USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 1 > Part 54
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HOMER, Iliad, Book VI
TH HE NINTH DECADE of the century saw early the victorious con- clusion of the war for independence, the soldiers back in their own homes and the town adjusting itself to new forms of civic admin- istration and changed economic conditions. The local area was truly impoverished, its people heavily in debt, specie withdrawn from circulation and the paper currency still falling in value. This condition affected the local folk more in their imagination than in field, barn, and household, for the citizenry was a sturdy one. It had survived more dire days in the past, and hardship was the order of things in the only life it knew. Economically the local folk was as nearly self-sufficient as man could ever hope to be in the temperate zones, and, to a greater degree than in neighboring towns, the war period with them had been one of expanding population, and likewise one of expansion in their farm economy and in the extension of their arable acreage. They had moved ahead by extending themselves into new lands and filling up the back-districts.
In the spiritual life of the town an attitude of extreme con- servatism was manifest. This has remained characteristic of the community throughout its entire history, and is an attitude that originally had its inception in extreme poverty. In this decade such money as people had was worthless and in consequence they were slow and niggardly in their provisions for education and religious life. Their main element of strength lay in the fact that at the end of the war the town had a united citizenry. The cleavage of war days between Tory and patriot had not led to outrage by neighbor against neighbor nor of citizen against citizen. Outrages, to be sure, had been committed, but not by those within the gates of the city, and in 1783 the town did not oppose by vote at least the return of its Tory refugees, as was the policy in neighboring communities. An idea of the basic progress of the
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town through the war years may be derived from the county tax of 1781. This levy was £20,000 and the proportionate part paid by the town and its neighbors was as follows: Warren, £538 13s .; St. George, £472; Friendship, £366 3s .; Thomaston, £538 13s .; Waldoborough, £1016 15s. From these figures it may be seen that the value of assessable property in the town was far out of line with that of its neighbors.
In the annals of these war years came the first murder in the community. This gave rise to a good deal of local excitement and some division of feeling, which leads to the suspicion that it Was not a murder in cold blood. Jacob Lash, the murdered man, lived on the west side of the Medomak on the river road above the upper falls. An inmate of his household was Andrew Kinkalius, a cordwainer. On the evening of October 14, 1776, the two men became involved in a disagreement which ended in a fight, during which wounds were inflicted with a knife on Lash which resulted in his death. The culprit was tried in the June term of court at Pownalborough, found guilty, and sentenced to be burned in the left hand, to forfeit all his goods and chattels and to suffer six months imprisonment, a sentence so light as to lead to the belief that certain mitigating circumstances must have entered into the judgment of the court.1
From the earliest days the wild game, which existed in the greatest abundance, had been one of the major staffs of life. Now with the outward push of the settlers, and with new cabins and clearings in the back-districts, game became scarcer, and hunting for food led the men farther and farther into the "up-country" sections. Deer still frequented the woodlands adjacent to the clear- ings, and there were still moose in the bogs to the east and west of the Robinson Ridge, in the swamps along the Union Road and in those north of Medomak Pond, but to find these animals in large numbers the hunters went as far north as Washington, into the bogs of the upper Medomak and to the region of Sennebec Pond in the present towns of Appleton and Hope. The best time to hunt was March, but moose were killed in all seasons of the year. Their yards in the winter season often extended over forty or fifty acres, and they were hunted by men in sizable groups, with sleds taken along on the hunt in order that the large quan- tities of meat might be brought home for food purposes.
The bears were more slow in retreating from their old haunts and remained numerous and troublesome for years. Cornfields, sheep-pens and hog-sties were never safe from their incursions. It was a well-constructed fold or pen indeed that could keep them away from a favorite morsel. Consequently they were hunted and
1Charles H. Allen, History of the Town of Dresden, p. 251.
