme Court a case 
 turning on the identical proposition decided favor- 
 ably to his cause. He cited this case and the court 
 replied: "You do not expect us to disregard the de- 
 cision of our own court?" "No, I only wish that the 
 case may come up for review," which was done, and 
 the upper court reversed its own decision and his 
 client won. Now, he said, a barrister would not be 
 listened to in quoting a decision of the American 
 court. This conversation, it will be remembered, 
 was more than thirty years ago. What changes since! 
 
 And here I am reminded that on the occasion of 
 my first visit to Maryland in the early fifties, to 
 speak upon temperance, I arrived in Baltimore in 
 the evening and instead of going to a hotel as I 
 expected, went to the private house of a friend 
 who had kindly met me at the station. The next 
 morning he was in my room and noticed a copy 
 of the Anti-Slavery Standard, with which I had 
 happened to wrap up an extra pair of shoes I had
 
 594 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 in my trunk. The great earnestness with which he 
 spoke to me seems strange to me even now, as he 
 begged of me to get rid of every paper of that kind 
 that I might have about my baggage, and expressed 
 his gratification that he, instead of a stranger at 
 some hotel, had discovered that abhorred sheet; 
 otherwise, he thought, and he was doubtless cor- 
 rect, that my stay in Maryland would be short and 
 probably disagreeable. Again, what changes! 
 
 One of the most gratifying of my experiences in 
 Grreat Britain was the manifestation of the friend- 
 liness on the part of the working people for the 
 temperance movement, and, as well, to the cause of 
 the Union, when that was threatened by our civil 
 war. I had abundant opportunities to learn that the 
 masses of the British people were warm friends of the 
 United States, and had been for many years. The 
 war for American independence left no rankling in 
 their hearts, as it did in those of our fathers, because 
 the English people as a whole sympathized with 
 the colonies in that strife, as did many of the 
 most eminent British statesmen. 
 
 I had welcomes most cordial, and farewells most 
 touching, from vast numbers of the working-men of 
 England, but among them all none was more striking 
 than one in which a large body of working-men 
 demonstrated in a most effective and flattering way 
 the deep sympathy they had cherished for the cause 
 of the Union when it was assailed by civil war. 
 They had assembled in Free Trade Hall, filling to 
 repletion the body of the house, so that it seemed 
 quite impossible for another person to find foothold. 
 The occasion was a meeting of the Social Science 
 Congress, the special topic under consideration being,
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 595 
 
 if I remember aright, the improvement of the homes 
 of the working-men. I had been announced as one 
 of a long list of speakers, inc4uding some of the 
 most distinguished men of the nation. Just previous 
 to the opening, one of the managers came to me and 
 said that there would be on the platform that night 
 several Southerners — meaning Englishmen who had 
 sympathized with the South during the struggle in 
 the United States — and expressed the hope that I 
 would say nothing that might unpleasantly affect 
 their sensibilities. My laughing, if not reassuring, 
 reply was, "I am a descendant of Quakers, a people 
 who speak, if at all, as the spirit moves." 
 
 When the meeting was opened the platform was 
 filled with a large number of the best known men 
 of the kingdom. I remember that Lord Shaftsbury 
 was the presiding officer, that Lord Brougham was 
 also present, and that that most able and distin- 
 guished American lawyer, David Dudley Field, was 
 on the platform. Mr. Thomas Hughes was among 
 the speakers. I recall that particularly, for he pre- 
 ceded me in speaking, and, in alluding to a remark of 
 his, I caused considerable merriment by unconsciously 
 referring to him as "Tom Brown." I had, by the 
 way, been introduced to Mr. Hughes in the House of 
 Commons, on which occasion he appeared to be 
 pleased that I had read his delightful "Tom Brown 
 at Rugby," and amused when I told him that we 
 knew him in America as " Tom Brown." 
 
 I was at that time no stranger in Free Trade Hall, 
 and was almost as much at home on its platform as on 
 that of the City Hall in my native city. Nor was I a 
 stranger to the mass of the working-men gathered 
 there, who gave me a most hearty and cordial greet-
 
 596 REMINISCENCES 
 
 ing when I was introduced to them as a United States 
 Union general. The "spirit" of their cheers, at once 
 moved me to express my thanks to them, not for their 
 reception of me, but rather for the sublime patience, 
 the grand Christian courage, with which the working- 
 men of Manchester, though out of work and suffering 
 great privations, had stood by my dear country in its 
 recent trials. My ear caught a hiss or two from the 
 platform — where the nobility was gathered — but 
 that aristocratic disapproval was instantly drowned 
 by thunderous applause from the body of the house, 
 where thousands of working-men were assembled. 
 AVhat further reference I made to the recent Ameri- 
 can war was not hissed from the platform, or, if so, I 
 could not hear it because of the cheering from the 
 floor. The working-men of Manchester thus proved 
 most unmistakably where their sympathies had been 
 during our Avar for the Union. 
 
 Under another head of my remarks I had a similar 
 experience. I had taken for my text, "Education," 
 the last word in the speech of Mr. Hughes. It natur- 
 ally led me where I was more than willing to follow, 
 to the consideration of law as an educator and to 
 the bad educational influence of the laws which estab- 
 lished the "publics " among the people. At this point 
 I was again hissed from the platform. Casting my 
 eye in the direction whence the sound seemed to 
 come, I caught that of a nobleman who some time 
 previously had told me that the gin palaces were 
 permitted because the working-men demanded them. 
 It was my opportunity to show him that he was 
 wrong. Turning from the nobility on the platform 
 to the masses on the floor, I said: 
 
 "Working-men of England, I am told that you
 
 OF NEAL DOW. fj*.)? 
 
 want, you demand, you will have these i)n])licH. Tell 
 me, is this so ? " With a resounding- roar tlie response 
 was given, "No!" There were no further hisses 
 from the platform, and the approving demonstrations 
 from the floor convinced my noble friend tliat as to 
 the particular working-men gathered in that hall, he 
 was wrong and I was right. 
 
 Some time afterward I met Mr. Hughes. He 
 frankly told me that he had been disi)leased with 
 some of my statements on that occasion, but that he 
 had been led "to think of it " by what I had said, and 
 concluded upon the whole that the position I had 
 taken was sound, though he thought my "way of 
 putting it" rather sharp. Probably, had my "way 
 of putting it " been mild and dull my si^eech would 
 have escaped his attention altogether, and he would 
 not have been led "to think " of the subject. 
 
 I found it a pleasure to speak to English audiences. 
 They are quick to manifest disapproval of what dis- 
 pleases them, and quite as ready to show a speaker 
 that they are in sympathy with him. At one meeting, 
 I think it was during my last visit, I had occasion to 
 criticize the position John Bright had taken relative 
 to the movement I was advocating. Instantly there 
 was a storm of hisses. John Bright was naturally 
 and properly a favorite with the people of Great 
 Britain who would be likely to attend a meeting such 
 as I was addressing, and it was clear that the great 
 commoner was admired by my audience. Waiting 
 until the hissing had ceased, I said: "Englishmen, it 
 is your boast that you love fair play. British spirit 
 and British pluck say, ' When you are struck, strike 
 back!'" That sentiment was loudly applauded, as I 
 expected it would be, and when the applause liad
 
 598 KEMIKISCENCES 
 
 subsided, I added: "Joliii Bright has struck at us. 
 Give me a chance to strike back!" Again they 
 applauded, and listened to me respectfully, and 
 sympathetically while I endeavored to show that 
 upon the point under discussion Mr. Bright was 
 wrong and we Avere right. 
 
 I had known John Bright by reputation, of course, 
 and had a great admiration for him. It had been my 
 pleasure to make his personal acquaintance, and to 
 find him a most agreeable, companionable man. He 
 had taken particular pains on several occasions to be 
 very polite and kind to me. Once we took a long 
 drive together, when our conversation was confined 
 largely to the contest in England between friends of 
 the North and the sympathizers with the South in 
 our civil war. Again we dined together as guests of 
 Mr. Whitworth, at the Reform Club. Among the 
 party were Mr. Samuel Pope and Mr. J. H. Raper. 
 It was on this occasion, I think, that Mr. Bright 
 informed me that it had been the purpose of Lord 
 Palmerston to take advantage of the civil trouble in 
 our country and to make war upon it. I remember 
 with what emphasis, in referring to it, Mr. Bright 
 said: "That would have been the part of a coward 
 and a l^ully ! " 
 
 He told me that at the time of the Trent excitement 
 he called to see a member of the government at one 
 o'clock in the morning. Finding him in bed, he went 
 directly to his chamber, his purpose being to urge 
 that no offensive word be used in any communication 
 upon that subject to the United States government, 
 and received his promise that he would do his best to 
 prevent it. AVhen, finally, the communication was 
 prepared and softened down as much possible in the
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 599 
 
 presence of influences desiring to improve the oppor- 
 tunity for trouble, it was submitted to the Queen and 
 Prince Albert, and at their suggestion was further 
 modified so as to make it less offensive. I had heard 
 before of the good offices of the Queen in that 
 emergency, for which she is entitled to the warm 
 gratitude of every loyal American, but was much 
 interested to get it directly from so staunch a friend 
 of the United States as was John Bright. 
 
 Mr. Bright took me into the House of Lords and 
 gave me an opportunity to meet a number of the 
 prominent men in that body. Among them were 
 Earl Russell and Lord Brougham. This reminds me 
 that I had a most agreeable experience in the House 
 of Commons through the kindness of Mr. Potter, who 
 had also been a warm, earnest friend of the North 
 during the struggle for the Union. He was partic- 
 ularly kind and attentive, taking great interest in 
 introducing me to many members. Among others 
 whom I met on that or some other occasion were Mr. 
 Whitworth, Mr. Hughes, Sir George Grey, Disraeli, 
 and Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 I was unfavorably impressed with the style of speak- 
 ing which seemed to be general in the Commons. It 
 appeared to me to be a halting, hesitating way, that 
 would prove tedious indeed to an average American 
 audience accustomed to rapidity of talk and clearness 
 of enunciation. As I remember it, the only two 
 speakers that I heard in that body free from what 
 I thought a defect in speaking were Sir George Grey 
 and Mr. Gladstone, the latter especially pleasing me 
 very much by the prompt, ready and straightforward 
 way in which he spoke. 
 
 My introduction to English domestic life was in a
 
 600 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 charming home in the suburbs of Manchester. At 
 the station in that city on the evening after my first 
 reception at Liverpool, I was met by a number of 
 people, several of whom politely pressed me to become 
 their guest. Among them Wilson Crewdson, a Friend, 
 claimed a right to carry me off, as I was of Quaker 
 stock. With him my acquaintance soon ripened into 
 the warmest friendship and esteem. Thereafter that 
 home was mine whenever I was in Manchester, and 
 none more delightful could be found anywhere. I 
 may not with propriety describe its admirable and 
 attractive appointments more than to say that they 
 were all that exquisite taste could suggest and 
 abundant wealth command. Justice to my grateful 
 recollection of hosts of my English friends prompts 
 me to say that the remembrance of the generous hos- 
 pitality enjoyed in so many families during my 
 several visits to Great Britain, is among the choicest 
 treasures of my memory. 
 
 It was my delightful fortune to be most cordially 
 received into many English, Scottish, Irish, and 
 AVelsh families, and to participate in the home life of 
 the people almost continually from my first day in the 
 country. I have visited many charming country 
 retreats, some of them several times, at the seaside, on 
 the shores of Cumberland lakes, on the banks of the 
 rivers, in the subur])s of the great towns, removed 
 from the bustle and noise of thronged streets, but 
 often in view of great towering chimneys bearing 
 witness to the tireless industry of a wonderful nation, 
 the products of whose workshops minister to tlie luxu- 
 ries, tastes and desires, or supply the clamorous needs, 
 of man the world over. 
 
 Occasionally a guest in castle or hall of a noble,
 
 OF NEAL DOW. (lOl 
 
 often welcomed to the princely mansions of the rich, 
 more frequently sheltered by the humble roofs of 
 those whose possession of this world's goods was far 
 from large, passing much of my time with those who 
 had made a study of English social conditions and 
 who were in full sympathy with the work in which 
 I was engaged, often also with others who gravely 
 questioned its wisdom and practicability, and not 
 infrequently entertained by those with views posi- 
 tively opposed to mine, I had a grand opportunity to 
 learn much of home life in Great Britain in its varying 
 forms, and to become familiar with all conditions ob- 
 taining among the British people. Whether with the 
 high or the humble, with the rich or the poor, with 
 the sympathizers or the opponents of my views, I 
 experienced only that kindness, courtesy and consid- 
 eration which so quickly make a stranger feel that he 
 is an old friend, and which increased my respect and 
 admiration for the nation of Great Britain as a whole. 
 They alone may know of liome life in that country 
 whose never-to-be-forgotten pleasure it has been to 
 learn by experience of the tactful and delightful way 
 peculiar to that people, of making their guests forget 
 that they are not to the manor born. 
 
 Among the most gratifying of my experiences in 
 Great Britain was my intercourse with the Friends. 
 Their affectionate welcome and respectful attention 
 and consideration touched me deeply. In most cases 
 they had no knowledge of my Quaker origin, but 
 where that was known they seemed to take me direct- 
 ly to their hearts. During my first visit I happened 
 to be in London at the time of a yearly-meeting of 
 that society and attended it by special invitation. 
 In entering I took my seat near the door, but was
 
 602 KEMIXISCENCES 
 
 recognized and immediately conducted to the "high 
 seats," and after the meeting had multitudinous 
 hand-shakings ^Yith people from all parts of the king- 
 dom, who pressed me, each and every one, to visit 
 them. 
 
 I was glad to meet so many influential, representa- 
 tive people. I was pleased by their kindness and by 
 their earnest insistence that I should address them, 
 because it gave me an opportunity to reach a circle of 
 wide influence and large means, a body of thought- 
 ful, considerate people, accustomed to live up to their 
 convictions and to contribute liberally of time, effort 
 and money to promote measures they believed impor- 
 tant to the material, moral and religious welfare of 
 mankind. 
 
 There was another reason for the great pleasure and 
 satisfaction thus derived. I knew how much this 
 English Quaker kindness to his son would please my 
 honored father. I remembered his silent- sorrow 
 when early in life I left the society he loved so well, 
 and I thought of the patience with which in his declin- 
 ing years he had borne added business burdens that I 
 might devote time to the cause whose principles I had 
 learned from him. I recalled his "Farewell Neal; I 
 may never see thee again," as — he being then over 
 ninety years of age, — I bade him goodbye on the eve 
 of my departure for England, and I found pleasure in 
 writing to him at once of my greeting from English 
 Friends. 
 
 In Dublin, Ireland, I was the guest of a family of 
 Friends at a most delightful home. The meeting I 
 held there was in the largest hall in the city, i)acked 
 full, with the mayor in the chair. Driving about the 
 city in every direction, I saw much of all phases of
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 603 
 
 life. Many parts of the town were handsome, but 
 some localities occupied by the poor, were such as to 
 convince me that the people in our country cannot 
 well comprehend, without seeing it, what Irish pov- 
 erty really is. 
 
 I had a peculiar illustration of the freedom and cor- 
 diality of the Irish everywhere in their intercourse 
 with Americans. I found myself one day alone in a 
 railroad compartment with an Irish gentleman who, 
 when he learned that I was an American, immedi- 
 ately insisted on being my friend. He lived but 
 a few miles farther on, and was very earnest for me to 
 stay over and visit him. He promised me innum- 
 erable drives about the country seats, old castles and 
 round towers, and, leaning toward me, in the most 
 hearty way said: "I have just laid in a barrel of the 
 finest whiskey you ever saw." 
 
 In Ireland I visited a ruin called Donahue's Castle. 
 It is very old, but in good preservation, standing on 
 the shore of Lake Killarney, and was a stronghold for 
 the time in which it was built. It is large, the walls 
 are thick, massive and high, with loopholes command- 
 ing all approaches. Our carman, who drove us to the 
 place, was, like most of his countrymen, full of talk, 
 and he entertained us with many legends and tales of 
 the superstitions of the old time. At one place he 
 stopped and pointing to a window in the second story 
 said: "Do you see that window? Well, the owner, 
 last of his line, being hard pressed by his enemies, 
 leaped out of that window and was instantly changed 
 into a goose and flew to the lake, where lie yet lives. 
 Once in seven years he assumes his proper form and, 
 mounted on a large grey horse, is seen by the villagers 
 riding through the country, his horseman's cloak and
 
 604 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 his long liair flowing in the wind." "Have you ever 
 seen him ? " "I have not, hut I know a man who has, 
 and it was only last Sunday was a fortnight. " Un- 
 questionably the man fully believed what he told me. 
 
 It was my good fortune to be in Killarney on a 
 market day. The main street was crowded with 
 people from all the country round. They were there, 
 a few with horse-carts, more with donkey-carts, and 
 still more than all the others, on foot, in a manifest 
 poverty and wretchedness that is beyond all power of 
 description. Some had come to sell milk, eggs, 
 butter, generally very small quantities of each; some 
 had come to buy a little tea and sugar; many more 
 had nothing to sell, but almost all of them had come 
 there to drink whiskey. I inquired of a woman in a 
 donkey-cart the way to the old ruins I saw upon a 
 hill not far away. There were two women and a boy 
 in the cart. She of whom I inquired had a clean, 
 intelligent face, and was very good-looking. She 
 pointed out to me the nearest way to the ruin I 
 wished to visit, and as I walked along beside the 
 donkey-cart we talked. She had been to market to 
 sell four gallons of milk, for which she had obtained 
 sixteen cents, and two women, a boy, and a donkey 
 cart had been occupied the entire day in that transac- 
 tion, but I do not think either of the three had spent 
 any part of the proceeds of the marketing in whiskey 
 and were thus better off than many of their neighbors. 
 
 A glorious country Ireland is, but the people are 
 reduced to a condition of the most extreme poverty, 
 largely by whiskey ; but beyond that there are other 
 agencies concerned in this demoralization, of which 
 I forbear to speak, having had but few opportunities 
 to .judge of them. The Irish have many noble quali-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. fiOS 
 
 ties, an intense love of country, while gratitude in 
 their hearts is a passion. They always remember a 
 kindness and never forget an intentional wrong. 
 They are industrious whenever and wherever they 
 can see any profit in being so, and they are economi- 
 cal in everything but whiskey. They are hardy, and 
 patiently bear fatigue and privation, and have all 
 the courage of their fearless ancestors. Ireland has a 
 delightful climate, a fertile soil, yet a poor and often 
 starving population. There is a reason for this; there 
 must be. There ought to be a remedy for it. What 
 is it? 
 
 It is impossible for me to mention the names of the 
 many friends to whom I Avas greatly indebted for 
 the personal pleasure attending my tours in Great 
 Britain. In the intervals for rest from work laid out 
 for me, every facility was afforded me for seeing 
 interesting places and objects in different parts of 
 the country, and for becoming acquainted with the 
 people and the conditions by which they were sur- 
 rounded. 
 
 Among other gentlemen with whom I was brought 
 into close and intimate contact, resulting in warm 
 friendship, maintained by many years of constant 
 correspondence, was Mr. J. H. Raper, a gentleman 
 of wide and varied information, extensive travel and 
 great political experience. He was what was called 
 the parliamentary agent of the Alliance, with a large 
 acquaintance among the public men of Great Britain. 
 Mr. Raper passed some time traveling in this country, 
 and was for a time my guest He was in Washington 
 in the spring of 1876, and witnessed that remarkable 
 scene in which James G. Blaine, although in a minor- 
 ity at the time, appeared to take absolute possession
 
 606 REMINISCENCES 
 
 of the house, the large hostile majority being appar- 
 ently cowed by the defiant presence of the great 
 leader. Mr. Raper afterwards told me that he had 
 attended sessions of several parliaments of Chris- 
 tendom, but that in all his experience he had never 
 witnessed a more dramatic and striking scene. 
 
 I was one day walking toward parliament with Mr. 
 
 Raper, when he said to me: "Here comes ," 
 
 mentioning the name of a member of parliament who 
 had become prominent in fitting out cruisers to prey 
 upon the commerce of the United States. ' ' Do not 
 introduce him, " said I, and we walked on. After we 
 had passed, Mr. Raper said, " That is quite awkward. 
 He is sure to ask me who you are and why I did not 
 introduce him." "Tell him," was my reply, " who I 
 am, and that I desired no introduction." 
 
 Afterwards I learned that this gentleman did make 
 the inquiry, and was told that I desired no communi- 
 cation with a man who had built ships to injure my 
 country. The gentleman replied that he was able to 
 defend himself and to justify his conduct; that he 
 had done nothing without the knowledge and acqui- 
 escence of his government; that the ministry had 
 been fully informed of the fact that his firm was 
 building vessels of war for the Confederates. I con- 
 fess that I was startled at this disclosure, because I 
 had supposed all along that the English government 
 was ignorant, though negligently so, that the Confed- 
 eracy was being thus aided. 
 
 Under the guidance of Mr. Raper, I was taken into 
 a court in Westminster at a most opportune moment 
 during the progress of a very interesting case. The 
 room seemed to me ridiculously small for the consid- 
 eration of a matter involving such vast possibilities.
 
 or NEAL DOW. 607 
 
 Its inadequate space was overcrowded with about one 
 hundred persons, including officials, lawyers, and 
 spectators. The case was that of a lady claiming to 
 be the granddaughter of the Duke of Cambridge, elder 
 brother of the Duke of Kent, Victoria's grandfather, 
 and consequently the rightful queen. She took the 
 stand as a witness while I was there. 1 judged her to 
 be from fifty to fifty-five years of age. She was well, 
 but plainly, dressed, and thoroughly self-possessed. 
 She was subjected to a searching cross-examination, in 
 which her answers were prompt and clear upon every 
 point — "Yes," or "No," "I am quite sure," "I am 
 quite certain of that. " In many responses relating to 
 names and facts dating as far back as 1815 to 1817 it 
 was the same, without a shadow of doubt or hesita- 
 tion. Whatever the truth may have been, her manner 
 and bearing led a spectator to conclude that she was 
 entirely honest. I learned that many believed her 
 claim well-founded, but none imagined that there was 
 any probability of Victoria being dethroned to give 
 place to the "Lady Mary," as she was called. 
 
 One could not witness the quiet, orderly conduct of 
 such a case without being reminded of many tragic 
 events in English history precipitated by questions — 
 and sometimes when there was no room for questions 
 — about titles to the throne and cognate issues. Who 
 can recall those events without gratitude to God that 
 out of such conditions as existed in the long-ago He 
 has aided men to evolve the blessings of civil and 
 religious liberty we now enjoy ? 
 
 I was intensely pleased and interested in old castles 
 and abbeys, in palaces and villas, grand business 
 establishments, galleries of art and famous museums 
 and libraries, but while visiting those I did not forget
 
 608 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 the haunts of poverty and vice. Under the guidance 
 of friends and the police, I threaded narrow and vile 
 lanes, crowded on either side with sordid, wretched, 
 tumble-down houses, swarming with a population far 
 more to be pitied than heathendom and pagandom 
 and savagery in many other lands. In these dreadful 
 places were gin-palaces glittering with plate glass and 
 polished brass, and beershops and "publics," the 
 vile, murderous trade of which is supported and made 
 profitable by the pitiful earnings, beggings, and steal- 
 ings of sufferers from the startling poverty to be seen 
 on every hand. 
 
 It may be possible elsewhere to equal the squalor 
 and misery of some parts of London that I saw but 
 nowhere is it possible to exceed them. The over- 
 whelming proportion of all this is due to the drink 
 system existing in England, fostered and protected by 
 the government as no other trade is. While that sys- 
 tem continues that vast mass of wretchedness and 
 vice and degradation cannot be changed. No intelli- 
 gent person can doubt that the greater part of this 
 shocking poverty and misery and ghastly crime would 
 cease if the liquor-traffic were suppressed. It is in 
 such places that the dangerous classes are bred and 
 fostered and multiplied. Their conscience is dead- 
 ened and their blood and brain fired and infiamed by 
 the grog-shops which the government is careful to 
 plant and establish at every street corner. 
 
 I have passed hours late at night and into the early 
 morning, in company with police officials, in travers- 
 ing the low streets of large cities, and have been 
 horrified by the sights. There were great crowds of 
 men, women and children, many of the women and 
 children bareheaded and barefooted, even in cold and
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 609 
 
 stormy weather, some of the children, from nine to 
 twelve years old, stumbling along- with babies in their 
 arms, far too heavy for them to carry. 
 
 These poor people were on their way to or from the 
 "publics," as the liquor-saloons and gin-palaces are 
 called in England. These places are generally fur- 
 nished with two doors, and I have seen old and 
 young, giving almost every conceivable evidence of 
 wretchedness and misery in the extreme, struggling to 
 enter one, while from the other they came staggering 
 out in all stages of intoxication, some hilarious, some 
 quarrelsome, some wild, some stupid, others almost 
 helpless. 
 
 A small army of policemen is constantly on duty 
 to keep the peace and quell disturbances in the 
 "publics" and to take to the stations the "drunk 
 and incapable," and the "drunk and disorderly." 
 At police stations I have seen the floors entirely 
 covered with wretches "drunk and incapable," the 
 "drunk and disorderly" meanwhile raving in adja- 
 cent cells. There seemed to be as many drunken 
 women as men. Occasionally I have seen serious 
 disturbances in a public; sometimes a drunken man 
 or woman w^ould be thrust into the street; sometimes 
 there was a fight in progress. In every such case the 
 police were promptly called upon to do their duty, 
 which seemed to be chiefly to keep the rumsho{)s clear 
 of all impediments to the free ingress of more drink- 
 ers, and to their egress after they had spent all 
 their money. I was told that such scenes as these 
 were precisely those of every Saturday night in 
 every great town and city in England and Scotland. 
 
 Let none imagine that the results of all this are 
 solely of the kind to which too many practical men
 
 610 REMINISCENCES 
 
 of affairs affect indifference. I heard a rich English 
 manufacturer, who was an employer of a small army 
 of laborers, say that his great establishment, with 
 all the capital invested, was idle every Monday fol- 
 lowing a Saturday pay-day because so many of his 
 employees had not then sufficiently recovered from 
 their Saturday night and all-day Sunday debauch to 
 be able to work. I heard a member of parliament, 
 in a speech referring to the pauperism chargeable to 
 these gin-palaces, say: "I have upon my back an 
 enormous weight of paupers which I am obliged to 
 carry because of them," illustrating his situation by 
 stumbling painfully across the stage with his head 
 bowed and back bent as if he were weighed down by 
 a great burden, exclaiming as he moved, "If it were 
 not for these great manufactories of pauperism I 
 might walk erect." 
 
 It was to do something to correct such conditions 
 that the United Kingdom Alliance was organized. 
 It was in the hope of helping in its laudable effort 
 that my several visits to Great Britain were made. 
 The object of the Alliance was to secure further 
 restriction of the liquor-tracle in Great Britain, the 
 specific legislation it advocated being Prohibition 
 in districts where the people by their votes should 
 ask for it, meanwhile preparing for such legislation 
 by an agitation tending to show that the traffic in 
 liquors was detrimental in the extreme to every 
 interest, material as well as moral, of the country. 
 
 There was certainly abundant reason for the inter- 
 est of philanthropic and Christian Englishmen in 
 some movement with such an object. I might 
 hesitate to say, had not so many Englishmen of 
 high standing and great opportunities for accurate
 
 OF NEAL DOW. ()11 
 
 knowledge said so again and again, that intemi^er- 
 ance is the national vice of Great Britain. The 
 newspapers there habitually state, and many times on 
 public occasions I have heard Englishmen say, that 
 their country is the most drunken in the world. 
 By nothing seen anywhere in the United States 
 can Americans form any just estimate of the extent 
 of the evil in Great Britain. Nevertheless, a traveler 
 may pass much time there and see little of this unless 
 he puts himself in its way. 
 
 New ideas, new ways of life and new methods in 
 all departments, make slow progress in England. 
 The London Times described that feature of the 
 English character in saying, ' ' The English mind does 
 not kindly entertain new questions." I remember a 
 curious illustration of this peculiarity. At the time 
 of my first visit to England, the driver and fireman 
 on locomotives, though on fast trains, running thirty, 
 forty, and even fifty miles an hour, were exposed to 
 the weather, whatever it might be, without the 
 slightest protection against sun, wind, rain, sleet, or 
 snow. I was astonished at this, and on asking some 
 of them about it, learned that sometimes, especially 
 in case of violent storms, their suffering was very 
 great. I inquired of some of the railway managers 
 concerning it, and they gave as a reason for not pro- 
 viding the protection that is afforded on American 
 locomotives, that if the engineer were comfortal)le 
 he would be apt to drop asleep. 
 
 My second visit was about ten years later, and at 
 that time I found that some of the locomotives had 
 been provided with a plate of iron as high as the 
 breast of the engineman, and on others these plates 
 were higher than the head, with two small windows.
 
 612 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 Six or eight years later, on the occasion of my last 
 visit, I noticed some engines with the top of this iron 
 plate bent over to the rear so as to afford a partial 
 shelter, forming an approach in some respects to the 
 cal3 on engines in America. 
 
 When I was first in England, no adequate means 
 was provided for communication between the cars 
 and the locomotive, so that a signal to stop in case of 
 necessity could be given to the engineer. I had 
 an impressive, personal illustration of the necessity 
 for something of the kind when in a train on my 
 way from Carlisle to Lancaster. My attention was 
 attracted by sparks and smoke passing the window of 
 the car in which I was riding. Looking out, I saw 
 the baggage on the top of the next car but one in front 
 on fire, and the passengers with their heads out of the 
 windows, gesticulating and shouting to attract the 
 attention of the officials of the train, in which 
 attempt, however, they were unsuccessful. 
 
 I observed that along by the side of the cars was a 
 continuous stepping-board about six inches in width. 
 Opening the door of my compartment, I stepped down 
 upon this, with great caution, to make my way to the 
 engine. It was a task attended with some danger, 
 especially to pass from one car to another, because the 
 distance was considerable, and the means of holding 
 on not of the best. I worked along past the burning 
 car and almost to the engine before I succeeded in 
 alarming the driver. Then the train was stopped and 
 the fire extinguished. Two or three minutes more of 
 delay would have been fatal to the passengers in the 
 burning car, as the roof was already burned through 
 in several places. 
 
 The passengers were very earnest in their thanks.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 613 
 
 Among them was a large, portly gentleman, who was 
 most extravagant in his declarations that they were 
 under great obligations to me. He asked for my 
 card, but I said it was a very simple matter, and there 
 was no necessity for making my name known. He 
 insisted upon having it, in fact, would not take no 
 for an answer. When at length I handed it to him, 
 at his first glance at my name he turned away with- 
 out another word. Naturally I was at a loss to 
 account for so sudden a change of manner, and after 
 he had left the train I improved the opportunity to 
 make some inquiries and learned that he was one of 
 that class to whom my name and my mission in Great 
 Britain were far from palatable, a wealthy brewer. 
 
 I immediately wrote a note to the London Times, in 
 which I described the mode of communication be- 
 tween cars and locomotive, employed in the United 
 States, referring to the instance I have related by 
 way of enforcing the necessity for some such arrange- 
 ment; but my letter to the Times was followed by 
 several others protesting against the adoption of the 
 American check-line, for the reason, among others, 
 that "every old woman in the train would be pull- 
 ing it. " Years after that incident I found that there 
 was no ready, convenient, and easy mode in any 
 English train of communicating with the locomotive. 
 
 The United States, above all others, is the country 
 to which England has looked for an increasing 
 market, so important to her own prosperity, and 
 consequently English people generally do not approve 
 of any legislation on our part which may tend to 
 diminish her sales in this country. I do not doubt 
 that tariff legislation, together with the belief that 
 the United States was or would become one of the
 
 614 EEMmiSCENCES 
 
 most formidable manufacturing rivals of England, 
 gave tone and impulse to an unfriendly feeling 
 toward the United States from 1861 to 1865 among 
 a considerable portion of her people. More than 
 one instance came under my personal observation 
 showing that it was something more than a desire for 
 what they believed would be a good investment 
 which led some wealthy Englishmen to purchase 
 Confederate securities. 
 
 On the occasion of my second visit to England, 
 a gentleman approached me and inquired of me if it 
 was not my opinion that sooner or later the United 
 States government would assume and pay the dis- 
 honored obligations of the Southern Confederacy. 
 I replied that the United States courts had a 
 profound respect for English precedents, and if 
 the time should ever come when the English courts 
 should decide that the government of Great Britain 
 was under obligations to pay the Fenian bonds, 
 our government might take into consideration the 
 question of paying the Confederate indebtedness. 
 I afterwards learned that he had invested several 
 thousand pounds in Confederate bonds, and suspect 
 that my response to his inquiry did not increase 
 confidence in them as an investment. 
 
 If, however, it was true that a portion of the 
 English people earnestly desired the disruption of 
 the Union during our civil war, great hosts of 
 earnest, true-hearted men and women, all over the 
 United Kingdom, were intensely anxious for the 
 preservation of our institutions, and were actively 
 engaged in impressing their views upon the English 
 public, and in aiding in every proper way the cause 
 of the Union. And among those who during the
 
 or NEAL DOW. 615 
 
 dark period of our civil war held opinions inimical 
 to our government, I am confident a much better 
 feeling has long prevailed. 
 
 Mingling with the people of Great Britain as I 
 did, and carrying with me everywhere my devotion 
 to the institutions and policies of my own country, 
 which I did not hesitate to avow, I had abundant 
 opportunities to learn something of the feeling enter- 
 tained by the people of Great Britain for this nation, 
 and I am confident that upon the whole it is friendly 
 in the extreme, and that all but an infinitesimal 
 portion desire the perpetuation of cordial relations 
 between the two governments, a sentiment which 
 seems to me should be cherished by every right- 
 minded American as well as Englishman. Every 
 year I believe the conviction in England and in 
 this country grows stronger that the two great 
 English-speaking peoples of the world must main- 
 tain friendly relations. The universal sentiment 
 among the more considerate classes of both countries 
 is that any misunderstanding that may arise between 
 them in the future should be adjusted without such 
 a shock to civilization and such an outrage to 
 humanity as a war between the United States and 
 Great Britain would be. 
 
 My speaking tours in Great Britain were interrupted 
 by several pleasure-trips to France, Switzerland, Ger- 
 many, Holland, and Italy. My time on the continent 
 was not all given to sight-seeing. I sought as far 
 as possible to familiarize myself with conditions 
 existing at the time of my respective visits. My 
 travels were under such auspices as afforded me, 
 with the kind assistance of the official representa- 
 tives of the United States in the countries I visited,
 
 616 REMINISCENCES 
 
 more tliaii the ordinary facilities for this. Though 
 none of these visits had any connection with my labor 
 for temperance and Prohibition, in each of those 
 countries I had the great pleasure of meeting people 
 who were interested in those and other subjects relat- 
 ing to the well-being of society. Friendships were 
 thus commenced which have been continued by cor- 
 respondence to the present time, save where, as in the 
 case of some, they have been terminated by death. 
 
 Of all of interest that I saw and heard, I take space 
 to note only one incident. During my visit in 1857, 
 it was my privilege to witness the ceremonies connected 
 with the wedding of the ill-fated Maximilian. In my 
 last visit I again saw Carlotta. but she was walking 
 with an attendant in a park, a broken-hearted widow, 
 wath reason dethroned, her happiness and hopes hav- 
 ing been sacrificed in the sad Mexican tragedy of 
 which her husband was the victim, herself the 
 type of countless thousands who have sulfered from 
 the ambition of Euroi^ean rulers, in their ruthless 
 trampling upon the rights of other peoples. 
 
 ISly return from each English tour was made the 
 occasion for receptions which the friends of temper- 
 ance thought would be of service to the cause. 
 When I reached home in the fall of 1857, after my 
 first visit abroad, I was met at tlie station by a 
 large number of my fellow-citizens, who, with a band 
 of music, banners and torches, escorted me to my 
 house. Subsequently a reception-meeting crowded 
 the largest hall in the city, in which most, if not 
 all, of the clergy, besides many prominent in other 
 walks in life, participated. I was also the guest 
 at a great gathering in Boston, over which Hon. 
 Henry Wilson presided, while the list of vice-
 
 or NEAL DOW. 617 
 
 presidents included siicli veterans in tlie cause of 
 temperance as Moses Grant. Among them I also 
 recall Robert Rantoul, James M. Usher, John B. 
 Alley, Amasa Walker, William Claflin, Joseph Story, 
 and many others then or afterwards prominent in 
 public life. 
 
 It must not be understood that those receptions 
 and other similar demonstrations following my sub- 
 sequent returns from England, were due, or intended 
 for, me personally. They afforded simply convenient 
 occasions for men to testify to their appreciation of 
 the importance of the movement, with which my 
 name was identified, as an agency for the promo- 
 tion of the moral weal and material prosperity of 
 the people.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE OUTBKEAK OF THE WAR FOR THE UNION. HOPE THAT 
 IT WOULD RESULT IN THE DESTRUCTION OF SLAVERY. 
 CORRESPONDENCE WITH FRIENDS IN GREAT BRIT- 
 AIN AS TO ITS CAUSE AND CONSEQUENCES. 
 APPOINTED TO THE COMMAND OF A REG- 
 IMENT. CAMP LIFE OF THE THIR- 
 TEENTH MAINE AT AUGUSTA. 
 DEPARTURE FOR THE FRONT. 
 
