USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 1 > Part 37
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Uncle Faltin not only used his power in a kindly, humorous way to aid his friends, he also used it in an ironically humorous way to get the better of those who sought to thwart him. The story of the old man's barrel of flour is a case in point. It is re- lated that one day he went to town to get a barrel of flour. There he made his wishes known to the grocer, but since Uncle Faltin's credit was none too good his request was tersely rejected. The old fellow protested and demanded to know the reason why. "I'm not giving flour away to anyone too worthless to work for his bread," replied the grocer.
"But I have the money and I'll pay for the flour," said Uncle Faltin.
"You'll get no flour till I see the money," rejoined the gro- cer. "Where is it?"
"Why! There it is," said Uncle Faltin, pointing to the barrel head.
The grocer looked and there lying on the barrel were three bright, newly minted silver dollars. The grocer took the money and gave Uncle Faltin the flour and his change. That night when the dealer counted his receipts for the day, he could not find the shining silver dollars. They were not in the till. What he did find were three round, wooden chips of dollar size.
In such a manner did the Evil One go on through life with Uncle Faltin providing for his simple needs and gratifying his craving for fun. But no man lives forever. On his deathbed Uncle Faltin sent for "Aunt Hattie Mink"48 and wanted to transmit his original gift, which was his by virtue of being the seventh son of a seventh son, to her. She rejected it and suggested that he transmit it to his son, Alden. This he stated he could not do, since if it were to retain its potency, it had to be transmitted to a female, and in turn by her to some male in the family line, possibly her son, Elmus.
48 Mrs. Henry J. Mink.
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Its Feudal Period
Aunt Hattie, however, rejected the offer flatly, and it has never been known what became of Uncle Faltin's strange power.
The contract with the Devil was faithfully kept. His spirit hovered about Uncle Faltin's deathbed and remained in the house until the old man's remains were underground. His presence was attested by the fact that the Evil One is known to abhor light and to love darkness. From the moment when the old man breathed his last, it was impossible to keep a candle lighted in the house until the remains were buried. Thus it was that in all the land there was no hand that could kindle a flame to light the departure of Uncle Faltin on his strange, dark journey.
XVI
RELIGIOUS LIFE IN THE EARLIEST DAYS
Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott, Eine gute wehr und waffen Er hilft uns frei aus aller not, Die uns itzt hat betroffen.
MARTIN LUTHER
HE FIRST GERMANS TO SETTLE in the Waldoborough area of whom there is any detailed record were predominantly Lutheran, but among them there was a small group with Moravian leanings and a few from Würtemberg who were members of the Reformed Church. In this modern day of waning church influence, it be- comes increasingly difficult to understand the role played by re- ligion in the lives of these founding fathers who experienced it with an intensity that few of us today can sense. To them it was an ever-present and ever-vital force in their living. Salvation was as real as the sun and stars, and the Church was its sole instrument.
To leave their native land was not too difficult, but to leave their church and remove to a new world was, to many of them, an unthinkable project. Hence it was the practice of agents while recruiting emigrants, wherever possible, to take along the nucleus of a church by securing a clergyman to accompany each migra- tion. In all senses the pastor was a real shepherd of the flock. His was an office which for generations and through centuries had ministered the consolations of religion to a people which had had little else in the way of enduring satisfactions. His leadership was unquestioned. He was the guide and counsellor, "the shield and buckler against the terror by night and the destruction that had laid waste at noonday." From the pulpit and in the quiet of the home, it was his word which showed the way to the living; which brought peace to the dying; which insured salvation to the new-born and brought sweet assurance to the aged and bereaved. He was so es- sentially a part of the experience and need of these early Broad Bayers, that life without a church and pastor as the living symbols of God's love and mercy was a most unacceptable and impossible state.