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slaughtered without mercy. The skins were used for caps, robes, mittens, rugs, moccasins, and greatcoats. The meat, too, was eaten despite its fat which was repulsively excessive. If the sparerib was cut through in the manner of pork, it was necessary to slice off three quarters of its thickness in pure fat before an edible portion could be secured. Bears were also taken in steel and log traps, for every means was used to exterminate them. Whenever one was sighted in the cleared areas the cry went out: "A bear, a bear!" and the hunt was on. Their numbers may be inferred from the fact that in 1784, during the season of chokecherries and blackberries, while Matthew Kelloch of Warren was passing "from Westons Landing to Mr. Andersons," he shot fourteen bears, young and old, without going out of his way.2
The beaver, sable, otter, and other fur bearers were by this time scarce in the more settled districts, but foxes were very numerous. After a light snow in some sections the fields appeared as though they had been raced over by sheep. The hunting of them was a matter of business as well as sport, since their pelts were worth a dollar each at a time when dollars were scarce. Raccoons, too, were mischievous and plentiful. When the road was cut through from Union to the Medomak meadows in the northern part of the town, forty were taken or killed by the workmen in a few days. In the town of Union one hunter caught forty-one in one season, nine of which were taken in a single hollow log.3 Muskrats were equally numerous, along the brooks; when drowned out of their dens by high water, a man could pass along and bring back all that he could carry on his back. Minks, sable, and beaver, hunted for their pelts, were now to be found mainly in the inland areas.
Even though the beaver had gone he had left the fruits of his labor behind for the settler. His whilom industry had been a godsend to the first pioneers, giving them lands already cleared for crops, for in constructing his dams he had flooded considerable areas, converting them into ponds. From these he removed the trees for food and building purposes, and with no undergrowth the time came when his abandoned dams decayed, and the land thus drained left luxuriant meadow spots. There was one dam on the county road leading to Warren which was once as high as a man's head and was used as a bridge in early days.
Game birds provided a seemingly inexhaustible food supply. Ducks in season were everywhere, and the wild pigeon numerous beyond belief. They came in countless millions and travelled in flocks so large that the two ends would not be visible in the sky
2Cyrus Eaton, Annals of Warren, 2nd ed. (Hallowell, 1877), p. 223.
3John L. Sibley, History of Union, pp. 408-409.
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at the same time. They were an excellent food and extremely easy to capture, a man with a net sometimes taking sixty dozen in a single day. They were commonly salted down for winter use, but a few of the wealthier citizens such as General Knox used to fatten them and keep them alive until the early winter.
The wildcat, bobcat, lynx, and panther were present, but were among the more infrequent partakers of the farmers' hospi- tality. The wolf, however, was a frequent and pestiferous visitor. He was a great traveller. In this region he made his headquarters in the deep sylvan recesses along the coast between the Medomak and St. Georges River. Here he mated and reared his young in the low ledges and dens of this area; and from this point issued forth in packs each night on the long hunt which took them many, many miles abroad, with a raid at one farm one night, and at another miles removed the next night. Possessed as they were of canine sagacity, it was never possible to predict where an as- sault would be made on sheep, poultry, colts, calves, and swine.
To protect their stock farmers surrounded their yards with fences of long poles set perpendicularly and contiguously and pinned them together on transverse poles. Sometimes a group of settlers would erect in common a large enclosure of this kind for the protection of their stock. Such a neighborhood structure was located in very early days on the site of my present home.4 In view of the destructiveness of such "vermin," warfare against them was perpetual and pitiless. Large neighborhood parties would from time to time scour the forests on errands of death, and a large bounty was offered for wolf scalps.
The Puritan infiltration which had started in the late 1760's received renewed impetus at the end of the war. It now became a part of the settled policy of the government. In 1784 a Land Office was set up in Boston, new townships were surveyed in Maine, and land offered so cheaply that a considerable stream of immigration was set up. These offers proved especially attractive to those returning from the war, who, possessing little more than a few depreciated bills and sturdy qualities of character, moved into the eastern country and started a new life. Waldoborough received its portion of this new tide. Two of these new families, the Browns and the Heads, assumed an early and conspicuous prominence.
