USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 1 > Part 47
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Little is known of the Stetson family in Waldoborough other than that they were early settlers in Lincoln County. They are descendants of Cornet Robert Stetson of the Plymouth colony of 1620. In Maine they first settled at Freeport and in North Warren. On May 6, 1795, Jacob and his wife, Temperance, purchased the present Joseph Koskela farm of one hundred acres.38 At this time Jacob was living elsewhere in Waldoborough, but moved to his new lot at the time of purchase. He apparently made it his home until the sale of the property to George Castner on May 15, 1812. The Stetsons were never active in town affairs, and little is known of their children other than that the Stetsons of later generations
37Lincoln Co. Deeds, Bk. 8, p. 69. 38Ibid., Bk. 79, p. 152.
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in the town were probable descendants of this early Jacob and Temperance.
The Sweetlands were among the earliest of the English settlers at Broad Bay. It is a family tradition that they came from Attleboro, Massachusetts. This may have been an earlier home, but the first Sweetland in these parts, Samuel, came to Broad Bay from New Meadows. His first wife was -- Gay, of Friendship, and the second one, Mrs. Elizabeth, whom he married January 7, 1788, was the widow of Lieutenant J. Matthews of Thomaston. The record of the first appearance of the Sweetlands at Broad Bay is indicated by their land purchases. On April 19, 1762, the Waldo heirs sold to Jonathan Robbins of Attleboro, Massachusetts, for £13 5s. 8d. a lot "being at a place called Broad Bay ... [Lot No. 28, owned in 1736 by William Carter of the Town of Leverett] containing one hundred acres bounded west by the salt water, north by a lot heretofore called 'the Rood lot' [Lot No. 27 owned in 1736 by David Rood ] south by a lot belonging to said Robbins." On October 6, 1766, Jonathan Robbins sold to Samuel Sweetland of Broad Bay for £4 land which was "a part of the front of Lot 28, containing 41/4 acres, bounded north by Lot 27 (1766) now in possession of James Sweetland, west on the salt water or cove, till it comes to the northeast corner of said cove to a fir tree marked on four sides, thence running north eight rods to the south line of said lot No. 27."39 In the survey map of 1800 these bounds show this to be the shore front of the old Sweetland farm in South Waldoborough. The bounds in question have been set forth in some detail here because they furnish us with clues to the exact location of Lot No. 28 in the old Town of Leverett and render it possible to determine the location of the lots of most of the settlers in the first town on the river, as indicated on the map on page 69.
There was also another Sweetland at Broad Bay at an early date. On July 27, 1767, William Farnsworth sold to James Sweet- land of Broad Bay, farmer, for £30 a tract of land on the east side of the river, "being parts of lots 25 and 26 [John Vass, Jr., and Dennis Cannaugh lots] containing 90 acres, beginning at a stake on the east side of the cove, known as Sweetland's Cove."40 On September 11, 1771, James conveyed this tract to his brother Samuel.41 James seems to have left Broad Bay, but Samuel re- mained and built the old home back from the road just north of the Sweetland Cemetery. There were two sons, Thomas and Charles, by the second wife. Charles ultimately moved to the vil- lage where he owned and operated the first sail loft on the site of
39 Ibid., Bk. 5, p. 138. 40Ibid., Bk. 8, p. 33. 41 Ibid., p. 160.
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the Jones loft now operated by the McMullins as a rug factory. He also built the house due east from the present factory. His wife was Lydia Farnsworth and the children were Betsy Ann, 1810, Oliver, 1816, William, Samuel, Robert, Thomas B., Lydia, and James T. In the present day the family name is preserved only by the Sweetland Cemetery. Until recently Augustus Sweetland maintained a summer residence at Martin's Point.
The first Teague in Waldoborough, Daniel, was born in Damariscotta. He married Catherine, a daughter of Conrad Heyer, and resided and died at Waldoborough. Of the nine children born to this union those residing in Waldoborough were Hannah, mar- ried to Charles Walter; Hiram, married to Margaret A. Shuman; Charles, married to Rebecca Webb of Warren; Sophia, married to Cornelius Heyer, and John married to Luella Weaver. There are still Teague descendants in the town, and until recently the old Conrad Heyer farm in North Waldoborough was in Teague possession.
