USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 1 > Part 60
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Waldoborough, County of Lincoln, November 21, 1793: Matthias Waltz, Peter Mink, Francis Heisler, John Mink, Jacob Krow [Krau, Krause ], John Prior, Michael Andrews, John Hauntel [Handel], Henry Demuth. November 22, Henry Binder [Benner], Jacob Binder, Charles Binder, John Binder, Charles Filer [Feyler], Peter Gross, Jacob ? Burn- heimer, widow Wetts [probably Welt], George Schuman, widow Schu- man, Christopher Kramer, Peter Kramer, John Oberlock, William Icholar, Christopher Filer, Peter Schwartz, John Martin, Christian Smith, Frederick Mahan, Jacob Ludwig, Adam Levensdows [Leven- saler], John Webber [Weber, Weaver], John Schuman, Martin Hoch, Nicholas Orff, Charles Sitensberger, Mathias Rimeley [Remilly], John Ulmer, Charles Raser [Reiser, Razor], George Keun [Kuhn], John Warner [Werner], Seth Paine, George Demuth, Paul Lash, John Wali- zer, Abraham Chapman, George Nash, Caleb Howard, Isaiah Cole, Ludwig Castner, Michael Isley, -- Andrews, Loring Seitz, Thomas Barker, Christopher Newbit, Henry Miller, John Filer, widow Simmons, Joseph Simmons, Mathias Storer, John Trowbridge, Alexander Turner, Andrew Schink, Waterman Thomas, Esquire, William Loud, Charles Sampson, Andrew Storer, John Labe. November 23, heirs of Abijah Waterman, Henry Ewell, Henry Burkett, Joshua Howard, Malihi Ewell, William Farnsworth Jr., John Haupt, John Warner, Nathaniel Pitcher, Peter Woltz, Henry Woltz, Charles Burns, William Briant, Philip Sthall [Stahl], Faulkin Mink [Uncle Faltin], Christopher Hofses, Edward Manning, Paul Mink, John Fitzgerald, Philip Fogler, Francis Oberlock, Abel Cole, Levi Russell, Christian Schainaman, William Fish. .
I the subscriber do testify and declare that by virtue of a letter of Attorney dated the 11th of October, 1793, I did at the several periods before mentioned did deliver to John Steele Tyler, Esq., attorney for Henry Knox Esq., in behalf of Samuel Winslow, Isaac Winslow, Eliza- beth Winslow, Samuel Waldo and Sarah Tyng, his wife, in her right all and singular their right claims and priveleges in the Case occasioned as above and other rights, Claims and Priveleges claimed by them respec- tively in the Muscongus or Waldo Patent and to which they derived right by Devise or otherwise from Francis and Lucy being children and heirs to the late Brigadier General Samuel Waldo.
Ebenezer Vesey8
In this list of those dispossessed are the names of some new- comers to the town. Krow, more correctly Krau or Krause, John Haendel, and probably William Icholar were Hessian prisoners in Boston from Burgoyne's army who had joined the German settlement here and settled in the eastern part of the town. Fred- erick Mahan was an Irishman who came from the County of Sligo in Ireland, and John Haupt, the first of this name in Waldobor- ough, was a German, but not an original settler. He came to
"Lincoln Co. Deeds, Bk. 33, p. 44.
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Waldoborough after the Revolution and settled in the southern part of the town, married Mary Waterman9 whom he later left, and "died in other parts." Seth Paine, a young man from the west- ward, married Deborah Smith of Sandwich, Massachusetts, in 1798, and it is not unlikely that he came to these parts from the same region. George Nash, Thomas Barker, William Loud, and William Bryant came to the district after the Revolution and settled in the eastern part of the town.
With the measures here outlined completed and the man- sion in Thomaston prepared for occupancy, General Knox made ready to assume personal direction of his estates, and on Decem- ber 28, 1794, he tendered his resignation as Secretary of War to President Washington. The President's reply, stated in terms of the highest personal regard, affords us an insight into the caliber of this last of the local proprietors. It follows:
Philadelphia, Dec. 30, 1794
Sir, - The considerations which you have often suggested to me, and are repeated in your letter of the 28th. inst., as requiring your de- parture from your present office, are such as to preclude the possibility of my urging your continuance in it.