 At the outbreak of tlie war for the Union I had had 
 no military experience, not even such as might have 
 been obtained in the state militia. My first impres- 
 sions of that line of public duty had been received as 
 a boy from my observation of our old-time musters, 
 and the prejudices there produced had been strong 
 and lasting. I had held an honorary appointment on 
 the staff of Governor Kent, in 1841, but that service 
 was only nominal, and had given me little else than a 
 knowledge of the number of our state troops, which 
 at the time mustered something over forty thousand 
 men in the various branches of the service. That 
 was all that could be expected of a descendant of a line 
 of Quakers; but, as already intimated, that line had 
 been severed by my dismissal from the society for dif- 
 fering from it in my views as to war.
 
 •^-z- 
 
 1^ 
 
 
 Col. Neal Dow, Thirteenth Maine Recjimknt.
 
 KEMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 619 
 
 Notwithstanding my birthright to a love of peace, 
 some of my early associations tended to incnlcate a 
 spirit not in accord with the convictions of Friends. 
 In my youth the memories of the Revolution were 
 fresh, and all the more inspiring to the boys of my 
 day because its traditions were told and retold to us 
 by its surviving veterans, some of whom lingered 
 among us long after the days of my early manhood. 
 One of these was a next-door neighbor, and to his 
 stories of Washington and the war I listened with 
 great delight when I was a boy. With these were 
 mingled my boyish impressions of the war of 1812, 
 which was of such import to Portland as a commercial 
 town that I grew to manhood amid influences tinct- 
 ured with war-like memories and spirit. 
 
 Due in a measure, perhaps, to this, and in part to 
 my desire for general information, in my earlier man- 
 hood I had read works on general military matters, on 
 engineering, fortifications and sieges and on artillery 
 practice. These had found place in my library after I 
 had read them with interest and care. I had kept up 
 in my reading and investigations with the progress in 
 those matters and with the changes and improvements 
 in means of offense and defense, so that I was as well 
 informed on military subjects as was to be expected of 
 the average civilian. Though I had given no atten- 
 tion to drill, I was not without experience in the 
 command of organized bodies of men. These facts 
 were known to many of my personal and political 
 friends, and from the first note of war it was evident 
 that some of them expected me to bear a part in it. 
 
 Again, the war grew out of the antislavery agita- 
 tion. I had been an earnest, active and radical anti- 
 slavery man. In Portland, as elsewhere, there was
 
 620 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 more or less talk in certain political circles to the 
 effect that the ' ' abolitionists, having brought on the 
 trouble, ought to fight it out." I had enjoyed the per- 
 sonal acquaintance of such leaders in the different 
 phases of organized hostility to slavery as Garrison, 
 Phillips, Birney, Sumner, Wilson, Giddings, Chase, 
 Hale and others among those of national reputation, 
 and of such as General Samuel Fessenden, Rev. Austin 
 Willey, of local renown, and of others who, if less 
 widely known, were equally sincere and earnest. 
 With most of them, I felt that, in the event of a civil 
 war, slavery ought to be abolished, and I was quite 
 willing to bear my part in anything that would bring 
 to pass the desired result. Taking everything into 
 consideration, notwithstanding my want of knowl- 
 edge in the matter of drill and tactics, I was inclined 
 to the opinion that duty called me to enter the 
 military service of the country. 
 
 On the other hand, I had passed my fifty -seventh 
 birthday when the assault on Sumter took place, and 
 was beyond the age when most men are able to bear 
 the fatigue and exposure incident to army life with 
 reasonable safety, and therefore could not be expected 
 to volunteer, while my business affairs at that time, 
 owing to heavy losses, were peculiarly involved and 
 needed my personal attention, which could not be 
 diverted from them without serious risk. More 
 than this, my honored father was then approaching 
 the end. He had, at most, but a short time to live, 
 and it did not seem to me right to leave him, unless 
 it should be clear that my services were needed. 
 Hence, in the anxious weeks that preceded the actual 
 commencement of hostilities I had, upon the whole, 
 little thought of participation in it, should war come.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 021 
 
 But immediately after the attack on Sumter I was 
 forced to prepare for the possibility of joining the 
 ranks, as the only way to prevent my elder son, Fred., 
 who I thought was not as well able as I to endure the 
 hardships of army life, from going off with the first 
 troops from Maine. On the evening of tlie day of the 
 call of the President for seventy-five thousand men he 
 enlisted in the first military company of the state 
 which volunteered. Because of his poor health I 
 refused my approval, at the same time promising him 
 that if the war continued he should go, if I did not, 
 reminding him that we could not both leave home. 
 The next day I offered my services to the governor 
 in any capacity in which I might be useful, and 
 the same day began the study of Hardee's Tactics, 
 and to commence my preparations for departure 
 should my offer be accepted. 
 
 Meanwhile, my first service was rendered in using 
 my influence as a bank director with the financial 
 institutions of Portland to induce them to offer to 
 loan their credit to the governor to enable the state 
 to respond promptly to the first call of the President 
 for troops. This action on the part of the banks 
 proved of great assistance in expediting the equipment 
 of our earlier regiments and facilitating their depart- 
 ure for the Potomac. 
 
 It is impossible to describe the intense excitement 
 prevailing through the North at that period. When 
 the news of the assault on the Massachusetts Sixth in 
 Baltimore reached Portland the feeling here could 
 not have been stronger had that corps been composed 
 of our own citizens. The throngs that filled our 
 streets gathered in a mass in front of the old City 
 Hall, where the Soldiers' monument now stands. I
 
 6-22 REMINISCENCES 
 
 liappened to be passing tlirougli tlie square on my 
 accustomed Sunday evening walk and was pressed 
 into the service to preside and to address the impro- 
 vised meeting. In my remarks I said, in substance, 
 that as glad as we all would have been to avoid the 
 issue of war, now that it had been forced upon us 
 it was our duty to accept it and to maintain it until 
 the last vestige of the great underlying cause of the 
 trouble had been swept out of existence and the 
 Union was free. A voice in the crowd shouted, 
 "That's treason!" but the burst of applause which 
 greeted the sentiment testified that, under the stress 
 of the great excitement prevailing at the moment, 
 our people in Portland were substantially a unit. 
 
 The news of the Baltimore affair was naturally 
 startling. It was impossible then to know the depth 
 of the anti-Union sentiment in Maryland which it 
 indicated. Shortly after this I received a letter from 
 a warm personal friend, a resident of Baltimore. He 
 was a gentleman of most sterling character, of great 
 wealth, and was largely engaged in business as a 
 manufacturer. I had had fears that he might, 
 because of his residence, sympathize with the anti- 
 Union cause. His letter Avlnch was published was 
 one of the first indications of the day that all were 
 not for secession in Baltimore. He wrote: 
 
 '* A large portion of our citizens certainly merit the 
 sympathy of their northern friends in the sad and false 
 position in which they have been placed by the mob of the 
 19th ult., so destructive of our fair fame and of our pros- 
 perity ; a calamity the extent of which it is impossible to 
 estimate. 
 
 " But I am thankful that the conservative meml)crs of our 
 community, constituting pretty conclusively a large majority, 
 are recovering from the effects of the shock, have thrown off 
 the reign of terror, and are exerting themselves to remedy, as
 
 OF NEAL DOW. (523 
 
 far as practicable, the evils resulting; from our misconduct, 
 and to regain the position in the Union jireviously held by 
 our state. 
 
 " The newspapers have given details of the events here, but 
 you want a friend's evidence and testimony more as to how 
 these things w^ere brought about, and the true prevailing feel- 
 ing here. Our state and city, with the governor and mayor, 
 have been sound, resisting all the vigorous eftbrts of the 
 secessionists to move us. It is our misfortune, however, to 
 have a legislature, elected eighteen months ago, decidedly 
 secession in sentiment, which the governor had refused to call 
 into session till the recent raid, when he yielded to the 
 clamor of the disunionists, much to the surprise and regret of 
 his friends. 
 
 "The raid of the 19th ult., we have reason to believe, was 
 all planned beforehand in connection with leaders south of 
 this state, and a large number of rowdies sent here to lead otf 
 and assist in carrying it out. The governor was warned, but 
 could not credit it till too late to act, finding our troojjs too 
 divided in sentiment to be reliable, while it was impracticable 
 to arm the ' minute men,' who had been drilling without arms 
 in large force — quite adequate to control aflairs if armed 
 
 "I do not like to make serious accusations, but it is the 
 prevailing sentiment that, notwithstanding what we had to 
 contend with, the whole aftair might have been prevented, if 
 so desired, by those in charge of the police, which is a strong, 
 well drilled force. 
 
 " I saw the beginning of the attack. Not a policeman was 
 to be seen in the vicinity — none on guard with the cars. 
 Begun by a few rowdies, once under way it was impossible to 
 arrest it. Our mayor, when apprised, acted nobly. The 
 plan was to raise the cry of ' Invasion ! ' ' Maryland blood 
 shed ! ' ' Coercion ! ' etc., and it is marvelous how infectious it 
 was, and what an influence it had to turn the heads of those 
 previously quiet Union men, apparently revolutionizing the 
 city at once, the control of it passing into the hands of the 
 military and upstart authorities, from whose yoke it would 
 have been difficult to free ourselves, probably, if we were a 
 few hundred miles further south 
 
 " Citizens now Avonder at themselves, admitting their tem- 
 porary insanity. For two days it was fearful, as if the evil 
 one and his emissaries had been let loose in our midst. It 
 required admirable management to prevent the city falling 
 into the hands of the armed mob, the state depositories having
 
 624 REMINISCENCES 
 
 been broken into and arms taken. But it now seems as if the 
 ordeal may be useful to us, uniting us in loyalty to the 
 government, the reaction being wonderful, and apparently 
 
 sweeping all before it 
 
 " I cannot wonder at the determination of the North to put 
 down this abominable conspiracy to destroy the best govern- 
 ment in the world. I believe the rebellion will be crushed." 
 
 There was another field open to me in which I 
 hoped to be useful. My speaking tour through 
 Great Britain, in 1857, had given me unusual oppor- 
 tunities to study English opinions, prejudices and 
 sympathies as to this country. I knew of the 
 jealousies entertained there in certain circles of the 
 growing power and importance of the United States, 
 and of the serious, if not sinister, concern with which 
 they watched our expanding commerce, and the 
 promise of the capacity of this country, under favor- 
 able conditions, to provide itself with that for which 
 we were then largely dependent upon England. I 
 anticipated, what proved to be true, that for those 
 reasons many influential Englishmen would be led 
 to hope for the success of secession, and that great 
 pressure would be brought upon the English govern- 
 ment to avail itself of the slightest pretext for direct 
 interference in its behalf. But I knew also of the 
 intense abhorrence of slavery pervading the great 
 middle classes in England, and that this was strong 
 enough to counterbalance all other influences and 
 to keep Great Britain at least avowedly neutral, 
 should it be made to appear that, underlying the 
 war for the Union on the part of the North, was 
 the determination that slavery must go. 
 
 I had a large and influential acquaintance among 
 a class of the English people who would be naturally 
 friendly to the North. They were antislavery men,
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 625 
 
 as were most Englishmen; tliey were pliilanthropic 
 fenough, as too many Englishmen were not, to hold 
 their hatred of slavery above their love of gain. 
 I had met and conversed with men of this class in 
 almost every considerable town in the United King- 
 dom. I knew that though there were many potential 
 influences Avhich would sympathize with and seek to 
 aid the South because of the supposed gain to English 
 commerce to follow upon a dissolution of the Union, 
 these acquaintances of mine and the element they 
 represented would actively endeavor to counteract 
 that. To enable them to do that effectively it was 
 important for it to appear that the actual existence 
 of slavery was involved in the impending struggle. 
 The growing interest in the Maine-Law movement 
 in Great Britain, with which my recent visit there had 
 identified my name, had created a circle, including 
 opponents as well as friends of the policy of prohibi- 
 tion of the liquor-traffic, within which I was assured 
 by friends in England that my opinion upon current 
 events would be of no less interest and influence than 
 with my more immediate personal friends in that 
 country. Many of the latter urged that I could 
 materially aid in their work in behalf of the northern 
 cause by writing for the press of Great Britain. This 
 I did and my communications were extensively cir- 
 culated throughout that country, being published by 
 many of the leading journals of the United Kingdom. 
 Subsequently I was assured, not only by my personal 
 friends, but by many Englishmen whom I did not 
 know, as well as by the United States Minister at the 
 Court of St. James, that my articles had been useful 
 in creating a public sentiment in Great Britain of 
 great assistance to the cause of the Union.
 
 626 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 During my confinement as a prisoner of war in 
 Libby prison, the following resolution was sent to mV 
 family from the offices of the English Union and 
 Emancipation Society, of which Thomas Bayley Pot- 
 ter, Esq., was president, and among the vice-presi- 
 dents of which were Lieutenant-General T. Perronet 
 Thompson, Professor Goldwin Smith, Rev. Thomas 
 Guthrie, D. D., Rev. Newman Hall, L. L. B., John 
 Stuart Mill, Thomas Hughes, Professor F. W. New- 
 man and many others of the most prominent men of 
 Great Britain, to some of whom my letters had been 
 addressed. 
 
 " Resolved, That the Executive of the Union and Emancipa- 
 tion Society beg to express their deep sympathy with General 
 Neal Dow in respect to his captivity and imprisonment at 
 Richmond. The Executive very highly value General Dow's 
 able and earnest letters on slavery and the American War, 
 believing that they have rendered great service to the cause of 
 Union and Emancipation, and have thereby earned for Mr. 
 Dow the gratitude and esteem of all true friends of freedom." 
 
 Many of those letters, or extensive extracts from 
 them, were also published in American journals. 
 Nor was their publication confined to England and 
 America, as the following extract from a letter re- 
 ceived after my release from Libby prison, under date 
 of April 4, 1864, from Baron De Lyndon, The Hague, 
 Holland, will show. In this, after congratulating 
 me on my release, and stating how closely my friends 
 in Holland had watched for all news of me, he wrote: 
 
 " Part of your letters circulated in our papers, and Port 
 Royal, Ship Island, New Orleans, Port Hudson, Richmond, 
 Libby Prison and Mobile became through them places quite 
 familiar to our people." 
 
 While I did not write a line in any of those letters 
 that did not represent my own opinion and convic-
 
 OF NEAL DOW. (')27 
 
 tions at the time, they were all written in the li«lit of 
 my knowledge of the state of public opinion in 
 England, with a view to aiding the friends of the 
 Union in Great Britain in their efforts to counteract 
 the strong influences hostile to it. 
 
 No one could fail to see that the Confederacy would 
 have been immensely aided, even to the extent of suc- 
 cess in its effort to permanently disrupt the Union, 
 could it have obtained upon any pretense the assist- 
 ance of Great Britain. Many considerations were 
 operating upon English public opinion tending toward 
 action upon the part of the government of Great 
 Britain which would have proved an insurmountalile 
 obstacle to the final triumph of the Union cause. 
 There was nothing that promised to be more effective 
 in counteracting those than the strong antislavery 
 feeling pervading the great mass of the English 
 people. If it could be made to appear that the over- 
 throw of ''the peculiar institution" would be the 
 inevitable result of the re-establishment of the 
 Union, as it was certain that the success of secession 
 would indefinitely perpetuate it, English hostility 
 to slavery would go far toward preventing that 
 kind of British aid to the South which would prove 
 so disastrous to the hopes of the North. 
 
 The discussion of my antislavery record in Eng- 
 land during my visit there in 1857, already noted, 
 had to an extent made my position upon that subject 
 known in that country, and I hoped that what I might 
 write on that point would have more weight in 
 behalf of our country than otherwise would have 
 been the case. I have the satisfaction of knowing 
 that in that great crisis in our history my closest 
 personal friends in Great Britain were among the
 
 628 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 most constant supporters of the Union, and tliat they 
 were active, persistent and influential in promoting 
 its success in every proper way. When, after the close 
 of the war for the Union, it was again my privilege 
 to visit Great Britain, multiform evidence was 
 afforded me that my correspondence had contributed, 
 to some extent, to the end I had hoped it would serve. 
 
 It soon became evident that the war was to last 
 longer than many at the North first believed. My 
 venerable father had passed away on the 1st of June, 
 1861, and thus was severed one tie which had kept me 
 at home. In the early fall of 1861 I received an invi- 
 tation from Governor Israel Washburne to go to the 
 state capital, Augusta, and suspected what was 
 wanted of me. The first flush of patriotic excite- 
 ment which had filled the early call for troops had 
 expended itself, and already there were signs, if not 
 of despair, at least of weariness, which were having 
 a retarding efi'ect upon enlistments. 
 
 Upon presenting myself at the executive chamber at 
 the State House, Governor Washburne addressed me 
 as "Colonel,'' recalling my old staff title, forgotten 
 for nearly twenty years. He then reminded me of a 
 remark I had made in the course of a speech several 
 years before, occasioned by the interruption of some 
 one in the audience, who said that the South would 
 dissolve the Union. He went on to say that though 
 my hair was growing grey the time had come for me 
 to make good that promise, and that he desired me to 
 raise a regiment. 
 
 I told hi in that I had not had even that experience 
 in military affairs to be obtained upon training day in 
 an old-fashioned muster. But he urged that recruit- 
 ing was slow, and that he believed my reputation,
 
 OF NEAL DOW. (y2\) 
 
 influence and extensive acquaintance through the 
 state would assist materially in raising troops; that 
 Maine was about to raise three more regiments, and 
 closed by offering me either the Thirteenth, Four- 
 teenth, or Fifteenth, as I preferred. 
 
 I promptly accepted the Thirteenth as the first one 
 likely to be raised, making at the same time a condi- 
 tion, which was that I should have associated with 
 me as field-officers men who had already seen service 
 at the front, and whose characters, tastes and habits 
 were such as would contribute to the morale of those 
 who were to be in my command, and that I should 
 be permitted to choose them. Governor Washburne 
 cordially assented, and after a little delay in making 
 the selection — there being so many admirable oflicers 
 with the Maine regiments that it was difficult to 
 choose from among them — I decided upon the fol- 
 lowing : 
 
 Captain Henry Rust, Jr., of Norway, then at the 
 front in command of a company in the Tenth Maine, 
 was appointed lieutenant-colonel, and Captain Frank 
 S. Hesseltine, of Waterville, also commanding a com- 
 pany in the Third regiment was made major. For 
 adjutant, Sergeant-Major Frederick Speed, of Gor- 
 ham, was chosen. He was then sergeant-major of 
 the Fifth Maine, and was thoroughly informed as to 
 the duties of the position he was about to fill. The 
 field-officers of the Thirteenth were well spoken of by 
 the press in general of the state. One of the dailies 
 far from friendly to me said of them : 
 
 "Hon. Neal Dow has been commissioned colonel of the 
 Thirteenth regiment of Maine volunteers. In many respects 
 this is an admirable appointment. Mr. Dow is well known 
 as a man of untiring energy and industry, and, if he has 
 
 41
 
 630 REMINISCENCES 
 
 many bitter opponents, no man in the state has more numer- 
 ous and truer friends. He has long desired to join the ranks 
 of the defenders of his country, but has been restrained by 
 duties which he owed to his family of an imperative nature. 
 Those who know him best assert that he has a natural apti- 
 tude for military affairs, and that his greatest difficulties will 
 arise from his desire to be always busy, leading him to do or 
 to attempt too much. If the soldiers under his command 
 suffer, it will be from too great rather than from too little 
 care. 
 
 ' ' Our citizens are pretty well acquainted with Captain 
 Henry Rust, Jr., of Norway, formerly of the First, now of 
 the Tenth regiment, appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 
 Thirteenth. Colonel Rust is a citizen of unimpeachable char- 
 acter, highly respected and esteemed by his neighbors in 
 Norway and the neighljoring towns. He is a gentleman by 
 nature and by cultivation, and has already proved himself a 
 good soldier, gaining the respect of his officers and the love 
 and confidence of his men. He will assuredly give a good 
 account of himself in his new position. 
 
 " Captain Frank Hesseltine, of Bangor, now of the Third 
 Maine, is to be major of the Thirteenth. Captain Hesseltine 
 left college to enlist in the Third, and brought with him 
 twelve of his fellow-students. Captain Hesseltine, although 
 young, has already established a high reputation for manhood 
 among his associates ; as a soldier he did his duty nol)ly at 
 Bull Run and was admired by all for his coolness and fearless 
 braver}'. He is an officer who will command the confidence 
 and respect of the men under his command." 
 
 Again the same paper referred to me as ' ' perhaps 
 the best read military man in New England, and 
 thoroughly posted in the science of fortifications in 
 different parts of the world. " 
 
 Better selections for those three positions than 
 the men I had chosen could not have been made. 
 All of them proved most efficient officers. Their 
 experience and ability were ably seconded by an 
 exceptionally fine list of staff and line officers, 
 and were especially serviceable in securing for 
 the Thirteenth Maine, when it left the state, the
 
 OF NEAL DOW. G31 
 
 reputation of being one of the best drilled regiments 
 Maine had sent to the front, a reputation which was 
 sustained until the regiment, by orders from head- 
 quarters of the Gulf Department, was cut up into 
 detachments to serve at different posts, a fate which 
 would not have befallen it could high rank as a well- 
 drilled and disciplined regiment have saved it, and 
 which some of its officers thought was due to other 
 causes than military necessity. The rank and file of 
 the regiment was of the best. The state sent to the 
 front no better material for fine soldiers. The paper 
 already quoted from said : 
 
 " There are some facts not generally known 
 
 in regard to Colonel Dow's regiment. As it was noised 
 abroad that Colonel Dow was to command it, it filled up and 
 ran over. It had a surplus of six hundred, which was turned 
 over to other regiments. It is reported to be the most 
 temperate and moral of all regiments raised in the state. 
 How this is we do not know, though we have not heard it 
 doubted, but that it is among the best yet mustered into the 
 service cannot be questioned, nor will it be questioned that 
 Colonel Dow is one of the ablest, truest officers that now 
 commands a regiment raised in this state or elsewhere since 
 commencement of hostilities." 
 
 Upon my promotion to brigadier-general. Colonel 
 Eust was promoted to the command of the regi- 
 ment, and served until January 6, 1865. At the same 
 time. Major Hesseltine was promoted to the rank of 
 lieutenant-colonel, and Adjutant iSpeed was promoted 
 to a captaincy as A. A. General on my staff. Colonel 
 Eust is no longer living. Colonel Hesseltine, re- 
 spected by all his wide acquaintance, is in the 
 successful practice of law in Boston, and Captain 
 Speed is also a citizen and lawyer of high standing 
 in Mississippi.
 
 632 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 Soon after I had been authorized to raise a regi- 
 ment of Maine volunteers, I received a letter from 
 the Secretary of "War, of which the following is a 
 copy: 
 
 " War Department, Oct. 12, 1861. 
 Col. Neal Dow, Commandino;, etc., Portland, Maine. 
 
 Sir: — You are hereby authorized to raise and organize 
 a battery of artillery for the service of the United States, to 
 serve for three years, or during the war, subject to the 
 approval of Governor Washl)urne, of your state. 
 
 This authority is given with the distinct understanding that 
 the government reserves the right to revoke the commissions 
 of all officers who may be found incompetent. It is also 
 understood that this battery is not to be permanently attached 
 to the Thirteenth regiment, but is to l)e detachable as may be 
 ordered by the commanding-general. Very respectfully, 
 
 Simon Cameron, Secvetari/ of War J" 
 
 In response to my call for volunteers nearly two 
 thousand men offered, some in full companies, some 
 in squads and many as individuals. Among my 
 most i^leasing recollections of that period is that of 
 letters received from men, and in some cases from 
 women, in the state, saying in substance that their 
 sons had desired to enlist, and that they had thus 
 far dissuaded them, but they were willing for them 
 to serve under my command, feeling confident that 
 the influences of my headquarters would be good. 
 
 Among those who volunteered as individuals was 
 the youngest son, Samuel, of my neighbor and friend, 
 Senator William Pitt Fessenden. He came to my 
 house, saying that his father had consented to his 
 going to the war CtAvo of his brothers were already 
 at the front) provided he could go with me. The 
 services of young Fessenden were accepted, and he 
 was made a lieutenant in the battery of artillery. 
 Lieutenant Fessenden lost his life while serving on
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 633 
 
 the staff of General Tower, at the battle of Manansas. 
 General Tower wrote of him, "He was ever ready 
 for duty, possessed a cool head and brave heart, 
 and shrank from no exposure." 
 
 The captain of this battery was Davis Tillson of 
 Rockland, Me., a most estimable man and excel- 
 lent officer. Captain Tillson had been a student at 
 West Point, where as the result of an accident he 
 had been obliged to suffer the amputation of a por- 
 tion of one leg, which necessitated his leaving the 
 military academy. He had been so admirably fitted 
 with a cork substitute and had become so wonted 
 to its use that no one unacquainted with the facts 
 would have suspected his "unsoundness." 
 
 When the United States officer appeared to "mus- 
 ter" us into the United States service. Captain 
 Tillson came to me and said: "I am afraid I 
 cannot pass muster with that officer. He was a 
 classmate of mine at West Point and knows my 
 defect, which no stranger would suspect." 
 
 I therefore accompanied Captain Tillson to the 
 mustering officer to urge his acceptance. I found 
 that no word from me was needed. They recog- 
 nized each other instantly, and upon Captain Tillson 
 expressing his fear of rejection his old classmate 
 replied: "Tillson, I know you. I would pass you 
 if you had lost both legs and arms." 
 
 As was intimated might be the case in the order 
 authorizing me to raise the battery, it was detached 
 from the Thirteenth regiment before the latter left 
 Augusta, and thereafter I had nothing to do with 
 it. All through the war it sustained an untarnished 
 reputation for efficiency, discipline and courage. 
 
 Notwithstanding the large number volunteering.
 
 634 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 there was considerable delay in organizing the regi- 
 ment and battery with due regard to the rights 
 and claims to commissions of those who had been 
 active in recruiting them. The regiment went into 
 camp on the United States Arsenal grounds at 
 Augusta, on the easterly bank of the Kennebec 
 river. Here the men lived in tents during the 
 months of December, 1861, and January, 1862, 
 although the mercury was frequently below zero. 
 Its ranks were fairly representative of the native 
 population of the state, in every part of which it 
 was recruited. There were companies from the cities, 
 from the back-woods, from the sea-coast and from 
 the farming portion of Maine. Altogether it was of 
 exceptionally fine j^ersonnel. 
 
 This life was entirely new to me, and as interest- 
 ing as it was novel. Our tents were pitched in the 
 midst of the snow, and at first our cooking was 
 done in great holes dug in the ground, the beef 
 for the men being all fried. I had that speedily 
 changed, an oven built, large enough to cook for 
 the entire regiment, which was thereafter provided 
 with roasted or baked meats. In the beginning I 
 kept myself busy with a thousand little details 
 which, after the ofiicers and men became accustomed 
 to their new mode of life, were left to them. Writ- 
 ing of our camp to my wife, I said : 
 
 " It is quite pleasant to look out upon it, especially in the 
 evening when the tents are lighted. They seem like caves of 
 ground glass, with a light wreath of smoke from the apex. 
 The camp resounds with the sound of many voices, talking, 
 laughing, singing, with an accompaniment of musical instru- 
 ments. At 8.30 the drum heats for the roll-call, when the 
 men assemble in their several streets to answer to their 
 names. At nine the tattoo is beaten for a warning to retire,
 
 OF NEAL DOAV. 635 
 
 at 9.30 the taps, when the lights are extinguished, and all is 
 suddenly dark and quiet." 
 
 The regiment received great advantage from the 
 outset through the experienced field and staff officers 
 associated with me. It was drilled daily on the 
 frozen river, which afforded a most excellent parade 
 ground for the purpose. Because of these advan- 
 tages it was, for a volunteer regiment, very well 
 drilled, and its discipline was excellent. 
 
 The municipal authorities of Augusta informed 
 me, when the regiment broke camp to leave the 
 city, that they had had no trouble whatever from any 
 of the Thirteenth, not one of its men having been 
 arrested for drunkenness. Indeed, so general was 
 the reputation of the regiment for sobriety that it 
 became quite the custom, by way of joke, for 
 recruits, belonging to other regiments then in camp 
 at Augusta, when arrested for drunkenness to claim 
 that they belonged to the "Thirteenth," and the 
 drunker their condition the more positive was their 
 assertion that they were sober, because, as they in- 
 sisted, not a soldier of "Neal Dow's regiment" would 
 become intoxicated. 
 
 Upon arrival in Boston, the Thirteenth was quar- 
 tered in Faneuil Hall. The Boston Evening Traveler 
 of February 19, 1863, remarked of it: "It is said to 
 be the quietest regiment that has ever been seen in 
 this city." 
 
 In this connection, I insert an extract from a letter 
 from Adjutant-General Hodsdon, of Maine: 
 
 "It must be a source of profound satisfaction to you that 
 the results of your world-wide inculcation of teetotalisni are 
 so happily manifest in your command, and result entirely 
 from your personal exertions in this behalf."
 
 636 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 General Hodsdon was not riglit in attributing so 
 much of tlie credit to me. The "Thirteenth " owed 
 its good record in this particular, lirst, to the general 
 character of the men who volunteered for it. I doubt 
 if any regiment went to the front from any state 
 with so many in its ranks who were temperance 
 men from principle. Then the influence of its head- 
 quarters was, of course, thrown in the same direction, 
 and its held and line ofiicers, almost without excep- 
 tion, seconded my efforts in this particular. Lastly, 
 perhaps, my reputation went as far toward this as any 
 special effort on my part. An amusing incident illus- 
 trating this was reported to me while in camp on the 
 Arsenal grounds. 
 
 A peddler had got into the lines, and soon made it 
 known to the men that he had liquor for sale. He 
 was i)romptly reported to the officer of the guard, 
 and by him was given his choice to be run out of 
 camp by men chasing him with fixed bayonets, with 
 orders to prick him if they caught him, or to have his 
 punishment decided upon by the colonel. He chose 
 the latter. "Do you know who the colonel is?" 
 asked the ofiicer. "No." "Well, his name is Neal 
 Dow." "In the name of mercy," cried the now 
 thoroughly frightened rum-peddler, "don't take me 
 to him! Give me a chance for my life!" 
 
 The discretion of the man was commended by the 
 amused ofiicer having him in charge, who also assured 
 him that only his speed would enable him to get out 
 of the lines without serious injury. He had heard of 
 me, but ])rolmbly never had seen me, and, like most of 
 his ilk, doubtless regarded me as a fiend incarnate, 
 with no taste for liquor, but with a i)i'()i)ensity for 
 devouring rumsellers on every possible opportunity.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 037 
 
 I was told that he ran as if something worse than a 
 bayonet was after him. He never was found within 
 the lines again. 
 
 Just prior to the departure of the Thirteenth, an 
 incident occurred exciting some little interest, which 
 was commented upon by the newspapers at the time. 
 It was the repulse of a "charge" made upon it in 
 earnest by the First Maine cavalry under the orders 
 of its commander, Colonel Goddard. The Thirteenth 
 was to be presented by the state with a flag, and was 
 drawn up in line in front of the capitol, right resting 
 up river, for that purpose. Colonel L. D. M. Sweat, a 
 senator from Cumberland county, and chairman, I 
 think, of the military committee of the legislature, 
 was about to make the presentation speech from the 
 steps leading to the State House. 
 
 The First Maine cavalry, which had its camp west 
 of the State House grounds, was out for a parade 
 in the city, and Colonel Goddard undertook to lead 
 his regiment between the Thirteenth and the speaker 
 who was addressing it. As the cavalry colonel gave 
 no heed to my motion for him to halt, perhaps 
 because he was my senior officer, I ordered the left 
 company of the Thirteenth to be wheeled across 
 the road, and, with bayonets at the charge, to 
 block it to prevent the passage of his regiment. 
 Colonel Goddard had the reputation of being a 
 very determined man. At any rate, as soon as 
 he saw this manoeuvre he immediately ordered his 
 buglers to sound the charge. The cavalry responded 
 pluckily to the call of its doughty commander— 
 "theirs not to reason why" — and came up to the 
 bayonets just as near as they could urge their more 
 discreet horses. To the latter the "spurs" on the
 
 638 REMINISCENCES 
 
 guns of the infantry seemed longer than those on 
 the heels of their riders, and they would not allow 
 themselves to be driven on to the bayonets. 
 
 The result was a good deal of swearing on the 
 part of the cavalry colonel, the withdrawal of his 
 regiment in inextricable confusion from its unsuccess- 
 ful charge, and the further uninterrupted delivery 
 of the presentation speech. This terminated the 
 first "engagement" of the Thirteenth. It was not 
 much of a skirmish, to be sure, but it was more of 
 a "cavalry charge" than most troops during the 
 war were called upon to encounter. Colonel God- 
 dard, who was an old lumberman, afterwards 
 laughingly said to me that the "jam" of the Thir- 
 teenth regiment bayonets was the only one he had 
 ever been unable to break. 
 
 Prior to the departure of my regiment a farewell 
 meeting was held in the City Hall at Portland. It 
 was presided over by the collector of the port, 
 ex-Mayor Jedediah Jewett, who, in behalf of the 
 ' ' Business Men and Manufacturers of Portland, " 
 presented me with a dress sword, belt and sash. 
 At the same meeting, the Maine Charitable and 
 Mechanics' Association, through its president, Mr. 
 Newell A. Foster, presented a full set of horse 
 equipments, and Rev. Henry D. Moore, in behalf 
 of a few personal friends, tendered me a fine 
 brace of Colt revolvers, saying: "It is a striking 
 commentary on tlie times that I, a minister of the 
 gospel of peace, should present to you, the son of 
 a Quaker, these weapons of carnal warfare." Reply- 
 ing to him, I said: "I have long since knocked my 
 broad-brim into a cocked hat." 
 
 I may mention here that when, in the summer of
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 639 
 
 1863, I was captured, my sword, pistols and equip- 
 ments fell into the hands of my captors, and were 
 divided among them by lot. There was nothing to 
 complain of in this, and reference is only made to the 
 incident by way of introduction to the following: 
 
 More than twenty years after my capture, in Decem- 
 ber, 1883, I received a letter from Arkansas, from 
 Jno. B. Simms, Esq., stating that the writer was a 
 member of the party which captured me, and also, 
 that in the division of the spoils my holster pis- 
 tols had fallen to his share; that long since, when 
 pressed for means, he had sold one of the pistols, but 
 the other, with the holsters, he had retained to that 
 day, and would be happy to return it and them if I 
 would accept them. He subsequently did forward 
 them with the expressed hope that the pistol might 
 never be used again ' ' in so unrighteous a cause. " 
 
 Upon that point Mr. Simms and I cannot agree. In 
 my opinion, no weapon was ever dedicated to a holier 
 cause. But that difference does not prevent me from 
 saying that when I received those pistols from the 
 hand of the clergyman who was the spokesman of 
 the donors I was not more sincere in my belief in the 
 righteousness of the cause which I was hoping at my 
 advanced age to serve than was young Simms in his 
 love of the now ' ' lost cause, " to which he devoted the 
 enthusiasm and strength of his youth. As much as 
 we differ upon that point, we are united, I am con- 
 fident, in the hope that the amity between all sections 
 of our common country will be forever perpetuated. 
 Mr. Simms, if living, will not take it amiss if I add 
 that few who have had the misfortune to be prisoners 
 of war have fallen into the hands of more courteous 
 captors than were he and his associates.
 
 640 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 Not long after hearing from Mr. Simms, I received 
 
 a copy of tlie Louisville Courier-Journal, containing a 
 
 letter from a correspondent on the island of Capri, 
 
 from which I take the following extract: 
 
 "It seems rather unreal now, looking back from the 
 middle of the Mediterranean, almost as unreal as the fact 
 that we are now off the coast of Crete. The most curious 
 day of all was on a day at Capri, when after a visit to the 
 marvelous Blue Grotto, we met an old Confederate officer, 
 and in his smokins; den saw a sword not all unknown to fame. 
 There were two inscriptions on the sword. The first was : 
 
 PRESENTED BY THE 
 BUSINESS MEN AND MANUFACTURERS 
 
 OF PORTLAND TO 
 
 COL. NEAL DOW, THIRTEENTH MAINE 
 
 REGIMENT. 
 
 Further up the blade was this second inscription : 
 
 PRESENTED TO 
 
 LIEUT. COL. J. C. MCKOWEN 
 
 FOR ENTERING THE FEDERAL LINES NEAR PORT HUDSON, 
 
 JUNE 3, 1863, 
 
 "WITH FIVE MEN, AND CAPTURING GEN. NEAL DOW 
 
 AND GUARD 
 
 AT HIS HEADQUARTERS. 
 
 " The sword hung on the wall covered with weapons of 
 every nation ; but none, I venture to say, captured in a more 
 daring way than this sword of Gen. Neal Dow." 
 