Doctor Benjamin Brown was a leader in the town from the time of his advent until his death. He was born in Swansea, Massa- chusetts, in 1756, a descendant of Chad Brown and Roger Wil- liams. After completion of his medical training he entered the service of his country in 1778, and was assigned as surgeon to the
4Lincoln County Register of Deeds (Wiscasset), XXV, 26.
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frigate Boston, under the command of Commodore Samuel Tucker at the time she conveyed the Honorable John Adams as American envoy to France. The three men became warm friends on the long voyage, and it is probable that when the Commodore settled in these parts the interest of Doctor Brown followed him. On March 10, 1788, Andrew Waltz sold the west end of his Dutch Neck Lot, No. 33, along the present Bremen Road, to Doctor Brown, who built himself the house which is still stand- ing there, and which for many years subsequently was the home of Edgar Schwartz. Doctor Brown later sold this house, acquired property in Waldoborough Village and built the so-called Gov- ernor Marble House on Friendship Road, where he resided until his death in 1831. He gradually acquired land on this site until his farm extended from the north bound of the Ralph Hoffses farm to the southern line of Richard Castner.
Brown was at one time a man of considerable means, which was heavily invested in shipping. This resource, however, was largely destroyed by the French preying on commerce during the Napoleonic Wars, and Doctor Brown was compelled to con- tinue the practice of medicine for a livelihood. He rode the circuit of his practice on horseback carrying his equipment in his saddle- bags. Like so many of the Waldoborough men of this time he was an individual of exceptional capacities, who commanded uni- versal respect and confidence and whose activity and influence reached into every phase of community life. He represented the town in the General Court and in the Maine Legislature, and from 1815 to 1817 represented this district in the United States Congress. "The happiest day of his life" was when John Adams, having completed his term as President, came to Waldoborough for a reunion with his old friends, Brown and Tucker, and was entertained at the doctor's home on Friendship Street.
The Heads, John and Joshua, were of an English family of decidedly mercantile traditions. Their father, Joseph, was edu- cated in England, and returned to America after the Revolution to find his father's business ruined. Set up in business by his father's friends, he made good, paid off the family debt, educated his brothers and sisters, married, and had a family of five sons and two daughters. Two of his sons, John, who married Sarah Ross, and Joshua, came to Maine. The brothers started trade at Broad Cove, but soon removed to Waldoborough, opened a store on the site of the old Town House, and remained in trade until after the disastrous war of 1812. This store held the first post office and John Head was the town's first postmaster. He died in 1844 at the age of seventy-nine.
The Honorable Joshua Head, born at Boston, July 18, 1767, prospered greatly in all his undertakings, and in consequence was
.
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able shortly to return to Boston and marry Elizabeth, the daughter of Captain Phoenix Fraser. He then returned to Waldoborough and became a permanent resident. He was an active and compe- tent personality, who engaged in many lucrative activities, in- cluding farming and real estate. In his lifetime he was actively connected with every phase of life in the expanding community and achieved both wealth and recognized leadership. He was town treasurer for many years, a customs official, selectman, repre- sentative to the General Court and a candidate for Congress on the Federalist ticket. He built the impressive mansion still stand- ing on the northwest side of Kaler's Corner. His wife bore him twelve children, four of whom died in infancy. In 1827 death deprived him of her, and ten years later of his youngest daughter, who had become his housekeeper. He then removed to the home of a married daughter in Warren, where he died, August 3, 1841. Cyrus Eaton, who was an old friend, describes Head "as a pleasant, Christian man, and a true gentleman of the olden school." The family name was still a familiar one in Waldoboro in my boy- hood, but now there are only descendants under other family names.
In this decade shipbuilding in the town was getting under way, and seafaring activities were assuming a larger role in the town's economy. There was also lumber, fishing, the beginning of small family industries, and agriculture. The latter was pursued in either a large or small way by nearly everyone, but it was still rudimentary in character. The tools in use were still primitive. Carts were scarce. The stoneboat with varied accessories was the main vehicle for hauling on the farms. Plows were just coming in at this time and only a few farmers of means possessed them. Travel throughout the town was by boat and on horseback, the wife riding to social functions and church behind her husband on the pillion. Money was both too scarce and too worthless to allow for the introduction of tools and accessories that would relieve life of some of its drudgery.