The grand family of the Town of Waldoborough in the closing decades of the eighteenth century was that of Squire Waterman Thomas. It came from Massachusetts and was one of the distinguished families in that commonwealth. In 1769, when the first Moravians were laying their plans for an exodus to North Carolina, Anthony Thomas of Marshfield, merchant, came to Broad Bay and started buying up the improved farms vacated by these Germans. In this year he acquired the David Rominger farm and a string of farms along the crest of Thomas' Hill. These in- cluded the lots of Jacob Rominger, Melchior Schneider, and two lots of Jacob Lauer, all totalling four hundred continuous acres. 42 With the family thus substantially established at Broad Bay, An- thony's son Waterman assumed direction of the family's interests in this area. This son was an unusual personality. He possessed a fine background of education and culture. He was a nephew of Major General John Thomas, who succeeded Arnold and Mont- gomery in command in the Montreal-Quebec expedition, died of smallpox June 2, 1776, and lies buried at Chamblée. Waterman was a man of fine figure and handsome face, enterprising, quick in perception, brilliant in conception, one who acted and lived in the manner of the grand seigneur. He was the first Squire of Waldoborough and was known by his fellows, among whom he was most popular, as "Squire Thomas."
The Squire, too, had his weak side, but his vices were an outgrowth of his virtues. He was easygoing, careless, generous in
42Lincoln Co. Deeds, Bk. 7, p. 260; and Bk. 8, p. 2.
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his giving and prodigal in his living and spending. In his execution he never caught up with his conceptions and he was constantly overreaching himself. On his four-hundred acre estate he built himself a mansion43 by the Slaigo Brook befitting his way of life, and to it he brought his bride from the family of Major Wheaton in Thomaston. This Slaigo Brook area was also the scene of his business, the largest at this time in this part of the Province of Maine, a business which had many facets, agriculture, milling of both lumber and grain, real estate, public affairs, and a store of West Indian goods, from which he carried on an extensive trade with Boston, England, and the West Indies. His real-estate specu- lations in Waldoborough and elsewhere were extensive. In 1789 he owned 19,393 acres in a single tract in the Calais area of Maine.
In his business ventures he tended to extend himself too far and to become involved in difficulties. In 1790 he mortgaged his dwelling house, farms, stores, mills, etc., to Henry Hodge of Pownalborough, Samuel Nickels of Newcastle, and John McKown of Bristol, in order to raise a paltry £114.44 In this deal he also included as security the farm Lot No. 13, sold by his father nine years before to Jabez Cole. In spite of such unprecedented action his fellow townsmen seem never to have lost their admiration and affection for him. He remained "Squire Thomas" and they kept him unceasingly in office. He was moderator at the first Town Meeting in 1773; warrants were issued in his name at the founding of the towns of Warren and Thomaston. He was delegate to the Provincial Congress in 1776, first selectman in 1777, Senator from the Province of Maine in 1786, representative to the General Court in 1790, 1802 and 1803, and the first Collector of Customs in 1799. It is literally true that for over thirty years there was not a single major move in town affairs with which he was not connected in an official way.
Squire Thomas was supported in his princely way of life by certain colored retainers, perhaps slaves. One of these was a negro called "Africa Peter," who lived on a plot of land assigned to him on the Squire's estate. According to local tradition
Peter had been a prince in his home land and the remembrance of this and the subsequent treatment, rendered him moody, savage and at last insane. At the sight of the sun and moon he would often fall prostrate on the ground in the utmost agitation. Becoming at last dangerous he was confined as a maniac and died in jail.45
The behavior patterns of Peter do not correspond to those of an American negro and it is not unlikely that he was a West Indian
43Burned by hoodlums in 1865 in celebration of Lee's surrender at Appomattox. 44Lincoln Co. Deeds, Bk. 29, p. 120.
45Cyrus Eaton, Annals of Warren, 2nd ed. (Hallowell, 1877), p. 214; and History of Thomaston and Rockland, p. 120.
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slave recently imported from Africa and brought here by some shipmaster having business dealings with Squire Thomas.