 The departure of my regiment for the war was 
 delayed a long time, owing to sickness in the camp, 
 which had a duration of nearly two months, some 
 of the men being very ill. During all the time I 
 interested myself, for reasons that will appear later, 
 of which all my officers approved, in an endeavor to 
 avoid becoming a part of General Butler's command, 
 and to obtain orders to Join the army of the Potomac. 
 Twice I had grounds for believing that we would be 
 successful in this, but we were disappointed.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. <)41 
 
 On the nth of February I received the followiiio: 
 communication : 
 
 "Headquarters Department of New England, 
 Boston, Feb. 10th, 1862. 
 Col. Neal Dow, 
 
 Commanding 13th Me. Vols. 
 Sir: — General Butler desires to know if you are aware of 
 any reason why you may not be able to march within one 
 week from date. This is aside from the consideration of j)aij, 
 about which in the present condition of the treasury there 
 may be some difficulty. 
 
 There is, however, at Ship Island a paymaster with funds 
 for all the troops of the division. 
 I am. Colonel, very respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 George C. Strong, A. A. General." 
 
 The Thirteenth was then in camp in tents pitched 
 in snow more than two feet deep. My reply was to the 
 effect that I would be ready to march upon receipt of 
 orders. In a few days I was ordered to report in 
 Boston with my command on the 18th of February, 
 and on that day w^e broke camp at Augusta, not know- 
 ing our destination. Our train was composed of 
 twenty-three cars, drawn by two locomotives. We 
 arrived at Portland about noon. The first man to 
 greet me as I stepped from the train w^as my friend, 
 William W. Thomas, then mayor. Among others 
 whom I remember were Eben Steele and Charles A. 
 Stackpole. 
 
 A Portland daily the next morning described our 
 march through the city as follows: 
 
 "The regiment made a splendid appearance as it passed 
 along, the quiet, orderly behavior and soldierly bearing of 
 the troops winning the warmest encomiums from the iunnensc 
 crowds that had gathered to receive them and speed their 
 departure. The regiment carried the beautiful silken stand- 
 ard presented at Augusta shortly before. Cheer after cheer
 
 642 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 rose from the crowd, accompanied by the waving of handker- 
 chiefs, and the response by the soldiers was hearty and 
 unanimous." 
 
 My regiment was a body of men of ^vliich any 
 commander might have been justly proud. No better 
 material for soldiers ever marched through the streets 
 of any city than the Thirteenth Maine. We reached 
 Boston the same night, and there I learned for the 
 first time that my efforts and those of my friends at 
 Washington to have my regiment ordered to the 
 Potomac had failed, and that we were to join General 
 Butler's expedition against New Orleans, and that for 
 this purpose the regiment was to be divided at Boston. 
 This was what I had most desired to avoid. 
 
 At the time the command of the Thirteenth regi- 
 ment was offered to me. General Butler was raising 
 his New England division for the Gulf Department. 
 It was currently reported that he was anxious that 
 the regiments to be raised in Maine for him should be 
 commanded by men whose political antecedents were 
 Democratic, of which party he had been a most pro- 
 nounced adherent. My Republicanism was as earnest 
 and as uncompromising as had been his Democracy. 
 I was as well known to General Butler as a radical of 
 a most unequivocal type as he was to me as a radical 
 among his own associates. Convinced that he would 
 not want me in his department, I was even more anx- 
 ious than I might otherwise have been not to be 
 under his command, believing that I could be of 
 more service to the country under some other com- 
 mander. 
 
 Accordingly I asked Governor Washburne to see 
 that everything practicable was done to keep my regi- 
 ment out of General Butler's division, and to have
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 643 
 
 it sent to the Army of the Potomac. In several 
 other ways that seemed to me proper I also sought 
 to accomplish the same end. General Butler had 
 learned of my efforts to avoid service under him, and 
 that quite naturally did not tend to increase the cor- 
 diality of feeling on his part toward me or my regi- 
 ment. 
 
 I was early convinced that the apprehensions 
 which had led me to try to escape the assignment of 
 my regiment to General Butler's division were well 
 founded. Only a few days after meeting the General 
 at Fortress Monroe, and while yet on shipboard 
 with him, I was disposed to yield to what seemed 
 to me a determination to force me to resign, but subse- 
 quently decided that it was my duty to remain in 
 the service even though it should continue to appear 
 to me, as it did, that unnecessary obstacles Avould 
 be thrown in the way even of any opportunities 
 for my usefulness which might offer in the ordinary 
 course. 
 
 Referring to this, Adjutant-General Hodsdon, of 
 Maine, in a letter under date of December 12, 1862, 
 wrote: 
 
 " Time and history will set all these matters right, and it is 
 safer thus to leave them. You are fulfilling and will fulfil the 
 good hopes of your legions of friends, not only in Maine, but 
 throughout the civilized world," 
 
 My wife and children accompanied me to Boston, 
 and on the 22d of February I bade them good-by. 
 More than two years were to elapse before I should 
 see them again.
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 DIVISION OF MY EEGIMENT. I EMBARK "WITH FOUR COMPA- 
 NIES ON STEAMER MISSISSIPPI. THE THIRTY- 
 FIRST MASSACHUSETTS. THE 
 VOYAGE. A STORM. 
 AGROUND. 
 
 In Boston my regiment was divided, six companies, 
 under command of Lieutenant Colonel Rust, being 
 ordered to New York, Avliere several of my friends had 
 prepared a reception for the regiment, and a hand- 
 some silk banner, inscribed with the number of the 
 regiment and the name of its colonel, was presented 
 to the battalion. In New York, Colonel Rust, with 
 his command, embarked on the steamer Fulton for 
 Ship Island, which they reached about three weeks 
 before I arrived with the other four companies. 
 
 Major Hesseltine with Company B., Captain Snell 
 — afterwards Judge Snell, of AVashington, D. C, — 
 Company D., Captain Varney, Company E., Cap- 
 tain Quinby, and Company I., Lieutenant Randall, 
 embarked with me on the new steamer, Mississippi, 
 then in Boston Harbor. There I was to meet for 
 the first time the troops of another state, and this 
 experience was exceedingly agreeable. They Avere 
 the Thirty-first Massachusetts, Colonel Gooding.
 
 REMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 645 
 
 When I went on board I did not know that I 
 was the senior officer, until Colonel Gooding, report- 
 ing to me, politely turned over the command, having 
 received his orders to that effect before mine direct- 
 ing me to assume command reached me. Writing 
 home that evening, I said of our new companions: 
 
 "The Massachusetts men seem to be gentlemen of intelli- 
 gence and culture, every way civil, quiet and gentlemanly. 
 The colonel (Gooding) is very much of a gentleman. That 
 regiment, both officers and men, seems to me to be uncom- 
 monly good looking. I think it will make an excellent 
 corps ; it is yet even greener than mine." 
 
 In the same letter, referring to the expectation then 
 entertained by many, myself among the number, of 
 an early peace, I wrote: 
 
 "How soon it comes I care not, provided the peace be 
 such as to promote the interests of the nation, the happiness 
 of the people and especially freedom for the poor slaves." 
 
 With the four companies of the Thirteenth, added 
 to the Massachusetts Thirty -first, the Mississippi was 
 crowded to its full capacity. The ship was new and 
 had never taken even a trial trip. The engines had 
 not been tested, and nothing was known of the relia- 
 bility of the compasses. The steering gear even had 
 not been tried. Yet on this ship, including her 
 own company, were crowded nearly sixteen hundred 
 men, with all their camp equipage, baggage and 
 material of all sorts, for a long, and, as it afterwards 
 proved, dangerous voyage. So overcrowded was the 
 ship that the men were actually crammed between 
 decks, not a quarter of them having room on deck at 
 the same time for air and exercise. 
 
 The lower deck was loaded with coal, shot and 
 shell and a few cannon. On her forecastle deck 
 
 42
 
 646 EEMIXISCENCES 
 
 was mounted a long rifled cannon, intended for our 
 defense in case we should meet a Confederate pri- 
 vateer, but it was afterwards discovered that there 
 was not a solid shot in all our stores which could be 
 used in that gun — an oversight quite in keeping with 
 much that was done in the hurry, excitement and 
 inexperience of that time. The outlook was not 
 inspiring to those who had had any experience at 
 sea, and perhaps less so to those who had had none. 
 ^Nevertheless, I was able to write home of the situ- 
 ation: 
 
 "Our men are perfectly quiet and contented, and speak 
 well of their quarters, though I thouglit them very poor when 
 I first saw them. They are down far into the ship where it is 
 not light, even at midday, and only boards are afforded for 
 the men to sleep on, tier over tier, three or four high. They 
 cannot have straw or hay for fear of fire." 
 
 We were on board two days, packed like sardines, 
 before the ship could be got ready for sea. Saturday, 
 the 22d of February, we weighed anchor, and were off 
 for Fortress Monroe, where General Butler was to 
 come on board. In the afternoon, at the request of 
 Colonel Gooding, I called all the officers into the 
 saloon and asked Chaplain Chubbuck of the Thirty- 
 first Massachusetts to read Washington's Farewell 
 Address. Afterwards, at the request of some of the 
 Massachusetts officers, I addressed them. In the 
 evening several of the soldiers came into the saloon 
 with a guitar, and an hour or more was passed in 
 singing. 
 
 On Sunday, the 23d, my chaplain held services in 
 the morning, and the chaplain of the Thirty-first 
 Massachusetts in the evening. It was comfortable 
 that day walking on deck without overcoats. I
 
 OF NEAL DOW. (UT 
 
 talked with many of iny men who were up for air 
 and exercise. To my pleasure as well as surprise, I 
 found them all quiet and contented, some of them 
 telling me that they had already come to prefer tlieir 
 bare boards to mattresses and pillows! 
 
 I quote from a letter written as we were approach- 
 ing Fortress Monroe: 
 
 We are drawing further into the l)ay, and see many vessels, 
 all of them topsail schooners, engaged, pro])ahly, in tlie 
 transportation of stores and supplies. A gunboat came down 
 upon us, passing very near on our lar1)oard, and manned her 
 rigging and gave us three cheers. We see land now on both 
 sides, on the larboard, within three miles; on the starboard, 
 ten miles away, sandy beaches with a l)ackground of ever- 
 green trees. Cape Henry, with its tall white lighthouse, we 
 have just passed on the larboard side, and the broad bay 
 opens before us. 
 
 " The breeze freshens directly in our faces; it is cool, but 
 pleasant. Many sea-birds, including ducks and geese, are 
 playing about. In a word, we are having and enjoying a fine 
 May morning. On shore, I doubt not, the temperature is 
 
 like that of a Kew England eTune AVe are just off 
 
 Fortress Monroe, one mile distant. The wind is blowing 
 very fiercely right in our teeth, and has blown our trysail all 
 to pieces, just over our heads. The sailors are trying to 
 brail it. We passed several large war steamers, sixty-gun 
 ships, lying here, which manned their rigging and gave us 
 three cheers as we went by." 
 
 After a little delay at Fortress Monroe to take on 
 additional stores, General Butler came on board. 
 With him were Mrs. Butler, Colonel Dudley, of the 
 Massachusetts Thirtieth, and others. 
 
 Our voyage was resumed Tuesday evening, Febru- 
 ary 25th. The sea was smooth, and everything went 
 on prosperously until Wednesday, when in the after- 
 noon the wind freshened and the sea became rough. 
 General Butler, in his book, has made reference to the 
 storm which we encountered subsequently to leaving
 
 648 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 Hampton Roads, and to the imminent danger we were 
 in when we grounded on Frying Pan Shoals. I can- 
 not do better than to quote from what I wrote on the 
 day after that experience: 
 
 "About two in the morning tlie sea became very rough, 
 and Major Hesseltine came to my state-room door and said I 
 had l)etter turn out, as matters seemed to him to be going l)ad- 
 ly. I asked him to learn particularly the state of affairs and let 
 me know. He returned directly and said that,. as nearly as he 
 could learn, the water was getting into the ship, and the 
 fires \vould be speedily extinguished." 
 
 That was startling information, for certainly if 
 steam could not be kept up the ship would be entirely 
 at the mercy of the storm, which was then raging 
 fiercely and was apparently increasing in violence. 
 Under such circumstances the vessel could not last 
 long. What a prospect, with nearly sixteen hundred 
 men on board! Nevertheless, knowing that to men 
 unacquainted with the sea and with ships every 
 element of danger seems greater than it really is, I 
 determined to see for myself. While I was dressing, 
 Mr. Moore, the chaplain, and the major came in, and 
 we talked the matter over. If the ship remained 
 tight, we decided that the damage could not be so 
 great, as she was a staunch vessel and could endure 
 the storm, if properly handled, even without steam, 
 and we had, at least, forty miles of leeway to the 
 coast. 
 
 Because of the storm progress in dressing was slow. 
 When finally I went out into the saloon, the scene 
 was ludicrous in the extreme, despite the dangers of 
 the situation. The officers were assembled there, 
 each clinging witli desperation to some fast object; 
 thus only could they avoid being thrown about in 
 every direction. To add to the discomforts of the
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 649 
 
 occasion, every movable article in the f^aloon was 
 being thrashed from side to side. The crockery was 
 crashing, torrents of water were pouring in through 
 the skylights overhead, while that already in was 
 dashing and splashing over the floor with every move- 
 ment of the ship. Outside the wind was shrieking 
 through the rigging, and enormous waves were beat- 
 ing upon the ship, often breaking over its decks with 
 great weight and force. 
 
 Meanwhile the scene below, where were quartered 
 fourteen hundred men, almost all of them unaccus- 
 tomed to the sea, was quite indescribable. I clip here 
 from an account written by Chaplain Moore of the 
 Thirteenth, a short time after the storm, and pub- 
 lished in a Portland paper: 
 
 " No description can picture the fury of the storm wliich 
 prevailed. The winds screamed, and the waves roared and 
 dashed upon and over the ship with furious force and rapid- 
 ity. Water poured into the ship from the deck, and throuah 
 the skylights, wave upon wave. At one time the water 
 threatened to extinguish the engine fires, but they were kept 
 free by the utmost perseverance and labor of relays of 
 soldiers, bailing away the water as fast as it poured in. The 
 state-rooms were emptied of their occupants, and the cal)in 
 filled with the officers of the troops. In the soldiers' a})art- 
 ments, the scene was indescribable, some praying, some 
 cursing, and all in the most awful suiSpense. About 3.30 a. 
 M., of Thursday, when the gale seemed to have reached its 
 height, we were all in momentary expectation of going to the 
 bottom. A sudden, and awful shock, as of the vessel striking 
 the bottom, brought every man, almost, to the cabin floor, 
 amid the cry, ' She has struck !' Men seized each other. I 
 buttoned some mementos of home close to my breast, and, 
 committing myself to God, awaited the result. God's good 
 providence was over us with watchful care. We weathered 
 the night. The morning came — the gale still blowing with 
 violence, and the sea climbing over the sides and dashing 
 upon the deck of the vessel."
 
 650 REMINISCENCES 
 
 To add to the noise and confusion below, some shot 
 and shell stored in the after part of the ship had 
 broken doAvn the partition which confined them, 
 and, rolling out, had displaced the stanchions which 
 supported some of the tiers of bunks of the men, pre- 
 cipitating a mingled mass of soldiers, boards, shot and 
 shell in the lower part of the ship. 
 
 To this time we landsmen had had nothing to do 
 with the vessel, but now, at the request of General 
 Butler, I learned from her officers that the water by 
 which the furnaces were threatened came down the 
 hatches from the deck, and that the fires would be in 
 no danger if we could secure the hatches, which were 
 large and entirely open, the vessel being otherwise 
 tight. They had been left in that way for purposes of 
 ventilation, so many men were packed below. Now 
 it was necessary to close them and to provide other 
 means of securing air. For some reason the ship's 
 company could not attend to this, and as I informed 
 General Butler that there were old sailors in the 
 ranks of the Thirteenth Maine he requested me to do 
 what seemed necessary. 
 
 I sent an officer from each of the four companies 
 of the Thirteenth into the hold with orders to sum- 
 mon every sailor among them to the saloon. In a few 
 moments a lot of sailor-soldiers appeared, smiling and 
 jovial, and so cool and easy in the midst of surround- 
 ings so distressing to the average landsman that they 
 were an inspiration of hope and courage to all 
 around them. They were all ready for anything 
 there was for them to do, and I told them that the 
 hatches needed to be secured to prevent shipping so 
 much water. ' ' Ay, Ay, Sir ! " they cheerily responded, 
 and out on the deck they rushed into the midst of the
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 651 
 
 howling gale and dashing waters, where no land- 
 lubber could have stood an instant. It was not long 
 before they reported to me that the hatches were 
 secure. That relieved us of all fear that the fires 
 under the boilers would be extinguished. 
 
 Remembering now the case of an English steamer, 
 on board of which a number of emigrants perished by 
 suffocation under somewhat similar circumstances, 
 and fearing that the soldiers below, where so many 
 were closely crowded, must suffer from want of air, 
 some of my sailors from the Thirteenth were sent 
 forward to arrange a wind-sail at one of the hatches 
 for ventilation. The next thing was to relieve the 
 vessel of the large quantity of Avater already shipped. 
 Again I quote from the letter of Chaplain Moore : 
 
 " The vessel, daring most of the gale, was manned by 
 sailors detached from the Thirteenth Maine regiment, one of 
 whom, a Portland boy, stood at the wheel for nine hours. 
 
 During the excitement of the increasing gale there 
 
 came into the cabin fifteen of the most eager and ready 
 sailors you ever saw, the leader of them saying, ' Just show 
 us what's to be done, and we are the men to do it ! ' They 
 were instantly on deck, and in the rigging in a trice, hardly 
 awaiting orders, but seeing at a glance just what was wanteds 
 The mate of the vessel remarked, ' You can't teach those men 
 anything.' 
 
 ' ' It was freely said that under God's blessing the salvation 
 of the ship from destruction with all her freight of human 
 souls was due to the promptness, courage and skill of those 
 Maine sailors." 
 
 General Butler now asked my opinion of the situa- 
 tion and I replied that if we had fuel enough I saw no 
 cause to apprehend shipwreck. He replied that we 
 were all right, for we had eight days' coal on hand. 
 Meanwhile my improvised crew of sailors were at 
 work freeing the ship of water. Among them was
 
 652 REMINISCENCES 
 
 Mr. William Gr. Merrill, of Portland, avIio liad had 
 an extensive experience at sea. At this writing he is 
 mayor of Clinton, Indiana. At the time, he wrote 
 in his diary the story of the bailing of the ship, 
 from which he has sent me the following extracts: 
 
 ••' The pumps were manned, a hole was cut through her 
 bulkhead so that a line of men was formed from the eno-ine- 
 room up through the cabin, and to the windows of the lee 
 side of the saloon cabin, and it was my position to stand at 
 that window and throw the water out on deck as it came up in 
 l)uckets and pails along a line of eighty odd men. It was a 
 lal)orious and perilous position for all, for the ship rolled and 
 pitched in the heavy sea so badly that at times it was impos- 
 sible to keep one's feet and pass the buckets of water. In 
 spite of all precautions, out would go the feet, and man, with 
 l)ucket and water, would go sprawling down the lee side, and 
 then, as the ship righted and roiled the other way, would 
 come down through the line as if he had been shot out of a 
 "cannon, upsetting every man in his course. There were some 
 laughal)le scenes that night, notwithstanding the peril, but all 
 worked with a will, knowing full well that the safety of the 
 .ship and the lives of sixteen hundred men depended upon 
 their work. 
 
 " The ship was headed out to sea away from the l)reakers. 
 From my post at the saloon deck, I could see the long line of 
 white caps. "We were so near to them at one time that every 
 sea that broke over us w^as mixed with the sand from the 
 bottom. It seemed a long time before we began to make any 
 headway either against the wind and sea or the water below, 
 but at length the joyful news came up that the water was not 
 gaining on us, and then, that in the last hour we had gained 
 on the water. About that time I reported that I had almost 
 lost sight of the breakers, and as the ship got into deep water 
 once more the sea was not so rough, and we had but little 
 water on deck. It was a long and weary night, l)ut with the 
 morning came a calmer wind and sea. AVe had conciuered the 
 Avater and bailed out the shij). Though tired and worn out 
 with the work of the long night, I could not refrain from 
 throwing up my caj) and calling for cheers for the bucket crew 
 of the Thirteenth Elaine that had saved the ship — and they 
 were <rivcn with a will,"
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 653 
 
 To return again to my own diary: 
 
 "In due time came the niorninu^ light, disclosing to the 
 eyes of our astonished landsmen the world of waters in wild 
 commotion. We had no Ijreakfast except crackers, cheese, 
 etc., no dinner, but at night the .sea became calmer and the 
 table was set. 
 
 "The night after the gale was quiet and the water smooth. 
 We went along very nicely, pleasant breezes, a bright sun, 
 and Friday morning promised a charming day. At six a. m., 
 land was discovered ahead, and on our starboard ])ow, and 
 Cape Fear light was in full view, yet the ship kept steadily 
 on her course. The ship's officers were on deck. Three 
 buoys were seen, two upon our starboard and one upon our 
 larboard bow, and yet the ship kept on. 
 
 " A little after eight I was told that one of the soldiers of 
 the Thirteenth Maine wished to speak to me. It was one of 
 the sailors who had been called upon the night before, and he 
 said that he was familiar with that coast and that we were sure 
 soon to be aground. He had been to the pilot-house and said 
 to the officer: 'That is Cape Fear. light, and Frying Pan 
 Shoal is dead ahearl. You will l^-^ On there in hii^^ an hour on 
 this course. If you don't believe me, go and j=fe how the 
 propeller is stirring up the sand.' jb«)t they toldvhim, so he 
 said, to mind his business. ,^ 
 
 "I supposed that the soldier might be uni?0eessarily alarmed, 
 because I felt confident that the ship's company knew its 
 course, but an officer came into the saloon at nine a. si. and 
 said that we were aground. I hastened on deck and found 
 the ship at rest. Cape Fear light on our starboard bow, in 
 full view about fifteen miles distant, a mile or two of low 
 coast, and then all water everywhere else, with Frying Pan 
 Shoal directly beneath us. Though there was no Avind and the 
 sea was calm, I saw that the peril was far greater than in the 
 storm. A little wind and a little sea would immediately beat 
 us to pieces and set us all afioat. This might come in a few 
 minutes or in a few hours, but it was sure to come very soon. 
 
 " The ship was shamefully managed after we struck as well 
 as before. In violation of one of the plainest and most 
 important nautical rules, the anchor was dropped directly 
 under her bows, and in ' forging ahead ' the ship got a big hole 
 in her bow made by a fluke of the anchor, as any sailor 
 apprentice could have told would have happened. Much 
 precious time was lost by indecision and ignorance.
 
 654 REMINISCENCES 
 
 "At last one boat was lowered and sent off sounding far 
 from the ship, to no purpose, till after repented urijing the 
 bow quarter 1)oats were lowered, and my sailor-soldiers got 
 the two remaining boats off the top of a round house, where 
 they lay, bottom up, with no proper means of getting them 
 off, but by dint of hard work they were got off at last and 
 safely over the side. 
 
 " It was a wonder to all who knew anything of ships where 
 the command was all this time. There was one order I heard, 
 and only one, in a quick, decided manner, and that was, ' Let 
 go the anchor !' a command that should not have been given 
 at all. The expedients resorted to were all temporary and 
 inefficient. In that situation a sail was discovered, an 
 announcement that brought joy to us all. A signal of distress 
 was set, at first a flag, union up. This mistake was discov- 
 ered in a few minutes, and it was reversed. The sail proved 
 to be a steamer, but she lay off and would not come near. 
 Finally a l)oat was sent off to her, when she came cautiously 
 on, feeling her way with the lead. The hesitation at flrst was 
 because we were thouglis to be a Confederate hoisting a flag of 
 distress as a decoy. It was the United States gunl)oat Mount 
 Vernon. 
 
 " It was .now deemed important to lighten our ship as much 
 as possibW by the transference of soldiers to the Mount 
 Vernon. As she could accommodate but three hundred, it 
 was decided that the four companies of the 'Thirteenth Maine 
 should be sent. By two o'clock in the afternoon the wind 
 began to rise and so did the sea, and I got })er mission to 
 begin the work of sending off our men. Every moment was 
 important. Until the ship was lightened she could not move, 
 and if we were caught where we were with any sea there 
 would be no hope for us. 
 
 " To ship our men into the tossing boats alongside rapidly 
 and safely was not easy. The soldiers, many of them, were 
 from the interior, and had never seen salt water before this 
 voyage, and to keep them from hindering and delaying the 
 work by their clumsiness and timidity was a very hard task 
 indeed. General liutler wanted the men to go with arms, 
 kna])sacks and accoutrements complete, but as the point was 
 to lighten the ship as speedily as possible I did not think it 
 worth while to permit twenty-six tons of dead weight and 
 equi})age to take the place of forty tons of living men, for 
 forty tons of men, and more, unencumbered, could embark in 
 the time occupied in loading twenty-six tons of dead weight,.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 655 
 
 especially as the sea was now rough and the wind had risen. 
 So I quietly had the men put oft' everything hut their clothes 
 as they came to the gangway,' and in this way relieved the 
 ship much more rapidly, and it proved a wise precaution, for 
 we had no time to lose. Before this one of our men at the 
 Mount Vernon, with knapsack on, had fallen overboard and 
 having swam around to the rudder, rested upon it, took 
 off his knapsack, passed it up, and then climbed up by a rope. 
 
 " As all of my regiment on the Mississippi was to be trans- 
 ferred to the Mount Vernon, and as I intended to remain on 
 the former, I directed Major Hesseltine to proceed to the 
 Mount Vernon. I also sent our chaplain there to be out of 
 harm's way. After my men had all been safely transferred, 
 which was before it became dark. General Butler advised me 
 to follow, but I declined, believing that I could be of more 
 assistance where I was. 
 
 " While I had been occupied with superintending the trans- 
 fer of the soldiers, Acting-Master Henry L. Sturgis, of the 
 Mount Vernon, with an assistant, had been making prepara- 
 tions to get the Mississippi off the shoal, an undertaking 
 which for a long time seemed doubtful. A large hawser had 
 been stretched from the^ Mount Vernon and made fast to the 
 Mississippi, that the formei. might help to get the latter off 
 when sufficiently lightened and the tide should serve. 
 
 " At five P.M., the steamer moved a little and thumped 
 several times, but not very hard, with the roughening sea. 
 The last three boats had just been loaded with my men, and 
 had there been more to go the movement of the ship must 
 have suspended that work, so I immediately went forward to 
 the pilot-house to watch the progress of events. The sailing- 
 master of the Mount Vernon was in charge there, while a 
 man was in the chains with a lead to ascertain if the ship 
 moved, and how much. 
 
 " The sailing-master now ordered the engine to be put into 
 full action. While he kept his eye upon the line the ship 
 must take, if any, I watched the man in the chains repeating 
 to the sailing-master the reports of the leadsman of the result 
 of his constant soundings. But the water steadily deepened 
 upon the whole, though there were many variations. We 
 moved steadily, however, until we got clear of the danger, 
 when I began to attend to our boats, six in number, which 
 were out, and it was now quite dark. 
 
 " Two of these were heavily laden with soldiers whom they 
 could not take on the Mount Vernon. They were landsmen,
 
 656 REMINISCENCES 
 
 all unaccustomed to such experiences. We got a lantern up 
 at our peak to pfuide our boats, and lay to, to allow them to 
 come up, which the}^ found it difficult to do, as the wind and 
 tide were very hard in their teeth, and their oarsmen were 
 very tired. Such a time as we had of it ! The ship's crew^ 
 were all busy al^out their own affairs, and there were far too 
 few of them for that, and as all my sailor soldiers had lieen 
 taken away from me to help work the ship the landlubbers 
 w^ere left to themselves. By that time I had established a 
 reputation as somewhat of a ' salt,' but I w^as altogether too 
 fresh for such work as I had that awful day. 
 
 "The first ])oat came, a rope was thrown, caught, and the 
 boat danced and jumped up to the ladder. Another boat came 
 up, and was ordered to catch the first boat and hold on, 
 being careful not to stave, as the sea was now quite rough. 
 Another boat came and did the same, and now' we had three 
 — two of them filled with men — and a hard time we had of 
 it to get these men from those jumping boats in the dark, as 
 they could not stand in such uneasy craft, and were obliged 
 to creep, while strong eiforts were necessary to keep the boats 
 from staving. 
 
 " Finally, and in good time and ^ifety, the men and the 
 boats were all taken up. AVe had how a general handshaking 
 among the officers, and heartfelt congratulations at our 
 escape, which vividly seemed to us to have been l\v direct 
 interposition of a kind and merciful Providence. We kept on 
 now in the wake of the Mount Vernon, guided by her lights, 
 and about ten p. m., came to anchor with our consort at the 
 mouth of Cape Fear river." 
 
 Some allowance must be made for the inexperience 
 of landsmen in sucli matters, but it was my own 
 solemn conviction at the time, and I have never 
 changed it since, that, under God, the service ren- 
 dered, both at the time of the storm and the 
 shipwreck, by the soldiers of the Thirteenth Maine 
 contributed most materially to the saving of the 
 Mississippi with her freight of nearly sixteen hun- 
 dred men. I wrote to my family at the time: 
 
 "As to the imminent dangers we have encountered and 
 escaped I think the general feeling is, even among undevout
 
 OF ^^EAL DOAV. 657 
 
 men, that our safety was due solely to the irraeious and direct 
 interposition of a kind and merciful Providence, but there 
 has heen no adeciuate expression of gratitude on board ship. 
 At our first meal after our escape i'roni the shoal I spoke to 
 a chaplain about availino- himself of the occasion and giving 
 thanks for our great deliverance, but he did not. I do not 
 see how a clergyman with heart and brains could justify 
 himself for such omission." 
 
 After we came to anchor off Cape Fear, General 
 Butler appointed a board of survey upon the Missis- 
 sippi. The board subsequently reported as follows: 
 
 " Steamship Mississippi, ^ 
 
 At Anchor off Cape Fear, N. C. > 
 
 March 1, 1862. ) 
 
 " General: — In obedience to your orders, the undersigned 
 appointed by you a board of survey to ascertain the condi- 
 tion of the ship and her ability to continue the voyage on 
 which she is bound, have attended to that duty, and have the 
 honor to report : ^-^ 
 
 " That on examining the ship they find a very formidable 
 leak on her port 1)0 w, made by ihe anchor wdiich was dropped 
 wdien she went on the shoals. The quantity of water passing 
 by this leak is very large, so that very soon after the fracture 
 was made the water in the forward compartment rose to the 
 level of the external water. A large fatigue party was 
 arranged with frequent reliefs, aided by a deck pump worked 
 by twelve men, the bailing and pumping continued without 
 intermission for twenty hours, by which the water has not 
 been much, if at all, reduced below its original height, and 
 cannot be by any means at the command of the ship, or the 
 military force on l)oard. The valves communicating between 
 the forward compartment and the steam-pumps cannot be 
 opened, as these are required to keep the furnaces free from 
 water having access to them by other leakages, the nature of 
 wdiich the undersigned have no means of ascertaining. 
 
 "The bailing and pumping have been carried on in smooth 
 water, with the ship on an even keel, and the former could 
 not be continued at all in a heavy sea. 
 
 ' ' The quartermaster reports to us that we have only an 
 allow^ance of bread for five days, and our other provisions, he 
 thinks, are under water forward.
 
 658 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 "In view of these facts, the undersigned have formed the 
 opinion unanimously and most unqualifiedly that the shij) is 
 not in a condition to continue her voyage, except to a near 
 port, and that only under convoy of a ship which could render 
 us any needed assistance, or could cover us with her guns, if 
 we should l)e compelled to abandon the steamer, and make a 
 landing on a hostile coast. 
 
 " The undersigned have been forced to the conclusion that 
 it is expedient to make the attem)3t to reach another anchor- 
 age, our present position l)eing an open roadstead, where the 
 ship cannot lie in a southeast gale. Most respectfully, 
 Your obedient servant, 
 Neal Dow, Col. 13th Maine Reg. Vol. 
 Henry L. Sturgis, Acting-Master U. S. ^. 
 Cardinal H. Conant, Caj)t. 31st Reg. Mass. Vol.'" 
 
 This report General Butler sent to Captain Glisson, 
 of the Mount Vernon, with the following note: 
 
 "Headquarters Expeditionary Corps, ^ 
 On Board Ste\mer Mississippi, > 
 Off Cape Fear, N. C, March 1, 1862. ) 
 Commander O. S. Glisson. U. S. Navy. 
 
 Sir: — I respectfully rec^uest that you will, in view of the 
 disabled condition of this ship, accompany us with the Mount 
 Vernon as a convoy to Port Boyal, S. C, or to such other 
 point intermediate as may liereafter be decided upon. 
 I am, Sir, very respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 Benj. F. Butler, Major General. 
 P. S. I send herewith copy of report of board of survey, 
 this day convened Ijv my order. 
 
 B. F. Butler." 
 
 To thiy request Cai)tain Glisson assented, and also 
 detailed from his ship Acting-Master Henry L. Sturgis 
 to take charge of the Mississippi. 
 
 At our anchorage off Cape Fear we were near Fort 
 Caswell, on which at daylight the Confederate flag 
 was in full sight — and such a galloping about as 
 there was of horsemen and hurried driving here and 
 there of wagons, and such colunuis of smoke as were
 
 OF NEAL DOW. (359 
 
 made to rise as signals were all very agreeable to see. 
 It indicated that while we were very much troubled 
 with our crippled condition so near a hostile shore, 
 they were alarmed by our proximity to them. It was 
 a case where both sides desired to be let alone. 
 
 They took us, no doubt, to be a man-of-war, full of 
 troops, and supposed that it was our intent to shell 
 them out of their mud fort and then to occupy it 
 ourselves. They did not know that we were a dis- 
 tressed body of castaways, in a ship with the forward 
 compartment filled with water, that we were two feet 
 down by the head, with a list of two streaks to port, 
 and that we were in no condition to fight even a fish- 
 ing smack armed with a rifled twelve-pounder. 
 
 We were well off, considering where we had been, 
 but they could hardly have expected that we had run 
 uix)n Frying Pan Shokiihin broad day and a clear sun, 
 with a lighthouse in plain sight, and two buoys in 
 full view marking out the channel. That shore is as 
 well known to all good seamen as is Faneuil Hall to 
 Bostonians; in fact, in being there we were a hundred 
 miles out of our way. 
 
 Our Confederate neighbors were evidently relieved, 
 as we were not, when the Mount Vernon went off sea- 
 ward out of view. But the sensation was reversed 
 when in a few hours she returned with an English 
 schooner in toAV which she had caught trying to run 
 the blockade. The prize was loaded with coffee, salt, 
 sugar and fruit. 
 
 After the report of the board of inquiry referred to 
 we proceeded to Port Royal under convoy of the 
 Mount Vernon. When off Charleston the Mount Ver- 
 non was two miles in our wake, and one of the 
 blockading vessels, evidently supposing her to be pur-
 
 660 REMINISCENCES 
 
 suing us, started and came down upon us to cut us off, 
 but when near enough to see what we were sheered 
 off and waited for our protecting gunboat to come up. 
 
 Arriving at Port Royal we disembarked, and a 
 hard time we had. However, the work was finally 
 accomplished with the aid of some boat crews sent to 
 our assistance from a man-of-war. I appropriated for 
 the use of my men a long, low shed, newly built by 
 the government for the storage of hay. It was only 
 a roof set up on posts, with poles for a floor. We 
 arranged the bales of hay in a rampart on the wind- 
 ward side — a stiff gale was blowing, with a little rain 
 — then, covering the pole floor with boards, we had a 
 palace. 
 
 We had hardly more than anchored there when a 
 sutler's schooner came alongside the Mississippi with 
 liquor to sell. I sent a soldiervr ^i board to ascertain if 
 liquor was for sale there, and,' finding that to be the 
 case, despatched an officer with my compliments to the 
 captain, and the message that if he sold any liquor at 
 all I would have him tied to our masthead. There 
 was no trouble from that source. 
 
 While at Port Royal, a son of Noah Smith, of 
 Calais, Me., called upon me. He told me that there 
 were two men in prison and in irons there for selling 
 liquor. One was the captain of a large, fine bark 
 lying there, the other the consignee. This imprison- 
 ment was by order of General Sherman, who would 
 not j)ermit liquor to be sold where he commanded. 
 
 We left Port Royal on the 13th of March. Mean- 
 while I had been transferred with the four companies 
 of the Thirteenth Maine to the steamer Matanzas. 
 She was not as good a ship as the Mississippi, but she 
 had a more careful and competent captain. After we
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 661 
 
 left her, the unfortunate, or ill-commanded, Missinsippi 
 got aground once more. It may be noted, by the way, 
 that afterwards the unlucky craft got into trouble at 
 Ship Island. In a gale she ran amuck among the 
 shipping there and smashed things up in fearful style. 
 The superstitiously inclined attributed it to her being- 
 launched on Friday. Certain it was that she sailed 
 on a Friday from Boston, was upon Frying Pan Shoals 
 on a Friday, and had her trouble at Ship Island on a 
 Friday. 
 
