USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 1 > Part 46
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For a brief period in the late eighteenth century Captain Solomon Hewet was a leading figure in the town. He was a mariner who had made money in the coastwise trade and who liked Broad Bay well enough to make it his final residence. Coming from Scituate, Massachusetts, in 1772, he purchased on August 31 of that year Lots No. 2 and 3 on the west side below Medomak Falls, each having a width of twenty-five rods and containing one hundred acres. These were the two original lots of David Holz- apfel, who, migrating this year to North Carolina, sold them to Captain Hewet for £135. Here the Captain resided until his death, probably living in the "old Smouse house" erected, according to tradition, by David Holzapfel who, since it was built circa 1769 on his land, had doubtless erected it for himself as his own home. The next year Hewet bought of Matthias Achorn a part interest in a small sawmill on the lot adjacent to his property.
The Captain was a man of considerable ability and almost immediately became one of the town's trusted leaders. He was chairman of its second Board of Selectmen in 1774, a member of the first Committee on Correspondence and Inspection, and discharged a whole host of major and minor commissions in the early history of the town. He died in 1786. In his will there is a mention of his widow, Deborah, and a minor daughter, Deborah, who chose Oliver Nash of Bristol to be her guardian on Febru- ary 19, 1787. The Hewet estate was appraised by Waterman Thomas, Nathan Soule, and Thomas Johnston of Bristol at a total of £4631 16s. 3d. This was a sizable estate, clearly sufficient to make Hewet one of the wealthiest men in Waldoborough in his day.
20Lincoln Co. Deeds, Bk. 16, p. 66.
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The founders of the Howard family in Waldoborough were the two brothers, Joshua and Caleb. They were descendants of John Howard who came to Massachusetts from England in 1638 at the age of fifteen and grew up in the family of Myles Standish in Duxbury. Joshua, born November 13, 1744, came to Waldo- borough in 1769 from Bridgewater, and the same year purchased of William Farnsworth a part of old Lot No. 22, the Patrick Can- naugh farm,21 located on the east side in the old Town of Lever- ett. His sixty-six acres comprised a part of the farm now occupied by Frank Jackson. Joshua married Elizabeth Farnsworth, born December 14, 1751. Between 1769 and 1797 there were fourteen children born to this union. He was a soldier in the Revolution and rose to the rank of captain. He was also a second selectman of the town in 1783, and a first selectman in 1802, besides holding a number of minor offices.
Caleb Howard was a blacksmith and married Katherine Rom- inger, the daughter of Philip Rominger, deceased. By this mar- riage he came into possession of the farm alloted to his father-in- law in 1742, which is the lot next north of the present farms of Ralph Hoffses and myself. It was Caleb who inadvertently played a disastrous role in the early history of the town of Union. While he was shoeing the oxen of Philip Robbins in the latter's barn in the late fall of 1778, the hay in the loft was ignited from the sparks of his forge, and the building reduced to ashes in short order.22 This was a grievous blow to infant Union, for this barn was the only frame building in the plantation and in it was stored the settlement's supply of food. In Ben Ames William's novel, Come Spring, Caleb appears as a big person, cumbersome and sluggish of wit, which may, or may not be a fiction of the novelist's. Like his brother, Joshua, he too had an honorable record in the Revo- lution, and, indeed, honored is the part which this family has had in the early and subsequent history of the town, and some of its descendants still cling to their early home. One of the most suc- cessful and distinguished of these is Howard A. Marple of St. Louis, Missouri, and Waldoboro, the vice-president of the Mon- santo Chemical Company of America.
On August 28, 1772, Michael Ried, a second-generation German about to remove to some unoccupied land in the town back on the Old County Road, sold to John Hunt of Pembroke, Massachusetts, cordwainer, for £82 13s. 4d. "a parcel of land being one half of lot No. 21 on the west bank of the river, 121/2 rods wide and containing about fifty acres, with all improvements, stock, dwelling house, one half of the barn and a right of way
21 Lincoln Co. Deeds, Bk. 8, p. 36.
22John L. Sibley, History of Union (Boston, 1851), pp. 44-45.
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through to the river." John's wife, Mary, was the daughter of Nathanael Simmons. She brought with her to Waldoborough her church letter from the church in Pembroke and was one of the original members of the Congregational Society in the town. John was one of the first two tax collectors, held many minor offices, and discharged many committee duties relating to the town's affairs. Later the family spread into the northeast recesses of the town, and its influence diminished. There are descendants of this family in present-day Waldoboro, though few who still bear the name.
