USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 1 > Part 15
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And your Complainants as in duty bound shall ever pray Ph: Gottfr: Kast: Dr. Th. for himself and his Palatine Brethren. Testirt: Jacob Friedrich Kurtz. MD.
This document is a fair résumé of the terms of the Waldo con- tract. On the question of the violation of the agreement by Colonel Waldo it is vague. To be sure, it states that he "has failed in every 10 Mass. Records (Ms), XV A, 33ff.
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part of his contract," yet this is a blanket charge substantiated by only one specific point, namely, Waldo's failure to erect the build-
ings for their accommodation. The allotment of land had been made on a different basis than that stipulated in the agreement, but one in line with current procedure in all settlements, and the acreage assigned to each family had been doubled. Tools and food had been
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provided, but not the livestock, since no provision could have been made so late in the season which would have enabled animal life to survive the winter in the settlement. All things considered, that which was expedient had been done. The conclusion is inescapable that Kast and Kurtz were actuated by lower motives, and that to a considerable degree their protest was the product of their personal spleen, disappointment, and frustration, exacerbated perhaps by the fact that at that time Waldo had not met the terms of the con- tract in the matter of payment of their salaries, a detail hardly germane to the settlers' needs in the hurried preparations for the winter of 1742-1743, before the ice blocked them off from all com- munications with the world outside.
It is difficult to escape a considerable degree of distrust of these two gentlemen. Neither stands out in our history enveloped by the moral clarity which we commonly associate with their pro- fessions. The activities of Doctor Kast abroad and later at Broad Bay were hardly in keeping with the ethics of his profession. It developed in the spring of 1743 that he held a note of Mr. Zuber- bühler's for over a thousand gulden. This debt, if such there were, could only have been incurred in one way, and that through the fact that while the migration was being recruited in the Palatinate Kast worked for Zuberbühler in the dubious role of a recruiting agent who was to receive a stipulated sum per capita for every recruit signed up. If such were the case it was clearly a prostitution of his high profession for gain, for a clergyman acting in such a capacity would have inspired such a degree of confidence in the gullible peasantry as to amount to base deception. Of this fact Kast as a man of intelligence and education could not have been ignorant. As concerns the note, Zuberbühler denied the authenticity of the obligation and affirmed that Doctor Kast owed him several hundred gulden, possibly for money advanced during Kast's recruiting ac- tivities. Doctor Kurtz was chosen by both parties as a referee. In this way the note (Schuldschein) came into his hands. He is said in the interest of Zuberbühler to have altered the note so that Kast would be swindled out of a large part of his claim. This affair was taken to the courts and Kurtz, finding that his forgery was going to be established, did not await the verdict but fled.11
The second situation in which Doctor Kast appeared in an unfortunate light was his abandonment of the colony at Broad Bay in 1743. If conditions were as he represented them, his flock, beyond its need of food, clothing, and shelter, needed spiritual leadership, encouragement, and consolation. For the shepherd to forsake his flock in the hour of testing and trial was a gross betrayal of the Master he was trained to serve. He seems to have been fabricated of
11H. A. Rattermann, Der Deutsche Pioneer, XIV (Cincinnati, Ohio).
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coarser material than many of those simpler and more heroic souls who looked to him for hope and light.
Doctor Kurtz was a man of even coarser caliber. After fleeing the trial in Boston, he left a dirty trail through the colonies and back into the Old World.12 He is said to have swindled or stolen from a Boston merchant, Baumgarten by name, a considerable quan- tity of goods. Thereafter he left New England and went to New York. There he made the acquaintance of a large landowner, in- gratiated himself into the gentleman's confidence, and led him to believe that he could sell his lands to German immigrants in Penn- sylvania. Kurtz, now Curtius, received from the proprietor the power of attorney in order to act for him, and later the deed of the grant. It is alleged that he then erased the name of the proprietor, substituted his own, and on this basis sold and gave deeds to the Germans in Pennsylvania making purchases. This brought him into conflict with the law and led him to flee the country and to return to Europe. While in Pennsylvania he is reported to have cut up a goodly number of dirty capers. In one of them he seduced the wife of a man named Schütz and fled with her. In retaliation Schütz published charges in Christopher Sauer's newspaper.13 While in Philadelphia Kurtz entered Broad Bay history once more, and again at a later date in connection with a shipping house in Rotter- dam.