 I found that Captain Liesegang, of the Matanzas, 
 was a man after my own heart on the subject of 
 liquor. He would not tolerate it on his ship. He 
 said that he once saw in mid-ocean an English vessel 
 flying a signal of distress. He bore down upon her 
 and hove tp, supposing she was suffering for want of 
 food or water, or fi\m some other great calamity. 
 But no, a boat was put off to his ship, to beg, or bor- 
 row or buy some whiskey. Their supply had been 
 exhausted three days before, and they could stand the 
 abstinence no longer. He told them that he had no 
 whiskey, never carried any, but could give them a 
 better article, whereat the boarding-officer was very 
 profuse in his thanks, supposing that it must at least 
 be brandy. He was much disgusted when Captain 
 Liesegang returned from his cabin with a bundle of 
 tracts, telling John Bull he would find them better 
 than whiskey. 
 
 The evening before our departure from Port Eoyal 
 an officer from General Butler came on board, accom- 
 panied by the captain of the Mississippi, and said that 
 he desired to speak to me privately. He put an order 
 in my hands from the General, committing the captain 
 to my care, with instructions not to permit him to 
 
 i3
 
 662 EEMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 
 
 leave the ship. Many rumort^ were in circulation as 
 to the cause of the mishap which befell the Missis- 
 sippi under his charge, and while I fully approved of 
 deposing the captain I regretted that he was placed 
 in my keeping. In explanation of the grounding on 
 Frying Pan Shoals he said that the rifles of the 
 soldiers on the ship had affected the compasses so 
 much as to change her course. That was possible, 
 but when he found himself one hundred miles out 
 of his reckoning, and Cape Fear light directly before 
 him in broad day, with the edge of a shoal under 
 foot, the rifles did not compel him to keep on, and 
 could not have prevented him from stopping short 
 and sounding, as he should have done. 
 
 I found Captain Liesegang a true sailor, vigilant 
 and intelligent in his profession, though his oppor- 
 tunities for obtaining knowl,fAge outside of that 
 had been limited. We found to our great advantage 
 that he liked a good table, and nothing was lacking 
 in that particular. 
 
 On the Matanzas there was room and opportunity 
 for re-establishing discipline and enforcing rules as 
 to keeping the arms and equipments in order. In a 
 day or two the rifles, which had become badly rusted 
 from their exposure and neglect on the Mississippi, 
 were in perfect condition, and everything else was 
 speedily set to rights. 
 
 We arrived at Ship Island on the 20th of March, 
 my birthday, and found the other six companies of 
 the regiment there, they having had a passage with- 
 out unusual incident.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 IN CAMP AT SHIP ISLAND. MY ANTISLAVEKY SYMPATHIES 
 AND POLICY. EMPLOYMENT OF NEGROES AS SOL- 
 DIERS.. HOSTILITY TO ME EXCITED BY 
 MY OBSERVANCE OF ARMY REG- 
 ULATIONS AS TO LIQUOR. 
 
 We Avent into camp at Ship Island as soon as 
 possible after our arrival. Soon after I landed 
 General Butler sent for me, and we had a very 
 pleasant interview, far different from that at For- 
 tress Monroe when he first came on board the 
 Mississippi. This is what I wrote at the time of 
 our meeting at Ship Island: 
 
 " General Butler was very courteous and polite, asking my 
 opinion and professing to defer to my judgment. He asked me 
 if I would' be willing to go to Galveston with Captain Fulton 
 in command. I said yes, especially if Captain Sturgis (the 
 sailing-master of the Mount Vernon) could go as adviser. 
 The General replied that he would not be willing to go with 
 him as captain, but he would be willing to go with me as 
 captain. If he was sincere, 1 must have inspired him with 
 confidence at the time of the Frying Pan Shoals incident. If 
 he was not sincere, I do not know^ what motive he may have 
 for endeavoring to please me with such a remark." 
 
 There was nothing to do except to prepare my 
 regiment as fully as possible for whatever duty it
 
 664 REMINISCENCES 
 
 might be called upon to perform. In this work 
 my efforts were so heartily seconded by the field 
 and most of the line officers that the Thirteenth 
 became marked for the perfection of its drill, the 
 thoroughness of its discipline, the cleanliness and 
 good order of its camp and the excellent morale 
 of its men. It goes without saying that there 
 was, to my knowledge, no drunkenness in my 
 regiment. 
 
 On the 28th of March, 1862, General Butler issued 
 the following order: 
 
 "Headquarters Department of the Gulf, > 
 Ship Island, March 28, 1862. 5 
 General Orders No. 7. 
 
 It has come to the knowledge of the comnianding-genoral 
 that, notwithstanding all his efforts to prevent the introduc- 
 tion of intoxicating liquors into this island and among his 
 command to l)e used as a beverage, we are still followed by 
 this curse of the army. Forbidden by every regulation, pro- 
 hibited by official authority, condemned by experience, it 
 still clings to the soldier, although more deadly in this climate 
 than the rifle. All sales, therefore, in this department will be 
 punished by immediate expulsion of the party offending, if a 
 civilian, by court martial if an officer or soldier. All intoxi- 
 cating liquors kept for sale or to be used as a beverage will 
 be seized and destroyed or confiscated to hospital uses. 
 By command of Major-General Butler, 
 
 Geo. C. Strong, A. A. General.^' 
 
 In a letter of the same date, commenting on that 
 order, I wrote, "In other regiments there has been 
 some intoxication, to what extent I do not know, 
 but in the Thirteenth Maine not a single case." 
 The army regulations on this point were all the 
 more easily enforced in its ranks because of the 
 cordial co-operation of my officers, and also, Avith- 
 out doubt, because the men were confident that 
 there were no private supplies of liquor for their
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 665 
 
 commander. The same was true almost to the same 
 extent as to profanity, of which there was very little. 
 That, too, was prohibited by the regulations, and 
 I insisted on the observance of the rule. I had had 
 occasion on the Matanzas to reprove a sergeant of 
 one of my companies for that vice, and had improved 
 the opportunity to call the attention of my command 
 to the army regulations and to convince them that 
 the offense would not be lightly overlooked. Here, 
 too, the officers of the Thirteenth generally aided 
 in setting a good example, and in other ways making- 
 it easy to enforce the rule. The following quotation 
 is from a letter written to my home on the l7th of 
 May, 1862: 
 
 ' ' The naval and military service of every country in time 
 of war is corrupting to both officers and men engaged in it, 
 and must always be so. I do not believe there is a regiment 
 in the world where the influences are better than in the Thir- 
 teenth Maine, where the officers generally set a better 
 example and in which there are fewer men of lax morals and 
 manners. At a court martial lately where were present seven 
 colonels, I remarked that I had never heard a profane word 
 from any of my officers, that I never permitted a profane 
 word in my hearing from any soldier without reproof and 
 rebuke, and that lately I had heard none at all. The man 
 from whom I last heard profanity I ordered to stand on a 
 barrel head one hour as a ])unishnient, and I have heard none 
 since. One colonel remarked that it would require all the 
 barrels on the island to accommodate the swearers in his 
 regiment. Perhaps the headquarters' example was not what it 
 should be." 
 
 Of course I did not swear, and made it a point 
 never to speak to any officer or man with abusive 
 tone or manner. If there was occasion to correct 
 an officer, it was always done quietly and privately, 
 and that rule I required other officers in my regiment 
 to observe in all their dealings with the soldiers.
 
 666 REMINISCENCES 
 
 The self-respect of officers and men was thus pre- 
 served, and, as a result, everything was more orderly 
 and soldierly than was the case in some regiments 
 where nearly every word of command to a subor- 
 dinate was given in an insulting manner, while 
 necessary correction or reproof was administered 
 in a coarse, brutal way, accompanied with volleys 
 of oaths. Nevertheless, I was very particular to 
 maintain discipline as exact and punctilious as in the 
 regulars. This is not easy among volunteers not 
 likely to recognize the importance of little things, 
 and who are soldiering temporarily, hoping and 
 expecting the war soon to end that they may return 
 to their vocations. 
 
 On one occasion I woke at night and found it 
 raining. Seeing no sentinel at his accustomed post, 
 I investigated and learned that the officer of the 
 guard had called in all the sentries when it com- 
 menced to rain, and the entire camp was unguarded. 
 That struck me as being so comical that I could not 
 control my laughter sufficiently to scold at a blunder 
 gross enough certainly to call for severe reproof. 
 And yet reference to another of my letters, under 
 date of July 1, 1862, shows that I, too, could relax 
 in discipline when it seemed safe to do so. 
 
 " This afternoon we had a rain squall. Oh, how black it 
 was ! How it blew, and how it did rain ! I called my senti- 
 nel in under the shelter of my ' fly.' I wonder what Mr. 
 Russell, of the Timefi, would say to that. He would make a 
 laugh out of it, at the unmilitary fashions of the Yankees. 
 It isn't a fashion at all. I suppose no general ever did it 
 before, and yet, away oflf here, not in the face of an enemy, I 
 did it as so much toward preservint; the health of the man. 
 It is said of Washington that durinir the terrible winter at 
 Valley Forge he came out one cold morning alter l)reakfast 
 and asked his sentinel if he had breakfasted. ' No, General,'
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 667 
 
 was the answer. ' Go in, my good fellow, and Mrs. Wa.sh- 
 ington will give you a warm breakfast, and let me have your 
 musket and stand guard awhile ! ' And he did. I have been 
 in the house where this occurred, and stood on the broad door- 
 stone where Washington acted as sentry before his own quar- 
 ters. Many offers have been made for the purchase of that 
 stone, but the owner values it above money." 
 
 Every evening at dress parade, so long as I remained 
 with the regiment, there were religious exercises, 
 singing and prayers before the parade was dismissed. 
 This was doubtless irksome to some, but on the whole 
 it had an excellent effect. I was anxious to show, 
 and did so to my satisfaction, that brutality, coarse- 
 ness, drunkenness, profanity and other vices common 
 in camp life were not necessary to make good soldiers. 
 Meanwhile the strictest attention was also paid to all 
 the ordinary routine of a well-ordered camp. 
 
 During my stay on Ship Island there was not much 
 else to do, and all my time that could be spared from 
 the details of the work required to accomplish this 
 was devoted to the study of military works, to writing 
 letters for publication in Great Britain for the purpose 
 already alluded to, and to correspondence with my 
 family. My sojourn here extended from the 20th of 
 March to the 12th of July, and almost every evening, 
 from supper to bedtime, was given to such work. 
 Every day we had ' ' news " — we knew not from where 
 — of more or less consequence. It is a matter for 
 astonishment, not that we got so little reliable 
 information as to what had really been done by our 
 comrades in arms in other departments, but that so 
 many rumors of important events should get credence 
 among us. 
 
 Two or three times prior to my departure from the 
 island the whole camp was alive with the joyful
 
 668 REMINISCENCES 
 
 expectation of a speedy termination of the war, 
 based upon the reported capture of Richmond and 
 other serious Confederate reverses. So convinced 
 were we of the truth of those reports, that on the 20th 
 of May, 1862, the day after receiving my commission 
 as brigadier-general, I wrote: 
 
 " I had thought very little about my nomination as such, as 
 I supposed there might be doubt about the continuation, since 
 the war is so nearly ended." 
 
 There was opportunity at Ship Island to give 
 prominence, in a small way, to the antislavery 
 character and effect of the war, and this some 
 time before the administration came to view it in 
 that light. Negroes were constantly escaping to 
 my camp from the mainland, and were always 
 kindly received. Places were found for them where 
 they could be of service to us and earn something 
 for themselves. On one occasion, at Pass Christian, 
 just as our boat, in which, with six companies of the 
 "Thirteenth," I was making an excursion, touched 
 the wharf, a negro came running to our steamer 
 at the top of his speed, chased by his "massa." 
 The former jumped on board; not so the latter, 
 who turned back, leaving the negro, thenceforth, 
 to all intents, dead to him, in our hands. 
 
 On another occasion, at Pass Christian, I was 
 sitting on a veranda with several prominent citizens 
 as my regiment passed. The soldiers were accom- 
 panied by a negro who had escaped to Ship Island 
 from that place but a day or two before. One of 
 the gentlemen noticed him and said: "That is Mr. 
 So-and-so's boy. It is aggravating to see him there." 
 "Yes," I said, "it must be very vexatious." "Now, 
 won't you give him up ? It would have an excellent
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 669 
 
 effect, and show the people that the war is not really 
 for abolition, as they now believe, and as tliis inci- 
 dent will assure them that it is." "No, I cannot 
 give him up, as there is no law for it. The fugitive 
 slave law provides for the recovery of slaves escaping 
 from one state to another, which does not cover this 
 case." "Yes, but we have laws covering the cases 
 of all escaped slaves." "That is true, but I owe no 
 allegiance to Mississippi laws, and am here in con- 
 travention of them." "Well, General Butler has 
 surrendered several slaves who have escaped to his 
 camp." " So I hear, but he is a major-general, and 
 can venture to take responsibilities that I cannot." 
 
 My visit to Pass Christian was occasioned by a 
 report that some of its citizens had been seriously 
 maltreated for bringing fruits and vegetables to sell 
 to us at Ship Island, and some for only speaking to 
 our officers and soldiers. In a little meeting in a 
 grove, I spoke to them from an Indian mound — the 
 same spot on which General Taylor made the only 
 speech of his life — and warned them very clearly 
 and emphatically that there must be no repetition 
 of such an offense, and that no man would be per- 
 mitted by me to suffer at their hands for his Union 
 sympathies. The result was a very earnest promise 
 of better conduct. It had its effect, for a few days 
 after our vegetable man came and said he was not 
 molested there and that he would continue to supply 
 us. 
 
 All my antislavery convictions were strengthened, 
 and all my natural sympathies for the slaves were 
 aroused by incidents which were constantly occur- 
 ring. From a letter before me written on the 21st 
 of June, 1862, I quote:
 
 670 REMINISCENCES 
 
 "A nesro, about twenty-five years old, came in to-day 
 from Mobile. He worked his way to Biloxi, a])out seventy 
 miles, there got a little dugout, hardly larger than a l)read- 
 trough, with two little oars, and in it he came over the bay, 
 fourteen miles, to us. The wind came up high. It was in 
 the night, and the waves rose. He was guided by a star. 
 His boat overturned, he lost his oars, and, in the confusion, 
 lost also his star. After a great deal of trouble, he got the 
 water out of his boat, crawled in again and paddled with his 
 hands. That is all. 
 
 " He came to my office, wet, tired, but so bright and glad. 
 He is a very happy darkey. They threatened to hang him 
 because of his loyal sympathies, and he determined to join 
 the Yankees. Straight as an arrow, lithe as a leopard, he is 
 quite able to take good care of himself. He told me that he 
 had been a wagoner for the Confederates and was at Cor- 
 inth at the l)attlc. If he were a white man, and had done 
 all this for lil)erty, he would be lionized as a hero. 
 
 " Alone in the dark, on a stormy sea, ignorant of the way, 
 in a craft no better than a watering-trough, overset by the 
 boisterous waves, clinging to his little shallop, struggling 
 successfully to free it from the water, paddling with his hands 
 for liberty — whither God only knew, as he had lost the star 
 — wet, weary and doubting; overturned the second time, 
 now struggling for his life; successful once more in righting 
 his tiny craft and getting the water out, and now, aided by 
 the coming day, he reaches his desired haven, paddling all the 
 wdiile WMth his hands. If a white man had done so nmch, or 
 half, he would be justly regarded by everybody as very brave. 
 This poor ])lack is nothing but a slave. There are many, 
 even in the North, who would say, ' Give him the lash !' " 
 
 Again, from a letter written on tlie lOth of July, 
 1862: 
 
 " A contraband has just arrived. He came from Missis- 
 sippi, one hundred miles in the interior, to the coast, picking 
 his way along to avoid ]>eing seized. He found a l)it of a 
 skiff and took it, i)addling away for dear life — or liberty, 
 which is dearer — without ever having seen salt water before, 
 or knowing which way to go to find the Yankees. By and 
 by, he saw land, Cat Island, and went on shore to build a fire 
 and cook his little dinner and rest. When he went back to 
 the shore, his little skiff was gone, and he was imprisoned
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 671 
 
 there, the island being uninhabited, until to-day, when we 
 brought him off. All for liberty ! If he were only an Anglo- 
 Saxon ! But he is only a negro. By his dress I judge him 
 to be a plantation negro. He is tall, athletic, bright and intel- 
 ligent, twenty-five or thirty years old, and in the ' good old 
 times when cotton was king' was valued at, })erhaps, from 
 twelve hundred to fifteen hundred or more, dollars. Doubt- 
 less some of our friends will hold me heartless because I do 
 not shed tears of sympathy for those who have lost such 
 a valuable piece of property, and say I am wrong not to issue 
 an order which would be more agreeable to the ' massa ' than 
 to the slave." 
 
 I was glad to encourage these people to come. 
 They were escaping from slavery to freedom. All 
 my past as a man led me to sympathize with them 
 on that account. I had military reasons, also, for 
 my course in this. Those negroes were able to relieve 
 our soldiers of much work in a climate to which they 
 were not accustomed, thus sparing their health and 
 strength for the work of the government. 
 
 In a letter to my family, I find, under date of Sep- 
 tember 5, 1862: 
 
 " Slavery is about played out here. Two contrabands 
 wanted to go up river, forty miles, and get their families. I 
 gave them a pass to go and retmni. They did not get their 
 families, as all the slaveholders rallied to prevent, and were 
 going to seize the men, who showed my pass, and their mas- 
 ters dared not touch them. They came back in open day, two 
 ' fifteen-hundred dollar darkies !' The slaveholders gave Gen- 
 eral Dow a very particular blessing as a ' nigger thief,' but 
 respected the pass." 
 
 I believed from the beginning in the policy of 
 enlisting the negroes as soldiers, and, in a letter 
 written under date of June 9, 1862, now before me, 
 wrote, referring to the number of slaves that had 
 escaped to my camp: 
 
 "If we had enough of them here, I would like very much 
 to put them under drill to see what we could make of them.
 
 672 REMINISCENCES 
 
 I have no doubt but that they would make excellent soldiers, 
 strong, active, hardy, patient and willing to learn, and espec- 
 ially to tight for liberty. I would like to try a regiment or 
 brigade of them very nmch, and if the war is to go on it will 
 certainly come to that. 
 
 '' I have let the captain of the war-ship Morning Light have 
 a full boat's crew of darkies, all jet black, twelve in number, 
 and a very tine crew it is." 
 
 In a letter, written under date of July 22, 1862, from 
 Fort St. Philip, I find the following: 
 
 "Yesterday morning a steamer from New Orleans came 
 here with al)out one hundred and fifty contrabands with a let- 
 ter from General Phelps suggesting that they would make 
 good artillerists. I answered that I would pick out crews for 
 a couple of guns, train them carefully and try the experiment, 
 and that I had no scruples in employing any muscle in this 
 war that is ready, willing and able to fight." 
 
 And this reminds me that for some time after 
 arriving at Fort St. Philip, and until I could instruct 
 them, there was no man among my soldiers who knew 
 how to load or to fire a cannon, and I was obliged at 
 first to do this in person to show them how, but soon 
 got some very respectable gunners. Later still, in 
 August, when there was a rumor that Fort St. Philip 
 was to be attacked, I telegraphed to New Orleans for 
 one hundred more negroes and a full supply of 
 boarding-pikes with which to arm them. 
 
 In the meantime, some of those negroes had become 
 fairly efficient gunners, and on the 13th of August, 
 1862, I had the pleasure, on the occasion of a call of 
 Admiral Farragut upon me, to give him the first 
 salute he received from the army as "Admiral," he 
 having hoisted his broad pennon the day before. He 
 apijeared particularly pleased when told of what 
 material I had made the gunners who had fired the 
 salute.
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 673 
 
 The Admiral I judged to be about my own age, 
 shorter and lighter than I, and very active and wiry 
 and full of spirit. We became very good friends, and 
 frequently exchanged calls. We had many confiden- 
 tial chats about the policies and methods adopted in 
 the conduct of the war, as to which we were in full 
 accord. He was not at all pleased with the efforts in 
 some quarters to deprive the navy of the credit of the 
 capture of New Orleans. 
 
 There are many who would take with much allow- 
 ance what I might say about the damage suffered at 
 times by the Union cause through intemperance, but 
 Admiral Farragut was very emphatic in his expres- 
 sions of regret and disgust at the embarrassment and 
 loss because of the drinking habits of many officers, 
 both in the army and navy. 
 
 The Admiral had a great contempt for iron-clad 
 rams, saying that they were clumsy and unwieldy. 
 He had his own ship closely plated with heavy chains 
 on the sides opposite the boilers. This, he told me, 
 he had found to be very useful, as in other places she 
 had been much cut up by shot and shell which had 
 struck her. 
 
 In August, 1862, I wrote: 
 
 "I have now three hundred loyal blacks at this fort (St. 
 Philip) and say about one hundred and fifty at Fort Jackson. 
 What is to become of them when we move is a grave question. 
 I do not know how to solve it with any light I have at pres- 
 ent. With a proclamation of emancipation, which must and 
 will come, all would be easy and simple. After the war, the 
 negroes' labor will be a necessity here upon the plantations, 
 and much more with it." 
 
 Again, under date of September 1, 1862: 
 
 " They (the negroes) come in such numl)ers that we cannot 
 find profitable and regular employment for them, and their
 
 674 REMINISCENCES 
 
 keep' is becoming very costly. I see no way of speedily 
 solving this question without a military enrollment and 
 employment. In that way we could make them earn their 
 keep immediately, and I am confident that we could make 
 good soldiers of all the young negroes, at a vast saving to the 
 (government and to the consternation of the Confederates. 
 
 "Nothing, in ray opinion, would go so far to compel the 
 substantial men in the South into speedy submission as a vig- 
 orous and systematic enrollment, arming and training of the 
 negroes. I feel confident that this must come before the 
 rebellion will be or can l)e suppressed, and I regret exceed- 
 ingly that we must spend yet hundreds of millions and sacrifice 
 thousands of lives before the northern mind will come to that 
 point, or the administration can see it." 
 
 While writing in that vein, I was also doing all that 
 I could to abolish slavery as to individuals. The 
 negroes soon learned that I was friendly to them, and 
 manifested their appreciation of it in a great variety 
 of ways. Here is an incident taken from a letter 
 written in October, 1862, from Pensacola: 
 
 " A very good looking woman came here a few days ago 
 and said she was keeping house, earning money and paying 
 wages to her master. I told her she might or might not con- 
 tinue at that, as she pleased. She said her master had her 
 two children, ten and eight years old. I told her I could do 
 nothing about that, but if she could get them quietly into her 
 apartments I would protect them there. Yesterday she came 
 and said she had the children, but Master came and ' twitched ' 
 them away and whipped them. I instantly sent an orderly 
 with her and recovered the children. The master came, but I 
 told him plainly that slavery would meet with no protection 
 or favor from me. He said he gave nine hundred dollars for 
 the woman and four hundred and fifty dollars for the children. 
 I asked him how nmch he would give for another lot like 
 them, and he said, ' nothing.' He saw that that kind of 
 property was no longer of value." 
 
 Again, in a letter written in November, 1862, refer- 
 ence is made to a conversation with a Union man who 
 asked me for permission to " persuade " his negroes,
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 675 
 
 who had escaped into my lines, to return with him. 
 I asked him what kind of persuasion he wished to 
 use. He laughed and replied that the southern way 
 of persuading negroes left little to the choice of the 
 subjects of it. When I told him that I could not 
 permit that kind of persuasion he said that nothing 
 less would answer his purpose, and we laughingly 
 changed the subject, and he did not attempt to 
 "persuade" his slaves to return. 
 
 After my promotion to brigadier-general, whether 
 in command at Ship Island, at the forts on the 
 Mississippi, at Pensacola or at Carrolton, my policy 
 in dealing with the people of the district under my 
 charge was to exercise the utmost solicitude for the 
 safety and comfort of Union sympathizers, black or 
 white, (and there were not a few of the latter) and 
 to be as considerate as possible of the poor and 
 ignorant whites who had been led into the war, 
 and to make our presence as uncomfortable as pos- 
 sible — modified only by humane considerations — for 
 the open and avowed opponents of our government. 
 Nevertheless, in all my personal intercourse with 
 the Confederates I was as courteous and consider- 
 ate as possible, and never heard of one falling into 
 my hands who professed to have cause for complaint. 
 
 Political prisoners committed to my care for no 
 other reason than their anti-Union opinions, or to 
 prevent their rendering aid to the enemy, and of 
 whom there were many thorough gentlemen, were 
 shown every consideration consistent with the pur- 
 pose for which they were held. So long as they 
 observed the necessary restrictions pertaining to 
 their situation, they were made as comfortable as 
 possible. When in my turn I was a prisoner of
 
 676 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 war, some of those who had been in my custody 
 as prisoners, among them Mayor Monroe, of New 
 Orleans, took great pains *to reciprocate by their 
 kind attentions as far as practicable what they 
 were pleased to term my kindnesses to them, and 
 through their influence I was made much more com- 
 fortable than would otherwise have been the case. 
 
 Among our own ofiicers I was brought in contact, 
 of course, with those who did not agree with me 
 as to liquor, profanity, slavery or the treatment 
 of negroes who had escaped from their masters. 
 With many of these I was on good terms person- 
 ally, our difiierences of opinion not affecting our 
 relations in the least. There were some, however, 
 who seemed to live on liquor and to gather strength 
 from it for their chief accomplishment, profanity; 
 and between such and myself there could be no 
 agreeable intercourse. Some of them went out of 
 their way to make me a butt for all sorts of jokes, 
 and others even sought to annoy and insult me. 
 My indifference to all such only served, in some 
 cases, to incite them to greater efforts in the same 
 direction. I am more surprised now than I was 
 at the time by the extent of the trouble some of 
 them took to make my stay in the department as dis- 
 agi-eeable to me as possible. 
 
 On one occasion a party of officers in my brigade 
 arranged for a " good time,'' making out a requisition 
 on the quartermaster for ten gallons of whiskey, "as 
 necessary for their health," and sending it to me for 
 approval, which was refused. Immediately one of 
 the officers called upon me to urge approval. I 
 replied that that was prohibited by a general order 
 of the commanding-general; that we were doing our
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 677 
 
 best to correct and prevent drunkenness among the 
 soldiers, and we could do it easier if they understood 
 that the same rules applied to officers; and, besides, 
 that the whiskey in the quartermaster's hands was 
 for use in the hospitals and not for the purpose for 
 which they wished it. 
 
 The requisition was not approved, and several of 
 the disappointed applicants became very bitter, and 
 afterwards had opportunities, which they improved, 
 to subject me to great inconvenience. One of them, 
 while serving as a staff-officer, filled out an order 
 whereby I was sent on horseback, twenty-four miles, 
 on a mission that might have been performed as well 
 by an orderly. He got the order signed by the com- 
 manding-general, who, afterwards assured me that he 
 had no idea that it was addressed to me. 
 
 That was far from being the most annoying of 
 the vexations which such officers were providing at 
 every opportunity for "that temperance crank and 
 abolitionist. General Dow." Some of these men 
 actually thought, so they said, that it was better 
 for an officer to be frequently so drunk as to be 
 incapable of duty than not to use intoxicants at 
 all. Some of them were naturally good fellows, 
 had had early advantages and had been well 
 brought up, but their drinking habits had so 
 grown upon them that they had become coarse, 
 vulgar, brutal in appearance and conversation, and 
 had reached a point where they probably thought 
 that to be a gentleman one must drink, to be 
 emphatic and decided one must swear, and that it 
 was becoming to an officer to be rude, insulting and 
 abusive to the soldiers under his command. 
 
 While referring to the habits in this particular of
 
 678 REMINISCENCES 
 
 some officers, I am reminded that even those of us who 
 did not drink at all were often -made the subjects of 
 misleading stories. Occasionally a newspaper corre- 
 spondent amused himself and the readers of his 
 journal with a canard at my expense, and some of 
 these were taken up and circulated over the English- 
 speaking world. Some of them were ill-natured and 
 false in whole and in part, without a shadow of foun- 
 dation, others good-natured and funny, with enough 
 of truth as a basis to make them really amusing. It 
 is hardly worth space to refer to any of these particu- 
 larly, but one incident occurred which I thought 
 worthy in an idle moment of mention in a letter 
 written from the City Hotel, New Orleans, on the 13th 
 of July, 1862, to my home circle, naturally interested 
 in the most insignificant details of my daily life: 
 
 " The head waiter, a darkey, is a character, and is very 
 deferential to the ' General,' and hopes he is ' comfortable.' 
 This afternoon he brought me a pitcher of ice water, and, 
 with Landlord Woodward's compliments, a tumbler of mint 
 julc[), iced, minted and dusted with pulverized sugar, and 
 with a glass tube, ' all ready.' He waited as if to see me 
 take it, but I told him to set it down, which he did. Just 
 before dinner, he came up to notify me that dinner was almost 
 ready, and, seeing the julep, said : ' Oh, dat's all dead now !' 
 *Well,' I said, ' I never drink at all.' 'Ah, I fought j^ou 
 was one o' dem dat indulged.' ' No, I never do.' ' Oh, all 
 right.' ' Yes, I mean to keep all right.' ' Yah I yah ! ' Exit 
 waiter with the ' dead ' julep, to appear probably at the bar 
 with an empty glass." 
 
 Having gossiped to that extent of a trivial matter 
 which might amuse my family, I thought no more 
 about it. But it was not long before many of the 
 papers were telling a story something like it, and 
 commenting upon it. Here is the first form in which 
 it was published, clipped from a New York paper:
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 679 
 
 " A day or two ago my eyes were attracted by a diminutive 
 little man, carrying the significant shoulder-strap of a briga- 
 dier-general. I had great confidence in his skill and courage 
 and in his military knowledge, for I knew that ]\Iarion was 
 small in body, and so was Dr. Watts. The general came to 
 my hotel and proceeded upstairs. In a few moments, the 
 attentive landlord, hearing that he had a live brigadier-general 
 in the house, without asking the clerk for his name, only 
 asked for his number, which obtaining, said landlord rushed 
 into the bar-room, and had a julep mixed, of standard 
 strength, and ornamented with an immense amount of 
 ' greens,' which ostentatiously stuck up, making the ' institu- 
 tion ' look more like a flower-pot than a genial beverage. 
 This chemical and vegetable combination, sustained by a 
 waiter of unusual politeness, was handed in to ' 21 ' with the 
 landlord's compliments. 
 
 "In due course of time the tumbler returned as dry as a 
 gourd, the mint all wilted ; in fine, it seemed as if a sirocco 
 had passed over it. And what of that? Only, gentle reader, 
 that the general was General Neal Dow, the author of the 
 Maine Liquor Law, the commander at Fort Jackson, whose 
 orderly, no doubt, appropriated to himself the landlord's 
 honest hospitality." 
 
 A lively newspaper man had thus improved a good 
 chance to make a paragraph which he was confident 
 would go the rounds. It did, and was variously 
 commented upon, not always in the good-natured 
 way in which the story was originally told. Here 
 is a sample of many of the comments: 
 
 "This is frightful. Neal Dow% who but a few years ago 
 was not contented unless all mankind forswore eternal enmity 
 to mint juleps and all other peculiar ' wanities ' compounded 
 by liquor-sellers; Neal Dow, who called out the police of 
 Portland to shut up the liquor-shops ; Neal Dow, who was 
 never weary of poking his nose into other people's business, 
 like a true New Englander ; Neal Dow, succumbing before the 
 seductive influence of a mint julep. Oh, tell it not in Gath, 
 and proclaim it not in New England !" 
 
 I am unable to say positively how it was in "Gath," 
 but it was proclaimed in New England and in Old
 
 680 REMINISCENCES 
 
 England as well, and in all her colonies and prov- 
 inces. Wherever there was an editor unfriendly to 
 temperance who thought he could make a point 
 against temperance measures or temperance men, that 
 item was taken up, garbled or embellished, and made 
 to do duty for that purpose. The number and vari- 
 ety of editorial comments upon my alleged fall from 
 grace, and of the letters of inquiry based thereon, 
 received by myself, my family and my friends, was 
 something wonderful to contemplate. 
 
 The story, originating in a desire for "fun," was 
 taken up for other purposes. There were, doubtless, 
 many people who regretfully believed that the temp- 
 tations of army life had led me to abandon the rule 
 of abstinence which had governed me from my youth 
 up. There were others, unquestionably, who busied 
 themselves in circulating the report, quite as regretful 
 that there was no foundation for it. 
 
 And this reminds me of an incident prior to the war 
 illustrating the readiness with which some of the 
 opponents of Prohibition resorted to every means, 
 however false or foul, to injure it. In the latter part 
 of 1859, while walking along a plank, stretched from 
 one beam to another in my tannery, my path was 
 obscured by steam and smoke with which the room at 
 that moment was filled, and, missing my footing, I 
 fell, striking on my head and shoulders upon the 
 stones and bricks, sixteen feet below. My fall was 
 broken somewhat by my striking another beam, and, 
 almost miraculously escaping death, I was stunned, 
 wounded, bruised and lamed. 
 
 The accident was related in the local papers under 
 some such caption as "The Terrible Fall of Neal 
 Dow." That should have been the end of it. An
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 681 
 
 out of town paper, however, either maliciously or 
 facetiously assuming that the "fall" referred to was 
 into habits of intemperance, concocted a story which 
 had the run of the press in this country and England. 
 Here is one form in Avhich it appeared : 
 
 " Neal Dow, of Portland, the father of the 'Maine Law,' 
 has become enslaved by the terrible habit which it has been of 
 late the effort of his life publicly to reform. If this be so, it 
 affords another melancholy example of the inefficiency of 
 legal restraints to preserve the purity or to correct the vicious 
 practices of individual life." 
 
 At this time I happened to be a representative from 
 Portland in the Maine legislature, then in session in 
 Augusta. One of our local papers copied the above, 
 and added: 
 
 ^' Mr. Dow is representing this city in the legislature, and, 
 if the report be true, this ' terrible ' habit must have been 
 acquired within two weeks, since the commencement of the 
 session at Augusta. We were always suspicious that the 
 moral atmosphere of Augusta is corrupting, and the report in 
 relation to our able and efficient representative only confirms 
 our preconceived notions. The legislature should be removed 
 to this city, where the morals and religious training of the 
 members will receive due attention." 
 
 Meanwhile, the charge that I had become a drunk- 
 ard was whirling its way through the press, and at 
 last the matter assumed such proportions that it was 
 thought necessary to pay some attention to it, and so, 
 under date of January 25, 1860, the Portland paper 
 last quoted had the following: 
 
 " Several weeks since Mr. Dow met with a fall from a con- 
 siderable height, and narrowly escaped a serious injury. We 
 
 presumed that the seized upon the fact of the fall — an 
 
 account of which had got into the papers — to perpetrate a 
 joke. We copied the item, and to keep alive the joke ven- 
 tured to attribute the occasion of the fall to the maliffn 
 influences at the state capital, where, as one of the worthy
 
 682 REMINISCENCES 
 
 representatives ol this cit}^ Mr. Dow had domiciled for a fort- 
 night previous to the announcement. It would now seem 
 that this joke has assumed a somewhat serious aspect ; and, 
 lest any one should be at all misled in the matter, we declare 
 in the most unqualified terms that Mr. Dow has not become a 
 victim to the terrible hal)it charged in a Connecticut paper, 
 but is now, as ever, a teetotaler, and not less earnest than 
 ever in advocating the cause of temperance." 
 
 On January 24, 1860, I wrote a letter to my personal 
 
 friend, the late Hon. Bradford E. Wood, of Albany, 
 
 N. Y., whicli was pnblistied, and from wliicli I quote: 
 
 "I need hardly assure you personally, that the imputation 
 is without the slightest foundation. I became a teetotaler in 
 early life, and have remained such unwaveringly to the pres- 
 ent moment, and was never more of a temperance man theo- 
 retically and practically, and a Maine-La w" man, than now." 
 
 The Connecticut paper which started the story 
 afterwards gave me the name of its informant, who 
 proved to be a liquor-seller in Portland who knew it 
 to be false when he wrote it. Neither I nor any 
 friend of mine thought the matter worthy of notice, 
 save that it was being so extensively, and, strange as 
 it may seem, effectively used to throw discredit upon 
 a cause with which my name was connected. 
 
 The "mint julep" story afforded a second oppor- 
 tunity, which was improved by the newspapers, some 
 by mistake, some in jest and some in malice, to spread 
 the report that I had fallen into the drinking habit. 
 I cannot refrain from adding that liad my convictions 
 upon this subject been other than they were, I saw 
 enough of the injurious effects of drinking all about 
 me in the army to have led me to abstain altogether 
 while in the service, if on no other than patriotic 
 grounds, that my example might tend toward check- 
 ing a vice which my superior officer had declared to 
 be the ' ' curse of the army. "
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 683 
 
 Some of my brother officers amused themselves, in a 
 good-natured way, by calling special attention to my 
 abstinence. On one occasion, a grinning waiter 
 walked the length of a large dining-room to my seat 
 at the table, bringing a bottle of champagne, ' ' with 
 
 the best compliments, sah, of Colonel , of de 
 
 ," and by the time the waiter got back to the 
 
 polite colonel with the champagne, my compliments, 
 thanks and declination, the attention of almost 
 everybody in the dining-room had been attracted 
 to the "general that did not drink." 
 