Levi Loring of Duxbury came to Waldoborough in the early 1770's. In 1774 he bought of Judah Delano the seventy-eight acre tract known as "Jones Neck" for £116 13s. 4d. Again in 1776 he bought of Abner Samson of Waldoborough the north half of Hungry Island containing eighty acres, the other half at this time being in the possession of Jehial Simmons. Loring disposed of his portion of the island in 1784 to Isaac and Jacob Simmons for £271/4,23 thus placing the entire island in the hands of the Simmons family. Loring's wife was Prudence Chapman, the eldest daughter of the widow Chapman. As a citizen Loring was active in town affairs and held a number of minor offices. There are no known descendants in the present town bearing the Loring name.
Of the Manning family the record offers little data. The first to settle in these parts was Edward Manning, who located in 1793 at East Waldoborough on the second farm south of the Fitz- gerald lot, it being separated from the same by the land of Paul Mink.24 In 1800 he was one of four men instructed by the town to close to all passage the road to that East Waldoborough section which was the center of the smallpox epidemic. A son, Edward Manning (1797-1861) and his wife, Julia K., are buried in the East Waldoboro Cemetery. Their known children were Han- nah E. (1829-1886) and Edward F. (1843-1863). The Manning homestead burned many years ago, but the cellar site is still visible on the old family lot. The name of this family is now extinct in the town.
Thomas McGuyer, sometimes spelled McGuire, was a genial and attractive Irishman. A tailor by trade, he found himself more congenially adapted to the role of tavern keeper. His family originally came to Bristol from Massachusetts. In the year 1784 in the month of May, Thomas McGuyer and Sarah Sprague of Waldoborough were published. This marriage had turned his
23Lincoln Co. Deeds, Bk. 18, p. 205.
24Ibid., Bk. 30, p. 254.
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thought toward Waldoborough, and two years later he bought of "Jacob Unbehind for £146 lot No. 18" on the west side abutting on the north of the Old County Road.25 At this time this was the center of population on the west side of the river, and all travel east and west via Light's Ferry, and north and south to Bristol, passed by McGuyer's door. It was an admirable location for a tavern and he was an ideal host. Apart from his social role, he was a man of some education, with the Irishman's flair for public affairs. An outstanding leader of his times, he was town clerk from 1795 to 1809, a third selectman in 1797, and Chairman of the Board in 1798, 1799, 1801 and 1805-1808. As was the cus- tom with newlyweds, or those recently come to town, he was made a hog reeve in 1787. In addition to these official duties he served on nearly every committee for a period of twenty years. McGuyer was affable, able and popular; his service just, effective and honorable, and it seemed always to meet the approval of both his English and German fellow citizens. In 1794 he had married as a second wife, Cathy Johnson of Bristol, which proved a draw- ing factor back to his former home, and in 1809 he sold his local farm and tavern to William McKean of Boston for $950.00 and thereafter disappeared from our history.
The Martin family of Broad Cove and Waldoboro, as pointed out in a previous chapter, may have been in its origins either English or German. In earliest times John Martin, Sr., held land at the head of Broad Cove, and in 1764 John Martin, Jr., bought of John Savage, of Boston, for £20 a tract of land at Broad Cove adjacent to the present Waldoboro line -a tract comprising a substantial part of the old Augustus Heyer homestead.26 Whatever his racial origin, John Martin, Jr., was extremely active in Waldoborough affairs. He speculated in lands in the town and was a "sworn surveyor," who for many years did practically all the local surveying. When the Plantation became a town in 1773 he laid out its first boundaries for the sum of £5 15s. 10d., and he was also the man who did the surveying in the squatter expansion of the late 1760's, 70's and 80's. Sibley, in his History of Union, mentions an "Adam Martin of German origin" who was living toward the end of the century in Union near the Waldoborough line, and who may have been a son of the senior or junior Martin. It is possible that the once numerous Martins of Bremen may have been descendants of these Broad Cove settlers.
The Nash family came to Waldoborough from Bristol, and Church Nash seems to have been its first representative in the
25Lincoln Co. Deeds, Bk. 20, p. 148.
26Purchase confirmed by Drowne for the Pemaquid Props., Feb. 1, 1764.