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Religious Life
In view of these simple facts, it is to be expected that the church would be coeval with the first German settlement on the Medomak, and such was pretty nearly the case. From the contract entered into between Mr. Waldo and the colonists of 1742, it is clear that the erection of a meetinghouse was a specific promise made by Waldo to these migrants before they left their old homes.1 As stipulated in this contract, there was to be ready on their ar- rival at Broad Bay two large barracks or dwellings, and at the same time, a church in the building of which Mr. Waldo obligated him- self to lay out two hundred pounds sterling. To be sure, the church was not there when the Germans reached Broad Bay, nor were the dwellings. Most probably it was the plan of the Colonel, shrewd as always, and at this time financially embarrassed, to supply the material and to have the labor furnished by the colonists, or at least to have the buildings constructed by the forty-odd immigrants under probable indenture to him for passage money.
A minister of the Gospel was likewise provided for in the terms of the contract and had, in reality, accompanied the migra- tion. This was the Reverend Philip Gottfried Kast, Doktor der Theologie, and unquestionably a man of culture and learning if not of high spiritual heroism. The first winter at Broad Bay, as heretofore described, was a period of suffering and hardship. In this experience Doctor Kast was in all respects a co-sufferer and doubtless discharged his pastoral obligations under conditions which in his judgment were not far removed from martyrdom. He was not, however, a silent sufferer, and the following spring in May 1743 placed before the General Court of Massachusetts a petition in behalf of himself and, as he alleged, of his Palatine brethren on the shores of Broad Bay, although none of these were co-signers.2 This document, couched in clear and dignified English, charged Waldo with a breach of contract, stating in some detail the grounds for the charges and concluding with a plea for relief. In time he was summoned to appear before a committee of the Court investigating his complaint against Mr. Waldo.
The Reverend Doctor, in fact, seemed to have a passion for litigation, for at about this same time another case was called in a suit previously initiated by him against Mr. Zuberbühler to recover a sum allegedly due him (Kast) on a note which he held against the latter gentleman. It seems highly probable that Kast had pros- tituted his pastoral influence by using it to aid Zuberbühler in re- cruiting emigrants in the Palatinate at so much per head - a prac- tice not uncommon among the ruthless Neuländers - and that he had accepted Zuberbühler's note as covering payment for this
1This contract is set forth in full in Chap. VII, pp. 100-102.
2The Petition is discussed in detail in Chap. VIII, pp. 116-120.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
service. The evidence brought out in this trial was so embarrassing that Doctor Kast never returned to Broad Bay, but disappeared from our history, leaving his parish on the Medomak a flock with- out a shepherd. To allay the disaffection and unrest among the settlers arising from this seemingly unchristian abdication, and because of the utter need of some spiritual headship in the colony, Mr. Waldo enlisted the services of John Ulmer, the schoolmaster and a good Lutheran, who, in the dark days to follow, assumed the spiritual mentorship of the little community and was paid by the proprietor for this service. Of the four chief men who had come with the colony of 1742, the engineer had died the first win- ter, the doctor and the minister had abandoned the settlement the following spring, and only the schoolmaster stood fast by his brethren in their darkest hour.
From these facts of early history, it is clear that there was preaching at Broad Bay from the very beginning of the German settlement - the earliest services being held in the groves by the river and in the cabins of the settlers. Only a little later, in 1743, came the first church, considerably earlier than heretofore be- lieved. Our knowledge of this edifice is scant indeed and is de- rived largely from information conveyed in a military order of Governor Shirley to Colonel Arthur Noble. On June 5, 1744, the Governor instructed the Colonel, in the face of impending Indian warfare, to take steps for the defense of Broad Bay. Among other provisions there was one to assign ten men "at ye new Block House on ye River, being the Dutch Church."3 This brief reference makes clear the fact that in 1744 the church was "new," and that with war at hand it was converted into a garrison. It was probably little more than a super log cabin which could be turned into a block- house by surrounding it with a stockade and digging a well within the enclosure. It was built in 1743 and in all probability converted into a fort in the spring of 1744. The lumber could well have come from the two sawmills which Waldo had under construction as early as April 1743 at the falls of the Medomak.4
The exact location of this church-blockhouse is not a matter of entire certainty. From the order, however, we may infer that it was on the west bank of the river somewhere between the head of tide and the "McGuyer brook."" Since there was at this time one defense post at the First Falls, the second one on the west side, for sound strategic reasons, would have been farther down the river and most probably near the ferry. This inference, if correct, would place the church on the shore of the farm formerly owned
3Colls. Me. Hist. Soc., Documentary Series, XI, 296.