 One day at the close of a review, I was, with 
 other officers, invited into a tent where "refresh- 
 ments " were served. As I chose water, my immediate 
 superior, Major-General T. W. Sherman, an admirable 
 officer, and a perfect gentleman, by the way, urged 
 me very politely to take some whiskey, and playfully 
 tried to pour some into my glass, only desisting when 
 he saw that he was pouring it on the ground. Then 
 he turned to his medical director. Dr. Sanger, a most 
 competent surgeon and physician, from Bangor, in my 
 own state, and said : ' ' Doctor, Greneral Dow has 
 been in the saddle now in the heat for some hours, 
 don't you think that some whiskey will do him 
 good?" "Most assuredly. General," laughingly 
 replied the doctor. ' ' Now, General Dow, what 
 have you to say to that advice ? " asked General 
 Sherman. "Only that some doctors give advice 
 in which I do not believe." 
 
 General Sherman afterwards frequently alluded 
 facetiously to the incident, and all the time we 
 were associated we were on the very best of terms. 
 I am confident that he was not one of those officers 
 who considered that total abstinence from liquor
 
 684 REMINISCENCES 
 
 impaired the capacity of a man to discharge his 
 full duty as a soldier. 
 
 Here I am reminded that, for some weeks while 
 in command at Fort St. Philip, I was seriously ill. 
 One of the Confederate prisoners in my care was 
 a physician of high standing and large practice, and 
 he was called into consultation by the surgeon 
 who had charge of my case — Dr. S. C. Gordon, then 
 the young assistant surgeon of the Thirteenth Maine, 
 now one of the ablest and best known surgeons of 
 New England — as more familiar with the treatment 
 of the disease which, if I remember aright, was 
 called, "Southern Fever." 
 
 This physician prescribed "Scotch ale. " I objected, 
 telling him that undoubtedly the first effect would 
 appear to be beneficial, but that a reaction would 
 soon follow making me worse off than before. He 
 insisted that it was indispensable to my recovery, 
 and I consented to try it. Watching its effects 
 closely, after taking it at three different times with 
 exactly the result I had anticipated, I declined to 
 take more. It is proper for me to add that the 
 doctor was entirely sincere in his belief that the 
 remedy he prescribed would help me, but none the 
 less the result satisfied me that it did no good. 
 
 While in command at Carrolton, above New 
 Orleans, I was cited to appear before a court in 
 that city to answer to a suit brought against me 
 for the value of sugar and other articles seized 
 by an expedition sent out by me under command 
 of Captain Snell, afterwards for a long time judge 
 of a court in the District of Columbia. The special 
 object of the expedition was to obtain sugar for the 
 troops to be used with sour oranges, to make a drink
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 685 
 
 preHcribed by the surgeons for the soldiers, as a pre- 
 ventive of scurvy. It was said that the negroes who 
 accompanied the expedition, and perhaps some of 
 the soldiers, helped themselves to other articles. I 
 paid no attention to the summons, not recognizing 
 the right of any civil court to call me from the 
 post and duty to which I had been assigned by 
 the lawful orders of my superior officer. 
 
 The matter had escaped my mind altogether, when 
 one day a man, representing himself to be a sheriff, 
 or other officer authorized to serve an execution, 
 demanded of me payment of a judgment which 
 had been rendered against me by the court, the 
 summons of which I had ignored. My reply was 
 that the authority of the court under which he 
 was acting was not recognized by me, whereupon 
 he replied that it would be his duty to take what 
 property of mine he could obtain, indicating my 
 horses, my camp equipage, etc. I told him that 
 if his posse was larger than the division under 
 my command he could take the property, otherwise 
 he had better abandon the attempt. No more was 
 heard from him, 
 
 Cfeneral Banks was then in command of the depart- 
 ment, and Colonel Kingman, of the Fifteenth New 
 Hampshire, who was a lawyer, a good soldier and 
 an estimable gentleman, went to him about it, return- 
 ing with the assurance that there was no need to give 
 myself further concern about the matter. Years 
 afterwards that "judgment" was sued in the United 
 States District Court in Maine. The government 
 assumed its defense. It went to the Supreme Court 
 w^here judgment was rendered in my favor, settling a 
 very important principle of law.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIL 
 
 ORDERED TO PORT HUDSON WITH MY COMMAND. RUMORS 
 
 OF A BATTLE. RAPID MARCHING. THE BATTLE 
 
 OF PORT HUDSON. CHARGE OF MY 
 
 BRIGADE. WOUNDED. TAKEN 
 
 PRISONER. 
 
 From a military point of view my service in the 
 army was uneventful. At the forts and at Pensacola, 
 as well as at Ship Island, I was chiefly occupied in 
 caring for the cleanliness of the camp, the health of 
 the troops under my command and in perfecting their 
 discipline and drill. My own Thirteenth Maine, 
 which, when I left it, was not excelled by any 
 regiment in the department in any of the essentials 
 for good service — owing, as I have explained, to the 
 quality of its rank and file and its excellent officers — 
 had been divided and scattered about, company by 
 company. This condition continued for some time. 
 When finally the regiment was brought together 
 again it fully justified the hopes based upon the good 
 material with which its ranks were filled and the 
 capacity and judgment of its officers. 
 
 It fell to my lot, from time to time, to have several 
 regiments, supposed to be in special need of careful
 
 REMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 687 
 
 supervision, under my command. Among tliem 
 were the famous "Billy Wilson's Zouaves," of New 
 York, with which regiment, by the way, I had little 
 trouble, and among its officers were gentlemen with 
 whom I was very glad to associate. One of these, 
 Oliver Matthews, I selected as aide on my staff, and 
 he was afterwards promoted to be my A. A. General, 
 serving as such until my capture near Port Hudson. 
 I also found a very competent clerk in a private of 
 that regiment. He was a German, a graduate of 
 Leipsic university, and, though in the ranks of a 
 regiment notorious for a different kind of material, 
 was entirely sober, and was a religious man. I regret 
 that his name, at this writing, escapes me, for he 
 proved to be very reliable. 
 
 Soon after my promotion to a brigadier-generalship, 
 I was transferred from Ship Island to Fort St. Philip, 
 and from thence was sent to Pensacola, where I was 
 in command for some time, and where I was chiefly 
 occupied in putting the place in a condition to resist 
 an attack from the land side, and in perfecting the 
 efficiency of the troops under my charge. 
 
 In the latter part of January, 1863, I was assigned 
 to the command of the defenses of New Orleans at 
 Carrolton, and remained there in the discharge of the 
 ordinary duties pertaining to such a position until 
 the 21st of the next May. On that date, in pursuance 
 of orders, I started with my brigade for Baton Rouge, 
 en route for Port Hudson. 
 
 We arrived at Springfield Landing, and disem- 
 barked at three P. M. on the 22d of May. At this 
 point heavy firing was heard in the direction of Port 
 Hudson, and I immediately commenced my march 
 toward that place, pushing on as rapidly as possible,
 
 688 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 having been told at tlie Landing tliat a battle was in 
 progress, and that General Auger was hard pressed 
 and sadly in need of reinforcements. None of the 
 regiments in my command had been under fire, but 
 they responded enthusiastically to my call for vigor- 
 ous marching, very much inspirited by the prospect 
 of being of service. After a march of ten miles in 
 less than three hours, over horrible roads, we had 
 news from the front that there was no battle, and 
 halted for a much needed rest, bivouacking at Buhler 
 Plains, seven miles from Port Hudson. 
 I quote from a letter written at the time: 
 
 " My quarters are at a small farm-house. This consists of 
 an open center with a roof over and two small, poor rooms on 
 each side, and a little poor kitchen joining in the rear, with 
 an earthen floor. The whole is made from stutF supplied 
 from oak trees and locked at the corners. Along the front 
 the roof projects ten feet, supported by rough posts. The 
 family consists of fifteen persons, eight of them being little 
 darkies, from two months to twelve years old. They are 
 raised as the ducks and chickens are — for the profit, though 
 it is hard to see where that is in these times." 
 
 Along the line of that march I was accosted by a 
 "native," whose plantation was on our way. He 
 had learned from the advance guard that I was in 
 command of the troops, and hurried to meet me. He 
 told me that he was originally from Maine, where 
 before the days of railroading he was a stage-driver 
 between Portland and Augusta, and that I had been a 
 frequent passenger in his stage, recalling to my mind 
 incidents of some of those trips. He added that he 
 had little expected then to meet me out in Louisiana 
 in military life. 
 
 The next day we moved to within four miles of 
 Port Hudson, arriving there about three, P. M., and
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 689 
 
 immediately formed in two lines of battle, and tlien 
 our men prepared to bivouac in their positions. At 
 General Sherman's request I went with him to recon- 
 noiter the enemy's works, but we got no clear idea 
 of their position or strength. The next day, Sunday, 
 we moved forward two miles nearer Port Hudson. 
 Here I found time to write home, and said: 
 
 "My quarters are in a little shanty made of a few boards 
 laid on the ground, and a few more making a shed roof, put 
 up without nails, and lia])le to be blown down with the first 
 wind, or tumbled down about our ears by the first rude touch. 
 It is held up at the right front corner by a large black stump, 
 against which it is braced by laying boards and fence rails on 
 it in various directions. In front there are stakes driven 
 down at each side, on which we lay a rough board for our 
 table." 
 
 That day I was informed that an assault was likely 
 to be ordered at any time, and was surprised because 
 it seemed to me, from what little I had been able 
 to see of the enemy's position, that it would result 
 only in the useless sacrifice of life. In the letter 
 last mentioned, referring to the probability of an 
 assault within a day or two, I find this: 
 
 "I do not see any great urgency for it, especially as we 
 have entirely cut off the enemy's communication, and with 
 the fall of Vicksburg, which cannot hold out much longer, 
 this place must also come into our hands without bloodshed." 
 
 Ten days later, General Halleck, the general in 
 chief, wrote General Banks from Washington: 
 
 "The moment Vicksburg falls there will be no serious 
 difficul^ty in taking Port Hudson." 
 
 Those opinions were amply justified, for, on the 
 8th of July, upon learning through General Banks 
 that Vicksburg had fallen on the fourth of that 
 month, General Gardner immediately surrendered.
 
 690 REMINISCENCES 
 
 However, my sole duty was to prepare my brigade 
 as speedily as possible for the battle, should an 
 advance be ordered, and Sunday afternoon, with 
 General Sherman, I reconnoitered the ground in my 
 front over which my brigade must pass should an 
 assault be made. What I saw then only confirmed 
 my opinion that the undertaking would be without 
 the slightest prospect of success until the Confederate 
 batteries could be at least partially silenced. General 
 Sherman, who was a graduate of West Point, enter- 
 tained the same opinion. 
 
 There was an open plain of at least five hundred 
 yards to be covered before we could get near enough 
 to see the enemy. This plain was commanded by 
 the sharp-shooters of the Confederates as well as 
 by their artillery. Then there was a gulch to pass 
 through, of which the Confederates had the exact 
 range, and into which, at the proper time, they 
 could drop their shells with deadly effect. They 
 also had advantageous positions from which their 
 sharp-shooters could pick off our officers with ease. 
 If we had had men enough to fill up the gaps made 
 by the losses sure to be sustained in passing through 
 the fire to which we must be subjected, we might, 
 could men be held up to such a hopeless, foolhardy 
 charge, get to the wide, deep ditcli, beyond which 
 were ramparts to be scaled, and behind which was 
 an enemy, so far as General Sherman and I could 
 judge, fully as numerous as we, to keep up a 
 murderous fire — all the more deadly because it 
 would be maintained by men conscious of their own 
 safety behind formidal)le works. 
 
 Under these circumstances, as disclosed to us 
 by our superficial examination. General Sherman
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 691 
 
 expressed himself to me as being strongly opposed 
 to the assault, which had been intimated to him 
 might be made the next day. It would be impos- 
 sible, he said to me, to get veteran troops, inured 
 to fire, up to that ditch through all those obstacles, 
 seen and unseen, much less men who had never 
 been under fire. He expressed the opinion that 
 no attack would be ordered. 
 
 The next morning at four o'clock I was summoned 
 by General Sherman and shown orders for an assault 
 that day, closing with the imperative clause, "Port 
 Hudson must fall to-morrow!" A West Point edu- 
 cation was not necessary to see that under all the 
 circumstances an attack would be worse than folly, 
 but my own opinion to that effect was strengthened 
 by the knowledge that General Sherman held the 
 same view. I at once left his quarters to begin 
 preparations for the assault. Orders were first 
 given me to form a "column of division at half 
 distance," but I was permitted to change that so 
 as to present battalion front, as affording less oppor- 
 tunity for a universal slaughter of our men. General 
 Sherman gave general directions, leaving the details 
 to me. 
 
 My brigade was formed in four lines. This was 
 effected as far as possible under what cover was 
 afforded by some garden trees to protect my men 
 as long as possible from the storm of destruction 
 which I knew would sweep down upon them when 
 they were once fairly in the open. The Sixth 
 Michigan, Colonel Clark, formed the first line; the 
 One Hundred Twenty-eighth New York, Colonel 
 Cowles, the second; then came the Twenty-sixth 
 Connecticut, Colonel Kingsley, in the third line,
 
 692 KEMIXISCENCES 
 
 while the Fifteenth New Hampshire, Colonel King- 
 man, constituted the fourth. Our lines formed, 
 just before ordering the advance I rode along the 
 front with a few words of encouragement. Knowing 
 the utter hopelessness of our undertaking, I could 
 not help noticing and remembering a remark made by 
 a soldier of the Sixth Michigan as I passed. It was, 
 "I guess it's all right, the old man is smiling." 
 
 In the front of the first line were negroes to carry 
 long poles to put across that distant ditch for any 
 of the soldiers who might live to get there to cross 
 upon. That was a cheerless task for those poor 
 fellows, who could not have even such assistance 
 to their courage as the possession of a weapon 
 would give them. But for that matter, no weapon 
 was to be of use until the ditch could be crossed. 
 Next to those negroes was a forlorn hope of one 
 hundred and thirty men, volunteers, under com- 
 mand of Captain Stark, of the Sixth Michigan. 
 While the brigade was forming, several of our 
 mounted ofiicers were exposed, and attracted the fire 
 of sharp-shooters who had been moved forward by the 
 enemy for that purpose, and some companies of the 
 128th New York were thrown out as skirmishers and 
 sharp-shooters to keep them back. Some of our 
 sharp-shooters got over near the parapet, and from 
 behind stumps and trunks of fallen trees fired with 
 great deliberation. One man fired sixty-nine times, 
 being wounded while loading for the seventieth, 
 and another fired ninety-five times, every shot being 
 deliberately aimed. After the battle, while our men 
 were out collecting the dead, some of the Con- 
 federates spoke to Captain Matthews, of my staff, 
 complimenting our sharp-shooters highly.
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 693 
 
 In the meantime we were stormed at with shot that 
 came tearing through the trees, and with shell that 
 for the most part fell behind us. In our front were 
 three fences which we had to break down and climb 
 over, and in doing this a little confusion resulted, 
 which was soon corrected, and we moved on. In 
 emerging into the open, the enemy's fire began to tell, 
 and their sharp-shooters to get in their work. We 
 could not reply with a shot, and had only to push on. 
 The enemy had a thirty-two pounder, the location of 
 which we knew. Its first shot went screeching but a 
 few feet above our heads, and I supposed that there- 
 after its range would be corrected and its fire would 
 tear through our ranks. But no, every shot went 
 over. Afterwards we were told that that gun was in 
 charge of a New Yorker, who had been pressed into 
 the Confederate service, and that he purposely trained 
 it to do us no harm. However that may have been, 
 there were enough other guns which were served with 
 deadly effect. 
 
 The plain which we had now reached was swept with 
 a cross fire, and we attempted that at double quick. 
 It was a little dusty, and quite smooth, and on this 
 the enemy's rifle balls were dropping, reminding me as 
 they fell of big drops of rain upon dusty streets. 
 Meanwhile shells were bursting over, among and 
 around us in every direction, and cannon shot were 
 screaming. The enemy had had plenty of opportuni- 
 ties, which were improved, to learn just how to train 
 the guns in their works to hit any square yard on the 
 ground over which we had to pass. 
 
 At one point, where the fire was very heavy, Gener- 
 al Sherman rode up to me and said that he had sent 
 an order to the second brigade, and was now going to 
 
 45
 
 694 REMINISCENCES 
 
 see to its execution. Leaving me for this purpose, he 
 was soon badly wounded, his leg being shattered 
 below the knee. I did not learn of this until after the 
 battle was over, being entirely occupied with matters 
 in my own front. 
 
 Shortly after this, I was struck by a spent ball in 
 the arm, which was rendered useless by the blow and 
 almost immediately swelled to nearly twice its normal 
 size, so that I could no longer control my horse. I 
 now o])tained assistance to dismount, and, supporting 
 my arm as best I could, proceeded on foot. * During 
 this time we had not had even the advantage of such 
 cover as would have been afforded by smoke, had 
 
 * On the day of General Dow's death, October 2, 1897, more than 
 thirty-four years after the assault on Port Hudson, a letter was 
 received at his home, addressed to him, written by Colonel T. G. Eeid, 
 late of the Twelfth Arkansas Infantry, under date of September 29, 
 1897. Rewrote: 
 
 "The morning papers, through the Associated Press despatches, tell 
 us that you are seriously sick. I have always felt I would like to 
 know you personally. On the morning of the assault on Port Hudson, 
 you, with one or two mounted officers in the midst of your brigade, 
 columns of regimental front, in the broad, open held of Slaughter's 
 plantation, were directing the deploying of your regiments into line of 
 battle about four to six hundred yards from my position, which was 
 the riglit center of our line of earth-works in front of Slaughter's resi- 
 dence. I observed closely your movements until I was enabled to 
 know that you were the commanding officer. 
 
 "I assembled a small number of my sharp-shooters and singled you 
 out to them, and ordered them to fire continuously at you. After a 
 short time your line of liattle was formed, and a general advance on 
 my position was commenced, with drums Ideating and flags Hying, pre- 
 senting a magnificent line, grandly marching to time in i)erfect order. 
 It was a picture never to be erased from my mind, for with all the mil- 
 itary pomp and display in formidal)le 1)attle array I knew the dreadful 
 fate' I lield in hand to turn it into defeat with the terrible slaughter of 
 that day's battle. 
 
 "The' scattering fire of my sharp-shooters continued, while the roar 
 of your cannon sent shells over our heads. When about three hundred 
 yards from my position I saw you fall, or lean down to your horse's 
 neck, and a number of your hospital corps ran and lifted you from 
 your horse. 
 
 " Your command never faltered, but swept on in splendid line until 
 within eiglity yards of my position, when I ordered my battalion to 
 fire. You directed the charge of your brigade, and it swept along like 
 an avalanche until forced to retreat from the galling lire of my com- 
 mand so well protected by our strong breast-works. But the retreat 
 of your brigade was orderly."
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 695 
 
 there been firing on our side, while that from the 
 Confederate guns did not obstruct the view of their 
 gunners and sharp-shooters. Not long after this I 
 was disabled by a rifle ball, which passed through my 
 left thigh, two-thirds above the knee, and I was then 
 helped to the rear. Soon after the repulse was 
 complete. 
 
 Never were there better raw troops, never did men 
 under fire for the first time display more heroism than 
 did the First brigade. Second division of the Nine- 
 teenth army corps, on this occasion. Captain Stark, 
 of the Sixth Michigan, who commanded the "forlorn 
 hope," with such of his men as were not killed in the 
 attempt, got so near the enemy's works as to drive 
 some of their gunners from their stations, but they 
 could not climb over, and were in force too small to 
 accomplish anything if they had. They lay there in 
 a hollow, or gulch, until after dark, when they got 
 back into our lines as best they might without further 
 loss. To reach that point they had passed through 
 fire that had seemed literally to strew the ground with 
 bodies. In places our dead and wounded on the field 
 were so close that their bodies touched. 
 
 The courage of the men was all the more marked 
 because they, as well as their officers, could see the 
 nature of the undertaking, and were intelligent 
 enough to understand its difficulty. There was no 
 room for excitement or enthusiasm, or anything to 
 sustain them save their ciuiet determination to do 
 their duty, and they did it, and more than ought to 
 have been asked of them, because for want of proper 
 support the enemy was able to concentrate fire upon 
 them, part of which, by a supporting attack, might 
 have been diverted.
 
 696 REMINISCENCES 
 
 Colonel Cowles, of the One Hundred Twenty-eighth 
 New York, was killed, and Colonel Kingsley, of the 
 Twenty-sixth Connecticut, and Colonel Clark, of the 
 Sixth Michigan, were wounded. Colonel Kingman, 
 of the Fifteenth New Hampshire, escaped without a 
 scratch, though very much exposed. I do not believe 
 that an equal number of veterans, hardened to danger 
 in a hundred battles, could have done better than the 
 brave fellows under my command that day. There 
 was no chance to win ; only by our being able to supply 
 men faster than the enemy could put them hors du 
 conibat and having enough left to out-number 
 our foes, could we have climbed into their works. 
 The folly and uselessness of that assault were suffi- 
 ciently established by its result. That the order for 
 it was given upon insufficient information no one has 
 questioned. 
 
 General Sherman and I never met after he left me 
 that day upon the battle-field, but several years after, 
 I received from him a very friendly message, in which 
 he complimented most highly the bravery of my 
 brigade, and stated that in all his experience, both in 
 Mexico and during the war for the Union, he had not 
 seen a charge made under more unfavorable circum- 
 stances, and had never seen a better one than that 
 made by the men under my command that day. 
 The General was reported to have added, "and tell 
 General Dow that he is now at an age when an 
 occasional glass will do him good." I believe the 
 General's opinion on the first i)oint is entitled to more 
 weight tlian it is on the latter. 
 
 The wound in my arm caused much more pain than 
 did the more dangerous one in my leg, but in the 
 hospital I thought myself fortunate, for there it was
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 697 
 
 found that besides the two bullets wounding me, one 
 had passed through my coat, and another had cut 
 one of my stockings, just grazing the leg above the 
 ankle. When the surgeons saw the wound in my leg 
 they congratulated me, saying that if the ball had 
 varied a shade from its course either the bone would 
 have been shattered or the artery cut, in either case 
 probably involving the loss of the leg. 
 
 Though advised to go to Baton Rouge, or New 
 Orleans, with other wounded officers, where I could 
 be better cared for, I remained in the hope of being of 
 some service. My quarters in the little hut being 
 unsuitable for my convalescence, a small house was 
 assigned for my use. Here I made myself as comfort- 
 able as possible, but after a time the place was needed 
 for hospital accommodations, and I was transferred to 
 a plantation house farther to our rear, but within our 
 lines. 
 
 This house was occupied by a Mrs. Cage and her 
 family, with the usual retinue of a well-to-do planter's 
 household of the place and time — some nine or ten 
 adults and a dozen or more children — but giving evi- 
 dence in a variety of ways of the effects of war. In 
 one of my letters home I find the following reference 
 to the existing conditions: 
 
 " Southern society everywhere within reach of the influence 
 of our armies is disorganized and disintegrated, and slavery is 
 completely dead. The slaves nowhere acknowledge the author- 
 ity of their masters, nor do the latter attempt to exercise the 
 least control over their slaves. On some places some of the 
 negroes remain, but rather as masters than as slaves. They 
 do not work unless they choose, and irregularly at that. 
 They await their great change from slavery to freedom, which 
 is sure to come. 
 
 " Great numbers of them are employed most usefully about 
 our army here. They drive all our wagons and do almost all
 
 698 REMINISCENCES 
 
 the work, which but for them thousands of soldiers must be 
 detailed to perform. To-day I saw great numbers of them 
 drawn up in military fashion, with spades, going to work. 
 
 "A brother-in-law of my hostess has given me some idea of 
 the ruin which has come upon this section. Ho claims to have 
 been opposed to the war, and that he was for letting well- 
 enough alone. His plantation was mostly inside the Confed- 
 erate parapet. He had a great quantity of heavy timber 
 which he was cutting and selling at good prices. Since the 
 trou1)les here, the one hundred acres of it he had left have 
 been cut up and used, or destroyed. His buildings were 
 good, of brick. These are gone, also his hay, corn, cattle, 
 horses, mules, and everything. He had a quantity of cotton 
 ready for the market. At present prices it would be worth 
 sixty thousand dollars. A portion of it was burned and the 
 rest taken. His plantation is now utterly desolated, and his 
 experience is the same as that of tens of thousands of others. 
 He says the slaves have an idea that the land will be given to 
 them, and that the whites w411 have to go, and admits that 
 many of the whites are quite at sea as to what will happen." 
 
 AVhile convalescing, I felt tlie want of books as 
 much, perhaps, as any other deprivation. Some of 
 the neighbors were very kind, and loaned me what 
 they had, but as the supply was limited, and the 
 variety not great, they were soon exhausted. There 
 were several residents in the vicinity who seemed 
 to take pleasure in being polite and courteous, and in 
 this particular I noticed no difference betAveen those 
 who claimed to be Union men and those of avowed 
 Confederate sympathies. 
 
 Having now been absent from home for more than a 
 year, during which time I had been brought almost to 
 death's door by malarial fever, suffering from wounds 
 which would prevent my active service for a consider- 
 able period, and believing, even if my health and 
 strength would permit, that there was no prospect of 
 my being of further service before Port Hudson, I 
 applied for a leave of absence. I felt more justified
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 699 
 
 in this because everything indicated that our true pol- 
 icy was to watch and wait for time and starvation to 
 do their certain work, as Port Hudson was sure, in any 
 event, to capitulate when Vicksburg fell. I hoped 
 that, if leave should be granted, at its expiration, to 
 secure a transfer to the Army of the Potomac. While 
 waiting for a reply to my application, I took such care 
 of my health and wounds as was possible. 
 
 Time wore away until my capture by a squad of 
 Confederate cavalry, on the evening of the 30th of 
 June, 1863. How it came about may, perhaps, be best 
 told as related by one of the party by whom the cap- 
 ture was effected. 
 
 Mr. Jno. G. B. Simms, of Little Rock, Ark., has 
 already been referred to as a gentleman who kindly 
 returned to me one of the pistols taken from me on 
 that occasion. Subsequently to the correspondence 
 then noted, I received from him a letter, of which the 
 following is a copy: 
 
 "Little Rock, Ark., July 6, 1891. 
 Hon. Neal Dow, Portland, Me. 
 
 Dear Sir: — Some weeks ago, at the instance of one of my 
 old comrades, I wrote the enclosed account concerning your 
 capture, and it found its way into print. In the interest of 
 that verity which should characterize history, I would be glad 
 to have you attach a note to this communication and return it 
 to me, attesting the truth of this statement, so far as you 
 know. You may remember me as one who returned to you, 
 a few years ago, one of the pistols taken from you on that 
 eventful night. I shall appreciate greatly a few words 
 written by yourself. With great respect, I am, 
 
 Yours, etc., 
 
 Jno. G. B. Simms." 
 
 The newspaper clipping he enclosed ran as follows: 
 
 " Some time in June, I think, in 1863, the Federal army 
 having besieo:ed the garrison in Port Hudson, La., I, with a
 
 700 REMINISCENCES 
 
 squad of three men, was scouting in the rear of that place. 
 A lady, Mrs. Brown, came out of the Federal lines and 
 informed me that General Dow had been wounded some six 
 weeks before and was then at the residence of a Mrs. Cage, 
 about three-quarters of a mile from his brigade encampment, 
 but within their lines, recuperating. She further said that 
 he could be easily captured, and agreed to pilot a squad of 
 men to his residence. The squad organized, consisting of 
 John McKowen, a lieutenant at home on furlough from the 
 Virginia army ; John R. Petty, Wilson Medearis and myself 
 from the Seventeenth Arkansas, young Haynes, who lived in 
 the neighborhood, and a fellow whose name I cannot recall, if 
 I ever knew it — we called him ' Tex,' he having those 
 letters on the front of his white hat. 
 
 "McKowen was agreed upon as commander for the occasion. 
 We repaired to a point outside the lines, where by the direc- 
 tion of Mrs. Brown, we remained till just at dark, when she 
 met us, and, riding just far enough ahead to be seen, she led 
 the way to within a quarter of a mile of Mrs. Cage's house. 
 She then, in detail, made known to us the arrangement of 
 Mrs. Cage's house, the yard, the lots, etc., so that we might 
 not hesitate, and fearing for her life, if caught with us, she 
 here left us. She had previously arranged for the General 
 to be engaged at home that evening in a game of cards* 
 with Mrs. Cage, and of course advised her of our coming, to 
 avoid surprise. 
 
 •'Following directions, we marched up to the house, the 
 dogs barking (it was al)out ten o'clock at night) and the 
 moon about half full. Rapidly leaving our horses, we 
 entered the house, and capturing two orderlies who were 
 lying on the gallery, we proceeded into the room where the 
 General was to be, but he was gone ! Mrs. Cage informed 
 us that he had ridden over nearer the camp to another house, 
 where he had taken tea with two of his regimental officers, 
 and that if we would go there we might capture all three. 
 One man must necessarily guard the two prisoners, but we 
 determined to go — five of us to bag them all. 
 
 " Leaving the house we mounted, and upon passing out of 
 the lot some controversy arose as to the road. Just then, 
 looking off to the left, inside the lot, in the shade of a tree, 
 sat a man, clad in white, on horseback. John Petty and I 
 drew our revolvers, galloped up to him, and asked him if 
 that was General Dow, and he replied : 
 
 *See General Dow's reply to Mr. Siinms.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 701 
 
 " 'Yes, sir.' 
 
 " ' Surrender, or I'll kill you ! ' came quickly from us l)oth. 
 He hesitated a moment in seeming surprise, then answered : 
 
 " 'I'll surrender, sir — I'll go with you.' These were his 
 words. 
 
 " We galloped off with the three prisoners, and traveled all 
 night — in a gallop for several hours — and next morning we 
 stopped for breakfast at a house whose inmates we knew. 
 Greatly fatigued, I agreed to stay here with the plunder 
 whilst the others went to camp with the prisoners. We 
 divided the plunder into six parcels and cast lots for the first 
 choice and so on. John Petty got the first choice and took 
 the General's saddle-horse, a fine chestnut sorrel. John 
 McKowen got second, and took his sword, a handsome pearl- 
 handled one. I got third, and took his brace of six-shooters 
 of the Allen make, and encased in })atent leather holsters. 
 One of these I sold to Dave Goodlett after the surrender, 
 the other I kept until about two years ago, when I expressed 
 it to the General, at Portland, Me., and have his kind 
 acknowledgment of the same." 
 
 Replying to Mr. Simms as he requested, I wrote a 
 note, of which the following is a copy: 
 
 "Portland, Me., July 15, 1891. 
 Dear Sir: — I have your note of the 6th June, and the 
 newspaper slip enclosed. Your account of my capture is 
 correct in all important particulars. I have marked one 
 error, the others are of no importance. I had no engagement 
 to play cards. I have never played even one game since my 
 early youth, and do not know a Jack from a King or Queen. 
 
 Respectfully, Neal Dow.'^ 
 
 That account may be regarded as substantially 
 correct, though after tlie lapse of so many years 
 unimportant errora are likely to occur. I have seen 
 in print many different stories of my capture — no two 
 of them alike — said to have been written by parties 
 who participated in it — several more accounts than 
 my captors numbered. My own recollection, though 
 not entirely distinct, is as follows:
 
 702 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 I had been to the front and was returning to my 
 quarters to get some articles I needed, intending to go 
 back to the front that evening, as one of my guard 
 had been captured the night before, and I feared that 
 through him my whereabouts might be learned and a 
 raid made to capture me. The house where I was 
 staying was surrounded by a high board fence. It 
 was in the early evening, and as light as day when I 
 rode into the yard, to find myself confronted by a 
 number of men and covered with carbines and pistols. 
 I was alone, without weapons, and, had I been armed, 
 resistance, or an effort to escape, would have been use- 
 less, and there was nothing but to submit to the 
 demand made upon me to surrender. I found that 
 they had also secured one of my guards, a man who 
 had lived in New Orleans, and had served in the Con- 
 federate ranks there. I got an opportunity to warn 
 him not to disclose that fact, however, to his captors, 
 and I think they never learned of it. 
 
 Subsequently I was told that our rear was entirely 
 unguarded, and that a few hundred of the enemy's 
 cavalry, under a bold leader, might have surprised 
 and raided our position from center to either flank 
 with ease, doing great damage. As it was, by my 
 capture an alarm was given, resulting in ordinary pre- 
 cautions being taken. I was afterwards informed 
 that my men, thinking I had been betrayed by the 
 occupants of the house where I was staying, set fire to 
 it and destroyed it. I cannot vouch for either of 
 these statements. 
 
 Having made sure of their prisoner, my captors 
 possessed themselves as speedily as possible of my 
 sword, pistols, etc., which were in my room, and I 
 was hurried off to Camp Logan, about twelve miles
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 703 
 
 distant. I had mounted my horse the day before 
 for the first time since I was wounded, and the ride 
 was, of course, very trying in my feeble condition, 
 and it was not made more comfortable by my vexation 
 and humiliation at being captured. By reference 
 to a letter before me, I find that I wrote the next 
 day to my wife, in notifying her of my capture: 
 
 " You will be glad to learn that all the officers seemed dis- 
 posed to make the situation as endurable as possible. I was 
 treated very courteously, and was made as comfortable as the 
 situation and exigencies "would permit." 
 
 On the next day after my capture, my Journey 
 toward Richmond was commenced, and, with two 
 guards, I started on horseback for Jackson, Miss., 
 about one hundred miles, if I remember aright. 
 I do not know how long we were on that part of 
 our journey, but think it was more than two days, 
 with such parts of the night as we rode. I am not 
 sure whether we went all the way on horseback, or 
 partly by wagon and partly by rail. I had not 
 sufficiently recovered from chagrin at my situation 
 for such details to impress themselves upon my 
 mind.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 MY EXPERIENCES AND OBSERVATIONS AS A PRISONER OF 
 WAR. WHAT I SAW OF THE SOUTH AT THAT 
 
 TIME. KINDNESSES AND COURTESIES EX- 
 
 TENDED TO ME. ESCAPE OF THE 
 
 UNION OFFICERS FROM LIBBY 
 PRISON. MY EXCHANGE 
 FOR GENERAL FITZ- 
 HUGH LEE. 
 
 In relating my experiences as a prisoner of war, I 
 must necessarily refer to hardships and sufferings, 
 not in a spirit of complaint, but as a record of facts, 
 showing conditions inseparable from a state of war, 
 and to which those who are so unfortunate as to be 
 taken captive are inevitably subjected. Here, once 
 for all, I desire to say that I am satisfied that I 
 suffered few discomforts that could have been reason- 
 ably avoided by those into whose hands I fell. 
 
 Arriving at Jackson, I was taken to the Marble-yard 
 prison, and was turned into a dirty room, without 
 furniture of any kind, with a single window without 
 glass, the light and air being partially obstructed by 
 boards nailed over it. This window overlooked a 
 pig-pen. The room contained a pile of lumber and 
 some old blinds. Placing the latter on the lumber
 
 REMIXISCENCES OF XEAL DOW. 705 
 
 to serve in a measure as springs to soften my couch, I 
 laid down to rest, being well-nigh exhausted. 
 
 In a short time two Confederate officers came into 
 the room. I made no complaint to them whatever, 
 and said nothing of the discomforts of my position, 
 but after looking about a little they went out, and 
 soon a bedstead with mattress and bedding was 
 brought in, to my great relief. In this pen I passed, 
 I think, two days, one of them being July 4, 1863, 
 with nothing to eat but raw bacon and wretched hard 
 bread, or "ship-stuff," as they called it, made of 
 "middlings." 
 
 After two days' stay at Jackson, we started for 
 Montgomery, Alabama. My escorting officers did not 
 tell me their names, nor did I ask them, but they 
 were very polite and considerate. In conversation 
 with them I made no allusion to what seemed to me 
 my unnecessarily harsh treatment at Jackson, but one 
 of them volunteered to say that it was by way of 
 retaliation for the similar treatment, by his Union 
 captors, of the Confederate general, Magruder, in 
 some other department. I had not then heard of the 
 circumstances, but replied that I could not believe it 
 to be true, and afterwards learned the accusation to be 
 false. 
 
 Few incidents of my travels through the heart of 
 the Confederacy as a prisoner of war — I thus made 
 three extensive trips — impressed themselves upon my 
 mind, and I had no opportunity, or desire, for that 
 matter, to record them at the time. My thoughts 
 were far away, and I took little note of what I saw 
 and experienced. Some things, however, I have not 
 forgotten, but it is probable that my recollection is 
 greatly confused as to the order of their occurrence.
 
