USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 1 > Part 13
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There follows the advantages accorded to the colonists along with the terms and conditions:
1. Such Protestants of the Palatinate as may be inclined to emigrate to these estates of the Colonel Samuel Waldo, Hereditary Lord, etc., will present themselves to the previously mentioned Commissioner, Mr. Sebastian Zuberbühler, where they will have to complete and sign the written articles and contracts. Then there is to be made a deposit of five imperial crowns for each adult, and the half for each person under fourteen years of age. This will serve as a guarantee that they are minded to fulfill loyally the stipulations of these articles and contracts.
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2. On a day to be determined and set by the said Commissioner, Mr. Sebastian Zuberbühler, those desirous of emigrating and the con- tracting parties, will report in Rotterdam, where the before mentioned Colonel Samuel Waldo, Hereditary Lord, etc., will have in readiness a ship or several ships for the transportation of such numbers of Pala- tinates as may present themselves. Should such a ship or ships be not there and in readiness for sailing within one week after arrival of the Palatinates in Rotterdam, then the said Colonel Samuel Waldo, Heredi- tary Lord, etc., is to pay them for each day after the expiration of the said seven days thirty pounds sterling as demurrage; and should the ship or ships be retarded or delayed by the Palatinates, then the Palatinates are to pay the said Waldo, Hereditary Lord, etc., fifteen pounds sterling as demurrage for each day of delay.
3. Samuel Waldo, Colonel and Hereditary Lord, etc., promises and obligates himself against the time of the arrival of the Palatine emigrants at Broad Bay in New England, to build and complete at his own ex- pense, two houses for their domiciling - each house to be thirty-five feet square and two stories high and likewise a church; in the construc- tion of these houses he promises to pay for each of the same one hundred pounds sterling, and for the church two hundred pounds sterling.
4. Samuel Waldo, Colonel and Hereditary Lord, etc., promises and obligates himself at his own expense to settle in the colony and to pay an engineer or a surveyor a yearly salary of one hundred pounds ster- ling for three years; a physician or surgeon a yearly salary of one hun- dred pounds sterling for five years; a preacher a yearly salary of seventy pounds sterling and a schoolmaster a yearly salary of thirty pounds ster- ling, each for a period of ten years.
5. Samuel Waldo, Colonel and Hereditary Lord, etc., promises and obligates himself to delimit and to lay out for the said Palatine emigrants or colonists a suitable area of land for a city, and therein to prepare and reserve for each family one quarter morgen15 or acre of ground for a house and lot. At the same time he will set aside sixty thousand morgen or acres of land adjoining the said city, and each settler shall receive for himself and his heirs in perpetuity a tract of fifty morgen or acres against the payment of a price of two shillings and a half pence for each morgen or acre - The said price to be paid within three years of the date of the arrival of the colonists in Broad Bay.
6. Samuel Waldo, Colonel and Hereditary Lord, etc., promises and obligates himself, for the housing maintenance of the said colonists, for a period of one year, to provide and deliver the following foodstuffs, namely; one hundred and twenty thousand pounds of beef, twenty thou- sand pounds of pork, sixty thousand pounds of wheat-flour, sixty thou- sand pounds of coarse or unbolted flour, four thousand bushels of In- dian corn, four thousand bushels of salt, the one half of the above to be delivered on their arrival and the other half six months thereafter in the following manner: each person over ten years of age to receive one hundred and fifty pounds of beef, fifty pounds of pork, one hundred and fifty pounds of wheaten-flour, one hundred and fifty pounds of coarse or unbolted flour, ten bushels of Indian corn, and one bushel of salt: each person under ten years of age is to receive one half of the above.
7. Samuel Waldo, Colonel and Hereditary Lord, etc., promises and obligates himself further to furnish and to deliver to each family the fol- lowing things, one cow and calf, a pregnant sow, three axes, four hoes, a spade and a handsaw. At the same time each colonist is to have the privi-
16 A German word meaning "morning," here as much land as one man may plough in a morning, i.e., an acre.
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lege and the right in the forests of the said Samuel Waldo, Colonel and Hereditary Lord, etc., to cut as much wood as he may find necessary for his own needs, or for sale on the banks of the rivers and sea, where many vessels are ready to buy all such at four shillings a cord.
