USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 1 > Part 38
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In fact, their gullibility seems to have been a gold mine for this clever fakir, who fabricated and propagated one medical fad after another to his own profit. At one time he was a strong be- liever in the periodic inspection of urine, and at another in the periodic practice of bloodletting. So thoroughly did he sell the Germans on this latter idea that there was much bleeding every spring in the colony. Fifty cents was the fixed fee for such a serv- ice, and often a man would work a week for the doctor in order to pay the bloodletting bill for a single family, whereas for a pro- tracted illness a whole sloop load of cordwood was often required in payment of the bill.
The versatile doctor was also able to mingle his ministerial duties with his medical functions in emergencies without even tak- ing time out to change his coat. Schaeffer's flexibility in such cases is aptly illustrated by the tale of how he got Mr. Dahlheim's dou- bloon. It was during the Revolution, when Georg Dahlheim, an honest old soldier,
returned home from the army, sick, with a Spanish doubloon in his pocket. Learning that his family had been sick, too, during his absence, and that Dr. Schaeffer, their family physician, had been very kind and attentive during their illness, Dahlheim hastened to discharge his obliga- tion while he had money. He found the doctor at home and in a very brief way introduced the subject and threw down his doubloon upon the table. The doctor looked about and began to sum up as follows, as he did not keep books: "Vel, ven your vife vos sick, dot vos den doler, next dime vos your dotter; den your poy vos sick, dot vos vun doller und vun half doller." Finding that the doubloon was not wholly con- sumed, he began to scratch his head to quicken his recollection and then announced, "Ach! Your last schild, I christened dot, da ish anoder half doller." But there still was another half dollar unappropriated, and the doctor who from the beginning seemed not to be satisfied with any- thing short of the whole, began to ransack his brain a second time, looked wiser than before, and presto the idea came. "Ach! Now I got it," said the doctor, "vun dime ven ve dink your vife vill die, I gift her de sacra- ment; dot vos anoder half doller." And picking up the doubloon he passed into another room relieving poor Mr. Dahlheim of any further care about his money.13
In the face of such mercenary behavior, the wane of Schaef- fer's religious influence was inevitable. This was observed by the
12H. A. Rattermann, Der Deutsche Pionier, XVI Jahrgang (Cincinnati, 1884-85). 13Conversation recorded by Dr. M. R. Ludwig: Ludwig Genealogy (Augusta, 1866). pp, 53-54,
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Moravian leader, George Soelle, as early as the mid 1760's when a number of the Pastor's followers deserted him.14 Defections at this time, however, were not numerous, since the sorely felt need of some sort of spiritual leadership was paramount in most minds, and there was no other Lutheran leader available.
In the course of the colony's growth in numbers and in eco- nomic activity, Doctor Schaeffer's duties became a decidedly in- cidental interest in his own career as his business and political ac- tivity increased. Engaging in shipping and transportation, he acted as a sort of commission merchant in wood and lumber, handling these commodities for the Germans and "liquidating their accounts in his own peculiar way." He also had wide interests in real estate and during the sixties and seventies bought and sold lands through- out the county. Politics and the law, too, carried their appeal, and early in his ministry he got himself an appointment as Friedens- richter15 in order to enable himself to perform marriages and trans- act other business with acceptable legality. As Schaeffer's parish duties drew to their close, he shifted his activity to politics and served as second selectman of the town from 1784 to 1786, and as town treasurer from 1786 to 1788. To the degree that he became successful and wealthy the mask dropped, restraint was thrown off, and he became profane and intemperate. It is difficult to de- termine exactly when Schaeffer's ministerial duties came to an end. Certainly this was some time during the Revolution after his in- fluence had been further weakened by his strong Tory stand. Dur- ing the struggle he had declined to read the Declaration of Inde- pendence from the pulpit, or to pray for the success of the Amer- ican arms, saying that the pious folk in England had prayed at least four hours earlier for the success of British arms, thereby cynically implying that the first to place their petitions before the Throne of Grace would be the first to be served.
It is clear that after 1770 Schaeffer was tolerated as the parish head only because no one could be secured to replace him; at least no regular minister, even though several seem to have paid short visits to Broad Bay in these years. In the summer of 1772 the Bach- elor of Arts and Candidate in Theology, Christoph Nickolaus Homeyer, was in the colony in some clerical capacity, for at this time he affixed his signature to a passport for Bernard Kuentzel, who migrated this year to North Carolina.16 Schaeffer had origi- nally organized the parish into two branches, Lutheran and Re- formed, and with the return of peace the doctrinal breach between the two had widened and the Reformed group was giving evidence
14Soelle, Kurze historiche Bericht, op. cit.