This being the case, I can only wish that it was otherwise. I cannot suffer you, however, to close your public service without uniting, with the satisfaction which must arise in your own mind from a conscious rectitude, my most perfect persuasion that you have deserved well of your country. My personal knowledge of your exertions, while it au- thorizes me to hold this language, justifies the sincere friendship which I have ever born for you, and which will accompany you in every situ- ation of life. Being with affectionate regards
Always yours
Geo. Washington
Knox left Philadelphia on June 1, 1795, in a sloop com- manded by Captain Andrew Malcolm of Warren, and proceeded by water to Thomaston. Crowds made up of people throughout the area who were secure in their land titles gave their distinguished proprietor a warm and generous welcome. The finished mansion was waiting to receive him. To primitive Maine it was regal. Cyrus Eaton places the original cost at $50,000, but Knox's private accounts show the cost around $18,000. (Its building and restora- tion in 1931 totalled $150,000, the total cost of which was borne by Cyrus H. K. Curtis of Philadelphia.) Apart from the dwelling itself were numerous outbuildings, stables, cookhouses, and serv- ants' quarters after the grand style of the best Virginia planters.
Knox not only lived on the grand scale, but he did busi- ness the same way. He became immediately and indefatigably ac- tive in placing his lands on a profit basis. His enterprises included
9Waldoborough Town Clerk Records, Vol. I.
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lumbering, milling, lime quarrying and burning, brickmaking, the curing and export of fish and other products, merchandising, farming, shipbuilding, and cattle and sheep breeding. The scope and magnitude of these enterprises may be inferred from the list of workmen employed on his estates. His laborers, quarrymen, brickmakers, carpenters, coopers, blacksmiths, farmers, and mill- wrights totalled one hundred and three men. To maintain these involved, in the year 1798, the killing of fifteen thousand pounds of beef, the consumption of nine hundred pounds of tallow, and the tanning of two thousand five hundred hides, to mention but a few of the essentials.
Hospitality at Montpelier was on a similar scale. There were hordes of guests. Twenty saddle horses and a corresponding num- ber of carriages were kept for their pleasure. One hundred beds were made daily on the estate. At the housewarming on Inde- pendence Day, 1795, five hundred guests came in response to in- vitations. The entire tribe of Penobscot Indians would be Knox's guests for days and weeks at a time, and when they had consumed all available supplies of food the General would say: "Now we have had a good visit and you had better go home."
There were also distinguished guests, old friends who came from afar, the Count of Beaumetz, La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Tallyrand, and Lord Ashburton. In October 1795 Louis Phillipe of France came through Waldoborough on horseback on his way to Montpelier with General Knox and his negro servant. The General was as generous in his charities as he was in his hospitality, and his correspondents during these years included the leading spirits of the Revolution in this country and Europe. His letters from Washington show that the intimacy and affection existing between the two men in the war years carried on to the end of their days. There is a short paragraph in a letter from the Presi- dent as he was laying aside forever the cares of state, which re- veals the basic ideal of life common to both men as that of simple country squires. It follows:
Philadelphia, March 2, 1797
. . . although the prospect of retirement is most grateful to my soul, and I have not a wish to mix again in the great world or to partake of its politics, yet, I am not without my regrets at parting with (perhaps never more to meet) the few intimates whom I love, - among these be assured you are one.
Mrs. Knox in this life in the wilderness upheld the tradition of the Waldo descendants, that of a haughty and spoiled child of fortune and indulgence. She was a veritable parcel of contra- dictions. The frivolous side of the lady is revealed in a remark she made at Mt. Vernon after the surrender of Cornwallis: "We have been posting about all over the country til we have just got
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
settled down here in comfortable quarters, and now this plaguey peace has come to set us all going again." At Montpelier she lived aloof from the local folk, regarding them as belonging to the lower classes, making no visits nor exchanging civilities with them. Her whimsical, self-willed, and lofty manners did not disturb, but rather amused and impressed, local society. Her few public appearances intrigued them, for on all occasions where she con- sented to appear, she invariably lent a quality of regal showman- ship that has remained to this day a legend throughout the country- side. The other side of the lady's character is revealed in a remark of La Rochefoucauld's: "Seeing her at Philadelphia you think of her as a fortunate player of whist. At her home in the country, you discover her to possess wit, intelligence, a good heart, an excellent understanding."10
General Knox's assertion of his land rights in the autumn of 1793 had aroused consternation and alarm throughout the dis- trict. Especially grieved were those who knew full well that their claims would carry no weight in the eyes of the law. To these their land was their all and it was their life. Money they did not possess; it was only the land which gave them a living. Many of those who had been cited under the writs of 1793 knew that they were secure in their titles. Others were Revolutionary veterans who had located their claims under bounty land-warrants upon the Waldo Patent, ignorant of their trespass.