 706 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 Quite a portion of my journey was made in a 
 wagon, giving me a favorable opportunity to observe 
 the condition of the country, and my vexation at 
 being captured was mitigated, in a measure, by what 
 I was enabled to see and report, as I did, to our 
 government, that the Confederate armies were as a 
 mere empty egg-shell; there was nothing behind 
 them, the country being drained of its materials and 
 able-bodied men. On those trips I received several 
 calls from elderly men who said that they had known 
 of me before the war, and I was surprised, as well as 
 pleased, by the kindness shown me. But I was 
 doubly gratified by the unmistakable signs of weari- 
 ness which convinced me that the overthrow of the 
 Confederacy was only a matter of time. 
 
 In some cases we stopped at hotels, and sometimes 
 at private houses. The latter gave evidence of being 
 the homes of well-to-do people, but everywhere were 
 signs of the ruin wrought by war. Otherwise well- 
 appointed tables showed most clearly that the larder 
 was lean and poor, and that the country did not 
 afford the wherewithal for anything better. 
 
 I became satisfied from what I saw that our people 
 at the North could have but a faint idea of the sacri- 
 fices made by the South and the sufferings its people 
 were enduring for their cause. Even then I saw, 
 as every intelligent man with my opportunities for 
 observation must have seen, that, presuming in the 
 North anything like the same devotion and endurance 
 as in the South, the final collapse of the Confederacy 
 was certain. 
 
 At Montgomery quite a number of citizens met 
 me at the train, and went with me to the hotel. 
 There was considerable conversation among them
 
 OF NEAL DOW. T07 
 
 in my presence as to the unanimity of the South 
 and its determination to fight to the bitter end, 
 and it was said that there were no Union men 
 anywhere among them; but in walking to the 
 hotel, when there was only one man within speak- 
 ing distance, he seized the opportunity to say to 
 me, referring to the statement that there were no 
 Union men among them, "That is all a mistake. 
 I am one, and there are many others whom I know. " 
 
 On one occasion I was taken by my guard to dine 
 at what I remember as a church fair. I do not 
 recollect the name of the place, but it was quite a 
 sizable village. There were quite a number of women 
 at the fair, but only one man whom I can recall 
 besides my escort and myself. He was an elderly 
 man, and I had a conversation with him, in which 
 he deplored the war, admitting the hopeless and 
 impoverished condition of the South. I think he 
 was then mourning the recent loss of some relative 
 or friend, and was very solemn and reserved, though 
 courteous and friendly. 
 
 The ladies were all very polite. Some of them 
 told me that tliey had heard of me before the war, 
 and sympathized with my temperance views, but 
 others had also heard of me as an abolitionist, 
 and that, with the fact that I was a Union general, 
 prevented any degree of cordiality. I could not 
 avoid the conclusion, strongly impressed upon me 
 by their depression, that they were all expecting 
 the failure of the Confederacy. There was probably 
 no woman at that fair who did not have a father, 
 a brother, a husband or a son at the front, unless, 
 indeed, they had already fallen there. Some of 
 them, doubtless, had given up all their male relatives
 
 708 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 to ^erve what they believed to be a righteous cause. 
 In the presence of their great grief and anxiety, 
 my ow^n troubles, sustained as I was by my certainty 
 of Union success, now that I had seen the inside 
 of the Confederacy, seemed slight. A sad sight, 
 indeed, is that of a great people bearing the burden 
 of their concealed conviction that that for which 
 they are praying and suffering is, after all their 
 sacrifices, to come to naught. 
 
 All through that journey I continued to be an 
 object of curiosity to the people whom I met. At 
 several stations considerable groups had gathered 
 to see the "Abolition and Temperance Yankee 
 General " but nowhere was I subjected to any 
 annoyance not necessarily connected with the fact 
 that I was a prisoner. I have read several news- 
 paper stories of my being threatened with a mob 
 at some point. These accounts have varied in 
 every detail except as to the character of the mob, 
 and that was always described as bloodthirsty in 
 the extreme, and determined to hang me at the 
 nearest lamp-post. I have been represented by some 
 of these as being entirely unnerved by the imminent 
 danger of speedy and ignominious death, and by 
 others as calmly awaiting it, and preparing for it 
 by putting on my full uniform as a Union general. 
 
 If such danger existed, my guards must have con- 
 siderately kept me in ignorance of it. I have no 
 recollection whatever of anything of the kind, save 
 that at one place the train was stopped some distance 
 out of the station, for the purpose, as I was told by 
 one of my guard, of avoiding all risk of trouble from a 
 larger crowd than usual which had assembled there to 
 see me. As to the report of my attiring myself in my^
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 709 
 
 uniform, as a suitable preparation to meet "Judge 
 Lyncli," I have only to say that I had no uniform, 
 and the best garment of which I could boast on 
 the trip was a long, much worn, travel-stained linen 
 duster — not exactly the kind of garment to set off 
 the ' ' cool courage " with which I was said to await 
 my threatened lynching. 
 
 We stayed over night at one town where, after we 
 were settled at our hotel, I was invited by the officers 
 who had me in charge to visit with them a resort for 
 card-playing. I told them I never played cards, and 
 did not know one card from another. They politely 
 offered to teach me, but I did not care to learn. 
 They urged me so persistently to go that finally sus- 
 pecting that their object was to keep me within view 
 without losing the sport in which they delighted, I 
 offered to keep watch in their place over myself, prom- 
 ising to deliver their prisoner to their care all right 
 in the morning, inevitable accident only excepted. 
 My proposition was accepted, and in the early morn- 
 ing hours my guards returned, finding their prisoner 
 ready to turn himself over again to their keeping. 
 
 Arriving in Richmond on Saturday, July 11, 1863, 
 the twelfth day after my capture, I learned of an exist- 
 ing difficulty about exchanges, and concluded that 
 I was ' ' in for it " for some time. Reaching the famous 
 Libby prison I found the anteroom thronged with 
 Confederate officers, who crowded about me with a 
 not impolite or offensive curiosity, many of them ask- 
 ing me if I was indeed ' ' the Neal Dow of Temperance 
 and Maine-Law fame " of whom they professed to have 
 heard. With all the modesty to be commanded in the 
 face of such marked attention, I admitted the fact and 
 received with as much grace as possible their good- 
 
 46
 
 710 KEMIXISCEXCES 
 
 natured and jocular expressions of gratification that 
 they were to have the honor of entertaining me. I 
 assured them of my confidence that under the circum- 
 stances their hospitality would be so pressed upon me 
 that I could not avoid it, if I would, and begged them 
 not to let me wear my welcome out. 
 
 Our conversation was so good-natured, and the man- 
 ifestations of courtesy on each side were so marked, 
 that some newspaper reporters who were present mis- 
 understood it, or misrepresented it, and the Richmond 
 papers of the next day, referring to me, claimed that I 
 was opposed to a war of coercion, and that when I got 
 home I would favor the best attainable peace. In 
 view of the fact that scores of letters of mine, written 
 while I was in the army, advocating the most active 
 and vigorous prosecution of the Avar, not only for the 
 restoration of the Union but for the overthrow of 
 slavery, had been published throughout England as 
 well as America, this statement was very absurd. 
 Commenting upon this report, some of our papers 
 made extracts from those letters, one of which was as 
 follows: 
 
 " We long for harmony and peace, and are resolved to 
 have them on a permanent l^asis, to wit : the unconditional 
 suppression of the rebellion, and the emancipation of the 
 slaves." 
 
 Prior to this, I had visited Richmond, addressing 
 public meetings there, and had met many of its citi- 
 zens. The day after my arrival several called upon 
 me in the prison, and all of them were courteous and 
 kind. I had relatives there whom I had visited, and 
 who had been at my home in Maine, and, without 
 thinking of the changed conditions attending a civil 
 war, I sent a note informing them of my presence in
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 711 
 
 the city. While I did not ask them to call, my 
 address in Richmond — Libby Prison — was such as to 
 convey the idea that if I was to have the pleasure of 
 seeing them it would be due to an effort on their part. 
 
 My note had hardly been sent before the indiscre- 
 tion of my attempting to communicate with them, 
 as likely to subject them to espionage, occurred to 
 me. But it was too late, and I could not recall it. 
 Some time after, a Confederate officer manifested 
 interest in the matter, and politely, and, as I thought, 
 cunningly, asked me if I had heard from my ' ' friends 
 in Richmond." I had not heard, and told him so. 
 He seemed satisfied; at least, he expressed neither 
 regret nor surprise. Later, however, a. party visited 
 the prison, some wearing the dress of civilians, and 
 some the uniforms of Confederate officers. One of 
 the latter, a young man, in the uniform of a lieu- 
 tenant, watching for an opportunity for a word 
 with me alone, said very quietly that my cousin 
 had received my note, but that circumstances ren- 
 dered it imprudent and impossible for other attention 
 than this message. I should have thought of that 
 before sending my note. After the war, however, 
 my cousin again visited my house in Portland, and 
 I her home in Richmond. 
 
 At Libby I was as comfortable as could be expected. 
 It is astonishing how easily and how soon necessity 
 accustoms one to be satisfied with what would be 
 intolerably burdensome if the way to avoid them 
 were open. On the 29th of July I wrote to my wife, 
 ' ' I am going to Mobile to-morrow, for what I am not 
 informed. I am very well. Give yourself no uneasi- 
 ness on my account." 
 
 My removal to Mobile was the cause of a great
 
 712 REMINISCENCES 
 
 deal of speculation and anxiety on the part of my 
 friends. All sorts of conjectures relative to it 
 appeared in the public prints, North and South. 
 It was said that I was to be shot, to be confined 
 with a ball and chain, and to be subjected to a great 
 variety of pains and penalties, among them hanging. 
 My family was much alarmed by these stories, and 
 my friends generally were exercised. Among others 
 who took a special interest in the case were Horace 
 Grreeley, Charles Sumner, and Henry Wilson, from 
 each of whom letters were received by my wife. She 
 also received a friendly and reassuring note from 
 President Lincoln, to whom the following memorial 
 from citizens of Maine, resident in Washington, had 
 been presented. 
 
 To Abraham Lincoln, 
 
 President of the United States of America : 
 
 The undersigned, citizens of the state of Maine, resident in 
 this city, would respectfully represent to Your Excellency 
 that General Neal Dow, of Portland, in said state, was 
 seriously wounded in one of the assaults made on the bat- 
 teries at Port Hudson and sent into the hospital for treatment 
 of his w^ound. While there he was made a prisoner of war 
 by the rebels and taken to Richmond, Va. 
 
 It is now reported that Jeff. Davis has given him into the 
 hands of the governor of Alabama on a requisition from that 
 functionary, to be put on his trial, under the laws of that 
 state, on the charge, it is understood, of stealing negroes, the 
 penalty for which is death. The result of such a trial, in 
 such a place and under existing circumstances, no one need 
 be told who knows the animus of that people. It will only 
 prove a cloak to cover up a deliberate and malicious murder. 
 
 Your petitioners, therefore, most respectfully and earnestly 
 ask that Your Excellency will order that Jeff. Davis and the 
 governor of Alabama both be notified that General Dow must 
 be in all respects treated as a prisoner of war ; that any other 
 treatment of him will l)c retaliated on rebel officers in your 
 hands, in full measure ; and that you forthwith make pu?jlic 
 proclamation of such purpose in this case.
 
 OF NEAL DOW, 713 
 
 We are fully aware that your recent general order covers 
 the case of General Dow, and with reference to ordinary men 
 it would be sufficient. But General Dow, from his position 
 in the army of the United States, among his citizens at home 
 and his relation to the civilization of this age, is an exception 
 to ordinary men, and, therefore, his case, we deem, should be 
 made an exceptional one, receiving the special attention 
 and intervention of the government. 
 
 General Dow is one of the representative men, one of the 
 prophets of this age, and as such is of special worth to his 
 country and the human race. He is known and honored as 
 such, especially among the friends of temperance and virtue, 
 in all parts of the civilized world. Such being his special 
 and exceptional character, it seems to us that his case should 
 be made a special and exceptional one by the government. 
 It is for these, among other reasons, that we ask your special 
 action for his protection from the outrages and wrongs with 
 which he is threatened by his and our country's enemies. We 
 trust our prayer will not be in vain, nor your action without 
 effect. An early decision is most respectfully and earnestly 
 solicited. 
 
 This petition was drawn up by the Rev. Darius 
 Forbes, formerly of Portland, and signed by him and 
 many other residents of Washington. But of all the 
 efforts and anxiety on my behalf I knew nothing. 
 
 My journey to Mobile was without special incident 
 or interest, being a repetition in detail and observa- 
 tion of that from Jackson to Richmond. On this 
 trip, as on the other two, I was alive to the signs 
 apparent all about me of the coming exhaustion 
 which I saw was certain to overtake the South, and 
 that was the one great fact of absorbing interest to 
 me. I arrived in Mobile on the 6th of August, and 
 was taken to the Provost Guard House, where I found 
 myself much more pleasantly situated than in Rich- 
 mond, and where, while my friends in the North 
 were filled with anxiety on my behalf, I was made, 
 through the influence of southern gentlemen who
 
 714 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 had been my prisoners, as comfortable as possible 
 under the circumstances. 
 
 I had a large, airy chamber to myself, with a wide 
 view of town and country. At its door, to be sure, 
 and under its windows, were stationed sentinels, but 
 this did not in any way prevent those who had pro- 
 fessed to feel under obligations to me from calling 
 upon me, or sending me books and papers, or from 
 contributing in other ways to my comfort. Among 
 those who were exceedingly kind and polite were 
 Judge Victor Burthe and ex-Mayor Monroe, of New 
 Orleans. The latter brought with him a friend, 
 whose name I do not recall, but who was very 
 courteous. 
 
 Mayor Monroe and several of his friends had been 
 for some time my prisoners, and I had done every- 
 thing in my power to make them comfortable, and 
 now they, in their turn, were very kind to me. While 
 in command at Carrolton I had had the pleasure of 
 rendering an important service to Judge Burthe and 
 his son, for which he was very grateful, and while I 
 was at Mobile he sent me books, and in other ways 
 contributed to my comfort, at considerable expense to 
 him, and only my protests against it prevented his 
 pressing more upon me. 
 
 But while I was experiencing such kindness, owing 
 to the difficulty of communication, my friends at the 
 North continued anxious, and even some of my per- 
 sonal enemies in Portland apparently relented in their 
 hostility. While at Mobile I received a letter from 
 home stating that a prominent citizen of Portland, 
 who had been a very bitter, and, as it seemed to me, 
 unreasonable, personal opponent of mine, one who for 
 years had lost no opportunity to assail me, in public
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 715 
 
 and private, had recently become interested in relig- 
 ious matters, and liad prayed in a union prayer- 
 meeting for my safety and return — a striking 
 instance of how far the stories of what I was to suffer 
 had had an influence. 
 
 Writing home under date of September 6, 1863, I 
 said: 
 
 " I am very comfortable here, missing most my letters 
 from home. I do not know where the fault lies that your 
 letters do not come. A prisoner is like a sick man in a 
 charity hospital, dependent on nurses who have no interest. 
 He cannot help himself, and nobody cares. I hear not a 
 w^ord from outside, but am in capital spirits and entirely 
 patient. Exchanges will come by and by." 
 
 Soon after my confinement in Mobile the officer in 
 immediate command of my guard told me that he was 
 at heart a Union man, serving in the Confederate 
 forces only as a matter of prudence and through com- 
 pulsion, and that he was awaiting an opportunity to 
 desert. He also treated me with all the consideration 
 that he consistently could. One day he took me into 
 a room adjoining mine and showed me a hole in the 
 wall through which a prisoner had escaped, and 
 which was still unrepaired. When we returned to my 
 room I noticed that he neglected to lock the door, and 
 I took that as an intimation that he would have no 
 objection to my escaping if I could. The attempt, 
 however, even had I been young and in good health, 
 would have been foolhardy in the extreme. 
 
 Some time after my exchange that officer, having 
 been sent to the front, deserted and entered our lines, 
 and was taken to the deserters' camp at Cincinnati, if 
 I remember aright. There he referred to me for evi- 
 dence of his loyalty, and in due time inquiry was 
 made of me by the proper authorities, and what I was
 
 716 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 able to say of his representations to me while I was a 
 prisoner secured his treatment in all respects as a reli- 
 able friend of the Union. 
 
 After a stay in Mobile of two months, I was taken 
 again to Richmond, where I arrived on the 12th of 
 October, having been six days on the road. My expe- 
 rience on this trip was similar to that in the others I 
 had taken in the Confederacy. I had now traversed 
 over twenty-five hundred miles, almost every mile, and 
 every moment of the time spent in covering it, fur- 
 nishing evidence to me of the utter hopelessness of the 
 southern cause. Everywhere we stopped a crowd was 
 at' the station to see me, and at one place, in North 
 Carolina, the people actually called for a speech. I 
 did leave the train and talked to many of them indi- 
 vidually. At Richmond I had the opportunity of 
 using the evidence I had obtained while behind the 
 curtain, not only laying it before my brother officers 
 confined in Libby prison, but communicating it also 
 to the secretary of war, as I shall hereafter explain. 
 
 On my way to Richmond 1 was informed that I was 
 to be exchanged for the Confederate General Morgan, 
 who had been captured during his daring raid into 
 Ohio. I was not a little astonished, therefore, to 
 receive one day a call from that energetic and dis- 
 tinguished officer, who had succeeded in escaping 
 into the Confederate lines. He was very polite, and 
 we had a pleasant conversation, which, under the 
 circumstances, must have been more agreeable to him 
 than to me, though I enjoyed it. The next day the 
 Richmond Enquirer had the following account of our 
 interview : 
 
 "General Morgan, on arriving upstairs, where the prison- 
 ers 'most do congregate,' was immediately conducted into the
 
 OF XExVL DOAV. 717 
 
 presence of the ' author of the Maine Liquor Law,' the whilom 
 Brigadier-General Dow. An introduction took place, when 
 General ]Moro-an observed, with one of those inimitable smiles 
 for which he is so noted, ' General Dow, I am very happy to 
 see you here ; or, rather, I should say, since you are here, I 
 am very happy to see you lookino- so well.' Dow's natural 
 astuteness and Yankee ingenuity came to his aid, and he 
 quickly replied, without apparent embarrassment, 'General 
 Morgan, I congratulate you on your escape; I cannot say I 
 am glad that you did escape, but, since you did, I am pleased 
 to see you here.' The conversation then became general 
 between the two, during the progress of which Dow admitted 
 that his views of the South, its people and their treatment of 
 prisoners of war had undergone a material change for the 
 better in the last few months." 
 
 Certainly, if the treatment of prisoners by the 
 South had been generally what I had for the most 
 part thus far experienced, save as to my quarters at 
 Jackson, there would have been no cause for com- 
 plaint on that score; but, as a matter of fact, as I 
 recall the conversation now, after a lapse of many 
 years, the apparent condition of our officers at Libby 
 so impressed General Morgan that he said he was 
 surprised and sorry at the poor accommodations 
 afforded them, and that he would make represen- 
 tations which he hoped would cause our condition 
 to be improved. 
 
 Shortly after my return to Richmond, a Con- 
 federate officer of that city, well acquainted with 
 my relatives there, called upon me and kindly offered 
 to loan me any money that I might need, which could 
 be repaid by my family in Portland to his in Balti- 
 more, so that I was immediately placed where I was 
 not likely to be embarrassed for want of whatever was 
 necessary. Later, a fellow-prisoner supplied me with 
 such funds as I needed, with the understanding that 
 when exchanged I was to reimburse his brother in
 
 718 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 New York, whose address lie gave me. On my way 
 home after my exchange, I made it my first duty to 
 call on his brother, who was principal, I think, of a 
 large school, and repay him. He said that I was the 
 first of those to whom the accommodation had been 
 given to discharge the indebtedness. 
 
 From the moment of my first entrance to Libby, 
 I resigned myself entirely to my situation as a 
 prisoner, keeping myself always cheerful, hopeful 
 and buoyant, not only as a matter of duty to my 
 country, and as important to health, but as an 
 example to my comrades in misfortune. So much, 
 at least, was due to them from one who was the 
 senior of all in age as well as in rank. 
 
 From my boyhood, as I have already stated, I had 
 found valued friends in books, and now these were 
 my chief resource. When some southern gentlemen 
 called upon me to learn how they could reciprocate 
 the kindnesses they said I had shown to them when 
 they had been my prisoners, and asked me what I 
 needed most, I expressed a desire for reading matter. 
 Their response was generous. In the books they 
 furnished companionship was found which relieved 
 my lonely confinement, and comfort such as nothing 
 else could supply. 
 
 My location in Libby was nearly at one end of 
 the three great rooms where we were confined, and 
 I prized it for the comparative quiet there to be 
 enjoyed. I have seen, in the reconstructed Libby 
 at Chicago, the plate bearing my name marking 
 the spot. Here most of my waking hours not needed 
 for exercise were passed with my books and pen. 
 Had any of my captors who were disposed to annoy 
 me been aware of how much that employment
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 719 
 
 relieved the liardships of imprisonment, they might, 
 by depriving me of them, have caused me more 
 suffering than I experienced for lack of suitable 
 food and accommodations. My age and rank, out 
 of respect for which my brother officers relieved 
 me of my share, saved me from the drudgery of a 
 turn at cooking or at keeping our quarters clean. 
 
 Not a few among our imprisoned officers obtained 
 much amusement by taking pains to annoy their 
 guards. The news of every Federal success was made 
 the occasion for the most jubilant cheering, shouting 
 and singing, which were kept up in spite of those in 
 charge of the prison. Often at night the singing was 
 participated in by large numbers of the men, so that 
 patriotic songs would resound for blocks around. 
 Then the tramp of the guards could be heard as they 
 came up to order quiet. When the door opened 
 to admit them all was still save the simulated snoring 
 of the four or five hundred men who a moment before 
 had been singing, more intent on noise than liarmony. 
 The officer in command of the guard would relieve 
 himself of a threat of dire vengeance if there should 
 be any more singing, and retire, only to be overtaken 
 in his retreat by a noise more noisy, and, if possible, 
 less harmonious than before. 
 
 The prisoners endeavored to hasten the lagging 
 hours in a great variety of ways. Some were con- 
 stantly despondent, and seemed to have little else to 
 do than to gaze through the giassless prison windows 
 as though they might thus obtain sometliing of 
 cheer from the light, air and freedom without. But 
 there were classes in French and German, debating 
 societies and mock courts, while some studied tactics. 
 Once there was a serious court-martial proceeding to
 
 720 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 see what could be proven against a suspected spy in 
 our midst, and there were not a few who were deter- 
 mined, if tangible evidence could be secured against 
 him, to hang the fellow for his treachery. As they 
 could only show that their keepers became informed 
 of all that took place of which the suspect had knowl- 
 edge, and that he was a special pet of theirs, receiving 
 favors bestowed upon no other prisoner, discretion 
 asserted itself, and the spy, as most of us believed 
 him, escaped the punishment many thought he 
 deserved. 
 
 We had frequent visitors who came from curiosity, 
 and to many of these I was pointed out as a special 
 object of interest. To all this I paid no attention, but 
 it not infrequently happened that I had conversation 
 with those who spoke to me because of their interest 
 in the cause with which my name had been connected, 
 and with some of them I held pleasant interviews. 
 
 We were allowed to look out of the windows, in 
 most of which there was no glass, but not to lean or 
 reach out on pain of death, the order to the sentinels 
 being to fire upon all who should ignore this rule. 
 There were one or two wounds from this cause, but 
 the danger depended altogether upon the disposition 
 of the particular sentinel who happened to notice an 
 infraction of the rule. Ordinarily, a word of warning 
 would be all. Sometimes this would be accompanied 
 by a pointed musket. 
 
 On one occasion I was looking out of my window to 
 see a party of Union prisoners on their way to Belle 
 Isle. One poor fellow was hobbling along barefooted. 
 Slipping off my own shoes and stockings I threw them 
 to my comrade who needed them more than I, and 
 who could not as easily obtain others. Another
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 721 
 
 soldier started for them as tliey fell, and I reached 
 to point out, as well as to shout, for whom they 
 were intended, exposing myself without thought, an 
 easy mark for the sentinel, who grimly watched me 
 and shook his head, but without offering to harm me. 
 In addition to open letters to my family, which 
 were subjected to the espionage of the officers in 
 charge at the prison, I had frequent opportunities 
 for surreptitious communication with the outside 
 world. Chaplains and surgeons of our army were 
 generally released soon after being brought to Libby, 
 and many of these, when they went, carried' letters 
 written on thin paper and concealed in the military 
 buttons of their clothes. In this way, I communi- 
 cated to our authorities at Washington and to my 
 family details, which, if written in letters to be 
 inspected, would never have reached their destina- 
 tion. Some of those letters are now before me, 
 bearing evidence of the compactness with which 
 they were folded. From one bearing date of Novem- 
 ber 12, 1863, I make the following extract: 
 
 " I send you a price current to-day by which you will see 
 the enormous prices, due partly to scarcity and partly to 
 extreme depreciation of rebel money. The 'confeds' cannot 
 feed the prisoners except just so far as to keep them alive. 
 The ration for officers is a piece of corn-cake (unsifted meal) 
 six by four and one-half inches, and one inch thick, and one 
 small sweet potato and water. That is everything for a day. 
 But the officers spend daily over one thousand dollars Con- 
 federate money. Potatoes cost fifty dollars a bushel, sugar 
 five dollars a pound, candles, tallow, one dollar each. We 
 have no meat of any kind. We did have a little until two or 
 three days ago, now it cannot be had. I think the farmers 
 will not exchange their cattle for Confederate money. 
 
 "The Confederacy is nearing its last gasp. Without 
 money it cannot go on, and its currency is now almost woi*tli- 
 less. When I first came here we received for greenbacks two
 
 722 REMINISCENCES 
 
 for one, now the authorities give seven for one. In the 
 streets I suppose the rate is ten for one. At Moliile a sol- 
 dier told me he went to buy a cotton shirt. The price was 
 twenty-two dollars in Confederate money, a pair of six 
 dollar boots one hundred and twenty-five dollars, shoes thirty 
 to fifty dollars." 
 
 We had also a way of communicating by reversing 
 our letters after filling them with writing in ink in 
 the ordinary way, and then writing with lemon juice, 
 invisible to ordinary inspection, but which upon 
 being exposed to heat became perfectly legible. My 
 first letter prepared in that w^ay was dated November 
 29, 1863, and is before me as I wa-ite. It was experi- 
 mental only. I had, prior to this, sent word to my 
 family by a surgeon who was released to "heat 
 my letters in the future.'' In this I wrote, "I have 
 nothing special to say here, but wish you to write if 
 you notice what is on the second page. Say simply, 
 ' I notice what you say.' '' 
 
 We kept this up for some time, but, finally, one 
 prisoner who was let into the secret wrote in the 
 ordinary way to his wife, "After you have read this 
 hold it to the fire and heat it, and you will find some- 
 thing of interest." The inspecting ofiicer at Libby, 
 upon reading this advice, follow^ed it, and thereafter 
 our letters were "heated " as w^ell as read before they 
 were sent on their way to anxious friends at home. 
 On the back of one of my letters, under date of 
 December 8, 1863, I find written in the "invisible 
 ink," the following: 
 
 " I am consoled in my captivity by the indications, sure, as 
 I regard them, of a speedy end of the rel)ellion. Gold is now 
 for Confederate currency more than twenty-six for one, how 
 much more I do not know, as the papers no longer publish 
 the facts. The Confederate finances are hopelessly ruined, 
 there is no earthly power that can help them, and this alone
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 723 
 
 will and must bring their government down about the ears of 
 those who built it. I think the leaders see this, and are 
 expecting the crash very soon. As nearly as I can learn, our 
 money here is about one to twenty or twentj'^-two." 
 
 By means of this secret method of writing, I was 
 in constant correspondence with the authorities at 
 Washington and with the Sanitary Commission, as 
 w^ell as my own family and friends, until the secret 
 was disclosed as related. 
 
 After our government became aware of the gen- 
 erally forlorn condition of our poor fellows at Belle 
 Isle, it shipped a large consignment of clothing, 
 blankets, etc., to my care, for distribution among 
 them. I was paroled by the prison authorities to 
 take charge of the distribution. Upon my arrival 
 there the Union prisoners, in every stage of desti- 
 tution and misery, flocked around me, making their 
 wants audible by their weak voices, though their 
 appearance disclosed their needs. I could not fail 
 to become acquainted with the horrors of their con- 
 dition, to which all the privations we had encountered 
 at Libby were as joys of Elysium. 
 
 A part of the prisoners possessed mildewed, ragged 
 tents, through which the wind and rain passed freely, 
 but the larger portion had no shelter whatever, 
 though the weather was exceptionally cold. They 
 dug holes in the ground, like shallow graves, by 
 which they could escape a portion of the winds, 
 but none of the snow or rain. Their clothing was 
 in a miserable condition of shabbiness and ragged- 
 ness. In the presence of all this wretchedness I 
 restrained myself as best I could. One poor fellow, 
 more unfortunate than the rest, wearing no trousers, 
 pressed closer than the others to show me how much
 
 724 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 he needed clothes; a Confederate guard hinged at him 
 with a bayonet, but the vicious stab was arrested, and 
 a grievous wound, if not death, prevented by a sharp 
 word of remonstrance from me. 
 
 In my report to Washington I acquainted our gov- 
 ernment with something of the misery which had 
 been forced upon my attention. Some time after 
 I wrote the following letter: 
 
 " LiBBY Prison, Nov. 8, 1863. 
 
 General : — My government has sent to me a second con- 
 sig-nment of blankets and clothing for distribution among 
 United States prisoners here. I have to request to be per- 
 mitted to attend to the matter soon, and wish very much that 
 a few officers may l)e permitted, on their parole, to assist me. 
 For want of such help the task was a heavy one on me, and I 
 have reason to l)elieve that many articles were unaccounted 
 for. The condition of the prisoners at Belle Isle is very 
 wretched, many of them being without shelter, and all w^ith 
 insufficient food. I beg that you will cause their situation 
 to be improved. 
 
 Eespectfully, 
 
 Neal Dow, Brig. Gen. U. 8. A. 
 Brigadier General Winder, Commanding. 
 
 I would like to be assisted by Captain Comee, Captain 
 Atwood, Lieutenant Jones, Lieutenant Knaggs, Lieutenant 
 Dixon, Lieutenant Davis." 
 
 This was returned, with the following endorsement: 
 
 " Office C. S. M. Prison, > 
 EiciiMOND, Va., Nov, 9. ^ 
 Respectfully forwarded to headquarters with the remark 
 that General Dow was allowed to go to Belle Isle for a 
 specific purpose, to distribute clothing and not to examine 
 into commissariat arrangements or to hold comuuinication 
 with the prisoners further than this specific business required. 
 Having meddled with matters with which he has no business, 
 and violated a privilege gratuitously extended to him, and in 
 addition made his visit to Belle Isle the means of making a 
 report which is i)()th conten]i)tible and false, I most respect- 
 fully recommend that he be prohibited from again visiting the 
 island, and I further respectfully recommend that a board of
 
 OF XEAT. DOAV. 725 
 
 three officers (Yankees) 1)e appointed to distribute the cloth- 
 ing, etc. W. P. Turner, 
 
 Captain Comtnan ding . 
 
 General Dow was permitted to pass to Belle Isle to dis- 
 tribute clothing upon the express condition that he should do 
 nothing else. Having violated the privilege, he will not be 
 permitted to go again, and Captain Turner will select three 
 discreet officers for that purpose. 
 
 John H. Winder, 
 
 Nov. 9, 1863. Brigadier General.'''' 
 
 I liad in no way violated my parole under which 
 I was permitted to go to Belle Isle, nor had I made 
 any investigation into the condition of the prisoners 
 there other than by refusing to close my eyes and ears 
 to what I could not otherwise fail to see and hear. 
 My only interference was my remonstrance with a 
 sentry for apparently attempting to bayonet a poor 
 Union soldier who, half crazed in the hope of securing 
 through me some amelioration of his suffering, had 
 overstepped the prescribed bounds. 
 
 Nor was the report that I had made on the condi- 
 tion of our imprisoned soldiers "false," save that it 
 necessarily failed in giving the whole truth, as to 
 which, indeed, it might be said that its language was 
 ' ' contemptible " because inadequate for the purpose. 
 That Union soldiers, confined in southern prisons, 
 suffered needless misery is now a matter of history. 
 Much was inevitable as inseparable from captivity, 
 but civilization blushes as the horrors of Anderson- 
 ville. Belle Isle and other prison pens are recalled. 
 
 My intercourse with the masses of the southern peo- 
 ple convinced me that they did not desire that Union 
 prisoners should be subjected to any such treatment. 
 But the essence of the great wrong of slavery was too 
 often concentrated in the hearts and heads of some of 
 
 47
 
 726 REMINISCENCES 
 
 the men who had immediate charge of the prisoners of 
 war. Such positions were perilous at best to all the 
 kindlier phases of human nature. Only men most 
 strongly fortified in disposition and determination to 
 do what was right could resist the tendency to use the 
 great power in their hands for evil, or at least to 
 neglect to use it to prevent the suffering sure to fol- 
 low from their inattention. 
 
 My confinement at Libby covered the time of the 
 great escape, which has passed into history as the 
 most famous of all jail deliveries. Only a select few 
 knew that preparations for this were going on. The 
 greatest caution was exercised because the officers 
 were satisfied that there was a spy in their midst who 
 communicated much of what took place to the officers 
 in charge of the prison. Some of us had located this 
 fellow, to our own satisfaction, through our strong- 
 suspicions, but it was not known who, or how many 
 among us yet had confidence in him, or, at least, 
 might be indiscreet enough to let him know in some 
 way of the project. 
 
 When the tunnel was ready for an exit word was 
 passed around among those who could be trusted and 
 whose health and strength might be equal to the 
 ordeal of flight. Only the vigorous could hope to 
 succeed, and I did not make the attempt. By that 
 time my naturally strong constitution had been 
 broken down, and but the shattered wreck of my 
 former strength remained. 
 
 It is wonderful that such an exodus could have 
 taken place, yet perhaps even more might have 
 escaped but for the fact that knowledge of the plan 
 had reached a greater number than was intended, 
 and when the night came for the trial the prison
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 727 
 
 seemed alive with tlie stir of preparation, so many 
 were making ready to leave. Those in charge of the 
 undertaking had given their followers numbers that 
 each might know his turn, but many more thronged 
 about the mouth of the tunnel, blocking the way. 
 Thus there was much delay, as only one at a time 
 could pass through, and some who had been selected 
 to go could not even reach the prison end of the tun- 
 nel. One officer, I think it was Colonel Straight, was 
 too large to easily pass one obstruction in the tunnel, 
 and got wedged in so that quite an effort was neces- 
 sary to get him out of his predicament. 
 
 All the world knows of that desperate and wonder- 
 fully successful undertaking. I do not remember 
 how many finally escaped. Not a few were recaptured 
 and brought back, but it was a marvel that so many 
 succeeded. Some received assistance from friends 
 and Union sympathizers in Richmond, and it was said 
 that one officer found shelter for a time in a house, 
 with friends, in full view of Libby. 
 
 Every morning it was customary to crowd all the 
 prisoners together into ,one room, where we were 
 packed like sardines, and then to have us pass out 
 one by one, our guards keeping tally as we went. 
 This was called the "roll-call." As the ranking- 
 officer, I usually went out first and then to my 
 ' ' quarters. " At the morning roll-call after the 
 escape, I stepped out first, as usual, but stood close 
 by the officer as he kept his tally. I saw by his face, 
 when he counted up his marks, that he had noticed a 
 discrepancy, but he said nothing except to order us 
 all back again to be checked out once more. He 
 thought he had made a mistake. 
 
 Again I took my place by his side as I stepped
 
 728 REMINISCENCES 
 
 out to see what would come of liis second count. 
 This time he was more careful, but still it was iiot 
 right. In various ways the men tried to confuse him. 
 They would dodge in and out, get counted twice, 
 put hats and caps on sticks and try to get them 
 counted for heads. Nearly all the morning was 
 occupied in getting the count. I was close by the 
 officer w^hen he finally got his tally right and found 
 out how many were missing. The expression of blank 
 astonishment and despair on his face was amusing. 
 He forgot for the moment where he was, and that we 
 were watching him, and, speaking to himself aloud, 
 exclaimed: "Why, it is a h-u-n-d-r-e-d and ten!''' 
 expressing by tone and manner that at first count he 
 had imagined that he had missed only ten. 
 
 When he discovered the true state of affairs he 
 turned deathly pale. How wroth he was that day! 
 How he searched for the hidden passage, through 
 which so many prisoners had escaped! After a long 
 time it was found, and then he freely admitted that 
 the ' ' yanks " were smart, and that they could do 
 anything they undertook. 
 
 At Libby I found several officers from Maine. 
 Among them, near neighbors of mine in the assign- 
 ment of space for sleeping, were Colonel Tilden and 
 Captain Atwood, of the Sixteenth Maine, and not far 
 away was a naval officer, Mr. William H. Fogg, from 
 Bath, Me. One of my fellovz-prisoners was Colonel 
 Cesnola, of New York, an officer whom I learned to 
 respect very highly, and with whom, perhaps, I 
 became as well acquainted as with any of my asso- 
 ciates in misfortune. After my exchange, while in 
 New York, I called, at his request, on Mrs. Cesnola, 
 to deliver a message for him. The wife of a brave
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 729 
 
 and honored officer in the army, she was the daughter 
 of a man who had highly distinguished himself in 
 the war of 1812 in a most brilliant naval engagement. 
 All Americans familiar with the naval history of 
 their country honor her father, Captain Reid, of the 
 famous privateer Armstrong. 
 
