THE OLD FARMER AND

HIS ALMANACK

R

THE MAN AND HIS BOOK

OBERT BAILEY THOMAS has been a familiar

name to American ears for more than a century, and for a considerable part of that time his venerable features have been equally well known. Doubtless in the minds of many New Englanders he is intimately associated with Benjamin Franklin, whose portrait in miniature has for many years appeared, along with that of Mr. Thomas, in the ornamental border on the cover of the Old Farmer's Almanack. This association, though rather sentimental than historical, for it does not appear that the two were acquainted in this life, has reason and justice on its side. For both were typical New Englanders; both achieved success from humble beginnings; both were printers and publishers, and each was the putter-forth of an almanac which has its place in the intellectual history of our nation. Nor is this all. Different as they were in many respects, in character, endowments, and career, Dr. Franklin and Mr. Thomas resembled each other in the profession and practice of a certain homely philosophy of life which is not the least marked of their characteristics. Franklin, to be sure, was a genius, and Thomas was simply a man of talent who knew how to make the most of the gifts he had. But they were alike in their remarkable endowment of common sense and in their ability to recognize and grasp an

opportunity. Finally, they were both genuinely American in the best sense of that much abused and vaguely applied word. Franklin's biography is known to everybody. Thomas, however, is a somewhat shadowy figure in the minds of most of us. Yet his life, quiet as it was, is of some interest to the student of American manners, and we are fortunate in having authentic materials for its reconstruction, nothing less, indeed, than a brief autobiography, published in successive numbers of his own annual from 1833 to 1839, and introduced by a sprightly paragraph in the issue for 1832: — "It is not unfrequently observed to the Editor, by persons residing in neighbouring States, or remote from his residence, that they supposed him long since numbered with the dead; and that the Farmer's Almanack was calculated and edited by a connexion of the former editor. To satisfy such, and conceiving it may afford amusement to our patrons generally, I have concluded, if my life and health should be continued, in our next to give a concise memoir of myself and ancestors." On the basis of this sketch, with the help of other trustworthy evidence, the following life of Robert B. Thomas has been put together.

The earliest ancestor of whom we have any knowledge was William Thomas, Robert's grandfather, a native of Wales, who came to America about 1718. Family tradition, which the author of the Almanac, with characteristic caution, refuses to vouch for, reported that he settled at Stonington, Connecticut. At all events, he was certainly an inhabitant of Marlborough, Massachusetts, in or about 1720, and he resided there until his death in 1733 (July 25). William Thomas married Lydia Eager, the daughter of a respectable farmer of Shrewsbury, and had six children, two sons and four daughters, -all born in Marlborough, the eldest in 1721 and the youngest, who received the singular name of Odoardo, in 1731. The eldest son

William, born March 10, 1725, was the father of Robert Bailey Thomas.

William Thomas, the elder, was an educated man, having been a student at Christ's College, Cambridge. His son William had no such opportunities, but he seems to have inherited his father's fondness for books. His mother died when he was ten years old (Oct. 12, 1735) and he went to live in Shrewsbury with his maternal grandmother, Lydia (Woods) Eager, who had lost her husband in the preceding year. Mrs. Eager died in 1739, and William Thomas then returned to Marlborough, where his great-aunt, Lucy (Eager) Morse, received him into her family. Here he remained for some years, attending the town school in the winter, according to the New England custom. The terms were short, but the boy made the best use of his opportunities. He was fond of reading, and, in the words of his son, "he purchased many books and soon became quite a scholar for those days." At the age of nineteen (1744) he took charge of a school at Brookfield, and later in the same year he "commenced in Hardwick, being the first schoolmaster in that town.”

Shortly after William Thomas came of age, he undertook what proved to be an unsuccessful quest for a property in Wales to which he had some claim as his father's heir. With this in view, he left America in April, 1747, but was captured in the next month by a French privateer from Dunkirk and lost all he had. He was soon ransomed and arrived in Boston in October. Two years later he sailed for England again, stayed some time in London, and visited Wales. His claim was outlawed, however, and he returned to America no richer than before.

William Thomas apparently had a taste for adventure, which, as well as his fondness for books, he may have inherited from his father, the emigrant and student of Christ's College. Possibly he was also desirous of making reprisals

on the French. At all events, he received a lieutenant's commission in Capt. Samuel How's Marlborough Company, and took part in the expedition to Crown Point in 1756, serving for six weeks and two days. In 1757 he again volunteered. This time he served for only nineteen days, but it was active service. He was a lieutenant in Capt. John Phelps's Company, which formed a part of the Worcester County Regiment commanded by Col. Ruggles. The regiment went to the relief of Fort William Henry, leaving Rutland in August, 1757, and marching two hundred and fifty miles.

His subsequent career is summed up by his son, who says that it would be difficult if not impossible to follow it step by step. He still kept school at intervals, became

assistant in a store," and afterwards "went into a small way of trade himself." In 1764 he bought a farm in the North Parish of Shrewsbury, now West Boylston, and in the next year he married, late in life, for those days, for he was nearly forty years old. His wife was Azubah, daughter of Joseph Goodale, a farmer of Grafton, at whose house Robert Bailey Thomas was born, April 24, 1766.

Two years later, William Thomas removed to his farm in the North Parish of Shrewsbury, and there Robert was brought up. He records with amusement that "he resided in four incorporated towns, and two distinct parishes, and one precinct" without leaving this same farm. The explanation of this paradox illustrates the rapid and perplexing changes in early New England topography. "Shrewsbury leg," as the strip of land where the farm was situated was called, was united to the Second or West Parish of Lancaster in 1768. In 1781 this parish was incorporated as the town of Sterling. In 1796 certain parts of Boylston, Sterling, and Holden were set off as a precinct, by the name of the Second Parish of the towns of Boylston, Sterling, and Holden, and in 1808 this became the town of

West Boylston. The paradox in question was a matter of local remark, as appears from the words of the Rev. C. C. P. Crosby, minister of West Boylston, in his history of that town, in The Worcester Magazine and Historical Journal for August, 1826:-"Among other strange things, there is a singular fraternity of men, who have lived in five incorporated towns, and two parishes, and yet, have never resided off the farms where they were born. This is explained by the tract called the leg being so often transfer[r]ed to other towns."

The education of Robert Bailey Thomas is an interesting example of the training of a studious New England boy. His grandfather, we should remember, was a Cambridge University man, and his father offered to give Robert a liberal education,—that is, probably, to send him to Harvard College in the new Cambridge, founded by an Emmanuel College man. Robert declined, for his tastes, as he tells us, were mechanical rather than literary, — but he seems to have grasped every other means of improving his mind. He read his father's books assiduously, — and he says there were a good many of them. He went to school in the winter and received much instruction from his father, for whose learning he evinces considerable respect, and who "wished to make him a scholar." Superior penmanship was then regarded as a very valuable accomplishment, and writing schools were much resorted to. Dr. T. Allen had the reputation of "writing the most beautiful copy hand of any person in the country" (that is, in that region), and William Thomas sent his son to Spencer in the winter of 1783-84 to have the benefit of his instruction. How much stress was laid upon the art is shown by the fact that Robert followed his teacher to Sterling when the winter term was over and continued his lessons until the following April.

It is curious to note that until he was twenty years old