Smyrna times., 1901-04-03
WC,TU. WOMAN'S SKETCH
NEAL DOW AND PORTLAND.
INTERESTING FACTS AS CONTRIBUTED BY
MRS. LILLIAN Nj. N. STEVENS.
The Following Paper Was Prepared by Miss
Annie W. Sutton, Press Superintendent
of the Delaware W. c. T. u.


Mrs. Lillian NJ. n. Stevens, presi
d9nt of the National Woman's Chris.
tian Temperance Union, contributes
to the Christian EndedUOr World the
following sketch of Neal Dow, and
Portland.
cit is an interesting fact that Neal
Dow's maternal great-grand-father'
name was Hate Evil Hall. He came
to Falmouth, Me-, in 1854. Portland
was then a part of Falmouth. Study
ing the story of the family we conclude
| that all the members of the family
might rightly have been named after
this ancestor who was called Hate
Evil. Prior to Neal DOw's day the
city of Portland and the entire State
of Maine was cursed by the great evil
that leads to all others, the licensed
sale of liquor. Portland as a part of
the town of Falmouth had Il great
many burdens and trials such as would
inevitably come i'll the settlement of a
new country. In 1175 it was bonn
barded by an English fleet, and hun
dreds of buildings were destroyed.
1t also suffered in the troubles before
and during the war of 1912, and passed
through several Indian wars; but there
was even worse enemy sapping its
energies and resources. When the
population was less than four thousand
there were eighty licensed liquor
places in the town and when it reached
nine thousand there were over two
hundred of these Places. There were
similar restrictions then as now in the
license law, one of them being that the
sellers should be respectable or in
other words "of sober life and conver-
satiOn." But then, as now, such res
trictiOns were not observed.
Liquor was found everywhere; at
town meetings, huskings. weddings,
funerals and even at the dedication of
churches, and always in the grocery
store 1t Is reliably stated that in one
set of books at a village near Portland
of anti prohibition times representing
a business in all sorts of goods, eighty
four per cent of all the entries were
for rum.
In olden days Maine was poor State.
Tue chief employments were lumber
ing and fishing and both of these en-
took the men away from
their homes; and deprived of home in
fuences and home comforts, they all
the more readily yielded to the temp
tation of drink. The pine forests were
cut down aud manufactured into lum-
ber, and with the products of the fish
cries were sent to this West Indies and
were exchanged for rum and molasses.
The rum had a ready sale, and the
molasses was converted into New Eng
land rum at the distilery. There
were seven of these distilleries in the
city of Portland alone.
There were in those days everywhere
signs Of poverty, misery aud squalor.
Neal Dow's daughter recently said
to me, that she could well remember
that, when as a very little girl she
often rode through Portland and the
suburbs with her father and he would
point to the unpainted houses with
broken glass and tumble-down fences
nj
rum does"
All this is now changed. There is
not brewery or distillery in the State
nor has there been for over fifty years.
Everywhere there are indications of
thrift comfort and prosperity. Maine
from being the poorest State in the
Union has come to be one of the most
prosperous"
Says a recent number of the Union
Signal: "The National w. C. T. u. at
the St Louis Convention, 1895, by
rising vote determined to celebrate the
of General Neal Dow, March
20, as prohibition Day." and to use
iOo w OluGE TGU3lOuS.
philanthropic and temperance socie-
ties to do the same. 1t is designed as
a rally day for all temperance forces
and all who believe in the principles
Of prohibition. We are glad that before
Neal Dow left us this day was set apart
for united recognition of the "grand |
Did man" and his work
The same issue of the Signal contains
this item; I'm letter published
in his His Life and Letters, replying
to aquestiOn as to what he thought of |
alchOhol as a stimulant to the brain in
mental work, Professor Huxley said:''
Speaking for myself (and possibly
'or persons of my temperament l can
say without hesitation that 1 would
ust as soon take a dose of arsenic as L
would alchohOl under such circum-