The records of the Town Meeting provide the completest account that we possess of the economic and cultural advance of these years. The story they tell is one of strict and consistent conservatism. The "Dutch" for a number of decades remained standoffish in their participation in community affairs. The view prevailing nowadays that the Town Meeting was a thoroughly democratic forum, where, if ever, the voice of the people was heard and felt, should be taken with some reservations. Boston, the cradle of American democracy, is a curious illustration of this fact. In 1764, with a population of sixteen thousand, its average Town Meeting attendance in this decade was five hundred and
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fifty-five, or three and one half per cent of the population. In Waldoborough conditions were not so very different, for not more than a small fraction of the voters participated in these civic forums.
For example, at the annual meeting on April 4, 1785, only twenty-two votes were cast for John Hancock for governor, against no opposition. On January 7, 1787, when the question of separation from Massachusetts was voted on for the first time, there were five votes cast for separation and twenty-five against it. On April 3, 1787, at the regular annual meeting, fifty votes were cast for governor, and on April 6, two years later, only sixty-three votes were cast. The number attending Town Meetings was sometimes so small that it was customary when the weather was cold to adjourn to some near-by house which was heated and which easily accommodated the full attendance. For example, on December 14, 1780, the meeting was adjourned from the old meetinghouse at the Cove to Mr. Bernhard Uckley's house, which was on the site of the old Eugley Homestead still standing at Eugley's Corner. On February 13, 1783, the meeting was ad- journed from "the easterly meetinghouse to Captain Andrew's house" on the present Lawrence Davis farm. On March 16, 1783, the meeting was adjourned from the Cove Meetinghouse "to Mr. Conrad Seider's house on account of the severe cold," and on March 25, 1783, to Captain David Vinal's house. From this it will be seen that meetings alternated from the church on the east side on the shore of Merle Castner's farm to the old church on the west side at the Cove. By so doing the inconvenience arising from inaccessibility was equally shared by the inhabitants on both banks of the river.
In a town with a land area as large as Waldoborough it was inevitable that roads should assume a role of major importance. The "Dutch" were prodigal in getting them authorized and laid out, but equally niggardly in the matter of maintenance. Each family wanted a road leading to or past its clearing or into its section of the town, and they wanted them all at once. They obtained their roads through exercise of the fullest reciprocity, each group getting what it wanted by helping other groups to get what they wanted, and seldom did they deny one another such support. We should, however, be on our guard against con- struing such roads as being roads in the later sense of the term, for years usually elapsed between authorization and completion.
The procedure of getting a road followed a rather common pattern. The town would first vote to lay out a road between two given points. The vote might then be followed by action within a reasonable time, or one or two years or frequently a longer
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period of time might intervene. If there was immediate action it meant simply that the selectmen would examine the possibilities and lay out a road by marking trees. Here matters might rest for a year or so, or some clearing of trees or underbrush might follow. The next year the citizens might get around to work out their taxes on such a road before the road appropriation was exhausted, or they might not. In the latter case the road simply remained authorized and its improvement indefinitely deferred. For several years after a road was really opened up, it remained of little value save to travellers on foot or on horseback. On one side there might be a stump in the track, on the other a hole, and possibly between them a firmly embedded and jutting rock. There were low, wet places, too, and here logs were laid crosswise and sometimes earth was thrown in to fill the interstices.
The old foot and bridle paths along the river had for years now been crossing fields and were both inconvenient and a nuis- ance to the farmers. In consequence the need of roads was acutely felt, and the town dedicated itself to this task from the hour of its incorporation, even in the war years. The record of these early roads is rather complete, save for those in use before the incorpora- tion of the town. The main exception is the road from the village to Foster Jamesons, which is the oldest settled section of the town. Here no road was ever laid out and the highway is the property of the landowners living along it, the town simply having a right of way from gutter to gutter.
