BUSINESS AND DOMESTIC UFE 17 



an extensive lumberman, as a clerk, where he remained 

 for a period of five 3^ears. 



In an article describing early days on the St. Croix, 

 written after Mr. Boardman had retired from business, 

 in which he describes the ways of the people and the 

 domestic customs of the times, he says : ' ' The writer 

 was 'put to a store' in 1832 to learn the business. The 

 most of the business was to sell liquor. The West 

 India rum was brought in hogsheads and I was ordered 

 to draw off one-third the hogshead and fill it up with 

 water. The New England rum was treated about the 

 same way." He then gives an account of the early 

 temperance reform, telling of a public meeting at which 

 Mr. William Todd, Jr., had made a speech closing with 

 the words : "I have made up my mind to pledge myself 

 to sell or use no more liquor and to use my influence to 

 drive it out of the place and the world. Now who will 

 join me and do likewise ? ' ' 



The account then continues: "Mr. B. F. Waite, 

 who, in the last year, had retailed twenty-three hogs- 

 heads of West India rum said : ' I will go with you and 

 sign that pledge.' " In another article written in after 

 life, in which he says that it had been his study to mark 

 boys who had started in any grade of life to see how 

 they had developed and what success they had reached, 

 he said : " If a boy does not follow the right path before 

 he is of age, it is not likely he will ever travel therein. 

 Every boy over ten or twelve years old is either making 

 or losing money every day, whether he is receiving any 

 cash payment or not." Following this with the words, 

 "let me explain," Mr. Boardman then gives this most 

 interesting account of his own early life : 