In the meantime, the General Court had taken the Kast peti- tion under consideration and appointed a committee of its mem- bers to investigate and hold hearings. Colonel Waldo submitted a reply to the petition with supplementary papers on June 9. This the Council, dominated by Waldo's friend, Governor Shirley, found adequate and voted that the petition be dismissed. On June 14th, the House refused to concur in this decision. Rather did it enlarge its committee and decide to review all the papers in the case and hear the testimony of the parties involved. Thereupon the Council appointed three of its members to join the House com- mittee: Doctors Kast and Kurtz appeared and testified. Colonel Waldo was not present at the hearing as he was not in town. As tentative findings the committee reported that we "are of the opinion the Complainant with his Bretheren have been and are great sufferers and if not soon relieved may stand in need of the compassion of this Government." Further consideration was de- ferred to the next sitting of the Court when Waldo and Zuber- bühler could be heard.
In mid-September hearings were again resumed and the fol- lowing report was submitted to the General Court:
12Letter of Dr. Heinrich E. Luther (in French) to Lieut. Gov. Spencer Phips, Frankfurt am Main, May 30, 1751. Mass. Records, XV A, 67-80.
13Germantown Gazette, Sept. 16, 1744.
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The committee to whom was referred the further consideration of the Petition of Dr. Kast in behalf of himself and his Palatine Bretheren together with the answer of Saml. Waldo Esqr. and Mr. Sebastian Zuber- bühler, have heard the Parties and Report. That the Palatines first broke their Contract before they left Holland in not paying their passage money as pr. agreement etc., then Sebastian Zuberbühler broke his Con- tract with them in not providing shipping in due time to bring 'em - and although Mr. Waldo did conceed to fulfill his part of the Contract from their arrival in New England abating part of the officers' wages which notwithstanding he has not in all respects done, he has shown forth heretofore and now declares is Ready to do it whenever it will suit with their Convenience. And whereas it is suggested by the Pala- tines that they stand charged with Considerable sums of money for their passage etc, by Mr. Sebastian Zuberbühler, the Committee are of opinion that some suitable person or persons be appointed by this Court in behalf of said Palatines to settle those accts. And in asmuch as Mr. Waldo is not obliged to find sd. Palatines with Provisions any longer than to the ye last of October next, they will be left in starving Condition. There- fore it is humbly proposed that this Court grant a sum of money to be laid out in Provisions and Clothing to help 'em thro the winter - By order of the Committee.14
John Osborne
This report was read in Council and sent to the House of Representatives where it failed of adoption, due in all probability to the money item involved; for it seems to have been correctly reasoned that the colony, being sustained by Mr. Waldo through the summer, would have a full season to plant, to harvest crops, and to make a sufficient provision for its own sustenance. The Council did not concur in the action of the House and ordered that consideration of the report be deferred to the first Thursday of the next sitting of the Court. The House, however, failed to concur in this action and adhered to its original vote. This impasse blocked any final action on the matter.
This report illuminates and brightens certain dark spots in the history of Old Broad Bay, and to a very considerable degree exonerates Colonel Waldo of sins charged to his memory now for over two centuries. It is true that the long houses of the con- tract had not been built on the arrival of these colonists of 1742 on the Medomak, and for reasons previously suggested. It is also true that Waldo seemingly did all in his power to provide individual cabins for the settlers for the first winter. The salaries of "the offi- cers," in which Doctors Kast and Kurtz seemingly had more than a professional interest, were not paid until the spring of 1743, but technically this was no violation of contract, since under the terms of that document Waldo was free to pay them at any time within the year. What is most important and significant is the fact that Colonel Waldo did meet the terms of the contract in providing his
14Mass. Recs., XV A, 35ff.
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settlers with food, essential tools, and livestock. In short, it may be said that after the arrival of the Germans on the Medomak, Waldo did everything for them that was possible, practical, and expedient within the time limits set by an oncoming winter.