4Lincoln Co. Reg. of Deeds (Wiscasset, Me.), Bk. VI, p. 48.
"On the shore of the old Rodney Creamer farm.
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Religious Life
by Rodney Creamer and in the general proximity of the old site of Thomas Creamer's boathouse. For religious purposes this loca- tion would have been as nearly central as possible for the settlers on the west bank and conveniently close to the point where the river was commonly crossed for those living on the east bank. Supporting this conclusion is the fact that the early settlers re- garded this as the most central location in the early colony, since, when the third and present Lutheran church was built, it was erected exactly opposite on the east side of the river. It was this building, then, that was the scene of John Ulmer's preaching from 1743 to 1745, and in all likelihood was destroyed in May 1746 when the Indians made the most devastating of all attacks on Broad Bay.
From 1746, when the settlement was in part laid waste, there was a cessation of any central worship in the colony until 1748, when the scattered people returned to their former homes from various points of refuge. It was at about this time that John Ulmer came back from Louisburg and resumed his duties as vicar at Broad Bay, preaching in the larger cabins in the colony since there was now no church, and the peace was too uncertain to warrant the settlers assembling other than at points that were central, in their own immediate neighborhoods.
Such religious services were merely stopgaps. A spiritual life under the leadership of a lay preacher could not satisfy the real soul longing of these traditionally devout and simple people. In their old homes such a man could not administer the rites and sacraments of the church, nor was he authorized to do it in their new homes. Had he attempted it, it would have been lacking in that essential quality of grace which could come only of one or- dained of God. Such a condition existing in the colony presented an issue that affected everyone's contentment and peace of mind. Waldo, interested above all other things in the permanency of his settlements, recognized it and sought through the agency of Joseph Crell, Commissioner for Massachusetts Bay recruiting emigrants in Germany from 1750 to 1752, to secure the services of a bona fide Lutheran minister. Crell was not able to enlist the services of an ordained clergyman for this distant post, but a Candidate in The- ology, Stöltzner by name, was induced to accept the Broad Bay mission. This young preacher was fitted out, through the gener- osity of Counsellor Luther of Frankfort, with a little library of books, and in 1751 he accompanied the first migration under Crell as far as Holland. He apparently was a man of rugged Christian principles, for in Rotterdam he quarrelled with Crell over the treat- ment of those emigrants who were to be transported free of costs, and dissatisfied with the latter's good faith, abandoned him and
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
joined a migration to the Carolinas.6 As a consequence of this un- fortunate disaffection the Broad Bay settlement was left for the next forty years largely to the religious ministrations of laymen and quacks.
The new migrations which reached Boston in 1751 and 1752 and the Medomak in the latter year brought no regular clergymen. However, among the new arrivals were three schoolmasters, mem- bers of the Reformed Church, and Hans Georg Hahn, who with his wife, Barbara, had decided Moravian leanings. Hahn was the stormy petrel whose coming presaged an end to the religious peace of the settlement, although doctrinal differences were to receive no acute emphasis until the closing years of the French and In- dian War. In the last of the four main migrations, that of 1753, came Hahn's arch religious enemy, the Lutheran, Charles Chris- topher Godfrey Leissner, a former student at the University of Jena and a lawyer from Dietz. As the man appointed by his Prince to protect the interests of his migrating subjects and as Waldo's agent, Leissner gradually assumed both civic and religious leader- ship in the colony. The long hard years of the French and Indian War were just ahead and all thought of erecting a building for common worship had to be laid aside. The people continued to assemble in small neighborhood groups, and each unit quite natu- rally attached itself to a leader sympathetic to its own doctrine. The Moravians met with Georg Hahn and those of the Reformed Church with their schoolmaster preacher. John Ulmer, too, con- tinued to lay-preach, but no longer in Waldo's pay, for Leissner had now taken over the proprietor's services. In this way the com- munity was broken up into dissident groups, and the seed was sown which, after the return of peace, was destined to flower into a period of petty religious persecution as the colony once more sought to shape its spiritual life in a common mold.