8. These and other advantageous circumstances and conditions may, it is to be assumed, influence here and there certain Palatine and German folk to emigrate to such a fruitful country, so conveniently located on the sea and its rivers, so highly privileged, and so well governed, where the occupants enjoy so many good rights, which belongs to such a pow- erful and gracious Lord and which is ruled with such paternal favour. He (the gracious Lord) makes and extends this offer to all those who are in a position to defray the costs of emigrating thither, without his ever hoping or expecting to receive the slightest pay or profit for himself, and where they according to their protestant faith may worship their God undisturbed in their own right and according to their own con- science and where they may be in a position to maintain and amply sup- port themselves and others.
Signed at Speyer on this fourteenth day of July, A.D. 1741 Samuel Waldo Colonel and Hereditary Lord of Broad Bay in New England Sebastian Zuberbühler Commissioner with plenary powers.
This is a document which glows with the promises as well as the egotism of the proprietor. Its details should be carefully noted, for many of the important episodes of the following dec- ades is implied within them.
In the course of the winter of 1741-42, Zuberbühler suc- ceeded on the representations of this circular in securing a goodly number of colonists purposing to settle on Waldo's grant. In short, there were more than two hundred Palatinates and Würtemburg- ers. They were Lutherans in considerable part and people in toler- able circumstances. They were in a measure moved to emigrate in consequence of the pressure exercised on them by a hostile Catholic-Reformed Church coalition. There were other factors behind their urge to leave the Old World, but it was this religious situation which tipped the scales and led them to break loose and seek a land where they could, according to Waldo's promise, prac- tice their religion in peace.16 With them they had a learned, if not a pious, preacher. It was true of all the Germans that they were little prone to emigrate unless a minister accompanied them. Hence most of the agents sought a clergyman as the nucleus around which they could assemble their recruits. The spiritual leader of this colony was the Rev. Philipp Gottfried Kast, Doktor der Theologie. It may be inferred from later developments that Doctor Kast had collaborated with Zuberbühler in recruiting the colony, and for his service had received a per capita commission, and that he had taken Zuberbühler's note in payment, since at the time of their
10B. G. Struve, Bericht von der Pfälzischen Kirchenhistorie, Kapitel XIII und XIV.
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arrival at Broad Bay the latter owed him a considerable sum of money which was to become the subject of later litigation. There was also Doktor Jacob Friedrich Kurtz, Doktor der Medezin, as well as an engineer or surveyor whose name we do not know, and a schoolmaster, most probably John Ulmer, who was to become one of the outstanding figures in early Broad Bay history. Several of these colonists were well to do, but had sold their houses and lands to found this plantation in a new world, as it seemed to them, of freedom and unbounded promise.
It was stipulated that the migration should assemble at Mann- heim, a city in the Rhenish Palatinate halfway between Worms and Speyer, on the east side of the Rhine and located on the Neckar River just above its confluence with the Rhine. Thither Zuber- bühler led those from the Palatinate. They proceeded in small river boats from Speyer down the Rhine in March 1742. Shortly after their arrival at Mannheim, they were joined by the contingent from Würtemburg which had proceeded in small boats down the Neckar from Heilbronn, possibly under the leadership of either Kast or Kurtz. Here the whole company transferred to larger boats for the trip down the Rhine to Rotterdam. The day of their departure from Mannheim is not known, but on the 22nd of April they reached Mühlheim just below Cologne. Here they were stopped by the intervention of the Dutch Government which demanded a guarantee that they would not be held up for any length of time in Holland without means of support. In other words, the Dutch were seeing to it that if there were delay in Rotterdam, they would not become charges of the city. This was a problem for Zuber- bühler as he did not know whether Waldo had a ship waiting to receive them or not. So he hastened on alone to Rotterdam, where he ascertained that Waldo's shipping agents had not as yet been able to make any arrangements for the reception and transportation of the emigrants. Thereupon Zuberbühler set out for London to get information as to procedure from Waldo's agents in that city, Messrs. Sedgwick and Kilby. Because there were no ships avail- able this firm refused to give him any idea of what he might ex- pect. Hence the unfortunate colonists had to tarry for more than eight weeks at Mühlheim in the electorate of Cologne until relief came in the middle of June.