15 Justice of the peace.
16Original document in possession of Dr. Benj. Kinsell, Med. Arts Bldg., Dallas, Tex.
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of dissatisfaction with Schaeffer and of a decided tendency to se- cede and establish their own church. In any case Homeyer's stay in the settlement seems to have been a short one.
Following Homeyer's departure, the effort was made to se- cure the services of a really eminent Lutheran divine. Among the old documents at Hartwick Seminary,17 there is a call dated May 28, 1774, and addressed to the Reverend John Christopher Hart- wick, pro. tem., "pastor of the church at Boston, and Superin- tendant of sundry Evangelical Congregations scattered up and down in America." This document interests us in two respects. In the first place it describes the church at Waldoborough as be- ing "like a sheep without a shepherd, destitute of the Ministry of the Gospel, and scattered and fainting for want of spiritual pas- ture, to the great detriment of its spiritual state." These are reveal- ing words and bespeak a desperate determination on the part of the parish or of a prominent dissident group, probably the Reformed element, to be rid of Schaeffer and to establish a church of their own. In the second place, it informed the Reverend Hartwick that he had been unanimously elected pastor of the church at Waldo- borough, and that if unable to accept he was authorized to send a substitute and the parish would accept unanimously anyone of his decision. He visited Waldoborough in July 1774, and held serv- ices in the newly built church on the eastern bank of the river, but probably did not remain long since there is no further record of his ministry.
It is doubtful if this spiritual restlessness of the parish, or of at least a part of it, gave Doctor Schaeffer undue concern. His many activities assured him financial independence, and he was always ready to don "his black coat" and fill the pulpit when it was occupied by no one else. By the year 1775 he seems again to have been preaching regularly to a part of the parish.
The Doctor's career in Waldoborough came to an end in 1790 when he moved to Warren. There he practiced medicine in his own house, lived high, drank heavily, went out little, enjoyed a reputation of great wealth, and entertained the younger genera- tion with his flip parties and his picturesque speech. In 1793, while on a trip to Boston, his house was broken into by four masked men. The women were bound and locked in the cellar, the house ran- sacked, the Doctor's chests broken open, and his gold and silver stolen. No trace of the robbers was ever found. In rage and despair Schaeffer plunged deeper into intemperance and died on April 20, 1794. Just prior to a trip which he made to Germany in 1767, while still living at Broad Bay, he had made a will bequeathing his estate to his wife, Margaret, and his daughters, Margaret and Mary. By
17 A Lutheran Theological Seminary, organized in 1816 and located four miles south of Cooperstown, N. Y.
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the time of his death his riches had taken wing, and the net estate totalled only $1557.44, an average estate for the time and place, but certainly a mere fraction of the Doctor's one-time possessions. In South Warren, in a little cleared lot by the riverside marking the sight of the resting place of the early Warren dead, a little slab, moss-covered and weather worn to the point of barest legibility, bears the name and dates of Dr. John Martin Schaeffer. In the summer of 1772, during one of the interregnums of Pastor Schaeffer, the decision was reached to build a new church. This plan apparently had long been brewing. There were several good reasons for this decision, one that was most compelling: the older house at "the Cove" had already become too small. Families had increased in number, and with the Indian menace renewed, old and young were wont to gather at one central point from far and near for worship on the Lord's Day. But above all other reasons the idea of a new church represented a split in the congregation and the withdrawal of the Reformed group for doctrinal reasons and because they were no longer willing to tolerate Schaeffer in the pulpit. It seems to have been a well thought out plan to be rid of him, for the site of the new church was bought by a group and the edifice built by the same group. Thus the land and building was their property and the decision on all parish matters, includ- ing the hiring of a minister, would rest solely in their hands.