 Not long after my return from Mobile, by invita- 
 tion of my fellow-prisoners, I addressed them upon 
 the subject of the war and the condition of the South 
 as observed in my travels to and fro as a prisoner. 
 Before commencing to speak I arranged for two or 
 three officers to be on the watch for the incoming 
 of any of the Confederates in charge, and to give 
 me a signal of such arrival. The applause greeting 
 some of my remarks attracted the attention of 
 our guards, and the signal was given. Instantly 
 I changed my subject, and when the inquiring 
 Confederate officer opened the door he heard me 
 enforcing some temperance truths which, however 
 valuable they might have been, he cared nothing 
 for, and he retired to report that it was only "that 
 crank, Dow, urging temperance on a lot of men 
 who couldn't get enough to eat to keep them from 
 starving." I addressed my fellow-prisoners, at their 
 request, no less than five times during my confinement 
 at Libby, and interruptions were always guarded 
 against in that way. 
 
 It was a matter of comment among us that we 
 received little, if any, attention from the clergymen 
 of Richmond, a notable exception being that of the 
 Roman Catholic Bishop, I think the Right Reverend 
 John McGill. I remember him now as I saw him 
 then, when I wrote of him in a letter to my family, 
 under date of October 23, 1863 :
 
 730 REMINISCENCES 
 
 "I have rarely, if ever, seen a man whose appearance 
 impressed me more, if so mnch. There is prominent in his 
 presence a charmimi: air of dignity, gentleness, intelligence 
 and high culture, intellectual and moral, and every move- 
 ment is full of grace and unaffected ease." 
 
 Not long prior to my arrival at Libby, all the cap- 
 tains of the prison had been mustered to draw lots to 
 decide which two among them should be executed in 
 retaliation for the hanging, by our authorities, of two 
 Confederate captains caught within our own lines 
 under circumstances subjecting them, under military 
 law, to the penalty they suffered. This lot-drawing 
 has passed into history. It resulted in the selection 
 from among two or three score of Union captains 
 in Libby, of Captains Sawyer and Flynn. The world 
 knows what followed. Promptly our authorities 
 selected General Fitzhugh Lee and a Captain Winder 
 from the Confederate officers in their hands as host- 
 ages for the doomed Union captains, rightly surmising 
 that the influential connection of those two officers in 
 the Confederacy would prevent the threatened execu- 
 tion of the Union captains who had drawn their 
 death warrants in the dreadful lottery in which they 
 had been compelled to take tickets. 
 
 This action on the part of our government plunged 
 the Confederate authorities into a dilemma. The 
 influential leaders, around the necks of whose relatives 
 this conditional halter had been placed, demanded 
 that proceedings should be suspended in the blood- 
 curdling drama about to be opened with the death of 
 Sawyer and Flynn. On the other hand, some of the 
 rank and file of the Confederacy, crazed with hate for 
 northern men and northern sentiment, were demand- 
 ing their death, and the selection of other hostages for
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 731 
 
 Lee and Winder, at whatever risk of the inauguration 
 of an era of terrible retaliation the end of which no 
 one could foretell. 
 
 Soon after reaching Libhy I made the acquaintance 
 of Captains Sawyer and Flynn. They had been con- 
 signed to a dungeon immediately after their fatal 
 drawing, but had then been released. When I met' 
 them they were naturally very much depressed by 
 what they believed to be their impending fate, but, 
 with others, I did everything possible to rekindle 
 their hope, assuring them that the Confederates 
 would not dare to carry out their threat. This 
 situation continued for a long time, during which 
 all exchanges, save in one or two very exceptional 
 cases, were suspended. In the meantime, through 
 my friends in the North, notably Vice-President 
 Hamlin and Senators Fessenden and Morrill, and 
 the friends of General Fitzhugh Lee in the South, 
 an effort was being made to put an end to this by our 
 exchange, and that of Captains Sawyer and Flynn for 
 two rebel officers of equal rank, prisoners within the 
 Union lines. 
 
 Finally I was told by a Confederate officer that 
 General Ould, the Confederate official in charge of 
 exchanges, had authorized him to tell me that if the 
 United States government would make the proposi- 
 tion the Confederate authorities would accede to it, 
 but that the latter would not take the initiative. It 
 was also intimated to me that I might write freely 
 upon the subject of the proposed exchange, and that 
 such letters as I thought would aid in 'bringing it 
 about would pass the examination and be forwarded. 
 Accordingly, under date of January 28, 1864, I wrote 
 to my son, as follows :
 
 732 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 " I have reason to believe that if the government will pro- 
 pose to exchange General Lee for myself, the only Federal 
 general here, and equivalent officers for Captains Sawyer and 
 Flynn, who were selected by lot for execution in retaliation 
 for the execution by Burnside of two officers alleged to be 
 recruiting within his lines in Kentucky, for the Confederate 
 service, the proposition will be favorably entertained and the 
 exchange effected. General Lee was captured at a private 
 house, sick, as I was at a private house, wounded. 
 
 " If our friend C. A. S.* will kindly consent, the best thing 
 will be for him to go immediately to Washington and see my 
 friends there. There should be no delay about it. I have 
 no reason to doubt that the government will consent to the 
 measure, since no question of public policy is involved in it. 
 Several special exchanges have already been effected." 
 
 So mucli for the inspection of the officer who was to 
 read my letter. On the back of it, in lemon juice, I 
 wrote: 
 
 ' ' The information comes to me through the commissioner. 
 Judge Ould. The Confederate government will not propose 
 the exchange, as they refuse to exchange generally man for 
 man and rank for rank. They will exchange me for General 
 Lee, without regard to Sawyer and Flynn, but not them, 
 leaving on our hands General Lee. Our government may 
 possibly think it desirable to hold Lee. If so, I am con- 
 tent to remain. Our government must not yield a hair's 
 breadth in relation to the status of the negro in our armies 
 and its duty to protect him in every respect as if he were 
 the most honored white. To recede would be to forfeit 
 honor and merit defeat. We should be utterly disgraced 
 before the world." 
 
 The above, though at the time invisible, now stands 
 out in the apparently indelible brown developed by 
 the heat applied to it so many years ago, testifying to 
 the spirit which animated the inmates of Libby pris- 
 on, and of their willingness to remain there, if need 
 be indefinitely, if thereby those charged with the 
 responsibility for its defense should conclude that 
 
 * Charles A. Stackpole, Esq., of Portland.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 733 
 
 their dear country could better be served than by 
 their exchange. 
 
 Upon the receipt of this letter, my son, with Mr. 
 Stackpole, went to Washington to see what could 
 be done. There, with the assistance of the vice- 
 president and the Maine senators, the necessary steps 
 were taken which shortly led to my exchange. On 
 the 24th of February, 1864, I received two letters, 
 very much delayed, one from Vice-President Hamlin, 
 and one from Senator Lot M. Morrill, of Maine, 
 informing me that the United States government had 
 proposed to exchange General Lee for me. The 
 exchange was effected on the 14th of March, after 
 I had been eight months and fourteen days in cap- 
 tivity. 
 
 Captains Sawyer and Flynn were exchanged the 
 same day. General Lee was the most influentially 
 connected of any Confederate officer then in the 
 hands of the North, while I was the only northern 
 officer of equal rank held by the South. His friends 
 on the one side, and mine on the other, had been 
 most active in bringing about the proposition for 
 the exchange, which was to result not only in pre- 
 venting the initiation of a frightful Sawyer-Flynn 
 vendetta, but to open a general exchange of prison- 
 ers, never again to be closed, I believe, while the war 
 continued. 
 
 On the 15th of March, I went on board the steamer 
 New York, on the James river, bound for Fortress 
 Monroe, where, upon landing. General Butler heartily 
 welcomed me, and told me that he had just tele- 
 graphed Mrs. Dow that I had been exchanged. From 
 there I went to Annapolis, where I met the Misses 
 Titcomb, Pearson and Quimby, volunteer hospital
 
 734 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 nurses from Portland, and by their invitation took 
 tea witli them at Mrs. Tyler's quarters. I waited in 
 Annapolis until I received orders to report at Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 At Washington I dined with Vice-President Hamlin 
 and Senator Morrill, who, with Senator Fessenden, 
 had received me very kindly and warmly. I have 
 elsewhere alluded to my reception upon the floor of 
 Congress and to what I had to say of the condition 
 of the South and of the wish of the Confederates that 
 the Republican party would fail to renominate Lin- 
 coln. 
 
 Obtaining leave of absence for thirty days, on the 
 19th of March I started for home, from which I 
 had turned my face more than two years before. 
 Reaching Portland at noon, March 23d, 1864, I was 
 met at the depot by the mayor and city govern- 
 ment, who accompanied me to my residence, escorted 
 by five companies of infantry under command of 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Charles B. Merrill, and followed 
 by a large concourse of citizens. The public build- 
 ings and hundreds of dwelling-houses and stores were 
 gaily decorated. 
 
 On the next evening I was tendered a formal 
 welcome in the City Hall, of which I venture to 
 insert an account published the next morning in a 
 Portland paper. 
 
 " General Dow, attended by the mayor and meml^ers of the 
 city government, took seats upon the platform at 7.30 o'clock, 
 the house being literally packed, as were all the side rooms,, 
 passage-ways and approaches to the hall. Even the platform 
 was soon so crowded with those anxious to get sight of and 
 listen to the words of their honored fellow-townsman, that 
 there was scarcely room left for the speakers and reporters. 
 After the cheering with which the General was greeted on
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 735 
 
 entering the hall had subsided, and music from Camp Berry- 
 Band, Mayor McLellan called the meeting to order and intro- 
 duced liev. Horatio Stebbins, who spoke as follows : 
 
 ' I esteem myself happy, Mr. Mayor and fellow-citizens, in 
 being permitted to join in these demonstrations of joy on the 
 return of our distinguished fellow-citizen from the war. We 
 have come to welcome him, and to pay him our homage. 
 We have come to assure him that we are not unmindful of his 
 spirit, his toils, or his trials. We have come that we might 
 lift him high aloft, upon the hands of all the people, into the 
 air and light of patriotic love. 
 
 ' General : If that man is to be esteemed most happy 
 whose conduct finds noble response in the hearts of his fellow- 
 men, who is honored above claims of the partisan in open 
 realms of his country's glory, for deeds, for toils, for suffer- 
 ings, done and borne for her cause, you may be esteemed the 
 f[ivorite of heaven. It is worth living for. General, to feel 
 the fevered brow of life refreshed by the wind of a universal, 
 all-pervading sentiment. Eise, and receive the people's bene- 
 diction. Read your recompense in their eyes, forget your 
 pains and be satisfied.' 
 
 "General Dow, on rising to respond, was again greeted 
 with prolonged and enthusiastic cheers." 
 
 My speech occupied about five columns of the paper, 
 closing with the following paragraph: 
 
 "When this war shall l)e ended, and lil)erty shall be pro- 
 claimed through the land to all the inhabitants thereof, and 
 our government shall be established in the love and fear of 
 God forever, the survivors of it will see that the value to the 
 nation and to mankind will be far beyond its cost, and those 
 who now mourn the death of father, brother, son, slain in 
 battle, or starved in prison, will be comforted by the thought 
 that their dear ones perished in the cause of civilization, 
 humanity and Christianity, and that by their death Justice 
 and Truth are established on an everlasting throne." 
 
 Of this meeting the same paper said editorially : 
 
 " In the annals of Portland there has never been such a 
 gathering of people on any occasion, as there was last evening 
 at the City Hall to welcome General Dow. The doors of* the 
 hall were thrown open at six o'clock, and, although proceed-
 
 736 REMINISCENCES 
 
 ings were not to commence before half-past seven, in half an 
 hour the spacious hall, anterooms and passage-ways were 
 solidly packed with human beings, and for an hour or more 
 crowds were wending their way to the hall, only to find when 
 they arrived there that it was impossible for them to obtain 
 an entrance. So great was the crowd that it was with diffi- 
 culty that the police forced a passage-way for the entrance of 
 the city authorities with General Dow. 
 
 "As the General proceeded from the mayor's room, 
 upstairs, he was greeted with cheers by the crowd, which 
 was unable to obtain entrance into the hall. As he entered 
 the hall, the Camp Berry Band struck up ' Hail to the Chief,' 
 and a storm of applause came from the audience — the men 
 cheering and a cloud of handkerchiefs being waved by the 
 ladies, which lasted for some time." 
 
 Extracts from my speech were published far and 
 wide. Though overwhehned with invitations to 
 speak from all parts of the North, I was generally 
 obliged to decline such because very much run down 
 in health and strength. I learned that after sixty 
 years of age it is not easy for the strongest consti- 
 tution to recover from the effects of such exposure 
 and hardships as for the past two years had fallen 
 to my lot. Indeed, I nearly fainted in the course 
 of my reception in City Hall, and for some time 
 after I was subject to vertigo, and after a few 
 months resigned my commission in the army. My 
 health for months was so poor that I scarcely expected 
 to survive a year. 
 
 As long as the war lasted, however, I continued, 
 at the earnest solicitation of the friends of the North 
 in England to do all that I could by way of private 
 and public correspondence to help them in the work 
 they w^ere doing there in behalf of the Union. This 
 subject engrossed so much of my time and thought 
 that there was comparatively little left for specific 
 work for temperance and Prohibition, which, to some
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 737 
 
 extent was necessarily relegated to the rear of the 
 great and pressing subject of the salvation of the 
 country, which had enlisted the sympathy and sup- 
 port of all patriotic people. After the close of the 
 war, also, and during the period of reconstruction, 
 I was extremely anxious that the adjustment should 
 be on the right basis, which should give permanency 
 to peace and to the Union, and contribute to the true 
 glory and greatness of our country; and I interested 
 myself to promote that end as best I might.
 
 SUPPLEMEISTTAEY. 
 
 I. 
 
 GENEEAL DOW'S NINETIETH ANNIVERSARY. HIS LAST 
 
 DAYS. LOCAL TRIBUTES TO HIS LIFE AND 
 
 WORK. THE FUNERAL SERVICES. 
 
 Thougli the war for the Union necessarily led to 
 the suspension of his activity for temperance and 
 Prohibition, the interest of General Dow in those 
 subjects did not wane, and he resumed his labor in 
 their behalf as soon as it was practicable to attract 
 public attention from the all-engrossing issues follow- 
 ing upon the overthrow of the Confederacy. Two of 
 his visits to Great Britain were made after the war, 
 and occupied his attention substantially for three 
 years and a half. With the exception of the time 
 thus spent abroad, General Dow gave himself unre- 
 servedly to his chosen life-work in this country until 
 he reached the age of ninety. 
 
 In the prosecution of his labors, he traveled east 
 as far as Newfoundland and west to San Francisco, 
 and his presence was a familiar one upon platforms in 
 many cities between those extremes; and through his 
 constant and voluminous correspondence for the pub- 
 lic press, his views upon his favorite topic and other
 
 REMINISCENCES OF NEAL DOW. 739 
 
 subjects of general interest were made known to the 
 English-speaking world. To work of this description 
 he added that necessary to keep himself thoroughly 
 informed upon all important current events in every 
 part of the globe. He knew no idle moments, and 
 until the last year of his life, when he was compelled 
 to spare his eyes in the evening, he was constantly 
 busy with book or pen, when not otherwise employed, 
 while his varied daily employments were such as 
 would have exhausted a man of average strength, 
 his junior by a score of years. 
 
 The ninetieth anniversary of General Dow's birth, 
 March 20, 1894, at the suggestion of Miss Frances E. 
 Willard, and through the co-operation with her of 
 temperance organizations generally, was made the 
 occasion for congratulations upon his distinguished 
 services, his long life and his remarkably pre- 
 served health and strength. His home was thronged 
 throughout the day with his fellow-townsmen, and 
 with those from distant towns and other states, who 
 called to pay their respects. It is questionable if any 
 other citizen in private life, who had never held high 
 official position, has been the recipient upon such an 
 occasion of so many congratulatory letters, telegrams, 
 and cable messages as then poured in upon General 
 Dow from every quarter of the globe. Space is only 
 found for extracts from a few. 
 
 Judge Henry Carter, of Haverhill, Mass. : 
 
 "I have been personally familiar with, and now well 
 remember, all the stages of the temperance reform in Maine 
 for sixty years past — and I remember you at all times as 
 emphatically the 'leader of leaders' in the cause, especially 
 in the legal aspect it assumed in Maine just after the Wash- 
 
 ingtonian movement I remember to have notified 
 
 you what day to come to Augusta with your original draft
 
 740 REMINISCENCES 
 
 of the law, and after your hearing before the committee the 
 feeling was so strong in its favor that the common expression 
 was, ' Pass it without dotting an 'i' or crossing a 't',' 
 
 " The law was passed, and to-day the state of Maine is reap- 
 ing great benetit from its influence. There is no state in the 
 Union so comparatively free from the drink habit ; there is 
 no state in the Union so well able to endure a financial crisis, 
 and there is no state in the Union where the rum-power has 
 so small an influence in corrupting elections." 
 
 Hon. Nicholas Fessenden, secretary of state for 
 Maine: 
 
 " In a broad sense, the state, the nation, yes, and 
 
 the race, may properly be congratulated upon your remark- 
 able life and labor in behalf of an elevated mankind."' 
 
 Hon. E. B. Winslow, president of the Portland 
 Board of Trade : 
 
 " My congratulations upon your long and useful life. I 
 thank you for the deep interest you have taken in public 
 affairs, which, with the assistance you have given many indus- 
 tries of our state and city, must now^ be a pride and pleasure 
 to you." 
 
 Ex-Gov. Frederick Robie, Maine: 
 
 " It is pleasant to contemplate so just a public appreciation 
 of his patriotic and unequaled public services for the best 
 interests of humanity and the rights of man. It is a noble 
 tril)ute from state and nation to his personal character, ^vhich 
 is of the highest order, and the summing up of a long life 
 replete with noble and generous deeds." 
 
 Hon. William W. Thomas, a friend of General Dow 
 from boyhood: 
 
 "I congratulate you upon reaching your ninetieth birthday. 
 I congratulate you upon being the father of the Maine Prohi- 
 bitory Law, for your many years of persistent labor in its 
 enforcement, for the many blessings which have come not 
 only to us in Maine, but by its influence in the cause of tem- 
 perance in other states."
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 741 
 
 Ex-Grov. Edwin C. Burleigh, now representing Mr. 
 Blaine's old district in Congress: 
 
 " It is gratifying to all true friends of temperance to see so 
 cordial and so wide-spread a recognition of your noble life- 
 work for the suppression of the liquor-traffic." 
 
 Edward H. Da vies, a most highly respected citizen 
 of Portland: 
 
 " While this anniversary is hailed by multitudes in every 
 zone of the civilized world with congratulations that your 
 force is not abated, your fellow-citizens may Well add their 
 voices to the loud acclaim attesting to your worth, ability, 
 and usefulness as a private citizen and as their chief magis- 
 trate." 
 
 Ben Tillett, the English labor leader: 
 
 " Neal Dow is one of the few brave men a century can 
 own." 
 
 Canon Basil Wilberforce, England. 
 
 " General Neal Dow has imprinted on the human race the 
 eternal truth. When I was his guest at Portland I was deep- 
 ly impressed by his gentle courtesy, his luminous intellect, 
 and his elevated moral sense. The world is better that he has 
 lived." 
 
 Frances E. Willard : 
 
 " General Neal Dow has lived a life that requires no 
 apology. He has been always a man thoroughly loyal to 
 womanhood and the home, a dauntless soldier in the fore- 
 front of that great battle for liberty which involves the 
 emancipation of woman and the downfall of the liquor-traffic." 
 
 Hon. Eugene Hale, United States Senator, Maine: 
 
 "lam sure that I represent the cordial sentiment of the 
 people of Maine when I say that they have always appre- 
 ciated your earnest and efficient battle for temperance and 
 humanity, and that now, when both Europe and America join 
 in expressions of respect and sympathy, no voice is more 
 hearty and sincere than that from your native state." 
 
 48
 
 742 ' KEMINISCENCES 
 
 United States Senator William P. Frye, Maine: 
 
 "The brave man has never lost heart, never grown weary 
 in his w^ell-doing. Moses saw, l)ut could not enter the 
 promised land ; but he has both seen and gathered a great 
 harvest." 
 
 Reverend Joseph Cook, Boston, Mass. : 
 
 "Conscience and courage, will and wisdom, duly com- 
 bined, make celestial fire. A large spark of that tire was a 
 divine gift to Neal Dow's soul. This has made him for 
 nearly a century a purifying force in American civilization." 
 
 Ex-Gov. Sidney Perliam, Maine: 
 
 ' ' The people of Maine especially owe to General Dow 
 a debt of great gratitude." 
 
 Mary A. Livermore, Massachusetts: 
 
 " What an inspiration to noble living is furnished by the 
 career of our ninety year old hero ! How it should stir our 
 young men to lofty aims." 
 
 United States Senator William E. Chandler, New 
 
 Hampshire : 
 
 " Few men can look back upon a life so well spent, so full 
 of good thoughts, good purposes and good deeds." 
 
 United States Senator Jacob H. Gallinger, New 
 Hampshire : 
 
 " New Hampshire followed the example of Maine in adopt- 
 ing a prohibitor}' law and the Granite State gladly joins with 
 the Pine Tree State in wishing you a happy anniversary." 
 
 Henry W. Blair, a member of Congress, New 
 Hampshire: 
 
 " I was with him in l)attle when he was wounded, so that I 
 feel a sort of vested interest in this grand old veteran of a 
 thousand battles for God and man." 
 
 Lady Henry Somerset, England : 
 
 "It is a happy thing for us all that he has lived these 
 ninety noble years."
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 743 
 
 Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, New York: 
 
 " As the glorious veteran has been one of God's heroes of 
 the nineteenth century, may he live to march into the twen- 
 tieth ' with his beaver on.'" 
 
 Ex-Governor Long, Massachusetts: 
 
 "His devotion to a noble cause, his consistent example, 
 his courage and his faith, have made him one of the heroes of 
 the century." 
 
 Judge AVilliam P. Whitehouse, of the Supreme 
 Court of Maine: 
 
 " The beneficent influence of your life upon the welfare and 
 prosperity of the people of Maine will be felt to the remotest 
 generation." 
 
 Rev. Asa Dalton, St. Stephen's Episcopal church, 
 Portland, Me.: 
 
 " In it all Neal Dow has been the principal factor, deserves 
 the chief credit, and is held in highest respect in the city 
 where he has lived all his life." 
 
 President J. W. Bashford, Ohio Wesleyan Uni- 
 versity : 
 
 " I never saw him discouraged for a moment during the 
 darkest days of any campaign." 
 
 Laura Ormiston Chant, England: 
 
 *' Maine and the w^orld owe Neal Dow ffreat gratitude." 
 
 W. S. Caine, England: 
 
 "There is no speech nor language where his voice has not 
 been heard." 
 
 Sir Leonard Tilley, St. John, N. B. : 
 
 "I have met him on the platform in England, the United 
 States and Canada. He was always logical and convincing." 
 
 From Sir Wilfrid Lawson, England: 
 
 "On his coming birthday we can show how gratefully we 
 appreciate his labors and honor his devotion to the cause of 
 justice, progress and humanity."
 
 744 . KEMINISCENCES 
 
 Ex-Gov. John P. St. John, Kansas: 
 
 "Prohibition will triumph, the saloon will go down and 
 out forever, our homes will rejoice and be glad, and no one 
 will be entitled to greater credit for this result than our brave 
 old leader, Neal Dow." 
 
 Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens, Portland: 
 
 "I believe in some future day the grateful children will 
 erect to his precious memory a monument as grand as any 
 ever dedicated to freedom's cause." 
 
 From St. Paul, Minn., Archbishop Ireland wired: 
 " Warm congratulations on long years and faithful work." 
 
 The following was received from ex-United States 
 Senator James W. Bradbury, of Maine, the senior of 
 General Dow by two years: 
 
 " My Dear Mr. Dow : 
 
 I send to you my congratulations on this your ninetieth 
 birthday. You have not lived in vain. You have devoted a 
 large part of your active life to one field of Christian labor, 
 and have succeeded more fully than any other person in 
 turning and fixing the attention of the English-speaking 
 people upon the appalling evils of intemperance and of devis- 
 ing their suppression. 
 
 While you would take away temptations, it is certainly due 
 from those who hold to moral suasion to be as active and 
 earnest as you are in the great work of eradicating the most 
 wide-spread and destructive evil that pervades the com- 
 munity. 
 
 Your senior in age, but not in Christian work, I remain. 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 James W. Bradbury." 
 
 A committee of the city government, consisting of 
 Aldermen Thompson and McGowan, and Councilmen 
 Johnston, Snow, and Howell, called, and its chair- 
 man, Alderman Thompson, in an appropriate address, 
 presented to General Dow a beautifully engrossed 
 copy of a resolution which had been adopted by 
 the city government, as follows:
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 745 
 
 " Resolved, That a committee of two, with such as the com- 
 mon council may join, be appointed to call to-morrow upon 
 our distinguished fellow-citizen and oldest living ex-mayor 
 of this city. General Neal Dow, and tender him the congratu- 
 lations of the city government u})on his long-continued 
 health and strength, and upon the wide-spread appreciation 
 of his eminent services, manifested in the o^eneral recosfnition 
 of the ninetieth anniversary of his birth." 
 
 "The joint committee appointed by the city government 
 desires to extend to General Neal Dow on behalf of the city 
 of Portland, its most hearty congratulations upon his reaching 
 the ninetieth year of an eventful and well spent life, replete 
 with good deeds and achievements for the cause of humanity. 
 We sincerely trust that many more years may be added to 
 his life. 
 
 Zen AS Thompsox, 
 . Joseph A. McGowan, 
 Frank C. Johnston, 
 Charles E. Snow, 
 WiNSLOAV E. Howell, 
 
 Committee." 
 
 The State Board of Trade, composed of representa- 
 tives from the local boards of the several cities and 
 towns in the state, being in session in Portland, 
 appointed a committee consisting of Col. Henry S. 
 Osgood, of Portland, Hon. Lysander Strickland, of 
 Bangor, and H. B. Babbitt, Esq., of Auburn, to call 
 upon General Dow to present the following resolu- 
 tion, which it had adopted. 
 
 "Resolved, That the members of the State Board of Trade, 
 in convention assembled, in the city of Portland, hereby 
 tender to their distinguished fellow-citizen, General Neal 
 Dow, on this, the ninetieth anniversary of his birth, their 
 warm congratulations upon his long and useful life and the 
 appreciation of his services manifested by the wide observance 
 of his birthday." 
 
 Among other cable messages the following was 
 received from a great meeting in London, England:
 
 746 REMINISCENCES 
 
 " A mighty throng gathered in Exeter Hall crowns your 
 ninety beneficent years with love and gratitude, for you can 
 truly say : 'When the ear heard me then it blessed me, and 
 when the eye saw me it gave witness to me. Because I 
 delivered the poor that cried and the fatherless, and him that 
 had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to 
 perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing 
 tor joy. I put on righteousness and it clothed me, my judg- 
 ment was as a robe and a diadem. I was eyes to the blind and 
 feet was I to the lame. I was a father to the poor, and the 
 cause which I knew not I searched out.'" 
 
 In the evening a great meeting was held in City 
 Hall, which was crowded in every part. The mayor, 
 Hon. James P. Baxter, who presided, said: 
 
 "No son of Portland has thrown about it such a halo of 
 wholesome light as the man whose ninetieth birthday we cele- 
 brate to-night. He sits here an example for the old and 
 young, and may the memory of this night long live with our 
 people." 
 
 Among the speakers were Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens, 
 ex-Governor Selden Connor and Rev. Matt S. Hughes 
 of the Chestnut Street M. E. church. Mrs. Hannah 
 J. Bailey presented to the state an oil portrait of Gen- 
 eral Dow. The governor of Maine, Hon. Henry B. 
 Cleaves responded as follows: 
 
 " In the presence of this magnificent audience, here in the 
 city of his birth and of his home, on this his ninetieth anni- 
 versary, in behalf of the people of the state, I extend to the 
 distinguished advocate of a noble cause, words of greeting. 
 The name of General Dow is being honored throughout the 
 world ; and the people of Maine are to-night bestowing their 
 congratulations and their honors upon one of their own 
 citizens, who for more than three-quarters of a century has 
 been steadfast to his convictions of duty. You are not only 
 emphasizing your appreciation of the high character of the 
 man and the citizen, but you are recognizing his long and 
 ceaseless efi'orts that have accomplished results that will live 
 as long as the frame of human society shall endure. You 
 have tendered to the state the i)()rtrait of this distinguished
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 747 
 
 citizen ; and in the name of a great and growing and prosper- 
 ous commonwealth, in the name of a great [)eop]e, who arc 
 loyal to our state and to every cause that elevates mankind 
 and strengthens the foundations of good and pure govern- 
 ment, the gift you have bestowed is accepted ; and I express 
 to you the thanks of the commonwealth. It will be given an 
 appropriate position in the Capitol with the portraits of other 
 distinguished men Avho have, in the past, honored the state of 
 Maine and her people." 
 
 Tliougli still wonderfully preserved in mind and 
 body, General Dow now realized that his working 
 days were nearly over. He continued to appear occa- 
 sionally in public, making several speeches, in one or 
 two instances traveling many miles for the purpose, 
 and speaking at some length. To all suggestions that 
 he could spare his strength and prolong his life by 
 refraining from such efforts, his uniform reply was 
 that he did not feel at liberty to decline an invitation 
 to speak whenever it was thought he might be of ser- 
 vice. His last address was made about a year before 
 his death, when he had passed his ninety-second birth- 
 day. Rev. Dr. A. H. Wright, of Portland, afterwards 
 spoke of that speech as a marvel in its indication of 
 continued intellectual vigor. 
 
 Forced finally into complete retirement by great 
 physical weakness, the last few weeks of General 
 Dow's life were passed in his home, his chief comfort 
 being derived from, books, which were his constant 
 companions up to the last week of his life, and not 
 omitting daily reading from the Scriptures, his invari- 
 able practice for more than half a century. To the 
 last week of his life he continued to be interested in 
 current events, and manifested in various ways his 
 devotion to the cause of temperance as long as he had 
 strength to speak above a whisper.
 
 748 REMINISCENCES 
 
 On Saturday morning, the 25th of September, 1897, 
 General Dow, exhausted by the effort to dress, 
 fainted. Soon rallying, he indulged during the day 
 in bright and cheerful conversation upon various 
 topics. Sunday morning he rose as usual, but in the 
 evening upon retiring was very feeble. Monday he 
 again essayed to rise, but finding himself unequal 
 to the effort, said: "This is the beginning of the 
 end," to which he thenceforth looked forward cheer- 
 fully, suggesting to his daughter Cornelia, who was 
 constantly at his bedside, that the funeral services 
 should be simple, without display, and indicating the 
 clergymen he desired to take part. 
 
 His chief solicitude in the last three days of his 
 life was lest in his weakness he should trouble those 
 who were caring for him. His last eference to him- 
 self was two days before his death when he said, "I 
 am so weary; I long to be free." Noticing that those 
 gathered near him were affected by the remark, he 
 quickly added, ' ' There is no occasioi for this, it is all 
 right," and with evident purpose to relieve the strain, 
 spoke with so much liveliness and brightness as to 
 cause all by his bedside to smile. A few hours before 
 his death, his daughters and son, being in the room, 
 he asked that his daughter-in-law be called, and when 
 she joined the group, he said with a smile, ' ' Now you 
 are all together." About an hour before the end, he 
 recognized his son with a bow and smile; then closing 
 his eyes at half past two o'clock, Saturday afternoon, 
 October 2d, 1897, he passed quietly to rest. 
 
 The funeral services were held Tuesday afternoon, 
 October 5, 1897, in the Payson Memorial church, 
 which could not accommodate the people who, crowd- 
 ing its large auditorium, also thronged the entrances
 
 or NEAL DOW. 749 
 
 of the cliurch and the street in its vicinity. The city 
 government was present, as were also the Woman's 
 Christian Temperance Union, the Veteran Firemen's 
 Association, the soldiers of General Dow's old regi- 
 ment, and other veterans, the members of the Maine 
 Charital^le Mechanic's Association, and members and 
 ex-members of the Maine legislature. The arrange- 
 ments were in charge of Mr. Henry P. Cox, assisted 
 by Messrs. James F. Hawkes, Lyman N. Consens, 
 Samuel B. Kelsey, J. E. McDowell, J. W. D. Carter, 
 and J. W. Stevenson. 
 A morning paper of the next day, said : 
 
 "Many distinguished men and women were present to do 
 honor to General Dow's memory, but the most noticeable 
 feature of the occasion was the very large attendance of peo- 
 ple in all walks of life who came to show heartfelt respect to 
 the memory of the man who was dear to them because of the 
 cause he championed." 
 
 Joshua L. Bailey, of Pennsylvania, Rev. Theodore 
 L. Cuyler, of New York, Hon. Nelson Dingley, Jr., of 
 Maine, Hon. Henry B. Metcalf, of Rhode Island, and 
 Benjamin R. Jewell, of Massachusetts, were appointed 
 by the National Temperance Society a committee to 
 attend the funeral. The New England Sabbath Pro- 
 tective League, of which General Dow was a vice- 
 president, was represented by its secretary. Rev. Dr. 
 Martin D. Kneeland, of Boston. Mr. George K. 
 Shirley, of New York, so long and intimately asso- 
 ciated with General Dow in temperance work in 
 Maine, was among those present. 
 
 The pall-bearers were : Governor Llewellyn Powers, 
 of Maine, Mayor Charles H. Randall, ex-Governor 
 Sidney Perham, ex-Governor Nelson Dingley, Jr., 
 ex-Governor General Selden Connor, ex-Governor
 
 750 REMIXISCEXCES 
 
 Frederick Robie, Judge William L. Putnam, of 
 tlie United States Circuit Court, ex-Mayor General 
 Francis Fessenden, ex-Mayor Marquis F. King, 
 the collector of the port, ex-Mayor John W. Deer- 
 ing, Hon. William G. Davis, president of the bank 
 of which General Dow was long a director, Edward 
 H. Daveis, Esq., president of the Portland Gaslight 
 company, Chief Engineer of the fire-department M. N. 
 Eldridge, ex-Chief Spencer Rogers, ex-Chief A. J. 
 Cummings, and ex-Chief Frank Merrill. 
 
 Rev. Leroy S. Bean, of the West-End Congrega- 
 tional church, read from the scriptures, beginning 
 with the familiar passage : ' ' Blessed is the man that 
 walketh not in the counsels of the ungodly," and 
 closing with the story of the translation of the 
 prophet Elijah. The venerable Methodist divine, 
 Rev. D. B. Randall, enfeebled after long years of 
 labor as a coadjutor of General Dow in temperance 
 and antislavery work, offered prayer. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Asa Dalton, rector of the St. Stephen's 
 Episcopal church, then spoke as follows: 
 
 " ' A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country 
 and in his own house.' The truth of the saying is proved l)y 
 its exceptions, of wdiich Neal Dow furnishes a striking exam- 
 ple. The general recognition of his great work and greater 
 worth, is no less creditable to the people of Portland, than to 
 Neal Dow himself. 
 
 Distance often imparts a glow to a view, both of men and 
 things, which is dissipated by coming nearer to them. Not so 
 with Neal Dow. Greatly as he is honored abroad, he is even 
 more so at home, where his whole career has been subject to 
 li«-hts more searching than beat upon a throne, which have 
 revealed nothing to his disadvantage. They have served only 
 to bring out into clearer view his many admiral)le traits and 
 the sterling worth of his character. 
 
 ' Call no man happy till he dies,' was a saying of the 
 ancient Greeks. Neal Dow was happy alike in life and death.
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 751 
 
 Happy in his ancestry, in his parents, the home influences and 
 training which started him in the right direction. It was the 
 pure, serene atmosphere of the Friends which he breatlied 
 from his birth which proved a tonic to his moral constitution. 
 He was equally happy in the choice he made of a moral ahn in 
 life, which was to grow and strengthen by what it fed upon ; 
 happy in the town where he began to carry out his high pur- 
 pose. 
 
 When later the war began, his patriotism flamed up, and 
 gave him the grand opportunity to serve and to suffer for his 
 country, in which he was as brave and unflinching as in his 
 previously chosen line of action. Since then, he has had the 
 health and happiness to war with the liquor-traffic to the end 
 of his earthly life. 
 
 General Dow knew that moral influences are alone sufiicient 
 to insure the flnal and full triumph of the cause he had at 
 heart. He was not a man of one idea on this or any other 
 subject. So far from this, that few among us had equally 
 wide and diverse sympathies, tastes and pursuits. He was 
 the friend and advocate of every good cause, A more public 
 spirited citizen has never lived in Portland. His love for his 
 native city was a ruling passion to the end. He was equally 
 proud of our state, and all the states. For his country he 
 suffered and bled, when by reason of age he could have 
 claimed exemption from active duty. Nor was he a man of 
 action merely. He had a vigorous, discriminating intellect. 
 As an effective speaker and writer, he has never been sur- 
 passed. His power of making a statement, clear, cogent and 
 conclusive, was unequaled in his day. 
 