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town. He first appears locally when on September 6, 1770, he witnessed a deed conveying land to Anthony Thomas.27 He was a soldier in the Revolution, returned to the town after his term of service, and in 1780 bought of Johann Georg Ried one half of Lot No. 21, on the west side of the river. The other half of this farm had been sold at an earlier date to John Hunt. Three years earlier he had bought Levi Keen's blacksmith shop located on an acre of land in this neighborhood. Nash apparently was not satisfied with these locations. On January 20, 1783, John Newbert had sold the farm on which he was then living, Lot No. 10, the present Merle Castner farm, to a Hessian named Andreas Suchfort, later anglicized to Sukeforth, for £200. Suchfort's ten- ancy was a short one, for he reconveyed this lot to Newbert on April 10, 1783, who on the same date sold it to Church Nash for £147,28 and here Nash made his home until his death in 1794. According to tradition he was drowned from a fishing boat. He left an estate appraised at $2750.88 to his wife, Eva, and his five children, Lydia, Jane, Oliver, Church, and Samuel. The children chose the mother to be the guardian. The widow died September 24, 1833, and burial was in the Groton Cemetery by the side of her husband. The descendants of this couple have been numerous and have spread into neighboring towns, with a few bearing the name living in Waldoboro.
The Pitcher family is associated first and all the time with South Waldoboro. The first Pitcher in America came from England in 1634 and settled at Dorchester, Massachusetts. Three of his descendants, the brothers Abner, Ezra, and Nathaniel, came to Broad Bay in the 1760's and settled in the southern part of the Plantation. On December 7, 1766, Charles Leisner sold to Ezra Pitcher for £40 a part of old Lot No. 22, originally owned and improved by Patrick Cannaugh of the old Town of Leverett.29 Farther down the bay were Nathaniel and Abner. Old tombstones in the field of the Wilbur Pitcher farm seem to indicate that this was Abner's homestead and that he owned considerable adjacent property on which he settled his sons, Jesse, John, and Jeremiah. Nathaniel was a selectman in 1789, and several other members of the family held minor offices during the early history of the town. A survey map of the town circa 1800 shows Nathaniel and Thomas as the only Pitcher landholders in the southern area at that time. The Pitchers have been a large family and there are still those bearing the name living in the town.
27Lincoln Co. Deeds, Bk. 8, p. 2. 28 Ibid., Bk. 16, p. 159. 2ª Ibid., p. 160.
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John Prior, also spelled Pryor, married Lydia Osier of Dux- bury, and came from Scituate to Waldoborough, where he settled in the eastern section of the town. Here he took up land deep in the woods south of the highway leading to Warren, about one mile south of Aunt Lydia's Tavern, and connected to the rest of the world by a private road, a mile long, through the forest to the Warren road. The family name still lingers among the old folk of East Waldoboro and attaches itself to a little cleared spot in the deep woods known as Prior's Meadow.30 In later years the house was moved to the present Russell McLeod place. In 1786 Prior sold his farm of one hundred and ten acres for £45 to Christian Schönemann, a Catholic and probably a Hessian soldier, and moved to the southern part of town. Prior was a most active citizen, with a keen interest in all the town's affairs, holding many minor offices and serving on committees handling special phases of the town's business. Of his eight children not one settled in Waldoborough, but the many Priors of Bremen and Friendship are probable descendants of this John Prior.
Levi Russell of Puritan descent from Plymouth was born in 1751. After his service in the Revolution he married Hannah Sim- mons of Duxbury, born in 1757, and settled in Waldoborough. His farm, containing ninety-three and one-half acres, was located in East Waldoborough, the second lot north of the Vogler Pond, extending eastward to the Warren town line. It is now owned and occupied by Henry E. Bovey. The eight children of this family all married, resided, and died in Waldoborough, although their descendants have later spread out into neighboring towns. Levi, the founder of the family locally, died on August 22, 1834, and his wife Hannah, on September 27, 1840. Both are buried in the East Waldoboro Cemetery. The family name is now extinct in the town.
The Samsons were among the most active and influential families in the early history of the town. They were also of a distinguished lineage. Captain Charles, Sr., the first of the Waldo- borough Samsons, was four generations removed in blood descent from Henry Samson, and from Myles Standish and John Alden, all Mayflower passengers. From Duxbury, father and son, Charles senior and junior, had engaged in coastwise trade and as captains of coasters had visited Broad Bay frequently in their line of busi- ness. The two worked in close collaboration and while Charles, Sr., continued the shipping business, Charles, Jr., came to Broad Bay and began extensive land purchases. His first move was to
30Oral tradition, Mr. John Rines from his father.