The time taken up by the trip from Mannheim to Cologne is uncertain.17 Usually at that time a journey from Speyer or Heil- bronn to Holland lasted from four to six weeks by reason of the fact that Germany was split up into several hundred independent or semi-independent political units, each maintaining its own cus-
17"Petition of the Palatine Colonists of Waldoburg to the Governor and Gen. As- sembly of Mass.," Mass. Records (Boston, Office of the Secretary of State), XV A, 38.
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toms offices and tariffs. These were a source of indefinite delays in travelling. Some idea of this nuisance is given us by Dr. Friedrich Hermann, Professor in Lübeck. In 1804 Hermann made a tour of America and recorded his impressions in a book entitled Die Deutschen in Amerika.18 In this work he states that from Heilbronn to Rotterdam there were no less than thirty-six customs stations, at which the boats were visited by officials, concerning which he adds - "ein Geschäft wobei die Zollbeamten mehr auf eigene Bequemlichkeit, als auf die Schnellige Abfertigung der Schiffe Rücksicht nahmen."19 The costs of so long a journey plus the two months sojourn in Cologne greatly depleted the slender re- sources of some of the emigrants. The difficulties in this respect were exacerbated by the outbreak of war between England and Spain. The activities of Spanish privateers and pirates added greatly to the hazards of trade and had markedly increased the costs of foodstuffs, especially in the Netherlands. The outbreak of this war with its threat to shipping was probably also the reason why there were no ships immediately available.
We should note here an added touch of either thrift or cun- ning on the part of Waldo or his agent. For this we go back to the terms of the agreement, from which I quote: "Should such a ship or ships be not there and in readiness for sailing within one week after the arrival of the Palatinates in Rotterdam, then the said Colonel Samuel Waldo, Hereditary Lord, etc., is to pay them for each day after the expiration of the said seven days, thirty pounds sterling as demurrage." In other words, for Zuberbühler to have given the Dutch Government the needed assurance and taken the emigrants on to Rotterdam would have cost Waldo a tidy sum of money, whereas by holding them in Cologne they were obligated to defray their own living costs. So after many difficulties, suffer- ings, and delays, during which Zuberbühler was compelled to make two trips to England, they finally reached Rotterdam on June 20, 1742. Even here their troubles were not at an end, for a ship was not at hand. The Spanish privateers made transportation precari- ous; and the Pennsylvania trade in emigrants, greatly on the in- crease and highly remunerative, made it difficult to procure a ship. Here in Rotterdam, however, after the expiration of the seven-day period, Waldo had to bear the living costs of his colonists - their first break on this unhappy journey.
In the meantime the best season of the year was passing. Spring was gone and summer was well on its way. Naturally im- patience and discontent were rife. About thirty colonists, listening to the blandishments of competing shipping agents, abandoned the
18 (Lübden, 1806).
19" A business in which the custom officials pay more attention to their own con- venience than to the quick dispatch of the vessels."