This relationship leads one to speculate with reference to "old Ictus Benedictus Chiné Port-Royal" who came to Waldo- borough with his wife one hundred and fifty years ago and who lived in a cabin in the woods not far from the second mill, right on the Slaigo Brook. He seems to have come here from Massa- chusetts, possibly an escaped slave who lived in this seclusion to avoid recapture, and partook of the Squire's bounty in return for his labor. He was quite generally known to the town folks as "old Rial." He was buried near his cabin, and the very old people in that neighborhood can still recall the stone which marked his grave.46 As for Squire Thomas, he lost his fortune in his later years, and "as Collector of Customs proved to be a defaulter." At this distance we can overlook his mistakes and join our ad- miration and gratitude to that of his contemporaries for the great contribution which he made to his town and country, and for the romance which surrounded the glamorous pattern of the life he lived here.
The original Turner family in Waldoborough comprised three brothers, Briggs, Caleb, and Captain Cornelius, of whom the latter was the outstanding member. On May 21, 1774, he and his brother Briggs of "Hanover in the County of Plymouth, ship- wrights" purchased of Mr. Richard Jones of Bristol for £360 13s. 4d. a one hundred and fifty-acre tract in Bristol on the Damariscotta River.47 These were men of some capital, experienced shipbuilders who were looking for a favorable site for operations in Maine. The location on the Damariscotta River apparently did not suit their purposes, and they decided to shift to Waldoborough. On September 29, 1784, George Klein sold to Briggs Turner of Bristol his Lot No. 19 on the west side of the river, for £160. In December of the same year Captain Cornelius Turner bought of Jacob Achorn his farm on the west side, Lot No. 15, containing seventy- five acres.48 This was a portion of the old Rodney Creamer farm lying just south of the wharf where Thomas Creamer used to build boats a half century and more ago. It is the probable site of the shipbuilding activities of the Turner brothers and, as such, one of the first shipyards on the river. The third brother, Caleb, seems to have acquired the Augustus Heyer place on the border of Bremen, for on February 16, 1803, he and his wife, Margaret, sold the property to John Miller and George Heyer, a son of Conrad, each a half interest. From that time the farm remained
46Oral tradition, George Simmons, Parker and Cassie Feyler.
47Lincoln Co. Deeds, Bk. 11, p. 41.
48Ibid., Bk. 18, p. 122.
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in the possession of the Heyer family down to 1948 when the great-grandchildren of George Heyer sold the farm to Captain Clinton Harriman.
Captain Cornelius was in all ways the head of the family, a vigorous, imperious nature, a born leader with an abundant per- sonality and a robust paganism. He married Abigail Cole, the widow of Levi Soule, and by this union joined to his own land the farm of his wife which was next south of his. The known children of this union were Nathaniel, born May 15, 1783, Michel, a daughter, born March 19, 1785, and Caleb, born October 29, 1787. In the new community a man of Captain Turner's capacities came at once to the fore. He was first selectman in 1786, a member of the board in 1790, 1794, and 1796, one of the earliest of local shipbuilders, the engineer of the first bridge across the Medomak, and a member of practically every committee appointed to handle important problems for the town.
Specific anecdotes of such early figures are rare in Waldo- borough history, but there is one of Turner still extant which reflects rather clearly the character of the man as well as the temper of the times and hence carries in itself historical signifi- cance. It has to do with a controversy in which the dogged Turner got the better of the shrewd and tight-fisted Doctor Dodge of Thomaston. It seemed that Dodge had contracted with the Cap- tain to build him a small sloop for carrying lime. The vessel was constructed according to contract, but Dodge refused to take her. Turner sued for damages and the action was extended through two terms of court without a decision being reached. A meeting was held at Frost's Tavern in Warren between the two contracting parties in order to arrange a compromise. The matter was dis- cussed by Dodge and Turner, mutual offers were made within one hundred dollars of an agreement. Neither would go further and they were about to part when Dodge offered to split the difference. Turner refused, Dodge then offered to decide by a game of cards whether he should pay the hundred or Turner accept the fifty. Turner agreed and won. Dodge, still stalling, gave his note for $100.00, payable in thirty days with interest. The note became due and the wily doctor refused to pay on the ground that a gambling debt is not recoverable by law. Turner sued again and the case was carried from term to term, Dodge finally carrying the case to the Supreme Court, where a final judgment was given in the July term of 1800. Judge R. Treat Paine charged the jury somewhat as follows:
Gentlemen, we all know the evils of gambling; its pernicious ten- dency cannot be too deeply lamented. It is a vice which we all ought to set our faces against in the most determined manner. Magistrate and juries are bound to discountenance it in every possible way. But - gentle-
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men - but - when two men have a difference which they attempt to settle, and come within fifty dollars of effecting it, and then undertake by a game of cards to see which party shall lose the remaining fifty dollars - ah! - a -a- gentlemen, you have the whole subject before you; you will take everything into consideration, and make up such a verdict under all the circumstances as you shall think just and reasonable.