This fact may explain why Candidate Homeyer was in the colony in 1772, and it may explain the call to Doctor Hartwick in 1774, and the depiction of spiritual conditions in the town as "dire and destitute," which formed the basis of the appeal to Hart- wick. It is also of interest that the thirty-two new builders were with few exceptions east-siders. From earliest days this had been the most important division of the town. Here from the beginning resided the leading men, and in 1772 they were apparently strong enough to form a parish of their own. Under such circumstances, their church would naturally be located on the east side, and as of yore the ferry offered the logical site. It was central and it was the main artery of travel east and west. The site purchased was a shore lot on the farm owned by John Newbert, now the property of Merle Castner. The old deed of Conveyance containing the names of the thirty-two dissidents and other matters of interest reflecting the religious temper of early days follows here in part:
I, John Neubert, of Broad Bay; yeoman, in consideration of the just sum of £2, lawful money, to me in hand paid before the delivery hereof by Martin Reiser, gent., Bernhard Shuman, yeoman, George Demuth, yeoman, Georg Talheim, yeoman, Frantz Eisele, yeoman, Ludwig Cast- ner, yeoman, Christopher Neubert,, yeoman, Christopher Neuhaus, yeo- man, Lorentz Seitz, yeoman, Zacharias Neubert, yeoman, Christopher Neubert, Jr., yeoman, Gottfried Feiler, yeoman, Matthias Storer, yeo- man, Andreas Storer, yeoman, Andrew Schenck, yeoman, Georg Wer-
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ner, yeoman, John Loeb, yeoman, Jacob Jung, yeoman, Fred Schwartz, yeoman, John Werner, yeoman, John Henry Benner, yeoman, Martin Hoch, yeoman, John Weibes, yeoman, John Adam Loebensaller, yeo- man, Philip Shuman, yeoman, Christopher Loebensaller, yeoman, John Martin, yeoman, Georg Schmaus, yeoman, Arasmus Loesch, yeoman, John Benner, yeoman, Caleb Howard, yeoman, and John Hahn, all of Broad Bay, aforesaid, the receipt whereof I do hereby acknowledge, have given, granted, bargained and sold ... a certain tract or parcel of land lying in Broad Bay aforesaid, being a part of the lot No. 10 on the eastern side of Broad Bay river, containing one and one half acres, bounded as followeth, to wit: beginning at a stake and stones at high water mark by land of John Martin Schaeffer,18 thence running up sd. river N. 14° É. ten rods to an oak stump, thence N. 35° E. ten rods to a stake and stones, thence E. 8º N. eight rods to a pine stump, thence S. 7° E. nineteen rods to a stake and stones, all by land of sd. John Neubert, thence W. by land of the aforesaid John Martin Schaeffer to the bound first mentioned, being for the express purpose, use and design of erect- ing and building a House for the publick Worship of Almighty God, which worship in the sd. house is constantly and at all times to be cele- brated according to the rites and ceremonies of the Protestant Reformed Churches and congregations tolerated in this land and not otherwise. To have and to hold the sd. granted and bargained premises, together with all their appurtenances free of all encumbrances whatsoever, to them the said Martin Reiser and others, . . . their heirs and Assigns as an absolute Estate and Inheritance in Fee-Simple forever for the purposes aforesaid.19
This document makes it clear that the dissident group was of the Reformed branch of the church; that the new structure was to be first of all a Reformed Lutheran church; that other congre- gations would not be unwelcome, save Catholics who were for- ever barred. The new church stood on the shore south of the old ferry landing and near a little brook which runs into the Medomak on the Castner farm. East of the structure was the burying ground, where, in my boyhood a half century ago, many of the slate slabs were still standing. If there are any left today, they lie like those at "the Cove" under a thin layer of mould, but soundings made with a bar a few years ago did not locate a single stone, which adds color to a long-standing neighborhood rumor that years ago the cemetery was desecrated and pilfered of its stones which went to cover the clay bottom of cellars in certain habitations.
The construction work on this site was begun in the late summer of 1772, and the exterior was completed before the snows of winter. The first service may well have been held in that year with the Reverend Homeyer preaching the first sermon in the church, even while Doctor Schaeffer continued his exhortations in the old church at "the Cove." How long Homeyer served the Reformed group is not known, but he was no longer there when Doctor Hartwick received his call in 1774, visited Waldoborough,
18The present Lawrence Davis Dairy Farm, one of Schaeffer's land speculations.