Most of these Knox secured in their holdings without undue damage to himself. His frankness, good humor, mental agility, and brilliance, along with his basic kindness of heart, made him a popular proprietor. La Rochefoucauld noted: "I have already said he is one of the worthiest men I have ever known; cheerful, agreeable, valuable equally as an excellent friend and an engaging companion." But where Knox was clearly within his rights he knew how to stand fast.
With the lawless squatters he had his difficulties and they equally with him. The battle once begun, his surveyors were shot at and the General himself vilified, and printed bills were circu- lated which sought to arouse the general populace against him. To this attempt at open warfare the growing love and respect of the people served as a counterbalance. In Waldoborough the heroic qualities of the man were understood and appreciated by a majority of the citizens, and the inclination was strong not to tolerate abuse and defamation, but to seek a settlement of dif- ferences through the channels of the law, despite the more out- raged feelings and demands of the minority most seriously af- fected.
10La Rochefoucauld, Travels in America (London ed., 1799), I, 491.
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In 1791 and again in 1792 the Massachusetts House of Rep- resentatives had made sincere efforts to quiet the settlers in their claims, but such moves had always been stalled in the Senate. The last move had been to send a committee to Waldoborough to investigate claims on the spot. This solution hung fire until February 22, 1796, when the Senate, being a more conservative body and bound by traditions of class to the proprietor, voted "not to commit the paper."11
Concern and excitement were now rife on the lands from the Medomak to the Penobscot. The situation had become acute, and petitions to the General Court now followed one another fast and furiously. In February 1795 the Waldoborough representa- tive to the General Court, Squire Thomas, presented the following frank and pointed document, which in substance set forth the premises upon which the Waldoborough landholders based their case against General Knox:
The Petition of Waterman Thomas in behalf of the settlers of the town of Waldoborough humbly sheweth, That the settlers of said town were brought from Germany in the years 1753 and '54 by Brigadier Waldo and settled at Broad Bay on Muscongus river, on lots fronting on said Bay or river, twenty-five rods running east and west two miles from said Bay and river, with the right of 600 acres of land for public uses. One hundred and fifty families or upwards were settled on said land. The Government in settling the line of the Waldo Patent have excluded the greatest part of said inhabitants from the Patent and leave them in Drown's and Brown's Patent.12 The Government thereby have taken from us forty years of our hard earnest labor by obliging us to buy our farms and giving our rights of land to the heirs of Brigadier Waldo. Your petitioner prays that this Honorable Court will make the said settlers and the Inhabitants of the Town of Waldoborough, who are grieved by the said Act, restitution by assigning them so much land from the Waldo Patent as was promised them in Germany, and taken from them by their Government and granted and confirmed to the heirs of Brigadier Waldo. Your Petitioner is sorry to remind the Honorable Court that his constituents have for ten years past been praying this Court for relief, and their petitions have been referred from session to session, and year to year, and can obtain no relief. Consider their situa- tion two hundred miles distant from the seat of Government. Ignorant Germans they say they are, unacquainted with the laws of this country, and no friend in the General Court. They say that the heirs of Brigadier Waldo can always be heard and attended to on the first day of the Court Meeting, or last, can get their request granted without notifying the settlers on this Patent, notwithstanding it takes from them their property and priveleges, Wherefore your Petitioner prays their case may be taken up and equal justice done them. Also your Petitioner prays that this Honble Court will order what price the Settlers shall pay for their land settled on, laying [within]13 the Waldo Patent with
11Submission of Settlers, Waldo Claim, Mss. (Mass. Archives).