Even before the return of peace to the colony, while the war was dragging on into quieter years because of the exhaustion of the Indians and the crushing blows sustained by the French, the Broad Bayers, relieved in a measure of the dark threat from the forests, again were able to turn their thoughts to their own spirit- ual affairs, which presented a forlorn aspect. The new conditions brought by the peace seemed to warrant the erection of a church, even though as yet there was no minister to preach the word of God from its pulpit. In one respect things had become different. The distribution of the population in the settlement had changed since the first church had been erected on the west bank of the ferry. The colony had increased greatly in numbers and had spread
"Letter of Hofrath Luther in Frankfort to Samuel Waldo in London, Mass. Arch- ives, XV A, 200-211.
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Religious Life
into South Waldoborough, Back Cove and the lower end of the Necks.
To meet this new expansion of the settled limits, a more cen- tral location had to be sought for the church. It had to be some- where along the river bank, since all cabins were along the shore, and transportation and travel were still by water. The site fixed on was the meetinghouse lot of one hundred acres, originally prom- ised by Waldo and confirmed by the Pemaquid Proprietors in the land adjustments made on the west side in 1764. The shore front- age of this lot was on the cove which today bears the name of Meetinghouse Cove. Here on the waterfront rose the second Luth- eran church at Broad Bay, at a point to the east of the present high- way and about north by east of the junction of the Dutch and Gross Neck roads. The rough stone foundation of the church is now overgrown with brush and covered with humus that has been accumulating for the last century and a half. The cemetery lay adjacent to it, but the stones which once marked the last resting place of the early fathers are now laid low by the force of the frost and acts of vandals. Only two remain standing in a little stone enclosure marking the graves of Cornelius Seiders and his wife, Elizabeth Leissner. Some day, perhaps, an awakened civic con- science may restore these buried slabs to their erstwhile dignity of marking the graves of our founding fathers. Meanwhile the silver horse7 continues to ride the adjacent highways on moonlit nights, its hoofbeats noiseless, but its flanks and mane palely shimmering, a fearful symbol to the late wayfarer, perhaps, of the restless grief of the dead over the indifference and neglect of their descendants.
The details of the construction of this church and of the first services held within its walls are happily a matter of record left by one which could sketch its genesis from firsthand sources, Judge Nathaniel Groton, who was born in Waldoborough in 1791 and died in Bath in 1858. In his later years Judge Groton published in the Bath Times a series of historical articles, one of which dealt with the old church at the Cove. This structure was still standing in the Judge's boyhood, which gave him familiarity with the de- tails of its architecture, and he was of course in a position to glean all additional facts from among those who were the first to wor- ship there.
According to Judge Groton, this church was built "without money," both labor and material being provided by the settlers themselves. It was twenty-eight by thirty-six feet and
was built of spruce and hemlock logs, hewn and dove-tailed at the cor- ners to strengthen and keep the walls which were twelve feet inside in the clear; the floor was of hewn logs and as smooth as their German
"A local superstition that has been handed down by the credulous to the present day.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
axes and other tools could make it; the roof was of frame work covered with long pieces of stuff split out of logs and so laid on with birch bark that it guarded against letting in water. The pews were of logs, hewn out something like the old wooden horse blocks. The pulpit was the ornament of the house; it stood about six feet from the floor and was ingeniously contrived, large enough to hold the preacher and so light that a strong man could carry it. It was at the top semi-circular; the front was of plaited work and gracefully centered to a point below. The pulpit ten years after the house was built, was painted by one, Isaac Sargers, who was the first of his trade at Broad Bay. The windows at first were made of sheep-skin.
This building was erected in the summer of 1762. In the spring of that year a number of Broad Bayers while in Boston had listened to the eloquent preaching of Johannes Martin Schaeffer and had invited him to pay a visit to Broad Bay. He first came to the settlement in June 1762 and undoubtedly gave the Germans a sample of his pulpit oratory, for he was promptly hired and shortly thereafter left the settlement to return in November and take up his ministerial duties.8 These data are based on the testimony of Georg Soelle, but there are good reasons to believe that Schaeffer was in the settlement as early as June 1760 for on the 11th of this month, he negotiated with John Ulmer for Lot No. 15, the old James Little farm of 1736 to which Ulmer was not able to give a clear title until December 9, 1762.9 This was in all probability Pas- tor Schaeffer's first home at Broad Bay, and he probably took up his residence on this site in November 1762, the month the first service was held in the church and the structure dedicated.