And without further instruction as to what the law was, the jury retired and brought in a verdict in favor of Captain Cornelius Turner for $126.50. The costs amounted to $57.88.
According to family tradition, a widow Vinal and three sons came from England to Massachusetts in the 1630's and be- came the founders of the family in America. Captain David and his brother, Ezekiel, were the first of the name at Broad Bay. In early days he was on the river frequently as the captain of a coaster, and at the time of the Moravian migration he made use of his capital to buy up some of the improved land which they were vacating. In August 1772 he purchased of Bernhard Kuentzel for £100 Lot No. 11 on the west side containing one hundred acres, as well as Kuentzel's "rights and interests" in the ministerial and school lots deeded to "the Dutch" in 1763 by the Pemaquid Proprietors.49 At the same time he bought of Jacob Heinz for £100 Lot No. 12, containing one hundred acres "with all buildings, improvements, stock and growing crops."50 This gave Captain David two hundred acres on the top of Kaler Hill, with a shore frontage of fifty rods. This purchase included the present Mark Smith farm and adjoining land. It is probable that Ezekiel occupied one of these lots.
From the very first Captain Vinal became an important citi- zen in the town. He married Mary, daughter of the widow Chap- man (published November 19, 1787). The known children of this union were Prudence, born January 30, 1790, and Anna, born November 8, 1791.51 David Vinal was the first first-selectman at the incorporation of the town in 1773. He was also the first treasurer (1773-1777) and held a host of minor offices in early days, such as constable and tax collector, and was one of those citizens who held posts on important special committees. One of the two first pounds in the town, big wooden enclosures, was on his farm by virtue of a deed of gift of land to the town. The other pound, east side, was on the estate of Nathaniel Simmons in the Slaigo district. There are many descendants of the Vinal family in Knox and Lincoln counties, though none bear the name in present-day Waldoboro.
49 Lincoln Co. Deeds, Bk. 9, p. 89 and 93. 50 Ibid.
51Town Clerk Records, II, Waldoboroughi.
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Little is known of the Wade family apart from the fact that its representatives were among the early Puritans in the Waldo- borough district. The family came from Scituate. The deed of an early Samson land purchase mentions as one of its bounds the line of old Lot No. 28 (owned by William Carter in 1736), sold to Jacob Wade, Jr., in 1772 for £64 18s. 8d.52 A deed of Joshua Howard to Philip Ulmer in 1778 leads to the belief that at that time Jacob Wade had moved into the southeast section of the town. The survey map of 1800 shows him in the same location, and a Levi Wade occupying the east end of his tract, which in all probability was the land referred to in the Howard-Ulmer deed. The Wades were numerous in Waldoborough throughout the nineteenth century, and there are still a few of that name living in the town.
The Waterman family is a large and well-known American group and its record has been preserved in one of the most ex- haustive genealogies ever published. In this area it was representa- tive of the best in the Puritan tradition. This family became in- terested in Broad Bay at an early date. By March 3, 1764, Captain Thomas Waterman of Marshfield had owned and sold to William Farnsworth for £53 6s. 8d. a part of Lot No. 26, owned and im- proved by Dennis Cannaugh, a lot that was an original part of the old settlement of Leverett on the east side.
In Marshfield the Watermans were clearly connected with the Thomas family. Captain Waterman's son, Abijah, married Mary Thomas, born February 17, 1749, and her brother had re- ceived his first name from the Waterman family. Abijah, the first to settle in these parts, was a fifth generation descendant of Robert Waterman who was living in Massachusetts Bay by 1638. He was born in Marshfield on December 25, 1745, and his marriage to Mary Thomas was at Marshfield on April 26, 1770. In the previous year, June 12, 1769, Adam Schumacher, about to migrate to North Carolina, sold to Abijah Waterman, shipwright, of Marsh- field, his interest in Lot No. 1 on the cast side, containing one hundred acres, which he had occupied and improved since 1753.53
To Broad Bay Abijah Waterman brought his young wife and at first occupied the Schumacher log cabin on the west side of the road, while he was erecting the old square-roofed mansion now occupied by Andrew Currie and supposedly built in 1775. This house is similar to the old Farnsworth home and to the man- sions erected by Charles Samson and Waterman Thomas, although the latter, according to tradition, was the grandest and most sumptuous of them all. Into this home came the Waterman chil-
52Lincoln Co. Deeds, Bk. 23, p. 220. 53Ibid., Bk. 7, p. 88.