With the advent of the spring of 1743, the settlers at Broad Bay found the conditions of life considerably ameliorated. When the ice left the river, a vast reservoir of food supplies, fish, and shell- fish was opened to them. Land had been cleared the preceding fall and winter, making space for rye, vegetables, and other foodstuffs. The large supply of cordwood which had accumulated as land was cleared during the fall and winter was readily salable at 7s. a cord on the Boston market, which provided them with a fund of cash for the purchase in Boston of firearms, clothing, and other forms of merchandise to supplement their necessities. There was plenty of wood and apart from the sales of cordwood, some of it went into lumber, some into rails for fences, and the otherwise unusable portions of it went into a fuel supply for their own con- sumption. In clearing their land the Germans did not belt or girdle the trees, simply leaving them to perish in the ground, as did the English and Irish settlers; but they quite generally cut them down and chopped or sawed them into logs or rail lengths of eleven feet or into cordwood lengths of four feet. In destroying underbrush and bushes, they generally grubbed them out of the ground, for by so doing a field was as fit for cultivation the second year after it was cleared as it was ten or twenty years afterward.15 The accu- mulated leaf mold of the centuries rendered fertilizer superfluous for these early crops. Later there came manure from their own stables, as well as herring and rockweed from the river.
In the spring of 1743 Colonel Waldo was again active in pro- moting his settlement at Broad Bay, and as early as April of that year he had two sawmills under construction at "Madomock." This we learn from a letter to a Mr. Robert Cowen who was con- templating settling in the area. In this letter Mr. Waldo notes: "And I am to inform you that I have two Saw-Mills at St. Georges River, and two others now building at Madomock which may supply them with boards for their buildings. ... There are from many parts of this Province several Persons about going there, and I hope in a short time to have a Thousand Families on the spot, and a good Trade there carried on."16
It was also at this time that Colonel Waldo, realizing that his Broad Bay Germans were as much isolated from their world by their foreign speech as by geographic distances, appointed Mr.
15 Daniel Rupp, "Notes" to Benjamin Rush, Manners of the German Inhabitants of Pennsylvania (Phila., 1789).
16Letter to Mr. Robert Cowen, Boston, April 23, 1743, Lincoln Co. Reg. of Deeds (Wiscasset, Me.), Bk. 6, p. 48.
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Robert McIntyer of St. George as his local agent in charge of German affairs and of prospective settlers on the Medomak. This fact again has been preserved in a chance letter. In May 1743 a Mr. Abijah Wadsworth, with a party of prospective settlers, came to Broad Bay to look over lands for possible occupation. In his letter of instructions to Wadsworth, Waldo observes: "Mr. Jesse White of Marshfield is to transport the party down to Broad Bay, from whence it is only six miles overland to St. Georges River and a tolerable good road all the way. At your arrival at Broad Bay you may apply yourself to Mr. Robert McIntyer, my Agent, who will be anything in his power assisstant to you.17 Apart from providing an illustration of Colonel Waldo's interest and concern in the col- ony at Broad Bay, these two letters make clear that the peopling of the Waldo grant was not merely a matter of periodic mass migrations, but a constant influx from other sections of New Eng- land, and also from Nova Scotia, especially in those years when the Indians were relatively quiet.
Waldo's two sawmills at the falls of the Medomak were un- doubtedly in operation by early summer, providing a supply of excellent lumber to the settlers at Broad Bay for the improvement and erection of better houses. Many new cabins were constructed and some of the old ones rebuilt. The new cabins were constructed on cellars, usually across the north end of the structure, as in some of the very old houses in present-day Waldoboro. Some of the early cellars were rocked up, while others were simply small holes in the ground. The new cabins were larger, more carefully built and varied somewhat in size, finish, and convenience, depending on the skill and means of the builder. In the new or rebuilt homes there were planks for the floors and roofs. The cellars were acces- sible through a trapdoor in the floor, while a ladder led to the loft. The fireplaces, too, were improved after the model of the English cabins on the Medomak and the Georges. In these very early cabins the fireplace was usually in a corner of the room. It was constructed by erecting the back and one jamb of stone cemented with clay or lime, with a post of wood at the opposite angle sup- porting a manteltree and cross timber of the same material. Every- thing above this was constructed of cat-and-clay, that is, clefts of wood laid up cob-house fashion, with interstices filled and sides plastered with clay mortar.18 Such a structure eliminated the hole in the roof, and in consequence the cabins were immeasurably warmer.