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migration and proceeded to Pennsylvania. Others turned back home; some of the younger men enlisted as hirelings in the English army, so that the number of the colonists seems to have been reduced to a hundred and fifty or sixty. From the materials at hand, it can be inferred that Zuberbühler was a man of consider- able honesty and rectitude and a finer humanitarian than most of the professionals of this period who were engaged in this traffic. To give a completer picture of the difficulties which beset him, there is offered at this point one of his letters to Waldo written from London apparently on the occasion of his second trip to that city for the purpose of securing transportation for his group:
Sir: It is impossible for you to conceive ye fatigues & troubles & extraordinary expenses I have gone to in this undertaking of wch I shall let you know further particulars when I see you - I have been obliged to come over to England from Germany twice to get yr Agents Messrs Sedgwick & Kilby to do their part and now that I have brought ye peo- ple down and things bean more than could be expected all Impediments considered as I shall give you a full Relation of with ye causes more at large - Thes (e) delays gave rise to suspicions among ye people being 120 full familys wch had agreed to go but have been prevented by many artifices also made use of from Merchts in Holland concerned (in) ye Pensilvania trade and who will be affected by ye success of this affair - & if these People now coming wch consists of above 200 ye greatest part young people fit for business are well received & used upon, their Report to their Friends in Germany who only send them for an essay of ye Country & usage: ye rest who are ye chief & Substantial persons all de- clare that they will follow next year on being satisfied of ye Solidity of ye undertaking. Thus ye whole burthen has been upon my shoulders, but as I consider that ye Intentions will be fully answered by this first small transport & that ye charges will be much lessened in ye article of provisions & they may be more easily accommodated in other respects & indeed it would have been ye more he (a) vy upon me had not Mr. Stan- ton encouraged & assisted me to ye thro: it being persuaded of ye good effects of it in ye end designed for yr advantage in making a flourishing settlement wch may be completed in a year more - The Minister & other officers who are men of great alliances Interests & Considerations are among these of ye first transport. Mr. Stanton & I will give you a full acct of ye money received wch is lessened by reason that ye 40 people who were to go passage free are come down among those few & their waiting for ships at charges ever since ye 20th of June wch you must imagine has greatly consumed ye Effects of ye poorer sort so that ye money paid will be but barely sufficient to Victual them - & there is but one ship ready to transport them wch is properly fitted up for ye purpose whose Owners demand £300 for ye run & £40 more for ye bed- dings Coppers & other necessaries of wch we can get one no cheaper - Therefore am obliged to give Bills drawn on ye for ye paymt of that Sum 30 days after ye landing of ye people in New England wch I give you notice of that you may prepare for ye payment. I hope to find you in good Health & with all success to ye Undertaking wch God grant, I am Sr yr Very Hble Servt.
London ye 5th July 1742.
S. Zouberbühler.
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P.S. I set out for Holland in a few hours & expect we shall be ready to sail in 10 days or a fortnight after wch must regulat (e) yrself in sending out ye Pilot Ship to meet, as for ye Captain is a Stranger to those Ports & Coasts.
This letter provides a goodly number of historical facts and hints: the extreme difficulties under which Zuberbühler worked; the additional expense incurred; the original number of the fami- lies; the reduction of their number through the seductions of the Rotterdam shipping merchants; the justifiable suspicion among the emigrants; the final number in the colony of two hundred souls - mostly young people; the number of the poorer folk who were to go passage free; and the cost of the voyage across.
Finally a ship was chartered, and amid great rejoicing on the part of these poor souls they sailed from Rotterdam in August. The vessel was the Lydia commanded by Captain James Abercrom- bie. On August 14th they reached Deal on the east coast of Eng- land, about twenty miles north of Dover. Here the ship remained lying for four days and from here Zuberbühler wrote to Waldo as follows:
Deal August 17th, 1742
Sir: I arrived here three days ago with about 140 full passengers all in perfect health, ye ships name is Lydia, ye Capt. James Abercrombie - he never was in New England, but intends however to go directly for St. Georg River, or Cascobay. I hope all things are got ready for their reception - I expect Mr. Kilby here to day. I wish you well ye Gentlm is just going so I can't write you more.
I am Sr your most humble servant S. Zouberbühler.
P.S. To morrow we shall set out & according ye wind is we shall go North about, ye people fight bravely, so there is no fear about ye Span- iards.
To Mr. Samuel Waldo Mercht. &c.
Pr. Mr. Austin Bolton.
In his letter under date of July 5th Zuberbühler had indicated that the transport contained "above 200 passengers." From Deal on August 17th he wrote that there were on board the Lydia "about 140 full passengers." There had, then, been some shrinkage in the interim due to causes already noted. If, in Zuberbühler's awkward and inexact English, this term meant full-paid "freights," as they were commonly called, the forty who were to go passage free would swell the number of the migration to an approximate figure between one hundred and seventy-five and two hundred. As these were for the most part "young people fit for business," it would follow that the number of children in the transport would be somewhat below the number usual in such migrations. Further-
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more, Zuberbühler's confusion in sometimes speaking of freights and at other times of families renders a numerical estimate difficult and uncertain.