The companion road on the west side came on March 15, 1774, when the town voted to establish a road from the Bristol (Bremen) line "to Peter Pracht's [Prock's] Prich." Prock's bridge was a private, handmade contraption crossing the river in the first shallows above the lower falls. At the same time a road was authorized on the west side from Georg Hiebners (Heavener farm on the tip end of Dutch Neck) "to the rote above the Meet- inghouse" (joining the Bristol road west of Meetinghouse Cove). A committee was selected to lay out a similar road "betwixt Slacke [Slaigo] falls and Nathanial Simmons" (Foster Jameson farm). So far as is known these were the first roads of the town, and they represent a rather even distribution of highways between the people on the two sides of the river. This division seems to have been somewhat unequalized during the two-year period of missing town records, in which the eastside road was extended from the Slaigo brook into South Waldoborough, for at the meet- ing of March 4, 1776, it was voted "to establish a highway from a place called Back Cove until it meets with the way laid out before," namely its junction with the South Waldoborough road. From the very beginning the town had its surveyors of highways,
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electing in the year of its incorporation Frank Miller and Jacob Eichorn (Achorn) on the west side and Adam "Levencelner" and Abijah Waterman on the east side.
What has been said concerning the interval between author- izing a road and laying it out or completing it, is clearly illustrated by the warrant of November 1, 1779. This document contains the following article: "To see if the town will open a road from the westerly meetinghouse [Cove] to Georg Hiebner's shore." On March 16th it was voted "to run the road from western Meet- inghouse to Mr. Georg Hiebner's shore," a period of six years hav- ing elapsed before this road became an actuality from the time of its first authorization in 1773. In the warrant of March 1, 1779, articles were inserted to see what the town would do about laying out a road "from the town road to Mr. Henry Benner's [probably the present Union Road]," and also a road "through Mr. Jacob Unbehands [Umberhine] to Damerscotty [probably old No. 1]." The town, however, having its hands full with taxes and war levies did nothing.
Money for the building, repair, and improvement of these early roads was not raised by taxation but by a levy on labor. By vote a certain sum would be stipulated for roads, the rate per day for men, oxen, plows and carts would be settled by vote of the town, and then all citizens labored equally on the roads until the appropriation stipulated had been worked up. For example, on April 4, 1780, it was voted that "every man shall work two days on the highways." On March 8, 1782, it was voted that "Mr. John Vogler and others shall have a road laid out." Vogler was settled in the eastern part of the town (the present Ivan Scott place) on the Seidensparker Pond and it is most probable that this road into this section went into East Waldoborough from Thomas' Hill, at this time one of the two busiest centers of the town.
The year 1783 which virtually ended the Revolution wit- nessed an ambitious program of highway planning. At the March meeting held on the west side at the house of Captain David Vinal, a road was voted "along fresh water on the west side." This was an extension of the road from Peter Procks north toward the present Winslow's Mills. It was also voted to establish a road "be- tween William Farnsworth, Jr., and Mr. Philip Ulmer's land." In all probability this was the road extending from the main road in South Waldoborough at the meetinghouse corner easterly to the upper waters of Goose River. Another road was approved "from William Schnaudiel's to Daniel Achorn's," probably on the east side running up the fresh water. At the same time the select- men were instructed "to petition this quarter session to lay out the
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county road between Michael Ried and the road from Bristol." Since Ried lived on the Old County Road this vote meant an ex- tension of this highway. To implement this large program the town at its May meeting voted that £100 be worked out on high- ways, a man to be allowed four shillings a day for such work, and a yoke of oxen to be allowed 2s. 8d., per day, with plow or cart three shillings a day.
The next spasm of road planning came in 1786. In its May meeting the town voted to consult with Warren on a road from the Georges to the "Medummak River." This task was entrusted to Colonel Farnsworth, Equire Thomas, and Jacob Ludwig. It was also voted to have the selectmen "lay out a way on both sides of the New Bridg in Waldoborough," (the present lower bridge on the river). In June of this year it was voted "to lay out two roads from Waldoborough to St. Georges," and Paul Lash and Henry Ewell were elected to assist the selectmen in this work.
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