There were cattle on the Medomak when the Germans arrived, as well as from the very first on the Georges. These along
17Boston, May 27, 1743, Lincoln Co. Deeds, Bk. 6, p. 47. [Italics mine.] 18 Cyrus Eaton, Annals of Warren, p. 55.
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with swine were a part of the early equipment of the settlement. Some had been provided by Colonel Waldo under the terms of his contract, and others were acquired on their own by those set- tlers who had the wits or the means. Those building new houses preserved the old for their cattle and for the storage of fodder. The weather through these months was typical of a present-day Maine summer. Parson Smith's observations on it are as follows: "May 1st. an uncommon dry time. May 7. Refreshing rains. June 1. Indian corn wants heat. June 20. A very dry time. People fear a drought. June 22. It rained plentifully. Aug. 1. Fine growing season. Oct. 31. Wonderful weather, moderate and dry. Nov. 7. There has been no rain for many weeks, so that not a mill goes in this part of the country." On the whole, this record reveals a good growing season from May to October, which made it possible for the settlers to secure maximum crops from their limited cleared areas.
That the growing season was a good one becomes clear from a report from "eastern Parts" printed in the Boston News Letter, August 11, 1743. "There has been an early harvest of Indian Corn, and as plentiful a crop as has been known for many years."19 The greatest obstacle to securing tillable land was not the forest but the great quantities of rocks and boulders strewn in profusion over the face of the land. The simplest way of disposing of these was to use them in erecting stonewalls along the boundaries of the farms. It was a heartbreaking and a backbreaking task, but it went on for years and years, keeping pace with the clearing of the land. The first stonewall was started soon after the first cabin was erected on the Medomak, and this practice went on for decade after decade until all the cleared land and many of the pastures in the town were surrounded by these walls of boulders and field stones - grim monuments down to the present day of the patience, fortitude, and energy of these founding fathers.
This was the first summer - a period of striking root and of effecting a rude adjustment to conditions still only partially known. There was great effort and much of it was co-operative. Zuber- bühler apparently was in the settlement continuously and Colonel Waldo was also there at times, directing activity and settling prob- lems that only the proprietor could solve. There were, of course, marryings, begettings, births, and deaths. In fact, this had been the normal order of things at Broad Bay since 1736. The myth of Con- rad Heyer (born in April 1749) being the first white child to be born on the Medomak has long been a generally accepted tradition, but certainly an acceptance that involves an amazing naïveté. These were rugged times; men and women were human; children were
1ºItalics mine.
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an economic necessity; and the virtues of birth control were un- known and unpracticed. The name of one child at least is known to us from the 1736 era, Peter Cannaugh. The first birth in the settlement that is a matter of historical record was that of Philipine Elizabeth Rominger, a daughter of Phillip Rominger. She was probably born in her father's cabin on the waterfront of his farm, which was a frontage of twenty-five rods on Lot. No. 14, the lot next above the northern line of the C. H. Lilly farm, now the resi- dence of Ralph Hoffses. Her birth occurred September 29, 1743, and she most certainly was but one of many.20 Among other early births known to us was that of Phillip, a son of David Rominger, and also a daughter of the same family, who remained at Broad Bay after her father migrated to North Carolina in 1769. Another recorded birth was that of Gottliebe, later the wife of Johann Anton Kastner, born in 1746.21 There certainly were babies at Broad Bay, in reality a goodly number of them, before Conrad Heyer, the traditional "first white child," made his appearance on the scene in April 1749.
Of the one hundred fifty and more German migrants who came to Broad Bay in 1742, the question is quite naturally raised what were their names and just where did they settle? A complete list is not available nor can it be worked out, but from evidence in the offices of the Registers of Deeds of Lincoln and York counties, from Massachusetts State Archives, and from the archives of the Moravian Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, we can be reasonably certain of some of these families and of the lots or farms on which they first settled. In locating them on numbered lots, the fact should be kept in mind that the area on the east side of the river from below the Farnsworth Point northward to the south boundary of Foster Jameson's farm had been settled in 1736-1738 by the Scotch-Irish colony in which were scattered a few Anglo- Saxon or English settlers.