19 Deed executed at Broad Bay, Aug. 19, 1772, Lincoln Co. Deeds, Bk. 9, p. 90 [italics mine].
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and preached in the church in July of that year. Now seemingly there were two German parishes in the town. The church on the west side at "the Cove" had been built just ten years before and Doctor Schaeffer was still to hold forth there intermittently for a number of years. The dissidents, with their new church, would undoubtedly have secured a regular pastor, but the war intervened with its unsettled and stormy years, leaving Schaeffer alone and supreme in the spiritual sphere, to the chagrin of those who had aimed to rid the community of a religious charlatan.
The new church, in its early years, was the present church only in its externals. Decades were to elapse before it was to be- come, in its inner details and finish, the structure as it is known today. The walls were unplastered, the seats were rough benches, the present pulpit had not been installed and the galleries did not form a part of the interior. This condition did not, however, inter- fere with its use for religious and civic purposes. The first Town Meeting of the town was held in the church at the Cove, Septem- ber 21, 1773, and the second one at "the easterly church" on Cast- ner's shore on October 19th of the same year.20 Thereafter the meetings were held alternately in the two churches until the new Courthouse on Kinsell's Hill displaced, around 1788, "the westerly meeting house" as the scene of such Town Meetings as were held on the west side of the river.
The early ministry at Broad Bay had at first been supported by General Waldo, and thereafter by agreement between the pas- tor and the parish, each member obligating himself to a contribu- tion in money or kind. In the New England of that day this was neither a common nor an accepted practice, for each town was required under Massachusetts law to have a settled Protestant min- ister supported by monies raised by taxation, just as our own pub- lic schools are maintained in the present day. When Broad Bay became Waldoborough, in 1773, this method had its instant appeal for the thrifty "Dutch," for it assessed the ungodly as well as the godly, the Puritan as well as the Teuton, and equalized in a very decided way the burden of the latter. In 1773, the plantation hav- ing become a town, there were those who moved immediately to make the support of the ministry a matter of general tax levy. This move may have been made by Schaeffer's parishioners or by the dissidents. If by the latter it is difficult to believe that they would have been willing to have had any part of such monies set aside for the support of the gospel on the west side. It is a possibility that the inability of the two parishes to agree on an apportionment of funds may have been the reason why the proposal came to nought, as it did in the Town Meeting of March 15, 1774, when
20 Records of the Town Clerk, Waldoborough, 1773.
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the citizens voted that "there shall be no money for preaching or schooling." Again, on July 9, 1776, a feeler was inserted in the warrant in order "to see if the town will raise money to have the gospel preached for six, eight, or twelve months." These alterna- tives ranging from six months to a year seem to have been de- signed by someone as an entering wedge to induce the town to take the first small step in the direction of a tax supported minis- try. Since at this time there was no one else to preach or to profit from such a tax other than Schaeffer, there is the possibility that it was a move engineered by him. In any case, it was promptly checked, for in the meeting of July 28th the citizens voted "not to raise money for preaching in the town." The next year the wily pastor may have tried a new tack and gained his objective, for on October 6, 1777, it was voted "to excuse Dr. Schaeffer of his taxes while he is employed as a minister in the town." To the realtor, Schaeffer, who was one of the largest landholders in the whole district, this was as acceptable as a direct appropriation of the town for his pastoral salary.
This move was just about Schaeffer's last trump. The shadow of big events far away fell athwart the troubled religious scene in the tiny town. Burgoyne had surrendered at Saratoga, and the cap- tive British and Hessians were moving overland to a Boston prison camp. Among the latter was Doctor Ernst Friedrich Philip Theo- bald who was born at Dörnigheim near Frankfort-am-Main, De- cember 2, 1750, and who had received his doctorate in 1772 at the University of Göttingen where he had been matriculated as a student in Medicine and Theology. A few years thereafter he had come to this country as a chaplain to the Hessians in Burgoyne's army. These Hessians were, of course, fellow countrymen of the Broad Bayers as well as of the Germans at Dresden, and in conse- quence a goodly number of them found their way to Maine on parole to some of the local patriots. Doctor Theobald first ap- peared at Dresden and shortly thereafter at Waldoborough. In all this one may either suspect Providence or the hand of the east side Reformed group, desperately in want of a preacher. In either case, in 1778, the Doctor was installed as minister in the new church.