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purchase land for a home, and on August 21, 1769, he bought of "Johann Heinrich Bender [Benner], yeoman of Broad Bay" for £70 one of the lots to which John Henry had been assigned by General Waldo in 1754. This lot was in recent years the farm of Al Davis. This one-hundred acre lot, however, was not enough for the Samsons, and they enlarged their holdings by buying up adjacent farms, including the one next north, purchased in 1771 of the heirs of Jacob Waltz, deceased (the present Patrick farm). Among these heirs was Mary David, the remarried widow Phed- rec, and Mary Siechrest, probable daughter of Jacob, Sarah "Walks" of Halifax, and Thomas and "Prisciall Murphie."31 There was also a claim of £16 which Samson paid to the Waldo heirs for a clear title.
Captain Charles, Jr., was one of the early Waldoborough capitalists, or dealers in land. He acquired attractive lots in the unoccupied areas of the town and had land interests on the Georges. It was he who in 1772 sold to Jacob Wade, Jr., of Scituate, a ninety-acre portion of old Lot No. 28, formerly the William Carter farm of the old Town of Leverett, next south of the Sweetland farm. During these operations Captain Charles, Sr., continued his coasting from this place. The latter died some- time prior to 1800, for a survey map of this date lists property as being in possession of the heirs of Charles Samson. The son played a very active part in local affairs. His name appears on the first slate of town officers in 1773. He was literally in everything - a member of the Committee of Correspondence and Inspection in 1777, first selectman in 1781, Town Treasurer in 1798, second postmaster of Waldoborough (appointed December 4, 1820), and a representative to the Legislature in 1825, not to mention an array of other offices, and with all this keeping a tavern. His son, Charles 3rd, married Sally Thomas, daughter of Waterman Thomas. The couple was published May 5, 1798. There are many descendants of the Waldoborough Samsons in this and neighbor- ing towns. Among these are Ruth George of Thomaston, Made- leine Hemingway of Syracuse, New York, and Waldoboro, and the descendants of Carroll and Russell Cooney. The name itself is now extinct in the town.
The Simmons family is of early origin in New England. Moses, the first of the name in Massachusetts, came there in 1621 on the Fortune. Nathaniel of the fourth generation, born March 24, 1710/11, at Duxbury, married his cousin, Mercy, born May 18, 1720, at Duxbury. Nathaniel was a deacon in the Duxbury church
31 Lincoln Co. Deeds, Bk. 8, pp. 116-117, 173, furnishes data on the early Waltz and Siechrist families.
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and from 1758 to 1760 a selectman of the town.32 After 1765 he began disposing of his considerable property in Duxbury and ad- joining towns with the thought of moving to Maine. He began acquiring land in this area about the time of the second migration of Moravians to North Carolina and proceeded to take up im- proved lands being vacated by them; in 1770 he acquired lots No. 1 and 2 on the east side, from Jacob Ried and Michael Rominger, at £120, and £146 13s. 4d. respectively. These lots were twenty-five rods in width, contained one hundred acres each, and comprised the fifty-rod tract next south of the present farm of Mrs. Carrie Feyler Hart. These two lots became the nucleus of the Simmons farm.33 In 1773 he extended his holdings on the south by purchasing of
John Pratt, Aaron Pratt, Thomas Pratt and Joseph Pratt, all of Cohasset, for £86,13s.4d. a tract of land at Broad Bay, bounded southeasterly by the Bay, northwesterly by the land of the said Nathaniel Simmons, northeasterly on land of Thomas Flucker, and one Winslow [sons-in- law of Samuel Waldo], southeasterly on Matthias Storer, it being the same tract that our Honoured Father, Aaron Pratt bought of James Burns, April 3, 1749.
The foregoing deed does not state the width of this tract, but the Waldo conveyance to Burns calls for a lot of ninety acres, forty rods in width.
At the times of these first sales Simmons was living in Pem- broke and he probably moved to Broad Bay in 1771. He was not an entrepreneur in any sense, but farmed his extensive acres and led the life of a country gentleman, at the same time rendering sterling service to his adopted town. He was first selectman in 1775, and a member of the boards of 1776 and 1777. He died January 4, 1789, his wife, Mercy, having died on the 21st of the preceding September. Both lie buried in the Slaigo Cemetery, originally a part of Nathaniel's estate. His will mentions seven children, Joseph, Zebedee, Stephen, Mary, wife of John Hunt, Dorothy, wife of John Winslow, Sarah, and Rachel.
The farm now owned by Foster Jameson is a part of the old Simmons estate. The Jameson house was built by Colonel Thomas Simmons, born 1782, died August 4, 1868, who was a grandson of Nathaniel and a surveyor and carpenter by trade. For service in the war of 1812 he received the title of colonel. His wife was Catherine Feyler, who died in 1872 at the advanced age of eighty-seven. The family founded by Nathaniel has been a numerous one and there are many of his descendants living today in this area.