Lots No. 1 and 2 made up the present Foster Jameson farm, but there are no data to show who first occupied them. Lot No. 3, the present Carrie Feyler Hart place, was assigned to Gottfried Feyler. This place enjoys the distinction of being the only one in the town that has been occupied continuously by some member of the same family since 1742. Lot No. 4, the old Parker Feyler farm, now owned by Jonas Koskela, was assigned to John Ulmer, Sr., the first schoolmaster at Broad Bay. Lot No. 5, the James Cast- ner farm, was occupied by John Ulmer, Jr. Lot No. 6, the old Moses Burkett farm now owned by Mr. John Eliot, was assigned to Johann "Shotes," most probably an anglicized form for Schurz.
20 Friedland Catalogue, 1805, Moravian Records (Winston-Salem, N. C.). 21 Burial Record, Moravian Church Book (Bethabara, N. C.).
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It is not known who settled on Lot No. 7, which included origi- nally a part of the Burkett farm and is now the home of Frank E. Ewell. Lot No. 8, for many years the residence of Capt. Albion F. Stahl, was occupied by Lorenz Seitz (Sides), his wife, a son, Johann Michael, and a daughter, Katharina. Lot No. 9, the present Davis Dairy Farm, was assigned to Hans Georg Vogler, with whom lived a grown-up son, Philip Christoph. Lot No. 10, the Castner Homestead Farm now owned by Merle Castner, was allotted to Johann Martin Schmidt. Lot No. 11, the old Ben Mink or Walter Boggs place, was occupied by a Michael Wallis. Lot No. 12, next north, embracing the old Dexter Feyler farm and now including the residences of Fred Boggs, Reginald Spence and Moses McNally, was originally the farm assigned to Melchior Schneider and his wife, Jacobina. Living with the Schneiders was Jacobina's mother, Frau Doerfler, whose husband died in the passage across the water, and the thirteen Schneider children. Lot No. 13, embracing the farms of Ralph Hoffses and Jasper J. Stahl, was alloted to David Romin- ger. The lot next north, No. 14, whose bounds are most clearly visible in the old Asa R. Reed field, now owned by Ralph Dean, was occupied by Phillip Rominger, a younger brother of David. The next farm, that of Harold Levensaler, Lot No. 15, was assigned to John Ulmer's brother, Jacob.
In all these lots the original bounds are most clearly marked in the present day by the stonewalls which still stand on those por- tions of the original farms east of Friendship Road. Lot No. 16, extending from Harold Levensaler's north line to Raymond Jones' south line, was occupied possibly by Kazimir Loesch (Lash) in 1742, and certainly by him in the early 1750's. Lot No. 17, starting with Henry Hilton's south line, was occupied at an early date, if not in 1742, by Georg Demuth. Lot No. 18, the old James Walter place, was assigned to Matthias Römele (Remilly), one of the lead- ing men in the early colony. Lot No. 19, the Capt. Pollard place, was occupied by Johann Werner (Vannah). Lot No. 20, now the residence of the Gay sisters, whose northern bound was the F. M. Eveleth farm, was allotted to George Kuhn. The next two lots, Nos. 21 and 22, extending from the south bound of the Eveleth farm to the south bound of the old Mary Hutchins field, were allotted to Johann Martin Reiser (Razor), possibly as early as 1740. The part of the river front of these lots, now known as Storer's Wharf, bore for many years the name of Reiser's or Razor's Point. Farther than this point the data available will not carry us. There were others in the colony, including the Doctors Kast and Kurtz, the unnamed surveyor, and possibly Matthias Seidensberger (Seidensparker) on Lot No. 26 above the First Falls, who occupied lots north of Reiser's north boundary, up the river
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as far as the Great Falls of the Medomak, but an attempt to identify them and the lots to which they were assigned would be the merest guesswork.
Through the spring, summer and autumn of 1743 the colony was in a fair way of making a successful and happy settlement. This period, however, proved to be only a brief interlude of promise. More clouds were gathering. The Indians did not take kindly to the usurpation of their age-old lands on the Medomak, used by them as a hunting and fishing area and for summer en- campments. They insisted that the settlement was in contravention of their agreement with Waldo in 1738 with reference to condi- tions on the Georges River. Waldo took the position that the land was not on the Georges. The Indians affirmed that it was contrary to the treaty, but allowed their feeling to be allayed temporarily at least with gifts. Their protest, however, indicated a deep-seated dissatisfaction, and another Anglo-French war brewing in Europe must have been an ominous sign to those familiar with previous wars in New England.
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