Mr. Groton has happily made a brief description of this serv- ice a matter of record, and from this source the following account is taken:
The small house was crowded. The choir was organized by Frank Miller, Senior, and was composed of male and female singers. Among the youngest was Conrad Heyer then about fifteen years old. The serv- ice was all in the German language. Dr. Schaeffer read from the 137th psalm and preached from the 5th and 6th verses of the same. These pious people, many of whom in their own country, had worshipped in gor- geous churches, rejoiced that after so many years they were permitted to assemble in their rudely built meetinghouse and worship the same God under the same form of religion they did in Germany.
The people of Broad Bay, however, were not particularly fortunate in their choice of Doctor Schaeffer, nor, in fact, of any of their early preachers. This was in no sense strange since there were few genuine Lutheran clergymen anywhere in New England. The priestly caste in the Lutheran church was made up largely of
8Soelle, Kuerse historische Bericht des Häufleins zu Broad Bay, Morav, Archives (Bethlehem, Pa.). "Lincoln Co, Deeds, Bk. 5, p. 231,
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Religious Life
foot-loose and unscrupulous schoolmasters who had wandered in from Pennsylvania, and were quite willing to fake a clerical role. Muehlenberg, who was the leader of the Lutheran church in Penn- sylvania, was wont frequently to inveigh against the quacks and half-preachers who flooded that colony, exploiting the spiritual hunger of the German settlers for their own selfish and personal ends. It was definitely to this class that Doctor John Martin Schaef- fer belonged. He was neither a Doctor of Theology, nor of Medi- cine, but he preached the one and practiced the other. He had apparently come to America as an adventurer, or possibly as a refu- gee from justice, for he was reputed to have abandoned his wife in Germany and to have seduced the very beautiful wife of another man and brought her to the colonies along with his own daughter. He was first active in Pennsylvania; then preached for a time in New York, from whence he finally reached Boston. Quite natu- rally a man of Schaeffer's mercenary cut would not have located so deeply in the wilderness as Broad Bay unless the pecuniary re- wards were attractive. They were indeed quite amazingly so. He was to receive a farm of one hundred acres,10 and from the head of each Lutheran family three pounds and two days of free labor each year. In addition to this, he was to practice medicine, which meant a substantial addition to his income since there was no doc- tor in any of the adjacent settlements. Certain it is that no preacher in the history of the town has ever been so handsomely compen- sated.
It was said of Dr. Schaeffer by the Reverend Alexander McLean of Pemaquid that he was an ignoramus and a quack. He was most certainly a quack, but with equal certainty not an ig- noramus. On the contrary, he was a man of keen perception, highly adaptable and resourceful. As a preacher he was quick and elo- quent in the pulpit and a splendid singer. The ministry, however, was for him merely one of several avenues to money-getting. Tra- dition records that he had a fixed fee, payable in advance, for every funeral, marriage, and baptism. This was unveneered exploitation, for any German in Broad Bay at this time would sooner have done without food and clothing than to have dispensed with any one of these essential sacraments. In the matter of his money-monger- ing, Schaeffer was quite frankly cynical and was wont to speak of his activities with humor and realism as is evidenced by his oft quoted remark: "Wenn ich meinen schwarzen Rock anhabe, dann bin ich Prediger; und Sie müssen tun was ich sage; aber wenn ich meinen grünen Rock anhabe, dann bin ich Doktor."11
10 Probably the farm in the Slaigo district later sold by him to Andreas and Matthias Storer. Lincoln Co. Deeds, Bk. 9, p. 179.
11"When I have on my black coat, then I am a preacher and you must do what I tell you; but when I have on my green coat, then I am a doctor."
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
As a physician Schaeffer enjoyed high repute not only among the Germans but among the English as well in a circuit of thirty miles, but it was a repute based largely upon a studied appeal to the credulity and superstition of his clientele. His room or office was furnished with astrological instruments, skeletons, and other weird equipment, such as snakes preserved in alcohol, in order primarily to impress the peasants.12
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