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dren, Sarah, Mary, Abigail, Thomas (born May 2, 1775, and died May 17, 1852), Anna and Deborah. From the beginning Abijah was a leader in the community; he was one of the first five road surveyors in 1773, a selectman in 1778, and Chairman of the Board in 1779.
Travellers from easterly points along the coast usually crossed the river by ferry from "Waterman's" to the Dutch Neck shore, following the Neck road up to the Bristol road, thence along it to the Old County Road leading west. Those coming from points due east usually crossed the river at "Light's Ferry' farther up. Whether Abijah Waterman was the ferryman at Waterman's Ferry is not known. It is, however, recorded on his tombstone in the old Farnsworth Cemetery that he lost his life in July 1782 by drowning in Broad Bay. Tradition has it that he was crossing the bay in a log dugout. His widow married Zebedee Simmons (son of Nathaniel) in 1785, and her death occurred subsequent to 1794. The family was never a large one in the town where there are descendants still living, although none bear the name. The last of the name was Edward and his sister, Marcia, both of whom died about a quarter of a century ago.
The Winslows were a very early, and in Massachusetts, a very distinguished family, albeit its representatives have never been prominent in local affairs in this town. The first of the name in the community was John, perhaps John Joseph, who married Dorothy, the daughter of Nathaniel and Mercy Simmons, and came to Broad Bay from either Marshfield or Pembroke at the same time as his father-in-law. He seems to have lived about a mile above the present village on the Winslow's Mills road and to have been a joiner by trade, working probably in some of the early Waldoborough shipyards. A half century ago the family was somewhat numerous in the town; today there are many who carry the blood, but few who bear the name.
Much of the late eighteenth-century history must be fun- nelled through the names of Farnsworth, Cole, Groton, McGuyer, Samson, Simmons, Thomas, Turner, Vinal, and others, and as these names recur in later chapters the reader may find it conveni- ent in the task of his own orientation to revert to the family sketches in this chapter.
This list of those joining the trek of the Puritans from Massachusetts to Broad Bay and Waldoborough in Maine does not presume to be complete. It was simply the beginning of a steady infiltration which continued across the turn of the century and down through the Great Days of shipbuilding. These early figures were the pioneer Puritans who provided the leadership in
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the formative days of the new town and the patterns of thought and action which, like the germ of yeast in a mass of dough, leavened, over the years, an eighteenth-century fuedal German settlement into a democratic New England town.
How did this change take place? Were these Puritans the conscious missionaries of their English culture, and did these Germans struggle in the face of the rising tide to maintain their ancient cultural heritage? This is not quite the story. There was, in a measure, resistance and conflict where the Germans sought to preserve, for example, their language and their faith, but in the main, the transformation proceeded in accordance with laws that all students of society are familiar with. In short, the influence of the Puritan was most pervasive and powerful in the simple fact that he furnished a new mode of life and a new way of thinking. This was the strongest single factor. The Puritan lived his own distinctive life in his new home and the German unconsciously imitated it. Behavior patterns as well as thought patterns are highly contagious, and the Puritan needed no more than to be what he always had been and the feudally minded "Dutch" soon were following after. It was an attractive pattern that the Puritan brought with him and only conscious and organized resistance among the Germans could have checked its advance, but there was little of this. The Germans were not nationally minded, but were mainly bent on economic betterment, and here the Puritans certainly had the proper formula. The "Dutch" liked their own language and were deeply devoted to their own faith. In all other respects, they were ready to be the apt imitators of the English.
Such a development was inevitable, for these Puritans repre- sented nearly everything for which the Germans had come to New England. From the beginning they had built better homes, they wore finer clothes moded in different styles, had better furniture, lived in a greater degree of comfort, took fuller eco- nomic advantage of their geographic location, possessed a higher degree of education, had greater wealth, enjoyed more luxuries, used better tools and equipment, owned estates so large as to be in the eyes of the Germans impressive, and unconsciously, for the most part, expressed a superiority which the Germans felt to be very real. It was not merely a higher standard of living, but a new mode of life.
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