It should not be assumed that the new church on the east side was a closed corporation. As a matter of fact, all good Protestants, either east- or west-siders, were welcome to its services of worship, and they seem to have flocked to the new church and the new pastor from all quarters. The coming of Theobald, while not mark- ing the end of doctrinal schism in the congregation, did bring an end to Schaeffer's regular ministry, for the next year, on July 9, 1779, it was voted in Town Meeting that "Dr. Schaeffer shall pay rates [taxes ] for the present year." There is in this simply worded
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entry in the Clerk's record an unmistakable emphasis which be- speaks the end of the Schaeffer regime.
The ministry of Doctor Theobald seems to have extended to the year 1781 when he apparently was drawn back to Dresden through his love for Sally Rittal, whom he married on February 22nd of that year. The balance of his life was passed in Dresden, where he died in 1809. In the year 1780 the town voted for the first time to raise money for the support of the minister, and in 1781 it was voted "to hier a minister and to raise £20 lawful money for the support of the same." This vote to "hier a minister" would seem to indicate that this was the time when Theobald retired from the scene.
The decision on the part of the town to support the ministry by taxation raised a new and knotty problem in the religious life of the community, one which was to trouble the waters of the pool for many a long year, and ultimately to bring about the end of the Lutheran church in Waldoborough. This was the language issue raised by the rapid increase of the Puritans in town. These Puri- tans paid taxes as well as the Germans, and not many of them could understand a German minister too well. Thus the question rose why should they not have a minister of their own, who likewise would be supported from the town budget? The Germans being in the majority in these days were in a position to apply the veto, a power, however, which they did not always use directly. The question was raised each year and frequently in open meetings the German vote would support the reasonableness of the Puritan po- sition, but in the committees empowered to find and hire a man who could preach in both languages they regularly used their ma- jority power to perpetuate the old language tradition in their religion.
Forty years were still to pass before a Lutheran clergyman at Waldoborough was to use the English language in the pulpit, and by that time it was too late to forestall the collapse of their church. The old Germans were especially obdurate on the question of lan- guage. To them God spoke from the Good Book in but one tongue; the words and tunes of the old hymns were freighted with the precious traditions of their past, and incarnated in their present a bit of poetry for which their hearts so deeply yearned. To aban- don that language which expressed their faith in rich and under- standable terms was a thing which they could not, and never did, do. In this one respect they failed to realize that they were ringed in by an alien culture which was commanding the fealty of their children, and would make their childrens' children entirely its own, and that when the time came that these children no longer knew the ancestral language, that hour would signalize the end of a church seeking to perpetuate itself in a forgotten tongue.
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When the Hessian Theobald left his Waldoborough pastor- ate, the Puritans raised the issue of their religious rights and of some spiritual return from a ministry supported by community taxation. Clearly a minister who could preach in both languages, if such could be found, would solve the problem through his abil- ity to administer to the religious needs of both groups, and, an- other weighty consideration, such a solution would be easier on the town budget. On April 1, 1782, the step was taken and it was voted to raise £100, and, "to get a minister that can preach English and Dutch." The committee for hiring such a man was Jacob Lud- wig, Anton Dahlheim, Georg Demuth, Nathanael Simmons and Ezekiel Vinal. Clearly the power to hire lay with the three Ger- mans, and the man produced was Mr. John Kanzer (Canser). On July 29, 1783, it was voted to hire him "for the arms of nine months on tryal." Next to nothing is known of Mr. Kanzer, of his background, or of his qualifications for this ministry. At the least it can be said of him that he was tolerated, for at the end of the trial period his pastorate was extended for another year, which for some reason he did not complete.
The successor to Mr. Kanzer was the Reverend Friedrich Grühner, who, it is believed, was recommended by Doctor Theo- bald. In this case it is not improbable that Kroner had served in some capacity among Burgoyne's Hessians. At the meeting of August 22, 1785, it was voted by the town "to have Mr. Kroner21 to preach ye gospel in ye town for a period of twelve months for 28 shillings per Sabath which ye town agreed to give." Kroner seems to have been at hand to assume his pastorate immediately and to have continued it in the general Schaeffer tradition. He was born in the Frankfort area in Germany, and as a scholar was well versed in the graceful tradition of Latin and French. By training he was a teacher and, like many of his kind, was licensed to preach the Gospel. His qualifications for the Waldoborough pastorate were tested by a committee made up of Doctor Wallizer, Jacob Lud- wig, Joseph Ludwig, and Conrad Heyer. Since Kroner had already proved himself graceful and eloquent in the pulpit, these gentle- men approved his orthodoxy and started him on his pastoral duties.
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