 Above all, he delighted in his choice and extensive library, 
 in which he passed perhaps the happiest hours of his life. 
 Hio;h rose the tide of emotion in the heart of the orator as he 
 surveyed the listening crowds with their upturned faces, but 
 far purer and deeper was the converse held by Neal Dow with 
 his favorite authors, both native and foreign. Macaulay's and 
 Milton's praise of good books he could have repeated from 
 his heart. 
 
 Perhaps few of our people knew his interest in all the great 
 political movements and changes of our time. I have heard 
 him discuss European affairs with such men as Dean Farrar, 
 Canon Wilberforce, and Phillips Brooks, where he more than 
 held his own and showed an intimate knowledge of haute 
 politique. 
 
 But enouo;h. Let others dwell and dilate on his sinsjular
 
 752 REMINISCENCES 
 
 ofifts and o-reat life-work which will surely secure to him the 
 widest fame ; but to ourselves we will reserve the right to 
 claim him as a fellow-citizen whose fame the state and city 
 will jealously and proudly guard and yet perpetuate in bronze 
 or marble ; a neighbor w^ho was an example to us all in 
 knightly courtesy and every civil duty ; a friend, who held us 
 to himself by l)ands more delicate than silk and more firm 
 than steel. Let the idlers among us be aroused and incited 
 by his incessant activity. O well might his last words be 
 ' I am weary,' Who than he had a better right to be weary, 
 not of, but in his w^ork. Again, ' I long to be free ! ' Ay, 
 his was the eagle's upward gaze and flight, and as the bird 
 escaped from tlie cage in which he had been imprisoned his 
 soul would fain mount upward to heavenly heights, fly away, 
 and be ' at rest.' " 
 
 Dr. Dalton was followed by Kev. A. H. Wriglit, of 
 the St. Lawrence Congregational cliurcli, who said : 
 
 "Gratitude and gladness mingle with the sorrow of this 
 hour. We are deeply thankful that the long and beneficent 
 life of our departed fellow-citizen has l)een lived in our city 
 from the cradle to the grave. We are thankful for the luster 
 his noble life, grand achievements and illustrious name have 
 shed upon our city and commonwealth. We are glad that he 
 was spared in marvelous vigor of mind and health of l)ody to 
 his extreme old age. We rejoice over the great moral and 
 political results of his life-work. 
 
 The story of his life has often been told ; it need not be 
 rehearsed here. There came a day in his early manhood, 
 when this great life which has gone out from our presence, 
 was consciously given to the work of temperance reform. 
 Then the high purpose of his life w^as formed, then he elected 
 his mission, then he consecrated his heart, his intellect, his 
 energies and his inspiring personality to the task of depriving 
 the licensed saloon-keeper of his legal right to ruin homes and 
 destroy human happiness. 
 
 Apart from this noble consecration of self to the work. Pro- 
 hibition had never been an accomplished fact, nor would Neal 
 Dow have immortalized his name as the framer and father of 
 the iNIaine Law. This consecrated purpose was formed as 
 early as 1830 or I'S.'U when Mr. Dow Avas not more than 27 
 years of age. His settled determination to devote himself to 
 the advocacy of the principles of legislative prohibition was
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 753'- 
 
 formed some four or live years later. In his earlier efforts 
 Mr. Dow had no intention of devoting his life to this cause, 
 much less to become a professional reformer. 
 
 He was a man of business, devoting his leisure time to tem- 
 perance work, but now began more earnest and exacting 
 labors in this cause. While interested in industrial, educa- 
 tional and philanthropic interests, notably the antislavery 
 cause, he was more and more becoming personally identified 
 with that of temperance reform and legislation. His conse- 
 crated purpose made him, unconsciously, a professional re- 
 former. 
 
 Still another important moral factor in the great achieve- 
 ments of this remarkable man was the strength of his 
 personal convictions respecting the prohibitive principle as 
 right, sound, and entirely practicable. 
 
 Neal Dow was no dreamer ; no wild visionary seeking to 
 achieve the impossible. He never expected that bad men and 
 women could be made good by legislative enactment. It is 
 not true that ' he believed that men may be made moral and 
 temperate by statute.' But he did believe, and he never 
 ceased to believe, in the possible and reasonable suppression 
 of the rum-traffic by legal prohibition. He did believe until 
 the day of his death that the possible and practical enforce- 
 ment of the Maine Law would banish liquor-saloons from our 
 streets, drive the infamous traffic into darkness and rob it of 
 its glamour of respectability, its alluring and glaring temp- 
 tations and its insidious perils. 
 
 This was his aim, this he studied and toiled to accomplish 
 — to remove from those weak or diseased men and women, in 
 whom appetite for strong drink, hereditary or acquired, held 
 sway over their will, conscience and reason, the open, visible, 
 public temptation of the licensed saloon. That this ought to 
 be done and could be done, Neal Dow never for a moment 
 doubted. 
 
 This was Neal Dow's contention. Not ' that men may be 
 made moral and temperate by statute,' but that they could be 
 delivered from temptation, and that this would be a most 
 important and valuable aid to their reform by moral suasion 
 and Christian effort. 
 
 These, then, were the strong moral forces in the heart of 
 our venerated and distinguished citizen whose spirit is 
 departed: sympathy, consecration, conviction. There were 
 not wanting auxiliary forces to support and direct these moral 
 qualities — keen intelligence, practical wisdom, heroic cour-
 
 754 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 age, power of concentrating thought and will and ceaseless 
 energy. Neal Dow was a mighty worker. He possessed 
 large capacity for great achievement. He was, we believe, 
 kind and true in his sympathies, sincere and noble in his self- 
 consecration, and sound and right in his convictions. Of him 
 it may be said: He was great in peace, great in war, and 
 great in the hearts of his countrymen. His name will never 
 be forgotten, nor his work undone. 
 
 It behooves us, as his fellow-citizens, to revere his memory, 
 to emulate his virtues and to esteem him very highly for his 
 works' sake." 
 
 Rev. Rollin T. Hack, pastor of the Payson Memorial 
 churcli, then spoke as follows: 
 
 "The voice of a prophet is stilled. 
 
 For three score and ten years, since he made his first 
 speech in favor of temperance, Neal Dow has been like a 
 prophet of old to this land. He had the spirit of the old 
 Hebrew prophets. Few men have read those ancient Hebrew 
 oracles oftener than he, and he had aljsorbed their spirit. He 
 was in sympathy with their passionate protests against evil 
 and their appeals for righteousness. The prophet sees truth 
 at first hand. He does not quote. He has an immediate con- 
 sciousness of it, its authenticity and its authority. He gives 
 himself to its dominion and dedicates body and soul to its 
 diftusion. 
 
 Such was Neal Dow. He gave himself to the cause of 
 temperance with a passionate devotion. With him it w^as the 
 cause of righteousness, and humanity. There is enlargement 
 and life-giving power in ideas that root themselves in eternal 
 righteousness and a man possessed with such ideas is worth 
 more to the world than armies and navies. 
 
 When such a man speaks it is with not only the prophet's 
 conviction, but with the prophet's power. Men cannot 
 remain indifferent to him. They may oppose Init they must 
 rouse themselves for some action. This has been the success 
 of the life we remember to-day. It does not need mention 
 in this presence, but more than to any other leader probably, 
 it was due to him that men were com})elled to stop and 
 examine the grounds of their individual and social life touch- 
 ing intemperance. They were obliged to admit the evil, 
 acknowledire the wroncf.
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 755 
 
 Thus was well begun the great temperance movement which 
 was not limited to our land and which to-day is a leading 
 issue in the world. He was a great leader. He inspired 
 men with the idea that they might master the liquor-traffic 
 instead of allowing it to master them. 
 
 The ' Golden Rule ' and the fact that each man is his 
 ' 1)rother's keeper,' he felt and strove to make others feel. 
 He was statesman as well as prophet like many of the 
 prophets of old. He embodied his convictions in law and 
 thus built a breakwater against the encroaching evil, — a wall 
 of defense for the weak. 
 
 He was not an easy leader to follow. He saw the right so 
 clearly, he was so loyal to it, that any hesitation was scarcely 
 to l)e tolerated. But though he struck hard blow^s, it w^as not 
 with personal animosity. He saw^ men through the truth that 
 he had given himself to, and as they were for or against it, 
 he judged them. But personal hatreds he did not cherish. 
 
 His courage was unwavering, magnificent. He was never 
 daunted. He was 
 
 ' One who never turned his back but marched 
 lireast forward. 
 Never doubted clouds would break, 
 Never dreamed, tho' right were worsted. 
 Wrong would triumph.' 
 
 He never ceased to believe in the triumph of temperance 
 for it was the cause of humanity, of righteousness, the cause 
 of God. 
 
 This was the secret of his life, his power. Like one in the 
 far past ' he endured as seeing Him who is invisible.' 
 
 And the presence that was so potent, so courageous, so full 
 of encouragement to us, has gone out into the unseen, full of 
 years and honors. 
 
 Not in a chariot of fire, but iDeacefully as the full tide slips 
 from the shore he went, so that he might have said with the 
 great poet : 
 
 ' Sunset and evening star 
 
 And one clear call for me ! 
 And may there be no moaning of the bar, 
 When I put out to sea, 
 
 But such a tide as moving seems asleep. 
 
 Too full for sound and foam. 
 When that which drew from out the lioundless deep 
 
 Turns again home.
 
 756 REMIXISCE^^CES OF XEAL DOW. 
 
 Twilight and evening l)ell, 
 
 And after that the dark ! 
 And may there be no sadness of farewell 
 
 When I embark ; 
 
 For tho' from out our bourne of time and place 
 
 The flood may bear me far, 
 I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
 
 When I have crost the l)ar.' 
 
 But friends, we are not gathered here merely to honor him 
 who has gone. God honored him. His work is done. 
 Something remains for us. The prophet's voice is stilled but 
 the prophet's message remains. Its appeal is to us. Upon 
 whom shall a double portion of the spirit of Elijah fall? 
 What we need are men who are ' initiated into the mystery of 
 invisible things.' 
 
 ' Men whom highest hope inspires. 
 Men whom purest honor fires, 
 Men who trample self beneath them, 
 
 * * * 
 
 Men who never shame their mothers, 
 Men who never fail their brothers, 
 True, however false are others. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Men who when the tempest gathers. 
 Grasp the standard of their fathers, 
 
 In the thickest fight. 
 Men wdio strike for home and altar 
 (Let the coward cringe and falter), 
 
 God defend the right ! 
 
 True as truth, tho' lorn and lonely, 
 Tender — as the brave are only ; 
 Men who tread where saints have trod. 
 Men for country, home and God : 
 Give us men ! I say again, again, 
 Give us such men ! ' " 
 
 At the close of the services nearly an hour was 
 occupied by the great crowd in filing past the casket, 
 which was placed in front of the pulpit. The inter- 
 ment was in the family tomb at Evergreen cemetery.
 
 SUPPLEMENTAEY. 
 
 II. 
 
 SOME PRESS AND OTHER NOTICES OF THE DEATH OF 
 GENERAL DOW. PRESENTATION OF PORTRAIT TO 
 THE CITY. ADDRESSES OF HON. JOSEPH W. 
 SYMONDS AND REV. DR. HENRY S. BUR- 
 RAGE. RESOLUTIONS OF * THE 
 CITY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 At its regular meeting, Monday evening, October 4, 
 after the death, of General Dow, the city government 
 unanimously adopted the following resolutions, sub- 
 mitted by Mayor Randall: 
 
 " Whereas, It has pleased Divine Providence to remove 
 from our midst our honored and distinguished fellow-citizen, 
 who for over ninety-three years has been a resident of our 
 city, be it 
 
 " Resolved, That as representatives of this city, of which 
 he has twice been mayor, we sincerely mourn his loss and 
 extend our heartfelt sympathy to his family and friends. 
 
 '■^Resolved, That it is the sense of the city council that all 
 city offices be closed at twelve, noon, Tuesday, the day of the 
 funeral, and remain closed the remainder of the day, and it 
 is sincerely hoped that all places of business will show their 
 respect for the deceased by closing during the hours of the 
 funeral. 
 
 ^^ Resolved, That these resolutions be spread upon the 
 records and a copy sent to the family of the deceased." 
 
 49
 
 758 KEMINISCENCES 
 
 Resolutions of similar import were adopted by 
 various other bodies in the city, while temperance 
 organizations, and religious societies in this and 
 other lands paid tributes to General Dow's memory, 
 and memorial services were held by many churches in 
 this country, the Canadas, and Great Britain. 
 
 Almost the entire press of this and other lands 
 noticed the death of General Dow, English as well 
 as American papers making extensive references to 
 his life and labors. Space is only found for brief 
 extracts from the notices of him in some of the papers 
 of his native city and state, where his life had been 
 spent, and where he was best known. 
 
 In General Dow's death Portland loses her most distin- 
 guished citizen, and the common country a unique and 
 energetic reformer and philanthropist. It is only deserved 
 praise to say that he, by his burning zeal and his fifty years 
 of unceasing agitation, has l)een a mighty force for good in 
 the world. — Portland Advertiser. 
 
 He was a man whose virtues were of the antique type ; 
 virtues put out to use in the service of his city, of his state 
 and of his country, and backed by a force of character and 
 strength of will which no obstacle could daunt nor discourage- 
 ment subdue. — Portland Argus. 
 
 While man shall hope for progress, toilers for the welfare 
 of the race may draw- inspiration from the example set by 
 Neal Dow, and emulate the faith and courage with which he 
 devoted his life to what he believed was right. — Portland 
 Evening Express. 
 
 Neal Dow wrought long and well, with a steadfastness of 
 purpose that knew no variableness or shadow of turning, with 
 a courage that never flinched, with a sublime faith that never 
 permitted him to doubt for a moment the ultimate triumph of 
 his cause. What l)etter culogv than this? — Portland Press. 
 
 The city bows its head in unaffected sorrow at the passing 
 of a man who has made the fame of cit}'' and state wide as the 
 w'aters be, and whose repute is borne on the trumpets of the
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 759 
 
 wind from the four quarters of heaven. — Portland Sunday 
 Telegram, 
 
 His last days were passed amid the general praise and good 
 will of a generation which has given full credit to his sincerity 
 and to his great influence in the temperance cause. — Portland 
 Sunday Times. 
 
 Whatever standpoint one assumes in regard to the wisdom 
 of the special legislation with which Mr. Dow's name was 
 connected, the influence his work has exerted on customs, 
 morals and practical legislation is hard to overestimate. — 
 Portland TranscrijU. 
 
 Neal Dow's memory will always be revered and respected. 
 — Bangor JSfeivs. 
 
 His death will be sincerely mourned, not only by his imme- 
 diate family and friends, but 1)y thousands who were in 
 sympathy with his life-work for the suppression of intemper- 
 ance. — Bangor Whig and Courier. 
 
 Maine has reared many famous men, but few will be 
 mourned by more people or their names be longer honored and 
 reverenced than this Apostle of Temperance. — Bath Times. 
 
 He has passed peacefully to his rest after a career which 
 merits an honored place in American history and in the mem- 
 ory of his fellow-countrymen. — Biddeford Journal . 
 
 He hath not lived in vain. The incidents of his life and 
 death, and the remarkable tribute paid to his memory by the 
 nations as they stood at his bier with uncovered heads, dem- 
 onstrate this more clearly than any mere words of his most 
 enthusiastic eulogist. — Bridgton j^ews. 
 
 The labors of Neal Dow will ever be remembered as the 
 labors of a man sincere, earnest and philanthropic, and actu- 
 ated by a deep regard for the good of his fellow-men. — 
 Calais Advertiser. 
 
 His political record, like his private life, is clean and 
 honorable. — Calais Times. 
 
 As a benefactor of his race General Neal Dow will be held 
 in grateful remembrance. Those who have 1)een helped by 
 him along the upward way to a nobler and better life will not 
 let his name be forgotten. — Chrif<lian Mirror.
 
 760 EEMIXISCENCES 
 
 Neal Dow lived to see our state emerge from the shadows 
 of free rum and poverty into a condition of temperance and 
 prosperity, to which result his efforts more than any other 
 single agency contributed. — ( RocMand) Courier-Gazette. 
 
 His name will not soon perish among men, and his noble 
 record will long work as a leavening influence in human 
 hearts. — GoKj)el Banner. 
 
 He would not compromise with the enemy, whether fight- 
 ing the liquor-traffic or the foes of the Union. He was 
 indeed wonderfully equipped for the work of his life, and the 
 many years, indomital^le energy and rugged health vouch- 
 safed to him were so completely utilized that in his last 
 moments he could not look back with that sense of regret 
 which comes to those who falter by the wayside. — Kennebec 
 'Journal. 
 
 And as the years pass the nobility of his character, the 
 fidelity of his life, and the unselfishness of his aims will be 
 more and more recoi^nized. — Lewiston Journal. 
 
 His private life was singularly free from reproach, and his 
 long career furnished a shining example of sturdy upright- 
 nes, of unselfishness and of devotion to principle. — Lewiston 
 Sun. 
 
 Generations will come and go before the direct influence of 
 this great prohibition leader will be lost to the citizens of 
 New England — Maine Farmer. 
 
 All acknowledge the integrity, sincerity, earnestness of 
 purpose and purity of motive which characterized him. — Old 
 Tou:n Enterprise. 
 
 The tril)utes to his memory are many, and none are more 
 hearty than those from opponents of the cause he held most 
 dear, 1)ut who freely testify to their admiration of him as a 
 man. — (Belfast) Bejmhlican Journal. 
 
 In every work for the good of the public, during his long 
 and active life, he has been ever foremost. — Rockland 
 Opinion. 
 
 In the death of General Neal Dow, Maine loses one of its 
 most noted residents, a man whose reputation was world-wide 
 and untarnished. — RocMand Star.
 
 OF NEAL DOAV. 761 
 
 The people of Maine honor the memory of her great apostle 
 of Prohibition. — Skoivhegan Reporter. 
 
 Maine will long hold in proud remembrance the name of 
 him, her greatest apostle of temperance. — Waterville Mail. 
 
 Mr. Dow has done more for the peace and sobriety of the 
 home than any man living. — Westbrooh Globe-Star. 
 
 Few of Maine's famous men will be mourned by more 
 people or their names be longer honored than he who was not 
 inappropriately styled "The Grand Old Man." — Winthrop 
 Banner. 
 
 Under date of November 1, 1897, the mayor of 
 Portland wrote the following letter: 
 
 "Mayor's Office, Portland, Me. 
 Hon. F. N. Dow. 
 
 Dear Sir : — Ever since the death of your honored father, 
 I have thought that, out of respect to his memory as a former 
 mayor of our city, and in recognition of his services to the 
 country during the Civil war, and in honor of a distinguished 
 son of Portland, whose name is known throughout the world, 
 his portrait should l)e hung in the office of the mayor, as is 
 that of that other distinguished citizen of our city, William 
 Pitt Fessenden ; and I sincerely hope that at an early date 
 you will furnish his portrait for this purpose, which I know 
 will meet the approval of your fellow-citizens. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 C. H. Randall, Mayor." 
 
 On Monday afternoon, March 21, 1898, the mayor's 
 rooms were crowded by those attracted by the 
 announcement that a portrait of General Dow, 
 painted by Walter Gilman Page, of Boston, was to 
 be presented to the city. The gathering- included 
 clergymen, lawyers, physicians, and representative 
 business men, besides many ladies. At the hour 
 designated the folds of the American flag which 
 had concealed the portrait were withdrawn and 
 Colonel Frederick N. Dow, addressing Mayor Ean- 
 dall, said:
 
 762 REMINISCENCES 
 
 " Mr. Mayor, you will remember that some months since 
 you requested me to furnish for this room a picture of my 
 honored father. In -compliance with that request, I present 
 through you to the city this portrait of one who, during his 
 long life in this community was guided in his oiBcial and 
 private walk by the principle that the puljlic welfare should 
 be the chief concern of every citizen. I venture to express 
 the hope that the city will receive it and care for it as it 
 guards the likenesses of its other chief magistrates, who, like 
 my father, have rendered to this community unseltish ser- 
 vice." 
 
 Hon. Joseph W. Symonds, late a justice of the 
 Supreme Court of Maine, and than whom none in the 
 state stands higher as a lawyer, followed Colonel 
 Dow. After alluding to Commodore Preble, to 
 William Pitt Fessenden, to Henry W. Longfellow, 
 to Nathaniel Parker Willis, and to Paul Akers, as 
 sons of Maine who had shed upon Portland the 
 luster of an undying fame. Judge Symonds said: 
 
 " What wealth of incident and private character, what bril- 
 liancy and renown of public service, what halo of learning and 
 virtue, what richly freighted memories and associations of 
 beautiful and noble lives, have the years drawn about this 
 goodly city of ours by the sea ! They are in all our minds, 
 we need not name them. 
 
 We are assembled to-day to look upon a portrait, which the 
 hand of genius has touched, of a man whose life, only recently 
 closed, from a period which long precedes the recollection of 
 us all, was as nmch a part of his native city as the glor}^ of the 
 morning })reaking over our eastern bay, as the high noon 
 when it looks down into our tree-bordered streets, as the 
 sunset waning in trenmlous beauty into night beyond the 
 western hills; and like the sunlight, too, in its influence 
 encircling the globe. 
 
 The proprieties of this occasion, to which I would sensi- 
 tively respond, forbid my venturing in what I say beyond the 
 limits of common ground, on which we all can meet. No line 
 of disputed boundary shall be crossed or reached ])y me. 
 Methods and means and all that pertains to controversy are 
 far removed from our thought to-day. I sound no jarring
 
 OF XEAL DOW. 763 
 
 note. I would speak only the common sentiment, only those 
 things on which the minds of all agree. 
 
 That the lite of General Neal Dow was pure and noble and 
 good, that throughout its course, from first to last, he labored 
 for a beneficent end, in all sincerity and disinterestedly, with 
 such diligence in a public cause as men ordinarily apply to 
 their private afiairs, that his voice was an eloquent one and 
 his pen facile, efi'ective, fine and strong, that large bodies of 
 good men here and elsewhere, at home and abroad, looked to 
 him as leader and guide, and looking to him far in advance 
 never saw a faltering step, listening to him never heard a 
 word of doubt or fear, only the clarion note from farther and 
 farther height, that as in peace he had labored for mankind, 
 for the good of all, so at the sound of war it was easy for him 
 to spring to the very height of patriotism in the hour of his 
 country's danger, these things none will denv ; and what 
 more Avould just eulogy demand? 
 
 Rawlinson, musing over the ruins of Assyria, repeats the 
 warning, which the records of nations so constantly enforce, 
 that the greatest material prosperity may co-exist with the 
 decline, and may herald the downfall of a kingdom. 
 
 But here was a man whose life was devoted to an idea; 
 who left the paths of throbbing, busy life, the field of palpa- 
 ble, material interests, to labor — I will not say for an 
 abstraction, it was not that — but for a theory of legislation 
 as a means to a higher end, the protection of society ; for a 
 theory of legislation in which not his own welfare but (as he 
 believed) the good of the world was involved. What ele- 
 ment of knightly honor or devotion was wanting in the cour- 
 age, faith, ardor, with which he upheld the cause to which he 
 had given his life ? 
 
 A man of courtly presence and manner, of noble simplicity 
 of life, earnest, resolute, full of resource, he Avas great in the 
 singleness of heart and persistency of aim with which he 
 pursued his own ideal of the public good, and in the unceas- 
 ing enthusiasm and passionate zeal which warmed the heart of 
 old age with the very lifeblood of youth. 
 
 It need not l)e said that General Dow was as far removed as 
 possible from the adventurer seeking personal gain from the 
 cause he espoused. On the contrary, as we all know, he was 
 a gentleman of family and private fortune, w^ho could com- 
 mand his own time and gave it freely, his life long, to 
 profound thoughtfulness, patient study, active service, in the 
 advancement of the highest interests of society. Abroad, his
 
 764 REMINISCENCES 
 
 reputation might be associated with a single subject, with 
 which he identitied the state of Maine and made it widely 
 known, but we knew him as he was, a man of culture, of 
 wide and varied reading, of large experience of life, a close 
 observer and deep student of all social problems, of great 
 natural gifts, of fervid and intrepid energy ; who would have 
 acted well his part in any crisis, and would have distinguished 
 himself in any held. He had a rare courage, the courage to 
 meet bitter and relentless opposition, and to accept grave 
 responsibility. 
 
 I should not be true to my own thought if I were to say that 
 this good man was always wholly just in his judgments of those 
 who differed from him. Not that he was ever consciously 
 unjust ; far from that. But a flaming zeal does not always 
 measure its words. A single-minded, single-hearted devotion 
 does not scan the whole heavens. It looks along its own line 
 of action ; it cleaves its way to its goal. Of such a man the 
 judicial faculty and habit of mind should not be required. 
 Such a temperament, evenly balanced, is not suited to the 
 work he had to do, to the mission he was appointed to fulfill. 
 
 He charged upon those who, he thought, stood in the way 
 of his cause, as Christian upon Apollyon, with as little hesita- 
 tion what weapon to use, or where to strike, and with as little 
 shrinking from the flaming darts hurled, 'thick as hail,' in 
 return. But to him the personal encounter was only an inci- 
 dent of the larger strife. Before his mind was always the 
 hideous dragon-shape, winged, mailed, l)reathing flame, a 
 menace and })eril to all the pilgrims in the valley, a perpetual 
 barrier in the path of human progress. Against this giant 
 form of evil, cumbering the King's highway, the arrows from 
 his quiver were aimed, and, if they wounded another, it was 
 but an incident and a sign of the violence of tiic conflict. 
 
 And now, Mr. Mayor, on this spot identiflcd from an early 
 period with the history of Portland as town or city, under the 
 dome of our City Hall, in response, 1 ))elievc I may say, to 
 Your Honor's special request that such a portrait of General 
 Dow as this might ])e placed among those of the mayors of 
 Portland — Your Honor possibh' remembering how slow as a 
 l)eo])le we are with our pu])lic works of art — with a fllial 
 pride and sense of grateful obligation with which we can all 
 most deeply sympathize, his son has delivered to the munici- 
 pality this portrait of its great Chief Magistrate, Your Honor's 
 predecessor in oilice nearly half a century ago. The other 
 events of the dav will soon l>e loriifotten, but the name and
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 705 
 
 fame of Neal Dow, and the good influences of hi.s life and 
 lalwr, will long remain. In the years to come the footsteps 
 of citizens and strangers, and especially of visitors from a dis- 
 tance, will linger a])out this portrait more, I suppose, than 
 about any other in the honored line, and when we begin the 
 work of erecting a statue to his memory — which we all hope 
 will not be long delayed — we shall lind the world interested 
 in the undertaking, and more persons ready and willino- to 
 take part in it than would be similarly interested in a statue 
 proposed for any other man who ever made his home in Port- 
 land. 
 
 When we stand upon the deck of the l)ark fast flying from 
 the shore, and the line of coast disappears and the headlands 
 and hills and all the land go down and the islands are 
 swallowed up, then (as Choate said of Webster, so in another 
 vein we may say of this honored townsman of ours) then the 
 mountain appears, the great moral or intellectual height, 
 swelling far up from the subject and fading vale, clouds and 
 tempests and the noise of waves at its feet, eternal sunshine 
 upon its head. 
 
 Westminster Abbey has been called the great temple of 
 silence and reconciliation, where the enmities of twenty gen- 
 erations lie Iniried. 
 
 Strange, in the presence of death, how poor and small seem 
 all the bitter controversies and enmities of this world ! 
 Friend and enemy stand side by side, with bowed heads, in 
 the same silence, by the good man's grave. When his life 
 has closed, all perceive that hy some subtle law of this 
 universe — in which law are the very habitation and throne 
 of the eternal right — by some law of the universe what was 
 best and truest in his life and character has become the meas- 
 ure of their abiding and permanent value. Differences cease, 
 enmities are silent. The high purpose, the true motive and 
 intent, the nol)le endeavor, the great example, nature takes 
 these all to herself ; the world takes them to itself. They 
 become part of the universal order. Their influence goes 
 forth, as the winds and the waves, to do the will of God. 
 
 ' Goodness and greatness are not means, l)ut ends. 
 Hath he not always treasures, always friends. 
 The good, great man ? Three treasures, love and light, 
 And calm thoughts, regular as infant's breath ; 
 And three fast friends, more sure than day or night. 
 Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.' "
 
 766 REMINISCENCES 
 
 Judge Symonds was followed ])y Rev. Dr. Henry S. 
 Burrage, who said : 
 
 " This is an occasion of more than ordinary interest. In all 
 that has now so justly and so felicitously been said concerning 
 permanent memorials of the men who have reflected honor 
 upon this goodly city, we are all, I am sure, in heartiest 
 accord. Of such memorials a beginning has already been 
 made in Franklin Simmons' beautiful statue of Longfellow, 
 the poet beloved, whoso gracious presence here in the home 
 of his birth had hardly been missed Avhen the movement for 
 the erection of this statue was commenced. And now we have 
 this admirable portrait of General Neal Dow — a gift to the 
 city inspired by filial affection. With the exception of Long- 
 fellow, no one has made Portland so widely known as has the 
 father of Prohibition. For more than a generation, wherever 
 around the wide world the friends of temperance have grap- 
 pled in close conflict with their opponents, they have done so 
 with words of encouragement spoken by the leader of the pro- 
 hil)ition movement. Now that he is no longer with us, 
 therefore, it is a matter of congratulation that we have this in 
 every way satisfactory portrait of General Dow. The artist, 
 with painstaking fidelity, has done his work, and we can point 
 to it as a faithful representation of the form and features of 
 our late fellow-citizen. But surely something more is due to 
 his memory ; and as has already been suggested, not many 
 years should be allowed to pass before we shall have in our 
 city, suitably located, a statue of General Dow in enduring 
 bronze, something for the eye of the passer-by even and from 
 which the boys on the street as well as the men of ri])er years 
 shall receive inspiration to the highest and n()])lest jjurposes 
 in life. 
 
 General Dow is generally thought of us a man with one 
 idea. He Avas far from that, but what h(^ did for the })romo- 
 tion of temperance is his crowning honor. The harmful 
 results of the drink hal)it, he early recognized and deplored. 
 There were scenes of which he was an eye-witness that stirred 
 his soul. Who can wonder, then, that his thoughts concern- 
 ing the manufacture and sale of intoxicating li(|uors at length 
 dominated him so completely that other activities in which 
 men engage ])ecame sul)oi'dinate or were entirely ignored. I 
 am inclined to think, however, that his deepest interest in the 
 cause of temperance grew out of his interest in good citizen- 
 ship. A ha])))V, prosperous connnunity, was the high ideal
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 767 
 
 that was ever before him, and to such ends as he believed 
 would secure the realization of his ideal he devoted himself 
 with an energy and single-heartedness that were the [)roniise 
 of success. But he had continually within the circle of his 
 vision the larger interest of the nation, and when slavery 
 threatened the free institutions the fathers had established, 
 and the Civil war came, although by a decade he was past the 
 military age, with what ardor he threw himself into the con- 
 flict, believing that 
 
 ' The Attest place for man to die 
 Is where he dies for man,' 
 and that 
 
 ' God's most dreaded instrument 
 In working out a pure intent 
 Is man arrayed for mutual slaughter.' 
 
 But when the war was over, having discharged his duty to 
 his country in that great crisis of its existence, General Dow 
 took up again the task which for the time he had laid aside, 
 but which still concerned us as a people ; and in the fierce 
 struggle with the rum traffic he spent the remnant of his days. 
 In this struggle he 
 
 ' Never turned his back, but marched breast forward.' 
 Strong blows he struck, but it was always in the open field, 
 and with unfailing faith in ultimate victory. Of course there 
 were times when even those who agreed with General Dow 
 concerning the principle of Prohibition found it impossil)le to 
 follow him, or to keep step with him. The nobility of his 
 purpose, his indomitable will in executing it, however, we 
 all recognize, and in our estimate of the man any diflerences 
 we may have had are of little account compared with his 
 conspicuous virtues, and in no wise lessen our admiration for 
 one who consecrated his life to the welfare of his fellow-men. 
 
 It is as he appeared a few years after his return from the 
 war that General Dow is presented to us upon this canvas. 
 Although at that time he had reached his three score years 
 and ten, he was still in the full possession of a vigorous man- 
 hood. I became a resident of Portland in 1873, and General 
 Dow was a near neighbor. Upon his cheek there was still 
 the ruddy glow of health, and his step was clastic and firm. 
 Indeed, as we all know, it was only in the last years of his 
 life, I might almost say the last months, that we were com- 
 pelled to say of him as we passed him on the street, ' How 
 is the strong staff broken, and the beautiful rod.'
 
 768 REMIXISCEXCES 
 
 The artist has done well, therefore, to place uj^on his canvas 
 the great leader of Proliil)ition in the fulness of his manly 
 strength. Compassion for the tempted, an unyielding pur- 
 pose in the heroic endeavor to strike down the tempter, a 
 sound mind in a sound body — it is all there in the striking 
 portrait hanging before us. It is the General Xeal Dow we 
 have all known and honored. 
 
 There is an old Greek legend connected wdth the battle of 
 Marathon -which we may very properly recall here to-day. It 
 is said that long after the l)attle, as the Greeks from the sur- 
 rounding hills looked down upon the plain where their 
 fathers met the invading Persian legions and overthrew them 
 in disastrous defeat, the clash of armor, the cries of the van- 
 quished and the shouts of the victors could still be heard as 
 the battle was daily renewed by the invisible combatants. 
 The conflict in which General Dow was engaged is also still 
 in progress, but not on a field in which the combatants are 
 invisible. As the Greeks were inspired to deeds of heroic 
 daring by the splendid achievements of their ancestors, so 
 for generations to come may men and women in the same 
 great conflict in which General Dow had the foremost part be 
 inspired by his nol)le example." 
 
 At the close of Dr. Burrage's address, Mayor Ran- 
 dall, in accepting the portrait, said: 
 
 "Ladies axd Gentlejien : — I esteem it an especial hon- 
 or that at the l)eginning of my second term as mayor I should 
 have the privilege and pleasure of accepting in behalf of the 
 city this splendid portrait of one of her most distinguished 
 sons. General Neal Dow. Born in our city, he lived his 
 entire life among us, and finally passed away, loved, honored, 
 and respected by every citizen of Portland. Early in life he 
 espoused the cause of temperance, and for over seventy years 
 he fought the good fight with word and pen. His death was 
 mourned liy thousands. A distinguished soldier, an able 
 Tva'iter, and a Ijorn orator, his name is known throughout the 
 world. 
 
 And to-day, in the name ot his native city, of which he 
 was twice mayor, and which he loved so well, and in behalf 
 of all our citizens, I accept with heartfelt thanks this no])le 
 gift, and I extend to his honore<l son. Col. Fred. ]S . Dow, the 
 donor, and the entire family, the gratitude, the thanks, and 
 the kindest reijards of the whole conmiunitv."
 
 OF NEAL DOW. 769 
 
 At its regular meeting, April 4, 1898, the city 
 government upon motion of Alderman Lamson, unani- 
 mously adopted tlie following resolution : 
 
 " Whereas, On the 21st of March, 1898, in the presence of 
 a large number of our representative citizens, a })()rtrait of our 
 late distinguished citizen. General Xeal Dow, twice mayor of 
 Portland, was unveiled and formally presented to the city by 
 Colonel Frederick N. Dow, and accepted in behalf of the city 
 in appropriate remarks liy his Honor, Mayor Kandall, and on 
 which occasion Hon. Joseph W. Symonds and Rev. Dr. Bur- 
 rage dwelt in eloquent addresses upon the life and character 
 of General Dow, therefore be it 
 
 " Resolved, That the city council in general convention 
 assembled, lierel>y accepts and signifies its appreciation of the 
 gift of the portrait of General Dow, and extends a vote of 
 thanks to the donor. Col. Fred. N. Dow. 
 
 ^^ Resolved, That this convention deems it an appropriate 
 time to place upon its records its testimony to the respect in 
 which General Dow was held by the citizens of Portland. 
 Through his intellectual force, his ardent zeal, and earnest 
 advocacy, he was universally recognized as the master spirit 
 and acknowledged leader of those who favored Prohibition. 
 His eloquence as a speaker, his force as a writer, and the con- 
 sistency and fearlessness with which he maintained what he 
 believed to l^e right, secured a large measure of public admi- 
 ration. While during all his life General Dow was a 
 persistent and courageous and faithful exponent of the 
 principles with which his name has a world-wide identification, 
 his usefulness was by no means limited to that cause. His 
 fellow-citizens are justly proud of the services he rendered to 
 his city, state, and country, and testify to their appreciation 
 of the integrity, ability, and moral and physical courage 
 which he evinced whether in civil or military station, or in the 
 walks of private life."
 
 1 78 
 
 c^