12 By making the Medomak River the west bound of the Patent.
13Ms. illegible at this point.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
whom the heirs of Brigadier Waldo have not and cannot settle, agree- able to a Resolve passed by the Legislature, July 4, 1785, as in duty bound shall ever pray.
Waterman Thomas14
This petition, inaccurate in some of its historical and geo- graphical details, sets forth in some detail the claims on which Waldoborough folk sought relief for their unhappy predicament. It did not seem, however, to gain its ends, for in December 1795 no relief was in sight, and in a small Town Meeting held on December 16th a motion was made "to see whether the town will send a petition to the Legislature of the Commonwealth setting forth the true circumstances of the Public Lands in this town." This motion failed of passage by a single vote. The reason for its failure is not clear, unless it were that concerted action was already being planned by all settlers affected within the bounds of the Patent and that it was deemed wiser to wait the launching of this move.
Under the direction of Waterman Thomas and Jacob Lud- wig and other leading men in Waldoborough as well as in all towns throughout the Patent, the next move on behalf of the settlers' claims came in May 1796 in the form of a "Petition and Memorial of Settlers to the General Court." This document was detailed and lengthy and to it was affixed the signatures of two hundred and forty-six settlers from all districts within the Patent, thirty-four of whom were from Waldoborough.
In the Memorial the signatories emphasized and elaborated: 1. On the sacrifices undergone, affirming that "some crossed the Atlantic; some were born of parents who on their passage lost their lives and suffered everything but Death to gain the sweets of life and freedom in this uninhabited wilderness, sur- rounded with Savages, by means of whom many of our dear friends lost their lives."
2. The Act of 1785 confirming the Waldo heirs in possession of their grant had only one helpful proviso, viz., placing under the disposal of the General Court all lands in the Patent occupied by the settlers prior to April 19, 1775, and this was in a measure nullified in October 1789 by an Act of the Court to the effect that "no person should be considered as priveledged" under the proviso "excepting those who had been in possession ten years or more before said Grant was made, which excludes 15/16 of the inhabi- tants and leaves them almost in despair of any relief."
3. All applications for redress have been fruitless which "has caused a number to compromise with the Gentlemen . . . at a very distressing rate for our circumstances."
14Submission of Settlers, Waldo Claim (Mass. Archives).
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The Last of the Proprietors
4. The action "might create ill blood."
5. No Council or Court have any right to convey a Tract of Thirty square miles ... unless for the public good."
6. "The Honorable Gentleman who represents the Claim is possessed of so much honor and delicacy as not to afflict the af- flicted, yet he has tools to try the humours of your petitioners by. ... We think your Honours have it in your power to say, not that he may not, but that he shall not ever annihilate the rights of Individuals which have solemnly been promised and repeatedly guaranteed to them."15
This Memorial was not without effect and it clearly dis- posed the Court to some line of positive action. Undoubtedly ap- prised of this trend, and to offset the effect in part, General Knox submitted a detailed reply on February 7, 1797, in which he offered to submit documents bearing on every point in the con- troversy. In his elaboration on the justice and reasonableness of the position he had assumed, he divided the two hundred and sixty- four signers of the Memorial into the following classes:
1. Those on properties over which the heirs of Waldo had no control, eighty signers;
2. those who had entered into written agreements with him, but had not yet paid for their lands, sixty signers;
3. those who during and since the Revolution had settled on lands without legal authority, about sixty signers.
4. The remaining forty-six fell into those who had settled on lands in the grant before the war without any legal authority and in opposition to the proprietors and those descendants of Germans who were said to have been promised lands but were seated on lands afterward found to be outside the limits of the Patent.
In his analysis of the existing situation Mr. Knox based his case on the Act of July 4, 1785, which had defined the limits of the Patent, and on the third proviso of the Act, to wit, that the state would intervene only "to quiet" those setlers who were in possession of their land prior to April 19, 1775. Knox then con- ceded that any contract binding on the heirs of Brigadier Waldo ought to be fulfilled, but he added that "such claimants should prove their titles and allow the debts justly due from themselves or their predecessors to the Waldo estate" - debts which arose from costs of transportation from the interior of Germany to America, and subsistence for different periods after their arrival, "on which account," he averred, "considerable sums are still due." Ethically this was the weakest aspect of the General's case and his position on this question of "debts" could have sprung only
15Ms. in Mass. Archives.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
from ignorance of the contractual obligations which Waldo had assumed, and of the degree to which they had been fulfilled in the transportation and the settling of the Germans on his lands.