32Fred J. Simmons, Sprague's Journal (1919), p. 135; (1920), p. 138. 38Lincoln Co. Deeds, Bk. 14, p. 159; Bk. 15, pp. 166, 171.
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The Spragues were once one of Waldoborough's more numerous families. The name is of Dutch origin, and in England the Spraks who were early Dutch immigrants became Spragues. The family, however, had lived in England so many generations before migrating to America that it should be regarded as an English family. A number of brothers, probably three, came to Waldoborough just before the Revolution. In all probability they had noted the trend of developments in Massachusetts and be- lieved Maine a more secure place in which to hold property. One at least was a Tory sympathizer, which may have been a factor in his changing his residence. In April 1774 Nathan Sprague, yeoman, of Marshfield, purchased for £116 13s. 4d. of Matthias Achorn, Lot No. 23 or 24 on the west side of the Medomak, containing one hundred and ten acres with a width of twenty-five rods, and extending from the riverside back to Pemaquid Upper Pond (Duckpuddle).34 Nathan, born in 1752, had married Mary, the daughter of Frank Miller, and on this lot the couple lived at first in a log cabin near the river. By his will, dated August 3, 1829, he bequeathed a half of his home farm to his son, Abijah. This lot remained in the Sprague family down to the time of Charles Sprague. In more recent times it was owned and occupied by Mrs. Elizabeth Hunt.
On February 28, 1776, Henry Bremer for £80 paid by Jona- than Sprague, mariner, of Marshfield, conveyed to him a one- hundred acre lot on the east side of the river between the first and second falls, and next north of the farm of Matthias Sidens- berger (Sidensparker).35 Of this Sprague the descendants, in- formed on family matters, know little, and the record offers little more.
Michael Sprague came to Waldoborough the same year as his brother, Nathan, but there is no record of any land purchase. Rather he seems to have squatted on an unoccupied tract in the eastern part of the town on the road running into Warren. He married Deborah Young in 1784.36 Later this couple kept the tavern for a number of years, the same which was later operated by Aunt Lydia Trowbridge. Six children were born to this union. The Spragues are still numerously represented in this area in the contemporary period.
The Soules were one of the earliest English families in America, the first Soule, a George, coming to this country as servant, or aid, to Myles Standish. Nathan Soule, the first of his name to be interested in land at Broad Bay, was a well-to-do
34Lincoln Co. Deeds, Bk. 11, p. 44.
35J bid., p. 244.
36Town Clerk Records, II, Waldoborough.
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farmer of Duxbury. On August 20, 1769, he purchased of Samuel Waldo, Jr., for £110 Lot No. 22 Lane's Point, next north of the Point lot acquired by Andrew Schenck of Samuel Waldo, Jr., on the same date. Another land deal by Nathan Soule, mariner of Duxbury, on August 15, 1770, was the purchase of Friedrich Kuentsel, a North Carolina emigrant, for £139 6s. 8d., Lot No. 16 down from Medomak Falls on the west side of the river.37 The next day Nathan, for 20s. deeded this land to his son, Levi, mariner of Duxbury. These were not land speculations but homestead sites for the two families.
Nathan Soule was an influential citizen and in the span of his short life in the town served it as selectman and in many minor offices. He was one of the first fence viewers, an important and onerous office in early days, and he was the first fish warden of the town, authorized in the first Town Meeting, in Jacob Ludwig's strange "Dutch" phrasing, "to tack keer that the fish have a free Bass." Soule died in 1783. His real estate in Massachusetts was appraised by Briggs Alden, Levi Loring, and Perez Loring, "all of Densborough" at £500. The heirs were John Trowbridge, Sarah Trowbridge, Alex Turner, and Anna Soule.
His son, Levi Soule, was killed in his own home by the Tories in 1780. His wife, a widow at the end of four years of married life, and a daughter of Jabez Cole, was wounded in the shooting. The account for the settlement of the estate was filed March 2, 1796, at which time the widow had become the wife of Captain Cornelius Turner. The widow's dower was set off by Charles Samson, Waterman Thomas, and Michael Sprague, "all of Waldoborough," division of the estate being among the widow, a son Levi, born 1779, and a daughter Abigail, born 1777, wife of Joshua Howard, Jr. The Waldoboro Soules, a numerous family, have descended from this son, Levi, grandson of the immigrant, Nathan.
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