In almost every transport to America there were a number of Germans too poor to pay the cost of passage. As previously indicated, such, on their arrival in the colonies, commonly bound themselves out to work for a number of years to whomsoever would defray the costs of their passage. In this transport there were forty such free freights and no one at the receiving end to pay their costs of passage. In this case they could only have arrived at Broad Bay as redemptioners under contract to work for Waldo for a stipulated period of years. Of such an arrangement nothing is known, although it remains a possibility that the Colonel had planned to use them in the construction of the houses and church which he had obligated himself to erect. It is also probable that they were used in 1743-1744 for work on his mills and the forts and stockades. There were also certain members of this migration who arrived in debt to Zuberbühler. The considerable lapse of time between starting from their homes and embarking at Rotterdam had exhausted the reserve capital of some, and in order to live they had seemingly been compelled to borrow funds of Zuberbühler. In return they had given notes to him, all payable on September 4, 1747. Among such was Joachim and Conrad Heiler who gave notes for £7 14s. 31/2d., David and Phillip Rominger, with a note of £7 12s. 5d., and Hans Georg Vogler and Philip Christoph Vogler with a note for £6 10s. 9d.20
On the 18th of August, then, in 1742, after four months of delay at Cologne and in Holland, and six months after they had left their homes, the Lydia headed out to sea. Little is known of the specific details of the trip across. War was on and in order to escape Spanish and possibly French cruisers, they sailed to the north of England and Scotland as we may infer from Zuberbühler's letter to Colonel Waldo. The Atlantic passage took, in all proba- bility, between six and seven weeks. At this season of the year bad weather was undoubtedly encountered which extended the normal summer duration of such a voyage. The ship, however, was clearly not overcrowded. Hence we may infer that by comparison with the Pennsylvania traffic health was good. If the ship was well provisioned, the trip must have been made in reasonable comfort. Disease, deaths, and births undoubtedly occurred, but of such History is silent.
Sometime in the early days of October, the Lydia reached Marblehead, which was not Captain Abercrombie's intended land- fall. In the letter already quoted of Zuberbühler to Colonel Waldo
20York Co. Deeds, Bk. 25, pp. 44-45.
-
עין.לי
Arrival of Ship LYDIA,Capt. James Abercrombie, at Broad Bay, Oct. 1742.
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from Deal (August 17, 1742) the agent observes near the end of the epistle: "I expect Mr. Kilby here today." It is probable that Kilby brought last-minute instructions, which he had received at London from Waldo, to touch at Marblehead; for it was Waldo's plan, as will be seen, for the Lydia to take on additional settlers there for conveyance to his settlement on the Georges River. There were other plans, too. At Marblehead the Germans could be and were to be given something like a state reception. From this point their first letters would be sent back to relatives and friends in the Fatherland. If the reception was favorable and the reports were good, according to Zuberbühler, those waiting on the other side for such a word could be easily induced to come the next season. So the ship made Marblehead and lay there at anchor for a few precious days. I say "precious days" because winter was steadily creeping forward. So here these unsuspecting victims of dire times ahead awaited their reception. In a few days it came - Governor Shirley and his staff, Colonel Waldo, a number of the honorable members of the General Court and the Governor's interpreter, one A. Keller by name. Colonel Waldo even brought his daughters with him. The souls of these humble Germans, un- used to such honor from above, must have thrilled again and again at this show of favor from the Obrigkeit. Their illusionment, how- ever, was destined to be brief. But for the moment every effort was made to give the new arrivals a favorable impression. They were dined, wined, and entertained. The letters were sent back to the old home. Then the Lydia headed for "eastern parts" with Zuberbühler and Waldo himself on board, while Governor Shirley and the honorable members of the General Court returned to Boston.
In late October the colonists reached St. Georges Bay, where a number of Scotch settlers taken on at Marblehead were landed at the Georges River Settlement. Here Colonel Waldo transferred himself to another vessel, Boston bound. Anchors were then weighed and the Lydia entered the mouth of the Medomak and made her way up to Broad Bay, for a reception of a somewhat dif- ferent order. Here there was no town, no church; no buildings stood ready for their accommodation. But there was wilderness on every hand, with the banks of the river possibly touched here and there with the tones of a late autumn glory. On the east side of the bay and river, cabins with little clearings by the shore, and on the west side and on the Neck a few more cabins and rough clearings met their gaze, relieving in a measure, perhaps, the feeling of awe and dread inspired by the lonely and interminable forests.
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