On other phases of his case Knox revealed his customary generosity and fairness. Concerning those "men who have by er- ror placed themselves in a delicate situation by usurping the prop- erty of others," he said liberal terms had been repeatedly offered. On these terms agreements were made with nearly three hundred persons, and he added: "the proprietors are still willing to place their case in the hands of three impartial commissioners." General Knox, in closing his case, testified to the good will and cooperation of the settlers, but he also pointed out that
at the same time it would be concealing the truth were it not held forth that in that country as in most other countries men are to be found not only destitute of the above mentioned qualities, but artfully wicked, scattering seeds of discontent and holding forth doctrines utterly sub- versive of the peace, order and happiness of society. These men are few but they have some influence by their misrepresentations among honest and uninformed people.16
Despite the fact that General Knox had many friends in the General Court, especially in the Upper House, the spectacle of a whole area petitioning for relief was an act that could not be ignored. Hence the Court took immediate cognizance of the solu- tion proposed by the General and on March 9, 1797, appointed Nathan Dane, John Sprague, and Enoch Titcomb as commis- sioners "to settle and declare the Terms on which any settler . . . shall be quieted in the possession of 100 acres of land that may best include his improvements."17 In so doing the commissioners were instructed to divide the settlers into the following classes: 1. those who were settled on their lots before April 19, 1775; 2. those who had settled on their lots during the war with Great Britain, and were now in possession of them, or their claimants; 3. those who had settled on land within the Patent since the war and now occupied it, or their claimants. The commissioners were advised to employ "the mutual consent method" in effecting its solutions, since it was recommended by both General Knox and Mr. Samuel Brown, agent for the petitioners. The commissioners were also instructed "to repair to said Patent by Sept. 10," and the method of submission of claims was recommended to the settlers.
From the standpoint of the Waldoborough folk the author- ized setup had one fatal flaw. This was to be found in the fact that the commissioners were empowered to deal only with those
16 Ms. document in Mass. Archives.
17 Laws and Resolves of Mass. (1796-97), pp. 318-319.
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submitting claims within the Patent as defined by the Act of July 4, 1785. This limitation would, of course, exclude all those citizens in Waldoborough who had settled originally on the west side of the Medomak, had been compelled to purchase their lots from Drowne when their area was declared outside the bounds of the Patent, and subsequently had staked out for themselves claims on the east side, to which they now held they had a just claim based on the original promise of Waldo to assign lands to them within the Patent. Despite this limitation of the agenda, the town re- solved to cooperate in the effort to secure a solution and in a meet- ing of July 26, 1797, it was agreed "to consult on matters respect- ing our land and on the request of the state committee to meet them at Thomaston in order to settle the dispute between the settlers and Proprietors." Thereupon it was voted
that a committee of three be chosen and invested with full power in behalf of the Inhabitants of this town to meet the State Committee and Henry Knox Esq., who represents the heirs of the late Brigadier Gen- eral Waldo, and Inform said committee, viz., that the Resolve of the General Court appointing said committee to Settle Disputes between the Settlers on the Waldo Patent and the heirs of said Waldo doth not embrace the repeated applications of the Inhabitants of this town to the Legislature, neither extends to General Knox's repeated promises to ful- fill Brigadier Waldo's proclamations to the Germans who came from Germany to settle our lands within his Patent, who are by an Act of Legislature of 178418 excluded from said Patent.
It was then further voted "that Waterman Thomas, Jacob Lud- wig Esq., and Mr. George Demuth be a committee for the above purpose ... with full power to make a settlement in behalf of this town with Henry Knox Esq., on as Liberal and Amicable Terms as proposed by him in said resolve."
The demands of the settlers and the Legislative resolve be- ing what they were, an impasse had been created before ever the conferees gathered around the table. The commissioners were not empowered to deal with the claims of those who had settled on the west bank of the river, since they were not within the Patent, and the town was loath to negotiate on any other basis. With negotiations thus deadlocked from the start the committee on August 28, 1797, reported back to the town as follows:
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